An email arrived from a woman of Hispanic origin. It speaks for itself:
I am a big fan of your blog. It is so insightful and relevant to what is happening with our educational system. I am a teacher candidate and I am so discouraged by the edTPA. I recently received my master’s degree in special education with a 3.475 grade point average and passed the EAS, ALST, Multi-Content Specialty Exams (which are 3 tests ELA, Math, Science) and CST Disabilities. But I can’t get my license because I can’t pass the edTPA. I have completely exhausted all my funds and can’t afford to take the safety-net ATS-W exam. I put my life on the line to enter a profession in which I am strongly pushed out of. I really enjoyed my student teaching and found it very challenging to work in an under served public school. I taught students who were homeless, in foster care or whose parents were incarcerated. The assistant principal commented how well the students responded to me and were actually upset when I left. After much thought and informal interviews conducted with my students, I discovered why they responded so well to me. I looked like them.
In public schools we push so hard for these students to rise from their neighborhoods and succeed in life. But this is why they don’t believe this goal can be achieved; they don’t see anyone who looks like them actually make it out of the neighborhood. All they know is that if they become an athlete or rapper they can get out of their neighborhood because those are the only role models they are provided with. When they go to school, they do not see any African-American or Hispanic teachers and because of that they cannot fathom the idea of continuing their education to college. With tests like edTPA and the rising costs of the NYSTCE exams, minorities are further pushed out of this profession. After student teaching for 4 months without pay and using what little funds I had on expensive exams, I was brought to financial ruin and nearly lost my house to foreclosure. No career path should bring you to economic ruin.
Not only did Pearson break my wallet they also broke my spirit. As much as I loved teaching, I don’t feel welcomed by the teaching profession. I tried applying for vouchers, but I did not qualify. The questions on the teaching exams are not biased. But when you make testing unaffordable and only certain kinds of people can afford them, that is when it becomes bias! NYS, I read your message loud and clear. You clearly don’t want me in this profession. No job should raise the requirements to a level that is almost unattainable and not have a salary to compensate for it. The state wants me to complete edTPA, which is like the bar exam for lawyers. However when lawyers pass the bar, they are offered jobs that pay from $80,000-$167,000 a year while teachers’ starting salaries range from $47,000-$72,000. If NYS wants teachers to become more professional, they should pay like one. Sorry for my rant but I felt you would understand my frustrations. No one else seems to agree with me. All I find on the internet is how great they think the edTPA is and how easy it was for them to pass and that all scorers are qualified certified teachers. Just because you are a certified teacher hired by Pearson does not mean you are a highly effective teacher. How do I know that the teachers scoring edTPA are highly effective teachers? This seems to be the question of the day and my dilemma.
Sincerely from a teacher candidate who will never become certified and have a MsED but can’t teach,
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for sharing this story. I believe that you may qualify for a voicher for the ATS-W. It should cover the cost. Let me know if you want to explore this.
Sorry- *voucher
Wondering how to get more information on vouchers?
Read one of my last two books to learn about vouchers
I am in complete agreement with this story. Presently I am a student art teacher and it has been nothing but grueling and the EdTPA has only added to it. I fail to understand why make it harder to be a teacher when there is so much need for teachers??? My biggest beef is why is no one listening and doing something about it? While other city workers like police and sanitation get stipends and assistance for test and other forms of evaluation and teachers do not? To get a degree and still not be able to be a teacher because of the EdTPA is simply ridiculous. People and teachers in particular, should be outraged by this! This has left me with such a bad taste in mouth that I am considering not teaching at all. If we don’t support each other as teachers and not allow increased fees and useless evaluations like the EdTPA to stifle people who want to make a difference. We will have nothing worth of value in education to offer our youth.
I am rethinking this whole thing too. Everything was going so well until the edTPA . It has really screwed me over.
Papo, I feel your pain! The story from the woman above mimics the sentiment of many of us who struggle to become viewed as “worthy” by various state commissions on teacher credentialing. I feel that the edTPA is a redundant assessment of the work we do in our credential program, that we pay thousands of dollars for. Our hundreds of hours of volunteer work/student teaching along with the many required costly tests should prove our worth.
I am in complete agreement with this story. Presently I am a student art teacher and it has been nothing but grueling and the EdTPA has only added to the pain. I fail to understand why make it harder to be a teacher when there is so much need for teachers??? My biggest beef is why is no one listening and doing something about it??? While other city workers like police and sanitation get stipends and assistance for test and other forms of evaluation and teachers do not? To get a BA and Masters degree and still not be able to be a teacher because of the EdTPA is simply ridiculous!!! People and teachers in particular, should be outraged by this! To those who say it isn’t so bad please take head out of the sand!!! This has left me with such a bad taste in mouth that I am considering not teaching at all. If we don’t support each other as teachers and not allow increased fees and useless evaluations like the EdTPA to stifle people who want to make a difference. We will have nothing worth of value in education to offer our youth. For the record they need to do away with the EdTPA as far as I am concerned. Teacher’s have enough hoops to jump through to get certified!!!
This posting provides an excellent example of why a human being is so much more than a score.
And why a score can be not just a poor indicator of teacher quality but a barrier to letting highly effective teachers enter the profession.
I wish the best for her and hope that someday, somehow, she is able to follow her dream.
😎
I am a veteran teacher who welcomes student teachers into my classroom each year. I have experienced these frustrations with each student teacher I have had the pleasure to work with. I empathize with your pain and frustration. I am sorry that our current educational and political systems are destroying your generation of intelligent, passionate, and enthusiastic future teachers. “No career path should bring you to economic ruin.” So sad, but true.
Come to Omaha, Nebraska! We need teachers and do not have crazy assessments to pass. We are an urban school district and have lot of students living in disadvantaged situations who need teachers just like you!!
Several thoughts come to mind regarding this young woman’s predicament. First, in the old days in New York I took zero tests to teach. I had my certification from the state and my degrees, but the local school district decided whether I was a worthy teacher. The system worked because there were some other teachers that left at this time. Why do we need corporations inserting themselves in the process?
Why would this young woman that had met all the other criteria not be able to pass the video portion of the test? Perhaps she was having a bad day. We all know that a snapshot of one lesson on one day does not define a teacher’s teaching. Another possibility is that she is the victim of discrimination. Perhaps her $75 evaluator subscribed to the Donald Trump theory of Latinas, and she is being denied because of prejudice.
The more hurdles and expense attached to gaining certification the more minority and poor teachers we will lose. Who decided that a national test was needed for teachers?
I thought certification was the purview of the states. The only reason for making candidates jump through more hoops is to enrich corporations.
When it comes to evaluating teachers, NY has gone right over Niagara Falls.
No real surprise, with The Maid of the Tisch piloting the boat.
I am not familiar with this exam but why not asked to have the video portion rescored? She paid for the exam and can make the case that she is a qualified teacher candidate. There is plenty of documentation that standardized test and test scorers have made mistakes in the past. Just look at the recent problems with the SAT.
AlwaysLearning:
See below for response.
I am not familiar enough with EdTPA to say this with 100% certainty, but I suspect you have to pay a fee to get an entry restored. I am a National Board Certified Teacher, and if I thought one of my entries was incorrectly scored, I could appeal, but had to pay $300 (way back when). Chances were extremely slim that my score would change, it could have gone down or up, and no matter what the outcome, the fee paid for the appeal was no refundable.
To have your video rescored is an additional $200. Yikes! Pearson is going overboard with their prices.
I know this is coming down the line nearly two years later, but as I recently failed the edTPA myself I thought I would insert my experience. I thought I needed to finish the edTPA process by the time I finished my teacher prep program but we were not given the opportunity to begin the edTPA at the beginning of the teacher prep program. So toward the end of the program when I thought I was just about done I had to pick up the pace and turn in what I had. I hoped that it would be good enough. I had many many problems with the technology aspect which was incredibly time-consuming: Having to annotate videos and try and get them from point A to point B to put on platform C; Having to constantly update a program here and install a new one there in order to get everything in its place. Another problem I experienced while videotaping was that I could not be as focused on the students and the lesson because I was preoccupied with trying to fulfill the requirements of the video. My mind was trying to remember to include all the things that Pearson wanted to see demonstrated, while being sure to not make mistakes like bad lighting or sound quality, or students dancing in front of the camera! So the students didn’t have my full attention and I saw that time as wasted. It’s not like the day to day interaction we have with our students that is being graded, rather a facade. Another time I taught a lesson that I thought was recording but lo and behold it only recorded for about one second for who-knows-what reason. So after dozens upon dozens of glitches and hurdles such as these, I find myself in a very similar position to the Candidate at the beginning of this post, and Papo. My dream of teaching and making a difference in the lives of children has been squashed by the process required by the state of California and the commission on teacher credentialing. I have not been affirmed as a worthy teacher nor have my efforts been given any credit. So I completed the degree, jumped into and finished the 18 month teacher preparation program, the 3-part CSETs, the CBEST, the RICA, and one round with edTPA. It is a devastating experience to know that after all the years and sacrifices made and hard earned money spent, I will not receive that little paper that deems me a worthy teacher in California. I am tired of jumping through hoops only to find another one waiting for me. It’s like the Twilight Zone.
God be with you. I feel your pain. I would view this as not a setback, but a blessed redirection into another career. I would not look back. The battered career of education does not deserve you. Education discourages its young teachers and torments its older teachers with meaningless and repetitive tasks which ultimately in time produces exhaustion and burn out. A sense of hopelessness becomes the norm in an environment that is controlled by deformers who care nothing about you, your students, or your school system. It is beyond discouraging.
It is interesting, however, that I heard on the national news that California might approve that teachers will pay no sales tax. They have no clue how hard the profession of teaching has become. To think that waiving sales tax will attract teachers is nuts! Crazy!
I am no longer a sad teacher, but I am a happy, retired teacher! I am no longer exhausted and stressed out over all of the testing for my students. I’m sure the state was looking for me to fill out the value added roster stating that I was 100 percent responsible for my students. However, they could not find me. I was gone.
I wouldn’t wish the stress of my past profession on anyone. I dearly loved my students, and I loved to teach……but, sadly that was not enough anymore. So, my sincere advice to you is run, run as fast as you can in the totally opposite direction. You will not be sorry. I promise. God Bless you.
Thank you. I’m glad to hear you found your happy place.😊
“The questions on the teaching exams are not biased. ”
I would not be so sure.
If the people “grading” the edTPA have no understand of the school and community where the student teaching was done and/or do not take that into account (or if they have little or no understanding of teaching period), it is not unreasonable to think that bias (against candidates working with underprivileged students, for example) may indeed have played a role in the outcome.
The idea that these types of tests are somehow “objective” is little more than a cruel joke.
That is especially true, given the types of unqualified test graders that Pearson is known to hire.
I agree. These tests are not clearly free of bias. All tests are biased so the better part of wisdom is to offer an explanation of who helped to construct and review them and by what criteria and with the customary results from field trials, together with some evidence of reliability and validity over time. Tthe tests for the visual arts, per the 2014 handbook, are based on 1994 standards from the Goals 2000 project. New standards in the visual arts were released this year so the faculty and the students enrolled and teachers across the country are in a midstream of trying to discern whether and how standards matter and teacher preparation and in this test.
There are no paths to the names of expert educators in the visual arts who shaped and approved the edPTA. In fact the workbook and background materials I have looked at fail to identify the visual arts experts involved in the development of this test. The workbook includes the acronyms for a bunch of organizations in arts, almost all of them in the performing arts of music, dance, and theater, and conspicuously absent from the listing is NAEA–the National Art Education Association– the one organization with paths to experts in visual arts education.
I have never had this experience yet my heart breaks for this person. When I entered teaching in 1975 I felt so welcome and there were many job openings and options. I started in an inner city school which was a culture shock to me yet the school administration and department head knew how to guide me and help me thrive. I continued working to finish my Master’s degree at reasonable cost. I feel so blessed and I wish the current generation trying to enter the workforce in all fields in this country could have the experience my generation was given.
My final five years of teaching I felt pushed out…in fact in the final 6 years I was in 5 different schools (after a 20 year stint and “tenure”) due to politics and NCLB situations. I stopped telling my students I was not coming back the next year as it was too difficult for me to deal with their emotions as well as my own that I was getting kicked to the curb. But I tried to comfort myself that my salary could provide for TWO new young teachers in the system so it was noble of me to just pack my stuff and hold my head high and do what was required of me. I had been blessed with 29 years of being quite welcome and appreciated and it was in everyone’s best interest to make way for the newcomers. And the school board confirmed my inclination to retire with a buy out offered to those teachers who qualified for retirement. SO, this just disgusts me that this person who is trying so hard to get on board is being restricted. This is destroying our culture.
Thanks so much Diane for this forum where folks can post and read about the experiences of one another. Though retired now for 6 years I read you daily and I am very touched to know that this very motivated individual is reaching out through your blog. YOU are my hero. I tell people (who will listen) that you are a national treasure. Hopefully as the day proceeds someone with more of a solution than I will offer this person an assist.
Agree. Pearson pays about $10 per hour for scorers of edTPA, people who meet their qualifications and undergo their online training. In addition to the cost, this exam requires prospective teachers to have access to students for live video recording, clearances from parents and others for that, skills in staging their performances for a camera lense and then editing the longer sessions into snippets that will be judged. Parental clearances are especially hard for special education.
First I am so sorry this happened to you. I agree with you 100%, and I was the cooperating teacher. The EdTPA is not an accurate measure of a future teacher’s knowledge, skill, or ability to educate children at all levels. More importantly it was such a huge distraction/burden that it hindered her from really focusing on the kids and learning how to teach. Just my perspective from observing this young talented person & how distressing it was to have to keep redoing parts of EdTPA to satisfy some business’s notion of what a prospective teacher’s ability looks like. This does not need to be the decisive factor on whether a student teacher makes it or not. Thanks for sharing your story.
“The EdTPA is not an accurate measure of a future teacher’s knowledge, skill, or ability to educate children at all levels.”
That EdTPA DOESN’T MEASURE ANYTHING!!
It is not a “measuring device” as there is no agreed upon (by those who would use it) standard upon which a “measuring device” can be calibrated. And there never can be because the teaching and learning process is not amenable to being standardized and measured. All prior attempts have failed due to the fundamental epistemological and ontological errors involved in attempting to make and use an “educational standard”.
The vast majority of teachers and administrators, even non-educators, have been so enculturated into the measurement meme (hell, I remember taking a class in ‘testing and measurement’ as part of my undergrad education degree and then an education statistics course as part of my masters in administration) and have never thoughtfully examined just what that measurement meme entails, accepting by authority that educational standards and standardized testing are the panacea for all the supposed ills our our public schools.
IDIOTS WITH STANDARDIZED IDIOLOGY* they all are!!
Harsh, not really when one truly understands the complete insanities that are educational standards and standardized testing. Once can only be a fool and idiot to continue to believe in that nonsense. (see below for a reference to the complete destruction of those two educational malpractices.)
*Yes, that is purposely spelled that way, it’s a neologism.
one can only be not once can only be
Thank you Duane. I hope this made it to someone’s eyes who can do something about it.
Don’t know who might have read it, Nettie. If I may add a bit more to the thought of “measurement” in education:
The most misleading concept/term in education is “measuring student achievement” or “measuring student learning”. The concept has been misleading educators into deluding themselves that the teaching and learning process can be analyzed/assessed using “scientific” methods which are actually pseudo-scientific at best and at worst a complete bastardization of rationo-logical thinking and language usage.
There never has been and never will be any “measuring” of the teaching and learning process and what each individual student learns in their schooling. There is and always has been assessing, evaluating, judging of what students learn but never a true “measuring” of it.
But, but, but, you’re trying to tell me that the supposedly august and venerable APA, AERA and/or the NCME have been wrong for more than the last 50 years, disseminating falsehoods and chimeras??
Who are you to question the authorities in testing???
Yes, they have been wrong and I (and many others, Wilson, Hoffman etc. . . ) question those authorities and challenge them (or any of you other advocates of the malpractices that are standards and testing) to answer to the following onto-epistemological analysis:
The TESTS MEASURE NOTHING, quite literally when you realize what is actually happening with them. Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition]
Notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”. The same by proximity is not a good rhetorical/debating technique.
Since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning, there is no exemplar of that standard unit and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable”?
THE TESTS MEASURE NOTHING for how is it possible to “measure” the nonobservable with a non-existing measuring device that is not calibrated against a non-existing standard unit of learning?????
PURE LOGICAL INSANITY!
Pearson is evil as far as I’m concerned. I’m so sorry you have put your heart and soul into a profession which has been taken over by the rich politicians. I don’t know what I would do if I was still facing several years to teach. I love my students and I love to teach, but I can’t take it anymore. I cannot absorb the stress of controlling variables that I have no control over. The stress has taken its toll. My kids and I walk every night, but I am currently dealing with a health scare I just discovered at the end of June. This health issue could be life threatening, and my husband and I know that 30 years of teaching and these crazy policies have taken their toll on me.
The rest of my summer will be spent on medical tests and how I can pop back from my first health break. I know God is with me, but my kids are not adults yet ….and I am scared.
I am sure that Diane will have the best advice for you. I love her blog too. It has helped me cope so much when I don’t recognize my profession anymore. If I were you, this is what I would do:
1. I would leave teaching behind. I would teach Sunday School and help at your church to help children in your city.
2. I would retrain. No one can take your master’s degree away from you. It is yours. If you earn an Associate’s degree in Ultrasound Tecnology (6 semesters) you would start out at 74,000 a year. I am not making near that, even with 30 years of teaching. There is going to be a big demand for ultrasound technologists in the future.
Please do not give up. Honestly, I do not think you want to invest 30 or more years in this broken profession. The stress is too much, and excellent teachers are not valued anymore. I wish you the best, and I will pray for you. What evil meant to destroy you, God will use for your good.
I taught for 44 years, loving it all. But I am glad I do not have to deal with the current manic attempts to force intellectual growth through anti-intellectual strategies. In some ways nothing is different about these “reforms.” Still trying to paste vocabulary on the same condition to change human interests and decisions.
I agree completely with Sad Teacher. If the insanity changes, then become a teacher.
Dear West Coast Teacher, Thank you so much for your kind comments. I feel so badly for this young person, and I just cannot recommend the teaching profession to anyone anymore. I love my students, and I love to create and teach lessons ……but this is not enough anymore. This is the end of the second year of their OTES and the first year of common core and PARCC, and my stress level has been through the roof. Older teachers, like myself, are viewed as incompetent by the state of Ohio. I’ve worked and worked and I am an extremely positive, upbeat person, but if I were that young person I would walk away and never look back. Whatever it would take, I would retrain. I am positive in ten years she would not regret that decision. 😊 Thanks again! You and I are so blessed to have taught in the good years of our profession! 😊
I agree with Sad Teacher’s post. The newer Pearson tests are pure evil. Here in New York City, Carmen Farina is out begging to fill over 1,000 Pre-K slots with certified teachers. Of course, you must be certified and licensed, but the salaries are below the public school salaries, because the positions are based at the community centers, WMCAs, and charters! In order to get additional Pre-K certification, you must take a 3-credit course (and no one knows if NYS Certification will demand another 3 credits) which will run you in a range from $1,500 – $8,000 (from Hunter to Teachers College). The best part – to be certified you must take the CST again! And, Pearson has made this test much harder, and most people fail. Because of this, NYS Certification will allow you to use your previous CST. Pearson has a win-win, because they still collect the money. I think these tests are a scam; once you graduate with your BA and MA or MS, that should be enough for New York State certification. I also know of a few Assistant Principal candidates who failed the new Pearson Assistant Principal test, because it was un-doable.
I have great pride and respect for the teacher (yes you are a teacher) who wrote this article and great contempt for the “education” power brokers who would deny public school students the opportunity to learn from such a hard-working and successful person! I continually ask myself “when is enough going to be enough” when I learn of “just one more” never-ending absurd tale like this.
AlwaysLearning wrote:
“There is plenty of documentation that standardized test and test scorers have made mistakes in the past.”
There is plenty of proof that standardized test and the resultant scores are COMPLETELY INVALID rendering any conclusions drawn “vain and illusory”. The myriad (13 identified by Wilson) epistemological and ontological falsehoods and errors in the making, giving/using and disseminating of results destroy any supposed validity of this sham educational malpractice. Read and understand his complete destruction of the “foundation” of too many educational malpractices, educational standards and standardized testing in his never refuted nor rebutted “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
This is truly a loss for everyone. Especially the children. Just goes to show what happens when corps privatize education. I hope cooler heads and common-sense prevails. Soon. Very soon. I wish this teacher all the best and hope that something in the field pops up.
In 2012, Barbara Madeloni was in charge of high school teachers in training at UMass Amherst when she decided to “put a stick in the gears” of the edTPA. Her contract with the university was not renewed as a result. Happily, Barbara now is President of the MTA (Mass. Teachers Association).
Michael Winerip (remember when he wrote on education for the NYT?😊) took a look:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/education/new-procedure-for-teaching-license-draws-protest.html
Here’s Barbara in her own words:
http://academeblog.org/2012/09/14/the-hard-sell-and-the-educator/
If you live in NY you are also near other states. Seek certification in them first. Many private schools, while paying less, will by pass certification requirements. If you love teaching, and clearly you do, don’t let NYS define who you are. You made it out. Now fly! Good luck!
Given the statements that are here, I know that speaking positively of edTPA may not be very popular or convincing. I do think that making assumptions that scorers were prejudiced in their scoring have no basis at all, and only prevent honest conversation. That being said, I will raise this question – should there be standards for who enters the classroom? who should be fully responsible? For every mentor teacher like the one who cared enough to write in here and support her student (a move that I respect and applaud), there have been many other cases where teachers have been allowed to enter the profession and probably should not have.
Before Pearson found a way to profit, the determination was made by professional humans with personal knowledge of and contact with the candidate who had the benefit of on the ground observations. This exerci$e from a testing company does not. I prefer humans in all their lack of infallibility.
Christine – should there only be one data point, or multiple data points. Much of the discussion here has been about how one test (edTPA) is bad, how the scorers are bad, etc. Why not have multiple data points (including observations on the ground?) Should the blame be pointed more at the state policy rather than the test?
The edTPA has become that one data point. Pearson has gained a monopoly in many areas, including the GED.
“I am a teacher candidate and I am so discouraged by the edTPA. I recently received my master’s degree in special education with a 3.475 grade point average and passed the EAS, ALST, Multi-Content Specialty Exams (which are 3 tests ELA, Math, Science) and CST Disabilities. But I can’t get my license because I can’t pass the edTPA.”
There is certainly way more than one data point here.
There are a huge amount of comments to this post – I think because it hits us all so personally and it also shows the support teachers have for each other. Why go into teaching in this day and age ? She is not a number…she sounds like a great candidate…shame on our system here in the US…that leaves educatin students with high debt and unnecessary tests to take.
It’s April 2021 and I’m just popping in to exclaim, “OMG! Pearson controls GED, too!?!?”
As I see it…
In these days of rheephormania, “multiple measures” becomes another way of circling back to standardized tests scores of one sort of another.
After all, as the rheephormsters constantly repeat, why rely on frail human judgment when you have hard data points that provide objective information to inform human capital decisions?
Respectfully, the most important qualities of a good teacher cannot be measured by any standardized test.
Unless one regards as an exception being the ability to ace a particular standardized test at a particular time and place under a host of other very particular conditions.
Which amounts, IMHO, to a big fat zero.
*For the rheephormista crowd that would accuse me of being envious and jealous of good test takers: for the couple of times I took life-changing standardized tests, I did well. And then, as now, I regard my “prowess” in such as amounting to a big fat zero.*
Zero. I think I made my point.
😎
If you’re going to make a blanket claim that many are allowed into the teaching profession who shouldn’t be, you should provide some evidence to back it up.
“The Recurrent Themes of reform”
Proof from thee, but none from me
Data from thee, but none from me
Test for thee, but none for me
VAM for thee, but none for me
“Fail” for thee, but none for me
“Fire” for thee, but hire for me
.oops, I forgot the most important one
“Dollars for me, but none for thee”
No where was it indicated that the scorers were prejudiced. It just states that there is no reliability in the scores. The bias is coming from the fees. When you make it too expensive certain people will get excluded from becoming certified. How can anyone expect a new hire to spend approximately $1,200 on exams that will lead to a career that pays only $46,000? These actions cause attrition and less teacher retention in urban setting schools. Now do you see the bias it is causing?
Christine, would this discussion be the same IF the candidate had not passed one of the other assessments? I concur with you and others that it appears that the policy in this one state involves way too many assessments to enter the teaching profession. And I agree that not including teacher observations as one of the measures is unfair. But I think pointing blame at a test isn’t where energy could be directed…
Furthermore, I am curious (and I know others have discredited this argument before, but I throw it out there). Doctors and Lawyers must pass a high stakes exam but teachers should not?
I trust the people who interacted with this candidate, all of them, far more than a “test”. Doctors and lawyers design their exams. Teachers do not.
Same ones that created the Common Core? Man, they must be some busy people!
This is an unfortunate misconception about testing in medicine! I am a physician assistant (and we have to deal with the same certification/recertification as MD’s do). I’ve passed the re-cert exams twice (every six years after graduation & original certification). When the entire testing process changed a couple years back and Pearson took over them (& changed everything) I sat for the exam once (failed) and then refused to take it again it was so warped.
That is when I smelled a rat (Nov 2013) and begun my investigations into the new mess we now had to deal with (one which seemed to only benefit the testers and those who provide test prep). Within about 3-4 months I discovered the same things going on in k-12 education.
This mess that Pearson & the rest of the billionaire boys’ club have created is everywhere. None of our professions are safe anymore.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/846090?nlid=83254_429&src=wnl_edit_medp_fmed&uac=13804HZ&spon=34
For more information also see the blog written by “Dr Wes.”
Christine – I can’t speak for the other tests, but edTPA was created by educators and teachers.
Ooops – meant to go here. Same ones that created the Common Core? Man, they must be some busy people!
Pearson is a British company. Even IF it was “created by educators and teachers,” (and I have a hard time believing that), wouldn’t it be British educators? The things schools face in the U.S. are very different from the British. It’s not comparable.
…and as everyone knows, the Brits still hold a grudge for what happened in 1776. 🙂
This is from the Pearson website about edTPA:
“Stanford University faculty and staff at the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) developed edTPA”
So no, it was not created by Pearson or British educators.
Pearson is an operational partner – yes, they hire and pay scorers, supervisors, etc. However, the scorer training is created by SCALE. Handbooks are created by SCALE, etc.
I thought teachers are also educators.
christine, to your earlier point about the GPA, the number of tests passed, etc….I agree there are multiple data points – but instead of attacking edTPA, why not address the real issue – which is the state policy. The test did not make the policy…the state determined the policy.
Krazy TA – Yes, I agree that passing a standardized tests is not a measure of teaching. Two thoughts on that – edTPA is NOT a standardized tests – it has a rubric, yes, but unlike some of these other tests (including Praxis) is it not MC and there is NOT one right answer.
Personally, I think that there needs to be a combination of subjective observations (as someone who has been a supervisor, I know how challenging it can be to be completely objective, even having had to tell a candidate more than once that he/she wasn’t ready for the classroom) and objective measures. What is wrong with this?
“The UMass students say that their professors and the classroom teachers who observe them for six months in real school settings can do a better job judging their skills than a corporation that has never seen them.”
This is a pattern we see abundantly in education circles. Teachers pre-K through university, are lying about their students’ proficiency or are otherwise incapable or doing so. Tests will tell us the truth. This is known as marketing, creating a need where o exists to sell a new product. Testing schemes have the excellent by-product of undermining teachers’ professionalism.
“. . . but instead of attacking edTPA, why not address the real issue. . . ”
Well the “real issue” is THE FUNDAMENTAL INVALIDITY of the EdTPA so one has to attack it. The real issue, THE COMPLETE INVALIDITY of EdTPA, that, more likely than not, you refuse to acknowledge is the ONLY FACT that is needed to COMPLETELY DESTROY any supposed validity, reliability and legitimacy that the EdTPA supporters claim.
The EdTPA is no different than any other prior scheme-phrenology, IQ based eugenics and/or dream interpretation to explain and/or supposedly “measure” human mental capabilities.
“. . . edTPA is NOT a standardized tests – it has a rubric, yes, but unlike some of these other tests (including Praxis) is it not MC and there is NOT one right answer.”
Just because the EdTPA isn’t a multiple guess format and relies on the devil’s tool, rubrics doesn’t mean it isn’t “standardized” nor that “there is NOT one right answer”. Rubrics fall in the category of attempting to “numerize” a human activity that cannot be validly broken down into a discrete number. To believe that a rubric escapes the invalidities of “standardization” is, well, insane.
Jlsteach, you really need to read Wilson’s work mentioned above to understand your complete misunderstanding of what the EdTPA is.
I’m wondering (in 2021) if Jlsteach EVER got familiar with edTPA?
Hi Lisa – familiar with Edtpa? I’m very familiar with it. I wrote a dissertation on how teachers who completed Edtpa saw value in the process and how some of the reflection they considered during the process translated to their everyday teaching. So yes I’m quite familiar with it!!
I’ve said all along that how Edtpa is viewed by teacher candidates is highly connected to how it’s described or viewed by the state or individual teacher prep program
JIsteach. So have you read and understood Wilson’s dissertation?
Duane,
As I mentioned before, I tried to read it but it made zero sense. I didn’t see any sort of study, any sort of methodology, but rather just a lot of circular logic. I know that you worship at the Church of Wilson, but I don’t see it. I will also add that in searching for more citations on his dissertation I found none. That means at my dissertation has more citations than his. Perhaps that’s because others found it confusing as well.
Do you have a link for your dissertation that you would share? Thanks.
Go back and read Wilson again. It took me any number of readings and discussions with Noel for me to more thoroughly understand it. Each reading I got more out of it.
Until you read it, well. . . , it’s hard to appreciate your support for the standards and testing malpractice regime(s).
As far as citations. I know of at least one instance of an author citing Wilson. . . ME! Read my book.
Duane – yes, another sense of circular reasoning – I am guessing that Wilson has also cited your book right – perhaps the only two citations because you two are the only ones that claim to understand what he is saying. I notice that you responded to the citation point, but didn’t respond to my questions about Wilson’s dissertation, so I will ask again – 1. What was his methodology? 2. I saw his research qeustions, but without any methodology on how he completed a study, the results were quite circular in reasoning and hard to follow.
His methodology is to flip the concept of validity on its head and look at the concept of invalidity as the way to assess all of the various “problems” with standardized testing.
By the way I was being facetious with my comment about my citing him. As it is, it doesn’t matter how many times a work has been “cited”. That in and of itself is meaningless.
It’s sad that someone as educated as yourself cannot read and understand what he is saying.
Duane – I will say that I shared this work with others who were just as educated as me -and they TOO didn’t understand it. I will say the same comment I’ve made earlier – if Wilson’s work was so easy to understand then why are YOU the only person that I have heard even mention his work? You don’t think that says something about the possibility that it doens’t make any sesne? As for citations, I agree to an extent. Why do you think things get cited – perhaps because they are meaningful, etc. I am sure Dr. Ravitch’s work has been cited numerous times in articles, in dissertations, etc. You don’t think that means anything? Come now, Duane – how can anyone take you seriously as an educator? BTW, you say his methodology is to “flip the concept of validity” – what does that mean? From what I saw, Wilson seems to say that any assessment would be invalid and has validity issues – which then means that one should never assess, huh?
I also don’t think that attacking my intelligence is a great way to really make your point – in fact, it seems to deflect from the fact that perhaps Wilson’s work on validity isn’t quite so valid.
In fact, Duane, honestly, I’ve seen you post the same thing (literally cut and paste) the same comment over and over again – that makes me question if you really understand what Wilson is saying or do you just copy and paste something all the time.
“Come now, Duane – how can anyone take you seriously as an educator?”
Now let’s not go getting nasty on me. . . “educator”. 🙂 I am not an educator. I was a TEACHER who taught for 21 of my working years (around 50 or so). Educator is a term used by those non-teachers involved on the periphery of the teaching and learning process so that others might be fooled to consider and believe said pretenders to be actual teachers.
As far as the copy and paste? Guilty as charged. But not for the reason you suggest. It’s because many different people read this blog at different times and I’m trying to get the information out to as many readers as possible. (It actually bores me to do so, but I’ve been requested by others to continue posting my comments on Wilson’s work so that others can be introduced to it.)
Now, the language game (per Lyotard, heaven forbid a French post-modernist philosopher) that Wilson rejects is the validity argument and comes at the whole standards and testing process from the point of view of “What makes that process less than credible, less than valid, harmful to students in many ways?” And then proceeds to nuke the proponents arguments to oblivion.
But the fact is that when the powers that be (and you are obviously one of them) find the best course of action of such a damning critique is to ignore it, not give it the time of day nor any ink space, assigning it to historical oblivion. Yep, that’s how it works.
“in fact, it seems to deflect from the fact that perhaps Wilson’s work on validity isn’t quite so valid.”
Big perhaps. OF greater certainty is that you haven’t read Wilson’s work and refuse to see what is there and cannot logically refute what he has written. Prove that his invalidity argument is not credible. So far the only thing you’ve proven is an incapacity to understand complex writing. Prove me wrong also.
And your ability to not so subtly attack me (last paragraph) is well honed with niceties-the worst kind of specious duplicitous hogwash. Were you a politician in a prior life?
Okay Duane – here goes what I think will be my final response on this:
I have read Wilson – and as I have asked you previously, but to which you had no good resposne – if every test is invalid (in Wilson’s mind) then why test at all? Why assess? Because at some point there is going to be some invalidity right? I concur that the goal of a test is to make it as valid as possible. If Wilson is saying that there is no perfect test, heck I could have told you that without writing 220 pages. Because I know that – every test takers experience is different. There is NO way the validity on a test can be 100%. So the goal of a test writer is to make a test AS VALID as possible.
Let’s look at the places that Wilson’s so called amazing work has been cited:
This blog: https://revivingwilson.wordpress.com/category/noel-wilson/ (My guess is that you may be the author, as I believe you are a HS spanish teacher. If you are NOT the author, then that makes the total number of people who have referenced Wilson TWO! If you are the author, then well, it’s only one:
This amazing work: file:///C:/Users/HP/Downloads/1372-96-1-SM.pdf (by Noel Wilson) where he has TWO citations, one of which is…HIMSELF! Talk about ciruclar reasoning. Let me cite myself as proof that I am correct.
The seminarl work of Wilson -his 222 page opus on validity: https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/epaa/article/view/577/700
Note this work was supposedly peer-reviewed prior to being published. I would be interseted in knowing the process of the peer-review for this journal, as perhaps it’s as valid as Wilson’s claims on tests being claimed valid.
In this 222 page dissertation, Wilson has listed this as the main research topic: “How is error in measurement of standards obscured in most practical events involving assessment of persons?”
I also find this comment interesting: I have no expectations for this study, but some hopes. A whistle blowing study islike a joke–its impact is a function of timing. And the best timing can only bedetermined in retrospect. My hope is that it will lead to a reduction of the violence that isattributable to the suppression of error in the categorisation of people.
If Wilson thinks he is blowing a whistle on the use of standarized tests or tests that may have been claimed to be valid but really aren’t valid, well he SHOULD have done it in a much clearer way, Instead, his argument is ALL over the place. I mean all over the place.
I’ve tried to read it, more and more, and the more I try, the less that I see ANY type of concrete argument at all. In fact, in your copying and pasting, I have yet to see any concrete argument at all.
Are you Wilson’s American Agent trying to make sure that his work is share far and wide? If so, well, you are doing an okay job, but well, more google hits could help.
As for the term educator vs teacher – do you sterotype much? You state, “Educator is a term used by those non-teachers involved on the periphery of the teaching and learning process so that others might be fooled to consider and believe said pretenders to be actual teachers” Nope – not in this case. I taught for 10 years, five years in Washington DC Public Schools. I’ve taught in teacher preparation and now work in a central office. I am always a teacher at heart. The fact that you are trying to distinguish these two terms is a problem to me – you are the one trying to create a divide with your rhetoric.
What I also find interesting is this – as you state, Wilson nukes this process – and yet as I have asked you – does this mean he does not think students should be assessed at all? Becuase ANY test , even a test wirtten by a teacher (or educator) would have some type of bias, correct? So would Wilson say that we should not assess at all? Just wondering?
You asked me to prove that his invalidity argument is not valid. What I will say is this – No assessment can be 100% valid. There. If that’s Wilson’s point then congrats!
But, in terms of disproving Wilson’s claims – well that is like trying to disprove that those who attended the Capitol on January 6th were just normal tourists. The statement is so ludicrous that trying to disprove it makes little sense.
Have fun with Wilson Duane! I hope you’re getting some sort of payement every time from him you post the SAME post over and over!
” you are the one trying to create a divide with your rhetoric”
Thank you. I have no problem “creating a divide.” It needs to be done, except for those like yourself who are a part of a huge problem, the standards and testing malpractice regime that has undermined worthwhile teaching and learning that has been sloughed off for raising test scores.
“No assessment can be 100% valid. There. If that’s Wilson’s point then congrats!”
No, that is not the point at all. Wilson is not against all assessments at all (which to me your statement shows you haven’t read and comprehended what he is saying). He is for openness and transparency in the assessment process, which cannot be obtained through the standards and testing malpractice regime.
And no, I don’t get paid a cent. Commie red pinko that I am, I do it for free
Duane – once again, you love to just put people and put them into a box. First, let’s be clear. I understand the concerns of standardized tests, and no,
“He is for openness and transparency in the assessment process, which cannot be obtained through the standards and testing” – Well, then…Here’s my question for you and for Mr. Wilson – great, he wan’ts openess in the assesment process. I’m for that. Then tell me…how are you going to get it done.
There’s a great clip from the West Wing about 10-word answers: “[Wilson] is for openness and transparency in the assessment process” – 10 words. I don’t know ANYONE who is really against this – yes, one can argue the testing companies may be againgst it, but this EDUCATOR (yes educator) is all for that. MY question to Wilson is – HOW do you do it? See, not so easy to do right? Just as I pointed out in an earlier post about smaller class sizes – everyone wants them, but no one has a real solution to HOW to do it.
Here’s my issue with you Duane – you even said that you pride yourself on creating a divide. You have already put me into a box with a comment (“those like yourself who are a part of a huge problem, the standards and testing malpractice regime”). You don’t know me. And yet because I disagree with the fact that Wilson makes sense, you chose to instead try and put me into a box. THAT to me is one of the biggest problems in education, and well, politcally as well. If one raises a questoin about a belief, they are automatically labeled as being AGAINST the belief. There isn’t any attempt to understand where the other is coming from..
Guess what – doing that we will always be divided…No one wins. Everyone loses.
“HOW do you do it? See, not so easy to do right?”
Yes, it is easy. I did it for two decades in my classroom practices that were specifically designed to not “trick” or hide anything from students. All teachers worth their salt do so, I am not special in that regard. Anything less is unethical. By definition standardized tests are designed to trick and hide information from students, and Wilson points out how that works in his dissertation.
Yes, we will always be divided. Tis the nature of social living. Some win big time, others lose big time. Seems to me that those who most (and most recently since the tRump lost) complain about “dividing society” are those who have historically been on the winners side and don’t want to give up anything to those losers over there.
I sense a certain “ivory tower” attitude in your responses in that if one doesn’t play the academic game that you suggest-needing citations to be valid/cogent, then one’s thoughts are without value. I disagree.
Just wondering – were your tests valid? Or reliable? And how did you know that? Were they always perfect bell curves?
I would never expect the results of any classroom assessment to be arranged in a perfect bell curve. Why would I worry about that statistical mental masturbation?
Never worried about validity or reliability. My assessments were made by me, specifically for the curriculum that was covered. The object of any assessment was so that the student could learn where they were in their process of learning Spanish. They were shown the test ahead of time with an explanation of exactly what was going to be on the test and in what format. If a student studied, they usually aced the assessment. If they didn’t, well it’s hard to read and do work in a second language when you haven’t bothered to study what needs to be studied.
And actually were I to have plotted the scores on a bell curve it would have come out like an inverted bell because those that studied got high marks where as those that didn’t got lower scores and there weren’t many in between. Which is what I would have expected.
Are you saying that you are not in the “support standardized testing” box?
Or do you just not like facing the fact that supporting such unethical and immoral educational malpractices such as the standards and testing regime is wrong, dead wrong?
Duane – I do believe that educators should have standards in what they teach. I also believe in a type of accountability. Why? Because I’ve seen myself when teachers weren’t held accountable to what or how they taught and the impacts on students.
To hell with “educational standards”.
They are a farce at best a sheer abomination at worst because none of them were developed using either ISO, ANSI, or other agencies protocols for making and implementing standards. See Ch. 6 of my book for a further explanation.
My students understood that there were certain expectations for behavior, studying, acting etc. . . all based on mutual respect, not some far off declaration of a pseudo-standard that had nothing to do with my classroom.
I know you’ve stated that you’ve seen teachers not held responsible. Well, whose responsibility is it to correct such issues? Yep, the adminimals and they obviously didn’t do that in your scenarios.
Duane – okay you said the standards and standardized testing regime – so you believe educators should have no standards – do whatever they may choose? Yes for some the freedom is a good thing. But as Spider-Man says with great power comes great responsibility and well I’ve seen many many educators who don’t take the responsibility as seriously as they should.
You’ve never been in my shoes. You’ve never seen what I’ve seen. And yet you have all the answers. Ironically I thought liberals were supposed to be open minded to listening to other perspectives. But wait you said yourself your a pinko-Communist. Many communists that I know of (say Cuba) are really dictatorships in disguise where it’s one way or no way. Hmm. Now it all makes sense – maybe.
If you ever wanted to not throw jabs and instead have a real conversation I’m open. But I guess that’s not the case.
Like your repeated usage of “educators”-good jab but I can parry well. The problem is that I am speaking of teachers, not educators.
I’ve used the term “commie pinko” as a jab, cut, derogatory term for most any and everything for over 4 decades. As far as political leaning? I say I’m so far left that I am right!
Again, as in my last response to you, who is responsible for those teachers YOU deemed unsatisfactory? YEP, the adminimals. You need to chase after them not the true teachers as it is not the teachers’ responsibility to evaluate other teachers.
No, I’ve not been in your shoes, you’ve not been in mine. I doubt that my feet would fit in yours! I’ve seen bad teachers. I’ve seen bad employees in the work world outside of school, having had to document those who couldn’t cut the work they were assigned (like adminimals are supposed to do if they have a teacher that isn’t getting the job done). I’ve shown line workers how to get more production out of various machines when the operators said it wasn’t possible. How? By going out and running the machine (steel roll formers) for a week with twice the production. My perspectives and life experiences are far broader than yours I suspect.
Have you been to Cuba? If so, cool! I’m jealous.
Duane – You know we keep repeating the same things over and over, which shows that we will never agree.
The fact that you consider a difference between educator and teacher – well, honeslty I don’t understand that at all.
A few questions – how large is the district (or what is the largest district) you have worked in? The district I work in has over 160,000 students. My point – one cannot apply different policies to district’s of different sizes – scaling matters.
Second question – have you ever had to have a teacher fired or seen a teacher go through the firing process? Well, it’s not so easy in most districts. And if a teacher manages to slip by and get tenured -well, with union rules, that teacher may not get fired for two years AND with LOTS of documentation and paperwork. Now, imagine, just imagine, each school has one of those teachers (they probably do, as there has to be a worst teacher at a school). But I am saying a teacher who truly is not doing the job that a teacher should be doing. Do you realize the number of hours that an administrator would have to focus on that one teacher to get rid of that teacher? And what else is that administrator also doing? Probably discipline, probably talking to parents, etc. My point – the administrator is doing A LOT of things. So to just point the finger at an administrator and say “It’s your fault the bad teacher is here” doesn’t cut it. Let’s add in administrators who often are trying to get food for hungry students, or working with undocumented students, etc It’s not that an administrator doesn’t care, but that they have so much on your plate.
My solution is this – you want to teach your own way – and not to standards -then the teacher needs to demonstrate over multiple years that their way works. That could mean test scores (I know, not a great measure), but it can also mean things such as how well a student does in subsequent classes, how well students do in college (if an upper level class, etc). Teachers should have the right to not follow certain standards – BUT I go back to the Spidreman quote – with great power comes great reponsiblity. It seems that you think everyone should have the power, and that it’s the responsibility of others to take that power away. I say that it’s the reverse, that its the power of the teacher to show that power.
BTW, you think standards aren’t good, well I’ve met PLENTY of poor administrators who use political grudges, or any grudges against teachers. I exsperienced it myself as an educator. So, you say, that’s what unions are for – to protect you when someone goes aagainst the system…Yes, but then see my comment above
The reality Duane is this – education is NOT a simple solution to solve. IF it was, then I would hope it would have been solved many, many years ago. But we are still having the same discussoins that we had three years ago (go back and search Diane Ravitch’s blog, and I am sure you will find these exact same conversations, or similar ones)
Here’s the difference between you and me – you summed it up in your glib comment about your politics “I’m so far left that I am right” – See, it seems that you are never willing to look at another side or consider another point of view. Your way is the right way in your mind and there is no other way. I see it in your comments about standards, about testing, about administrators. You don’t see another side of things – even when I say “What about this or what about that” – you have a snappy (well, sort of snappy) comeback.
As for your career vs mine -it does sounds like we have had different experiences in education – that is true. I’ve taught in urban settings and I’ve taught in suburban settings. I’ve worked in private schools (which, I know, have NO set standards at all – which I think can be good or can be bad), and public shcools. The interesting thing about my so called limited experiences is that I am able to look at things and say “Yes, this does work here, but here’s why it may not work there” – Take standards – you’re, right my friends who still teach at private schools and have done so for over 20 years have no stanards they have to follow like those in public schools. But you know what else they don’t have – job protection- technically they work on a contract year after year, and could be removed, without any specific cause, anytime. You know what else they don’t have – huge salaries – as most private schools pay less money to teachers than public schools. So there are some tradeoffs here. My tax dollars are going to support public educaiton – so yes, I would like to know there is somet type of standard that my teachers have to live up to.
See Duane what happens when you look at something from another point of view – you see the good, but you also see the not so good. Yes, in a PERFECT WORLD, all teachers would do their jobs and not just “take a paycheck” – Same with all administrators, etc. But you know in a perfect world, imagine there’s no hunger, it’s easy (well, not so much) if you try….
See you later Duane. Let me know when you are wiling to consider things from another point of view. Otherwise this conversation is pointless.
I taught for 12 years in Francis Howell School District which has a little over 17,500 students. I taught Spanish nine years in a rural poverty district Warren County R-3 that has a little over 3,100 students.
And you are right in that attempting to promulgate rules and regs for such vastly different school districts is not necessarily wise.
As far as your assessment that “you are never willing to look at another side or consider another point of view. Your way is the right way in your mind and there is no other way.” . . . wait for it, yeah a snappy comeback–sorry couldn’t resist! While you may think you can logically and fairly make your not so discerning view by my ramblings on this blog, you are limited in your “data set” and blinded by your own prejudgements of me. And that’s fine by me. I’ll continue to fight against what I perceive as the egregious harms caused by the standards and testing malpractice regime. How can you support malpractices after I, and others) have shown you the problems with that malpractice regime? Show me where Wilson’s and my arguments against that malpractice regime are wrong. You haven’t done anything of the sort at all. So who is the one with the closed mind? Prove Wilson and I wrong and I most definitely would consider changing my mind.
Yes, I’ve seen bad teachers being let go. I’ve seen excellent teachers run off by bad adminimals. It ain’t pretty either way. But here in the Show Me State (a right to work for less state) an adminimal is not worth what they are paid if they can’t get rid of a “due process rights” level teacher (it’s not tenure, but that’s a whole other story) in 45 days. Yep, it’s that easy. I learned how to do that in a Personnel class for my MA in adminimalization. Yep, I’m that cynical.
As it is I am very aware of all those things you mention in your “As for your career vs mine. . . ” as I went through Catholic K-12 schools. Broke through that faith belief indoctrination to become a more open thinker. And I know many who have taught in both private and public schools.
Your confidence in the standards and testing malpractice regime is, in essence, a faith-belief as we have shown just how wrong, invalid and harmful it is, yet you continue to think it’s sorely needed. Faith-believers keep on believing in those beliefs even after having been shown just how absurd and malicious those beliefs are. Which is close minded? The one of faith beliefs or those who can see the illogic involved and reject those beliefs?
Hope you have a wonderful holiday season and enjoy being with family and friends. May you also stay healthy and avoid the Covid.
Wilson’s ramblings can’t be followed – you have yet to show me clearly what he means. And honestly your ramblings at times are hard to follow.
You say Wilson is against invalid assessments – well so are most people. But then I say that it is impossible to have an invalid assessment so are you against all assessments? You say no – it’s okay for teachers to make assessments. But how do you (or Wilson) know they are valid? Or it is just standardized tests that are invalid.
You’re against any set of standards – because the teacher knows best. But then I’ve noted (and you’ve seen) that there are bad teachers that I’d argue would do more harm to students than the standards that you are against.
There u have it – you’ve worked in two districts that could fit into the district I work in with room to spare.
More than once in my postings I said I understand your side. Yet rarely have you said that my side has any point. AND here’s the bigger thing that I have an issue with you – you don’t offer a solution they would solve the problem. Your solution is no standards and no standardized tests. But when I say “how would you solve teachers not doing their job” your response is that means administrators aren’t doing their job. But when I point out why they may not able to focus on a poor teacher when balancing other things – crickets.
Here’s the deal – education in general is way to complex to be solved by a 10 word answer like “get rid of standards and standardized tests” It also can’t be solved by saying “have more standards and more tests”
Have a nice holiday. Hope you stay safe
“edTPA is NOT a standardized tests[sic] ”
Not standardized means it is not administered and scored in a consistent manner (see wikipedia)
That in itself would be cause for serious concern.
So I would agree with the latter, that edTPA is scored in a consistent manner, but it is not administered in a consistent manner…
So, edTPA is not administered in a consistent manner (ie, the conditions for administering are different)
I’m glad we agree.
Do you see no problem with that?
Do you know why scientists try to control all the variables except the one of interest when they do an experiment?
Are you aware what happens when one does not control the conditions? (in this case, size of class, makeup of class, possible environmental distractions, etc)
A: You can get different results depending upon the conditions.
What happens when one uses the same standard procedure to score such a process carried out under variable conditions?
A: Different scores — for the very same teacher from one administration to the next (in this case, one video session to the next)
Do you see any problem with that?
…and different conditions also affect scores from one teacher candidate to another even though they may one may be just as good a candidate as another.
In other words, different conditions can lead to different scores for two candidates with very similar qualifications and potential to be teachers.
‘I think that there needs to be a combination of subjective observations (as someone who has been a supervisor, I know how challenging it can be to be completely objective, even having had to tell a candidate more than once that he/she wasn’t ready for the classroom) and objective measures. What is wrong with this’
I am genuinely puzzled by this remark.
How is it that observations done in the classroom of a teaching candidate (eg, by an administrator) are ‘subjective” but observations done of a video of a candidate remotely by some unknown (and unknowable) Pearson scorer are “objective”?
IMHO, both are subjective (based on individual judgment calls), but at least in the case of the classroom observation, the teacher candidate can know the qualifications of their observer and have the opportunity to ask questions about — and possibly challenge– the evaluation.
Don’t you think that being able to know and confront one’s evaluator should be an important part of an evaluation that can determine one’s very career?
You said you have been a “supervisor”, but have you ever been a teacher or “supervisor” of teachers specifically?
Some responses – yes, I taught in public schools for over 10 years in an urban setting and worked at at university as a supervisor of student teachers.
I’ll try and explain a few things here – to me it’s objective as the person is not directly tied to the situation – it is an outside party.
Yes, I thinking knowing the evaluator is important. I will repeat what I have said time and again – I have NEVER argued that edTPA should be THE ONLY measure of teacher readiness. Pearson did not set up those rules. SCALE did not set up those rules, rather each state that created it’s teacher certification laws and guidelines set up the rules.
To me the logic if flawed here on where to point the blame. If a college sets a minimum bar for a test for admission (or a minimum bar for a GPA or any standard) and a student does not get in, should one blame the test (possibly) or could one blame the college standards? Automatically everyone here is pointing blame at the test and not even considering other things.
Two other thoughts. I know people personally who have scored edTPA for Pearson. They are university faculty. I know that they personally care about education, their students, etc. They certainly DO NOT score edTPA for the money. I have also heard of stories of evaluators spending hours in email conversations with two, three or even more supervisors looking at one portfolio to try and determine how the evidence connects to the rubrics. It is not always as haphazard as some here have implied it is…
When blanket statements are made about a group as a whole, that can be dangerous. It’s like saying. “all contractors are crooked” because you had a bad experience with a crooked contractor. That is the vibe that is seen on this posting about this assessment, the scorers, etc. Could there possibly be another side to things?
Finally, I find it interesting that when one person brings up a counter point that all of a sudden I am attacked as being a Pearson supporter, anti-teacher, etc, etc. Do I think that there are major flaws in the implementation of standardized tests? Certainly.
So why do I even raise this counter point? Because when I taught in public schools I taught along side some fantastic teachers. But I also taught alongside some that I wondered, “How were they even allowed to get their certification?” And how are they even allowed to be still teaching? The answers to those questions include things like the observation process (principals not doing their job), etc.
Candidly, I believe that the answer of how to determine if a teacher candidate is ready for the classroom lies in the combination of data points – GPA could be one (but what about grade inflation:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2011/09/want_a_38_gpa_major_in_education.html)
Teacher observations and feedback from mentors, supervisors should be another – but there is the risk of bias, the “I don’t want to ruin this person’s career so I will let them slide” attitude…
Some type of objective standard – I don’t think that Praxis does a very good job with being related to teacher practice, do you?
Add all these things together and see what they say. If they all say the same thing, then great – you are ready. If some of them stand out as being of concern, that may not mean that the person can’t become a teacher, but maybe other things should be considered, or other types of supports.
But this is just my opinion. Would this system be perfect? Probably not. But all I am asking is that others be open to other ideas. We are all influenced by our own experiences – and they certainly shape our perceptions. That being said, maybe we should all be open to another side?
I can certainly understand and appreciate your points. However, the implementation of the new battery of tests in New York State is grounded in a hidden curriculum that runs counter to the purposes and principles of public education.
Public education serves the common good. Corporate reform, which undergirds these assessments and the whole GERM movement, serves the aim of profit. This is not evil; it is a fact. To critique corporations for this aim is like criticizing a shark for killing.
The danger lies in the dubious merging of public and private, wherein public entities absorb the risk and loss while private entities strip the profit. Regardless of the positive motives of some (even many) participants in reform-driven initiatives, the goal remains to suck profit from public institutions.
Sure, edTPA has some positive results. As a teacher educator, I have made the best of a bad situation and worked to prepare my teacher candidates. But I will not lose sight of the big picture, nor will I stop resisting its deleterious effects on our society and its most vulnerable learners.
‘ to me it’s objective as the person is not directly tied to the situation – it is an outside party.”
Thanks for clarifying, but that doesn’t make it “objective’ –or necessarily even make it less subjective. You are simply assuming that 1) the classroom observer is “tied to the situation” and 2) that impacts the evaluation significantly. neither of those assumptions is necessarily true.
The situations are actually both subjective (true “objectivity” means the observer is completely neutral with absolutely no biases, which is an impossibility), but the most important difference between the two cases is that in the case of the classroom observer, one can learn something about possible biases where in the case of the remote ‘scorer”, there is no possibility of doing so.
In cases like this, without knowing, it is wise to err on the side of caution: eg don’t assume that the evaluators have the proper qualifications to be judging teacher candidates unless it is proven that they do. It’s easy to do that with classroom observers but difficult (if not impossible) to do that in the case of remote video scorers, especially if one can not even know who those scorers are for individual cases.
“I have NEVER argued that edTPA should be THE ONLY measure of teacher readiness.”
Whether you did or not is irrelevant (this is not about you)
If it is the gatekeeper, it is irrelevant whether it is used alone.
With regard to the rest of your comment, it is really irrelevant whether Pearson is ‘responsible” for the policy or not.
The only relevant issue is that one brief classroom “video test” administered under noncontrolled conditions with virtually no transparency (regarding scorers, for example) is being used to deny a career in teaching to a person with a masters degree in special ed who has devoted years of his/her life and God only knows how much money.
That’s simply misguided and wrong. There is no excuse for that — certainly not a rational one.
And if you don’t wish to be labeled a “Pearson supporter”, well perhaps you should be more careful about the way you couch your arguments.
As I indicated above, the issue is not about whether Pearson is responsible for the policy so your repeated argument that they are not is basically meaningless (at least as far as I am concerned.)
jlsteach,
You wrote in another response below: “But I also taught alongside some that I wondered, “How were they even allowed to get their certification?” And how are they even allowed to be still teaching? The answers to those questions include things like the observation process (principals not doing their job), etc.”
So, do you have superwoman see through walls capabilities? Really, you were able to discern which teachers were good and bad from observation while you were a teacher? Who covered your class room while you took the time to go and observe said teachers?
As a teacher I can’t pass judgement on what goes on in another’s room as I cannot observe them enough to make any decision whatsoever. Your self assured ability to make judgements on fellow teachers is a distinct sign of self-deception (which basically makes me question all of your statements here concerning teacher evaluations).
Indeed, the question is not whether education students are ready to be teachers. The question is who decides, when, and how. EdTPA gets all these criteria wrong.
Duane, here is how I knew – I heard from the teacher’s students. I taught the teacher’s students the following year and saw how ill prepared they were. I saw the exams that the teacher provided (teaching Algebra II but then giving a final exam that only covered Algebra I content)…how is that for information?
jlsteach,
That certainly would not be enough information for me to make your statements, draw such conclusions about the other teacher. But then again that’s just me.
Duane – what evidence would you need? How about if there was a pattern of teaching like this AFTER years? would you think that an observation from a biased principal was evidence that the teacher was proficient?
Jlsteach,
If there was a pattern of teaching like that for years then I say first get rid of the supervising administrator as he/she isn’t doing his/her job. Then, document, document, document to get rid of the incompetent, if that is truly the case, teacher. (I have been in the position of documenting a “union” employee under my supervision in order to get rid of him because of his work and alcohol problems. It certainly wasn’t pleasant to have to do that but the employee forced our hands.)
But as a classroom teacher it is not my job to “assess and evaluate” another teacher unless I am part of an open process that is agreed upon by all parties that would involve my input. It is still the administrator’s job to oversee the process and take action to terminate if necessary.
As far as “biased principal”, well, every single person is “biased” for whatever reasons on whatever subject, tis human nature as we can only act and make decisions on the information, sensations, and observations that WE take in. And by definition that will never be “complete” information. At times one must act on that incomplete information and so the chips fall where they may. In this case, it seems clear the administrator was not doing his/her job and if so then his/her supervisor also was not doing his/her job.
If you had such concerns did you take your concerns up the administrative ladder as is the proper thing to do?? If so, then you did what you could, even if the teacher (and administrator) in question was retained.
But I could not, would not make those judgements of other teachers based on the flimsy evidence you have provided.
Duane – I disagree with you that one teacher cannot judge another teacher as competent or not, but that is beside the point. In terms of your solution, “taking it up the ladder”…there were plenty of times I brought concerns to my administrator, and well, nothing was done. Yes, I think that the administrator was incompetent. Unfortunately, I felt so frustrated and helpless that I decided instead to do my best to focus on getting my own students caught up to speed.
There has to be a better way to address poor teachers than documents, documenting, documenting and taking things up the chain…all of the paperwork can leave poor classroom teachers in the rooms for years = impacting lots of students.
We do agree on one thing, “In this case, it seems clear the administrator was not doing his/her job and if so then his/her supervisor also was not doing his/her job” Unfortunately others up the ladder either didn’t care or had other reasons for not engaging.
PS – the teacher I am describing is still teaching. The current department chair has raised concerns to the new administrator (the former principal is NOW a cluster instructional superintendent – i.e. the bosses of principals). Still nothing has been done.
Wow, jlsteach. You did what you could, I applaud you and you are correct to have then focused on trying to get the students back “up to speed”. And the administrative situation you describe serves to show that the Peter Principle (or should that be principal-ha ha) is alive and well and holds for all organizations/bureaucracies. I don’t think anyone has developed a “Peter Principle vaccine” yet.
But to suggest that a very flawed, fatally epistemologically and ontologically flawed in my estimation, like EdTPA can be part of a solution denies rationo-logical thought as using such a flawed assessment can only result in many misjudgements, flawed assessments and/or denial of licensure.
You believe that assessments like EdTPA are objective and accurate, I don’t. And even if that were the case, and I’m not saying it is, that still wouldn’t preclude a subjective assessment from being a better, more accurate assessment. The subjective/objective dichotomous thinking in assessing the teaching and learning process breaks down at a fundamental level with subjective being the “correct”, “real”, “true”, etc. . . frame from which all assessment of that process can/should be properly viewed.
Also, I am not saying that one teacher “cannot judge another teacher”. Indeed one can. The questions for me are “Do I as a teacher have enough evidence to take this up the administrative ladder and how accurate is that information?” My own practice was to first speak with a teacher on a flat/level administratively speaking with the teacher and work with them long before taking the next level of going up the ladder.
As an educator and a parent of a teaching candidate, our family knows too well about the dreaded EdTPA. My daughter finished her BS in Music a Education in May 2014. She was always on the Dean’s List and had many semesters where she achieved a 4.0. So when she failed the EdTPA, we were shocked. Her EdTPA video had to show two weeks worth of growth. Impossible to do in a six week student teaching music program where you only see the students one a week.
In taking her other exams, she came across questions that had nothing to do with her certification. One began, “You are teaching a 10th grade math class…” With a degree in music education, that circumstance would not be relevant.
After taking the four tests – some more than twice, she was successful in passing all and got the voucher to take the ATS-W. She passed the ATS-W with flying colors. Now the SED has decided that the passing score for the EAS is 500 – it was previously 520. All students who took the test prior to this new ruling and scored above 500 will have passed (Retroactively). My daughter took that test at least 2 more times before she got above a 520. Will she be reimbursed for those fees? Same holds true for the new ALST – now SED has determined that if you failed, you can have your university send in proof that you are college literate in writing and reading, so you don’t have to take this test over again – after my daughter paid to retake this exam as well.
Our SED needs to listen!
Same thing happened to me with the EAS exam. I emailed Pearson regarding reimbursement. The answer was basically “NO.”
Sydnee – you raise a lot of valid points…I am curious though when you say, “Her EdTPA video had to show two weeks worth of growth. Impossible to do in a six week student teaching music program where you only see the students one a week” What do you mean that the video had to show two weeks worth of growth? I am not sure that is really in the edTPA.
Furthermore, you raise lots of valid points – I worry about the six week window for student teaching – that seems rather short, particularly as you state, that she only saw the students once a week. I also agree that the policies around changing the passing scores on the tests seems unfair…I do appreciate that you are pointing out issues that are more State Ed Dept decisions (and or college decisions – a six week student teaching window – as opposed to one test.
Nice try jlsteach to defend and deflect the attention from the abominable EdTPA but you can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ears.
That letter breaks my heart. Not only do I feel bad for this young teacher, I feel bad for the kids that will not have her as an instructor!
Before I got my certification in NY, I was “evaluated” by a 30 year master teacher overseeing my student teaching as well as by a professor of education (PhD) who observed several of my lessons, gave me detailed feedback and reviewed and commented on a notebook of all my daily lesson plans for the semester of student teaching.
It would have been so much better (more accurate, valid etc) if I had been evaluated — and given a thumbs up or down — based on a brief video scored by who knows whom with who knows what qualifications hired at who knows what pay rate from who knows what source (Craigslist?)
New York really has come a long way in recent decades when it comes to teacher certification.
As a mentor teacher, I attended a conference at UCLA where the mentors were asked to comment on a video of a student teacher. My comment was a question. How many hours of public speaking classes did UCLA require of teacher candidates? The reply was “none.”
It seems to me that the student teaching and any “test” regarding teacher quality are way late in the game. Acceptance to the teacher training program should be based on the students’ capabilities in several necessary attributes, including public speaking. Many of these skills are developed over a life time and begin quite young. (For me the speaking began in 4-H at the age of six.)
P. S. I know trained doctors who went into film and trained lawyers who went into education. I also know trained educators who should have become copywriters and businessmen who should have become social workers. Most of us need to give careful thought to our early choices. It would be nice if we had help with this.
To the teacher that needs money to pass the last exam. Could we set up a place to send donations for her. In the Southwest here at least half of our teachers are Hispanic so I am wondering where she plans to teach. Can she move to another state like New Mexico. However, we do have many tests now for teachers although it doesn’t sound as bad as what this potential teacher has experienced. My granddaughter just got her first teaching job in Albuquerque, but several folks in the family sent money so she could take two more tests.Do different states have different test requirements. Is there anyway this community could help this teacher. We don’t want to lose a good teacher wherever she is!! Please don’t give up on teaching. Thanks for publishing this letter,
Dr. Karin Wiburg, Professor in Education, New Mexico State University.
I feel you pain. Isn’t the point of Pearson to fail students? Isn’t the point of the of the teacher exams to fail them so they can’t get teaching jobs. Question: Do any of the TFA scabs have to pass any of these exams? Doors that are closed to others and hurdles that wannabe teachers are made to jump over don’t exist for the TFAers. All part of the plan.
TFA “temp” teachers have to pass edTPA AFTER two years in the classroom. If they decide to stay, they can use their own classrooms – a significant benefit – not to mention the two years of uncertified “practice” they have experienced.
Another serious concern about edTPA involves the shift in decision making from a local team of committed lifelong educators working in the field to assess a candidate to a SINGLE, DISTANT, PEARSON-CALIBRATED SCORER. In other words, the judgment of one unknown scorer trumps the judgment of college and K12 faculty who observe a candidate over a period of time. This renders the instrument invalid and unreliable.
Just to be clear – edTPA does not shift the decision making, rather the state education policy makes that decision…And just wondering…how do you know that all of those involved are “committed lifelong educators”…I find it interesting that in these conversations the assumptions and the way that scorers are described (distant) vs the local team (committed life long educators). Is there any evidence that those who work for Pearson ARE NOT life long educators (the Craiglist ads were for another test, NOT for edTPA). Is there evidence that ALL of those working with candidates are “committed lifelong educators”
Did you take a look at the two links I posted earlier? They are both from 2012.
From the Academe post:
“The incursion of for profit companies into higher education occurs with willing collaborators. Whether misguided, fearful, subject to the lure of the advancement of their own careers, or standing to profit themselves we cannot know, but across the country faculty join administrators in advancing practices that open the door for the privatization of our work. The accountability regimes supported by accrediting agencies and professional organizations have become entryways for companies like Pearson, Inc. to not only sell their products, but to control our practices. In teacher education, the Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) is being pushed as a national assessment for student teaching by faculty from Stanford and the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE). With more than twenty states having signed on to field test it, and six states already mandating it as part of student teaching, the TPA is overtaking teacher education. Questions must be asked about what it means to standardize teacher education assessment, and how that standardization then reaches back into the content of our courses. But a more immediate concern is that this TPA is being delivered and scored by Pearson, Inc, which will hire contract scorers on a piece work basis to review videos of student teaching and written responses to canned questions. The work of developing student teachers, working closely with cooperating teachers, and assessing readiness to enter the classroom will come down to a number from a rubric scored by a piece work laborer who does not know the student teacher.”
(And for those fans in the room of Linda Darling-Hammond, sadly, edTPA was her baby. Perhaps she has renounced it?)
From the NYT article:
“Pearson advertises that it is paying scorers $75 per assessment, with work ‘available seven days a week’ for current or retired licensed teachers or administrators. This makes Amy Lanham wonder how thorough the grading will be. “I don’t think you can have a genuine reflective process from a calibrated scorer,” said Ms. Lanham, 28, who plans to teach English.”
Pearson had a similar ad posted online this spring, same recompense, 3 years later.
So what we have here is marketing for a new product. It’s been marketed to the states and they have bought it, just as they bought CCSS and PARCC and SBAC.
When I did my student teaching practicum in 1974, I worked with two different collaborating teachers who were my guides in the classroom, as well as my college supervisor who visited all day every 7-10 days. Each day there was a de-brief. If it worked then, it would still work now. When I mentored student teachers, this is how it went. No “test” could possibly return to me the information I needed to grow and to improve in the classroom as the three people who worked with me all the time. Teaching continues to be a human-intensive undertaking.
“Is there any evidence that those who work for Pearson ARE NOT life long educators ”
The onus is on Pearson (and on you, who seem to be defending them) to prove that they are*, not on us to prove that they are not. (*or At the very least that they are qualified to be making judgements about what good teaching is and decisions about who should be allowed to be a teacher)
By your argument, the onus should be on the public to prove that the person who designed a bridge was qualified and not on the company for whom they work. That’s just absurd.
If people are skeptical of the quality of Pearson scorers, it is not without good cause. Pearson has a track record and it’s not a particularly impressive one — and yes, it includes hiring people without college degrees from Craigslist for only about $10 an hour.
You said above you have been a supervisor. Whom have you supervised?
Have you ever worked in a school either in the capacity of a teacher or an administrator?
In the NY Daily News-http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/manhattan-federal-judge-teacher-test-discriminatory-article-1.2249596
This article refers to the former LAST, but this new test could also be discriminatory as well.
EdTPA is another part of the insanity. Don’t let anyone convince us different. To argue otherwise is to believe that Pearson should have a monopoly on teacher certification. Howbout NO.
it feels deeply weird to hit Like on this, but I do like that you’ve made this story public.
612-328-6298 Purposely brief – typing on glass
>
I’ll call ya later, okay!
Thank you for making this public. This story is sadly not unique. The themes of despair and punitive measures in this educational climate are beyond comprehension, if you are not in the “educational trenches”. The expectations of teachers are not real and the demands of performance are incredible. Teachers are not paid like other professionals, yet are responsible to be highly “educated”, skilled magicians. If one thing is not there, you can topple. The profession is being “whitified” and this does not serve students ANYWHERE.
This is an undeclared war and few people are asking the educators (first hand witnesses) who serve in the trenches what can work. Profit and Myopia reign. We are paying a heavy price as a society. We will continue to self destruct until the real issues are discussed and educators brought into the discussion.
I am not a fan of Pearson’s birth to death testing domination strategy. At the same time, I don’t think the edTPA as a metric is wholly terrible. I served as a teacher educator for over a decade and as an edTPA scorer during the pilot, and have the following to add to this conversation. (I have no ties to Pearson, and I no longer score for them. The reason I did score was to better prepare my students to take the state-mandated test.)
1) Pearson did not develop this metric. edTPA was developed by Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity in partnership with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education- and in some cases- was put into place in states by collectives of teacher education programs in lieu of draconian assessment schemes dreamed up by state legislators. The metric started as the PACT in CA in 2002, and has been tweaked by educators throughout the process. Pearson came on board because they had a platform of delivery. Pearson is not responsible for giving a ‘passing’ score on the test. States set this score individually.
2) The assessment is not asking anything of candidates that is not already expected in many teacher education programs. If a program used a Teacher Work Sample as part of their process, the edTPA is fairly similar. Also, scoring really should not be a surprise. While teacher prep programs cannot give direct comments on a candidate’s work, they can look at it before it is submitted- and most know of the likelihood of the portfolio’s success before it is scored. The bigger question is not the edTPA in and of itself; it is whether or not we need a nationally validated metric for entry into the profession.
3) There is enough flexibility on the rubrics (there are multiple rubrics to the edTPA) to account for classroom and student context as well as a range of different teaching methodologies. Though I had my preferences about the type of classrooms that I wanted my student to lead one day, portfolios from “no excuses” classroom and project based classrooms could both score well on the rubrics. Likewise, the metric specifically asks candidates how they plan for students given the classroom context and the personal experiences children bring with them.
4) During the piloting phase, all the scorers I came into contact with were well-trained and well-regarded in the profession. My colleagues were asked about my work with teacher candidates, and my dean had to verify my work experience. The training took longer than I expected and was a combination of reading, online Power Points, and interactive scoring activities with supervisors and other trainees. I had to go through scoring a number of portfolios as part of the verification process, and portfolios took me a little over 2 hours each to score. Scorers work on their own time, were encouraged not to score more than two portfolios in a day, and could only score during open scoring windows. We also had to re-certify as scorers each year. Because of the time involved, at least during the pilot, scorers were not bottom-of-the-barrel-cannot-cut-it-in-the-real-world-of-education people. I do not know if this will change as the number of portfolios to score increases.
5) There are problems with the EdTPA. I fear that while there are a range of candidate responses that represent good teaching now, as more and more states come online and scorers are expected to evaluate more portfolios, quality control will go down. This might be what we are seeing in NY and other states where the roll out was terrible. I find the cost of the edTPA prohibitive, as I do all fees connected with licensure, which is now over $1000 in some states. A system for challenging a score on the edTPA needs to developed, tested, and articulated to candidates and schools, departments, and colleges of education. Bias is always an issue with testing of any sort. Could a scorer have a bias that impacts portfolio evaluation? Yes…. The same way an adjunct supervising a student teacher could have a bias that impacts his or her observations. (Most traditional programs have adjuncts, who do not really know the candidates, come in for two classroom observations. In total, this is not much longer than the scorer sees as portfolio candidate in their written lessons and videos). In each case it comes down to how much you trust the professionalism of the scorer/observer.
All in all, I don’t see the EdTPA as evil. I do see it as imperfect. I also see the over-arching reform conversation as clouding the question at the heart of the edTPA: Do we need a nationally validated metric to insure a minimum level of competence for entry into the teaching profession? But this question is not new…. and predates the current era of education ‘reform.’
“All in all, I don’t see the EdTPA as evil.”
You should!
Thank you skatt115 for sharing this. You hit on many of the same issues that I was trying to share, but did it much more eloquently!
Dear Skat115,
I have a question regarding the process for Score Confirmation. If you request to have the score confirmed, will it be reevaluated completely and by a different person? Wanting to find out if it is worth the money and effort to do this. My daughter and one of her classmates both were close but just failed. I can not find any information as to how this is handled. If we contest the score there is almost the same fee as to completely re-submit. She is exhausted and has no time to completely redo the test.
Any advise is most appreciated.
Concerned Mother
The $300 fee seems bizarre for a test originating at Stanford, where they are making college free for students whose household income is under 125k per year.
rpillala, the $300 does not go to Stanford, but rather it helps pay the scorers, provide payment for those that help with the training, etc.
I always had a student teacher in my classroom. However, for the past four years the education students have decreased from our local university, and the last I heard they are thinking of closing the education department. The student teachers I had were wonderful, and they worked very hard. I can’t imagine them having to do all of this stressful, busy work along with running the classroom. I am so tired of hearing two words: rubric and evidence. I think it is so interesting that certain people think it is okay to place all of this unnecessary stress on young people trying to get into teaching, but they themselves never had to jump this hurdle. Do they remember how stressful student teaching was? I remember staying up until 2AM preparing lessons at the same time I had a paper due. I totally agree that evaluation through observation should never be done through a tape, but it should be done through professionals who know that student. I completely trust those professionals with their credentials.
The bottom line is that this is all part of the plan. The evil politicians have found a way to stop the teacher from certification by placing this hurdle in a stressful time. Paying 100,000 dollars or more for a bachelor’s degree to start making 33,000 dollars per year doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. If I were any of those young people, I would run as fast as I could in the opposite direction. Let them have this low paying battered profession. This battered profession does not deserve those fine young people. Let those self righteous scorers sit there and twiddle their thumbs with no portfolios to grade or tapes to watch. It will happen. Mark my words.
What data do we have that the edTPA actually ensures a higher quality of teacher? It seems to me that student teaching and the supervisor’s assessment would be bigger predictors. Adding in another hoop to jump through, while prospective teachers are struggling to learn to teach, seems cruel. It’s tough enough to successfully make it through the internship!
Yet another reason to discourage students from becoming educators.
Math Geek, edTPA is too new to have type of data – however if you look for studies on PACT and on NBCT (which edTPA were based upon) these types of teacher performance assessments did have positive impacts on teaching:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40043080?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Convincing evidence that ” edTPA actually ensures a higher quality of teacher” before it is put into widespread use as a gatekeeper for certification?
What a novel idea.
The quality of edTPA is not in question, it is the fee and execution that is. Were colleges given enough time to adjust their curriculums to meet the needs of edTPA? The fees are exorbitant and the amount of tests needed for certification are absurd. If NYS is going to require a Master’s Degree and $1,200 in testing they have to pay accordingly to the work and money put into it. Furthermore, yes the edTPA has practices that teachers are already putting to use but they are not responsive to self contained classrooms or students that are performing way below state standards. I highly doubt Stanford modeled edTPA on a 12:1:1 classroom or with urban children with real life issues such as starvation, poverty and parents addicted to drugs.These exams are a direct violation of prior court decisions:
In 1971 the Supreme Court, in Griggs v Duke Power Company ruled,
The facts of this case demonstrate the inadequacy of broad and general testing devices, as well as the infirmity of using diplomas or degrees as fixed measures of capability. History is filled with examples of men and women who rendered highly effective performance without the conventional badges of accomplishment in terms of certificates, diplomas, or degrees. Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but Congress has mandated the common sense proposition that they are not to become masters of reality
A year later in a New York City case, Chance v. Board of Examiner the appellate court sustained the opinion of the trial court. The Board of Examiner licensing exams which had been the sole path to a supervisory position in New York City were challenged due to wide disparities in passing rates between white and black/Hispanic test takers,
Judge Feinberg wrote in Chance v The Board of Examiners (1972),
The examinations prepared and administered by the Board of Examiners for the licensing of supervisory personnel, such as Principals and Assistant Principals, have the de facto effect of discriminating significantly and substantially against Black and Puerto Rican applicants.
The judge further found:
Such a discriminatory impact is constitutionally suspect and places the burden on the Board to show that the examinations can be justified as necessary to obtain Principals, Assistant Principals and supervisors possessing the skills and qualifications required for successful performance of the duties of these positions. The Board has failed to meet this burden.
Although it has taken some steps towards securing content and predictive validity for the examinations and has been improving the examinations during the last two years, the Board has not in practice achieved the goals of constructing examination procedures that are truly job-related.
Even were we to accept the City’s allegation that any discrimination here resulted from thoughtlessness rather than a purposeful scheme, the City may not escape responsibility for placing its black citizens under a severe disadvantage which it cannot justify.
In Gulino v. Board of Education, the Court found that African-American and Latino teachers failed the LAST at a significantly higher rate than white teachers. The Court then found that the DOE’s use of the LAST did not predict which applicants would be best able to teach, which means that the use of the LAST was not job related or consistent with business necessity. As a result, the Court found the DOE liable for disparate impact discrimination under Title VII.
These facially neutral practices include the use of some written tests by employers, which have, intentionally or not, screened out people of a particular race, national origin or sex who are in fact qualified. Although using written tests to screen applicants may present the appearance of objective, merit-based selection, written tests often do not actually identify applicants who will be successful at performing a particular job. If appropriate analysis finds a test to be a poor assessment of an applicant’s ability to do a job, then the test stands in the way of identifying the best qualified candidates. As a result, it is in everyone’s interest to find a better measure.
Pass Rates:
edTPA the pass rate was 81%
EAS the pass rate was 77%
ALST the pass rate was 68%
On a protected site, not available on the NYSED site, the results by race:
The pass rate for White test takers on the EAS was 82%, Non-White test takers 74%
The pass rate for White test takers on the ALST was 74%, Non-White test takers 55%
It appears that the required EAS and ALST tests, pursuant to Duke and Chance are racially discriminatory test.
There is no research that supports the reliability and validity of the edTPA created by Stanford, administered by Pearson and scores arranged by NYS. Nor does this test prove or predict that a teacher candidate will be a highly effective teacher as a result of achieving a passing score on the edTPA.
I don’t think people in general are made aware of how much is being spent to become a special education teacher in NYS; ALST $131, EAS $102, Multi Subject CST $199, CST Students with Disabilities $149 and edTPA $300. There are additional testing fees if you want extensions in Bilingual or Early Childhood Education. Bilingual Assessment Exam $79 and another $199 for Multi Content exam in Early Childhood. Let’s not forget the rising cost of tuition and books (books from Pearson..surprise surprise), especially since NYS prefers teachers with Master’s Degrees in Education. No one finds this exploitative?
I really appreciated the insight from Skat115. Your post was informative and had a great perspective. But grading the edTPA and actually drafting it are two completely different experiences. There is no reliability to the scoring of edTPA and I know this from experience. I used mastery level edTPAs as a guide along with the rubrics provided by the edTPA handbook and still failed miserably. A classmate had an edTPA VERY similar to mine and received a mastery level score while I failed.How do you account for the disparity in scores? I also know for a fact that not all edTPA scorers are certified teachers. Graduate students from reputable schools were approached to score edTPAs and get paid $75 for each one. As per Alan Singer from the Huffington post, “..Pearson was advertising on Craigslist for test scorers. According to the ad, college graduates are paid $12 an hour to grade exams on a Texas standardized test. A college degree is required, but it can be in any field welcome.” The whole article can be read on his blog: “Funky Money” and Pearson Fail the Test http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/funky-monkey-and-pearson-_b_7230340.htm
Where is the legitimacy in that? If my edTPA is being scored online, is my scorer even from New York and familiar with the state standards or curriculum? If it wasn’t for blogs written by Diane Ravitch or Alan Singer I would be left in the dark! Diane Ravitch’s blogs made me more aware of what is occurring in our education and I am eternally grateful for it!
I just finished my MSEd in Childhood Grades 1-6 and Special Ed and I am currently wrapping up my edTPA portfolio. I have “cursed” this exam from the moment it was introduced to me and it has been one of the most grueling things I have encountered. With that being said I must also mention how I have a lot of respect for and faith in the edTPA as an accurate measure of a teacher candidate’s abilities. This exam, with all of it’s rubrics and lengthy commentary requirements, really challenges teachers to plan and look at their instructional strategies from a variety of angles… ensuring that the academic needs of the populations that we teach are recognized and addressed. Is the exam over priced.. Yes! Is it tedious and a complete pain to deal with… of course! BUT I can say with certainty that it serves a great purpose in assessing whether or not a teacher is able to do what is required in this profession daily… to know your students and teach in ways that show your understanding of where your students are academically, where they need to be, and what should be done in between to get them there. Of course, I don’t feel that this is a flawless measure of capabilities, since many great teachers have failed this exam. Also, being that I too face the same probability of failure as those before me, I totally get the frustration. I just encourage all of us to not allow this TPA to stop us from following a career path that we feel called to. My heart goes out to everyone who has felt defeated by this test. Don’t give up.
I completely feel your pain and struggle. I have nearly the same situation where I graduated with a Master’s degree in adolescent English edu grades 7-12 and took out loans of over $60,000 to pay for my education. I graduated before the new exams and edtpa came into the picture. However, I moved out of state, where I got paid well and loved my teaching job. After a family situation, I had no choice but to move back to NY 2 years later and now I’m struggling with the high cost of the exams as well as the edtpa. NYS has the audacity to require us to go through such harsh certification process but do not even pay us sufficiently. I find our situations to be very devastating and brutal due to the ridiculous requirements of NYS! Good Luck!
Honestly, Maryana, teaching has gotten so hard that I would run as fast as I could in the other direction. I am a sweet, kind person who loves children and my subject matter. The stress, the long hours, the lack of respect for my profession, working on weekends…..is high burn out. I just want to grade papers and put stickers on papers for my students….and, it is hard to find the time to do regular teacher duties anymore.
I wouldn’t recommend this battered profession to anyone. I am so blessed, I mean so blessed, to be retiring next year. I am so thankful to God. I love my students, and I work hours on my lessons…..but, it is not enough anymore. The profession of teaching is highly abusive….and, as things stand now, this profession does not deserve the young, bright eyed, excellent teachers that this profession will use and throw away like a used paper towel. I will never look back. Good Luck to you, Maryana! Run as fast as you can the other direction!!! (:
I took the safety net and all I really needed to do was pass or fail. Guess what? I was rated unscorable so the safety net doesn’t apply to me. I’ve been teaching since 2011 and I can’t get over that it is ending soon. Not that I have another $300 to waste, but no one is telling me what I did wrong.
I’m so sorry to hear this, I am in a ver similar situation, you are not alone.
Run, I mean run, as fast as you can away from this abusive profession. This toxic profession does not deserve the fine young people like you entering into it. It is so crazy that we have to be evaluated over and over again multiple times a year to prove we deserve to keep a job that we dedicate countless overtime hours without any overtime pay. Yes, we are so lucky to keep such an abusive job. On my very last day I will run to my car, and I will never look back.
I wish the very best to you. This profession should cherish you. Instead it devours its young.
Comparison of edTPA scores across different teaching fields reveals that special education teacher candidates are especially disadvantaged by the assessment, as special education candidates have the lowest supposed scores.
Within special education, candidates who heroically choose to teach the most severely disabled students are the candidates who are most disadvantaged by the “rubrics” and assessments of edTPA. How does one satisfy the requirements of the edTPA assessment when one is teaching a severely neurodevelopmentally disabled student with no speech and virtually no ability to communicate except for occasional eye gaze outcomes to diligent interventions that may be just enough better than random to suggest possible sporadic progress?
So it is not surprising to see the story of a candidate with such obvious qualifications, literacy, and motivation whose professional career is blocked by mechanical application of the edTPA. It is part of a greater and developing problem, blaming special education teachers for outcomes that result from the severe disabilities of the students, while trivializing the challenges posed by the disabilities. Is it any wonder that special education is facing high attrition and a growing shortage of candidates?
The qualified candidate whose story is highlighted might consider relocating to a state where more sanity prevails and where she will be valued rather than mechanistically blocked from the profession. Nevada comes to mind, with shortages not only in Las Vegas but also in the highly desirable and scenic Reno/Carson/Tahoe area. The state recently passed a provision to begin to reimburse teachers for out of pocket expenditures for their classrooms. No edTPA, but highly respected SPED programs.
I have a 3.94 GPA and I worked so diligently on this assessment. I just received scores and I’m not pleased. How can I be a candidate of valedictorian and receive results like these? I am an intentional, effective, and qualified educator. My student teaching advisors and cooperating teachers have proven me to be effective. This is not a reliable assessment of teacher effectiveness. The test is subjectively graded.
They always say “We don’t have enough math teachers.” I was ambitious and confident and wanted to be a good math teacher. I am disappointed and pursuing other math interests.
Mike, This brutal profession does not deserve you. RUN, RUN, RUN as fast as you can in the opposite direction. You will end up giving the best years of your life to a job which will discard you like a dirty paper towel. Pursue other careers which will value your Math expertise. You have been caught in a big business take over of public education. Believe me…There are other careers which will value your Math expertise, and you will make a lot more money. You will also be able to maintain the normalcy of your life and enjoy your life and family. The brutal changes in public education are not worth it. This brutal career does not deserve our awesome young people. My husband and I would never allow our two children to enter this thankless profession. I am so thankful to be able to walk away from this abuse when I retire next year. I will never look back. I love to teach, and I love my students…..but, I do not accept this abuse anymore. I’m done.
Mike,
My son was also a math ed student. Like you his student teaching advisor and cooperating teachers gave him rave reviews. He submitted the edTPA in the fall of 2015. When he received his score right before the New Year he had just missed the passing cut score. He was shocked and devastated. His advisor recommended resubmitting the lesson plan portion of the exam. He made the recommended changes and resubmitted. In the mean time he stated to apply for teaching jobs. He was offered and accepted a job in an excellent school district. He was on cloud 9! A month after accepting the job his scores came back….it was exactly the same…after making the changes! He met with the principal and they had a plan for him to start teaching and he resubmitted a third time. A veteran math teacher that has National Board Certification guided him, he went to more workshops, quit his summer job and devoted the rest of his time before school started to resubmitting. He started teaching and in September received the score. It was the same again! The college had appealed the score but my son’s spirit is crushed. He said he gets more depressed each time he fails it. He is now subbing in the same school that he was hired in and looking for alternative jobs. He loved his job but because of this test he has lost it. There is something wrong with this system. There is a shortage across the country for math teachers and this makes the problem worse. Even if the appeal works he is sick of jumping through hoops for a job that doesn’t pay that well in the first place. My son was very passionate about teaching but they stole that from him. I hope you and my son find something you can love doing. The teaching field doesn’t deserve either of you.
I am so very sorry for your son. We desperately need your son in the classroom. I am a Math teacher, and I will soon be retiring. It is all a Twilight Zone. I’ve taught over 30 years, and I have never seen anything like this in my life. Up is down, down is up, right is left, and left is right. No company should have power, let alone this much power. Crazy.
Is there anyway that your son could go back and retrain in college? I understand the high cost of college. My husband and I are going through that right now. With his wonderful Math skills, he could go through a two year schooling to be an ultrasound technician. This is a growing field where they will be hiring a lot of new ultrasound technicians in the next ten years. Doctors will use ultrasound more and more to avoid surgeries. The great thing is that ultrasound technicians make a beginning salary above 70,000 dollars in many areas. Beginning teachers are making only around 33,000 a year! Your son would FLY through the Math and Science requirements.
Finally, please tell your son that I have been working with beginning first year teachers for the past two years. They are exhausted, discouraged, shocked with the toxic policies, and want to quit. The deformers have made teaching unbearable. Teachers no longer can grade papers, attend to their students, and work in their classrooms. This has been replaced with loads of repetitive paperwork for SLO’s and teacher evaluation purposes that have no meaning. It is beyond exhausting and beyond frustrating. Many times teachers put aside the meaningful work of grading that never gets done. It eventually all gets thrown away because we have to sleep. It is all sad.
I know that your son can make lemonade out of these lemons. I would move on and leave this discouraging, toxic career behind. Have him use his awesome Math skills to move on into another career. I do not think he will ever be sorry for leaving teaching behind.
You are totally correct. Teaching does not deserve your son.
I took the alst exam today I begin at around 11:30 finished about a quarter to 5. Reason being is that I apply for a reasonable accommodation which gave me time and a half on the test and I still did not confident about the exam. And I consider myself to be a fairly good writer maybe not on social media or posting on blogspot but you get what I’m saying. I was exhausted after is too much information about absolutely nothing that pertains to teaching. I asked the test proctor that you see a lot of the same faces she said absolutely many people end up taking the exam 3 times, that’s close to $400 for Pearson of 1 Test alone. I’m wondering if the test is set up the same way and other States?
I just completed a teaching program in Oregon, and they had us do the edTPA. It was scored by university professors, since it hasn’t been officially implemented yet for a license in Oregon (next year it will be). We also had the option to submit the data to Pearson to be scored. When scored by an in-house professor, I did pretty well. When the same data was scored by Pearson, it seems like it was much lower. Pearson scored it 44 out of 75, which I think would be passing in most states, as the “cut score” seems to be 37-42, depending on the state (http://edtpa.aacte.org/faq#54). I firmly believe that I should have been scored higher than “proficient” on at least a few of the rubrics by Pearson.
I don’t think the exercise of edTPA is that bad–teachers should know how to write lessons that adhere to standards, foster engagement, and have a solid method of assessment. However, the commentary sections for the three tasks are very, very labor intensive. With working in my placement full-time (and designing lessons and grading papers), taking classes at the college, and doing other assignments, writing about 30 pages (single spaced) of commentary was brutal, and many of the questions created a lot of redundancy. At minimum, teacher education programs should allow student teachers to have some time off to write the damn edTPA. I think more educators would pass. There are only so many hours in the day when working full-time in one’s placement, and it becomes a health issue to be living on 2-3 hours of sleep for multiple days.
I actually think the elementary edTPA is pretty terrible, or at least the literacy tasks are. They demand a very specific kind of level that does not necessarily equate with good teaching, and they are so complicated that you would have to be a Talmudic scholar to interpret the pages and pages of instructions and appendices. Shouldn’t a licensure exam be easily understood by the people who take it. It is absurd that teacher education has to transform itself into test prep because the writers of this test couldn’t make it simpler.
Student teaching is a demanding time and the experience can be stressful. Student teachers typically resent all assignments beyond the task of actually teaching, and there is little evidence that such tasks are educative. This means that a task as complicated as edTPA becomes just another hoop to be jumped through, contributing to a general cynicism about the nature and purposes of education. Now all new teachers can be reminded that school is just about doing the stupid things that other people ask you to do and not about learning about important things that the student might actually care about.
Pearson should be ashamed, but at least they are making money which is a rational motive. On the other hand, Linda Darling-Hammond and AACTE and Stanford should all have to look in a mirror and ask themselves how they created this monster.
It is purely a money making scheme for the deformers. I’m so sorry that you are already experiencing abuse from an abusive profession. Teaching used to be a wonderful profession when I entered into it many years ago, and I no longer recognize it. I’m very close to retirement…and I will never look back. I am so thankful to put all of the abuse behind me. Is there anyway you can go into another field? I hate to see you suffering like this. Teaching no longer deserves you and the other young people just like you.
I absolutely feel your disillusionment, and I am genuinely sorry for your experience. Like you, I graduated with a 3.73 GPA and have a Masters of Science for Teachers degree from Pace University in NYC. I struggled with the old exams by failing them by one, two, five and nine points. My career is in hold because I did not take them prior to student teaching; it’s an overwhelming, but rewarding experience. Three schools told me to reapply when I have all of my certifications. I have not submitted my ed TPA because I cannot afford. I have new study guides and better strategies this time. Let’s hang in there because our diligence will pay off.
I am in the same boat and have. Been so disconcerted. Would you please reach out to me? 516-712-5752
Please hang in there, Allison. I’m almost to retirement, and my state of Ohio has made teaching so hard to the point of unbearable. There are other jobs that might make you happier, and you will have so much more time with your family. Prayers are with you. (:
Your not the only one going through this dilemma, however, passing the edTPA is the requirement and you need to pass it to become what you want. Whatever it takes to pass it you must do. Whatever the sacrifice you must succeed. Soon, I also will have to pass the EDTPA and no matter what…I will pass it. My life, like yours has many obstacles quite similar to yours. Don’t make excuses! Life isn’t fair, but that’s what you have to deal with. Focus on your goal and you will achieve it. Don’t give up!
I started my career path over 10 years ago. I always wanted to be a teacher i finally finished my bachelors in 2012. I started taking my test and following what I needed to do in order to be a certified NYS teacher. I also work at a school with students with special needs for the past 20 years. A year later i had finished my last test and was on my way of becoming a teacher. I called my college to discuss my next steps and , then it happened. I was missing one workshop and thats when NYS changed all their requirements. I was not grandfathered in and I’m in the process of re-taking all the NYS tests over again, including the ETPA. It has ben so discouraging , and make me not want to become certified. Some of these test have become so hard it makes me feel so stupid and defeated. I don’t think tests and the EDTPA should justify you as a teacher, you can be a good test taker but a horrible teacher. This whole new process has cost me so much money, a couple of thousands, I’m so in debt my credit cards are up there. I have a couple more tests which i also cant afford. I work to jobs , which actually second job is another full time job. i work at least 65 hours a week to make ends meet and pay for these tests. Which also makes it very hard to study and put all your time and effort into these tests. I wish everyone Good Luck and your not the only one in this position…
I feel the same frustration. I don’t see a date on your post but I hope you are out of that situation. The current requirements for teachers are just pushing minorities out of the profession. I am a single mom, hispanic, and have struggled all my life to become something. I have been teaching for the past 2 years under an intership certificate, but I failed the edtpa and my career is almost over. Short lived. I am exhausted, discouraged and broke.
God Bless you. I can’t imagine your pain. I’m a teacher almost at retirement, and I no longer recognize my profession. To keep up with the demands of my now toxic profession, I have to work long hours, go in on weekends, and spend time away from my family. I will not miss my profession.
I know that you probably have student loans, but my advice to you would be to walk away from this broken profession for good. People who love children have big hearts, and I know that you can find another career where you can help others. Most of all, please don’t blame yourself. In this new era of teaching, the deformers are making sure that teachers will not make a good salary and will not have job security. I wish you the best. The best years of teaching are behind us. I believe that with all my heart.
This is pathetic. First off students deserve more. How can they be expected to learn when prospective teachers feel that the requirement are too stringent? I do not want my child being taught by subpar educators, just as a defendant wouldn’t want a lawyer who couldn’t pass the bar exam. What good does it do a child to be taught by a teacher who isn’t qualified just because they look the same? this person should focus more on passing the edPTA instead of whining about its difficulty. There is a big problem in America right now with people expecting things to be handed to them and this is just another example. The fact that she points out the salary simply proves this woman isn’t qualified to educate our students.
Steve,
If the test is unrelated to being a good teacher, even a great teacher, why should it be the only way to become a teacher?
I bet you had many terrific teachers who would have failed the edTPA.
If we raise the bar to infinite ridiculousness, and every teacher fails, is every teacher “unqualified”?
I can make a test that everyone will fail, including you, Steve. Does that mean everyone is a failure?
What if another band of experienced teachers and educational experts came together and said the EdTPA is bunk? Oh, you mean like everyone here? And then some more who have not commented here? Would that matter to you, Steve? Or is EdTPA assumed to be the magical god of teacher quality, to whom we should all obey?
I get where Steve is coming from. I commented on this thread in support of the edTPA (although it’s grueling) in January right before I submitted my portfolio. I’m grateful that I passed with a score of mastery. I truly feel that the blame
As to why so many aspiring teachers are failing this assessment should fall on their teacher certification programs. If universities and programs are not adequately preparing teachers for what this exam requires or aligning their programs in ways that will set us up for success the edTPA can easily become a student teacher’s worst nightmare!
My masters program was a one year, dual degree accelerated program and because of that we were place into the classroom immediately… learning theory and application simultaneously. I believe that this helped me! In addition, my professors required us to consistently comb through, break down, and decipher the edTPA handbook and rubrics with an incredible amount of depth. If student teachers aren’t being given adequate access to their students through reasonable placement schedules and/or they aren’t getting to the point where they can truly interpret the handbook and rubrics the are almost destined to either fail or do poorly compared to how they would perform otherwise.
I don’t think in this case that Pearson is the problem, but that the programs put in place to “prepare” teachers are doing an ineffective job. The edTPA was gruesome but I respect it greatly! Don’t give up you guys… there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Pearson has become the arbiter of who is fit to teach.
Did you feel that the edPTA was a good measure of your fitness and effectiveness as a teacher?
I believe that it was one of many measures that one can use to assess teacher effectiveness. The edTPA, in my opinion, is nothing more than a portfolio of work that reflects what we should do in the classroom daily as teachers. This includes effective planning, instruction, and assessment that reflects the analyzation and influence of student data, academic and social needs, as well as being able to effectively teach a literacy strategy to a diverse population. My portfolio was for Elementary Education, so I can’t speak for other disciplines. In my most honest opinion, understanding the test is the issue, not necessarily the test itself… understanding the rubrics and requirements is the issue, the the rubrics and requirements themselves. Aspiring teachers are taking this assessment with minimal understand of how to approach the tasks and align their commentary and lessons with the rubrics. To me this is more of a reflection on teacher preparation programs that Pearson.
*not *understanding *than
I am finishing a Masters Degree in Reading,May 2017. I have taken the Praxis 4 times and can’t pass. Will I still receive my degree with my other classmates?
I hate the edtpa!! I failed it and can’t afford to retake it so I am forced to be a sub which pays way less then a qualified teacher. Teachers do not make enough money as it is for all we do!! This exam is ridiculously hard that is required during an already stressful and demanding time!!
In sitting here crying reading this. I have paseed my degree program with a 3.9 GPA. I caribe the edTPA and can’t afford another $300 to pay for it. The test is horrific and uncalled for. I also passed my GACE with flying colors. What else can I do with this degree? I wish someone would listen to us!
Here’s my beef with the edTPA which has just about sucked out of me the energy I had at the beginning of the MS Ed. program. I go to an education program in an accredited college. I have passed all the other NY State certification exams. I have a 3.8 average. I have successfully completed one student teacher assignment with high praise and am now doing my second placement with similar excellent comments. Why does NY State not value these assessments? I’ll do the edTPA because I have to but I think it’s just another money making hoop that leads to cynicism and discourages good candidates from pursuing teaching degrees. If I don’t pass it, so be it. NY State is not going to get another dime from me. I am a white male–so I probably won’t pass even though male role models are desperately needed in urban and rural areas. Sad, cynical…and unfortunately true.
Edtpa is a horrible money making scheme that I have to endure as well. I am now on my 2nd time taking the edTPA. My college just passes after the 4th attempt. I will not be trying again after this attempt. It is draining, flawed, and costly.
I’ve posted on a lot of threads here, and it automatically subscribes me when I do that, so I get an email whenever new comments are posted on old pages. This is just about the only old thread — out of hundreds — that continues to receive new comments.
Almost two years later.
People are searching the web to spill their grievances about EdTPA. It must be very frustrating.
I know two things after finishing the edtpa. My knowledge of Biology has regressed (which is what I teach). And my ability to effectively teach students the most proficient ways in which they can learn, retain information, and then apply that information in a meaningful way is completely diminished. After finishing the edtpa I have no awareness for anything except trying to mentally juggle 13 concepts at once and somehow get them into writing so an evaluator can say yes……..How is that good for education and students? The answer is it’s not. The edtpa REAKS OF SELF ABSORBED HIGHER UP WHO ARE ONLY TRYING TO STROKE THEIR OWN EGOS by way of creating a project that has nothing to do with effective teaching but rather by designing a hoop jumping scheme that says “I designed the edtpa and I’m really smart and I want to feel good about myself”….You people are sick…seriously sick. Go away.
Gabriel – given that EdTPA focuses on teaching I’m curious how your biology knowledge regressed…also do you simply lecture in your biology classes or do you engage your students (that’s the type of pedagogy EdTPA focuses on – student centered pedagogy)
I’m sorry but you are not correct. I passed the EdTpa. The test was nonsense. It was rhetorical rhetoric that unnecessarily wordy. Additionally, it did not judge how well I could teach. It judged how well I could decode the directions of the Edtpa. It was wasteful and by no means a measurement of my ability to teach!!!!
Tamia – here’s my question for you – did you take the Praxis exam? Do you think they were measurements of teaching? How did it not examine your teaching?
We were not required to take the Praxis. Again, it would have been a better idea to have classroom observations. The EdTPA information I submitted totaled 122 pages. Ridiculous! Come watch me teach. Review my lesson plans. See how I engage my students. Those 122 pages did NOT measure my ability to teach my students.
Are you telling me that NO one observed you teach at all? Then that’s a concern with the program that you had. Doctor’s have medical boards. Lawyers have the bar…was edTPA the only assessment you had to take for certification. That’s rather interesting…many states require the praxis…Also, isn’t part of edTPa reviewing your lesson plans and watching you teach (granted, in a video component)…How long were your normal lesson plans? And if you were to take all of the components that you did every day for a class (lesson plans, assessments, etc) how many pages would that have been? Just wondering.
Read up, jlsteach. Tamia’s experience is pretty typical. The edTPA has been widely panned as a time suck, whose grading is veiled in obscurity, is expensive and gives little useful feedback to a novice teacher. Even if your on the ground observers think you’re terrific, in many states the edTPA serves as a gatekeeper which can exclude a traditionally prepared teacher from the classroom.
Christine – I have read plenty and have done my own research which shares a different perspective – that the edTPA helps candidates really reflect on their own teaching and consider how they apply things in their early years of teaching. Maybe it’s the way that it was implemented at Tamia’s teacher preparation program, or in other programs. If those in teacher prep programs present it as a time suck, then its understandable that students will view it that way…BUT if TPP see connections to the work in their districts (such as observation protocols, etc) then maybe it would be different. Once it’s finalized I will certainly share here my own research working with a set of secondary math candidates who completed edTPA and how they view the “educativity” of the assessment.
Speaking of time sucks, I’d argue that Praxis II Pedagogy is a huge time suck (research has shown that there is no connection between that test and quality teaching). There isn’t the research on edTPA for that.
Could not have stated it better myself!
Could not have stated it better myself Christine!
EdTPA is flat out the hardest thing about earning your teaching degree. I’ve failed it once already. I’m graduating from my masters program in two weeks and considering changing my profession before I even start.
Just sharing so that others who are struggling know they’re not alone!
I just passed the edTPA last week. It was not overly difficult, but I did feel that it was overly tedious. You have to be a good/decent essay writer in order to pass it. Being a good BullS***ter will come in handy, too. The key is: Tell them exactly what they want to hear…follow the rubrics. All in all, I wish they would just get rid of it!
Wow! I feel you’re pain. Edtpa is truly ridiculous. I’m interning under a teacher of 34 years and she said that she is impressed with how well I teach and handle the students, but if I don’t pass Edtpa it’s all for nothing. I already have a job offer and I’ve passed the certification test. Teaching is more than putting lesson plans together. You actually have to keep students engaged, despite the different backgrounds they may come from or the troubles they may have with peer pressure. Teacher’s pay says it all. We are not viewed as professionals but baby sitters. They’re making it harder and harder to become an educator, but at the same time crying about teacher shortages. I have to pass Edtpa and still be evaluated by my university supervisor and school cooperating teacher for 3 weeks. So if they say I’m a qualified to teach and Edtpa says I’m not, then what? Absolutely ridiculous!
Who can one go to lodge a complaint? A letter to the board of educators in the state we are trying to graduate from? So many discouraged potential educators with a LOT to say. It should be spoken to the people who actually have a say. Logical and well-communicated concerns are likely to at least be considered, right?
Being honestly harangued by this right now!
I also am feeling very defeated and pushed away from the profession. It breaks my heart. I have worked in special education for 5 years. I have subbed for teachers many times, gen Ed and special Ed. I know my worth as a teacher and it’s much more than whatever EdTPA says it is. It’s frustrating because if you don’t pass and you’re already out of student teaching, what are you supposed to do? I’m so frustrated and done with this. My school requires it, my state does not. That’s another VERY frustrating part. I’ve been crying so much over this.