Barbara Madeloni’s career as an academic activist hit a high last spring. A lecturer in education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she was crusading against a new program that outsourced assessments of teacher performance to the educational firm Pearson.
Her students so strongly supported her stance that most balked at fully participating in UMass field tests of the program. In May, her efforts were the subject of an article in The New York Times.
Comments
From what I read, only one UMass student chose to participate in the Pearson assessment. Were they compensated for their participation, for their time? To think a PUBLIC University planned to use their students as research ginny pigs, so that a private company could use their findings, to provide credibility for a commercial teacher evaluation product. Just outrageous! Where is the ethics? How much did Pearson pay UMass?
For those states that don't have "rigorous standards for teacher licensing” it’s time for them to pony up and provide them, and not think they can pass that responsibility to corporations, like Pearson, who are out to make a fast buck. I'll be signing this petition, which is up to 1,801 signatures today!
http://www.change.org/petitions/university-of-massachusetts-at-amherst-rehire-professor-madeloni-and-protect-academic-freedom-2
As a former teacher educator at San Jose State University and the director of Teacher Performance Assessment at Stanford University who helped develop the assessment described in this story, I’d like to respond to misconceptions about edTPA.
More than 700 educators and more than 160 institutions of higher learning in 22 states helped Stanford University develop and field test edTPA. edTPA is not “a Pearson program” as the story says. Members of the profession built this assessment to measure what entering teachers can do in the classroom.
As teacher candidates go through edTPA's process, they develop and teach curriculum units that focus on student strengths and needs, are videotaped while teaching to demonstrate how they engage students, collect and analyze evidence of student learning, and explain their ongoing teaching decisions.
This assessment has grown quickly because educator preparation programs want an objective measure that reflects the real work of teaching, supports the learning of candidates, and gives useful feedback to programs that prepare teachers.
Pearson was asked to develop the technology to collect assessment materials and manage the scoring processes to meet growing demand. However, educators at Stanford University direct the assessment development, scoring design and implementation in collaboration with expert practitioners and the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education.
The notion of independent evaluators reviewing portfolios and videos is not new. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has done this for years for veteran teachers. Like the National Board, edTPA scorers are accomplished teachers and teacher educators with subject matter and teaching expertise who are calibrated to score reliably.
edTPA can be used with existing measures to help ensure that candidates can demonstrate they are ready to teach effectively. As a faculty member, community member and parent, I want no less from candidates leaving any teacher education program.
Andrea Whittaker, Ph.D.
Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity
The article reporting on Barbara Madeloni's boycott of the edTPA gives inaccurate information about this new teacher assessment. As a long-time elementary school teacher and a current education professor at The City College of New York, I welcome the edTPA. It is not a "lengthy take-home test," but rather the culminating project of student teaching in a preparation program. It asks prospective teachers to plan and carry out a curriculum, assess what students know and can do, and reflect on what they have done to strengthen and support further teaching and learning. Unlike a paper and pencil test, the edTPA actually examines performance in the authentic context of the classroom.
The edTPA was designed and is scored by accomplished teachers and teacher educators from around the country. I believe this strengthens our profession, not only because the assessment creates more useful evidence about what teachers can do, but also because it creates a common language and set of expectations for teaching - defining characteristics of all professions. We should all welcome this opportunity to help teacher education programs deepen our work so that every teacher who assumes responsibility for the learning lives of children can actually teach them well.
Beverly Falk, Ed.D.
Professor and Director, Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Eduction
The City College of New York