Teacher Performance Assessment in the Age of Accountability: The Case of the edTPA

Teacher Performance Assessment in the Ageof Accountability: The Case of the edTPABy Celina Chatman Nelson, Amy Waechter-Versaw, Carole P. Mitchener, and Victoria Chou

http://ruepi.uic.edu

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Celina ChatmanNelson is a visitingprogram associate inthe College ofEducation at theUniversity of Illinois

at Chicago.

Amy Waechter-Versaw is a doctoralcandidate inCurriculum &Instruction:Language, Literacy,

and Culture in the College ofEducation at the University ofIllinois at Chicago.

Carole P. Mitcheneris an AssociateProfessor and theAssociate Dean ofAcademic Affairs inthe College of

Education at the University ofIllinois at Chicago.

Victoria Chou isDean Emerita of theCollege of Educationat the University ofIllinois at Chicagoand principal

investigator on a Teacher QualityPartnership grant.

policyBRIEFUIC Research on Urban Education Policy Initiative

July 2014

Vol. 3, Book 2

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYLegislatures in several states,including Illinois, have begun tomandate the use of assessmentsfor evaluating in-service teacherseffectiveness and preserviceteachers readiness to teach. TheedTPA, a teacher performanceassessment originally developedas a professional developmenttool, is already being formallyimplemented in seven states andis being considered in at least fourothers as a precondition forlicensing. While states are enactingsuch assessment policies to ensurethat teacher candidates areprepared to enter the teacherworkforce and engage in effectiveinstruction, they can be improvedin several ways. Because suchassessments are not well suited fordirectly predicting teachercandidates later teachingeffectiveness, they should not beused at this point for licensuredecisions. However, theseassessments can be very useful for

evaluating how well teachercandidates use data about studentlearning to inform their practice,and for informing teachereducation program developmentand improvement.

UIC Research on Urban Education Policy Initiative

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INTRODUCTIONLegislatures in several states,including Illinois, have begun tomandate the use of assessments forevaluating in-service teacherseffectiveness and preserviceteachers readiness to teach. TheedTPA, a teacher performanceassessment originally developed asa professional development tool, isalready being formallyimplemented in seven states and isbeing considered in at least fourothers as a precondition forlicensing. While states are enactingsuch assessment policies to ensurethat teacher candidates areprepared to enter the teacherworkforce and engage in effectiveinstruction, they can be improvedin several ways. Because suchassessments are not well suited fordirectly predicting teachercandidates later teachingeffectiveness, they should not beused at this point for licensuredecisions. However, theseassessments can be very useful forevaluating how well teachercandidates use data about studentlearning to inform their practice,and for informing teachereducation program developmentand improvement. In this brief, wetake a close look at states teacherperformance assessment policiesand offer recommendations forhow such policies can be developedand refined in ways that focus oninputs rather than outputs inimproving the quality of individualteachers and the teacher workforce.

TEACHER PERFORMANCEASSESSMENT IN THE AGEOF ACCOUNTABILITY Teacher performance assessmentpolicies as they are beingimplemented today can be tracedback to teacher education reformsof the 1970s which themselves werebased in broader educationalreforms.1 The Elementary andSecondary Education Act (ESEA) of1965 was the federal governmentsfirst formal legislation regulating K-12 education and it included,among other provisions, grants tostates to improve the quality ofteacher preparation at colleges anduniversities. Less than two decadeslater, federal policy had movedfrom supporting teacherpreparation to making itaccountable for teacher quality.

The National Commission onEducational Excellence released itsreport A Nation at Risk in 1983,calling for accountability amongcolleges and universities for thequality of the teachers theyprepare.2 Among its findings, thecommission reported that publicschool students in the United Statesoverall compared poorly tostudents in other nations onnumerous indicators, making theU.S. less economically competitiveas a nation. The report alsoacknowledged the importance ofcontinuing to address issues ofequity while raising studentachievement overall. Thecommission proposed promotion

of excellence as a solution to thesedual issues, and thereforerecommended setting highstandards for academicachievement in the core subjects.3

Thus began the present era ofstandards-based reform inAmericas public schools, which upuntil recently still focused on inputsto teacher quality.

The Improving Americas SchoolsAct passed in 1994 focused onadopting world-class contentstandards, supported byrecommendations by the NationalResearch Council for aligningcurriculum, instruction, andassessment with standards. But thislegislation was low-stakes, intendedprimarily to use standards-basedassessment as a way of improvingstudent learning and achievementoutcomes.4 The stakes were raisedin the 2002 reauthorization of ESEAor the No Child Left Behind (NCLB)Act, which called for even greateraccountability by requiring states tohave highly-qualified teachers inevery school and linking escalatingsanctions to students performanceon standardized tests ofachievement. Thus, federalapproaches to teacher educationreform shifted from focusing oninputs (supports to preparationprograms) in the original ESEA tooutputs (effects on studentachievement, or teachereffectiveness) in NCLB.

The American Recovery andReinvestment Act of 2009 (the

1 Eileen Sclan and Linda Darling-Hammond, Beginning Teacher Performance Evaluation: An Overview of State Policies. (Trends and Issues Paper No.7) (Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Teacher Education, 1992).

2 A Nation at Risk (Washington, DC, The National Commission on Educational Excellence, 1983).3 Jim Flaitz, Assessment for Learning: US Perspectives, in Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns, and Prospects, 14 (Special Issue):

Assessment Reform in Education, eds. Rita Berry and Bob Adamson (Hong Kong: Springer, 2011): 33-47.4 Robert J. Marzano and John S. Kendall (1996). A comprehensive guide to designing standards-based districts, schools, and classrooms. Alexandria,

VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Teacher Performance Assessment

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federal Stimulus) raised the stakesfor teachers and the programs thatprepare them, setting aside $4.35billion for the federal Race to theTop program. This programprovided competitive grants tostates partly based on theircommitment to evaluate practicingteachers. Such evaluations were inturn required to be grounded partlyin students demonstrated learninggains as indicated by changes instudents year to year performanceon standardized tests ofachievementnotwithstandingthat these tests were neitherdeveloped nor validated for thispurpose.5 Now, persistent pressurefrom various educationstakeholders (e.g., independentpolicy organizations and thinktanks such as Students First, andthe National Council on TeacherQuality [NCTQ]) for schools anddistricts to demonstrateaccountability for student learninghas extended to teacher educationprograms, calling for theirevaluation to be based not only onthe quality but also theeffectiveness of the teachers theyproduce.6

It is important to note here that theteaching profession, in associationwith organizations such as theAmerican Association for Collegesof Teacher Education (AACTE),Council for the Accreditation of

Educator Preparation (CAEP,formerly NCATE), and with otherhigher education stakeholders,already had begun to focus onaccountability for the quality of theteacher workforce and specificallyteachers impact on studentlearning. However, as in theoriginal ESEA provisions, theteaching profession initiallyfocused more on inputs like teacherquality rather than outputs.7 Thisgrassroots professionalizationeffort8 established a nationwidemovement to set high standards forinitial preparation, licensing, andcertification of teachers as part of acontinuum of standards-basedprofessional developmentthroughout a teaching career.9 Longrecognizing the need to emphasizestudent learning more explicitlyboth in the initial preparation ofteacher candidates and in ongoingteacher development across thecareer span, the teachingprofession supported thedevelopment of tools such as theDanielson Groups Framework forTeaching and the National Boardfor Professional Teaching Standards(NBPTS) certification. Both of thesetools specify what teachers shouldknow and be able to do, andinclude at their core the carefulanalysis of classroom and studentdata to evaluate quality teaching.Performance assessment forpreservice teachers grew directly

out of these efforts, presenting thepotential for the profession tocreate a continuum of professionaldevelopment standards frompreservice teaching through thespan of a teaching career.

PRESERVICE TEACHERPERFORMANCEASSESSMENT POLICIES:HISTORY, EVIDENCE, ANDKEY CONSIDERATIONS

HISTORY OF TEACHERPERFORMANCEASSESSMENT POLICIES

The roots of recently enactedpreservice teacher performanceassessment policies can be tracedback to policies instituted inCalifornia in the early 1990s. At thistime, teacher education scholars inCalifornia10 were already working toidentify common standards forwhat teachers should know and beable to do, meaningful ways toassess new teachers acquisition ofthat knowledge and skill base, andassociated improvements to theteacher education curriculumaccordingly. Indeed, teacherperformance assessment policy inCalifornia was driven largely by theprofessionalization agenda inteacher education reform efforts. In1992 Californias Senate Bill 1422mandated that teacher preparation

5 Jim Flaitz, Assessment for Learning: US Perspectives.6 Michael J. Feuer et al., Evaluation of Teacher Preparation Programs: Purposes, Methods, and Policy Options. (Washington, DC: National Academy of

Education, 2013); Jian Wang et al., Understanding Teacher Education Reform, Journal of Teacher Education 61, no. 5 (2010): 395-402.7 Jerry McBeath, Maria Elena Reyes, and Mary F. Ehrlander, Education Reform in the American States (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing,

Inc, 2008).8 Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Mary Kim Fries, Sticks, Stones, and Ideology: The Discourse of Reform in Teacher Education, Educational

Researcher 30, no. 8 (2001): 3-15. 9 Some states offer a teaching license and others offer a certificate. Although the two differ mostly in terms of their legal implications, in this brief

we use them interchangeably to refer to the process by which states determine that individuals have obtained the minimum agreed-uponknowledge and skills to teach in public school settings and formally confer upon them permission to do so.

10 See Linda Darling-Hammond, Getting Teacher Evaluation Right: What Really Matters for Effectiveness and Improvement (New York and Oxford,OH: Teachers College Press and Learning Forward, 2013); Linda Darling-Hammond et al., Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What TeachersShould Learn and Be Able to Do (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2007).


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programs include performanceassessments in their curricula aspart of an induction initiative tosupport beginning teachers andimprove programs.11 Subsequentlegislation in 1998 (SB 2042) furtherrequired candidates to complete ateacher performance assessment asa precondition for individualteacher licensing. Californiaworked with Educational TestingServices (ETS) to develop theCalifornia Teaching PerformanceAssessment (Cal TPA), aligned withCalifornias standards forprofessional teachers, for thispurpose. Teacher preparationprograms were afforded theopportunity to use Cal TPA or todevelop their own state standards-based performance assessment.Twelve universities in the stateresponded by forming thePerformance Assessment forCalifornia Teachers (PACT)consortium, capitalizing on theircollective capacity and resources todevelop an alternative assessment.

PACTs work resulted in the PACTportfolio of assessments, based inpart on the preexisting NBPTScertification process. Designed topreserve authenticity in teacherperformance assessment andground it in programs values andgoals for their students,12 the PACTinstrument soon garnered growingattention from teacher preparationprograms across the nation. TheTeaching Performance AssessmentConsortium (TPAC) wasestablished in 2002 to take PACT tonational scale. Using the PACT as amodel, the Consortium began work

on a common assessment thatcould be used at institutionsnationwide to inform licensing instates outside of California. Thatassessment, known today as edTPA,was developed at Stanford underthe early direction of Linda Darling-Hammond and was intended toserve as a means for the teachingprofession to take charge of its ownevaluation and its programredesign, beginning with teachercandidates in teacher educationprograms.

According to its developers, edTPAbases assessment of teachingperformance in candidates use ofevidence pertaining to studentlearning. The assessment requiresteacher candidates to analyzestudent artifacts gathered whileteaching a series of self-designedlessons. The student work productsare first analyzed as a whole classset and then with respect to caseexamples of specific individualsneeds (e.g., English languagelearner, special education) to assessstudent success in achievingteacher candidates intendedlearning goals for lesson plans. Thecandidates analysis of studentlearning in this context is intendedto drive her subsequent decision-making and reflective practices,making perceptions of studentlearning the centerpiece of theteaching performance.

Unfortunately, teacherperformance assessment policies ingeneral and those involving edTPAin particular are focused almostexclusively on the summativefunction of the instruments, which

typically evaluates only the studentteaching component as the basisfor determining whether acandidate is ready for theclassroom. As a result, the policiesallow for little or no support for theinstruments educative or formativefunction, which preparescandidates for the student teachingon which they will be evaluated andenhances their learning anddevelopment within theirprograms. While candidatesperformance on the assessmentscan and should inform programimprovement and redesign asinputs to improving the quality ofthe teacher workforce overall,current policies may shift theemphasis to outputs. Teachereducators and teacher candidates,in particular, may becomeespecially concerned with the high-stakes nature of the assessment forteacher licensure.

THE EVIDENCE: EDUCATIVEAND SUMMATIVEFUNCTIONS OFPRESERVICE TEACHERPERFORMANCEASSESSMENTS

To be sure, the move among statesto require candidates to passauthentic assessments of teacherperformance as a precondition forlicensing is an improvement oversystems that require only a paper-and-pencil test.13 The contentvalidity of paper-and-pencil testshas long been challenged sincesuch tests assess basic knowledgeabout teaching but fail to evaluate

11 Andrea Whittaker, Jon Snyder, and Susan Freeman, Restoring Balance: A Chronology of the Development and Uses of the California Standards forthe Teaching Profession, Teacher Education Quarterly 28, no. 1 (2001): 85-107.

12 Ruth R. Chung, Beyond Assessment: Performance Assessments in Teacher Education, Teacher Education Quarterly 35, no. 1 (2008): 7-28. 13 Linda Darling-Hammond and Jon Snyder, Authentic Assessment of Teaching in Context, Teaching and Teacher Education 16 (2000): 523-545.


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authentic teaching in practice.Further, no evidence exists toindicate that paper-and-pencil testsare at all related to the instructionalchoices teachers make or the effectsof instruction on students andclassrooms. Moreover, paper-and-pencil tests are frequently associatedwith a disproportionate impact forcertain groups of test-takers. Forexample, pass rates for Black andLatino/a candidates aredisproportionately lower than thosefor White and Asian candidates,14

affecting the teacher pipeline forschools and districts and ultimatelythe students who would otherwisebenefit from a highly-qualified butmore racially and ethnically diverseteaching pool. Teacher performanceassessments such as edTPA are nowbeing heralded as a way to correctfor the deficiencies of paper-and-pencil tests, thereby improvingquality, learning, and developmentfor all teachers as well as for teacherpreparation programs and curricula.

As teacher educators in Californiaworked to develop teacherperformance assessments over thepast several decades, researcherslaunched investigations intowhether these assessments in factdo what they are intended to do. Theresearch base is relatively scant, butpromising. Research on teacherperformance assessment, basedlargely on Californias edTPApredecessors CalTPA and PACT,addresses four general questions:

1. Does teacher performanceassessment adequately measurea candidates readiness to teach?

2. Does teacher performanceassessment enhance candidatelearning and development ofskills?

3. Does teacher performanceassessment inform programcurriculum development andimprovement?

4. Does teacher performanceassessment predict beginningteacher effectiveness?

Below we summarize the evidencefor each of these questions exceptthe last, on teacher effectiveness. Weoffer some final thoughts on thisissue later, at the end of this brief.

Does teacher performanceassessment adequately measure acandidates readiness to teach? Sinceteacher performance assessment isbased on standards for whatteachers should know and be able todo, it has great appeal for assessingteacher knowledge and skills. Mostof the research investigating thevalidity of teacher performanceassessments is based on the PACT,the direct predecessor to edTPA.Developers of the edTPA have alsocited research on instrumentsdesigned to assess performance forin-service teachers, including theNBPTS assessment andConnecticuts Beginning EducatorTraining and Support assessment, as

Teacher educators

report that teacher

performance

assessments allow

them to better

understand

candidate strengths

and weaknesses,

support candidates,

and make

necessary curricular

and program

improvements.

14 Raymond L. Pecheone and Ruth R. Chung, Evidence in Teacher Education: The PerformanceAssessment for California Teachers (PACT), Journal of Teacher Education 57, no. 1 (2006): 22-36.


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evidence for the edTPAs validity.15

Overall, these measures show goodcontent validitythe assessmentsare tightly aligned with thestandards. In addition, surveys ofK-12 educators have indicated thatthe assessments capture what itmeans to them to be a goodteacher.16 The measures also showgood construct validity, whichmeans that they generally assesswell candidates readiness to teach.The evidence particularly showsthat edTPA scores are positivelyrelated to alternative indicators ofcandidates readiness to teach,including scores on otherassessments and faculty membersholistic evaluations of thecandidates teaching events.17

Does teacher performanceassessment enhance candidatelearning and development of skills?Teacher performance assessmentwas designed primarily to promoteteacher learning and reflectiveteaching, based on a common set ofstandards for what teachers shouldknow and be able to do. Thealternative assessment that thePACT consortium developed in thelate 1990s, for example, includesboth a separate evaluation of theTeaching Event (or the studentteaching experience) and signature

assessments that are embedded incoursework throughout thepreparation curriculum. Theembedded assessments areintended to be educative orformative in that they are part ofcandidates preparation experience,contributing to their learning anddevelopment of targeted skills. ThePACT Teaching Event is summative,as it is an evaluation of thecandidates readiness to teach,based on the candidatesperformance on her practice as it isenacted in a real classroom settingwith actual students. Only theTeaching Event is scored, and thescore profile is then used to informlicensure decisions about individualcandidates.

Chungs18 case studies and focusgroups in the instruments first yearpilot demonstrated that teacherspaid more attention to studentlearning in their practice as a resultof the performance portfolioassessment. An earlier studydemonstrated that candidatesreport significant learning from theexperience of participating in theassessment, especially when theyare supported within theirprograms.19 Importantly, there wereno systematic differences inperformance on the assessment

across race, ethnicity, or percentageof English language learners anddifferences in socioeconomic statusin candidates classrooms;candidates who were assessed insuburban schools, however, scoredhigher than those in inner-city orurban schools.20

Does teacher performanceassessment inform programcurriculum development andimprovement? Teacher educationprogram leaders and facultyparticipating in early piloting of thePACT reported that results of theirstudents scores on the TeachingEvent formatively guide programreview and revision.21 In addition,scores are positively associatedwith candidates reports of programsupports and preparation,suggesting that aggregated scoresmay be reflective of programquality at least as perceived by thestudents. Finally, teacher educatorsreport that teacher performanceassessmentsparticularly theaggregated student score profilesallow them to better understandcandidate strengths andweaknesses, support candidates,and make necessary curricular andprogram improvements.

15 Linda Darling-Hammond, Stephen P. Newton, and Ruth Chung Wei,Developing and Assessing Beginning Teacher Effectiveness: The Potential ofPerformance Assessments (Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning andEquity (SCALE), 2010); Ruth C. Wei and Raymond L. Pecheone, Performance-Based Assessments as High-Stakes Events and Tools for Learning, inHandbook of Teacher Assessment and Teacher Quality, ed. Mary M. Kennedy (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2010): 69-132; Mark Wilson et al.,UsingStudent Achievement Test Scores as Evidence of External Validity for Indicators of Teacher Quality: Connecticuts Beginning Educator Support andTraining Program (Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity(SCALE), 2010).

16 Ruth C. Wei and Raymond L. Pecheone, Evidence in Teacher Education: The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT).17 Linda Darling-Hammond, Stephen P. Newton, and Ruth Chung Wei,Developing and Assessing Beginning Teacher Effectiveness: The Potential of

Performance Assessments; Pecheone and Chung, Evidence in Teacher Education: The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT);Ruth C. Wei and Raymond L. Pecheone, Performance-Based Assessments as High-Stakes Events and Tools for Learning; Wilson et al.,UsingStudent Achievement Test Scores as Evidence of External Validity for Indicators of Teacher Quality: Connecticuts Beginning Educator Support andTraining Program.

18 Ruth Chung, Beyond Assessment: Performance Assessments in Teacher Education.19 Raymond L. Pecheone and Ruth R. Chung, Evidence in Teacher Education: The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT).20 Ibid.21 Ibid.


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KEY CONSIDERATIONS:STAKEHOLDERPOSITIONING,INFRASTRUCTURE, ANDRESOURCES

Collectively, Californias teacherpreparation, licensing, andinduction policies paved the wayfor the proliferation of current statepolicies around teacherperformance assessmentthroughout the nation. The edTPAis already being formallyimplemented in seven states and isbeing considered in at least fourothers; at least one program in 22other states has piloted it.22

Throughout the process of scalingup edTPA, in some instancesteacher preparation programs(especially those residing ininstitutions of higher education)have been positioned in ways thatconflict with state agendas. In someinstances, teacher preparationprograms have found themselves asimportant participants in acollaborative decision-makingprocess, while they have beenabsent from that process altogetherin other states. The relativepositioning of teacher preparationprograms in the decision-makingprocesses around teacherperformance assessment policydevelopment, implementation, andrefinement interacts withinfrastructure and resourcedistribution in ways that cancompromise professionalaccountability as originallyintended by edTPAs developers.

Stakeholder Positioning. States

collaboration with stakeholders indesigning and implementingteacher performance assessmentpolicies is critical for theirsuccessful implementation, such asit was in California. In Minnesota,for example, where the state hasformally adopted the edTPA,implementation has been acollaborative effort amongpolicymakers, teacher preparationprograms, and school systems. Infall 2010, before the legislaturemandated performanceassessment, the Minnesota Boardof Teaching and the MinnesotaAssociation of Colleges for TeacherEducation (MACTE) conducted thefirst TPA Implementation Summit,established a TPA SteeringCommittee, and then hired a TPAcoordinator using grant fundsprovided by the Bush Foundation.The Minnesota Board of Teachingformally adopted edTPA in 2011 asthe statewide performanceassessment tool that would be usedto meet the state new legalrequirements for programaccreditation. As part of theimplementation process, all 31Minnesota teacher educationprograms within institutions ofhigher education began requiringtheir teacher candidates tocomplete the edTPA starting withthe 2012-13 academic year.23

Although New York also hasadopted the edTPA, its policy hasbeen developed and implementedmuch differently than inMinnesota. Teacher preparationprograms in New York were held toan extremely tight timeline for

implementing the edTPA. In spring2012, the state announced thatedTPA with its high bar for passingthe assessment would go into effecton May 1, 2014 with only a one-yearpilot, making 2013-14 aconsequential year. There was lesstime in New York than in Minnesotafor teacher preparation programs tocreate systems for administeringthe assessment and lesscollaboration among stakeholdersin developing and implementingthe policy. As a result, New Yorksteacher educators have engaged inpublic and sometimes contentiousdialogue around the edTPA policyand its implementation.

Infrastructure. Taking the examplesof Minnesota and New York a stepfurther, stakeholder positioningparticularly that of the state boardsof education and the teacherpreparation programs charged withadministering edTPA to theirstudentsbears some relation toinfrastructural issues inimplementing teacher performanceassessment policies. As inCalifornia, the Minnesota stateboard of education worked closelywith teacher preparation programsat every level of policydevelopment, allowingrepresentatives to have some inputin selecting the teacherperformance assessment thatwould be used, deciding whatwould constitute a passing scoreon the assessment and what sort ofremediation process would beused, and identifying timelines andstructures (e.g., time for practice)that needed to be put in place

22 The non-profit Educational Testing Services (ETS) has been working since 2010 with state officials and teacher education professionals in Missourito develop the Praxis Performance Assessment for Teachers (PPAT) which is similar to edTPA. Since this instrument was only recently introducedand has just begun field-testing, we do not have enough information to include it in our analysis. Therefore, we focus largely on edTPA as anexample.

23 History of edTPA Minnesota, www.edtpaminnesota.org/about/history/.


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before the policy was rolled out.Since decision-making wascollaborative in California and inMinnesota, with multiplestakeholders at the table, the stateswere armed with expert knowledgethat helped them to put all thepieces in place for refining the policyand providing for smoothimplementation. In New York,however, teacher preparationprograms were not brought onboard until much later in theprocess, and therefore foundthemselves less prepared toadminister the assessment with fewto no supports and in a shortamount of time. Because edTPArequires significant time, planning,and human resources to administer,a lack of infrastructure is likely toundermine or at least attenuate itsability to function as a formativeassessment for improving preserviceteachers knowledge and skills, andnot just as a summative assessmentto be used for licensure decisions.

Resources. Although the introductionof standardized performanceassessments in teacher education isa national movement, performance-based assessments are not new andtypically have been embedded inteacher preparation programs. Forexample, student teachingevaluations have always served asprogram-based performanceassessments. Because edTPA andsimilar assessments are intended tobe standardized, however, theiradministration requires morehuman and other material resourcesthan individual preparationprograms can afford. Thedevelopment and piloting ofinstruments such as the PACT andthe edTPA were originally made

possible by the availability ofexternal funds. Minnesota, forexample, had foundation supportwhich allowed it to provide multipleprofessional development sessionsin a coherent statewide effort. Suchfunds are not available to manyteacher preparation programs thatare now or soon to be mandated bytheir states to administer theseassessments. Indeed, in efforts toscale-up edTPA nationally, theoriginal developers have partneredwith Pearson, the for-profit test-developer, to administer and scorethe assessment. Critics argue thatoutsourcing to Pearson represents acommercialization of teachereducation, taking it out of the handsof the professionals and divorcing itfrom their expert knowledge aboutteaching and the communities theircandidates are being prepared toserve.

PRESERVICE TEACHERPERFORMANCEASSESSMENT POLICY INILLINOIS Illinois is one of the six states thatparticipated in piloting edTPA in2012. The administration of such anassessment is now mandatedthrough legislation that, beginningSeptember 1, 2015, will require allcandidates enrolled in state-approved teacher preparationprograms to pass an evidence-based assessment of teachereffectiveness approved by the StateBoard of Education, in consultationwith the State Educator Preparationand Licensure Board.24 The statehas selected edTPA as the evidence-based assessment it will use for thispurpose and, as of the writing of this

24 See 105 ILCS 5/21B-30 [f ], from SB 1799.

Because edTPA and

similar assessments

are intended to be

standardized, their

administration

requires more

human and other

material resources

than individual

preparation

programs can

afford.


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25 Illinois State Board of Education, edTPA: An Evidence-Based Assessment of Teacher Effectiveness, www.isbe.net/licensure/pdf/higher-ed/edTPA/edTPA-informational-doc.pdf.

brief, is working to determine anappropriate cut scorethe scorethat candidates must achieve to belicensed. The edTPA is intended tocomplement rather than replacecurrent assessments required bythe Illinois State Board ofEducation (ISBE) and by theindividual programs in whichcandidates are enrolled. Accordingto a November 2013 letter ofmemorandum issued by the IllinoisState Board of Education (ISBE),edTPA is meant to serve as acapstone assessment andcomplements other assessments ofteacher readiness required by ISBEand the candidates individualprogram of study.25

Illinois candidates for teacherlicensure currently must completesix to eight different assessmentswithin their state-approvedpreparation programs before beingentitled for licensure. Individualprograms have some latitude increating and utilizing two or threeassessments of their own, based ontheir programs values and goals fortheir students; but there are threecommon assessments that arerequired for all preservice teachersenrolled in Illinois-approvedpreparation programs. Allprospective applicants for anIllinois license must first pass astate test of basic skills in reading,language arts, and mathematicsbefore they are approved tocommence student teachingcurrently the Test of AcademicProficiency (TAP). Applicants mayalso qualify with ACT scores equalto or greater than 22 composite,with writing. All applicants mustalso pass a test of content area

knowledge for all subjects theyintend to teach prior to studentteaching. Finally, all applicantsmust also pass the assessment ofprofessional teaching (APT) as arequirement for completing theeducator preparation program.Passing the TAP, all content areaknowledge assessments, and theAPT allows the institution of highereducation to entitle the candidateto receive an initial Illinois teachinglicense, but under the new policythe candidate must also pass theedTPA prior to being licensed.

Although Illinois policy hasdetermined that all programs mustuse edTPA as their capstoneassessment and that all candidatesmust obtain a minimum score asdetermined by the state in order tobe licensed to teach, teachers andteacher educators have played areasonably active role in thedecision-making process up to thispoint. Most notably, IllinoisCollege, Illinois State University,and the University of Illinois atChicago were pioneers in the state,having been selected to participatein the pilot for edTPA. Workingclosely with the national TPAC,these institutions joined withrepresentatives from ISBE staff andthe Illinois Association of Collegesfor Teacher Education (IACTE) toform the Illinois TeacherPerformance AssessmentConsortium (IL-TPAC). As a result,teacher performance assessmentpolicy in Illinois has alreadyundergone several iterations andcontinues to change even as thepolicy is being implemented. Forexample, teacher performanceassessment was at first presented as

high-stakes since licensing isconditioned on it; however, ruleshave changed such that candidatescan retake the assessment as manytimes as they want, therebylowering the stakes considerably.These changes can be attributed inpart to pushback from teacherpreparation programs and thestudents enrolled in them, andfrom feedback from IL-TPAC.

RECOMMENDATIONSAs preservice teacher performanceassessment roll-out continues inIllinois, it will be important toensure that the original policyachieves what it is intended to. Wemake the followingrecommendations based on ouranalysis of the history, evidence,and current landscape for teacherperformance assessment policiesnationwide:

States must continue tocollaborate with preparationprograms and the institutions inwhich they are housed andPreK-12 professionals todevelop, implement, and refineteacher performanceassessment policies.

To the extent possible,professional developmentshould be disentangled fromevaluation in order to capitalizeon both the educative andsummative functions of teacherperformance assessment.

Policies should take intoaccount infrastructural andresource constraints that mayinhibit educative as well as


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summative functions of teacherperformance assessment. Asnew requirements andassessments are added, statesshould concurrently considerwhich requirements andassessments may be eliminated.

To the extent possible, bothpolicy development andimplementation should takerelevant research and lessonsfrom other states intoconsideration. The state shouldinvest in monitoring andevaluating whether the policyand implementation yield theintended outcomes.

FINAL THOUGHTSThe predictive validity of teacherperformance assessment appears tobe what state policymakers are mostinterested in. Interestingly, theevidence on this pointthesummative function of teacherperformance assessmentsis moremixed than that on their educativefunctions of enhancing teacherlearning and development andinforming program improvement.Although PACT scores have beenshown later to predict candidatesstudents performance in Englishand math in a single study26 it isinappropriate to use preserviceteacher performance assessment topredict candidates later teachingeffectiveness. Aside from the host ofmethodological problems citedregarding the use of standardizedtest scores to measure teachingeffectiveness,27 for preserviceteachers the probability of statisticalerror is increased by the lag between

the assessment and the collection ofstudent outcome data. Moreover, theassessments were designed toevaluate how well candidates usedata about student learning toinform their practice, but not theeffect of those practices on theextent to which students actuallylearn. It is imperative that theteaching and learning community,policymakers included, keep thesecomplexities in mind in efforts tolink teacher practices to studentachievement.

26 Linda Darling-Hammond, Stephen P. Newton, and Ruth Chung Wei,Developing and AssessingBeginning Teacher Effectiveness:The Potential of Performance Assessments.

27 Jim Flaitz, Assessment for Learning: US Perspectives.

States must

continue to

collaborate with

preparation

programs and PreK-

12 professionals to

develop, implement,

and refine teacher

performance

assessment

policies.

This brief was supported by the Chicago Teacher Partnership Project, funded by a U.S. Department of EducationTeacher Quality Partnership grant.


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ABOUT USThe Research on Urban Education Policy Initiative (RUEPI) is an education policy research project based inthe University of Illinois at Chicago College of Education. RUEPI was created in response to one of the mostsignificant problems facing urban education policy: dialogue about urban education policy consistently failsto reflect what we know and what we do not about the problems education policies are aimed at remedying.Instead of being polemic and grounded primarily in ideology, public conversations about education shouldbe constructive and informed by the best available evidence.

OUR MISSIONRUEPIs work is aimed at fostering more informed dialogue and decision-making about education policy inChicago and other urban areas. To achieve this, we engage in research and analysis on major policy issuesfacing these areas, including early childhood education, inclusion, testing, STEM education, and teacherworkforce policy. We offer timely analysis and recommendations that are grounded in the best availableevidence.

OUR APPROACHGiven RUEPIs mission, the projects work is rooted in three guiding principles. While these principles are notgrounded in any particular political ideology and do not specify any particular course of action, they lay afoundation for ensuring that debates about urban education policy are framed by an understanding of howeducation policies have fared in the past. The principles are as follows:

Education policies should be coherent and strategic

Education policies should directly engage with what happens in schools and classrooms

Education policies should account for local context

RUEPI policy briefs are rooted in these principles, written by faculty in the University of Illinois at ChicagoCollege of Education and other affiliated parties, and go through a rigorous peer-review process.

Learn more at http://ruepi.uic.edu

CONTACT US

[email protected]://ruepi.uic.edu

facebook.com/ruepi

FOLLOW US

policyBRIEFUIC Research on Urban Education Policy Initiative

1040 West Harrison StreetChicago, Illinois 60607

Documents

Teacher Performance Assessment in the Age of Accountability: The Case of the edTPA