Dear Commons Community,
“Under pressure from lawmakers, as well as some teacher colleges and the state teachers’ union, New York’s Board of Regents just approved a policy delaying a video-based teacher performance assessment (edTPA) of practice for new teachers.
It is the second delay for the exam in the Empire State—an action raising questions about whether the state will hold fast to its timelines for several other new content exams rolling out this spring.
Under the new policy, teacher candidates who fulfill all other licensing requirements by July 1, 2015, but fail the edTPA, short for teacher performance assessment, can be granted an initial certificate as long as they pass a writing-skills exam by that date.
Under the old policy, the exam was required for all candidates as of May 1 of this year.
The state assembly is still scheduled to hold a hearing on the edTPA tomorrow, and had been threatening to advance legislation to delay the exam if the education department didn’t move. That bill, introduced in both houses of the state legislature, would prevent the edTPA from being used to deny a license until July 2015.”
The edTPA was originally developed by Linda Darling-Hammond at Stanford University and is administered by Pearson Education. It has come under scrutiny and criticism but also is seen as an upgrading of the certification requirements for new teachers. To date, the New York State Education department reports that the pass rate from the approximately 1,600 candidates who have submitted their edTPA portfolios and received their scores is 83 percent, far higher than what the original standards-setting projected.
Tony
