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.”

Congratulations to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standard for winning a $3 million Investing in Innovation Grant to move forward with an initiative to improve teacher training in math and science. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the Teacher Performance Assessment Consortium are proud partners in this effort. The grant will allow the National Board, with the help of its partners, to build an online repository of classroom videos and other resources that help illustrate master teaching.

Read Full National Board Press Release

An article written by Marcy Singer-Gabella, edTPA coordinator of Vanderbilt University, has been published in the Hechinger Report. The opinion piece, entitled “New Way of Testing Rookie Teachers Could Be a Game Changer”, focuses on edTPA as an answer to challenges associated with teacher preparation and effectiveness. To read the full article, click the link below:

New Way of Testing Rookie Teachers Could Be a Game Changer

A feature article in The New York Times offered an in-depth look at the purpose, goals and design elements of the edTPA. In the piece, edTPA officials and participants discuss the initiative’s progress and the impact it stands to have on the educator preparation profession.

It is important to offer comments regarding the work our colleagues have been engaged in to produce a nationally available performance assessment. A recent New York Times column positioned the Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) as motivated or inspired by the commercial interests of one of the major test publishers. AACTE regards the TPA quite differently, viewing it as the result of hard work to create an essential tool using professional consensus. AACTE President and CEO Sharon P. Robinson, Ed.D., expanded on this perspective in a recent letter entitled “The Professional Community and the TPA.”

AACTE has also provided answers to common questions about the TPA here. We look forward to working together with you as colleagues to continue moving educator preparation toward program outcomes we are confident will push the needle on student achievement.

Pearson’s press release announces that the field test for the Teacher Performance Assessment is under way. Pearson anticipates receiving nearly 10,000 candidate submissions from participating educator preparation programs across 25 states and 180 educator preparation programs. To view the press release in full, please click the following link:Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) Field Test Underway