Well Prepared Teachers Inspire Student Learning: A New Assessment Designed to Evaluate Teacher Candidates Is Showing That It Also Can Be Valuable in Helping Improve Preparation Programs and Offering Guidance to School Districts about Induction of New Teachers
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We are in an era of transformation in the preparation, induction, and assessment of prospective teachers. States are establishing new policies that incentivize greater choice in preparing new teachers, establishing new standards for teaching, and turning toward greater use of performance based assessments before licensing prospective teachers. Deborah Ball's Teaching Works organization captures this move to competency based assessment well in its astute observation that "Great teachers aren't born; they are taught." We appear to have come a long way in overcoming the pernicious perspective of George Bernard Shaw's infamous quote, "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches." But paradoxes remain. There is a perception that other professions are more difficult, complex, and take years of preparation. Still, some policy makers question why preparing teachers takes so much time, and they question fast track alternatives or lower standards that can ease the pathway into teaching. Such approaches can result in hiring underprepared teachers who often serve children with the most challenging learning needs. Historically, states have the legislative authority and moral and ethical responsibility to set standards for professional practice that significantly affects the public welfare. This is particularly true in fields like medicine, architecture, and teaching, where lack of regulation can do significant harm. The tension between local and state control is at the heart of the debate about whether and how states should assess teaching quality as teachers are licensed and as colleges of education are accredited to do that work. On one hand, vocal groups of faculty claim that colleges and universities are best positioned to assess a prospective teacher's competence because faculty engage and evaluate the candidate throughout their program, and the expert judgment of faculty should be determinant. On the other hand, letting each institution independently recommend prospective teachers for licensure can lead to mixed and possibly weak and squishy standards of practice that aren't uniform, equitable, or comparable across institutions. In effect, this leaves the judgment about a prospective teacher's competence to local districts to exercise independent judgments when they hire teachers. Still others question whether assessments should drive the design and evaluation of teacher education programs, whether high stakes assessment by its very presence corrupts the system, and whether externally developed performance assessments can authentically measure the teaching skills and abilities that teachers need to be ready to teach on Day One (Cochran Smith, Piazza, Powers, 2013) High stakes accountability is disruptive by nature, and no matter how passionate the debate, the stakes remain high for parents/guardians and their children. Dewey said it best: "What I want for my child I want for every child." We believe states should be responsible for establishing performance standards that ensure that new teachers are well prepared, competent, and ready to teach. This is why the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) developed edTPA[TM] a performance based, subject specific assessment and support system that teacher preparation programs throughout the U.S. can use to emphasize, measure, and support the skills and knowledge teacher candidates will need. In this assessment, aspiring teachers prepare a portfolio of materials during their student teaching clinical experience, which includes unedited video recordings of themselves at work in a real classroom. This portfolio is scored by highly trained educators. The assessment allows teacher candidates to: Demonstrate readiness to teach through lesson plans designed to support their students' strengths and needs; Engage real students in ambitious learning; and Analyze whether their students are learning and adjust their instruction to become more effective.