From the Center for Investigative Reporting

by Jackie Mader

NORTHRIDGE, Calif. – It took less than a minute for Mario Martinez to finish the first six questions of the algebra exam that his professor, Ivan Cheng, had just handed to him. The high school-level test was supposed to be a good example of an exam so that the graduate students in Cheng’s math methods course at California State University, Northridge’s school of education would better understand what rigorous high school-level questions look like and how to write tests for their own lessons.

Members from around the nation joined together at this year’s Annual Meeting to engage in conversations about edTPA, its impact, powerful potential, and usefulness as a tool to assess beginning teachers’ readiness to teach. Opening with a breakfast for members of the national Teacher Performance Assessment Consortium (TPAC), representatives from the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE), AACTE and Pearson updated members on edTPA’s current stage of development and implementation.

From Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
by Jamaal Abdul-Alim

ORLANDO, Fla. — When Evelyn Perry — an administrator within the School of Education and Urban Studies at Morgan State University — first learned about a relatively new teacher assessment tool known as edTPA, her first reaction was, “This is a lot of work.”