Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN EDUC ATION

Theresa J. Gurl Limarys Caraballo Leslee Grey John H. Gunn David Gerwin Héfer Bembenutty

Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment Affordances and Constraints for Teacher Education Programs 123

SpringerBriefs in Education

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8914

Theresa J. Gurl · Limarys Caraballo Leslee Grey · John H. Gunn David Gerwin · Héfer Bembenutty

Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment Affordances and Constraints for Teacher Education Programs

13

Theresa J. Gurl Queens College City University of New York Queens, NY USA

John H. Gunn Queens College City University of New York Queens, NY USA

Limarys Caraballo Queens College City University of New York Queens, NY USA

David Gerwin Queens College City University of New York Queens, NY USA

Leslee Grey Queens College City University of New York Queens, NY USA

Héfer Bembenutty Queens College City University of New York Queens, NY USA

ISSN 2211-1921 ISSN 2211-193X (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Education ISBN 978-3-319-29144-4 ISBN 978-3-319-29146-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29146-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016930059 © The Author(s) 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by SpringerNature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland

Foreword

Who Decides and Why it Matters The question, “Who decides who becomes a teacher?” is more accurately divided into two questions: “Who decides?” and “Who becomes a teacher?” These questions frame an essential aspect of contemporary education reform, since teacher preparation programs, however they appear and are enacted, will determine the characteristics and nature of the profession. Exploring who decides who becomes a teacher requires recognition of sociocultural realities, such as how the teaching force is increasingly whiter and wealthier than the students it serves. Race and poverty represent important, but hardly singular, signifiers of the cultural dissonances that contribute to continued oppression of learners who deserve culturally sustaining instruction. Teacher preparation programs, if they are to fulfill their transformative potential, must aspire to contribute to an increasingly diverse teaching population. Investigation of the framing question also necessitates consideration of the notion who decides?; that is, who, or what entity, has the right and responsibility to determine what conditions ought to correspond to teaching certification. Traditionally, in the US, certification decisions have been grounded in the expertise of teacher educators and field partners, and then augmented by standardized assessments. Until May 2014, accredited teacher preparation programs in New York State recommended candidates for certification after their degree requirements were complete, then candidates would fulfill supplemental state specification to earn certification. Beginning in May 2014, New York State implemented a mandated performance assessment meant to be completed during student teaching—a performance assessment called edTPA that had been developed at Stanford and was distributed and scored by Pearson. Currently, New York, Washington, Illinois, and Georgia require edTPA for certification. That a standardized assessment would influence certification is not new, but the influence of the assessment on the student teaching experience, the related effects on program curriculum, and the outsourcing of the scoring process, coupled with required proprietary restrictions, marked a new level of control over decisions about who gets certified. Decades of research demonstrate that standardized assessments v

vi

Foreword

reproduce privilege (Au 2008); moreover, an anonymous evaluation can undermine the relationships that are essential to the development of critical dispositions. Relationships are built on mutual vulnerability and trust, and student teachers whose culminating projects are submitted to an anonymous scorer are initiated into a culture of compliance, not critical reflection (Madeloni and Gorlewski 2012). Why does this matter? Public schools have long served numerous, often conflicting purposes. They are sites of assimilation and resistance, of reproduction and transformation, of oppression and freedom. Teachers, as public servants, are simultaneously agents of the state and agents of change. From these conditions emerge substantial questions: How can teachers enact conflicting positions? When stakeholders’ interests conflict, whose are paramount (those of learners, community members, or political leaders)? As the field of education becomes increasingly technical, how can programs prepare teachers to navigate ever-changing seas? The complicated nature of this endeavor is clear. One of the greatest challenges for teachers is to prepare students to live in—to succeed in—a world that does not yet exist. In fact, in a democracy we must prepare them to participate in the creation of that world. Consequently, teacher educators must seek to prepare candidates to prepare their future students for this approaching reality—a world that they must imagine and construct, simultaneously. Teaching is an intensely social, dialogic endeavor. Effective teaching involves an understanding of the dynamic contexts in which cultures are produced and consumed, as well as an appreciation of how educational institutions and the people within them participate in these processes. Educational institutions should strive to model aspirational values: equity, excellence, opportunity, and diversity. Educators are charged to balance the extremes of equity and excellence to expand opportunities for all learners. The role of educators is to create structures in which learning opportunities are maximized. As lifelong scholars, teachers must acquire and continually expand a repertoire of research-based, developmentally appropriate practices so they can create objectives, procedures, and assessments that align to inform further instruction. Good teaching centers on optimizing learning opportunities in a structured environment. The balance between opportunities (freedom/choice) and structure (limits) shifts depending on the characteristics of the content and the needs of the learners. Pedagogical practices must reflect a solid understanding of the cognitive, emotional, linguistic, social, moral and motivational development of learners; instructional approaches should be grounded in empirical knowledge from a variety of disciplines. Promoting the success of all learners requires activation of both equity and integrity. In order to provide an environment committed to equal opportunity, diversity and fairness must be highly valued. High levels of trust, built through integrity, are fundamental to this achievement. In a learning community, everyone is responsible to participate as both teacher and learner. All members of the learning community are entitled to a voice, and each member must know that his or hers will be recognized and heard. Good teaching involves developing goals, priorities, strategies and assessment plans that meet learners where they are and enable them to grow and develop.

Foreword

vii

Teaching requires reflection, critical thinking, dedication to ongoing scholarship, and the willingness to uncover and question assumptions. Educators must prepare students for an anticipated world as we seek to construct spaces for justice in a society that is not always just. Teaching is that simple and that complex. In contrast, a technical perspective of teaching obliterates the political nature of teaching, as well as the significance of relationships in the teaching-learning process. It signals and reinforces a focus on individualism and scarcity, rather than collectivity and abundance. Moreover, educators who participate uncritically in technical assessment activities become disciplined by the institutional and social structures that reinforce the status quo, rather than transformation (Dimitriadis and Hill 2012). One way to address the negative effects of accountability-oriented assumptions about teaching and learning is to reframe our thinking about accountability and assessment, erasing a model of individualism and scarcity and applying a model of connectivity and abundance. That is, educators must consciously work to identify areas of commonality and value, rather than assuming that learners are somehow lacking in knowledge and skills. “Deficit thinking,” in which some people or groups are perceived as deficient, reinforces inequalities. Furthermore, individualism and competition undermine collectivity and solidarity. In terms of edTPA, individualism and competition are reinforced in the processes of submission, scoring, and reporting of results. Connectivity, collectivism, and engagement associate with intellect and activism, in contrast to intelligence and technical expertise related to “best practices.” As Maxine Greene argued, there is no single best practice; rather, there are many best practices. Moreover, Greene reminded us that “Teachers who are consciously and reflectively choosing themselves as participants in school renewal are being challenged to clarify their beliefs and (more and more often) to defend their practices” (1997, n.p.). She challenges teachers to engage with the communities wherein they work, enacting “pedagogies of hope” (Freire 1995) in order to “exist proactively in the world” (Greene 1997). Engulfed in exhortations for more and increasingly empirical forms of accountability, critical public educators must enact dual perspectives; like public school teachers, they are simultaneously agents of the state and agents of change. Freire’s concept of conscientization requires an understanding that humans “exist in and with the world” (p. 39); central to this understanding is the notion that humans exist among others. Our existence with the world emphasizes our ability to “gain objective distance from it,” which allows us to create conditions with transformative possibilities. edTPA, by privileging “objectivity,” erases the necessity of the duality of understanding. We must live in the world in order to be able to “gain objective distance from it.” Objectivity without context is partial and incomplete. The field of education today is undergoing reform initiatives focusing on accountability and standardization. Accountability measures emphasize individual responsibility and achievement. They link student test scores to teacher effectiveness and, for teacher candidates in states that have adopted, have placed increased attention on individual performance on certification assessments such

viii

Foreword

as edTPA—which negates collectivity both in the development of the portfolio as well as in its scoring. Standardization involves meeting a common benchmark of achievement based on authorized set of criteria. The twin pillars of individual accountability and standardized conformity work to reinforce behaviors consistent with the “understanding of consciousness as passive copy of reality” (Freire 2000, 39) that undermines collectivity and conscientization. Participating in the certification process as a subject who merely seeks to conform involves being in the world without necessarily being with the world. Development of critical consciousness that enables teacher candidates and teacher educators to consider our experiences in light of their transformative potential is essential if educators are to be agents of change. Absent critical consciousness, the false dichotomy of compliance/resistance is perpetuated. Conscientization allows for the emergence of a more complicated teacher identity, one that involves the dual approach of critical compliance and reflective resistance. Such a dual stance enables educators to comply without passivity, and to resist without rejecting possibilities for transformation. The authors of this book lay fundamental groundwork for educators and policymakers to engage in dialogue around critical issues that are changing our social landscape. By addressing intersections among professionalization, policy, privatization, and performance assessment, this book integrates political, personal, social, and educational implications, thereby exploring and exposing uncharted territory. The map this important text draws is multifaceted and complex; representations shift kaleidoscopically as perspectives rotate, but the ultimate depiction offers indispensable sense of how contemporary conditions are shaping tomorrow’s teachers. Julie Gorlewski State University of New York, New Paltz

References Au, W. (2008). Unequal by design: High-stakes testing and the standardization of inequality. New York, New York: Routledge. Dimitriadis, G., & Hill, M.L. (2012). Accountability and the contemporary intellectual [Electronic Version]. Occasional Papers, 27, 9–11. Retrieved from ban kstreet.edu/occasionalpapers/27edTPA State Policies Overview. Retrieved from https://secure.aacte.org/apps/rl/res_get.php?fid=1014&ref=edtpa. Freire, P. (2000). Cultural action for freedom. Boston MA: Harvard Educational Review. Madeloni, B., & Gorlewski, J.A. (2013, Summer). “The Wrong Answer to the Wrong Question: Why we need critical teacher education, not standardization.” Rethinking Schools, 16–21.

Contents

1 Crisis, Revolution, Reform, and edTPA in the Context of Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Historical Context of Teacher Assessment and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . Educational Reform and Teacher Performance Assessments: A Historical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Impact of National and International Studies on Policy in the U.S.: Toward Performance Assessment in Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Issues in Connection to the Performance Assessment of Teachers . . . . . . . Connections to Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Intersection of Professionalization, Policy, Performance Assessment, and Privatization as a Conceptual Frame in Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Professionalization of Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Professionalization and Performance Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Assessment and Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Policy and Privatization in Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Professionalization, Policy, Performance Assessment and Privatization in Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Does a “Typical” Mathematics Lesson Look Like in the U.S.? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Should Mathematics Teaching Look Like? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Are the Tensions Between the Two Views? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Brief History of the Reform Effort in Mathematics Education and Its Impact on Current Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 6 9 12 16 19 22 23

29 30 34 35 37 41 45 47 48 48 50

ix

x

Contents

Mathematics Teacher Education and the edTPA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Implementation of the edTPA in a Secondary Mathematics Teacher Education Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reactions of Teacher Candidates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Affordances and Constraints for the Program in Mathematics Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Performance Assessment, Policy, Privatization, and Professionalization in English Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . What “Counts” as Teaching and Learning in the Secondary ELA Classroom? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Policy and Performance Assessment in English Teacher Education: The Development and Impact of Content Area and Teacher Education Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Professionalization, Policy, and Privatization Inform Performance Assessment in English Teacher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intersecting Interests and English Education Pedagogies in an Age of Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An English Teacher Education Program at the Intersection of Policy, Privatization, Professionalization, and Performance Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementing the Consequential edTPA in an English Education Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Student Teachers, Exam Scores, and Attrition: Examining the Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding Thoughts…for the Moment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53 55 58 59 62 62 65 66 72 74 75 78 79 80 83 85

6 Professionalization, Policy, Performance Assessment, and Privatization in Social Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Social Studies Content Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Standards, High-Stakes Testing and Classroom Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Social Studies Content and the Standards Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Professionalization: The edTPA in Social Studies as an Aspirational Document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 The Implementation of the edTPA in a Secondary Social Studies Teacher Education Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Professionalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Performance Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Privatization in Social Studies Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Contents

xi

Affordances and Constraints for the Program in Social Studies Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Concluding Thought: Gambling It All on a Losing Wager . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 7 Signature Pedagogies and Other Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Affordances and Constraints for Mathematics, English, and Social Studies Teacher Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relationships Between Policy, Privatization, Professionalization, and Performance Assessments of Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What are the Relationships Between Performance Assessments and Teacher Education? In What Ways is the Teaching Profession Approaching Certain Signature Pedagogies in Light of Current Reforms? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Is the Teaching Profession Approaching a Set of Signature Pedagogies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Closing Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

119 120 124

127 127 129 131

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

About the Authors

Theresa J. Gurl joined the Secondary Education faculty at Queens College, in September 2008 as an assistant professor of Mathematics Education, where she teaches education and mathematics courses to preservice secondary mathematics teachers. Prior to joining the Queens College faculty, she worked with preservice secondary mathematics teachers at Teachers College Columbia University, taught mathematics and educations courses to preservice elementary school teachers at Brooklyn College, and taught mathematics courses at Polytechnic University through the Youth in Engineering and Science Program, after almost a decade as a high school mathematics teacher in New York City. Dr. Gurl received her Ph.D. in mathematics education from Columbia University and her Master of Science for Teachers from the University of New Hampshire. Her research interests include the nature of collaboration of preservice secondary mathematics teachers and their cooperating teachers, and the development of mathematical knowledge for teaching. She has co-authored two books for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and has had her work published in peer-refereed journals. Limarys Caraballo is assistant professor and co-director of English education programs in the Department of Secondary Education and Youth Services at Queens College, where she currently teaches methods courses and graduate seminars in English education, and a Faculty Fellow of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She received her doctorate from the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. Informed by over 10 years’ experience as a former English teacher and administrator in urban schools, her work supports culturally relevant literacy curricula and social justice pedagogies that reframe deficit conceptions of lower-income students of color and support the multiple identities and literacies of minoritized students. Her research interests include the intersection of students’ multiple identities, literacies, and academic achievement; preparing English teachers for in diverse sociocultural contexts; and youth participatory action research (YPAR). Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, the International Journal of Mulxiii

xiv

About the Authors

ticultural Education, and English Leadership Quarterly, as well as in the Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education. Leslee Grey is assistant professor in the Department of Secondary Education and Youth Services at Queens College, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in historical, social, and philosophical foundations of education from critical cultural theory perspectives. Her scholarship offers several interrelated strands including privatization and education, gender studies and education, adolescent and youth culture, and teaching for social change. Grey’s current publications include: critical investigation of school–business partnerships and corporate-sponsored educational reform movements; exploration of young adult literature relating to the schooling experiences of young people; and ethnographic study of the ways in which young people learn and negotiate multiple identities. She is currently researching the history and implications of parental/caregiver involvement in public school reform in New York City. Grey earned her Ph.D. from Georgia State University, where she studied social and philosophical foundations of education, with concentrations in educational policy studies, qualitative research methodology, and women’s and gender studies—all of which continue to inform her teaching and scholarship. John H. Gunn received his Ph.D. from The City University of New York, Graduate Center. He was an assistant professor of Social Studies at Queens College of the City University of New York where he was a co-director of the Social Studies Teacher Preparation Program. Dr. Gunn’s research areas include authentic pedagogy and authentic intellectual challenge and its relationship to student performance on highstakes tests. He received a grant from Queens College Division of Education Center for the Improvement of Education to promote teachers’ teaching of Global Studies through the Development of Teachers’ Curricular Design Teams and from the U.S. Department of Education examining American democracy. David Gerwin is associate professor in the Department of Secondary Education at Queens College/CUNY, where he has been teaching since 1997. He coordinates the social studies program. Research interests include inquiry teaching in history, teacher research in social studies, teacher professional development, historical thinking, and discipline specific ways that schooling policies such as high-stakes testing or specific lesson plan formats alter history teaching. His most recent work involves the Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative, whose researchers used the Authentic Intellectual Work rubrics to observe classrooms of 60 teachers in five high-stakes testing states. Publications from that study have appeared in Theory and Research in Social Education. A recent article in The Social Studies examined new efforts at assessing historical thinking. Teaching US History As Mystery 2nd Edition and Teaching World History As Mystery, both co-authored with Jack Zevin. They model an inquiry and evidence-based approach to teaching social studies. Similar work on the web includes a number of lessons co-authored with teachers and historians that are located at the EdSITEment website, a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities (http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson_index.asp).

About the Authors

xv

Héfer Bembenutty is associate professor in Educational Psychology at Queens College of The City University of New York in the Department of Secondary and Youth Services, where he serves as the department coordinator of the Educational Psychology Courses, the Research Symposium, and Educational Psychology Lecture Series. Dr. Bembenutty obtained his doctorate from The City University of New York, Graduate Center, in educational psychology. He has maintained an active research agenda in students and teachers’ self-regulation of learning, the effects of test anxiety on learning, homework self-regulation, self-efficacy beliefs, multicultural education, and academic delay of gratification. He has studied college students’ willingness to delay gratification to predict academic outcomes. He has also published studies on teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and self-regulation and has served as an editor for special issue journals. He co-edited Applications of Self-regulated Learning across Diverse Disciplines: A Tribute to Barry J. Zimmerman; he co-authored Developing Self-regulation of Learning and Teaching Skills among Teacher Candidates; and he authored Contemporary Pioneers in Teaching and Learning.

Chapter 1

Crisis, Revolution, Reform, and edTPA in the Context of Teacher Education

Abstract This chapter provides a general introduction to the volume, beginning with a brief rationale for examining performance assessments in light of recent policy and reforms in education in the United States, and establishes its key purposes: to propose a conceptual framework for the examination of current and future reforms in teacher education; and to document and examine the impact of a mandated performance assessment (SCALE’s edTPA) on our programs during the first year of consequential implementation. The introduction also lays the groundwork for the focus, in later chapters, on the affordances and constraints of edTPA for teacher preparation in the content areas of mathematics, English, and social studies, and concludes with an overview of subsequent chapters. Keywords Teacher preparation in the US · Teacher education reform · Policy · Performance assessment · Privatization · Professionalization · edTPA Teacher preparation and performance have been the subject of intense national and local debates throughout the United States over the last several decades (Cochran-Smith 2013; Johnson et al. 2005; Kohn 2000; Strauss 2012). These debates are often grounded in differing perspectives regarding how teaching and teaching effectiveness should be measured, and by whom. In the 1990s, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future published What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future, with the urgent premise that “America’s future depends now, as never before, on our ability to teach” (National Commission 1996, p. 3). One of several national reports in recent decades to address the recruitment, preparation, and support of teachers throughout the nation (Department of Education 2002, 2006; Task Force 1986), the authors of What Matters Most and A Nation Prepared centered education as crucial to the economic and social development of an increasingly global and technological society, in which “every teacher must know how to teach students in ways that help them © The Author(s) 2016 T.J. Gurl et al., Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29146-8_1

1

2

1 Crisis, Revolution, Reform, and edTPA …

reach high levels of intellectual and social competence” (National Commission 1996, p. 3). Fueled by reports of poor performance on national assessments such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), as well as international comparisons of students such as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB 2002) ushered an era of increasing standardization in education. Framed as a panacea for educational inequities, standardization has resulted in policies calling for frequent testing of students as well as educators in the name of greater “accountability”. The year after the publication of What Matters Most, Darling-Hammond (1997) led the Commission’s report on Doing What Matters Most: Investing in High Quality Teaching, which examined progress in the U.S. toward the goal of highquality teaching in every classroom from the 1996 report. The report cited specific recommendations for schools of education, including the establishing professional standards boards; expecting professional accreditation for all schools of education; licensing teachers based on demonstrated performance of ability to teach to the new standards; including tests of subject matter knowledge, teaching knowledge, and teaching skills; and using National Board standards as the benchmark for accomplished teaching. Over the past two decades in particular, the goal of professionalizing teaching has led to numerous changes in the policy and practice of teacher education. Many of the Commission’s recommendations have been addressed by the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE), the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), and more recently, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), who all support the development of clinically-rich experiences for preservice teachers and rigorous standards for entering and remaining in the profession. Despite these reforms, and the increased influence of AACTE and oversight by NCATE and CAEP, legislation and policies in connection with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RTT) during the last two decades have elevated the debate to a high crescendo of urgency. According to Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, by almost any standard, many if not most of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges, and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st century classroom. America’s university-based teacher preparation programs need revolutionary change—not evolutionary tinkering (Department of Education 2009a, n.p.).

Although Secretary Duncan admits that there are exceptions, his assessment of teacher education is quite grim. Its future, he continues, lies in the hands of several exemplary programs whose shared mission includes “a single-minded focus on improving student learning and using data to inform instruction” (2009a, n.p.). Implicit in this shared mission is the idea that the quality of a teacher education program depends on the academic achievement (as measured according to standardized test scores) of the future students of the program’s graduates. Although critics vehemently oppose this causal relationship for many reasons, primarily because some interpret it as placing the “blame” solely on teachers and obscures many of the structural problems that US children face as victims of poverty and prejudice (Kumashiro 2015), Secretary Duncan’s logic resonates with national


3

policy documents. It is in the context of this rhetoric of crisis and revolution in teacher education and evaluation that scholars, researchers, and policymakers are currently implementing reforms in teacher assessment. Given the prominence of issues related to teacher performance in connection with student achievement and learning, reform efforts in teacher education in the U.S. have focused specifically on improving and standardizing the preparation and evaluation of teachers (Darling-Hammond 2010). In an attempt to “take back” teacher education, the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) has presented the edTPA as an assessment “for the profession, by the profession” (SCALE 2013). SCALE developed the edTPA as a national performance assessment to evaluate a student teacher’s use of high-leverage practices in the field, presumably to be better able to predict whether a teacher candidate has the potential to become a highly effective teacher, defined in the Race to the Top Program Executive Summary (2009b) as “a teacher whose students achieve acceptable rates (e.g., at least one grade level in an academic year) of student growth” (p.12). Student growth is often measured using value-added measures, which, despite their current prevalence, should be used with caution given their serious drawbacks (Hanushek and Rivkin 2010). Although debates over value-added measures are beyond the scope of this volume, we recognize their increasing prevalence in a public narrative of accountability. In this context, the edTPA strives to re-focus teacher effectiveness on the process of teaching and learning, while still directed toward achieving student outcomes: a teacher candidate’s edTPA portfolio of consists of “authentic teaching materials as the culmination of a teaching and learning process that documents and demonstrates each candidate’s ability to effectively teach subject matter to all students” (AACTE 2013). Some scholars have strongly supported the edTPA as a way “to save the teaching profession and, strategically speaking, believe that the edTPA is our only viable vehicle for salvation,” and even some of its critics consider it better than any paper and pencil test (Au 2013, n.p.). Nonetheless, because the Pearson Corporation exclusively administers the edTPA, there is an intersection of interests where the professionalization of teaching meets privatization in education. It is therefore at the intersection of these four major areas that continue to shape teaching and education–professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization–that we examine our programs’ experiences with the edTPA. We consider several facets of the edTPA and its implementation through these four interests and the lens of three content areas (i.e., mathematics, English, and social studies) in the department of secondary education in a large, urban college of a public university in the Northeastern United States, in which at the moment of this writing, the edTPA is a requirement for initial teaching certification. This assessment has the potential to change curriculum and pedagogy in teacher education in the United States on myriad levels and with a range of consequences and implications, particularly in the several states where this assessment is currently (or soon will be) a requirement for initial teacher certification. Currently in its first year of full mandatory implementation in New York State, our examination represents a particular moment-in-time for teacher education programs that are just beginning to grapple with current changes in the field of teacher education. While thorough critical analyses of field instruments are helpful (Caughlan

4


and Jiang 2014), close readings of the tasks and rubrics in connection to edTPA are slowly emerging, and tests of reliability and validity, particularly predictive reliability, are certainly needed, our volume is not dedicated to any of those important endeavors. Rather, our purpose is to consider how teacher education in the U.S. stands to be shaped by the intersection of four key areas that have not been historically examined simultaneously. We argue that in the current high-stakes context of accountability and standardization, even education reforms that are premised on performance assessment, which is generally embraced by the field of teacher education and content area disciplines, must be examined in light of the converging, conflicting, and intersecting influences of professionalization, policy, privatization, and performance assessment. Our second key purpose is to document and examine the first year of implementation of the edTPA in a “consequential” state and consider the present and potential impact of the edTPA mandate on our teacher education programs. As presented on the edTPA website and resource materials (SCALE 2013), which forefront testimonials from teacher educators and student teachers who have completed edTPA portfolios in pilot studies or program requirements, we reflect on our experiences as well as those of our students, using testimonial and anecdotal data from the first cohort of students for whom the edTPA is a consequential examination toward New York State teaching certification. We build upon the assumption that teacher education reform in the near and long term future, whether it be in connection the edTPA or otherwise, should be examined in light of the intersection of such varied and powerful interests. Although these initiatives are specific to the United States, our examination is grounded in a complex context of teacher education that embodies a larger trend toward the merging of political, public, and private resources and interests in education (Imig et al. 2011; Taubman 2009). Rooted in “neoliberal” economic theory, this restructuring influences teaching and learning on all levels of education on an international scale (Canaan 2010; Lipman 2013; Marginson 2006; Peters 2011). Educators and policy-makers outside the U.S., who may be considering similar endeavors, could find the initial experiences of U.S. teacher educators instructive toward examining their own national trends and making local decisions. In particular, the international education community may find intriguing the role of the private sector in the US, as well as the belief among many that privatization can make improvements more effectively than government. We contextualize our analysis in light of these national and international trends by outlining educational and historical precedents to mandated performance assessments in teacher education in the U.S. In Chap. 2, we present a brief history of reforms in education generally, and teacher education specifically, beginning with A Nation at Risk (NCEE 1983). Studies such as the 1995 and 1999 Trends in International Math and Science Video Study (Stigler and Hiebert 1999; Hiebert et al. 2003) examined common teaching practices in mathematics and science in various countries and revealed that mathematics teaching in the United States focused on procedural understanding and the acquisition of skills, while higher performing countries emphasized conceptual understanding (Stigler and Hiebert 1999). Stigler and Hiebert (1999) recommended several changes for the preparation of teachers in the United States, emphasizing a change in the culture of isolation that exists in the teaching profession and calling for the incorporation


5

of collaborative approaches to teaching common in higher-performing countries, for both preservice and practicing teachers. Various reform movements are subsequently discussed. Criticisms of teacher education and historical recommendations for changes in teacher preparation are presented. We conclude with how these developments set the stage for the policy of the mandated edTPA. Chapter 3 examines the role and function of policy, privatization, professionalization, and performance assessment in teacher education, the intersection of which offers a conceptual lens that can lead to a more generative understanding of reforms and trends in teacher education. We discuss how teaching portfolios, a common form of performance assessment in teacher preparation, have been used in teacher education programs since the 1980s (Zeichner and Wray 2001). Zeichner and Wray describe varying purposes for portfolios for preservice teachers: formatively, to facilitate growth; summatively, to assess readiness to teach; as a showcase for prospective employers; and increasingly as part of state certification requirements and mandates, such as the edTPA. We also discuss the recommendation for the development of signature pedagogies (Shulman 2005) in teacher education as well as increasing support and interest in the performance assessment of teachers. Specifically, we argue that examining the intersection of policy, privatization, professionalization, and performance assessment offers a new conceptual lens in teacher education. This conceptual lens informs our analysis of performance assessment and related policies and practices as they affect opportunities for teacher learning in teacher education programs in the United States and guides our examination of the impact of mandated performance assessments in secondary teacher education programs in subsequent chapters. In Chap. 4, we consider the impact of the edTPA as a mandated performance assessment in light of its impact on teacher preparation in mathematics and focuses on the intersection of professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization in these areas. The discussion begins with mathematics due to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ (NCTM) response to A Nation at Risk, whose recommendation for a new content framework in mathematics (Romberg 1993) was the first of similar efforts in other content area disciplines. The discussion begins with the history of the NCTM standards (1989) and the influence of the “process” standards (i.e., problem solving, reasoning, communication, connections) had on the preparation of mathematics teachers. The chapter also explores the resistance to the original NCTM standards in the field and connections between prior research and the current edTPA. The relationship between these prior movements and the current state of mathematics teacher education, including the affordances and constraints of the edTPA, is discussed. In the following chapter, we shift our focus to teacher preparation in English language arts education. Chapter 5 focuses on the intersection of professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization in English teacher education, beginning with the development of content area and professional standards in English language arts (ELA), spearheaded by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). This historical contextualization is followed by a brief review of performance assessment in English language arts, in which performance assessment models such as those invoked by the literature that supports reforms such

6


as PACT and edTPA have typically been conceptually consistent with best ELA practices. The review leads into a discussion of the affordances and constraints of performance assessment in English teacher education, highlighting the tensions that arise at the intersection of policy, performance assessment, privatization, and professionalization, as exemplified in the initial efforts to implement the edTPA in response to state mandates. Beyond addressing the impact of mandated performance assessment in English teacher education, the author examines the ways in which expectations of preservice teachers in teacher preparation programs also affects curriculum and pedagogy (and ultimately students) across a wide range of classroom contexts. After discussing the historical contextualization and reviewing performance assessment in social studies, Chap. 6 provides practical applications derived from the experience of a social studies teacher education program. Chapter 6 concludes with a discussion of the affordances and constraints of performance assessment in social studies teacher education, looking ahead from the perspective of the content areas in light of recent policy and changes such as edTPA and other assessments in teacher education. In Chap. 7, we consider how the edTPA as a compulsory assessment in teacher education, perceptions of professionalism in the teaching profession, and increasing privatization in education affect opportunities for teacher education and discuss what these directions in policy and research might mean in the context of signature pedagogies in teacher education. Several affordances and constraints for teacher education programs are discussed as we address the broader implications of mandated performance assessments on pedagogy, research, and scholarship in teacher education. Our discussion in the final chapter revisits the guiding questions for our examination: What are the implications of the relationships between policy, privatization, professionalization, and performance assessments of teachers? What are the relationships between performance assessments and teacher education? In what ways is the teaching profession approaching certain signature pedagogies in light of current reforms, and what are the implications for teacher preparation programs?

References Au, W. (2013, Summer). What’s a nice test like you doing in a place like this? The edTPA and corporate education “reform.” Rethinking Schools, 27(4). Retrieved from http://www.rethinki ngschools.org/archive/27_04/27_04_au.shtml. American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. (2013). About edTPA: Overview. American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Retrieved from http://edtpa.aacte. org/about-edtpa. Canaan, J. E. (2010). Analysing a “neoliberal moment” in English higher education today. Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences, 3(2), 55–72. Caughlan, S., & Jiang, H. (2014). Observation and teacher quality: Critical analysis of observational instruments in preservice teacher performance assessment. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(5), 375–388.

References

7

Cochran-Smith, M. (2013). The politics of accountability: Assessing teacher education in the United States. The Educational Forum, 77(1), 6–27. Darling-Hammond, L. (1997). Doing What matters most: Investing in quality teaching. New York: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Darling-Hammond, L. (2010, October). Evaluating teacher effectiveness: How teacher performance assessments can measure and improve teaching. Center for American Progress. Retrieved from http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2010/10/19/8502/ evaluating-teacher-effectiveness/. Department of Education, U.S (2002). Meeting the highly qualified teachers challenge: The Secretary’s annual report on teacher quality. Washington, DC: Author. Department of Education, U.S (2006). The Secretary’s Fifth Annual Report on Teacher Quality: A Highly Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom AuthorWashington, DC. Department of Education, U.S (2009a). Teacher preparation: Reforming the uncertain profession— remarks of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/teacher-preparation-reforming-uncertainprofession. Department of Education, U.S. (2009b). Race to the Top Program: Executive Summary. Retrieved from: https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/executive-summary.pdf. Imig, D., Wiseman, D., & Imig, S. (2011). Teacher education in the United States of America, 2011. Journal of Education for Teaching, 37(4), 399–408. Hanushek, E.A., & Rivkin, S.G. (2010). Generalizations about using value-added measures of teacher quality. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 100(2), 267–271. Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R., Garnier, H., Givvin, K.B., Hollingsworth, H., Jacobs, J., Stigler, J.W. (2003). Teaching mathematics in seven countries: Results from the TIMSS 1999 Video Study (NCES 2003-013) U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Washington, DC. Johnson, D. D., Johnson, B., Farenga, S. J., & Ness, D. (2005). Trivializing teacher education: The accreditation squeeze. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Kohn, A. (2000). The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards”. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Kumashiro, K. (2015). Review of proposed 2015 federal teacher preparation regulations. Boulder, Colorado: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc. colorado.edu/thinktank/review-proposed-teacher-preparation. Lipman, P. (2013). The new political economy of urban education: Neoliberalism, race, and the right to the city. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Marginson, S. (2006). Engaging democratic education in the neoliberal age. Educational Theory, 56(2), 205–219. National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983) A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reformUS Government Printing Office Washington, DC. National Commision on Teaching & America’s Future (1996) What matters most: Teaching for America’s future Author New York. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (1989) Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics Author Reston, VA. No Child Left Behind Act, 20 § U. S. C. 6301 (2002). Peters, M. A. (2011). Neoliberalism and after?: Education, social policy, and the crisis of Western capitalism. New York: Peter Lang. Romberg, T. A. (1993). NCTM’s standards: A rallying flag for mathematics teachers. Educational Leadership, 50(5), 36–41. Shulman, L. S. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134(3), 52–59. Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning & Equity. (2013). edTPA. Palo Alto, CA: Author. Retrieved from https://scale.stanford.edu/teaching/edtpa. Strauss, V. (2012, December 23). The fundamental flaws of ‘value added’ teacher evaluation. Washington Post. Retreived from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/ 2012/12/23/the-fundamental-flaws-of-value-added-teacher-evaluation/.

8


Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (1999). The Teaching Gap: Best ideas from the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. New York: The Free Press. Task Forceon Teaching as a Profession (1986). A nation prepared: Teachers for the 21st century Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, New York. Taubman, P. M. (2009). Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. New York: Routledge. Zeichner, K., & Wray, S. (2001). The teaching portfolio in US teacher education programs: What we know and what we need to know. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 613–621.

Chapter 2

Historical Context of Teacher Assessment and Evaluation

Abstract In this chapter, we present a brief history of reforms in the United States pertaining to education in general, and to teacher education specifically, beginning with A Nation at Risk. Fueled by poor performance on national assessments such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and international comparisons of students such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the No Child Left Behind Act ushered an era of increasing standardization in education, with frequent testing of students and other measures of student achievement. Teachers and teaching were also under scrutiny. Studies such as the 1995 and 1999 TIMSS video studies examined common teaching practices in mathematics and science in various countries and revealed that mathematics teaching in the United States focused on procedural understanding and the acquisition of skills, while higher performing countries emphasized conceptual understanding. Various reform movements are subsequently discussed. Criticisms of teacher education and historical recommendations for changes in teacher preparation are presented, including the recommendation for the development of “signature pedagogies” in teacher education. We conclude with how these developments set the stage for the policy of the mandated edTPA. Keywords Teacher performance assessment · Professionalization · TIMSS · PISA · Teacher preparation · Education policy · No Child Left Behind · edTPA Teacher assessment and preparation are fraught with questions about how teachers should be evaluated and according to what standards, and in the U.S., as in other countries, these standards are grounded in particular political and historical contexts. In 2002, the U.S. Department of Education asserted that “every child deserves highly qualified teachers” (n.p.). The Secretary’s Fifth Annual Report on Teacher Quality (Dept. of Education 2006) specified that “in order to be considered highly qualified under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), teachers must hold © The Author(s) 2016 T.J. Gurl et al., Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29146-8_2

9

10

2


a bachelor’s degree, have full state certification, and demonstrate competency in the core academic subjects they teach” (p. 1). Therefore, public school educators’ qualifications have historically been validated by the authority of the state (and sometimes city) in which they will practice, which certifies as teachers those who possess the knowledge and skills necessary to facilitate student learning. More recently, however, the private sector has assumed a greater role in teacher education and certification via partnerships between the government and private entities, whether they be philanthropies (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Fordham Foundation), not-for-profit agencies or for-profit companies such as Pearson. In broad terms, highly qualified teachers approach methodology and curricula deliberately in order to optimize student engagement and learning. Regardless of the subject matter, high-quality teaching is cognitively, intellectually and developmentally appropriate for every student involved. It prepares students for the next level, whether that may be the next unit in the curriculum or the next grade level, and it also challenges all students to achieve beyond their comfort zone. Effective teaching is culturally appropriate and is characterized by mutual respect as well as a good rapport between teachers and students who engage each other in the learning process. Scholars and policymakers argue that there is a positive correlation between student achievement and teacher knowledge and qualifications (DarlingHammond and Young 2002; Hill et al. 2005; Morris et al. 2009). However, these qualifications for teachers do not guarantee that high-quality teaching will take place in each and every classroom (Hiebert and Morris 2012). There are affective qualities and characteristics that only some otherwise qualified teachers have, making them successful with groups of students that other equally qualified teachers cannot reach. These individual qualities and skills are often attributed to personality, but they also reflect attitudes and perspectives about students and the teaching profession that can be cultivated through inquiry-based teacher learning (Levy et al. 2013), self-reflection (Giovanneli 2003), mentoring (Spangler 2013), and developmental approaches to teacher supervision (Danielowich and McCarthy 2013). A related issue is the difference between improving teaching (what happens during classroom interactions with students) and improving teachers, such as advanced degrees, more coursework, and other proxy measures (Hiebert and Morris 2012; Lewis et al. 2012), which we discuss later in this chapter. According to Darling-Hammond (1997) and Darling-Hammond and Young (2002), there is a direct correlation between high quality teacher preparation and high quality teaching, and therefore what teachers learn in their preparation programs play a major role in their future success in classrooms and schools. For instance, they provide the opportunity to explore teachers’ developing perspectives on many of the issues that educators deal with daily in their classrooms, such as teaching in diverse sociocultural and socioeconomic contexts. As many scholars have indicated for several decades (Banks 1993; Noguera 1995), the great majority of teachers in the US are White, monolingual, and middle class (Rogers 2013), while the great majority of students performing below grade level throughout the country are from different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds (Darling-Hammond and Young 2002). Like Delpit (2006), other scholars describe well-intentioned and professionally qualified colleagues who simply do not know

2 Historical Context of Teacher Assessment and Evaluation

11

their students nor the communities in which they taught (Garmon 1998; Jones 2005; Milner 2005; Pollock 2004). For decades, resource and asset-based pedagogies such as culturally relevant and responsive pedagogies have been demonstrated to be more effective than mainstream approaches in which learning is assumed to be “neutral” and disconnected from students’ backgrounds (Ladson-Billings 1994; Gay 2000). Therefore, although the definition of teacher effectiveness is increasingly measured according to students’ scores in standardized exams (Achieve 2009), teachers must know and be able to incorporate the context of their students’ learning, or eliminate the possibility of true high-quality teaching. Efforts to delineate high-quality teaching, and to professionalize teaching in the U.S., have resulted in the development of standards for teacher certification and licensure, alongside the problem of how to assess whether these standards for teachers have been met. In Roth’s (1996) prescient analysis of standards in teacher education, he labeled the current trends in teacher education at that time “the Era of Standards” (p. 242), and discussed the purposes of and problems with standards. Roth’s (1996) discussion of problems with paper-and-pencil test as measures of what teachers can do mentions the early shift to performance-based assessments, to better measure whether performance-based standards have been met, and to “evaluate more accurately what teachers actually do” (p. 254). Roth cited several problems with the operationalization of performance assessments, noting the formidable nature of their design and implementation, and raised the question of who assesses candidates’ work, since faculty assessing their own candidates might have a conflict of interest. While many view standards and exams as strategies that will strengthen the professionalization of teaching, that the private sector is playing such a significant role in addressing these particular problems raises concern among those who view the encroachment of the private sector as ultimately deprofessionalizing educators. This chapter serves to situate our discussion of the intersections between professionalization, performance assessment, policy, and privatization in historical context in the United States. Section “Educational Reform and Teacher Performance Assessments: A Historical Perspective” draws connections between current reform movements in education and their policy predecessor, A Nation at Risk, in framing students’ achievement, particularly in math and science, as a key to the nation’s economic progress and future international status. The urgency of this report translated into large-scale studies that informed educational projects, particularly in math and science, and eventually culminated in the more recent policy initiatives such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top. Section “The Impact of National and International Studies on Policy in the U.S.: Toward Performance Assessment in Teacher Education” makes the connection between these studies and the increasing presence and influence of accrediting bodies such as the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), including their role in promoting performance assessment in education, particularly in teacher education, as a way to evaluate teachers’ performance in the classroom. Sections “Issues in Connection to the Performance Assessment of Teachers” and “Connections to Research” addresses some of the benefits and challenges of performance assessment in teacher education,

12

2


particularly with regard to the preparation needed to engage meaningfully with students in diverse sociocultural contexts, as exemplified by a prominent study of performance assessment in the field of social studies and other approaches to culturally relevant and critical education.

Educational Reform and Teacher Performance Assessments: A Historical Perspective Many of the modern reform movements in education can be traced to A Nation at Risk: The imperative for educational reform (National Commission 1983), which warned that the economic competitiveness of the U.S. was at risk due to the low quality of education in the United States. Reforms in connection to teacher assessment, such as the nationally available Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) and its predecessor, Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), are part of the larger historical trend in the U.S. of reform in K-12 public education generally, and teacher education specifically. Although major events such as the launching of Sputnik in 1957 have sparked calls for educational reform across the nation in the 19th and 20th centuries (Kliebard 2004), we mainly begin our historical discussion with the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission 1983) due to the specific challenge it posed to the nation regarding the need for greater rigor in the curriculum and higher quality teaching (Bracey 2003). We look back briefly to the international mathematics and science studies that were conducted after Sputnik that were used to fuel the findings in A Nation at Risk (ANAR), and that evolved into the highly influential Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The seeds for many of the current initiatives in education and teacher assessment can be traced back to the findings of the international mathematics and science studies, the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), along with ANAR. These initiatives include the standards movement and efforts to professionalize teaching (Clabaugh and Rozycki 1986) as well as documents such as A Nation Prepared, (Task Force 1986) which discussed teacher education and professionalization in light of ANAR. More recently, No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top added new requirements and policy mandates for students and teachers. In addition to yearly testing requirements for students, NCLB mandated that only “highly qualified” teachers be hired after the enactment of the law. Highly qualified teachers possess a bachelor’s degree, state certification, and proof that they know the subjects they teach. Race to the top, in addition to mandating the Common Core State Standards, required states to implement teacher evaluation systems using the tests mandated by NCLB. Further, NCLB created opportunities for privatization as private ventures attempted to prepare test preparation materials, and guide schools and districts in how they could best meet the new requirements of NCLB (Ravitch

Educational Reform and Teacher Performance Assessments …

13

2013) and Race to the Top. A discussion of these studies follows, with specific connections to current initiatives made later in the chapter. We begin with the history of the TIMSS studies. What is now known as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS) began in the 1960s as the “International Mathematics and Science Studies.” In the mid-1960s, likely fueled by Sputnik, the First International Mathematics Study (FIMS), and the First International Science Study (FISS) were both conducted. These initial studies initially were highlighted in A Nation at Risk, although their original purpose was not to influence policy, but rather to make international comparisons. These studies were not conducted at the same time, and had very different designs. FIMS consisted of an international survey of 8th grade and 12th grade students, mostly of the latter, with the purpose of identifying factors that influence student achievement. FISS was part of a larger international survey of six subjects (that did not include mathematics). The purpose of FISS was to determine knowledge of scientific facts and methods, and attitudes toward science, as measured by an international survey of 5th, 9th, and 12th graders. Although the results of this study were heavily drawn upon by the authors of A Nation at Risk, it should be noted that both had important design flaws, and readers were cautioned about generalizations and conclusions made from the studies. Not surprisingly, these studies intensified interest in international comparison in mathematics and science, which led to the Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS), and the Second International Science Study (SISS) (Medrich and Griffith 1992). SIMS and SISS were conducted in the early 1980s, and were more ambitious attempts to use what was learned, both in terms of results and methodology, on their predecessors. Similar to their predecessors FIMS and FISS, these were separate studies with different methodologies and purposes, and were conducted at different times. Like FIMS, SIMS surveyed 8th and 12 th graders mathematics knowledge, but also added questionnaires about student background and attitudes; teacher training, experience, and attitudes; and school demographics and other features. Similarly, SISS included a student achievement test, but added additional instruments, similar to SIMS. Again, there were issues with sample sizes, ages of participants, and other problems across countries for both studies, and conclusions were to be made with caution. Nonetheless, A Nation at Risk drew from these and other studies (Medrich and Griffith 1992). At this stage, prompted by ANAR, the Task Force on Teaching as a Profession was established, which was comprised of governors, union leaders, chief state school officers, a teacher educator, among other stakeholders. Among the stated purposes of the Task Force were to assert the economy as problematic, assert education as the solution to economic problems in the U.S., and to “reaffirm that the teaching profession is the best hope for establishing new standards of excellence as the hallmark of American education” (Task Force 1986, p. 7). The report of the Task Force (1986), entitled A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century was a response to and extension of the portions of ANAR that specifically addressed the professionalization of teachers. This document delved into the profession of teaching, and how to improve it, noting that the plan for

14

2


improvement had looked to the professionalization of other professions, such as medicine, and reported a plan with several elements, many of which still resonate with current initiatives and policy debates. A recommendation to create a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to establish high standards for teaching, to restructure schools to provide a professional environment for teachers, to restructure the teaching force to create “Lead Teachers,” and to develop a professional curriculum for graduate schools of teaching were all part of the report. In addition to the above were recommendations to improve teacher salaries, incentivize “minority youngsters” to enter the teaching profession, and to require a bachelor’s degree for all teachers, prior to entering a graduate school of teaching. With this renewed interest in teaching, the international mathematics and science studies continued, but with an additional focus on examining teaching of mathematics and science in different countries. In 1995, the highly influential Third International Mathematics and Science Study was conducted. In addition to student mathematics and science assessments for students in fourth and eighth grade (and a small number in twelfth grade) the study included data on “schools, curricula, instruction, lessons, and the lives of teachers and students to understand the educational context in which mathematics and science teaching takes place” (NCES, n.d.). The most influential aspect of the TIMSS 1995 study was the Videotape Classroom Study, which examined eighth grade mathematics lessons in Germany, Japan, and the U.S. One of the most important and influential findings of the videotape analysis was that there were certain features of the teaching of eighth grade mathematics that were common to each country (Stigler and Hiebert 1999). For example, mathematics lessons in Germany might be summed up as “developing advanced procedures,” in Japan, as “structured problem solving, and in the U.S. as “learning terms and practicing procedures” (Stigler and Hiebert 1999, p. 27). The lessons in the U.S. focused on procedural understanding and the acquisition of skills, while higher performing countries emphasized conceptual understanding and problem solving skills (Stigler and Hiebert 1999). Japan also incorporated lesson study, a form of collaborative professional development, (which will be discussed in greater detail in Chap. 3) that was highlighted by Stigler and Hiebert (1999) in their report of the TIMSS 1995 video study. At this point in the historical chronology, it should be mentioned that in 1998 California passed a law that mandated performance assessments for teacher certification (Hafner and Maxie 2006; Okhremtchouk et al. 2009; Pecheone and Chung 2006), which will be discussed in greater detail later in the section. During 1998–2000, an expansion of the TIMSS 1995 study was conducted, known as the TIMSS 1999 video study. The report for TIMSS 1999 describes how the 1999 study built upon the 1995 study. In particular, the major unexpected finding from the 1995 study, that teaching has distinct qualities in different countries, was used as a hypothesis for the 1999 study (Hiebert et al. 2003). The 1999 study also included more high-achieving countries, allowing for the examination of the possibility that high-achieving countries shared a particular set of approaches to teaching. This study examined videotapes of eighth grade lessons in both mathematics and science, in seven countries: Australia, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, and the U.S. (Hiebert et al. 2003).

Educational Reform and Teacher Performance Assessments …

15

An important result of the TIMSS 1999 video study is that there was no single feature of teaching that all of the high-achieving countries shared. An interesting result did, however, emerge. As part of this study, researchers compared the percent of problems presented to students that focused on procedures and that focused on conceptual understanding and making connections between concepts and procedures, which are now a crucial part of the CCSSM and the edTPA, as we discuss later in greater depth. Most countries, including the U.S., incorporated a relatively small percent of problems that afforded students the opportunity for conceptual understanding. The exception was Japan, where more than half of the problems had conceptual focus. What was important was not the percent of conceptual problems that were presented to students, but how the problems were implemented in the classroom. In the U.S., conceptual problems were not implemented as intended. That is, even though a problem had the potential for students to make connections among procedures and concepts, and was written for this purpose, that teachers in the U.S. intervened in such a way as to reduce the problem to simply practicing procedures, by telling the students what to do, or by giving a formula. By this measure, virtually all problems given to students in the U.S. as measured by the TIMSS 1999 video study required only procedures because of how they were implemented, even if some percentage of the problems required conceptual understanding as written (Stigler and Hiebert 2004). As a result of the TIMSS 1999 video study, recommendations to the field were made in order to improve student outcomes in mathematics: to focus on improving teaching itself, not teachers; to make efforts to change the culture of teaching; and to build a base of knowledge for teachers so that there are examples of good teaching for teachers to reference (Stigler and Hiebert 2004). In addition to the video studies, there have been and continue to be international assessments and surveys as part of TIMSS, now referred to as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, which have been conducted every four years since 1995. At this writing, data are being collected for the TIMSS 2015 study. The studies that take place every four years are student assessments at grade four and eight, and sometimes at grade 12. The only video studies that have been conducted to date have been in 1995 and 1999. Other highly influential studies are the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is an international comparative study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is a national study conducted in the U.S. PISA measures 15-year old students’ reading, mathematics, and science literacy across 70 countries (OECD 2012). NAEP, which is referred to in the U.S. as “the nation’s report card,” (U.S. Department of Education 2009) is a periodic assessment of fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade students in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, and U.S. history. Results of the PISA study (OECD 2012) are consistent with poor TIMSS results. Students in the U.S. are better at procedures than concepts and applications. Although NAEP results in mathematics and reading have indicated a general trend upward, this trend is not increasing as quickly as officials would like.

16

2


ANAR also addressed teaching, and its professionalization, making recommendations to “improve the preparation of teachers” and to “make teaching a more rewarding profession” (Recommendation D). One part of this recommendation stands out in particular, which asserts that those preparing to teach should meet high standards, to “demonstrate aptitude for teaching,” and to be competent in an academic discipline. The recommendation goes on to say that teacher preparation programs should be “judged by how well their graduates meet these criteria” (Recommendation D-1). As a result of these ongoing studies with poor results for students in the U.S., the early subject-specific standards movement began in the U.S., beginning with mathematics, and followed by English, social studies, and others, standards for learning, teaching, and assessment were established. This movement began with the release of the 1989 National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Curriculum and Evaluation Standards which were intended to be “statements of criteria for excellence in order to produce change” (p. 2). The evaluation standards discuss the need for multiple forms of assessment, including performance assessments for students. With the release of the NCTM Professional standards in 1991, which were intended to define the types of teaching that would support the recently released Curriculum and Evaluation standards (NCTM 1989), the mathematics education community established “a broad framework” (p. vii) to guide the teaching of mathematics, guided by a vision of teaching mathematics that is quite different than what most have experienced as students of mathematics. Other content areas followed suit (e.g., NCTE, NCSS) and had an important influence on the standards movement, which will be discussed in much greater depth in the respective content chapters of this work. The following section explores the impact of the abovementioned studies and trends, and examines their impact on teacher education.

The Impact of National and International Studies on Policy in the U.S.: Toward Performance Assessment in Teacher Education Fueled by poor performance on national assessments such as NAEP, and international comparisons of students and educational systems such as PISA and the TIMSS studies described earlier, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB 2002) ushered an era of increasing standardization and privatization in education, with frequent testing of students and other measures. A role for the private sector grew for test preparation materials and consultation for meeting NCLB requirements. Many stakeholders had looked back to ANAR, and were concerned about how little had improved. Education was still considered disastrous, or mediocre at best. The sharpest critics of the increasing trend in standardization and accountability have argued that the current auditing culture in education is regulated by, and perhaps even created by, the interests of a testing regime, the language of the learning

The Impact of National and International Studies on Policy in the U.S. …

17

sciences, and neoliberal policies and practices (Costigan and Grey 2014; Lipman 2011; Peters 2011; Taubman 2009). Solutions offered by the private sector include curricula and assessments, and the data collection means by which teachers’ and students’ performance on such assessments would be tracked. As a result, teachers and teaching have continued to be under scrutiny, beginning with ANAR, with specific findings of the TIMSS 1995 and 1999 video studies seeming to have particular influence over the reform movement. Initiatives in mathematics emphasizing conceptual understanding, and the desire for critical thinking and other higher order skills in English and social studies, suggest that teacher candidates need to become accustomed to a greater focus on concepts, problem solving, and higher order thinking in their teacher education programs. In this context of increased public scrutiny on education, scholars sought to understand how teacher education programs could be more effective at preparing future teachers for the field, recommending collaborative approaches such as lesson study and other forms of communities of practice for improvement of teaching (e.g., Fernandez and Yoshida 2004; Lewis et al. 2012; Lewis and Tsuchida 1998). For instance, Stigler and Hiebert (1999) recommended several changes for the preparation of teachers in the U.S., emphasizing a change in the culture of isolation that exists in the teaching profession and calling for the incorporation of collaborative approaches such as lesson study for both preservice and practicing teachers. Lesson study, a collaborative approach among teachers to plan, observe live teaching, and reflect collaboratively on observed lessons, in their discussion of the TIMSS video study, and recommend that lesson study be part of teacher education. Other researchers have echoed this call (e.g., Gurl 2010), and Shulman (2005) supports the call for lesson study (alongside the production of exemplary case materials) in his discussion of signature pedagogies for teachers, asserting that the language of lesson study exemplifies the language of signature pedagogies. In Darling-Hammond et al. (2005) comprehensively examined many aspects of teacher education programs, focusing on the qualities of teacher education programs considered successful in enabling teachers to acquire knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will allow them to be effective. Darling-Hammond and colleagues also discuss the potential for collaborative growth that lesson study or other forms of communities of practice provide developing teachers. Some of these benefits include working with cooperating teachers who facilitate the pedagogical and content-area inquiries of novice teachers. Furthermore, Darling-Hammond et al. (2005) consider all of these approaches equally, as well as identify research that supports the benefits of participation in communities of practice. Although teacher education scholars explored and developed several approaches, the strategies that stand out in light of current policy are those concerned with performance assessment such as microteaching, and in particular, performance tasks. As described, requirements for performance tasks may be determined by teacher education programs, or follow the model of the PACT assessment as implemented in the state of California. Stated benefits of such assessments include opportunities for analysis of teaching and analysis of student learning (Darling-Hammond et al. 2005), all of which foreshadow the

18

2


current structure of the edTPA. Many of these points were made earlier by DarlingHammond et al. (2001), who emphasize the impact of high quality teachers as the biggest factor in student achievement. These authors survey teacher education programs that are successful in producing teachers who reach high standards with diverse learners. They suggest accountability for teacher education programs in the form of rigorous standards and external quality review from entities such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), which examines outcomes from teacher education programs, including job placement efforts, practices of graduates, and feedback from graduates and employers about satisfaction with level of preparation (Darling-Hammond et al. 2001). NCATE also had an evolving role during this time. During the 1980s, accountability was located at the state level, and the states clearly controlled the process of accreditation and certification, although some states had already began to form partnerships with NCATE. By the end of the 1980s, however, many states had adopted NCATE’s standards (Bales 2006). Bales charts the shift in power over who has historically controlled the teacher certification process in the U.S., characterizing control over teacher education as a “long standing tug of war between state and national level policy makers” (p. 395). In 1986, one of the first performance assessments, the Beginning Educators Support and Training (BEST) assessment, was developed in Connecticut to identify areas of growth and guide recommendations for professional development for newly-certified teachers (Denton 2013). In the 1990s, with the continued rise of large organizations like NCATE, a criticism for the lack of standardization and uniformity arose that focused more on national control through policy changes and mandates, raising questions about teacher quality and accountability in order to improve student achievement (DarlingHammond 1999; Department of Education 2002; Lewis and Young 2013). In order to maintain federal funding, states began to comply with national mandates by conforming to the specifications of organizations such as NCATE, although this marginalized the needs of local education districts and infringed on the autonomy of teacher education programs (Johnson et al. 2005). Performance assessments such as the BEST were also considered in relation to teacher preparation and certification policies. Continuing this trend, the 1998 California Law SB 2042 mandated performance assessments for teacher certification in the state of California (Hafner and Maxie 2006; Okhremtchouk et al. 2009; Pecheone and Chung 2006). The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), a precursor to edTPA, was a response to this law. Teacher education researchers and scholars have opposed generic standardized assessments (Pence and Alvine 2003); however, California education authorities initially contracted with the Educational Testing Service to develop a generic performance assessment instrument to be used for teacher certification in all grade levels and all subject areas; the state also offered teacher education programs the option of developing their own certification performance assessments provided they met state standards for validity and reliability. Drawing on the idea of grounding teacher education in the common experience of planning, teaching and analysis of a “teaching event,” which was being developed concurrently by the Connecticut State Department of Education, the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) and the National Board,

The Impact of National and International Studies on Policy in the U.S. …

19

12 colleges and universities formed the Performance Assessment for California Teachers in 2001 to develop subject and grade-level specific performance assessments centered around performances of the central components of teaching, avoiding a less meaningful generic assessment (Pecheone and Chung 2006). More recently, however, accountability in teacher education has taken a different turn, and teacher educators have, in many cases, found themselves in defense of teacher education, or in some cases, rethinking it (Zeichner 2014), against aggressive opponents from both the private (and in some cases public) sectors. One prominent example is the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), an entity that, unlike NCATE, is comprised of a variety of stakeholders, some of whom are educators (or former educators) but many of whom represent the private sector (NCTQ 2013). NCTQ has publicly placed the blame for low student achievement on teacher education programs, arguing that education scholars and researchers reject in toto the notion that teachers need to be “trained” for the profession. This NCTQ and its reports have enjoyed extensive visibility in the mainstream media. For example, in June 2013, U.S. News & World Report released NCTQ’s report, which rates the 1,130 institutions that prepare 99 percent of the nation’s traditionally trained new teachers (p. 1). NCTQ’s claim that teachers are failing because of the reluctance to teacher education as a vocational endeavor (Greenberg et al. 2013) de-emphasizes teaching as an intellectual endeavor, deskilling and de-professionalizing teachers. On the contrary, education researchers tend to view teacher preparation as a balance between practical and intellectual work (Zeichner 2012). Critiques of the NCTQ report include the fact that many schools of education did not participate due to concerns about the study design and methodology (Fuller 2014). Additionally, as the data were based solely on teacher education department syllabi and websites, with no other empirical or observational research, Darling-Hammond criticized the report as flawed, incomplete, and shockingly inaccurate (Strauss 2013). Nevertheless, NCTQ’s bold claims resonate with current discourses of teacher effectiveness and teacher quality in the increasingly standardized and high-stakes context of No Child Left Behind (2002) and Race to the Top (US Department of Education) that inform current state and national mandates in teacher certification, especially given its presentation in U.S. News & World Report. The edTPA and other elements for greater professionalization of teaching, which have been frequently likened to part of the process of board certification for physicians, has been one of the profession’s responses to this public and policy narrative (Mehta and Doctor 2013).

Issues in Connection to the Performance Assessment of Teachers In an increasingly high-stakes context, the introduction of performance assessment raises many important questions about what good teaching looks like and how to accurately assess it in the context of practice. To highlight some of these questions

20

2


in relation to teacher preparation and assessment in general, we focus on a particular study that examined a performance assessment model as a formative tool for teacher development rather than a high-stakes requirement for initial teaching certification and licensing. In 1993, Wilson and Wineburg’s analysis of Teacher Assessment Project (TAP) data about history teachers suggests that even rich performance assessment data pose “irreducible ethical and intellectual dilemmas” about what matters most in effective teaching (p. 762). Their analysis, coupled with continuously evolving research and scholarship on the interconnectedness of knowledge, context, and pedagogy (Wideen et al. 1998), suggests that the process of assessing teachers can be a meaningful venue for ongoing teacher development. But even the rich data yielded by Wilson and Wineburg’s study fails to provide definitive answers about whom should pass or fail the assessment. The complex nature of effective teaching, as an interaction between students and teachers of different backgrounds in a variety of contexts, resists high stakes and standardized approaches. Unlike pass/fail evaluative exercises, formative performance assessments can be used to “adapt teaching and learning to meet student needs” (Boston 2002). In the same vein, assessing teachers’ performance in the context of their practice, without high stakes repercussions, encourages a “critical self-reflexive practice” (Asher 2007, p. 65) that is most conducive to student achievement. Wilson and Wineburg’s (1993) model proposes a complex process in which teachers engage when planning curriculum and instruction, managing classrooms, and assessing students, and raises open-ended questions about what constitutes effective teaching. However, when assessments become generalized for all teachers, panels of educators must determine whether teachers should pass or fail based on a decontextualized performance. Who will choose the experts for the panels? How might the “ideological inheritance” (Gallagher 1999) of those individuals impact their perspectives on a given teacher’s performance? Although these assessments seek to draw out the rich nature of teachers’ work and move beyond canonical and definitive notions of content and pedagogy, the presence of external “experts” and the tension of high-stakes evaluation may serve to replicate power structures and privilege certain norms about good teaching. Wilson and Wineburg (1993) also raise important issues inherent in the assessment of teachers, among them the contrast between conventional practices that have persisted for decades (Cuban 1993) and current methods inspired by constructivist theories of learning (Vygotsky 1978). However, they allude to the representative nature of the sample from which they drew their exercises, assuming, like Berliner (1986), that future studies may reveal emergent patterns among expert teachers. Furthermore, the study is grounded primarily on the educational background of the teachers and their performance in a given series of exercises; the authors do not consider additional factors that may impact the process, such as the context of testing, the cultural background of the teachers and evaluators, or the impact of their prior experience (Ladson-Billings 1999; Nieto 2000; Sleeter 1992, 2009). Two decades prior to Wilson and Wineburg’s (1993) study, the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) adopted a policy statement, No One Model American (1973), that first placed attention to race, difference, and social justice on the national agenda. Yet, as Nieto (2000) notes,

Issues in Connection to the Performance Assessment of Teachers

21

teacher education programs have given little consideration to the growing diversity of classrooms, and “the slow pace of change has resulted in uneven efforts to transform the curriculum, programs, and clinical placements of preservice and practicing teachers” (p. 182). In her review on preparing teachers for diverse student populations, Ladson-Billings (1999) finds that the field of teacher education remains resistant to tackling issues of race, class, gender, and culture in ways that disrupt Eurocentric, middle-class knowledges and practices. Ladson-Billings concludes that few programs engage prospective teachers in the process of addressing dysconscious racism (King 2004). Teachers’ normative expectations, based on White middle class values and beliefs, yield explanations of low achievement that “locate the problem in the children themselves or in their families” (Cuban, as cited in Ladson-Billings 1999). Nieto (2000) proposes three ways in which teacher education programs must develop in order to better prepare teachers to work with culturally and linguistically diverse populations: “take a stand on social justice and diversity; make social justice ubiquitous in teacher education; and promote teaching as a life-long journey of transformation” (p. 182). These ends can be met, she argues, by offering prospective teachers course and fieldwork experiences in which they must challenge deficit notions about students of color and low income students as well as opportunities to “work collaboratively and in a spirit of solidarity” with peers and mentors (p. 186). However, many teacher education programs and policies perpetuate technicist approaches to teaching and leave deficit notions about marginalized students largely unexamined. To expose some key barriers to these solutions, Milner sheds light on important issues in teaching and learning in the most underprivileged contexts that may be addressed in the formative assessment of teachers by using critical race theory (CRT) to pose race-related questions (Milner 2013). For example, Mr. Barnes, one of the two teachers selected for Wilson and Wineburg’s (1993) study, approaches remediation of a student’s writing by assigning more reading and writing, stating that reading and writing practice will naturally yield proficiency in mainstream and academic writing. Mr. Barnes seems unprepared to meet the needs of lowincome students of color who have been shown to underachieve in mainstream learning environments (Morrell 2004; Oakes et al. 2006). In fact, having completed his teacher training and subject matter preparation over 30 years before, Mr. Barnes may propagate (and is perhaps a victim of) the miseducation of children of privilege (Ladson-Billings 1999; Milner 2013). Given that a majority of the teaching force in recent decades has been White, middle class, and middle aged (Lipman 2004), their training may not have prepared them to engage in current debates about learning and diversity (Wilson and Wineburg 1993). If teachers are to be accountable for the achievement of students from all backgrounds, should Mr. Barnes “pass” the assessment? Should teachers like him be penalized for practicing according to their training? A formative approach to teacher assessment recognizes the need for ongoing dialogue between teachers, administrators, and teacher educators. Although it remains necessary to evaluate teachers’ subject matter competency and pedagogical knowledge for certification and licensure, preservice and in-service assessments are most generative when they engage teachers in the dynamic process of

22

2


refining and rethinking their “knowledge-of- practice” in the context of their teaching environment (Cochran-Smith and Lytle 1999). In a profession that has historically been constructed as technicist (Cannella 1999), and deskilled by the public’s perception that teaching is simply not that difficult (Ingersoll 2004), it is of paramount importance that teachers be trained and supported in a culture that recognizes the complexity of effective teaching. In keeping with their image of teacher knowledge as “constructed collaboratively by teachers, students, administrators, parents, and academics with the end of locally developed curriculum and more equitable social relations” (1999, p. 274), Cochran-Smith and Lytle might envision assessment as part of a continuum of “inquiry as stance” (p. 288) that will frame schools as “intellectual communities for exploring the social, cultural, and political dimensions of teaching and learning over time” (p. 285). They would insist on addressing the many interconnected challenges of constructing knowledge and practice in their own classrooms with their students. From this perspective, assessment serves little purpose if it does not enable teachers to cultivate relationships with students (Cammarota et al. 2012; Valenzuela et al. 2012), improve their sociopolitical and cultural understanding of pedagogy (Paris 2012), and contribute toward the development of a critical and inclusive curriculum in an increasingly multicultural and global society (Sleeter 2009).

Connections to Research While teacher candidates’ preparation for the field will certainly be significantly impacted by the implementation of a new and nationally normed performance assessment, some elements of the edTPA are informed by prior research. There are several findings of the TIMSS video studies, and highlighted by PISA and NAEP, that can be directly linked to the requirements of the edTPA and other current reforms. As stated earlier, the focus in mathematics classes in the U.S., as opposed to higher achieving countries, is on procedural skills at the expense of concepts and connections to real-life applications. The edTPA in secondary mathematics, for example, places an emphasis on conceptual understanding and problem solving, in addition to procedural fluency. In fact, only the lowest rubric scores can be earned if a submitted lesson only focuses on procedures. Two of the five planning rubrics, and three of the five teaching rubrics, require a focus on concepts in addition to procedures. As TIMSS 1995 and 1999 found, Teachers in the U.S. are seen to intervene when students struggle with difficult problems, and since students were ultimately told what to do by their teacher, the implementation of problems that potentially dealt with concepts became procedural. The rubric that requires candidates to “deepen student understanding” might be an effort to remedy this tendency, since candidates are required to elicit and build on student responses. The common core state standard for mathematical practice that requires students to “make sense of problems and persevere in solving them” might also be a direct response to this finding.

Connections to Research

23

Almost a decade ago, Hiebert et al. (2007) suggested a framework for teacher preparation programs that focuses on analyzing one’s own teaching in terms of student learning. This framework involves four “skills,” which include identifying goals for instruction, determining what students learned by examining their responses, identifying whether the teaching facilitated learning, and proposing improvements to teaching. These skills are consistent with the notion of improving teaching instead of teachers (Hiebert and Morris 2012), and are also reminiscent of the requirements of the edTPA planning for instruction and assessment, teaching, and analyzing teaching effectiveness. The literature reveals a relatively new focus on the improvement of teaching as opposed to the improvement of teachers (Hiebert and Morris 2012; Lewis et al. 2012). Although for decades the requirements to become a teacher have been increased, such as grades, advanced coursework, advanced degrees, and other external measures, Hiebert and Morris (2012), argue that it cannot be assumed that acquiring characteristics of good teachers will mean that good teaching is taking place, and that note the “strange” assumption “that knowledge for teaching should be held in the heads of individual people rather than in artifacts” (Morris and Hiebert, p. 93). The edTPA might be viewed as an attempt to assess the teaching of a preservice teacher, rather than assess the characteristics of the teacher. Lewis et al. (2012) assert that lesson study improves teaching, but also improves teachers, by increasing their knowledge of content and pedagogical approaches. In the complex context discussed above, this chapter sought to highlight chronologically some of the current debates in teacher education and assessment in the past several decades since ANAR in order to frame the discussion for the synthesis of how professionalization, performance assessment, policy, and privatization have become increasingly interrelated in the field of teacher education. In subsequent chapters, we consider what drives the privileging of performance assessments as a mandate for initial teacher certification and the extent to which collaborative approaches such as lesson study and other communities of practice have been considered. We then examine how the standardized implementation of mandated performance assessment impacts teacher education in general and in the content areas, and its relationship to privatization.

References Achieve, Inc. (2009, January). Race to the Top: Accelerating College and Career Readiness in States—Teacher Effectiveness. Available in http://www.achieve.org/RTTTTeacherEffectiveness. Asher, N. (2007). Made in the (multicultural) USA: Unpacking tensions of race, culture, gender, and sexuality in education. Educational Researcher, 36(2), 65–73. Bales, B. L. (2006). Teacher education policies in the United States: The accountability shift since 1980. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(4), 395–407. Banks, J. A. (1993). The canon debate, knowledge construction, and multicultural education. Educational Researcher, 22(5), 4–14. Berliner, D. C. (1986). In pursuit of the expert pedagogue. Educational Researcher, 15(7), 5–13.

24

2


Bracey, G. W. (2003). April foolishness: The 20th anniversary of A nation at risk. Phi Delta Kappan, 84(8), 616–621. Cammarota, J., Moll, L., Cannella, C., & Gonzalez, M. (2012). Sociocultural perspectives on intercultural relationships in schools. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 6(3), 22–29. Cannella, G. (1999). Postformal thought as critique, reconceptualization, and possibility for teacher education reform. In J. Kincheloe (Ed.), Rethinking intelligence: Confronting psychological assumptions about teaching and learning (pp. 145–163). New York, NY: Routledge. Clabaugh, G. K., & Rozycki, E. G. (1986, March,. November). School reform via teacher professionalization: Is it cost-effective? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Pittsburgh, PA. Available in http:/ /www.newfoundations.com/Professional.html. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice; Teacher learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249–305. Costigan, A. T., & Grey, L. (Eds.). (2014). Demythologizing Educational Reforms: Responses to the Political and Corporate Takeover of Education. New York, NY: Routledge. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Danielowich, R. M., & McCarthy, M. J. (2013). Teacher educators as learners: How supervisors shape their pedagogies by creating and using classroom videos with their student teachers. Action in Teacher Education, 35, 147–164. Darling-Hammond, L. (1997). The Right To Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools That Work. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass. Darling-Hammond, L. (1999). Teacher quality and student achievement: A review of state policy evidence. Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington. Darling-Hammond, L., & Young, L. (2002). Defining “Highly qualified teachers”: What does “Scientifically-Based Research” actually tell us? Educational Researcher, 31(9), 13–25. Darling-Hammond, L., LaFors, J., & Snyder, J. (2001). Educating teachers for California’s future. Teacher Education Quarterly, 28(1), 9–55. Darling-Hammond, L., Hammerness, K., Grossman, P., Rust, F., & Shulman, L. (2005). The design of teacher education programs. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world (pp. 390–441). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Delpit, L. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York, NY: The New Press. Denton, D. H. (2013). “Responding to edTPA: Transforming Practice or Applying Shortcuts?” AILACTE Journal 10(1), 19–36. Available in http://www.ailacte.org/images/uploads/general/ AILACTE_Journal_Fall_2013.pdf. Department of Education, U.S. (2002). Meeting the highly qualified teachers challenge: The Secretary’s annual report on teacher quality. Washington, DC: Author. Fernandez, C., & Yoshida, M. (2004). Lesson study: a Japanese approach to improving mathematics teaching and learning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Fuller, E. J. (2014). Shaky methods, shaky motives: A critique of the National Council of Teacher Quality’s review of teacher preparation programs. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(1), 63–77. Gallagher, S. (1999). An exchange of gazes. In J. L. Kinchloe, S. R. Steinberg & L. E. Villaverde (Eds.), Rethinking intelligence (pp. 69–83). New York, NY: Routledge. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Garmon, M. A. (1998). Using dialogue journals to promote student learning in a multicultural teacher education course. Remedial and Special Education, 19(1), 32–45. Giovannelli, M. (2003). Relationship between reflective disposition toward teaching and effective teaching. The Journal of Educational Research, 96(5), 293–309. Greenberg, J., McKee, A., & Walsh, K. (2013). Teacher prep review: A review of the nation’s teacher preparation programs. Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality.

References

25

Gurl, T. (2010). Improving preservice field placements in secondary mathematics: A residency model for student teaching through lesson study. Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College, 1(1), 17–20. Hafner, A. L., & Maxie, A. (2006). Looking at answers about reform: Findings from the SB 2042 implementation study. Issues in Teacher Education, 15(1), 85–102. Hiebert, J., & Morris, A. K. (2012). Teaching, rather than teachers, as a path for improving classroom instruction. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(2), 92–102. Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R., Garnier, H., Givvin, K. B., Hollingsworth, H., Jacobs, J., et al (2003). Teaching mathematics in seven countries: Results from the TIMSS 1999 Video Study (NCES 2003-013). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Hiebert, J., Morris, A. K., Berk, D., & Jansen, A. (2007). Preparing teachers to learn from teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 58(1), 47–61. Hill, H. C., Rowan, B., & Ball, D. L. (2005). Effects of teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching on student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 42(2), 371–406. Ingersoll, R. M. (2004). Four myths about America’s teacher quality problems. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education: Developing the Teacher Workforce, 3(1), 1–33. Johnson, D. D., Johnson, B., Farenga, S. J., & Ness, D. (2005). Trivializing teacher education: The accreditation squeeze. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Jones, A. (2005). Talking cure: The desire for dialogue. In M. Boler (Ed.), Democratic dialogue in education: Troubling speech, disturbing silence (pp. 57–67). New York, NY: Peter Lang. King, J. E. (2004). Culture-centered knowledge: Black studies, curriculum transformation, and social action. In J. A. Banks & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed., pp. 349–380). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kliebard, H. M. (2004). The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893-1958. New York, NY: Routledge. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Ladson-Billings, G. (1999). Preparing teachers for diverse student populations: A critical race theory perspective. In A. Iran-Nejad & D. Pearson (Eds.), Review of Research in Education (Vol. 24, pp. 211–248). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Levy, B. L. M., Thomas, E. B., Drago, K., & Rex, L. (2013). Examining studies of inquiry-based learning in three fields of education: Sparking generative conversation. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(5), 387–408. Lewis, C. C., Perry, R. R., Friedkin, S., & Roth, J. R. (2012). Improving teaching does improve teachers: Evidence from lesson Study. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(5), 368–375. Lewis, C., & Tsuchida, I. (1998). A Lesson is like a swiftly flowing river: How research lessons improve Japanese education. American Educator, 12–17 & 50–52. Lewis, W. D., & Young, T. V. (2013). The politics of accountability: Teacher education policy. Educational Policy, 27, 190–216. Lipman, P. (2004). High stakes education: Inequality, globalization, and urban school reform. New York, NY: Routledge. Lipman, P. (2011). The new political economy of urban education: Neoliberalism, race, and the right to the city. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Medrich, E. A., & Griffith, J. E. (1992). International Mathematics and Science Assessment: What have we learned? Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Mehta, J., & Doctor, J. (2013). Raising the bar for teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 94(7), 8–13. Milner, H. R. (2005). Developing a multicultural curriculum in a predominantly White teaching context: Lessons from an African American teacher in a suburban English classroom. Curriculum Inquiry, 35(4), 391–427. Milner, H. R. (2013). Analyzing poverty, learning, and teaching through a Critical Race Theory Lens. Review of Research in Education, 37(1), 1–54.

26

2


Morrell, E. (2004). Becoming critical researchers: Literacy and empowerment for urban youth. New York, NY: Routledge. Morris, A. K., Hiebert, J., & Spitzer, S. M. (2009). Mathematical knowledge for teaching in planning and evaluation instruction: What can preservice teachers learn. Journal of Teacher Education, 40(5), 491–529. National Center for Educational Statistics (n.d.), Institute of Education Sciences, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Available in https://nces.ed.gov/ TIMSS/results95.asp. National Center for Educational Statistics (n.d.), Institute of Education Sciences, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Available in http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportc ard/. National Commission on Excellence in Education, (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. National Council on Teacher Quality (2013), About NCTQ. Available in http://www.nctq.org/ about/staff.jsp. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). (1989). Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. Nieto, S. (2000). Placing equity front and center: Some thoughts on transforming teacher education for a new century. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 180–187. No Child Left Behind Act, 20 § U.S. C. 6301 (2002). Noguera, P. A. (1995). Preventing and producing violence: A critical analysis of responses to school violence. Harvard Educational Review, 65(2), 189–212. Oakes, J., Rogers, J., & Lipton, M. (2006). Learning power: Organization for education and justice. New York, NY: Routledge. Okhremtchouk, I., Seiki, S., Gilliland, B., Ateh, C., Wallace, M., & Kato, A. (2009). Voices of Pre-Service Teachers: Perspectives on the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT). Issues in Teacher Education, 18(1), 39–62. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2012). Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Results from PISA 2012: Country Note- United States. Available in http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-US.pdf. Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. doi:10.3102/0013189X12441244. Pecheone, R. L., & Chung, R. R. (2006). Evidence in teacher education: The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT). Journal of Teacher Education, 57(1), 22–36. Pence, L. E. P., & Alvine, L. (2003). Conversations from the Commissions: Teacher candidate assessment: Policy, practice, and professional judgment. English Education, 35(4), 328–332. Peters, M. A. (2011). Neoliberalism and after?: Education, social policy, and the crisis of Western capitalism. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Pollock, M. (2004). Colormute: Race talk dilemmas in an American School. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Ravitch, D. (2013). Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Rogers, R. (2013). Cultivating diversity through critical literacy in teacher education. In C. Kosnik, J. Rowsell, P. Williamson, R. Simon, & C. Beck (Eds.), Literacy Teacher Educators: Preparing Teachers for a Changing World (pp. 7–20). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Roth, R. A. (1996). Standards for certification, licensure, and accreditation. In J. Sikula, T. Buttery, & E. Guyton (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Teacher Education (2nd ed., pp. 242–306). New York, NY: Macmillan. Shulman. L. (2005, February). The signature pedagogies of the professions of law, medicine, engineering, and the clergy: Potential lessons for the education of teachers. Talk delivered at the Math Science Partnerships (MSP) Workshop: “Teacher Education for Effective Teaching and Learning” Hosted by the National Research Council’s Center for Education, Irvine, CA.

References

27

Sleeter, C. (1992). Restructuring schools for multicultural education. Journal of Teacher Education, 43(2), 141–148. Sleeter, C. (2009). Developing Teacher Epistemological Sophistication About Multicultural Curriculum: A Case Study. Action in Teacher Education, 31(1), 3–13. Spangler, S. (2013). With a Little Help from Their Friends: Making the Transition from Student to Teacher. English Journal, 102(3), 87–92. Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (1999). The Teaching Gap: Best ideas from the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. New York, NY: The Free Press. Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (2004). Improving mathematics Teaching. Educational Leadership, 61(5), 12–17. Strauss, V. (2013, June). Why the NCTQ teacher prep ratings are nonsense. Washington Post. Available in http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/18/why-thenctq-teacher-prep-ratings-are-nonsense/. Task Force on Teaching as a Profession. (1986). A nation prepared: Teachers for the 21st century. New York, NY: Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy. Taubman, P. M. (2009). Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. New York, NY: Routledge. U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). A quality teacher in every classroom: Improving teacher quality and enhancing the profession. Available April 2, 2015: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/education/teachers/quality_teachers.html#sect1-2.html. U.S. Department of Education (2009). Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Mathematics Assessment. Available in http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education. (2006). The Secretary’s Fifth Annual Report on Teacher Quality: A Highly Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom. (ED 04 CO-0059/0016). Washington, D.C. Available April 2, 2015: https://www2.ed.gov/about/ reports/annual/teachprep/2006-title2report.pdf. Valenzuela, A., Garcia, E., Romo, H., & Perez, B. (2012). Institutional and structural barriers to Latino/a achievement. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 6(3), 22–29. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. In M. Cole, V. JohnSteiner, S. Scribner & E. Souberman (Eds.), Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (pp. 79–91). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wideen, M., Mayer-Smith, J., & Moon, B. (1998). A critical analysis of the research on learning to teach: Making the case for an ecological perspective for inquiry. Review of Educational Research, 68(2), 130–178. Wilson, S. M., & Wineburg, S. S. (1993). Wrinkles in time and place: Using performance assessments to understand the knowledge of history teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 30(4), 729–769. Zeichner, K. (2012). The turn once again towards practice based education. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(5), 376–382. Zeichner, K. (2014). The struggle for the soul of teaching and teacher education in the USA. Journal of Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy, 40(5), 551–568.

Chapter 3

The Intersection of Professionalization, Policy, Performance Assessment, and Privatization as a Conceptual Frame in Teacher Education

Abstract The complex intersection of interests in policy, privatization, professionalization, and performance assessment in teacher education is rooted in debates about conceptions of what it means to be well educated, which in turn define “good teaching” and how best to prepare teachers for the profession. We recognize that teaching portfolios, a common form of performance assessment in teacher preparation, have been used in teacher education programs since the 1980s. Portfolios have various purposes for preservice teachers: formatively, to facilitate growth; summatively, to assess readiness to teach; as a showcase for prospective employers; and increasingly as part of state certification requirements and mandates, such as the edTPA. This chapter explores the intersection of policy, privatization, professionalization, and performance assessment as a conceptual lens that can lead to a more generative understanding of reforms and trends in teacher education. Specifically, this conceptual lens guides our analysis of performance assessment and related policies and practices as they affect opportunities for teacher learning in teacher education programs in the United States. Keywords Policy · Performance assessment · Privatization · Professionalization · edTPA · Standards · Signature pedagogy The complex intersection of interests in professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization in teacher education is rooted in debates about conceptions of what it means to be well educated, which in turn define “good teaching” and how best to prepare teachers for the profession. These four areas comprise the conceptual lens that guides our analysis of edTPA in three content areas as we strive for more generative and contextualized understandings of reforms and trends in teacher education. Specifically, this chapter explores how professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization affect opportunities for teacher learning in teacher education programs in the United States. © The Author(s) 2016 T.J. Gurl et al., Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29146-8_3

29

30

3 The Intersection of Professionalization, Policy …

Professionalization of Teacher Education Whether teaching can be considered a real profession has been the source of debate in the U.S. for decades, and conversations surrounding the extent to which teaching is, can, or should be professionalized have both shaped and been shaped by education policies, practices, and discourses located in specific historical movements in the United States. For example, Murray (1992) examines the workings and effects of teacher professionalization in New York’s Rochester City School District. Murray’s case study research examine three important historical moments that shaped the way professionalization of teaching is discussed to this day: the early twentieth century, in which rapid industrialization expanded schooling, especially for urban populations and previously excluded groups; the rise of teachers’ unions and teacher activism during the 1960s; and the more conservative standards movement of the 1980s. Borrowing management techniques from the private businesses sector for the sake of efficiency, accountability, control, and profit, early twentieth century school administration became more centralized and hierarchical than was experienced in nineteenth century schools. Having little control over education decision making, teachers’ job performances were subject to a great deal of surveillance and management (Murray 1992). The taken-for-granted “best practices” for managing schools and teachers cannot be uncoupled from the processes by which teaching, being one of the few job opportunities available to women throughout early twentieth century, had become a feminized occupation. To justify the low pay and low respect bestowed on teachers, commonsense ideals defined teaching not as a profession but as a calling that required passive caring, nurturing, and self-sacrifice for the greater good for children and the nation’s citizenship and economy. In fact, as Murray highlights, the ideology of the “ideal teacher” was constructed and mobilized in education administration research in order to keep female teachers subordinate under the supervision of men (1992, p. 500). At the same time, male-dominated occupations such as law and medicine were becoming increasingly scientific, skilled, and specialized, which afforded doctors and lawyers, unlike teachers, more power and control over the professionalization of their own fields. To allow teachers a similar specialized body of knowledge, skills, and training, new curricular requirements for teacher candidates were created and dispensed through professional teacher education programs. The educational requirements for becoming a teacher had become more rigorous throughout the early twentieth century, with the goal of elevating the profession as well as eliminating favoritism and political influence in hiring educators and administrators. However, as Murray points out, the local certification processes remained in place; simply increasing education requirements to enter the field failed to move teaching toward professionalization for reasons that were more systemic. The hierarchical organization and management that characterized modern, scientifically progressive schools, coupled with sexist ideology, continued to subordinate teachers’ professional and practical knowledge as well as their decision making power through the early- to mid-twentieth century (Tyack 1974).

Professionalization of Teacher Education

31

As the post-war U.S. economy of the 1950s and 1960s profited from an increase in middle class, white-collar jobs, social science researchers began to categorize and demarcate the specific characteristics or traits that must exist in order for an occupation to be considered a true profession. For example, Lieberman’s (1956) Education As A Profession incited educators to align their occupation with the already established, male-dominated and respected professions of law and medicine in order to increase the legitimacy of teaching as a profession—and of women as competent, educated, professionals. Throughout the twentieth century, teachers organized to negotiate the terms under which they worked—for better pay, job security, and retirement benefits comparable with other professions. Because educators began to involve themselves in political activism aligned with union strikes and other collective action, no longer could teaching be viewed as solely a nurturing, selfless profession. Tired of poor working conditions and underfunded, overcrowded classrooms, teacher activism through the 1970s brought to the foreground myriad challenges of public education in the United States. Responses to the issues plaguing public schools were far from unified. Educational policies and practices continue to be characterized as murky (Weick 1976), with outcomes that can be difficult to predict and process that are hard to control. Still, current reform initiatives place a great deal of confidence in the ability of private industry to provide technology and data that will illuminate issues and solve problems. Policymakers call for more tightly controlled processes, not only to restrict who may gain entrance into the profession but also to regulate the desired behaviors of teachers once they are in the classroom. Many agree that standardizing the process by which teachers are deemed ready to teach will strengthen the occupation, as professionals are said to possess specific knowledge in their fields of expertise and are entrusted with the ability and freedom to use their knowledge to make decisions in ambiguous situations (Caughlan and Jiang 2014). Teaching requires “deep knowledge,” judgement, and advanced skills (Darling-Hammond and Hyler 2013). While some scholars consider even novice teachers professionals (Au 2013), others argue that the knowledge and skills that make an individual “ready to teach” are not being learned in teacher education programs in any manner that is consistent with a body of professional knowledge. Certification programs, practices, and policies have varied from state to state. That there exists no national standard in the United States for entering the field seems to cast suspicion over the entire field of teaching, beginning with teacher education and licensure, and continuing through classroom practices, tenure policies, and the assessment of teachers’ abilities to educate. That policy makers and private organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation promote alternative paths to teaching including Teach For America and other fast-track certifications, competing discourses over over which coursework, clinical experiences, and assessments are required to join the teaching profession fuel distrust. In fact, that the field lacks nationally uniform requirements led Shulman (2005b) to deny the very existence of teacher education. For decades, teacher education scholars such as Zumwalt (1988) exposed the limitations of a technical conception of teaching, in which teachers are “trained to exhibit a defined set of skills, knowledge, and attitudes which lead to predetermined learning

32


outcomes (test scores) for students” (p. 153). Zumwalt recognized a trend toward teaching that valued “high standards for all” yet minimized “professional autonomy and discretion” (p. 153). Furthermore, Bales (2006) notes that the best teachers are able to link their teaching practice to students’ lives and experiences and that, contrary to a technical conception of teaching, this ability is “not achieved through the acquisition of a discrete and finite set of teacher skills” (p. 405). Among researchers who have called for the reform of teacher preparation programs, Shulman has advocated for the development of a signature pedagogy for the profession (2005a, b, c). Highly critical of the wide variations in teacher education programs in the U.S., Shulman (2005b) posits that teacher education programs should work toward greater coherence within and across the profession. Such coherence, Shulman argues, would promote competencies that could be assessed for quality, similar to the cohesive pedagogies of other professions, such as law and medicine. Signature pedagogies will refine the teaching profession by improving and protecting teacher quality and allowing educators to build and share a body of knowledge (Hiebert et al. 2002). Signature pedagogies have three dimensions: surface structure, which refers to distinctive concrete acts of teaching and learning that influence individuals to “act like” a member of the profession; implicit structure, which is a set of pervasive beliefs about attitude, values and dispositions that are essential to the socialization into a profession so that one can “be like” a member of the profession; and deep structure, which refers to pervasive assumptions about the best ways of imparting a body of knowledge so that one can “think like” a member of the profession (Shulman 2005a, b, c). Signature pedagogies essentially determine how one acquires the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of a profession. In proposing what a signature pedagogy for teachers might include, Shulman suggests the development of a body of videos of exemplary teaching cases, to be used as teaching tools, alongside lesson study (2005c) and the development of communities of practice for teachers (Shulman and Shulman 2004). In an era preoccupied with data, envisioning teaching as a research-based science may lend the profession a sense of “security, certainty, and status” (Taubman 2009, p. 86) that many desire. However, Taubman argues, the language of vigorous assessments of teaching and learning that Shulman originally recommended as part the signature body of knowledge for the profession have been overshadowed by the language of objectivity, accountability, and evidence. The assumption that researchbased knowledge will improve teaching implies greater testing of students; ongoing data collection will link students’ scores and future achievement to the individual teachers who, it will be inferred, correctly implemented the appropriate researchbased pedagogies (Taubman 2009). Educational practices that rely solely on testdriven data limit teaching and learning to quantifiable evidence of student success and devalue necessary dispositions, attitudes, and values such as equity and social justice, that are foundational to educating all learners across social contexts. The edTPA heeds the call for a “bar exam” for teachers (Lipsky 1988), continuing the decades long goal to categorize teaching as a profession akin to practicing law. Indeed, the edTPA’s characteristically uniform standards and high-stakes

Professionalization of Teacher Education

33

accountability align with those of private sector ideologies, proving that teachers should be taken seriously as professionals (Au 2013). As educators want their profession to be recognized as one, many welcome stricter standards and tighter regulation over who is allowed to teach and how they are allowed to teach. Others, however, argue that stronger regulatory processes will “demoralize” educators working under difficult conditions such as poverty and other high-needs situations that may reside outside of teacher control (Welner and Mathis 2015, p. 7). News media, politicians, reformers, and other members of the public, Taubman (2009) argues, have faulted educators and schools “for whatever ails the nation” (p. 138). Frequently criticized for failing to solve all of the country’s social and economic problems, educators have internalized the fear and shame of public denigration. While teachers’ unions have historically opposed reforms based on scientific management such as the use of standards and test scores to evaluate teachers (Cowen 2014; Price 2014), more recently, as Taubman (2009) argues, teachers have, both individually and collectively, “acquiesced” to powerful entities offering tangible solutions to complex problems, which continues to provoke concern over the strength of the teaching profession and the associations that represent its interests. Although professionalization offers educators certain affordances, in the current context of standardization and accountability, tighter regulatory process that teacher professionalization mandates may also place constraints on teaching and learning (Au 2013; Madeloni and Gorlewski 2013). Internal reports cite gains in student achievement in connection with national certification processes (DarlingHammond 2010), but critics point out that there has little to no peer-reviewed, empirical research published to date addressing how current initiatives contribute to the improvement of teacher preparation or classroom outcomes (Johnson et al. 2005; Milner, 2013). Within teacher education communities, some have also raised issues regarding attempts to professionalize teacher education that originate from outside the profession. Proponents of the edTPA mention that rating National Board Certification portfolios help raters learn more about good teaching (DarlingHammond and Hyler 2013); however, no peer reviewed research exists at this time to have such definitive conclusions. While performance assessments in general are considered to provide more trustworthy evidence of teacher candidate readiness than a “paper-and-pencil test” can (Au 2013), critics contend that the edTPA assessment and rubrics are too narrow (Hayes and Sokolower 2012). Although according to their website the edTPA is aligned to the nTASC standards, and is meant to assess how well candidates have met those standards, Roth (1996) warned that sometimes the assessment becomes the standard, which is a valid concern with edTPA as candidates strive to meet all portfolio and rubric requirements in order to obtain a passing score. Further, programs might be pressured to focus on what is emphasized on the edTPA, at the expense of other equally effective practices. Likewise, Caughlan and Jiang (2014) recommend that teacher education programs “choose formative and summative assessments that align with their goals and values” (p. 385). A number of educators fear that the desire to prepare successful (highly rated) teacher candidates could lead teacher education programs to focus solely on teaching to the test. For instance, in the quest to ensure that

34


good teacher candidates pass edTPA, teacher education coursework could end up emphasizing such mechanics of the test such as videotaping or using edTPAsanctioned language (Au 2013; Chiu 2014). While these and other technical and mechanical aspects are important in obtaining the credential, as is mentioned in Chaps. 4−6 of this volume, if certification programs begin to focus only on edTPA test-prep, teacher candidates might learn less about some of the explicit values explored in teacher education program curricula, such as social justice, equity, excellence, and ethics (Au 2013; Chiu 2014). That teacher education programs cannot design their own assessment instruments, and teacher educators are not allowed to evaluate their own students’ readiness for the field, calls into question the professionalization of all educators, a theme that is revisited in Chap. 7. Teacher candidates, educators, researchers, and others have taken issue with the fact that the exam is graded by raters hired by Pearson (Chiu 2014). Although Pearson’s published guidelines indicate that the raters are master teachers, teacher educators, and other education professionals, critics question whether the hired raters have comparable expertise to the teacher educators who evaluate student teachers’ performance in teacher certification programs. As portfolios are evaluated at a national scale, raters certainly do not know the students, and more importantly, may not understand the wide range of school environments in which student teachers complete their field experiences, particularly, the complexities associated with high-poverty environments and other cultural factors (Caughlan and Jiang 2014; Gorlewski 2013). A number of scholars argue that using raters located outside of the contexts in which teacher candidates work can provide an objective evaluation of teacher readiness, while others posit that using “complete strangers” as raters (Caughlan and Jiang 2014, p. 383) devalues the professional knowledge of and relationships between teacher educators, cooperating teachers, supervisors, and teacher candidates who collaborate and share expertise in specific contexts of teaching and learning (Chiu 2014; Milner 2013). Furthermore, some critics question to what extent can the short video required by the edTPA exhibit “authentic teaching” (Berlak 2011, p. 56).

Professionalization and Performance Assessments Admonishing the nation for allowing its public schools to decline, the 1983 report A Nation at Risk (ANAR) argued that the U.S. was at risk of losing global economic power due to the paltry state of its public education, as discussed in Chap. 2. ANAR and subsequent reports called for a return to traditional coursework, higher standards, and other curriculum-related reforms. A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, produced by the Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession (Task Force 1986), agreed with the conclusion that U.S. schools were inadequate and in dire need of reform, but focused on teacher preparation recommendations. As teachers were simultaneously viewed as under-qualified and underpaid, the Carnegie report upheld that professionalization was an essential

Professionalization and Performance Assessments

35

step toward better teachers and a stronger public education system. Subsequent educational policies of the 1980s and 1990s led to the restructuring of schools through decentralization and the implementation of school-based (or site-based) management. Under this new model, parents, administrators, and teachers collaborated on governance committees to implement reforms and policies at the individual school level. With decentralized decision-making, teachers were afforded a higher level of professional responsibility and accountability for meeting educational goals set by the state. Part of the guidance for teachers in meeting a higher level of professional responsibility was provided in professional standards documents (e.g., NCTM 1991), which, among other recommendations, set the stage for performance assessments for teachers by suggesting that evaluation for teachers be based upon actual classroom events, including samples of student work, teacher work, and reflection to improve student outcomes and facilitate teacher growth.

Performance Assessment and Teacher Education Increased attention to performance assessment in recent years corresponds with the desire for more meaningful connections between planning, instruction, and assessment in all educational contexts, from K-12 to higher education. The trend toward performance assessment originates within theories of constructivism in educational psychology. Perkins (1998) conceptualizes understanding as best demonstrated in performance, stating that “understanding is the ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows” (p. 40). For Perkins, a significant advantage of conceptualizing understanding as performative is that as an activity, performance is also a means of learning. Shulman (2005a) indicates that performances of understanding mitigate the most significant obstacles to learning in higher education: passivity, invisibility, anonymity and lack of accountability. Shulman adds that performances of the professional duties by novices is common in the signature pedagogies of law, medicine, and engineering and are a central component of the signature pedagogies of those fields. According to Caughlan and Jiang (2014), assessments for entering a profession are “gatekeeping mechanisms” that highlight the changing values of the field (p. 375). It is important to note that performance assessments have historically been formative; however, edTPA is summative, high stakes, and potentially punitive. In the past, the readiness of new teachers to enter the field was assessed on “input measures” such as satisfactory completion of coursework and content exams. Now teacher candidate readiness is based on “output measures” organized around the performance aspects of teaching that conform to a particular vision of what a new teacher should be able to do. Because the performance assessments are high stakes, teacher candidates will take on the values and practices that are legitimized by the assessment rubrics (Caughlan and Jiang 2014, p. 375−377). Not only do the expected performances guide what teacher candidates learn, but they also define and embody what it means to be a professional teacher.

36


Rather than using assessment solely to evaluate or sort students, or, in the context of teacher education, to meet the demands of policymakers and educational authorities, performance assessments may be formative as well as summative. In teacher education, a formative assessment might consist of feedback shared by a mentor with a mentee actively engaged in a learning process (Tillema 2009). A summative performance assessment may serve the traditional role of evaluating and comparing students; advocates argue that performance assessment could be more valid than traditional assessments, where knowledge may be divorced from practice. Teaching portfolios, a common form of performance assessment in teacher preparation, have been used in teacher education programs since the 1980s (Zeichner and Wray 2001). Zeichner and Wray describe varying purposes for portfolios for preservice teachers: formatively, to facilitate growth; summatively, to assess readiness to teach; as a showcase for prospective employers; and increasingly as part of state certification requirements. They also note the wide range of expectations regarding portfolios across different teacher education programs, which can include standardized outcomes. Wolf (1996) describes benefits of using teaching portfolios, noting that portfolios allow for reflection on practice and capture many of the complexities of becoming a teacher, allowing for deeper assessment of teachers. In line with Shulman’s call and with the view of many other scholars, DarlingHammond has advocated for performance assessments in teacher education (Darling-Hammond 2012; Darling-Hammond and Hyler 2013). Darling-Hammond et al. (2005) comprehensively examined many aspects of teacher education programs, focusing on the qualities of teacher education programs that are effective in enabling teachers to acquire knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will allow them to be effective teachers. Although Darling-Hammond et al. focus on several approaches to teacher education, their recommendation for performance assessment strategies (performance tasks, teaching portfolios, analysis of teaching, and analysis of learning) stand out in light of current policy and foreshadow the current structure of the edTPA. Many of these suggestions were made made in an earlier piece by Darling-Hammond et al. (2005) and in Chaps. 1 and 7 of this work, where the authors emphasize the impact of high quality teachers as the greatest factor in student achievement. The authors survey teacher education programs in California that meet their criteria for successful programs. They suggest rigorous accountability for teacher education programs including external quality review, rigorous standards for all teacher education programs such as NCATE, and examination of outcomes from teacher education programs. Performance assessments such as PACT, required for initial certification in California, have been paving the way toward the development of a national certification performance assessment such as edTPA. The same pedagogical reasoning that led reformers to develop an interest in performance assessment in K-12 schools thus undergirds the interest in performance assessment for teacher certification that led to edTPA. Assessment decisions based on the edTPA need to be considered in light of whether the inferences made while assessing teacher candidates are valid. Validity refers to the degree to which assessment an assessment actually measures what it is proposed to measure (Miller et al. 2013). Teacher educators have traditionally

Performance Assessment and Teacher Education

37

contextualized their assessments of teachers candidates by considering individual differences, learning abilities, cognitive, metacognitive, self-regulatory, and motivational skills of candidates. They also consider students’ beliefs about or perceptions of learning and teaching, prior learning and teaching experiences, and skills, knowledge, and dispositions grounded in psychological science and well defined standards (Miller et al. 2013). Traditional teacher education programs focus on the use of various types of evidence to establish validity. For instance, they consider construct, concurrent, and predictive validity to ascertain that causal inferences of teacher candidates’ ability to or potential to teach are observed (Miller et al. 2013). In contrast, edTPA assessments provide limited information how validity is being established. Little is known about the preparation of the raters, whether the rater understands the contextual factors surrounding the video or the students, and there is currently no evidence for the predictive validity of the edTPA assessment. Although the edTPA is relatively a new assessment tool, it is hoped and expected that causal inferences based on validity evidence should be available in the near future. In the meantime, concerns about threats to internal validity such as selection, history, regression, testing, and instrumentation, as outlined by Shadish et al. (2002), will persist. In addition to concerns about validity, there are concerns about reliability of the edTPA. Reliability refers to the extent to which an assessment produces consistent scores (Gronlund and Waugh 2009). The scores must be stable and dependable and lack significant error of measurement. Reliability can be measured by test-retest, alternate-forms, and split-half. Although a lengthy discussion of evidence of reliability is also beyond the scope of this volume, it is important to observe that edTPA provides limited consistent evidence of reliability of the scores. It is not always clear why one student was scored in the mastery range while another did not pass with the minimal score. Test-retest is only an option if the candidate fails in his or her initial effort. Alternate-forms and split-half measures of reliability are not options available for the edTPA, given its format. Traditional teacher education programs provide more opportunity to assess whether scores are reproducible and reliable. For instance, field supervisors could observe a candidate in different classes, or on different days, and could give alternate-forms of assessment to candidates. Performance assessment is an important component in teaching preparation programs. Unbiased and nondiscriminatory assessments are essential to maintain a public trust in teacher education programs; SCALE needs to improve efforts in providing evidence to interested constituents about validity and reliability of scores, and that the portfolio submissions are objectively judged and assessed.

Policy and Privatization in Teacher Education Primarily a consumer publishing and media corporation until the late 1990s, Pearson broke into the U.S. education market in the early 2000s NCLB (2002) era by acquiring a number of testing companies, including a corporation that provided

38


state teacher certification assessments. Pearson’s educational endeavours have been criticized over the last few years: its proprietary monopoly over teacher performance assessment and influence on school curriculum; the profits it earns from testing and curricular materials; the culturally biased and nonsensical content, hidden advertising, and flawed scoring practices in its tests; and its use of students to field-test its products (Figueroa 2013; Madeloni 2013; Mansell 2012; Ravitch 2012; Singer 2012). Further, in some states such as New York, Pearson administers and scores a number of additional tests that are required for teacher certification such as the content, literacy and special needs tests. Like other major corporations involved in the testing industry such as McGraw-Hill, Harcourt Educational Measurement, and Houghton Mifflin, Pearson possesses a large amount of wealth and lobbying power; it funds foundations such as Foundation for Excellence in Education, which promotes school choice, high-stakes testing, accountability, and other educational legislation (Reese 2013). Not only did Pearson have a hand in creating current policies such as the Common Core State Standards and edTPA, but it also develops and sells the curriculum and assessments that align with the policies. Pearson’s partnership with Microsoft to produce digital forms of curricula and assessments aligned with the Common Core State Standards, which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also helped fund, is further evidence of Pearson’s influence. In short, Pearson profits from educational policies that its money and influence help craft. That Pearson’s policy work creates a market for its products throughout various levels of education leads some critics to consider just how much influence a private organization should have over public policy—and to what extent Pearson’s power represents a conflict of interest between the private and public sectors (Mansell 2012; Reese 2013; Figueroa 2013). Site-based management and other decentralization policies promoted during the 1990s, such as school choice initiatives, vouchers, and charter schools, provided an entryway for businesses such as Pearson to gain a stronger influence in the educational marketplace. Educational policies influenced by ANAR worked to strengthen the governing power that private businesses and other non-governmental organizations held, not only over educational policy making but also over educational ideology. Policy makers as well as business stakeholders consider education to be a key space for engineering a skilled and productive citizenry. Because education is increasingly being conceived, implemented, and evaluated as an investment in the global economy (Cuban 2003, p. 5; Spring 1998, p. ix), corporate-supported curriculum reforms require schools to teach “economically useful knowledge” and hold educators accountable for students’ mastery of workforce skills (Caughlan and Jiang 2014, p. 381). Preparing students to compete in the ever-changing workplace has emerged as public education’s single most important goal (Spring 1998). Because parents, politicians, and business leaders want to be assured that they are getting their “money’s worth” from publicly funded education, and the technology exists to seemingly provide such proof of return on investment, stakeholders are demanding more accountability from teachers and teacher education programs. Evidence of effectiveness of a particular teacher is constructed by the ideals of and measured by strategies and tools borrowed from the private sector, namely, the “strategic use of data through technology and

Policy and Privatization in Teacher Education

39

standards” (Shaker 2009, p. ii.). Combined with efficiency and cost-cutting, the prominence of data, technology, and standards shape the policies of public education and the professionalization of teaching. Increasingly privatized by ideologies and practices of the private business sector, public education is focused on outcomes, as learning is measured in outputs and standardized assessments so that each school, each student, and more recently, each teacher, teacher candidate, and teacher education program can be ranked. Supporters of privatization argue that ambiguous goals and improper management that characterize public institutions are to blame for educational problems. For example, Darling-Hammond and Hyler (2013) explain that due to a lack of cohesion that is characteristic of other professions, teaching has been subject to management from outside organizations. Traditional public schools are run in ways that the for-profit sector considers outdated and inefficient; schools should instead be modeled after corporations and led by graduates of top business schools and CEOs from the private sector rather than by experienced educators. Private organizations have been involved in public education for decades. For example, Both NCLB and Race to the Top were promoted by the Business Roundtable (BRT), a pro-business lobbying organization consisting of top corporate executive leaders (Ahlquist 2011). As an increasing number of states adopt edTPA, the private sector’s vision for regulating teacher education programs is becoming more apparent. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s ongoing support of Teach for America, for instance, underscores the “itinerant nature” of the teaching profession (Milner 2013, p. i) and frames teaching in high-needs schools as a temporary rung on a career ladder. Business leaders such as Bill Gates posit that a standardized education system free of unions, contracts, tenure, and intellectual freedom will better produce an efficient workforce and help America obtain a larger piece of the twenty-first century global market (Grey 2011). This line of thinking holds that private enterprise is a better catalyst for social change than are government programs, including public schooling. Market principles must be applied to virtually every aspect of public services, and in some cases stakeholders argue for the privatization of all public services (Ahlquist 2011; Saltman 2000), with an end goal of expanding educational choice as well as providing seemingly greater accountability to parents, taxpayers, and especially, to the marketplace. The desire for greater accountability has significantly influenced teacher education, especially where standardized performance assessments such as the edTPA are a requirement for initial teacher certification. Of great concern for many teacher educators, education researchers, and parents is that the edTPA is being administered by Pearson (Madeloni 2013). For the first time, the evaluation of teacher candidate preparedness will not be solely controlled by public educational institutions. Critics point out that transferring the management of a public institution formerly regulated at the local level directly to a for-profit company has particular consequences not only for teachers and students, but for all citizens. Interrogating this intersection of policy and privatization, a number of scholars contend that corporate involvement in public education exploits young students (Boyles 2005; Molnar 1996) as well as the public good (Madeloni and Gorlewski 2013). Private industry, critics argue, should have no business in public schools. Although Madeloni (2013) goes so far as to say that the

40


very involvement of Pearson should be grounds to reject the edTPA, Falk (2013) contends that Pearson is only involved in the distribution of the assessment and not the content, development, or scoring of the assessment, which are controlled by the edTPA Consortium’s Policy Board (Falk 2013). Members of the edTPA Policy Board include educators, academics, school administrators, and teachers’ union leaders, as well as presidents and CEOs of non-governmental organizations who represent a variety of stakeholders. Pearson is not currently named in the edTPA handbook; however, due to the corporation’s profit motive, critics nonetheless hold that teacher education is becoming standardized, privatized, and commodified (Madeloni 2013) with detrimental effects for students and the teaching profession. The edTPA website states that the assessment is owned by Stanford University; however, through its administration of the edTPA exam, Pearson has the power to establish the customary interpretations of its terms of use, including the requirement that teacher education faculty sign a nondisclosure agreement to access edTPA documents (Madeloni 2013). As will be discussed in Chap. 7 with particular attention to the affordances and constraints of the edTPA for teacher education programs, Pearson’s proprietary stance places barriers on scholarly activity for teacher educators, including opportunities for research as well as engagement in public discourse on teacher education policies and performance assessments. Such restrictions contradict Hiebert’s et al. (2002) description of the necessary and basic characteristics of professional knowledge. To be considered the knowledge of a profession, Hiebert contends, information, policies, and practices should be openly and publicly shared among the profession’s members (p. 4), who are free, like lawyers and medical doctors, to collaborate, scrutinize, interpret, and develop the system of collaborative professional knowledge (2002, p. 7). Teaching, according to Hiebert, derives its “meaning and character” from collaboration rather than “isolation.” Hiebert recommends the creation of a database in which researchers and teachers can immediately and easily access and share artifacts such as teaching videos, lessons, and student work— “a range of ideas accompanied by vivid examples of alternative practices” (p. 8) rather than exclusively relying on a private corporation’s mandates for best practices. Such a network would allow educators and researchers to freely circulate the knowledge that emerges from their professional contexts “into the public world” (p. 8). As a for-profit corporation, the proprietary nature of Pearson precludes free and open collaboration for the purposes of continuous knowledge production, verification, and improvement that the teaching profession requires of its knowledge base (p. 12). Especially in states where the edTPA is mandatory, public school teaching is being defined, regulated, and professionalized by a private entity. Privatization of public education goes beyond utilizing market-based ideologies and management techniques to include actual profit-making from the implementation of education policy. The Common Core State Standards encourage corporations to provide products such as technology, testing, and training both inside and outside of schools, allowing private sector companies and investors to profit from the near $800 billion education market (Fang 2014). Aligning its products with federal policy and standards, Pearson can ensure that its goods are

Policy and Privatization in Teacher Education

41

ubiquitous in public schools (Winslow 2013b). Critics of privatization point out that when policies are implemented in ways that encourage schools to be run in the most profit-maximizing and cost-effective ways possible, expenditures such as buildings, libraries, and even teachers could be replaced with less expensive alternatives. One example are “cubicle” charter school chains such as Rocketship. Supported by the Broad, Gates, and Walton Foundations and funded by tech corporations such as Skype and Facebook, these schools pay non-certified, non-contract instructors $15 an hour to manage a lab of (usually low-income) children, who spend a large portion of their day studying proprietary online test-prep content (Winslow 2013a). Relying on a low-skilled, non-professional labor force of instructors to perform what amounts to for-profit classroom management fuels stereotypes of teachers as little more than babysitters and impedes the decades-long movement toward teacher professionalization. The intersection of responses to ANAR and other reports during the 1980s mobilized policies that supported professionalizing teaching via the standardization of performance assessment in teacher education as well as the privatization of public education. Most recently, these forces have culminated in complex ways to produce the edTPA. The assessment has been positioned by some teacher educators and policymakers as a way to reclaim the teaching profession from the very forces that have given rise to the reform (Au 2013). As discussed throughout the chapters related to content areas, the transfer of management of the teacher preparation process from the state to the private sector has particular affordances and constraints for teachers, teacher candidates, and teacher education professionals.

References Ahlquist, R. (2011). The ‘empire’ strikes back via a neoliberal agenda: confronting the legacies of colonialism. In R. Ahlquist, P. C. Gorski, & T. Montaño (Eds.), Assault on Kids: How Hyper-Accountability, Corporatization, Deficit Ideologies, and Ruby Payne are Destroying Our Schools (pp. 9–32). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing Inc. Au, W. (2013). What’s a nice test like you doing in a place like this? Rethinking Schools, 27(4). Bales, B. L. (2006). Teacher education policies in the United States: The accountability shift since 1980. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(4), 395–407. Berlak, A. (2011). Can standardized teacher performance assessment identify highly qualified teachers? In R. Ahlquist, P. C. Gorski, & T. Montaño (Eds.), Assault on Kids: How HyperAccountability, Corporatization, Deficit Ideologies, and Ruby Payne are Destroying Our Schools (pp. 51–62). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing Inc. Boyles, D. R. (2005). Schools or Markets? Commercialism, Privatization, and School-Business Partnerships. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Caughlan, S., & Jiang, H. (2014). Observation and Teacher Quality Critical Analysis of Observational Instruments in Preservice Teacher Performance Assessment. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(5), 375–388. Chiu, S. (2014). edTPA: An Assessment that Reduces the Quality of Teacher Education. Teachers College, Columbia University Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics, 14(1), 28–30.

42


Cowen, J., & Strunk, K. O. (2014). How do Teachers’ Unions Influence Education Policy? What We Know and What We Need to Learn. Available in http://education.msu.edu/epc/ library/documents/WP%2042%20How%20do%20teachers%20unions%20influence%20 education%20policy.pdf. Cuban, L. (2003). Why is it so hard to get good schools?. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Darling-Hammond, L. (2010, October). Evaluating teacher effectiveness: How teacher performance assessments can measure and improve teaching. Center for American Progress. Retreieved from http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2010/10/19/8502/ evaluating-teacher-effectiveness/. Darling-Hammond, L. (2012). The right start: Creating a strong foundation for the teaching career. Phi Delta Kappan, 94(3), 8–13. Darling-Hammond, L., Hammerness, K., Grossman, P., Rust, F., & Shulman, L. (2005). The design of teacher education programs. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world (pp. 390–441). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Darling-Hammond, L., & Hyler, M. E. (2013). The role of performance assessment in developing teaching as a profession. Rethinking Schools, 27(4). Available in http://www.rethinkingschool s.org/archive/27_04/27_04_darling-hammond_hyler.shtml. Falk, B. (2013, June 3). Response. In Diane Ravitch’s blog, “What is edTPA and why do critics dislike it?” Message posted to http://dianeravitch.net/2013/06/03/ what-is-edtpa-and-why-do-critics-dislike-it/. Fang, L. (2014, September). Venture Capitalists Are Poised to “Disrupt” Everything About the Education Market. The Nation. Available in http://www.thenation.com/article/181762/ venture-capitalists-are-poised-disrupt-everything-about-education-market. Figueroa, A. (2013). 8 Things You Should Know About Corporations Like Pearson that Make Huge Profits from Standardized Tests. AlterNet. Available in http://www.alternet.org/ education/corporations-profit-standardized-tests. Gorlewski, J. (2013, June 3). In “What is edTPA and why do critics dislike it?” Diane Ravitch’s blog. Retrived from http://dianeravitch.net/2013/06/03/what-is-edtpa-and-why-do-criticsdislike-it/. Grey, L. (2011). Governing Identity Through Neoliberal Education Initiatives: “Get[ting] Schooled” in the Marketplace. In Kovacs, P. (Ed.), The Gates Foundation and the Future of US “Public” Schools. NY: Routledge. Gronlund, N. E., & Waugh, C. K. (2009). Assessment of students achievement. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Hayes, N., & Sokolower, J. (2012–2013). Stanford/Pearson test for new teachers draws fire. RethinkingSchools, 27(2). Retrieved from http://www.rethinkingschools.org/ archive/27_02/27_02_hayes_sokolower.shtml. Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R., & Stigler, J. W. (2002). A knowledge base for the teaching profession: What would it look like and how can we get one? Educational Researcher, 31(5), 3–15. Johnson, D. D., Johnson, B., Farenga, S. J., & Ness, D. (2005). Trivializing teacher education: The accreditation squeeze. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Lieberman, M. (1956). Education As A Profession. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Lipsky, D. B. (1988). The Politics of the Education Reform Movement: Some Implications for the Future of Teacher Bargaining. NYSSBA Journal. Available in http://digitalcommons.ilr. cornell.edu/articles/798/. Madeloni, B. (2013). Pearson comes to teacher education, and we are supposed to be cool with that? National Education Policy Center. Available in http://nepc.colorado.edu/blog/ pearson-comes-teacher-education-and-we-are-supposed-be-cool. Madeloni, B., & Gorlewski, J. (2013). Wrong answer to the wrong question: Why we need critical teacher education, not standardization. Rethinking Schools 27(4). Available in http://www. rethinkingschools.org/archive/27_04/27_04_madeloni-gorlewski.shtml. Mansell, W. (2012). Should Pearson, a giant multinational, be influencing our education policy? Available in http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jul/16/pearson-multinational-influenceeducation-poliy.

References

43

Milner, H. R. (2013). Policy Reforms and De-professionalization of Teaching. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Available in http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/ policy-reforms-deprofessionalization. Miller, M., Linn, R., & Gronlund, N. (2013). Measurement and assessment in teaching (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Pearson. Molnar, A. (1996). Giving Kids the Business. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Murray, C. E. (1992). Teaching as a profession: The Rochester case in historical perspective. Harvard Educational Review, 62(4), 494–518. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1991). Professional standards for teaching mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), 20 § U. S. C. 6301 (2002). Perkins, D. (1998). What is Understanding? In M. S. Wiske (Ed.), Teaching for understanding: Linking research with practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Price, T. A. (2014). Teacher Education under Audit: value-added measures, TVAAS, EdTPA and evidence-based theory. Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 13(3), 211. http://doi.o rg/10.2304/csee.2014.13.3.211. Ravitch, D. (2012). Pearsonizing Our Children. Available in http://dianeravitch.net/2012/06/07/p earsonization/. Reese, F. (2013). Emails Show Corporate Influence, Conflict of Interest in Education Reform. Available in http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/emails-show-corporate-influenceconflict-interest-education-reform. Roth, R. A. (1996). Standards for certification, licensure, and accreditation. In J. Sikula, T. Buttery & E. Guyton(Eds.), Handbook of Research on Teacher Education (2nd ed., pp. 242– 306). New York, NY: Macmillan. Saltman, K. (2000). Collateral Damage: Corporatizing Public Schools, a Threat to Democracy. Oxford, England: Rowman and Littlefield. Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin. Shaker, E.. (2009). Privatizing schools: democratic choice or market demand. Education, Limited 1, no. 3: ii. Available in http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/ publications/National_Office_Pubs/edultd3.pdf. Shulman, L. S. (2005a). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134(3), 52–59. Shulman, L. S. (2005b). Teacher education does not exist. Stanford Educator, 7. Shulman. L. (2005c, February). The signature pedagogies of the professions of law, medicine, engineering, and the clergy: Potential lessons for the education of teachers. Talk delivered at the Math Science Partnerships (MSP) Workshop: “Teacher Education for Effective Teaching and Learning” Hosted by the National Research Council’s Center for Education. Irvine, California. Shulman, L. S., & Shulman, J. H. (2004). How and what teachers learn: A shifting perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36(2), 257–271. Singer, P. (2012) Pearson “Education”—Who Are These People? Available in http:// www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/pearson-education-new-york-testing-_b_1850169.html. Spring, J. (1998). Education and the rise of the global economy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Task Force on Teaching as a Profession. (1986). A nation prepared: Teachers for the 21st century. New York, NY: Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy. Taubman, P. M. (2009). Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. New York, NY: Routledge. Tillema, H. H. (2009). Assessment for learning to teach: Appraisal of practice teaching lessons by mentors, supervisors, and student teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(2), 155–167. Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

44


Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Phi Delta Kappan, 63, 673–676. Welner, K. G., & Mathis, W. J. (2015). Elementary and secondary education act: Time to move beyond test-focused policies. National Education Policy Center. Available in http://nepc. colorado.edu/files/nepc-policymemo-esea.pdf. Winslow, S. (2013a) Charters get kids cubicle ready. Labor Notes. Available in http://www.laborn otes.org/blogs/2013/12/charters-get-kids-cubicle-ready. Winslow, S. (2013b) An iPad on every desk: A trojan horse, teachers say. Labor Notes. Available in http://www.labornotes.org/2013/11/ipad-every-desk-trojan-horse-teachers-say. Wolf, K. (1996). Developing an Effective Teaching Portfolio. Educational Leadership, 53(6), 34–37. Zeichner, K., & Wray, S. (2001). The teaching portfolio in US teacher education programs: What we know and what we need to know. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 613–621. Zumwalt, K. K. (1988). Are we improving or undermining teaching? In. L. Tanner (Ed.) Critical issues in curriculum, Eighty-Seventh Yearbook, Part l. The National Society for Study of Education. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Chapter 4

Professionalization, Policy, Performance Assessment and Privatization in Mathematics

Abstract This chapter reviews the particular affordances and constraints of the intersection of professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization in a mathematics teacher education program as viewed through the lens of the secondary mathematics edTPA and its initial implementation in our adolescent (grades 7–12) teacher education program in New York. We begin with a discussion of pedagogy in mathematics and how observed pedagogy and other factors influenced the development of standards for curriculum and evaluation in mathematics as spearheaded by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). We then discuss how the development of the content area standards in mathematics led to the development of professional standards for mathematics teachers, along with standards for assessment, and an eventual revision of the original NCTM standards for curriculum and evaluation. This leads into a discussion of how these standards, incentivized by the NCTM, led to several mandatory policy initiatives, and might have influenced the development of the edTPA Next, we discuss the affordances and constraints of mandated, high-stakes performance assessment in mathematics teacher education as they become explicit in the first year of implementation in an urban teacher preparation program, where state policy mandated the edTPA performance assessment as a requirement for initial certification. Initial results, including pass rates, are reported, along with anecdotal data about students’ reactions to the program and its implementation of the edTPA, and their reactions to the edTPA itself. Keywords Policy · Performance assessment · Privatization · Professionalization · edTPA · Standards · Mathematics As mentioned in Chap. 1, mathematics education is the first content area we discuss because of the immediate response of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) to A Nation at Risk, (NCEE 1983), which included a recommendation for a new content framework in mathematics (Romberg 1993). This © The Author(s) 2016 T.J. Gurl et al., Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29146-8_4

45

46

4

Professionalization, Policy, Performance Assessment …

recommendation led to a new set of standards for curriculum and evaluation in mathematics (NCTM 1989) which subsequently influenced other content areas, including English education and social studies education, who followed suit thereafter. The standards and reform movements in English and social studies education will be discussed in subsequent chapters. In this chapter, we discuss the particular affordances and constraints of the intersection of professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization in a mathematics teacher education program as viewed through the lens of the secondary mathematics edTPA and its initial implementation in our adolescent (grades 7–12) teacher education program. We begin with a discussion of pedagogy in mathematics and how observed pedagogy and other factors influenced the development of standards for curriculum and evaluation in mathematics as spearheaded by the NCTM. We then discuss how the development of the content area standards in mathematics led to the development of professional standards for mathematics teachers, along with standards for assessment, and an eventual revision (NCTM 2000) of the original (NCTM 1989) standards for curriculum and evaluation. This leads into a discussion of how these standards, incentivized by the NCTM, led to several mandatory policy initiatives, including the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), and might have influenced the development of the edTPA and other policy initiatives. This historical contextualization is followed by a brief review of performance assessment in mathematics. Next, we discuss the affordances and constraints of mandated, high-stakes performance assessment in mathematics teacher education as they become explicit in the first year of implementation in a New York urban teacher preparation program, where state policy mandated the edTPA performance assessment as a requirements for initial certification. Initial results, including pass rates, are reported, along with anecdotal data about students’ reactions to the program and its implementation of the edTPA, and their reactions to the edTPA itself. Beyond addressing the impact of the edTPA as a mandated performance assessment in mathematics teacher education, we examine the ways in which expectations for preservice teachers in teacher preparation programs also affect curriculum and pedagogy (and ultimately students) across a wide range of classroom contexts. We wish to emphasize that this work reflects a snapshot in time of the early implementation of mandated edTPA in a particular secondary mathematics education program, and that this implementation may look quite different in years to come. Although the focus of this chapter is mathematics teacher education, it is important to examine what it is that we are preparing mathematics teachers to do; that is, what instructional practices do we as a profession want to promote? What do we want to discourage? What follows is a discussion of instructional practices in mathematics classrooms, both common and not so common, and is guided by the questions: What does a “typical” mathematics lesson look like in the U.S.? What should it look like? What are the tensions between the two?

What Does a “Typical” Mathematics Lesson Look like in the U.S.?

47

What Does a “Typical” Mathematics Lesson Look Like in the U.S.? Several studies have attempted to parse out classroom instruction in mathematics. A consistent and persistent finding is the focus on procedures in mathematics classrooms in the United States. One of the most widely regarded examples of this is Stigler and Hiebert’s (1999) analysis of the TIMSS 1995 data (discussed in greater detail in Chap. 2), in which the authors found that most lessons in the study in the United States could be summarized as “learning terms and practicing procedures” (p. 41). A typical lesson sequence often included a warm up activity, homework review, a demonstration of procedures by the teacher, students practicing the procedure, and a review of the procedures and definitions. U.S. teachers tended to intervene with students at the first sign of struggle, and concepts and procedures were not developed, only stated. Although there were some variations on this model in the TIMSS study, this focus on procedures was a highly common characteristic of mathematics classrooms in the U.S., and there appeared to be little teaching for deep conceptual understanding. As mentioned in Chap. 2, the later TIMSS 1999 video study (Hiebert et al. 2003), which included more countries (including high-performing countries) found that pedagogical approaches varied greatly across high-performing countries, and that most countries only included a small percentage of conceptual problems. The important finding that expanded upon the earlier TIMSS 1995 results was that in the U.S., conceptual problems were not implemented as intended. That is, even though a mathematics problem was written so that students could make connections among procedures and concepts, teachers, in effect, reduced the problem to simply practicing procedures, by telling the students what to do, or by giving a formula (Stigler and Hiebert 2004), consistent with earlier findings. Schoenfeld (1988) found that the predominant model of instruction in mathematics is based on the expectation that students will absorb fixed body of knowledge, meted out by the teacher, with which students rarely engage in any meaningful way. “Good” teachers have many ways of explaining ideas, and eventually students “get it.” Procedures can be mastered without any depth of conceptual understanding. NAEP provides evidence of student understanding of procedures without conceptual understanding, by analyzing students’ correct procedural solutions to mathematics problems where the solution does not make sense in the context of the problem (for example, the meaninglessness of needing 31 remainder 12 buses for a trip; see Schoenfeld (1988), for further discussion). Schoenfeld (1988) maintained that the failure to connect formal symbolic operations to their contextual meaning is extremely problematic, and needs to be broadly addressed.

48

4


What Should Mathematics Teaching Look Like? In examining how to combat the persistent focus on procedures in mathematics, Hiebert et al. (1997) discuss the changing role of the teacher if teaching and learning for understanding is to take place. Their description is as follows: Instead of acting as the main source for mathematical information and the evaluator of correctness, the teacher now has the role of selecting and posing appropriate sequences of problems as opportunities for learning, sharing information when it is essential for tackling problems, and facilitating the establishment of a classroom culture in which pupils work on novel problems individually and interactively, and discuss and reflect on their answers and methods. The teacher relies on the reflective and conversational problemsolving activities of the students to drive their learning (p. 8).

This approach to teaching differs greatly from the approach described earlier and reiterated by Hiebert et al. (1997) in which the teacher tells the students information and demonstrates procedures, followed by students practicing the procedures with no development of concepts or understanding. Students should be given the opportunity to make sense out of the mathematics, have opportunities to derive mathematical results and figure things out on their own, rather than a focus on mastery of a prescribed body of knowledge passed down from the teacher (Schoenfeld 1988). Some instructional approaches that can give students these necessary opportunities include teachers posing rich mathematical problems, and responding to students’ thinking about them through classroom discussion, giving explanations when necessary (Hiebert and Morris 2012).

What Are the Tensions Between the Two Views? The tension between the focus on procedures-only as opposed to a conceptual approach to procedures and problem solving has been difficult to overcome. Altering the procedural focus that exists in many, if not most, mathematics classrooms in the U.S. presents a challenge to the mathematics education community. Many who aim to be mathematics teachers were successful under the traditional, procedural approach, and see no shortcomings with this approach. If instruction is to improve, preservice teachers need to have mathematical experiences that are congruous with the teaching techniques the mathematics education community values; that is, learning for understanding, communicating mathematically, and problem solving, among other non-traditional mathematical learning experiences. These types of mathematical experiences, however, are quite rare, the lack of which result in preservice teachers equating “good teaching with good telling” (Cooney 1999, p. 167). Consistent with their own experiences, preservice teachers take a procedural approach, often believing that the focus of mathematics instruction should only be the necessary steps for the procedure, and an avoidance of confusion and struggle on the students’ part. Students should take notes

What Are the Tensions Between the Two Views?

49

and practice, and teachers should intervene at the first sign of struggle (Cooney 1999). The persistent belief in teaching the way one was taught is evidence of the “apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie 1975) that is seen as an obstacle to change in the classroom. As described below in detail, the effort to move away from the procedural focus in mathematics began in the 1980s, spearheaded by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), which established standards for both content and practice in order to improve mathematics teaching and learning. Teaching based on NCTM standards has customarily been referred to as “reform” teaching, given the standards’ inclusion of mathematical “process” standards, such as problem solving, reasoning, communication, and connections (NCTM 1989). With the introduction of the NCTM standards (1989) and the “reform” approaches associated with them, some teachers were more amenable to reform teaching, and believed that their classroom were exemplars of reform teaching in mathematics. The literature, however, has noted inconsistencies between teachers’ stated beliefs in reform teaching approaches and the actual teaching practices observed in the classroom (Cohen 1990; Cooney 1999; Schoenfeld 1988). In the case of Mrs. Oublier (Cohen 1990), Mrs. Oublier sees herself as having revolutionized her practice, and that she had replaced memorization with teaching for understanding. However, the many inconsistencies that are noted between her practice and her stated beliefs, are noted by Cohen (1990) as the result of a lack of professional development for teachers. He discussed the tension between the stated recommendations for teaching and the means in which they are expected to come to fruition: “If it is implausible to expect students to understand math simply by being told, why is it any less implausible to expect teachers to learn a new math simply by being told?” (p. 327). In another example, geometry teachers in a particular study told students not to memorize blindly, suggesting that understanding the concepts behind the procedures would be emphasized, but in the classrooms procedures and steps were emphasized, which undermined conceptual understanding (Schoenfeld 1988). In an example with preservice teachers, student teachers stated belief about students’ making sense through cooperative learning were not consistent with the teacher-centered practices employed in the classroom, which were consistent with how the preservice teachers learned mathematics themselves, usually in teachercentered environment (Cooney 1999). These examples all support the persistence of the “apprenticeship of observation” described by Lortie (1975), which refers to the tendency to teach the way we were taught, but further suggest that teachers might need to relearn mathematics in a new way if they are to teach it in a new way. This problem persists due to lack of proper preparation of teachers, and lack of adequate professional development opportunities. Teachers need opportunities to grapple with conceptual mathematics and a variety of pedagogical approaches because they were taught (and were successful with) traditional curricula and traditional teaching approaches when they were students (Schoenfeld 2002). Some of the other challenges to implementing reform-based practices in the mathematics classroom had a basis in the concern that students would not do well on standardized tests, which are often based on procedures. Data on success of reform curricula (based on NCTM 1989, 2000) began to indicate that students who were taught using

50

4


NCTM standards-based curricula do as well in computation and procedures as those taught using traditional curricula, but have better understanding of concepts and are better able to problem solve (Schoenfeld 2002). Many teachers, however, do not deviate from procedural instruction due to pressures as a result of testing. According to Schoenfeld, this de-professionalizes teaching because many of the curricula that are chosen to support standardized testing are very prescriptive and allow for very little teacher growth and input, further contributing to the lack of meaningful professional development. Ideally, teachers should enter the profession better prepared, and have opportunities for sustained professional development (Schoenfeld 2002). What follows is a brief history of the reform effort in mathematics education, spearheaded by the NCTM with the introduction of the 1989 standards document, its impact in the field, and its influence on current initiatives.

A Brief History of the Reform Effort in Mathematics Education and Its Impact on Current Policy Many of the initiatives to improve mathematics teaching and learning in the United States are the result of the work of the NCTM, whose Standards documents (NCTM 1989, 1991, 1995, 2000) have been highly influential on a national scale, guiding discussion and policy for mathematics education, including standards for mathematical content and process, assessment, and teaching. Prior to the release of the Standards documents, a call for change was outlined in the 1980 document, An Agenda for Action (NCTM 1980), which included several recommendations for the mathematics education community, including maintaining the professionalism of mathematics teachers, a focus on problem solving, and an expansion of basic skills beyond simple computation, which was an attempt to address the procedural focus existing in most classrooms. Further, given the new inclusion of problem solving, the NCTM recommended that innovative forms of assessment be incorporated to measure students’ proficiency in problem solving, hinting at, but not yet specifically calling for, performance assessments. An Agenda for Action provided the groundwork for the later Standards documents. Thus, the NCTM has been a driving force in policy for mathematics teaching, learning, and assessment, including raising the professional status of mathematics teachers, all by inducements from within the mathematics education community. The Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (1989), Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991), and Assessment Standards for School Mathematics (1995) were the first set of standards produced by a professional organization (NCTM 2000), setting the precedent for the professional organizations for other content areas to do the same. Beginning with the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (NCTM 1989), and later in the revised document Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 2000), the NCTM set forth standards for school mathematics that

A Brief History of the Reform Effort …

51

included recommendations for both mathematical content and process, including an emphasis on the processes of problem solving, reasoning, communication and connections, (NCTM 1989) and revised slightly in the 2000 document to add reasoning and proof, and representation to the process standards. These standards documents together had a large influence on the standards of many states (Tate 1997) and motivated the inclusion of mathematical processes as requirements for students, along with a shift toward conceptual understanding in addition to procedural fluency. The NCTM (2000) standards provided the foundation for the New York State mathematics standards that preceded the common core standards (NYSED 2005), incorporating the same content strands and process standards. Given the change in content standards and inclusion of process standards, the NCTM recognized the need to change the role of teachers of mathematics, and the need for change in the pedagogical approaches to teaching mathematics, and thus released the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM 1991), which were also an effort at professionalizing teachers of mathematics. The Professional Standards were written to complement the original Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (NCTM 1989). Together, these documents identify the indepth mathematics that all students should be required to learn, and suggestions for teaching approaches and behaviors that support deep learning of mathematics. The original Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (1989) did not come without criticism and caution from various sources, including from within the mathematics education research community. Apple (1992), for example, generally supported the standards, particularly the recommendations that mathematics not be an elitist endeavor reserved for those considered to have talent, but a subject with which all students should be encouraged and required to engage, and that mathematics should be connected to real life activities. He did, however, caution, that structural change to the culture of mathematics education at the time needed to be addressed in order to enact lasting change, and believed that more guidance was needed in the form of next steps in the implementation process. The Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (1989) had been criticized as vague, so that more might agree with their content (Apple 1992), but this also caused problems since seemingly contradictory curricular initiatives were enacted in order to meet the Standards (Schoenfeld 2004). The good intentions of the NCTM often went unheeded in the field; the inducement of good (i.e., hands-on, student centered) teaching and learning did not seem to be enough to change the beliefs of some teachers (Ladson-Billings 1997; Secada 1996). Although the chair of the commission developing the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards viewed them as a rallying flag for teachers (Romberg 1992, 1993), their implementation was uneven, with students of color and students of low socioeconomic status generally remaining in classrooms that included teachers simply giving information, and with low expectations of students, while noting different demographic characteristics in schools and districts that had adopted the NCTM standards, (Ladson-Billings 1997). English language learners also had limited opportunities to learn in standards-based classrooms (Secada 1996). Schoenfeld (2002) specifically noted that “poor children and children of color are consistently shortchanged when it comes to mathematics.” (p. 13). In the

52

4


past there was little emphasis on important concepts such as statistics and mathematical modeling that help student in real life, nor was there any emphasis on communication about mathematical ideas. The emphasis was computational. This approach was not successful as many students left or failed mathematics, disproportionately those of color. For this reason, the “apprenticeship of observation” described earlier is more pronounced for students of color because their learning experiences are mostly through traditional instruction, and lack opportunities to experience collaborative learning approaches (Tellez 2003). More recently, through the policy enactment of Race to the Top, the mandate of the Common Core State Standards has arrived, which, like the NCTM standards, have standards for mathematical content and mathematical practice with the goal of conceptual understanding, but unlike the NCTM standards, are policy, rather than recommendation. Interestingly, Apple (1992) identified the potential of the NCTM standards to form the framework for a set of national standards, which, two decades later seems to have come to fruition given the recent influence of the NCTM standards on the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (NCTM 2011). Teachers have no choice but to teach in such a way that students meet those standards, since state exams are based on (or will be based on) the standards for both content and practice. The mathematics and mathematics education community in the U.S. were quite supportive of the CCSSM upon their release. In 2013, the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS), which is an organization comprised of mathematics related professional societies, released a joint statement of support for the CCSSM, referring to the standards as “an auspicious advance in mathematics education” (CBMS 2013). This document was signed by the presidents of several mathematics and mathematics education organizations in the U.S. including the NCTM, the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM), the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE), among others. A further statement of support among mathematics educators (NCTM, NCSM, ASSM, and AMTE 2010) is available at the Common Core website. This statement explicitly links the CCSSM standards to the NCTM standards and notes the opportunity for a system of “focused and coherent” standards that is superior to the current system of standards generated by individual states. Researchers (Porter et al. 2011) found that the CCSSM represented a positive change from existing state standards, noting that they are more focused than existing standards. These documents, however, all offer a cautionary note about implementation of the CCSSM, emphasizing that teachers need to be properly prepared to implement the standards, and that the assessment systems must accurately reflect the standards. Without professional development, it is unclear how teachers might interpret the standards. Further, some see the CCSS generally as a narrowing of the curriculum, with a disproportionate emphasis on mathematics and reading at the expense of other subjects. Additionally, there is no empirical data on the standards and their effectiveness (Milner 2013). Cautions regarding the CCSSM notwithstanding, the enactment and implementation of the standards have been frustrating for teachers, parents and students.

A Brief History of the Reform Effort …

53

In the rush to put the standards into practice, there was little teacher training and parental outreach, and as a result, complaints against the “common core” often conflate the standards, the curricula that purport to support the CCSSM, and the exams. Although much of the parental backlash against the common core appears to be directed toward the implementation rather than the standards themselves, changes in mathematics instruction are also a source of disgruntlement. Lacking the proper outreach and information from districts or educators, parents who learned math from a procedural approach may not see the value or the necessity of learning a “new” conceptual approach (Rubinkam 2015). Although the exams are purported to be aligned with the common core, there has been much criticism not only of Pearson’s role in the development and administration of the common core aligned exams, but also suspicion over the ability of the tests to accurately assess whether students have met the standards. Furthermore, the tests have been condemned as poorly written and confusing for students (Strauss 2014), lacking in transparency in content, and poorly aligned with the standards (Phillips 2014). New York is but one state witnessing a significant parent-led movement for their children to boycott the common core aligned tests (Harris and Fessenden 2015). The Common Core standards, especially the standards for mathematical practice, require a level of student communication and engagement, and emphasis on problem solving that many, if not most, teachers of mathematics in the U.S. have not historically been accustomed to in their teaching (NCES 2003). In an attempt to address this problem, two parallel mandates have been implemented: for those in the field, new teacher evaluation systems have been implemented with observation protocols such as the Danielson framework (Danielson 2008), which emphasizes external signs of student engagement; for teacher candidates and the edTPA which attempts to change what novice teachers do in the classroom by emphasizing not only procedural understanding, but also conceptual fluency and problem solving in mathematics. Further, it is unlikely that candidates will pass the edTPA exam if they revert to only lecturing students, or not actively engaging students in meaningful discourse and problem solving opportunities.

Mathematics Teacher Education and the edTPA The NCTM Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991) was an attempt to professionalize the work of teachers of mathematics from within the field, while also arguing for changing the traditional approach of many mathematics teachers and their development and evaluation. The document includes standards for teaching mathematics, standards for the evaluation of teaching of mathematics, standards for the professional development of teachers of mathematics, and standards for the support and development of mathematics teachers and teaching. The Professional Standards identified five major suggested shifts in the environment of mathematics classrooms: toward classrooms as mathematical communities; away from the teacher as sole authority for right answers; toward

54

4


mathematical reasoning; toward conjecturing, inventing, and problem solving, and away from an emphasis on procedures; and toward connecting mathematics, its ideas, and its applications (NCTM 1991, p. 3). One of the most striking things about the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics is its many similarities to the current policies and frameworks being used to assess and evaluate teachers (e.g., Danielson 2008). Similar to the inclusion of language function and syntax that are emphasized in the edTPA, the professional standards advocated the use of mathematical and academic language and classroom discourse, suggesting that students and teachers use language of agreement or disagreement, explaining their work, challenging each other to explain their work, and others (see NCTM 1991). This raises the question of the necessity of external mandates from outside the field, rather than the support of existing initiatives that already existed with the field of mathematics education. The answer might be found in the new requirement of “accountability,” which inherently shrouds the teaching profession in distrust (Taubman 2009). There is suggestion of the use of performance assessments to evaluate teaching in the NCTM Professional Standards (1991). Although the phrase “performance assessment” is not specifically used, many elements of a performance assessment are evident. The NCTM (1991) recommends a “cyclical process” that includes collecting information about a teacher’s teaching, analysis of the information with appropriate professional development to follow, and the eventual improvement of teaching as a result. Data collection is recommended to begin the process, specifically “collecting data representative of the teacher’s current practice” (NCTM 1991, p. 75). The collected data are then analyzed, with the identification of necessary improvements, as well as what is being done well. Also recommended is that teachers analyze their teaching themselves, and that the evaluation of teaching come from a variety of sources, including teachers’ goals for students, a portfolio with sample lesson plans and activities, analyses of several lessons, and evidence of students’ understanding. There is also an emphasis on engaging students in classroom discourse that “extends their understanding of mathematical concepts, procedures, and connections” (NCTM 1991, p. 89). All of this can be categorized as “performance assessment,” and has similarities to the edTPA for teacher candidates and the Danielson (2008) framework. A similar framework for preservice teacher candidates that requires self-reflection of a candidate’s knowledge, beliefs and goals for teaching has been used by teacher educators (Artzt et al. 2008). All of these forms of evaluation are formative in nature, with an emphasis on teacher learning, teacher growth, and improvement of teaching, rather than what might be seen as the summative nature of the edTPA, in which limited feedback is received by the candidate. Similar to the NCTM (1989, 2000) standards for school mathematics, the NCTM Professional Standards (1991) provided many ideas for a variety of assessments for teacher growth and improvement of teaching, but with no mandate for implementation. Districts and schools had a limited incentive to support the deep work of teacher improvement. Thus, similar to the mandate of the Common Core State Standards, efforts to professionalize teaching also became mandated, although the NCTM did (and still does) have a role in this process. The attempts

Mathematics Teacher Education and the EdTPA

55

to professionalize mathematics (and other) teaching continued under the requirements of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and their standards for teacher education programs, including the standards of the mathematics Specialized Professional Association (SPA), which were developed by the NCTM. The Danielson (2008) framework has been adopted by the State of New York as part of the teacher evaluation system, and the edTPA has been implemented on the state level for certification of individual teacher candidates. The edTPA might be viewed as an effort to better prepare teachers by requiring a summative, high-stakes assessment. This, however, may not be the case, as discussed below.

The Implementation of the edTPA in a Secondary Mathematics Teacher Education Program All teacher certification programs were required by the New York State to fully implement the edTPA during the 2013–2014 academic year. The program in secondary mathematics being discussed presently, as well as secondary English and social studies discussed in subsequent chapters, is situated in a large, public, university in a large urban center in New York State that serves a diverse population. During the initial implementation of the edTPA during the 2013–2014 academic year, the program in secondary mathematics consisted of 31 student teachers, both undergraduates and post baccalaureates, 21 of whom attempted and passed the edTPA. Pass/fail results are reported below (Table 4.1). These early data are promising for the program in mathematics in that all who submitted edTPA portfolios did indeed pass, and became initially certified secondary mathematics teachers. The question, however, is raised about why ten students did not submit their edTPA portfolios. Anecdotal evidence indicated that some changed their mind about teaching, and some did not submit because they were having difficulty passing some of the other new required state exams, in particular the Education All Students exam (EAS) and the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST), and did not want to pay the $300 for the edTPA until they were certain that they Table 4.1 Pass/fail results for the edTPA in secondary mathematics education Mathematics education Undergraduate

Post baccalaureate Total (all mathematics students)

Attempted and passed 15 (65 % of undergraduates in math) 6 (75 % of post-bacs in math) 21 (68 % of all candidates in math)

Attempted and failed 0

0 0

Did not attempt

Total

8 (35 % of undergraduates in math) 2 (25 % of post-bacs in math) 10 (32 % of all candidates in math)

23

8 31

56

4


would be able to pass the other tests. This situation was especially acute for students for whom English was not their first language, although it should be mentioned that several who passed the edTPA were also students for whom English was not their first language, including some of the highest scoring students. The scores for the students who submitted were quite satisfactory from the viewpoint of certification. The edTPA for secondary mathematics consists of three tasks, subdivided into 15 rubric categories, each of which may be assigned a score between one and five. In theory, the scores may range from 15 to 75. It is, however, expected that students will score about three in each category, so “passing” is a score of 41, and “passing with mastery” is 48, as defined by the State of New York. [It should be noted that passing scores are determined only by the state, and only a scored rubric is reported to students, not whether the student has passed or failed, due to varying requirements among states.] The program average in secondary mathematics for the 2013–2014 academic year was 48.2, which is considered to be in the mastery range. The undergraduate mean was 47.2, slightly below mastery, with 40 % of those who submitted passing with mastery. The post-bac mean score was 50.5, with 83 % who submitted passing with mastery. Overall, 11 of the 21 students passed with mastery, which is 52 % of combined post-bac and undergraduate students who submitted. The range of scores was 42–55. The state had allowed for a “safety net,” which allowed candidates who did not pass the edTPA to replace it with one of the written exams that would soon be retired, for a limited span of time. This was not needed by the candidates in the mathematics program for the first round of implementation for those who submitted. One of the goals of this chapter is to present the affordances and constraints to a specific secondary mathematics program in a state with early adoption of the edTPA. What follows is a discussion of the impact of the edTPA on the program from the perspective of the author/professor, followed by the perceived perspectives of the teacher candidates by the author/professor based on anecdotal data. In order to better explain the impact on the program, a brief description of the program follows. The initial certification program in mathematics, prior to the edTPA, consisted of a set of “required core” courses for all programs, including educational psychology, foundations of education, and educational technologies. The mathematics education component was comprised of a three-semester sequence. During the first semester, the program required for undergraduates, and recommended for post-bacs, a course called Mathematical Foundations of the Secondary School Curriculum, which required that students take responsibility for teaching the course (for more information see Artzt et al. 2012) under the guidance of the professor. This course was followed the next semester by a methods course with a 100 h initial clinical experience component, which required co-teaching with another teacher candidate, and two graded observations by a college supervisor. The final semester required a curriculum and assessment course, which was a co-requisite to a five-day per week full semester student teaching program. Both the methods course and the curriculum and assessment course required a portfolio as part of the course grade. The introduction of the edTPA requirement required revisiting the course and fieldwork requirements for the secondary mathematics program, although changes

The Implementation of the edTPA in a Secondary Mathematics …

57

were already being considered due to NCATE/CAEP standards. Several changes were made. During the first of the three-semester sequence, the Mathematical Foundations course was modified to include attention to the structure of a lesson plan, including technical aspects of writing a lesson plan (e.g., objectives, development, summary). Another change was the addition of student work analysis, although this change was already in process for the NCATE/CAEP requirements for evidence of Impact on Student Learning, regardless of edTPA requirements. Candidates had always been required to take responsibility for grading homework and giving feedback with the guidance of the professor, and were newly asked to tabulate correct and incorrect answers and responses, identify common mistakes and misconceptions based on their analysis, and suggest next steps in teaching. This course also has become required for all post-baccalaureate students (it was already required for undergraduates). The initial clinical fieldwork experience was expanded to include four graded observations, two formative and two summative, still co-teaching with a fellow candidate. The previously required portfolio in the methods class was eliminated. A detailed description of the portfolio required in the methods class, that has been omitted, is described in Artzt et al. (2008, 2015). Readings introducing “language function” as required by the edTPA were added. The methods course was also the place in which information about the edTPA was disseminated, thus sacrificing class time previously used for mathematical and pedagogical learning opportunities. The curriculum and assessment course and student teaching were not initially changed, with the exception being that candidates who submitted their edTPA portfolios were given the opportunity to share their experiences. A change that is being newly implemented for the second and subsequent years is a course requirement to include proof of edTPA submission, in order to avoid a repeat of the situation of the 10 students who never submitted the previous year. In summary, some requirements were pushed to earlier courses, and some removed. Little was added, other than practical items such as requiring reading the edTPA handbook for homework, and language function discussions and readings. The most substantive addition was the addition of opportunities to formally analyze and reflect on student learning by analyzing assessments, which was also required for NCATE/CAEP, and would have been added nonetheless. One major decision that had to be made was when we, as a program, would recommend that candidates collect their artifacts for their edTPA learning segment (e.g., lesson plans, video, student work). It seemed like the obvious choice would be to have candidates collect artifacts during the more intensive student teaching spring semester, since they would have more opportunities to teach and interact with students, and would have more teaching experience, but several realities led us to recommend that candidates collect their artifacts during the less intensive initial clinical experience in the fall. First, during the spring, many schools in which we have field placements lose instructional time due to test prep and testing itself. Candidates have shared that their cooperating teachers sometimes teach little new content at this time, preventing the implementation of a developmental lesson in some cases, which provides evidence of competing state initiatives. Second, collecting artifacts earlier allows for “glitches”— that is, if a video is poor quality or

58

4


a candidate encounters other problems, there is time in the later student teaching placement to record again, although circumstances may be less than ideal. Further, submitting early allows candidates to know whether they passed or failed during, or even prior to, student teaching, and allows them to resubmit while still enrolled at the college, and to collect new artifacts if necessary or desired. Although a few elected to collect artifacts during the later student teaching placement, most candidates did not.

Reactions of Teacher Candidates In asking students to react to the edTPA and the mathematics program’s implementation of it, anecdotal data revealed several interesting perspectives, both positive and negative. There was a variety of opinions in the anecdotal data regarding whether the candidate felt that enacting the edTPA informed his or her teaching. Several mentioned that it helped them to see the importance of differentiating instruction to address the needs of diverse learners, including, but not limited to, English language learners and students with individual education plans (IEPs). At least one person felt that the “language function” requirement helped him to focus his students on explaining more during his lesson, and others liked the added focus on assessing conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and problem solving and reasoning skills, and the general focus on planning assessments. Several felt that the edTPA did not inform their teaching at all, noting that the edTPA requirements were well aligned with programmatic requirements, which were they said were more helpful than edTPA requirements. Programmatic requirements such as formal observations with feedback from observers and opportunities for reflection informed their teaching more. Students generally felt prepared by the program in mathematics, with several noting that the edTPA required reflection and planning that had always been part of the program. Students seemed to be aware of the fact that the edTPA requirement was put into place with little information for faculty, and that there were no exemplars (i.e., examples of expected responses) from which to work, but nonetheless felt that the program did well in sharing edTPA requirements, and when students finally did begin to submit and pass, that students provided exemplars (with the exception of the video) to each other. Several students felt that the program did a satisfactory job with the limited information available at the time. It has been challenging to find a balance between candidates’ and professors’ desire for the mathematics education program to provide structure for completion of the edTPA, and the practical challenges for doing so. Several students wanted it to be better integrated into the program, with due dates for the various sections. The program did require that students read the various tasks of the edTPA handbook, but did not require due dates since not all students were able to collect their artifacts at the same time, and might be unfairly penalized given a due date for a particular section. Another obstacle to this is the determination of what it would mean for a task to be “due” as an assignment. Although guidelines for acceptable

Reactions of Teacher Candidates

59

assistance (SCALE 2014b) indicate that general probing questions are allowed to be asked of students, the written commentaries of the edTPA certainly cannot be graded by faculty. Therefore the decision that has been made is to allocate a certain percent of the final grade in the Curriculum and Assessment course (about 10 %) for providing proof of submission, although this is a less than perfect compromise. There were some negative reactions on the part of students, but not exceedingly negative. Although they felt prepared, students indicated that they felt “stressed” by the collection of artifacts, especially the video. One student mentioned that is did not seem “genuine,” and that it was an “unnecessary obstacle.” Another mentioned that it seemed useful but “stood alone” and would not be referenced again, and expressed concern that it had the potential to sacrifice the quality of our program, which he was quite satisfied with. An interesting perspective emerged from at least one student in the program, who informally shared with the professor that he felt that we discourage candidates from “teaching to the test,” in their field placements, but our program courses felt, at times, like we were teaching to the edTPA. Faculty were aware of this potential problem, but the number of times the edTPA was discussed were apparently more powerful than our attempts at avoiding this perception. Although much of what we connected to the edTPA (SCALE 2014a) was always done in our classes, the requirement of the edTPA gave the impression of teaching to the test to some students, even if we were mostly doing what we have always done.

Affordances and Constraints for the Program in Mathematics Education As these changes are made and the program faculty and the candidates adjust to the new requirements, the edTPA (SCALE 2014a) has evidenced the emergence of several affordances and constraints to our program. One affordance has been what might be referred to as a “consistent message.” Our program, well prior to the edTPA and the introduction of the CCSSM, emphasized that candidates’ lessons should focus on procedural fluency, conceptual understanding and problem solving skills, as per the NCTM standards (2000). Candidates often reacted by indicating that their cooperating teachers only focused on procedures, not concepts and problem solving, and often did not “buy in” to this idea themselves. The edTPA (SCALE 2014a), along with the CCSSM seemed to add legitimacy to what we had consistently been saying. Further, the common core standards for mathematical practice seem to afford less resistance in the field (i.e. cooperating teachers) to lessons which emphasize student communication skills, problem solving approaches, and cooperative learning opportunities. It is important to note that less resistance does not mean “no resistance,” and candidates do still report an extreme focus on procedures due to testing. Revisiting the discussion earlier in the chapter about “good” mathematics teaching, the persistence of the “apprenticeship of observation,” and the bigger notion

60

4


of the importance of teaching mathematics with understanding, it is clear that the edTPA is an effort to improve mathematics teacher preparation. The requirement of the candidate to focus on students’ conceptual understanding and problem solving and reasoning skills in addition to procedural fluency provides an external rationale for what the program in mathematics education had already been doing, and that had been a consistent recommendation generally. It is also the case, however, that there are no specific pedagogical techniques required or recommended by the writers of the edTPA. For example, rubric 7 for task 2 (Instruction) involves “engaging students in learning” (SCALE 2014a). More specifically, candidates are assessed in how they engage students in developing “conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and problem solving skills.” If a candidate only focuses on procedures they cannot be scored higher that two out of five. Rubric 8 for task 2 (SCALE 2014a) involves “deepening student understanding” by eliciting and building on responses from students. If a candidate does most of the talking they will be scored one out of five, and if the candidate “primarily asks surface level questions and evaluates student responses as correct or incorrect” they will be scored two out of five (SCALE 2014a). Students are scored higher the more that discussion is facilitated. The focus on developing procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, and problem solving skills, and the focus on eliciting and building on responses from students implicitly suggest that pedagogical strategies that are student centered should be implemented by the teacher candidate. What those strategies are is up to the discretion of the candidate, hopefully in consultation with the cooperating teacher. For example, there is never a requirement to put students into cooperative groups, or to use other specific pedagogical techniques, but candidates are certainly free to do so. They may also use whole-class discourse techniques, such as accountable talk, and having students respond to each other. Implicit also is that the mathematics needs to be rich enough to allow students to have something substantive to discuss. If the students are simply repeating procedures that were stated by the candidate, the candidate will be scored poorly on the corresponding rubric. The richness of the mathematics is required to extend to the assessment, which must also focus on conceptual understanding and problem solving and reasoning skills in addition to procedural fluency. If an assessment only focuses on procedures, the candidate will be scored only one out of five possible points. The affordances described above may be viewed in a different light as a constraint. Providing what might be referred to as “external legitimacy” to what the program had already been making an effort to do can be deemed as unnecessary, and as a constraint on the academic freedom of the program in secondary mathematics. In order to maintain a reasonable workload for the candidates, it was necessary to cut assignments, especially the portfolio in our methods course, which we had greatly valued, and to add several discussions of the somewhat artificial and prescriptive “academic language function” required by the edTPA, along with requiring the reading of the edTPA handbook. Proper mathematical and pedagogical language has always been an emphasis in the program, but the highly prescriptive “language function” was not something that we would have otherwise recommended. In fact, many candidates reported that the language function that they chose to highlight was

Affordances and Constraints for the Program in Mathematics Education

61

“explain,” which is something our program had continually emphasized in the past. Although our “packaging” was different (i.e., we did not refer to “language function”), we encouraged and required candidates to incorporate academic and mathematical language into their lessons, and continue to do so. Another issue that might be considered a constraint on our program, but is really more broadly symptomatic of the current state of educational policy in New York, is the set of competing mandates that are affecting our candidates, namely, standardized testing in the schools, standardized testing in schools of education, particularly the edTPA, and the teacher evaluation frameworks being used in the schools. As mentioned earlier, one of the reason that our program elected to have the candidates collect their edTPA artifacts in the fall semester, even though they had less experience teaching at that early stage of the program, had to do with the fact that in the spring, cooperating teachers were focusing much of classroom time on standardized test preparation, which, at the time of this writing, counted for 20 % of the teacher evaluation score, with a proposition of raising that percent to 50 % in New York State. For this reason alone many teachers would not even consider giving their classes over to a novice teacher candidate as testing dates approached, and refused to take on student teachers. The ones who were willing to take on a student teacher required that much of the in-class time was spent on preparation for standardized testing. SCALE (2014b) has envisioned that cooperating teachers take on a role similar to that of a college supervisor, including “explaining edTPA tasks,” “engaging candidates in formative experiences aligned with edTPA,” “discussing samples of previously completed edTPA materials,” and “Using rubric constructs or rubric language to evaluate and debrief observations made by cooperating teachers as part of the clinical supervision process.” This expectation, given the many pressures of cooperating teachers in their schools, and just the extra work of taking on a student teacher with little meaningful compensation, is highly unrealistic. Furthermore, although the State of NY has provided written communication about the new edTPA requirement to schools, sharing this in discussions with school personnel is generally on the bottom of a principal’s very busy agenda, and rarely, if ever, trickles down to the teachers who will serve as cooperating teachers. Any information about the edTPA for the cooperating teachers comes directly from the candidates themselves, in conjunction with the program in secondary mathematics. Although the vision of SCALE (2014a) is that the candidate would videotape themselves over the course of the 3−5 day learning segment, this often does not happen. Candidates in the field have reported that cooperating teachers have said that they find the videotape distracting, and do not allow the videotaping over several days to take place; rather, candidates focus on videorecording one class and in hopes that they can find a suitable 15 min clip. This may or not be the case; it is wholly at the discretion of the cooperating teachers. Cooperating teachers are generally supportive in that they allow their classrooms to be videotaped (although this might be for the absolute minimum amount of time), and distribute the consent forms to students, but do not see their role as directly supporting the edTPA, although this might change over time as candidates for whom the edTPA is a requirement eventually become cooperating teachers. Finally, principals have been known (in our program) to be very protective of their teachers in this regard, that is, they are

62

4


fine with candidates conducting the edTPA in their schools but do not see it as the “problem” of their teachers who serve as mentors, who have many other pressures and responsibilities.

Conclusion The mathematics education community has historically been in favor of performance assessments for teachers (NCTM 1991), however, these were intended in the context of teacher growth and improvement of teaching, and certainly not in a high stakes or punitive nature. The edTPA in its intent and content is consistent with what the mathematics education community has envisioned for teacher assessment as written, with its emphasis on deepening student understanding, including conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and problem solving skills. Also consistent with the vision of the mathematics education community is the opportunity for teacher candidates to reflect on their teaching, although teacher growth is clearly not the ultimate goal of the edTPA. What changes the nature of the edTPA is its policy mandate, its high stakes and summative nature of its scoring, its cost, and its minimal feedback for candidates. It provides some affordances to teacher education programs, including consistency with goals that have been part of the field of mathematics education for decades (but as recommendation, and not policy), and helps to bring a consistent message that connects teacher education program to field placements. The results of the first round of implementation have been satisfactory in that all of the teacher candidates who submitted edTPA portfolios passed, although not all candidates submitted, which may be due to financial hardship incurred by the significant cost of the edTPA, at least in part. There are, however, important constraints on teacher education programs as a result of the mandated edTPA policy. As several students mentioned anecdotally, the requirements of the edTPA are quite consistent with programmatic requirements, except that program faculty are not allowed to evaluate edTPA portfolios. Course time is allotted to explaining the edTPA handbook, and the prescriptive “language function” requirement. Further, the satisfactory results of the mathematics program candidates indicate that the program has been on the right track overall, and that perhaps programs and program faculty should be trusted to assess their own candidates.

References Apple, M. W. (1992). Do the standards go far enough? Power, policy and practice in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 23(5), 412–431. Artzt, A. F., Sultan., A., Curcio, F., & Gurl, T. J. (2012). A Capstone mathematics course for prospective secondary mathematics teachers. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 15(3), 251–262.

References

63

Artzt, A. F., Armour-Thomas, E., & Curcio, F. R. (2008). Becoming a reflective mathematics teacher (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Artzt, A. F., Armour-Thomas, E., Curcio, F. R., & Gurl, T. J. (2015). Becoming a reflective mathematics teacher (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Cohen, D. K. (1990). A revolution in one classroom: The case of Mrs. Oublier. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 12(3), 311–329. Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. (2013). Common core state standards for mathematics: Statement by Presidents of CBMS Member Professional Societies. Retrieved from http://www.cbmsweb.org. Cooney, T. J. (1999). Conceptualizing teachers’ ways of knowing. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 38(1–3), 163–187. Harris, E. A., & Fessenden, F. (2015). “Opt out” becomes anti-test rallying cry in New York State. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/nyregion/ opt-out-movement-against-common-core-testing-grows-in-new-york-state.html. Danielson, C. (2008). The Handbook for Enhancing Professional Practice: Using the Framework for Teaching in your School. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Hiebert, J., Carpenter, T. P., Fennema, E., Fuson, K. C., Wearne, D., Murray, H., et al. (1997). Making Sense: Teaching and Learning Mathematics with Understanding. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R., Garnier, H., Givvin, K. B., Hollingsworth, H., Jacobs, J.,…Stigler, J. W. (2003). Teaching mathematics in seven countries: Results from the TIMSS 1999 Video Study (NCES 2003-013). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Hiebert, J., & Morris, A. K. (2012). Teaching, rather than teachers, as a path for improving classroom instruction. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(2), 92–102. Ladson-Billings, G. (1997). It doesn’t add up: African American students’ mathematics achievement. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28(6), 697–708. Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Milner, H. R. (2013). Policy Reforms and De-professionalization of Teaching. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/ policy-reforms-deprofessionalization. National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). (2003). Teaching Mathematics in Seven Countries: Results from the TIMSS 1999 Video Study, NCES Report No. 2005-013, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/ pubs2003/2003013_a.pdf. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1980). An Agenda for Action. Reston, VA: Author. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1989). Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1991). Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1995). Assessment Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2011). Making it Happen: A Guide to Interpreting and Implementing Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, Association of State Supervisors of Mathematics, & Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (2010). Mathematics Education Organizations Unite to Support Implementation

64

4


of Common Core State Standards. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/assets/ k12_statements/NCTM-NCSM-ASSM-AMTE-joint-statement.pdf. New York State Education Department. (2005). Mathematics Core Curriculum-MST Standard 3, Prekindergarten—Grade 12. Retrieved from http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/mst/math/docum ents/mathcore.pdf. Phillips, E. (2014, April). We need to talk about the test: A problem with the common core. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/opinion/ the-problem-with-the-common-core.html. Porter, A., McMaken, J., Hwang, J., & Yang, R. (2011). Common core standards: The new U.S. intended curriculum. Educational Researcher, 40(3), 103–116. Romberg, T. A. (1992). Further thoughts on the standards: A reaction to Apple. Journal of Research in Mathematics Education, 23(5), 432–437. Romberg, T. A. (1993). NCTM’s standards: A rallying flag for mathematics teachers. Educational Leadership, 50(5), 36–41. Rubinkam, M. (2015). 2 + 2 = what? Parents rail against common core math. Retrieved from http:// www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/22What-Parents-Rail-Against-Common-Core-Math259363861.html. Schoenfeld, A. H. (1988). When good teaching leads to bad results: The disasters of “welltaught” mathematics courses. Educational Psychologist, 23(2), 145–166. Schoenfeld, A. H. (2002). Making mathematics work for all children: Issues of standards, testing, and equity. Educational Researcher, 31(1), 13–25. Schoenfeld, A. (2004). The math wars. Educational Policy, 18(1), 253–286. Secada, W. G. (1996). Urban students acquiring English and learning mathematics in the context of reform. Urban Education, 30(4), 422–448. Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning & Equity (SCALE). (2014a). edTPA Secondary Mathematics Assessment Handbook. Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Palo Alto, CA: Author. Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning & Equity (SCALE). (2014b). edTPA: Teachers who Support Teacher Candidates Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Palo Alto, CA: Author. Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (1999). The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World’s Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom. New York, NY: The Free Press. Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (2004). Improving mathematics Teaching. Educational Leadership, 61(5), 12–17. Strauss, V. (2014, August). Common Core tests fail kids in NY again. Here’s how. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/17/a-painful-analysisof-new-common-core-tests-and-the-n-y-results/. Tate, W. F. (1997). Race-ethnicity, SES, gender, and language proficiency trends in mathematics achievement: An update. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28(6), 652–679. Taubman, P. M. (2009). Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. New York, NY: Routledge. Tellez, K. (2003). Three themes on standards in teacher education: Legislative expediency, the role of external review, and test bias in the assessment of pedagogical knowledge. Teacher Education Quarterly, 30(1), 9–18.

Chapter 5

Performance Assessment, Policy, Privatization, and Professionalization in English Teacher Education

Abstract This chapter addresses the intersection of professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization in English teacher education, beginning with the development of content area and professional standards in English language arts. Following this historical contextualization, a brief review of performance assessment in English language arts leads into a discussion of the affordances and constraints of performance assessment in English teacher education, highlighting the tensions that arise at the intersection of policy, privatization, and professionalization, as exemplified in the initial efforts to implement the edTPA in response to state mandates. Beyond addressing the impact of mandated performance assessment in English teacher education, the author examines the ways in which expectations of preservice teachers in teacher preparation programs also affect curriculum and pedagogy (and ultimately students) across a wide range of classroom contexts. Keywords Policy · Performance assessment · Privatization · Professionalization · edTPA · Standards · Curriculum · English language arts · English teacher education · Diversity The intersection of performance assessment, policy, privatization, and professionalization continues to inform current trends in teacher education programs in myriad ways, some of them more overt than others. As Caughlan and Jiang (2014) argue in their examination of observation instruments in preservice teacher performance assessment, the discourses of accountability in education today position teacher candidates in particular ways, such as through the language used in standards, rubrics, and observations instruments, which often “necessitates a reliance on shared, but unstated, assumptions regarding expectations” (p. 377). Even when reform goals are uniformly driven by the desire to offer a high quality education to students of all backgrounds and communities, assumptions regarding shared

© The Author(s) 2016 T.J. Gurl et al., Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29146-8_5

65

66

5 Performance Assessment, Policy, Privatization …

expectations about teaching and learning contribute to a number of both intended and unintended consequences for teacher education and K-12 classrooms. In this chapter, we discuss the particular affordances and constraints of the intersection of performance assessment, policy, privatization, and professionalization in English teacher education programs. Due to the connection between what is considered effective pedagogy and disciplinary knowledge, conventions, and expectations (Burroughs and Smagorinsky 2009; Deng 2007), we begin with a brief overview of conventions and expectations in English language arts (ELA), followed by the development of content area standards in the discipline, as spearheaded by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). The description of the development of the content area standards leads to a discussion of their role in the most recent rendition of professional standards for English teachers, as developed by the National Council of Teacher Education (NCATE). This historical contextualization is followed by a brief review of performance assessment in English language arts, in which performance assessment models such as those invoked by the literature that supports reforms such as PACT and edTPA have typically been conceptually consistent with best ELA practices and are also part of NCATE, and more recently the Council of Accreditation for Educator Preparation (CAEP), professional standards. Next, we discuss the affordances and constraints of mandated, high-stakes performance assessment in English teacher education as they become explicit in the first year of implementation in a New York urban teacher preparation program, where state policy mandated the edTPA performance assessment as a requirement for initial certification. Beyond addressing the impact of the edTPA as a mandated performance assessment in English teacher education, we examine the ways in which expectations of preservice teachers in teacher preparation programs also affect curriculum and pedagogy (and ultimately students) across a wide range of classroom contexts.

What “Counts” as Teaching and Learning in the Secondary ELA Classroom? The field of English, like most content areas, is riddled with complexities that stem from conceptions of the meaning and purpose of discipline itself, such as: the professional theory, research, and practice that are essential to teaching in the discipline; its purpose in our society and economy (e.g., the commodification of standard conventions in English and what they signify in the professional world); and the role of “English language arts” in an increasingly global and multicultural world. Curriculum and pedagogy are not “benign”; the curriculum conveys to teachers and students “a worldview that is implied or explicitly taught through the texts, activities, sequences, and other dimensions of learning that are included (and excluded)” (Burroughs and Smagorinsky 2009, p. 180), and teachers’ pedagogical approaches and dispositions are informed by their worldviews. As suggested by the title of the book for future English teachers written by Leila Christenbury, former president of NCTE, Being and Becoming a Teacher of English Language Arts is inherently connected to the stated and unstated values, purposes, and goals of the discipline.

What “Counts” as Teaching and Learning …

67

Teaching English language arts. A major debate in the discipline of ELA is concerned with what theories, research studies, and “best practices” should guide the teaching of English language arts and the preparation of English teachers. In this respect, NCTE standards play a significant role in the design of curriculum and instruction and well as in the accreditation process of teacher education programs via NCATE and CAEP’s oversight in English teacher education (to be discussed later in the chapter). For example, in Being and Becoming, Christenbury describes new English teachers (as she once was), as more likely to think of themselves as instructors who “are going to instruct–that novel or play [they] loved so much, that poem that changed [their] lives, that writing experience that was powerful, that insight about language that seems to stay in [their] mind” (2006, p. 6). Despite Christenbury’s somewhat playful tone, teaching English language arts had indeed historically consisted of exposing students to particular canonical texts and developing certain literacies (Burroughs and Smagorinsky 2009), often determined by tradition, preference, or mandate from the school or district administration. However, she quickly reframes teaching as a process of “becoming” in which “curiosity and passion and interest… will continue to evolve and change, become more and more, as [they] continue in the profession” (Christenbury 2006, p. 7). Furthermore, Christenbury raises a crucial point about how ELA is taught in a broader, more relational context, which itself has a major role in shaping students’ understanding of their surroundings: teachers are only one part of a triad that also features a bewildering array of students, all of whom have fierce needs and aspirations and brilliance and weaknesses and problems and cultural expectations, and a setting, and institutional context, which we soon find can more often than not keep us from teaching and keep our students from learning (p. 7).

Increasingly, Christenbury and other leaders in the field conceptualize English language arts as a discipline that develops students’ literacies as they interact with their immediate contexts and society at large. This view stands in contrast to more traditional conceptions of the subject, organized around the rhetoric that all students should be exposed to the best works of literature (Hirsch 1987) and taught critical thinking skills, assuming that reading is fairly technical (e.g., decoding) and neutral (e.g., comprehension) process. Such a conceptualization of the subject privileges an autonomous literacy model (Street 1984, 1995) that aligns with the way in which students’ skills will be assessed in state tests and exams, as discussed below. Based on this rhetoric, ELA curricula have traditionally been designed to cultivate a particular kind of literate and successful individual by focusing on reading and writing skills and universalist themes in literature that everyone should know, grounded in the assumption that mastery of the developmental and cognitive skills associated with reading and writing will not only lead students to success in ELA and college, but also to the levels of logical and critical reasoning needed to become mature adults. Purpose and function of ELA in the economy and society. The ongoing debate discussed above addresses the role of the discipline in preparing the next generation to participate in society and even drive the economy, and this debate is perhaps one of the strongest driving forces in large-scale education reform. Standardizing instruction and assessment of students’ reading and writing has been a key element of reform agendas for decades as a way to ensure “rigorous” and “objective” standards

68


of instruction and resources for all students. A standards paradigm can serve many purposes, from guiding the work of professionals in the field (by organizations such as NCTE and NCATE/CAEP, as we discuss in later sections), to ensuring that students in the most under-resourced schools and districts have access to the same rigorous curricula as their more affluent peers (Weiner 2000). The impetus to meet particular academic standards, whether they inform instruction in grades K-12 or teacher preparation, is frequently cited as crucial to equalizing access to resources in underprivileged schools and overcoming the mediocrity of low expectations (Sleeter and Stillman 2005). However, critics warn that the standards movement is linked to an obsession with accountability in the current audit culture and part of a greater and more insidious manufactured crisis (Taubman 2009). As Sonu argues, “the persuasions of standards and accountability may be seductive to many for their simplicity and self-assuredness” (2011, p. 311) and become part of a social crisis that condemns teachers as failures and justifies the redirection of public resources as well as the involvement and interests of the private sector toward monitoring and controlling curriculum and instruction in ways that will produce the desired workers of the future. A prime example of such large-scale reform is the adoption of the Common Core State Standards nationwide, a driving force of change with implications throughout the educational spectrum, from K-12 curriculum to teacher education. On the Common Core website, the standards are described as follows: Building on the best of existing state standards, the Common Core State Standards provide clear and consistent learning goals to help prepare students for college, career, and life. The standards clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level, so that every parent and teacher can understand and support their learning (Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards).

Most educators recognize and underscore the importance of having “clear and consistent learning goals”, as well as communicating clearly with “every parent and teacher”. However, as Milner (2013) argues in his brief, Policy Reforms and the De-professionalization of Teachers, “what is not well communicated and addressed in the Common Core Standards is how to assist teachers in interpreting ‘common’ standards to address uncommon problems in schools. In addition, because there is no empirical data available on the effectiveness of the standards, it is difficult to determine how teachers will address and implement them” (p. 27). As Milner cautions, while the CCSS may offer apparent conceptual consensus and broader understanding regarding what should be taught, because there is no empirical data available on the effectiveness of the standards, it is difficult to determine how teachers will address and implement them…Teachers will need to be educated to understand how to implement the standards in order to ensure that they are addressing the myriad needs students bring into the classroom (p. 27).

Equally important, scholars and practitioners must attend to the ways in which educators’ interpretation and operationalization of the CCSS could actually narrow curriculum and privilege “common-sense” mainstream conceptions about the interpretation of literature and the use and purpose of oral and written language in the society and in the workplace (Costigan 2008).


69

For instance, contrary to an ideological literacy model (Street 1984, 1995), in which “the issues, choices, and factors” that influence who students are and become are viewed through the lens of the multiple social practices that students bring with them to the classroom, ELA curriculum has traditionally been grounded in a liberal humanist academic tradition (Hirsch 1987). In middle and high school curricula, “attention to literacies has largely been confined to knowledge and practices involved in the reading of literature” (Burroughs and Smagorinsky 2009, p. 171) and the assumption that “the essayist form of literacy–dominant in western academic circles–is the only desirable form” (Au and Raphael 2000, p. 170). Parallel to a functionalist approach to literacy, current models of teaching, learning and assessment, including the Common Core State Standards, are grounded in a dominant Western epistemology of absolute truths and scientific neutrality (Heshusius 1989). In the same vein, the broad reach of standards-driven instruction may be examined more fully in relation to its underlying assumptions about literacy. Although professional and academic standards reflect central debates within and beyond academic disciplines and can encourage collaboration and coherence among educators, their uninterrogated adoption and implementation can be quite problematic. The uncritical implementation of the CCSS and the assumption that meeting such standards will prepare all students, regardless of background, for full participation in society can actually perpetuate the disparity between the educational opportunities and the type of learning available to students in less privileged schools and districts and in schools that are less regimented by standardization. It is particularly problematic when standards-driven instruction that privileges autonomous literacy is uncritically presented as the equitable response to gaps in quality education and high expectations of all students, without taking into account that a majority of White, middle-class students may come to school familiar with literacies that are considered “academic” while many students of color and from low-income backgrounds may not. The masked rigor and presumed neutrality of mainstream functional literacy, as exemplified in the CCSS, may inadvertently discredit students’ home literacies and language practices, as well as their ways of reading and making sense of texts, as unacademic (Caraballo 2016). One current incarnation of this dynamic is evident in the CCSS, in which “close reading” strategies and using “textual evidence” in responses to literature are presented as common-sense and irrefutably neutral and value-free best practices. While close reading can contribute to reading, thinking, and writing in ways that demonstrate a “genuine openness to diversity” that goes beyond the inclusion of “diversely representative authors”, the true benefit of close reading is more about the process of reading and students’ ability and openness to consider viewpoints other than their own. As Gallop (2000) argues, “As much as who we read–even more, I would say–it matters how we read” (p. 14). However, this is not the kind of close reading associated with the CCSS, in which multiple standards require students to focus on the internal consistency of a text by analyzing how visual and/or multimedia events, for example, “contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty” of a text. Here, it is worth noting that students are asked to read closely, looking for evidence in the text, and in supplementary materials, that contribute to the meaning of the text. As Compton-Lilly and Steward (2013) argue, the “focus is on the craft without involving the ways of being, valuing, knowing,

70


and experiencing that children bring to texts. Inherently, children must treat the text as the object of analysis, dismissing content and their possible responses to the content presented” (p. 66). Indeed, “standards in and of themselves are not the problem” (Tellez 2003, p. 10), it is the uninterrogated exclusion of knowledges and literacies that are not included in the standards-based instruction that marginalizes students from low income backgrounds and/or students of color. Absent specific standards that address the ideological function of literacies in society, and a critical approach to the power relations within and around texts and educational contexts, the narrowly-focused emphasis on the skill of close reading has the unintended consequence of, once, again, marginalizing those whose experiences and perspectives are outside the mainstream. A similar unintended consequence of reform is documented in Anagnostopoulos’s (2003) study of a Chicago public high school implementing a “model” educational accountability plan for urban school districts throughout the nation employed a critical discourse analysis framework to examine how the standardized exam “entered” classroom learning experiences and influenced the teacher and students’ positioning as readers and constructors of texts. Anagnostopoulos found that although the district assumed the value of reading texts “structured around” issues of race and racism (e.g., Harper Lee’s 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird), the mandated curriculum privileges readings of the texts that identify details, techniques, and themes within texts rather than those that grapple with how the texts represent the social political and moral issues at their center (p. 190). The assumption here, in line with the rhetoric that all students should be exposed to the best works of literature (Hirsch 1987) and critical thinking skills, is that this reading is a neutral process and experience. There was no attempt to draw out and validate students’ home discourses, nor use literature as a way to recognize how these formal and “high-status” texts might relate to or contradict students’ experiences (Hollingsworth and Gallego 1995; Hollingsworth et al. 2001). Fairclough (cited in Anagnostopoulos 2003) asserts that readers have the capacity to critique, transform, or resist the subject positions that texts construct, although readers are often constrained by internalized norms and conventions, as well as the way the teacher or other authoritative source frames the text. There is a curricular cycle in which many lower-income students and students of color in under-resourced urban schools are subject to a pedagogy of poverty (Haberman 1991) rather than the more creative and engaging academic program experienced by their middle-class suburban peers (Costigan 2008, 2013; Lipman 2004). A large-scale manifestation of this dynamic is evident in the adoption of the Common Core State Standards. Despite the modifications present in the New York State CCSS, which pay some attention to diversity and its connection to literacies in specific state additions to the larger document, 1 the fact that attention to multiple 1The New York State CCSS document has the following asterisked statement on the first page: “All of the New York State additions to the Common highlighted in yellow under the related strand (reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language) or standard” (https://www.engage ny.org/resource/new-york-state-p-12-common-core-learning-standards-for-english-language-artsand-literacy).


71

and diverse perspectives is part of an addendum, rather than part of the core document, is a message in itself. For instance, the following statement is marked as a particular addition to the New York State document: “make deliberate, personal, cultural, textual, and thematic connections across genres” (p. 57). Given the otherwise comprehensive premise of the CCSS, relegating the standards and competencies that address personal, cultural, and other connections to the category of state “additions” makes these cultural and multiple perspectives additive rather than integral to the Common Core. Purposes of ELA in an increasingly global, multicultural, and stratified world. A third major debate in the discipline considers what role the discipline can play in challenging an increasingly stratified and unequal society to embrace diversity and oppose injustices. Giroux warns that the curriculum “is another instance of a cultural politics whose signifying practices contain not only the logic of legitimation and domination, but also the possibility for transformative and empowering forms of pedagogy” (1987, p. 19). According to McLaren, critical literacy has the potential to “create a citizenry critical enough to both analyze and challenge the oppressive characteristics of the larger society so that a more just, equitable, and democratic society can be created” (Carlson 1993, p. 238). Raising educators’, as well as students’ critical consciousness regarding the (in)visible impact of discursive practices in and around curriculum and achievement is crucial to social justice agendas in education, even though such a consciousness will not entirely dismantle the hegemonic structures in schools and society nor protect us from operating in, between, and among oppressive and marginalizing contexts. Both of these purposes emerge from the assumption that identities and literacies are multiple and contextual, always being negotiated in particular cultural words, which Dorothy Holland and her colleagues have theorized as figured worlds (Caraballo 2011; Holland et al. 1998). In this context, the notion of powerful English (Morrell 2015) takes on an even greater significance in our society because popular culture, social media and digital literacies and rhetorical modes have such large impact in shaping and disseminating the perspectives, voices and literacies of teachers and students alike. According to Ernest Morrell, former president of NCTE, the field of education in general is in need of increased emphasis on what he has described as a Critical English Education. A critical English education is explicit about the role of language and literacy in conveying meaning and in promoting or disrupting existing power relations. It also seeks to develop in young women and men skills to deconstruct dominant texts carefully (i.e. canonical literature, media texts) while also instructing them in skills that allow them to create their own critical texts that can be used in the struggle for social justice. Further, critical English education encourages practitioners to draw upon the everyday language and literacy practices of adolescents to make connections with academic literacies and to work toward empowered identity development and social transformation (Morrell 2005, p. 313).

Unlike in the previous section, in which the skill sets for reading, writing, listening, and speaking correspond with the state’s ELA standards and core curriculum (Hillocks 2002), a critical English education engages students’ home and

72


youth culture and literacies in conversation with traditional academic language and literacies in order for students (and teachers) to paraphrase Freire, to better read the world around them. These debates help to provide a context in which to discuss the ways in which educators’ and policymakers’ conceptualization of the discipline is reflected in the history and context of policy and performance assessment, as discussed in the next section.

Policy and Performance Assessment in English Teacher Education: The Development and Impact of Content Area and Teacher Education Standards Bearing some similarity to the relationship between curriculum content, policy, and subject area pedagogy in mathematics, as discussed in the previous chapter, the development of content area and professional standards in English language arts (ELA) began in the early 1990s, spearheaded by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the International Reading Association (IRA), with support from academic institutions and private foundations (NCTE 1996). In the wake of the educational crisis evoked by A Nation at Risk (NCEE 1983), policy and professional interests in the field of English language arts briefly converged as scholars and practitioners sought to organize themselves to create standards for the discipline and the field before policymakers did it for them, and were even able to obtain some federal funding to do it. The process of outlining and defining the standards was broad and inclusive, with drafts of the document being circulated among scholars and researchers as well as the general membership of NCTE in its early development (NCTE 1996). At a time in which there was a movement toward defining measurable academic outcomes, NCTE sought to articulate explicitly why the standards needed to be rigorous, yet remain fluid and broad in light of the discipline. In a chapter entitled “Teaching Today”, Christenbury (2006) describes the process of crafting the standards for English language arts as a long and laborious one that involved countless drafts and meetings and conversations at the local, state, regional, and national levels. As to be expected when you bring together large numbers of independent-minded professionals, there was consistent drafting and revision and, along the way, a certain amount of controversy. At one point, federal monies, which had helped fund the standards-writing process, were withdrawn. But NCTE and IRA believed that the establishment of standards by those in the profession would be far superior to those written by people outside the classroom (p. 290).

Although not everyone in the profession is satisfied with the standards, including those who wanted lists of recommended works and classroom activities, Christenbury states that many find the twelve NCTE/IRA standards helpful due to their broad and inclusive language. These standards, which were recently reaffirmed in 2012 (NCTE 1996), reflect much of what is valued in the field, including the kinds of assessment in which teachers engage in classroom contexts, from K-12 to teacher education.

Policy and Performance Assessment in English Teacher Education …

73

One example of an approach that is consistent with NCTE/IRA standards is that of authentic assessment (Wiggins 1989, 1990). Since the 1980s, there has been an emphasis on authentic assessment, which promotes assessment that is directly connected to students’ actual course of study, rather than using substitutes derived from normed standards (Hillocks 2002). Few ELA educators would argue against performance assessment, a form of authentic assessment, especially in the increasingly standardized and high-stakes accountability context of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top (Pence and Alvine 2003; Smagorinsky 2014). In English and language arts-related disciplines, performance assessment has long been addressed in teacher preparation texts and curriculum resources as a form of authentic assessment (Oakes and Lipton 2006; Smagorinsky 2007) in which students may demonstrate more of what they know and can do than in any norm-referenced exam. The recently updated professional standards published by NCTE in conjunction with NCATE/CAEP, the accrediting agency for schools of teacher preparation, specifically address some of the assessment-related tensions in the field, stating “While many teachers wish to gauge their students’ learning using performancebased assessment, they find that preparing students for machine-scored tests— which often focus on isolated skills rather than contextualized learning—diverts valuable classroom time away from the development of actual performance” (NCTE 1996, p. 6). In the same vein, in assessments designed to assess prospective English teachers, scholars have noted that in light of the required standardized assessments for teacher certification, there are many benefits to performance assessments such as the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) (Falk 2013; Peck et al. 2010). For these reasons, particularly in English preservice teacher education, performance assessment models, such as those invoked by the literature that supports reforms such as PACT and edTPA, as discussed in Chaps. 2 and 3, have typically been conceptually consistent with best practices, “a shorthand emblem of serious, thoughtful, informed, responsible, state-of-the-art teaching” in English language arts (Zemelman et al. 2005, p. vi). In addition to offering a framework for what authentic assessment might look like, such as portfolio-based assessments of students’ reading and writing (Smagorinsky 2007), participating in performance assessments as part of their preparation to teach affords prospective teachers the opportunity to experience the assessment methods that the discipline encourages them to use. Ideally, however, such a performance assessment model would be developed in collaboration between the various stakeholders in teacher preparation programs (for example, those who monitor content and pedagogical preparation, state certification certification, and student teaching placements) to maximize the synergy between teacher education, certification, and the content areas. An epistemological contribution of performance assessment, particularly for English teachers, is the opportunity to broaden the discipline’s conception of what counts as pedagogical content knowledge to include critical perspectives about teaching in and for diverse contexts. NCTE’s Commission on English Education (CEE) published a position statement grounded in the “values and democratic

74


sensibilities [of the Commission], in addition to a generation of literacy research conducted via multiple methods on cultural and linguistic diversity inside and outside of schools” (CEE 2009, p. 1). Asserting that “students bring funds of knowledge to their learning communities, and, recognizing this, teachers and teacher educators must incorporate this knowledge and experience” (p. 1), the statement outlines many activities for K-12 and teacher education settings that support the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse learners. These suggestions promote opportunities for students and teacher candidates to “research and document” as well as “examine and critique” the various differences to be encountered in society. Unlike multiple-choice or timed constructed response exams such as the Educating All Students (EAS) or Content Specialty Test (CST), which offer limited opportunities to evaluate teachers’ knowledge of their students and its incorporation into instructional planning and assessment, a performance assessment such as edTPA allows a prospective teacher’s practice to be examined in some degree of context given the various documents that may be included in an assessment portfolio (SCALE 2013). Similar to the recent NCTE standards, in which planning, instruction, and assessment “reflective of classroom context and students’ dynamic identities” (NCTE 2012b, p. 3) are listed as a foundational principles, the edTPA handbook glossary defines students’ assets as the personal, community, and cultural knowledge, experiences, views, art, and practices that students bring with them into the classroom context (SCALE 2013). In these two respects, at least, policies that promote performance assessment of preservice teachers in English education demonstrates significant overlap between current trends in teacher assessment and certification and the professional standards of the discipline (NCTE 2012a). Nonetheless, key tensions become overt during the statewide implementation of a performance assessment such as the edTPA. In states where the edTPA became a mandatory certification requirement within a year of its pilot implementation in New York State, and therefore consequential for initial certification in 2014, the performance assessment designed to be educative also became “high-stakes”. In the next section, we discuss the ways in which the edTPA, as a high-stakes performance assessment, reflects the increasing trend toward professionalization (or deprofessionalization) and privatization in teacher education overall, with particular impacts for future English teachers.

Professionalization, Policy, and Privatization Inform Performance Assessment in English Teacher Education The issue of professionalization in the teaching profession is complex and nuanced, particularly in the context of recent changes in teacher certification and evaluation policies and the increasing role of the private sector in implementing and operationalizing said policies. As Milner (2013) argues in a report written for the National

Professionalization, Policy, and Privatization Inform …

75

Education Policy Center, teacher education reforms can both seem to professionalize as well as de-professionalize teachers in English, or any subject area: value-added teacher evaluation policies could be viewed as increasing professional status by their heavy emphasis on the role teachers can play on student achievement. To the contrary, value-added policies can be considered de-professionalizing: pressuring teachers to mechanically teach to tests while systematically devaluing the broader yet essential elements of teaching… Scripted and narrowed curriculum could be said to move teaching closer to professional status by defining what should and will be covered. To the contrary, scripted and narrowed curriculum moves teaching away from professionalization by not allowing teachers to rely on their professional judgment to make curricular decisions for student learning, with the consequent sacrifice of higher-level learning, creativity, flexibility, and breadth of learning (p. ii).

The inability to rely on professional judgment in curriculum is particularly significant in English language arts due to the depth and breadth of content and competencies associated with the discipline and the many purposes of and approaches to English education, as discussed in the sections above. Below, we discuss the tensions that arise at the intersection of policy, privatization, and performance assessment, as rendered visible by some of the logistical details of the implementation of the edTPA portfolio as a requirement for initial certification. In an attempt to tease out the impact of each of these forces, we consider the implications of each as reflected in the example of the edTPA assessment as a requirement for the initial certification of teachers in New York State. Policy at the state level mandates the examination, which informs and indirectly regulates decisions in teacher education programs throughout the state, whether public or private. As soon as the new mandate was in place, the efficient administration of the high-stakes assessment became a major concern, and in the current context of increasing privatization in education and other public sectors, Pearson, a for-profit conglomerate, was contracted to operationalize the assessment. Naturally, one of their concerns is the profitability of this educational venture given necessary costs and expenses such as training and compensating raters. Another primary concern involves the legality and liability of storing data from vulnerable populations (minors), which manifest itself in disclosure agreements and many other considerations regarding privacy and liability.

Intersecting Interests and English Education Pedagogies in an Age of Accountability Despite existing areas of overlap between best practices, research and scholarship in the discipline, and the increasing attention to performance assessment in teacher education, several conflicts of interest are amplified and aggravated by the trend toward mandated performance assessments in the current era of high-stakes accountability. By way of example, two areas of tension are discussed below:

76


approaches to teaching diverse student populations and the role of mentorship in teacher education. According to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AATCE), edTPA is transformative for prospective teachers because the process requires candidates to actually demonstrate the knowledge and skills required to help all students learn in real classrooms. By focusing on the act of teaching, edTPA complements existing entry-level assessments that focus on basic skills or subject-matter knowledge (AACTE 2013, n.p.).

However, the heightened emphasis on constructs such as academic language functions (SCALE 2013), although designed to meet the reasonable goals of career and college-readiness for all, are privileged well above all other literacies in that students’ assets, as described above, are invoked strictly as supports toward the learning and deepening of academic language. The explicit focus on academic language throughout the edTPA ELA handbook has the potential to overshadow culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris 2012) and exclude multiple identities and literacies from the curriculum (Caraballo 2012) rather than positioning these approaches as curricular and pedagogical priorities for beginning teachers. By contrast, the CEE position statement asserts that “all students need to be taught mainstream power codes and become critical users of language while also having their home and street codes honored”, having “students become ethnographers into language, recording and analyzing the ways language plays out in their lives” (2009, pp. 6–7). Although the emphasis on academic language exists in both guiding documents, the NCTE and CEE promote a more explicit inclusion of students’ multiple literacies and language resources in the curriculum and classroom practice. Another tension exists between the conventions and best practices in the discipline of ELA and the current administration and implementation of the edTPA with respect to the role of mentoring and peer/supervisor feedback for preservice and early career English teachers. A principle of the NCTE/NCATE standards for teacher educators is that English teachers are “reflective and open to collaboration and ongoing professional development” (2012b, p. 3), a process that should arguably be modeled early and often in a preservice teachers’ preparation and journey toward certification (Tillema 2009). McCann asserts that “teacher education programs play a critical role in supporting the mentoring of early-career teachers” (2013, p. 136). In a special issue entitled Mentoring and Teacher Development in English Journal, a flagship NCTE journal widely read among teachers and teacher educators in the discipline, Spangler maintains that “successful mentoring helps novices think and act like experienced teachers” (2013, p. 87). While edTPA guidelines encourage student teachers to obtain feedback from professors and other mentors during fieldwork and coursework in preparation for the edTPA, mentoring activities are not included in edTPA portfolio tasks (SCALE 2015). Students are asked to describe the context in which they teach, as well as reflect on all aspects of planning, implementation, and assessment, but there is no space in which students are asked to explicitly examine their experiences collaboratively with cooperating teachers and other program mentors, although cooperating teachers and supervisors play pivotal roles in teacher preparation programs

Intersecting Interests and English Education Pedagogies …

77

and fieldwork experiences (Darling-Hammond 2006). Although it is reasonable to exclude previously-evaluated materials and prohibit direct editing and revision from program faculty, the absence of an explicit role for mentors and teacher educators in the portfolio can lead to greater confusion and less involvement from cooperating teachers, particularly during the early stages of implementation when none of the cooperating teachers who are currently working with student teachers had to complete the high-stakes edTPA assessment when they were student teaching. Thus, although mentoring is an important part of formative assessment as well as reflective practice (Spangler 2013; Tillema 2009), and recent guidance for cooperating teachers is more explicit regarding how field mentors can support candidates, the initial cohort of consequential edTPA implementation had minimal, if any, support and involvement from cooperating teachers while they were preparing their edTPA portfolios (SCALE 2015). In the high-stakes context of teacher certification exams and accountability in K-12 educational settings overall, overlooking mentoring in performance assessments potentially flattens the inherently organic and contextual nature of secondary level student teachers’ field experiences in ELA. Under the current edTPA guidance guidelines, cooperating teachers have a more explicit role, but arguably not one that they are likely able or willing to perform in the schools and teacher education programs in which student teaching candidates would need it most. As expected, the teacher education programs with the most resources are typically more expensive and generally attract more affluent teacher candidates, who can also avail themselves of additional private support outside the institution (Au 2013; Dover et al. 2015). Schools that have partnerships with teacher education programs in private universities or well-resourced public research institutions are able to compensate cooperating teachers for their work with student teachers in different ways. In some cases, schools may benefit from professional development resources funded by the teacher education program. In addition, the compensation for the cooperating teacher is typically awarded in the form of course credit from the partner institution. However, we have learned from colleagues in various institutions that the vouchers given to cooperating teachers for credit at some private universities, at times equivalent to up to $1000 per credit, are transferrable, so that teachers can unofficially trade them with other students in exchange for their cash value, while many public institutions offer non-transferable vouchers which expire within 2–3 semesters. Given the modest salaries of many educators, and the fact that most cooperating teachers are master educators who have earned graduate degrees in order to secure their professional license (a requirement in New York State), it is easy to imagine how teacher education programs with more resources and better means of compensating cooperating teachers will be able to offer their teacher candidates more advantageous conditions for student teaching with greater support for their cooperating teachers when they are preparing their edTPA materials. Such examples, which bring to life significant implications for the use of performance assessments in initial certification, also challenge us to examine who is likely to persevere and succeed in becoming a teacher in the current educational context of

78


high-stakes accountability at all levels, from K-12 through graduate and professional education. In the next section, we use a case-study approach to consider how the intersecting forces of policy, privatization, professionalization, and performance assessment, as outlined in our conceptual framework in Chap. 3, can impact an English teacher education program.

An English Teacher Education Program at the Intersection of Policy, Privatization, Professionalization, and Performance Assessment In order to examine the Program in English Education’s implementation of the edTPA as a case study of a program’s experiences through the lens of the conceptual framework outlined in Chap. 3, we begin with a brief overview of the program’s structure and goals. The English Language Arts Secondary Education Program is designed to prepare teachers as practitioners, leaders, and reformers who can embrace difference and address the complex challenges and opportunities of teaching today. Our focus is not only on enhancing our candidates’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions to teach today’s diverse population of students, but on conceiving of teaching as an act of social justice and in order to build a more equitable society that can reshape the lives of teachers, students, families and communities. The undergraduate program is designed for English majors interested in becoming initially certified as secondary English teachers in New York State. To declare the minor, prospective candidates must have taken at least 5 courses in the major and maintain a GPA of 3.0 or higher. The program consists of 27 credits in secondary education beyond their major requirements, completed in four semesters including fieldwork, and culminating in student teaching in the fall and spring semester of their senior year. The graduate (postbaccalaureate) program, designed for students who have a bachelor’s degree from a certified college or university, a major or minor (36 credits) in English, at least a 3.0 GPA in the content area, but no educational coursework, parallels the undergraduate program in structure and requirements, and leads to initial certification in 3 or 4 semesters. As previously described in the mathematics education chapter, preparation for initial certification in all secondary programs consists of a set of “core” courses for all programs that includes educational foundations, educational psychology and technologies, principles of language, literacy, and culture in education, special education policy and practice, and an English education 2-course sequence. In the English methods courses, there is an emphasis on examining what it means to “teach” and to “learn” reading and writing in English language arts in the current context of standards, high stakes testing, and accountability. For example, in the first English methods course, taken during their second semester in the program, before their initial clinical experience, students engage in an exploration of research-based principles of teaching, learning, assessment, and community in ELA. Students apply

An English Teacher Education Program at the Intersection of Policy …

79

these principles as they read, write, research, and discuss ideas pertaining to ELA curriculum, pedagogy, and social justice in secondary classrooms. Framed by a learner-centered approach, they are asked to explore how teaching and learning are interpersonal and situated in particular social and cultural contexts. Grounded in this sociocultural and constructivist framework, students learn about, implement, and apply newly-acquired pedagogical content knowledge as they design instruction for middle and high school classrooms that are focused around “big questions” or “lines of inquiry”. The first methods course is designed to model, within the classroom community, some of the dispositions, commitments, practices, and conversations that can support critical and transformative teaching and learning in diverse sociocultural contexts. The second methods course, taken simultaneously with the initial clinical experience (first semester of student teaching) builds upon the first methods course by focusing in particular on designing and implementing curriculum and assessment.

Implementing the Consequential edTPA in an English Education Program During the first year of edTPA implementation at our large urban college, the program in English education was already in the process of incorporating changes as part of the self-study process related to NCATE accreditation. Both methods courses have always required that students complete summative inquiry-based and reflective portfolio assessments which incorporate similar elements to those required for the edTPA (except students were not restricted to 3–5 contiguous lessons). In addition, in response to NCATE recommendations, as well as part of the regular optimization of programs, several assessments had been revised, prior to edTPA implementation, in order to demonstrate greater coherence between students’ course work and their field experiences. For example, the Impact on Student Learning assessment, formerly evaluated primarily by the field supervisor based on field observations was modified to include candidates’ analysis of student learning, very similar to what students are expected to do in Task 3 of the edTPA. The Impact on Student Learning Assessment, distributed to candidates with a full description of each element by the field supervisor at the beginning of the clinical practice experience, demonstrated his/her ability to: (1) use a variety of appropriately constructed assessment strategies and instruments to interpret and assess student mastery of goals and objectives; (2) conduct ongoing, systematic assessment as the basis for planning, refining, and modifying instruction and for differentiating instruction for individual learners; (3) communicate findings and recommendations to students and appropriate others (e.g., parents/guardians, support staff), in order to attention on necessary next steps; (4) engage in continuous learning, self-reflection and revision regarding pedagogical practices, lesson implementation, deepening students’ engagement in learning, and assessment as a basis for improving teaching

80


and learning outcomes; and (5) take into account intervening variables and factors in order to provide a more complete profile of student growth. In the English methods courses and in clinical experience, therefore, the added emphasis on reflecting on assessment of student learning for future planning has been helpful. Preparing for edTPA has reinforced what our accreditation organization, NCATE, has recommended, as stated in reports from NCATE in response to our submissions. With a specific focus on assessment of student learning, assignments within the program were already being modified to address this particular area. The curriculum and assessment project, for example, the longstanding culminating assessment in the second English methods course (entitled Curriculum and Assessment in English Education), was designed to assess a candidate’s competencies associated with his/her ability to plan, organize, and structure a unified ELA subject subarea, to sequence individual lessons based on that unified design, to create learning opportunities for all students, and to design appropriate assessments to evaluate student learning and the candidates’ impact on student learning. Further modifications were made to this and other assessments during the year before implementation to make sure that students were familiar with the narrower scope of the edTPA, which requires students to focus specifically on a contiguous learning segment of 3–5 lessons. While it is certainly helpful to reflect closely on a 3–5 lesson segment, we have noticed that the constraints of scripted curricula and the pressures of student testing allow student teachers few if any opportunities to develop more comprehensive plans. Therefore, some of the adjustments we have made to the curriculum in order to better prepare students for edTPA, although not inconsistent with the work that our program required, have led to a narrowing of their experiences.

Student Teachers, Exam Scores, and Attrition: Examining the Numbers As stated in the previous chapter on mathematics education, all teacher certification programs were required by the New York State to implement the edTPA during the 2013–2014 academic year. The program in secondary English language arts initially consisted of 39 students in fall 2013, predominantly working class students who work to support their education (Table 5.1). During the spring of 2014, when the candidates were in their second semester of student teaching and faced the reality of submitting edTPA portfolios, 4 students (all working part/full time jobs to pay their way through their teacher education and certification programs) dropped the program for various reasons, all of them related to stress and the inability to balance other commitments. This attrition rate was twice that of the previous 3 years in the program, but whether it


81

Table 5.1 Pass/fail results for the edTPA in secondary English language arts

Undergraduate

Post baccalaureate Total ELA students

Attempted and passed 8 (72 % of 11 undergrad submitters) 11 (100 % of grad submitters) 19 (86.3 % of 22 total submitters)

Attempted and failed 3 (14 % of 11 submitters)

Did not attempt

Total

10 (47 % of 21 undergrads)

21

0

3 (21 % of 14 grads) 13 (37 % of 35 ELA students)

14

3 (13.6 % of 22 total submitters)

35

is related to the edTPA is uncertain.2 Out of the remaining 35 student teachers, 22 submitted edTPA portfolios. Out of the 22 who submitted edTPA portfolios, 19 passed. Early data in the English education program suggest that those who submit an edTPA examination, overall, are likely to be successful (86.3 % overall passing rate). Upon closer examination, however, students’ likelihood of passing the exam is actually higher. The three students who did not pass edTPA failed by a very narrow margin, and were all at the top of their class as measured by grade point average and fieldwork evaluations in a teacher education program that is accredited by both NCATE and CAEP. Following a detailed analysis of their portfolios with program faculty after they received their scores, it became clear that these students had not made use of the particular “academic language” of edTPA. All of the students who submitted portfolios after these three initial failures scored in the passing range. Five students with satisfactory (but not outstanding) grades and fieldwork evaluations in the program passed edTPA with their first submission. Their submitted lessons were not as creative or original as those submitted by the students who failed, but they had participated in a seminar in which they had been coached on the particular strategies and kinds of writing and reflection that the edTPA Tasks and rubrics are based on (Caraballo et al. 2015; Denton 2013), so they passed the examination with scores ranging from 42–48 (passing to mastery). Therefore, similar to the discussion about secondary mathematics in the previous chapter, while students’ rate of success in secondary ELA were not an issue, the number of submissions were a pressing concern. Out of 35 students in the program, only 62 % had submitted their edTPA portfolios as of eight months after completing the program. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some students changed their mind about teaching, and some did not submit because they were having difficulty passing some of the other new state exams, such as the Education All Students Exam (EAS) and the Content Specialty Test (CST), and, similar to mathematics teacher candidates, did not want to pay $300 for the edTPA until they were certain that they would be able to pass the other tests. 2The program is currently developing a more formal exit interview process in order to be able to analyze attrition rates in subsequent years.

82


Overall, the process of completing the edTPA supported some of the goals of our teacher preparation program. In English education, we did not find it particularly difficult to prepare students for the edTPA tasks. For the most part, in the initial implementation phase we were able to find many parallels in the curriculum and use them as anchor points in preparing students for the assessment. However, the logistical matters associated with preparing and submitting their portfolios did have a significant impact on our students’ experiences and increased student anxiety about the process of becoming a teacher in ways that led to more emphasis on the logistics of passing the assessment than on planning the most complex and rich instruction possible during their student teaching placements. These repercussions are perhaps better conveyed by an example such as the technical and logistical demands of the videotaping requirement. First, we recognize and concur with the research that has established videotaping teaching as conducive to reflective practice and improved teaching effectiveness (Danielowich and McCarthy 2013; Rosaen et al. 2008; Santagata et al. 2007). However, as discussed in the previous chapter, the use of videotaping for formative and reflective purposes is free from the pressure of videotaping instruction to be evaluated based on an a very short clip, and by an anonymous rater whose evaluation will be impeded by the quality of audio, and in some cases also video. It is not difficult to imagine how the technicalities of the video requirement can impact how preservice teachers choose to plan and implement instruction in secondary ELA in various ways. Due to the length of the video requirement and the many concerns that exist around the videotaping of students by student teachers in their cooperating teachers’ classrooms, students are likely to make very “safe” choices in planning their lessons so that they can demonstrate both teacher-directed instruction and small group interaction in two ten-minute clips (Au 2013). Although the ideal is for candidates to videotape their teaching regularly, the reality is that many schools and cooperating teachers are uncomfortable with videotaping and frown upon what they view as the “distraction” of the camera. In addition, many students do not return consent forms, and some do return the forms indicating that they cannot be videotaped, so teachers have to alter seating arrangements to make sure that those students are out of camera view. When all of this is happening as a candidate is attempting to film with a mobile device propped up somewhere in the room, it is possible to imagine how the logistics of the requirement begin overshadow their educative benefits, particularly for preservice teachers. There is likely to be an exclusion of things like a constructivist use of discussion in classrooms, which scholars have argued is already a significant challenge for novices, whose “instinct” in the field is to resort to strategies that are “more familiar and predictable”, and because they are less likely to be overtaken by disruption such as unruly behavior, a frequent concern for novices, this means “relying on activities that were less interactive, less collaborative, and potentially less analytical” (Williamson 2013). When compounded by the technical difficulties of videotaping in classroom contexts, and the need to capture the one “clip” that might be used in the portfolio, the high-stakes nature of the task trumps its formative and pedagogical function.


83

In addition, assignments had to be eliminated or significantly altered in both semesters of our only two English methods courses in order to accommodate edTPA requirements, and not in ways that conform to the goals of the program. For example, as mentioned above, in the first methods course, the initial curriculum unit assignment required students to conceptualize everything from a central concept to the culminating assessment, as well as reflect on their teaching in an entire unit of several weeks, much like teachers should do in their regular practice. Students wrote a rationale for the unit with connections to research a well as their students’ backgrounds, and provided a detailed plan for all of the lessons in the entire curricular unit. Then they worked out three lessons in full detail and turned in the whole project along with a final reflection. While students did not always get to implement the full unit in their clinical experiences, they were able to reflect on this planning in light of clinical work to with a good sense of what it would be like to plan and implement curriculum as a teacher of record. Due to NCATE and edTPA requirements, the unit assignment has been eliminated and replaced by a three-lesson contiguous lesson plan assignment and an inquiry project, both of which mirror edTPA tasks. The candidates’ vision is necessarily much narrower in this latter assignment, focusing in great detail on three lessons, and although they are asked to imagine the bigger picture, they have no opportunity to work through those ideas in earnest. While it is helpful for candidates to work in great detail on those three specific lessons, much has been lost in terms of our program’s opportunity to reinforce and assess their understanding of the big picture.

Concluding Thoughts…for the Moment Overall, the edTPA requirement adds some depth to a student teaching candidate’s awareness and preparation for teaching students from diverse backgrounds, particularly those who are English language learners, extends the expectations of a reflective practitioner, and demands a more focused and systematic analysis of student work. Unlike other standardized exams in which students must reflect on constructed scenarios or answer multiple-choice questions, the edTPA incorporates their actual fieldwork experiences. However, it adds significantly to the logistical challenges of student teaching, and these logistical challenges, because of the high-stakes nature of the assessment and high expense of taking and retaking all of the certification exams, but particularly submitting the edTPA portfolio, are concerning because they have the potential to narrow and constrict candidates’ student teaching experiences. As one student’s experience suggests, the tasks required by the edTPA can reinforce program goals and contribute to teachers’ reflective practice. At the end of the first semester of implementation, students were asked to reflect on their experiences with the assessment, and their responses echo the affordances and constraints described above. Several students reported that the edTPA tasks were not in contrast with what they had learned in their classes: “I was prepared to write, review, and

84


reflect on my lessons easier for edTPA since we had to practice those skills in my program…since most of the edTPA is your own reflections”. As discussed in Chaps. 2 and 3, much of the existing literature on the impact and effectiveness of the edTPA is actually based on PACT, not edTPA, but scholars are beginning report case studies in which students’ portfolios are analyzed for trends related to the educational theories and practices typically taught in education programs. For example, Denton’s (2013) analysis of the 74 portfolios submitted by students in various disciplines of a liberal arts teacher education program indicate that there are certain strategies that high-scoring portfolios have in common across disciplines, which are not present in low-scoring portfolios: Some of the strategies identified from the portfolios in this case study can be connected to educational theory and practice. For example, carefully authored learning targets, pre- and post-assessment, and feedback are accepted teaching practices. Alternatively, other strategies are disconnected from educational theory and practice, such as maximizing commentary page limits, scripted interactions, and overlapping the assessment with work samples. These strategies are meant to earn points and simplify portfolio assembly. Although they do not violate edTPA administrative policies, they are misaligned with the goal of improving new teacher effectiveness (p. 32).

Denton argues that although some of the common strategies for high-scoring portfolios reflect well-established educational theories, such as establishing and correctly identifying learning objective and assessments, the high-stakes nature of the edTPA leads to an oversimplification of the performance assessment process as students structure lessons and portfolios in ways that are more likely to score well (Au 2013). For many students, a major issue was the implementation of the edTPA requirement, in ways that resonate with the arguments we presented in Chap. 3 regarding the impact of professionalization, policy, and privatization on performance assessment. The rapid implementation of the assessment as a gatekeeper for initial certification led to heightened student anxiety, significantly increased time spent in methods classes going over logistical details, and detracted from the process in which students are meant to engage while completing their portfolios. As one student reflected, despite the similarity between the edTPA assessment tasks and other program assignments, when attention shifted toward the portfolio required for certification, “It didn’t feel like I was learning for future experiences, but rather for a test”. It has been documented that the high stakes status of any task, regardless of whom administers it, detracts from its educative value (Denton 2013); assessments such as the edTPA that stand to significantly reframe requirements for the profession require very careful study of their intended and unintended consequences. The next chapter is focused on the context of performance assessment in social studies teacher education in the context of intersections between the interests and goals of the profession, policy, and practice and their impact on performance assessment in the content area. In Chap. 7, we discuss some of the affordances and constraints of the intersection of policy, privatization, professionalization, and performance assessment based on our discussion of the edTPA as a newly implemented requirement for initial certification to teach.

References

85

References American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. (2013). About edTPA: Overview. American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Available in http://edtpa.aacte.org/ about-edtpa. Anagnostopoulos, D. (2003). Testing and student engagement with literature in urban classrooms: A multi-layered perspective. Research in the Teaching of English, 38(2), 177–212. Au, K. H., & Raphael, T. E. (2000). Equity and literacy in the next millennium. Reading Research Quarterly, 35(1), 170–188. Au, W. (2013). What’s a nice test like you doing in a place like this? The edTPA and corporate education “reform”. Rethinking Schools, 27(4). Available: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/ archive/27_04/27_04_au.shtml. Burroughs, R., & Smagorinsky, P. (2009). The secondary English curriculum and adolescent literacy. In L. Christenbury, R. Bomer, & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Handbook of Adolescent Literacy Research (pp. 170–182). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Caraballo, L. (2011). Theorizing identities in a “just(ly)” contested terrain: Practice theories of identity amid critical-poststructural debates on curriculum and achievement. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 8(2), 155–177. doi:10.1080/15505170.2011.624939. Caraballo, L. (2012). Identities-in-practice in a figured world of achievement: Toward curriculum and pedagogies of hope. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 28(2), 43–59. Caraballo, L. (2016). Students’ Critical Meta-Awareness in a Figured World of Achievement: Toward a Culturally Sustaining Stance in Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Research. Urban Education. Retrieved from http://uex.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/01/12/004208591562 3344. Caraballo, L., Genao, S., Lipnevich, A. (2015, April). Expanding communities of practice: Collaboration and mentoring in educational leadership & teacher education. In paper session, Communities of Practice in Place-Based, Field-Based, and University-Based Programs. Division K: Teacher Education, American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL. Carlson, D. (1993). Literacy and urban school reform: Beyond vulgar pragmatism. In C. Lankshear & P. McLaren (Eds.), Critical literacy: Politics, praxis, and the postmodern (pp. 217–246). New York, NY: State University of New York Press. Caughlan, S., & Jiang, H. (2014). Observation and teacher quality: Critical analysis of observational instruments in preservice teacher performance assessment. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(5), 375–388. Commission on English Education. (2009, October). Supporting Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Learners in English Education. CEE Position Statement: A Statement on an Education Issue Approved by the CEE Executive Committee. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English. Available in http://www.ncte.org/cee/positions/diverselearn ersinee. Compton-Lilly, C., & Steward, K. (2013). “Common” and “Core” and the diversity of students’ lives and experiences. In P. Shannon (Ed.), Closer Readings of the Common Core: Asking Big Questions About the English/Language Arts Standards (pp. 62–70). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Costigan, A. T. (2008). Teaching authentic language arts in a test-driven era. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis. Costigan, A. T. (2013). New urban teachers transcending neoliberal educational reforms: Embracing aesthetic education as a curriculum of political action. Urban Education, 48(1), 116–148. Christenbury, L. (2006). Making the journey: Being and becoming a teacher of English language arts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

86


Danielowich, R. M., & McCarthy, M. J. (2013). Teacher educators as learners: How supervisors shape their pedagogies by creating and using classroom videos with their student teachers. Action in Teacher Education, 35, 147–164. Darling-Hammond, L. (2006). Constructing 21st-century teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 57(3), 300–314. Deng, Z. (2007). Transforming the subject matter: Examining the intellectual roots of pedagogical content knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry, 37(3), 279–295. Denton, D. H. (2013). “Responding to edTPA: Transforming practice or applying shortcuts?” AILACTE Journal 10(1), 19–36. Retrieved from http://www.ailacte.org/images/uploads/ general/AILACTE_Journal_Fall_2013.pdf. Dover, A. G., Schultz, B. D., Smith, K., & Duggan, T. J. (2015). Who’s preparing our candidates? edTPA, localized knowledge, and the Outsourcing of teacher evaluation. Teachers College Record, ID Number: 17914. Falk, B. (2013). Lessons from the performance assessment of California teachers (PACT). The New Educator, 9(1), 1–2. Gallop, J. (2000). The ethics of reading. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 16(3), 7–17. Giroux, H. A. (1987). Introduction. In P. Freire & D. Macedo (Eds.), Literacy: Reading the word and the world (pp. 1–27). Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. Haberman, M. (1991). The pedagogy of poverty versus good teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 73, 290–294. Heshusius, L. (1989). The Newtonian mechanistic paradigm, special education, and the contours of alternatives: An overview. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 402–415. Hillocks, G, Jr. (2002). The testing trap: How state writing assessments control learning. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Hirsch, E. D. (1987). Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Jr., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Hollingsworth, S., & Gallego, M. (1995). Toward a collaborative praxis of multiple literacies. Curriculum Inquiry, 26(3), 265–292. Hollingsworth, S., Gallego, M., & Whitenack, D. (2001). Relational knowing in the reform of educational cultures. Teachers College Record, 103(2), 240–266. Lee, H. (1960). To kill a mockingbird. New York: Grand Central Publishing. Lipman, P. (2004). High stakes education. New York, NY: Routledge Falmer. McCann, T. M. (2013). Mentoring matters. English Journal, 102(2), 135–139. Milner, H.R. (2013). Policy Reforms and De-professionalization of Teaching. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/ policy-reforms-deprofessionalization. Morrell, E. (2005). Critical English education. English Education, 37(4), 312–321. Morrell, E. (2015). The 2014 NCTE Presidential Address: Powerful English at NCTE yesterday, today, and tomorrow–Toward the next movement. Research in the Teaching of English, 49(3), 307–329. National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. National Council of Teachers of English & International Reading Association. (1996). Standards for the English language arts. Urbana, Illinois and Newark, Delaware: Authors. Available: http://www.ncte.org/standards/ncte-ira. National Council of Teachers of English. (2012a). Evaluating English/Language arts teachers: A policy research brief. Urbana, IL: NCTE James R. Squire Office of Policy Research. National Council of Teachers of English. (2012b). Standards for initial preparation of teachers of secondary English language arts 7–12. Urbana, IL: Author. Oakes, J., Rogers, J., & Lipton, M. (2006). Learning power: Organizing for education and justice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

References

87

Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. doi:10.3102/0013189X12441244. Peck, C. A., Gallucci, C., & Sloan, T. (2010). Negotiating implementation of high-stakes performance assessment policies in teacher education: From compliance to inquiry. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(5), 451–463. Pence, L. E. P., & Alvine, L. (2003). Conversations from the Commissions: Teacher candidate assessment: Policy, practice, and professional judgment. English Education, 35(4), 328–332. Rosaen, C. L., Lundeberg, M., Cooper, M., Fritzen, A., & Terpstra, M. (2008). Noticing noticing: How does investigation of video records change how teachers reflect on their experiences? Journal of Teacher Education, 59(4), 347–360. Santagata, R., Zannoni, C., & Stigler, J. W. (2007). The role of lesson analysis in preservice teacher education: An empirical investigation of teacher learning from a virtual video-based field experience. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 10(2), 123–140. Sleeter, C., & Stillman, J. (2005). Standardizing knowledge in a multicultural society. Curriculum Inquiry, 35(1), 27–46. Smagorinsky, P. (2007). Teaching English by design: How to create and carry out instructional units. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Smagorinsky, P. (2014). Authentic teacher evaluation: A two-tiered proposal for formative and summative assessment. English Education, 46(2), 165–185. Sonu, D. (2011). Breathing spaces in neoliberal places: An essay review of Peter Taubman’s Teaching By Numbers. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 27(3), 308–316. Spangler, S. (2013). With a Little Help from Their Friends: Making the Transition from Student to Teacher. English Journal, 102(3), 87–92. Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning & Equity. (2013). edTPA Secondary EnglishLanguage Arts Assessment Handbook. In L. E. S. Stanford Center for Assessment (Ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Author. Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE). (2015). Teachers Who Support Teacher Candidates. Available in http://edtpa.aacte.org/news-area/ new-document-offers-edtpa-guidance-to-supervising-teachers.html. Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Street, B. (1995). Social literacies: Critical approaches to literacy in development, ethnography and education. Boston, MA: Addison Weasley Publishing. Taubman, P. (2009). Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. New York, NY: Routledge. Tellez, K. (2003). Three themes on standards in teacher education: Legislative expediency, the role of external review, and test bias in the assessment of pedagogical knowledge. Teacher Education Quarterly, 30(1), 9–18. Tillema, H. H. (2009). Assessment for learning to teach: Appraisal of practice teaching lessons by mentors, supervisors, and student teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(2), 155–167. Weiner, L. (2000). Research in the 90s: Implications for urban teacher preparation. Review of Educational Research, 70(3), 369–406. Wiggins, G. (1989). May). A true test: Toward more authentic and equitable assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 70, 9. Wiggins, G. (1990). The case for authentic assessment. Washington, District of Columbia: ERIC Clearinghouse on Tests, Measurement, and Evaluation. Document No: ED328611. Williamson, P. (2013). Enacting high leverage practices in English methods: The case of discussion. English Education, 46(1), 34–67. Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A. (2005). Best practice: Today’s standards for teaching and learning in America’s schools (3rd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Chapter 6

Professionalization, Policy, Performance Assessment, and Privatization in Social Studies

Abstract This chapter reviews the particular affordances and constraints of the intersection of privatization, performance assessment, policy, and professionalization in a secondary social studies teacher education program during the initial implementation of the secondary social studies edTPA and its impact on our adolescent (grades 7–12) teacher education program in New York. We begin with the content challenges that have confounded social studies from its origins, and how this intersected with the standards movement described in Chap. 2. We discuss how a concern for the transmission of a common national heritage, orderly classrooms, and more recently high-stakes testing in social studies have led to classroom practice emphasizing lower order recall of events. We then describe how the edTPA, with its emphasis on a central social science focus and analysis, supports teacher professionalism and troubles current classroom practice. In this context, we discuss the affordances and constraints of mandated, high-stakes performance assessment in social studies teacher education as they become explicit in the first year of implementation in an urban teacher preparation program, where state policy mandated the edTPA performance assessment as a requirement for initial certification. Initial results, including pass rates, are reported, along with anecdotal data about students’ reactions to the program and its implementation of the edTPA, and their reactions to the edTPA itself. Keywords Policy · Performance assessment · Privatization · Professionalization · edTPA · Standards · Social studies

Social Studies Content Challenges To consider the evolution of performance assessment in general and edTPA in particular in the field of social studies teacher education, it is necessary to begin with the content challenges that have confounded social studies from its origins. In the © The Author(s) 2016 T.J. Gurl et al., Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29146-8_6

89

90

6

Professionalization, Policy, Performance Assessment, and Privatization …

19th century, the small percentage of students who attended high school tended to study history, geography, and government. The study of history was dominant, and the emphasis was on a Eurocentric chronological study that was intended to foster patriotism (Evans 2004). The emergence of the disciplines of economics, sociology, and anthropology and the formation of disciplinary professional associations allowed for the development of the idea of an interdisciplinary content area that would foster citizenship and begin to address the social problems of a modern industrial society (Jenness 1990). From its inception, there has been a related and ongoing uncertainty within social studies as to the proper balance between the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge and the study of social problems (Jennes 1990; Thornton 2008; Evans 2004). Overlapping with this uncertainty, a political issue quickly emerged: whether social studies should serve patriotic ends by promoting a traditional conception of the national culture for pedagogy.

Standards, High-Stakes Testing and Classroom Practice In New York State (NYS), prior to the issuing of standards, the Department of Education had a long-established state curriculum and a 100-year history of state high-stakes tests in U.S. History and Global Studies/History (Grant 2001). In New York State, the high-stakes social studies exams are aligned with the state curriculum (New York State Education Department 1999), not the state standards (New York State Education Department 1996). Although the state standards contain aspirational language about developing students’ capacities for analysis, the portion of the state curriculum utilized in creating exam items is only the entry in the state curriculum listing historical events, rather than other sections analyzing those events. An emphasis on lower order thinking in state social studies examinations is a national phenomenon. A recent study has shown that in four states containing 20 % of the secondary student population in the United States (i.e., New York, Texas, Ohio, and Virginia) the high-stakes state social studies exams almost entirely ignore higher-order cognitive performances and overwhelmingly test recall of social studies content (Dewitt et al. 2013). There is national evidence that high-stakes tests that emphasize recall of content often influence social studies teachers to emphasize lower-order transmission of curricular content (Au 2007; Misco et al. 2011). New York State students and at least one fifth of United States students are, on the basis of this evidence, likely to encounter social studies education focused on lower order transmission. Research on social studies teaching consistently reports a long-standing tendency to transmit social studies content without much student engagement or interest (Schug et al. 1982; Cuban 1993; Goodlad 1984), a practice that often neglects students’ capacities to be critical thinkers and change agents (Rugg 1923; Counts 1932) or capacities for higher level cognitive learning (Saye and SSIRC 2013). Observers have noted differences between the official curriculum, which has been defined as the curriculum that is “devised in advance by authorities beyond the classroom” (Thornton 2008, p. 16) and the curriculum that is generally taught in

Standards, High-Stakes Testing and Classroom Practice

91

classrooms. One summary of the research noted that classroom social studies teachers have two overwhelming mandates, to control student behavior in the classroom and to cover the content (Barton and Levstik 2003). The states’ desire to transmit a shared national culture may result in a curriculum in which the teacher narrates a national heritage rather than engaging students in learning disciplinary understandings (Nokes 2013; VanSledright 2008). Social studies textbooks support and help to promote such teaching, as they are typically written in a passive and omniscient voice, relating events as inevitable rather contingent. History is presented as a mono-vocal narrative rather than a contested series of interpretations, bounded by evidence, and based around compelling questions (Holt 1990; Paxton 1999). Opening up classrooms to student inquiry and requiring students to conduct research and present their findings to classmates also requires a teacher to depend upon student collaboration and cooperation, and presents particular challenges in classrooms with low achieving students (Rossi and Pace 1998). A teacher committed to big ideas in history (Grant and Gradwell 2010) or civic education (Epstein 2014; Hess and McAvoy 2015) may demonstrate more ambitious teaching and learning, but these teachers have been exceptional, in New York State and in national research studies. New York secondary schools mirror this long time national pattern of shaping classroom teaching around basic familiarity with historical events or people as they appear on state tests, and covering that content, rather than critically engaging with disciplinary knowledge. Secondary social studies departments in New York State commonly create curriculum or “pacing” calendars that mandate teachers to shape their classroom lessons around specific content items that, based on prior tests, are viewed as likely to be tested again in the current year. In some social studies departments in New York State, there is a more or less explicit understanding shared by teachers and administrators that teachers will cover the tested curriculum rather than emphasizing the analysis embedded in the state standards (Grant 2000). More creative teaching, or efforts to engage students in an in-depth analysis of a particular issue or engage with contemporary events may be pushed out of the required courses and found in elective courses that are not tested by the New York State examinations (Gerwin and Visone 2006). As a consequence of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act and Race to the Top initiative, the New York State social studies exams have become a means to assess schools’ annual progress as well as teachers’ efficacy. As students’ test scores increasingly determine teachers’ evaluations and employment, teachers are often under pressure to teach towards the lower-order thinking on the state tests. The Common Core State Standards for literacy, and for social studies, require more in-depth reading and analysis than the “coverage” curriculum represents. In recognition of this limitation of the current curriculum, New York State utilized Race to the Top funds in order to write a new “framework” that introduced language of social studies practices. Without eliminating content, New York State reorganized the curriculum around “key ideas,” building coherence by organizing material around concepts. For example, instead of learning about Muslim caliphates on one day and the Mongol invasion on another, “students will compare and contrast the empire-building processes of the Mongols and the Islamic caliphates, noting important disruptions in other regions” as illustrative of a key

92

6


idea about political states and empires (New York State Framework 2014, p. 13). In addition, NYS has awarded a $3 million grant to a consortium of social studies curriculum developers to develop a toolkit of sample inquires keyed to the Common Core State Standards and the NYS Social Studies framework document. These inquiries represent ambitious teaching and learning with depth, analysis and materials far beyond a typical social studies unit. However, New York State has not yet revised the social studies Regents examinations that emphasize lower order recognition of broad factual coverage. Until the required graduation examinations are aligned with the new curriculum, teachers and schools are likely to prepare for the exams rather than teach in innovative ways that support the new curriculum.

Social Studies Content and the Standards Movement The standards movement beginning in the 1980s and 1990s did not resolve the questions of the proper aims and content of social studies. In response to the 1992 Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which called for the development of national content area standards that omitted social studies, the National Council of the Social Studies (NCSS) responded by unveiling curriculum standards that delineated the social studies content that should be taught at the K-12 levels (NCSS 1994). Although the document includes examples of assessments and descriptions of lessons for each of the disciplinary strands, at its core are ten thematic strands that mirror the established social science disciplines. Theme one, culture, equates to anthropology, theme two is time continuity and change, equating to history, and so on through economics, political science, psychology, sociology, and geography. Only the last three themes, science technology and society, global connections, and civic ideals are more integrative in nature. In 2010, the NCSS issued new standards that maintained the ten themes from the 1994 document (NCSS 2010). The 2010 document contains more elaborated examples of instruction and assessments to assist teachers’ with the formidable task of translating the ten themes into social studies curricula. In addition to curricular standards, the NCSS has issued documents entitled the “National Standards for Social Studies Teachers” (NCSS 1997, 2002), which, unlike the teaching standards for math and ELA, provide limited guidance for implementation. Because nationally recognized social studies teacher education programs must demonstrate that they prepare candidates who are able to develop curricula to teach in each of the ten strands, the NCSS thematic strands carry significant institutional weight. Not surprisingly, this requirement has been criticized by some social studies teacher educators as being unrealistic and, in trying to do too much, as undermining other worthy goals of social studies teacher education (Wineburg 2005). In 2013, NCSS adopted a new standards document, the College, Career, and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards, also known as the “C3 Framework” (NCSS 2013), which narrows the required social science disciplinary content to civics, economics, geography and history. Perhaps in recognition of the difficulty inherent in asking teachers and teacher educators to address the wide

Social Studies Content and the Standards Movement

93

range of disciplinary content in earlier documents, the C3 standards are designed to align social studies with the emphasis contained in the Common Core standards for English language arts. The C3 standards emphasize the need to provide students with opportunities to engage in inquiries pertaining to civic life (the third “C” in addition to the Common Core’s college and career readiness) and to do so in such a way so as to draw on the literacy skills promoted by the Common Core State Standards. Complicating matters for social studies teacher educators is that although programs must show evidence that they are preparing candidates to teach each of the ten NCSS themes to receive National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, now Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, CAEP) certification until at least 2017–2018 when the C3 framework will be the basis for national accreditation. Furthermore, state departments of education have issued their own content area standards, which diverge to a greater or lesser extent from the NCSS standards. For instance, the New York State standards do not include anthropology, psychology, sociology, and international relations. However, the standards do require 21 credits of history and geography. New York State teacher education programs must accommodate a national mandate for broad social science knowledge and a state mandate focused on history.

Professionalization: The edTPA in Social Studies as an Aspirational Document The edTPA, introduced to New York State in 2013, emphasizes practices requiring generally more analytical thinking in social studies classrooms. Many of these mandated practices have been called for by scholars whose work has been widely associated with efforts to raise the intellectual quality of teaching in general (Tyler 1949; Wiggins and McTighe 2005; Erickson 2000) and social studies and history teaching in particular (Brophy et al. 2008; Grant 2003; Levesque 2008). In light of the long-standing plea for depth over breadth in social studies (Newmann 1988, 1991), one desirable feature of curriculum design that has been incorporated into the social studies edTPA handbook is the requirement that candidates develop a series of lessons that are conceptually aligned with targeted understandings and core concepts (SCALE 2014). While there has been a tremendous effort within the field to encourage social studies teachers to teach conceptually driven units, the edTPA initiative is the first to explicitly require that preservice teachers enact a conceptual unit in a classroom. The edTPA handbook incorporates a number of scholars’ recommendations for social studies education, including: the requirement that teacher candidates incorporate Common Core literacy standards in their learning segments (NCSS 2013); that candidates develop a rationale for their learning segments (Hawley 2010); that candidates design assessments that allow students to demonstrate their conceptual learning of central focus conceptual goals (Avery et al. 2002); that candidates assess students’ abilities to perform higher order thinking skills (Newmann 1991); and that teacher candidates assess whole-class learning patterns as well as

94

6


individual students’ learning (Gallavan 2009). In these requirements the edTPA picks the side of higher-order disciplinary knowledge over rote transmission of social studies content in a univocal narrative, and requires different practices that diverge from the default pedagogy of social studies as described earlier. In this sense, the edTPA is a force for professionalization, as defined in this volume, because it emphasizes an active role for social studies teachers in determining classroom instruction. Rather than a PowerPoint or worksheets that cover the names and events mandated by the next topic on a pacing calendar, the edTPA social studies handbook sets forth a vision of the teacher as choosing disciplinary concepts integral to some specific content; identifying academic language necessary for understanding the concepts (not simply content vocabulary); selecting sources at different levels (e.g., primary, secondary); and devising strategies based upon student prior knowledge to help students articulate multiple interpretations of the content. A useful innovation for social studies programs is that the edTPA provides a means to initiate the long-called for increased understanding and interaction between schools of education and schools as sites for clinical experience (Zeichner 1999). Candidates cannot simply reproduce the “apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie 1975; Shulman 2005) that many have seen as a significant obstacle to improving instruction in social studies and other content areas. Looking at the plethora of standards documents, which have provided incoherent and unwieldy guidance for the field, it is clear that an advantage of edTPA social studies is that it might provide the means to engender greater coherence among stakeholders. In the past, our social studies program utilized classroom observations rubrics that emphasized the use of historical evidence for higher order thinking and making judgments about events at different levels of analysis (Zevin 2007). Yet, candidates frequently told supervisors that their cooperating teachers required that they cover a set amount of material at a pace the precluded reflection and analysis, and supervisors were left on their own to negotiate the type of pedagogy they will be able to enact with their cooperating teachers. Supervisors can now point to the NYS requirement that candidates pass the edTPA, which entails developing at least 3–5 lessons around a central focus and teaching fewer topics with more depth and analysis. Our program anticipated that the introduction of edTPA in social studies would be extremely challenging and, given the long-noticed resistance of pedagogy to change (Cuban 1993), quite likely frustrating. The implementation of the edTPA might be challenging because it requires that teachers develop conceptually focused learning segments to address the unwieldy curricula mandated by the NCSS and state agencies. Developing conceptually based curricula would be amount to an entirely unprecedented change (Cuban 1993; Thornton 2008). The introduction of the edTPA might be frustrating because given the current demands of curriculum and testing, at least in New York State, our program anticipated that without direct intervention from the state (which was not forthcoming) to focus and reduce the required curricula, cooperating teachers would pressure students and supervisors to interpret the language of edTPA in such a way so that the state social studies curricula will be transmitted to students.

Professionalization: The edTPA in Social Studies …

95

In this tension between classroom practice focused on transmission and classroom practice focused on disciplinary knowledge and analysis, of crucial importance is not simply what the edTPA handbooks say, but how submissions are scored. Because implementation of the edTPA in 2013–2014 took place without exemplar units, faculty experience with scoring units, and multi-year piloting efforts, we did not know how actual edTPA materials would be scored. For instance, if a traditional unit topic in social studies such as “the Cold War” is accepted by edTPA scorers to be identified as the central focus of a three to five lesson learning segment, then it is not likely that there will be a change in the traditional transmission of social studies content, given the lack of conceptual understanding required for this central focus. It is unclear whether a chronological treatment of social events, that most likely follows a textbook narrative (Thornton 2008), will be accepted as an adequate learning segment by edTPA standards. If so, once enough cooperating teachers have passed through the edTPA with transmission based units the edTPA as enacted by scorers, and despite the aspirational language in the handbook, will support low-level transmission of a heritage curriculum. It will take more than one year of experience with the edTPA to reach a conclusion, and scoring protocols and rubrics may also be adjusted, so any verdict on the edTPA will necessarily be provisional, limited to a particular moment in edTPA policy. In that spirit, we now turn to a case study of the first year of edTPA in New York State in a social studies program.

The Implementation of the edTPA in a Secondary Social Studies Teacher Education Program In the years prior to the consequential edTPA implementation, the vast majority of students completing the program obtained initial state certification by September 1 following their May completion of the program. Nearly all students achieved certification by the following January. Some undergraduates needed an extra semester to earn their BA degrees, and in any given year roughly 10 % of the students in social studies have needed to retake the social studies Content Speciality Test once. Students who did not pursue initial certification usually did so out of their own choice. Some graduates opted to attend law school, and others found teaching positions in private schools and so did not need to pursue certification. A few program completers relocated and utilized the college coursework to seek certification in another state. None of the program factors changed in 2014, but there were far different certification rates after the edTPA, and two new examinations— the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) and Educating All Students (EAS)— became certification requirements. In spring 2014, twenty-two student teachers in the post-baccalaureate initial certification program were placed into classrooms. These are people who already have a BA and are switching careers, so they are driven to obtain certification. They were also compiling an edTPA portfolio based solely on rubrics and the handbook,

96

6


Table 6.1 Pass/fail results for the edTPA in secondary social studies education Social studies education Undergraduate

Post baccalaureate Total (all social studies students)

Attempted and passed 12 (56 % of social studies undergrads) 15 (68 % of post-bacs in social studies) 27 (62 % of all candidates in social studies)

Attempted and failed 1 (4 % of social studies undergrads) 1 (4 % of postbacs in social studies) 2 (4 % of all candidates in social studies)

Did not attempt

Total

9 (40 % of social studies undergrads)

22

6 (28 % of postbacs in social studies) 15 (34 % of all candidates in social studies)

22

44

without any exemplar cases for them to consider. Six of the 22 students, 28 % of the students, did not submit an edTPA by December 2014, half a year after completing student teaching. Three of the students took and failed one of the other certification examinations first. This pattern of deferring the edTPA, the most expensive test, until after passing all other, less expensive tests, is evident in our other programs. Only one post-baccalaureate student submitted the edTPA before taking the other three exams. One student, holding foreign citizenship, had no clear path to employment, and he did not take any exams at all, including the edTPA. An even smaller percent of undergraduates submitted edTPA portfolios in social studies during the first year of consequential implementation. Ten out of 22 students submitted an edTPA portfolio by October 2014, while one more submitted in November. Just over half the student teachers completed this requirement, and the half who did not were unable to pursue certification. Four of these ten undergraduates needed the fall 2014 semester to complete the BA, so they were not eligible for certification. All four chose not to submit an edTPA portfolio, and by the end of 2014 only one of those students had submitted an edTPA portfolio. This student submitted the edTPA portfolio only after taking all three of the other examinations. In sum, by the end of 2014, fifteen out of 44 student teachers, or 34 % of teacher certification candidates in social studies, had not submitted an edTPA portfolio (Table 6.1). There was an edTPA submission rate of only 66 %, just twothirds of all students in the social studies program. Because only two students in the program failed the edTPA, the pass rate is 93 % (27 out of 29 candidates who submitted an edTPA passed). It is unclear how to interpret this number, and what it means for our program. If we assume that the candidates who submitted an edTPA were the stronger students, or the better self-regulated and self-efficacious students, or the students whose classrooms most resembled what the edTPA requires, or the candidates who were simply willing or able to collect permission slips for filming, it is possible that the students who did not submit an edTPA would have been more likely to fail or submit an edTPA that could not be scored. We do not know how many of the fifteen candidates who did not submit an edTPA portfolio would have passed and how many would have failed. Several students shared that financial considerations have prevented submission. Although the state provided a limited number of vouchers to pay for edTPA submission, far more were requested

The Implementation of the edTPA in a Secondary Social Studies …

97

than were available. Apart from finances, another issue preventing teacher candidates from submitting is the inability to collect artifacts, which might be related to the challenges of obtaining consent forms from students or technical difficulties. The edTPA, in these specific ways (expense, uploading classroom video and student work and sending it out of state, permission slips, scheduling filming, collecting and copying student work) privatizes student teaching supervision. Prior to the edTPA, candidates fulfilled all requirements for student teaching in great part by being in the classroom and sharing those experiences with the cooperating teacher and the college supervisor, who provided immediate feedback without the requirement to digitize student work. Any classroom videotaping was strictly informal for formative candidate feedback. Any problems that occurred with the placement were resolved by the supervisor, or the student teacher was moved to another placement. Student teachers reflected on their own lesson planning, their teaching, and student learning that resulted from student teaching. Supervision occurred directly in the classroom, the evaluation of which was based upon the shared experience of an entire class period and repeated four times over the course of a semester. Student teachers reflected on lessons they experienced with the supervisor, and with artifacts that could be examined jointly. This model stands in stark contrast to the edTPA, for which a candidate’s reflection on the student teaching experience takes place in isolation with no guidance, formative assessment, or support. Privatizing the evaluation of student teaching by moving the assessment outside of the college to the website of a multinational corporation has introduced significant expense, difficulties, and uncertainty for our teacher candidates. Entirely apart from pass rates for the edTPA, the mere existence of this expensive, private certification requirement removed one-third of our candidates from eligibility for certification.

Professionalization The edTPA is intended to change clinical practice by forcing student teacher candidates to look beyond their own lesson planning, to provide differentiated instruction, and to attend to the level of student learning that results from their instruction. Impact on Clinical Practice The edTPA has changed our social studies education program in myriad ways. For example, the requirements of the edTPA led some of our candidates to negotiate with their cooperating teachers for greater depth in some classrooms. It provided the faculty with a language to demand more as well. In prior years, when a cooperating teacher refused to allow a greater depth of teaching, faculty and student teachers rarely confronted the teacher. Student teachers feared that a confrontation would

98

6


anger their teacher ruining the experience, while faculty supervisors sought to avoid needless conflict with school personnel. Supervisors spoke up as advocates when student teachers agreed that they wanted a stronger role, or would design different curriculum. Few student teachers spoke up that way, and instead we usually moved a candidate to another placement. The edTPA has in some instances changed that dynamic as student teachers are willing to advocate for the in-depth teaching they need in order to submit an edTPA portfolio. For example, in fall 2013 during the Initial Clinical Experience two student teachers at a large (3000+ students), traditional high school reported that their cooperating teacher said that the candidates could not teach a set of lessons built around a single central focus as defined in Curriculum and Assessment. We contacted the Assistant Principal for social studies with whom we had already discussed the edTPA requirements. She explained to the cooperating teacher that, indeed, these students could teach for a week around a single central focus, and that the pacing calendar was advisory. Student teachers completing their Initial Clinical Experience in middle schools were also able to teach units with greater depth. One student spent a week on the Salem Witch Trials with a gifted and talented class, used the lesson plan and other artifacts for her edTPA and was the first student to submit a social studies edTPA, and scored in the mastery range. Inspired by her curriculum, which she presented in class, another student teacher with a middle school placement proposed to his cooperating teacher that they, too, spend a week on the Salem Witch Trials. His cooperating teacher suggested that Salem could take up, at most, five minutes of class time, and that a week would be needed to cover Northern, Southern, and Middle colonies. The college supervisor spoke to the cooperating teacher, and ultimately the student was allowed to teach a one-week unit focusing just on the New England colonies, a compromise position. We also asked why, if this was a middle school, there was so much pressure to cover curriculum, since middle school students did not take any statewide coverage based social studies tests. It turned out that this middle school is attached to a high school, and they had switched to teaching a year of American history in ninth grade, and then having the students take the U.S. History Regents exam at the end of ninth grade, after three straight years of American history. Although the test would not be given for another two and half years, this teacher was already in a hurry to cover material that would be tested, rather than spending time on Salem. Although the school allowed our candidate to spend a week teaching about New England, the principal requested that we not place any student teachers with them in the spring, or the coming year. The edTPA requirements for depth, as our student and then our supervisor articulated them, raised too many concerns about their pupils’ success on the Regents exams. After many years of consistent placements, we had no students in that school in 2014–2015. These three cases, where conflict developed with a cooperating teacher directly over the edTPA requirements, were the exceptional cases. In other schools candidates were able to manage a change that accommodated the edTPA requirements without a conflict, perhaps because they did not make such dramatic alteration to the curriculum. At a school that defines itself as open to inquiry, but still gives the Regents exams, the cooperating teacher of one student required him to cover

The Implementation of the edTPA in a Secondary Social Studies …

99

the same amount of material that she had planned for that week. However, instead of teaching on lesson about the 19th century nation state of Italy, and one lesson about Haiti, and one lesson about revolutions in Latin America, she allowed him to redesign the week as a small unit with a central focus on 19th century nationalism, and have groups working on each of the nations/revolutions that she would have taught separately. This created much greater coherence in the classroom and allowed each group to work in greater depth, since they had several days to look at the document packets he put together for each national revolution. This is the type of adjustment we coached students to make prior to the edTPA, yet before the edTPA we had much less success getting student teachers to insist that their cooperating teachers allow them such latitude. These experiences with the edTPA underscore a point made above when describing policy issues in social studies, that teaching three to five lessons with a central focus, requiring students to engage with texts, either secondary or primary sources, write something formative, obtain feedback, and then proceed to a summative assessment that responds to the feedback, is not common practice in most social studies classrooms. Teaching 3–5 lessons that meet the edTPA requirements can be a shock to the system in schools that promote a “cover the topics” (coverage) approach to curriculum. We required students to teach 3–5 lessons around a common focus twice during their fall placement in an Initial Clinical Experience- once for assignments in the Curriculum and Assessment Course, and a second time to obtain edTPA submission materials. We know that students did, in fact, negotiate with their cooperating teachers in order to teach in greater depth, assign more documents and writing, record their classrooms, and collect student work samples. In academic year 2013–2014 students enacted in the classroom more of what we demanded in the syllabus than they have in past years, because those are demands made by the edTPA. As a result of the experiences with the edTPA we changed our Spring 2015 student teaching syllabus to require our 2014–2015 student teachers to conduct at least one class focused around whole class student conversation. Rather than focus on a lecture or group work, we want our supervisors to observe a whole class discussion, or Socratic seminar, simulation, debate, trial, town hall meeting, or other form in which students speak for the greater part of the class, and for which students have spent some time preparing. We are willing to pull students from any classroom that does not agree to meet that standard. This requires us to work with supervisors and cooperating teachers to help student teachers build the capacity to conduct the kinds of discussions we believe necessary in good social studies classrooms, both to help develop student understanding of social science concepts and to develop the civic skills necessary for a healthy democracy. The edTPA does not encourage a signature pedagogy in social studies, in the sense that a lecture or simulation will serve equally well for an edTPA unit. However, in insisting that three to five lesson maintain a single focus on a social science concept, and that students work in a formative fashion before they summatively demonstrate what they have learned in that series of lessons, the edTPA handbook in social studies articulates a version of professionalization that is at odds with much current classroom practice. Requiring teacher certification

100

6


candidates to enact such practice as a requirement for certification sets one standard for professionalism. It raised the bar for our student teaching candidates in classrooms taking a “coverage” approach to the curriculum. Ultimately, after watching some of our candidates insist to their cooperating teachers that they had to teach differently, we changed our own program requirements to include a “conversation observation” that expresses our sense of a critical component of social studies education in a democratic society.

Performance Assessment Student teaching is, by definition, only an approximation of actual teaching, since the student teacher is never alone with a class while that experience of being the only adult in the room is a defining characteristic of the current American educational system. No matter where he or she positions himself, in the back as a passive observer, in a small group or assisting a particular student, or at the side of a certification candidate as a co-instructor, the cooperating teacher is always, inescapably in the room. The college supervisor, too, must be present to observe, and his or her presence may inspire the students in the classroom to behave better (or worse) or work harder, and the lesson may be more elaborate, better prepared, and show the certification candidate in a better than average performance. Student teaching may show a great deal about a candidate, but it is not the same experience as the future role of a teacher alone as the instructor of record. Acknowledging that limitation, our program still includes a substantial student teaching experience as preparation for teaching. We currently place student teachers in an Initial Clinical Experience of 150 h in a middle or high school in the fall semester, followed by a 190–240 h student teaching experience in a middle or high school (the opposite of the fall placement, so that students have both middle and high school experiences in our program) in the spring semester. Students are observed by a cooperating teacher who works with that student on a daily basis and is the one who provides direct feedback on lesson plans and work with students. College supervisors observe the student teacher 4 times during the semester, and currently hold seminars that meet six to ten times a semester for the students they supervise. Teacher certification candidates are, therefore, formally observed eight times over the course of the academic year. In addition, our candidates take a course entitled Curriculum and Assessment in Social Studies in the fall semester while they are in the Initial Clinical Experience, and in the spring semester while student teaching all social studies candidates take an educational psychology course. Assignments in both courses draw upon their classroom work. On this basis of observed classroom performance and reflection on that performance, a series of faculty, supervisors, and cooperating teachers judge whether or not the performance that a given candidate demonstrated in the classroom placements deserves initial certification. Our criteria, and samples of some student reflections on the performance, are a basis for national bodies to review and accredit our programs.

Privatization in Social Studies Education

101

The edTPA collects artifacts of three to five lessons within that two semesters of performance. University based supervisors who observe in the classroom, and school based cooperating teachers who host student teachers are the ones who observe and rate the candidates’ live performance. Like any artifact, the edTPA is a partial representation of a lived experience. In exchange, it offers a national rubric (as distinct from a national standard, as states set different cut scores) for assessing the candidates’ performance. There are important ways that edTPA focuses student teacher attention on very specific matters that they should attend to, directing their attention to certain aspects of the performance in order to assess them, and in this sense it functions to increase professionalism and can enhance student teaching. Completing the edTPA also involve attention to the details of the rubrics simply in order to score all of the points in each of the repetitive sections, and in this sense it is merely a test. The high-stakes adoption in New York State, and the standardized scoring of a national rubric require a focus on the details of obtaining points in each rubric at the expense of the student teaching experience itself. In addition, candidates are worried about presenting lessons that are too untraditional for fear that they will not score well with the anonymous outside reviewers. A contrast between two aspects of our students’ first sections of the edTPA, concentrating on the classroom context, illustrates the distinction between genuine reflection on the performance, and responding to all parts of the rubrics. A review of 8 edTPA portfolios submitted in May-June revealed that as a general rule our candidates identified prior academic knowledge, but did not distinguish students’ prior knowledge from cultural or community resources. These are, according to the edTPA rubric, separate kinds of prior knowledge and to earn top scores you need to describe both. The one effective description of relevant cultural knowledge came in relationship to a unit on the leadership of George Washington that happened to occur in a Catholic school. The middle school students in the Catholic school, whether or not they were Catholic themselves, possessed familiarity with worship and images portraying moments of devotion. This allowed them to view Arnold Friberg’s famous 1975 painting of Washington kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge and identify that he was praying. This aspect of the rubric highlighted an authentic classroom issue—by and large our students look for academic content knowledge rather than considering community or cultural resources as sources of prior knowledge that might conceptually boost student understanding. Our student teachers missed other points in the section on school context when they failed to discuss their central focus while writing about the students in the classroom. They are required to discuss their students’ prior knowledge in relation to the central focus, even as they describe the context for learning. This is a testwise issue. Candidates fill out a form about their students that includes questions about whether or not the class is tracked, and the name of the textbook and other details. Then there is a chart asking for the number of students with specific learning needs in the classroom (struggling readers, English Language Learners, gifted, IEP) and the modification each student receives. The chart and guide on classroom context do not contain any slots for prior knowledge. Since the candidates

102

6


go on to describe their central focus afterwards when they write about their lessons, and then also write about student prior knowledge in the commentary on their instruction (SCALE 2014, Task Two, prompt 3b) they often overlooked the prompt (SCALE 2014, Task One, prompt 2b) to write about prior knowledge when describing their central focus. Students who fill out information for their edTPA submission incrementally during the semester, as they are involved in the performance, naturally fill out the context for learning early in the semester, perhaps prior to knowing their central focus. When they write up their lessons for the edTPA, and look at the forms with all of the information on their students’ learning needs, without any slot for prior knowledge, they may miss the prompt to go back and include that element in writing about their central focus. They know that they have been writing about prior knowledge in Task Two, the reflections on instruction. Anyone who forgets to document prior knowledge in writing about a central focus may have fallen victim to a technical aspect of the forms and instructions in task one, rather than failing to attend to prior knowledge during the planning and teaching itself. No matter what happened in the classroom, or is contained in the lessons or elsewhere in the submission, the candidate cannot score above a 3 on Rubric Three. Another rubric produced mixed results. Although candidates do describe students as struggling students or English Language Learners or having IEPs when they provide the context for learning, they can be fairly vague about how they differentiate for them when describing their lessons (Task One: planning commentary) or how they taught (Task Two: instructional commentary). For top points on the Instructional Commentary and the Assessment (Task Three, Rubrics 11–15) sections, candidates must refer in specific and convincing ways to their entire class, to individual students, and to groups within the class. They rarely mentioned those groups. It is not clear that requiring generalizations about groups of students in the classroom more authentically represents the student teaching performance than talking about modifications for individual students. Either way the certification candidates differentiated the materials for multiple learners. A student teacher who handed out differentiated materials to groups of students, but only wrote about differentiating for one individual student will score lower than the actual performance deserves. The performance itself may have contained the differentiation necessary to demonstrate teaching skill, while the documentation of the performance may fall short. A supervisor and cooperating teacher, both present in the classroom, know if groups of students are addressed, even while discussing one representative student. In these instances, the edTPA’s assessment of artifacts and representations misses parts of the performance itself. The edTPA emphasizes an aspect of social studies student teaching we value, an emphasis on multiple interpretations supported by evidence. Most of our student teachers, and most of their cooperating teachers do not easily or naturally challenge their students to consider different interpretations of documents, counter-arguments to their own position, or call on other students to offer a direct disagreement with another student’s point, based on evidence, and help the two students and the class explore that evidence and consider which of the two interpretations it supports. Yet such instruction, and a related focus on


103

counter-argument in writing, is needed to reach the higher rubric scores. Here, the edTPA aligns well with our program. Candidates struggled to address another edTPA question about what to do in the future to support students in developing the skills, vocabulary, and disciplinary abilities that candidates deemed lacking when they analyzed the student work. This reveals a weakness in teacher planning, particularly when it is based around a series of topics in history to be delivered in succession, and the goal of lesson planning is to devise a series of activities that engage students each time, but each assessment mimics the Regents examination. This doesn’t lead to the planning the edTPA emphasizes, in which teacher analysis of student work on one assessment leads the teacher to devise specific supports in the next lesson to address student weaknesses. Here the edTPA identifies a genuine teaching challenge. We believe that we can push candidates towards teaching more material in greater depth with more attention to supporting students as individuals and groups, and following up on feedback by telling them that they NEED to teach another in-depth segment that builds on those same skills and concepts (keep that central focus!) in order to adequately describe how they supported students (individuals and groups) in the next unit. We had a strange finding from our students who were in middle schools that allowed document work and greater depth, or schools that did not give the Regents exam, or courses that did not end in a Regents exam and were taught in a more authentic fashion. It turns out that the 3–5 lesson segment is not really long enough to encounter, in authentic terms, all the learning that the rubrics request. Two examples demonstrate this point. A teacher in a classroom with a high level of authentic instruction (for a definition of authentic instruction see Saye and SSIRC 2013) spent a month on the narrative of Frederick Douglass. Her students read in-depth, debated issues Douglass raised, looked at multiple documents around the issue of slavery, and wrote analytical papers stemming from the book that they planned, drafted, and revised extensively. But the edTPA requirement that a candidate write about 3–5 consecutive lessons, rather than allowing 3–5 lessons drawn from that entire month on Douglass, made it impossible to write about that entire experience and it was excruciating to try and identify a three to five lesson segment with an adequate number of formative assessments prior to a summative assessment to demonstrate the ways that the candidate checked for understanding (edTPA Task One) in ways that supported student work on the summative assessment (edTPA Task Three). Revision usually took place across a longer period of time. In the end she abandoned all efforts to write about the month spent on Douglass, and instead wrote about five lessons on Reconstruction. This student received a 3 for every single rubric despite teaching with greater depth and attention to student learning than many of her peers. It simply was not teaching that was easily captured on the edTPA construct. In a second case, a teacher in a seventh grade classroom studying the first half of American history, from colonization to the Civil War without any statewide assessment, developed a careful curriculum emphasizing the American colonists as a group of British (and other) settlers in North America interacting with other

104

6


European settlers, Native Americans, and playing a role in international conflicts. His documents included Native American accounts, as recorded by the British, of grievances with the British colonists, and conflict over land. Over two months he helped students develop an understanding of the Americans as part of a larger struggle over land and empire in Europe and the New World. Alongside the narrative of a struggle for American liberty and rights of representation, he developed a complementary interpretation of an American colonial struggle for land within a larger British Empire. Following the French and Indian War, the British stationed 10,000 British troops along the Appalachian mountains to prevent colonials from moving west and renewing conflict with the Native Americans, as the British promised their Native American allies in the war against the French. Since these were 7th grade students he developed this idea about land slowly and deliberately over two months, patiently exploring many documents. This larger emphasis on empire, and an American struggle for liberty that included a demand for no taxation without representation and also a right to settle land despite Native American claims or current treaties, did not fit within the 3–5 lesson edTPA frame. He agonized about how to choose lessons and what to submit. Ultimately, he chose three lessons from the wars of the American Revolution. Two compare later heroic representations of two battles with the less heroic actual events at the time (at Lexington the American minutemen fled when the British fired, and at Trenton the Americans snuck across the Delaware at midnight to capture drunken Hessian mercenaries celebrating Christmas Day). A final lesson, on Yorktown, showed Washington’s victory, but also demonstrated that there were many more British soldiers still stationed across North America. The British decided to cut their losses and stop fighting the war, rather than losing the ability to continue fighting had they chosen to do so. Ultimately, he submitted this as a unit around a common focus on the “myth of the American revolution” emphasizing that students at different levels of ability or understanding could write about a difference between events at the time and a later painting in the final essay, even if they did not grasp the larger point that the British chose to stop fighting. This partial description of the curriculum, that pulled together much bigger and more important ideas about land and empire, took longer to conceive of than actually planning and teaching the lessons. The student taught this material in the fall semester, but did not submit until the summer while we tried to arrive at a satisfactory description of a curriculum that drew upon two months of work while only describing the final three lessons. On the other hand, as we feared, while it is difficult to represent authentic instruction that develops over many lessons, the edTPA submission with the highest score for evaluating student learning was constructed around a topic, The Cold War, with endless Cold War details, but no idea or social science phenomenon. As written, the edTPA emphasizes the need to have social studies instruction include facts but have students utilize those facts (evidence) to develop arguments and interpretations about important social science phenomenon. We have experienced some considerable success scaring our students into thinking that they need to teach with greater depth about an idea, a social science phenomenon, a persistent issue, and not about a topic. One might teach about “counterinsurgency” or “guerilla warfare” in a lesson segment about the Philippines American War, or about


105

Vietnam. Those are generalizable phenomenon, rather than just topics. The Cold War edTPA raises a number of concerns, and if SCALE has achieved a high interrater reliability in their scoring, we need to presume that this is representative of what they will accept, rather than an exception. The student wrote that the central focus of the submitted lessons was, “To analyze the origins, foreign policies, doctrines, foreign conflicts, and impact of the Cold War on international relations” and explained that formative assessments during the lessons would check “To see how well they are obtaining content information through these cooperative learning activities.” The summative assessment was “a thematic essay based on the central focus question, how did the Cold War shape international relations?” The problem with this central focus, from our perspective, is that it simply states a topic, the Cold War, teaches a bunch of facts about it, and then asks students to return the facts in an essay. This is not a central focus around an idea, or a historical question, such as the inevitability of the Cold War, or the nature of a “Cold War,” or something about its major dynamics, or how close it came to destroying the planet. In contrast, consider the (lower scoring) central focus of the unit submitted on Reconstruction, “Given what the interpretation of freedom was after the Civil War, were the exslaves indeed free?” This question takes a specific concept, the nature of freedom, and asks students to define it and use evidence from their study of Reconstruction to take a stand and argue. In addition to presenting a topic rather than examining a social studies phenomenon, the “Cold War” edTPA submission that obtained the highest score on Task Three of all submissions we reviewed wrote clearly about the achievements of the students in ways that did not always seem to correspond to student work. As one example, the teacher candidate explains that student two successfully responds to language demands in the Cold War essay when the student “uses language demand to compare and contrast NATO and the Warsaw Pact.” In the submitted work sample of student two’s essay, what the student does is simply list the names of the countries in the NATO Pact (citing a document) followed by a list of the names of the countries in the Warsaw Pact (citing a document). The next sentence explains that both NATO and the Warsaw Pact possessed nuclear weapons. From our perspective, the student work lacks analysis. It neither compares nor contrasts, it simply lists. We suspect that neither the edTPA scorer nor the edTPA backreader read the student essays and in scoring the assessment section (Task Three) relied primarily on the candidate’s description of the student work. This contrasts unfavorably with the way that supervisors and classroom instructors sit with teacher certification candidates to review and discuss student work. Our concern is that our ability to demand greater depth and a central focus on an idea will be compromised once enough cooperating teachers can tell their student teachers that they just used a topic, a bunch of textbook writings, and then some fancy descriptive writing to pass the edTPA. Since the edTPA cannot directly assess the actual student teaching performance itself as a cooperating teacher or classroom supervisor can, but instead collects artifacts partially representing the actual performance, and then the candidate description of that performance, it is vulnerable to these outcomes.

106

6


Policy As we have contextualized the edTPA within the broader debates over teaching and learning in social studies, we begin with a similar contextualization of our social studies program. The program advocates specifically for inquiry-based education, stressing more in-depth teaching than coverage, active learning experiences, disciplinary knowledge and civic engagement. The types of learning experiences we advocate are broadly shared by the social studies teacher education profession and reflected broadly in recent publications aimed at classroom teachers over the past several decades (Rubin 2012; Hess and McAvoy 2015; Hess 2009; Kobrin 1996; Gerwin and Zevin 2010; Zevin and Gerwin 2010; Lesh 2011; Barton and Levstik 2004; Epstein 2008; Turk et al. 2010; VanSledright 2010; Wineburg et al. 2013). We are guided by research findings that multiple choice questions do not test intended history cognition (Reich 2009; Wineburg 2004; Breakstone 2014; VanSledright 2013) and that the Document Based Essay question on the Regents Exam is an inauthentic representation of historical work with primary sources (Grant et al. 2004). Our programs views the NYS Regents Examination as a graduation requirement teachers must address, but not a goal guiding instruction, and any passing score from 65–100 is fine. We rely on recent research findings in a study that included extensive sampling in NYC and NYS demonstrating that students with more authentic social studies instruction scored slightly higher, and did no worse, on high-stakes tests of lower order thinking, despite the emphasis on depth over covering many facts in those classrooms (Saye and SSIRC 2013). Our classroom strategies involve helping teachers consider an entire semester, rather than a single lesson, the framework for instructional planning, allowing them to carve out space for more in-depth inquiry, research, writing, revision and debate on some days, while providing a broad-framework at other times. A teacher might allow three days for a “sort” activity that acquaints students with one-paragraph descriptions of fifty events associated with the coming of the Civil War spanning 1789–1860, including provisions regarding slavery in the Constitution, the invention of the cotton gin, Westward Expansion, and the election of Lincoln. Having provided a broad overview, teachers might spend the next weeks looking in-depth at a few issues, such as the way that President Jackson asserted federal authority over North Carolina in a conflict over the tariff, but aided Georgia in Indian Removal policy that the Supreme Court argued conflicted with federal power. This approach to curriculum and teaching puts our college and our student teachers in opposition to the commonplace “coverage” curriculum typical of most American social studies instruction (Barton and Levstik 2003; Nokes 2013). In NYS it aligns us with the Common Core requirements for deeper engagement with textual analysis, extended writing, and thinking. In some instances it can put us at odds with our own student teachers, as well as local assistant principals and cooperating teachers, who fear that failure to cover particular facts may result in fewer students passing the Regents Examinations in social studies, or in lower Regents examination scores.


107

The edTPA, in advocating that three to five lessons occur around a single common focus and stressing the exploration of an important social science phenomenon, appears to require some in-depth teaching, and to the extent that it does so it is aligned with our program. Confining its interest to only a single 3–5 lesson sequence, the edTPA ignores the need, in social studies, for semester long planning, and to this extent it is not aligned with our program. Anyone can include a unique set of practices for 3 days with minimal impact on larger classroom patterns. The edTPA aligns with some of our teaching goals while ignoring others. In addition, our city is a complex policy environment with over 900 public high schools open to any student across the entire city. This includes a consortium of over 30 schools with an exemption from most NYS Regents Examinations, including both the United States and Global Regents Examinations. Our college maintains a close relationship with a number of schools in this consortium. We have run grant-funded professional development projects with these schools, and we regularly place some student teachers in these environments. In the year that the edTPA was introduced, we had at least two student teachers in consortium schools. The edTPA might seem to fit well with schools that emphasize performance based assessments, including at least one in-depth research paper each year read and reviewed according to consortium-wide rubrics. However authentic instruction doesn’t always fit simply into a 3–5 lesson box; in one consortium school the students read Frederick Douglass’s entire autobiography across a month, and the writing and revision process unfolded across more than 3–5 lessons, and so did not fit well within the strictures of the edTPA. One policy option, using the edTPA as a formative assessment, or introducing its use gradually across the state, allowing teacher education programs time to experiment with different forms of implementation without risking their students licensure or their own accreditation, has been utilized in every other state participating with edTPA, including Washington State, the only other state in 2013–2014 using the edTPA as high-stakes requirement for licensure. They had experimented with the edTPA as a formative measure for four years before requiring a specific score for certification. This approach was not considered in NYS. The state piloted the edTPA in Spring 2013 and required its consequential use for May 2014 graduates. In addition, NYS set the highest cut score in the nation. Moreover, NYS did not offer certain options, such as local scoring, that would have allowed faculty who chose to participate to evaluate their own students’ edTPA submissions in conformity with SCALE’s norming requirements. This option would have permitted at least some faculty members to gain greater familiarity with the way that SCALE interprets the rubrics. This could have helped significantly given the lack of any exemplar materials when the edTPA was introduced. In addition, since students receive limited explanatory feedback at all with their edTPA, merely the score achieved on each rubric, neither students nor faculty know why a particular edTPA submission received a particular score on a specific rubric. Had NYS pursued local scoring, an option SCALE makes available to states, teacher education faculty who participated would at least have been able to explain to students why their submissions received particular rubric scores.

108

6


In sum, the policy environment described above included a longstanding national history of social studies instruction covering a great deal of historical material while asking students mainly to memorize and manage this information (Nokes 2013) rather than engaging in higher order analysis. State standards and national standards emphasized interpretation over memorization. Social studies examinations, including the local New York State Regents however, remained rooted in lower order thinking. The college social studies program emphasized inquiry, at odds with much local practice. The edTPA itself has at least two policy contexts. First, the edTPA social studies handbook and rubrics themselves, that emphasize social studies concepts but only document 3–5 days of instruction. Second, the decisions that New York State made (and SCALE accepted) around statewide consequential implementation in a single year.

Privatization in Social Studies Education All prior social studies testing material has been publicly available, at least in sample form. This is true at the P-12 level, where all past social studies Regents Exams (and statewide social studies examinations that were given in 5th grade and 8th grade) are available on the web or in an archive in their totality with scoring rubrics, sample essays at different scoring levels, and even the directions to be read out loud during test administration. This level of transparency has allowed the research community to openly share ideas and investigations about the examinations. One researcher had students think aloud while taking a test with 15 Cold War questions drawn from past Regents examinations, and presented evidence that for a number of questions knowing the factual information the question was intended to test did not reliably lead students to the correct answer, but “testwise” skills more reliably led to accurate answers (Reich 2009). Teachers can discuss questions and examination topics. This transparency is appropriate for a required statewide examination. The Content Speciality Exam in social studies lacks this degree of transparency. No past examinations are available for review. However, a full sample test, with questions, answers and their explanations, and a constructed response question with answers at different scoring levels are publicly available online. In contrast, all edTPA handbooks and exemplars are proprietary. The edTPA diverges from scoring practices for P-12 social studies tests that have two essays. In New York State local teachers score those exams. Teachers within a school used to score their own students, and recently scanning and scoring over computer has allowed the state to have teachers score tests from students at other schools rather than their own. In both cases teachers from within the same public system score the Regents exam essays and understand the basis for scoring decisions. To set the cut score for a Content Speciality Test, New York State convenes a panel of teachers, teacher educators, and content specialists to review each question on the CST and determine how the least capable but still worthy of certification teacher candidate would perform on that question. Without commenting on the validity of


109

such a cut score system, it is local, publicly involves the stakeholders, and leaves a record of the judgments on each question. In the case of the edTPA, although SCALE sets the scoring metrics for each handbook and maintains the interrater reliability involved in scoring each handbook, the private for-profit Pearson Corporation selects the scorers. Rather than selecting local scorers, the Pearson selection process chose scorers from across the nation. Although they claim that scorers are all qualified teachers in the subject area, we understand that to mean that the scorers have the appropriate certification area license, but that seems to be the only requirement. Prior to the introduction of new certification examinations in 2014, completing teacher education coursework led almost directly to certification. Students completed a number of one-shot seminars on topics such as detecting abuse and neglect of children, preventing drug abuse, or responding to bullying. They also took fairly inexpensive tests in their content area and tests of pedagogic knowledge. At $300 the edTPA is a far more expensive examination. In addition, the students must pay $100 to redo a section of the test, or $200 for score verification, which does not rescore the examination but ensures that it was scored in a psychometrically reliable fashion. Certification examinations, combined, now require hundreds of dollars to simply take each examination once. Failing and retaking an exam costs more. Privatizing the evaluation of teacher candidates has another impact, the uploading of material including the work of public school students and classroom video of secondary students to a proprietary website. These videos are then transmitted out of state, to wherever someone reviewing the edTPA submission is located. The files are in compressed format that makes uploading and sharing them much simpler than longer files of full classroom lessons that have been used informally and formatively in teacher education coursework. The videos and use of student work raised significant privacy concerns. Candidates must obtain written permission from students’ parents to include the children in an edTPA video, and to submit student work in an edTPA sample. In classrooms where only a few students return those forms, a candidate may only be able to include those few students in the edTPA video submission, a handicap for the candidate. Moving the certification process away from the local teacher education program and to a remote national system, and uploading all of the secondary student work and images and turning it over to a private company posed complicated privacy issues, and the need to comply with a complex permissions process put some certification candidates at a disadvantage.

Affordances and Constraints for the Program in Social Studies Education In ways similar to those described in Chap. 4 in relationship to mathematics, the edTPA has reinforced our programs’ message that social studies instruction should not consist of a series of facts about one topic after another, but rather should

110

6


consist of consideration, in sufficient depth to allow for student thought, investigation, and analysis, of important ideas and concepts in thinking about human society. Our program emphasized concepts and inquiry. Our candidates often reacted by pointing out that their future students needed to know facts to pass the Regents examinations and graduate high school, and that the teachers they had observed and their cooperating teachers covered one thing after another without time for student debate or research projects. The edTPA added legitimacy to our demands for depth and ideas. Rather than unreasonable academics demanding the impossible we became the allies of our students as they sought ways to convince their teachers to allow them more in-depth lessons. With our students’ advocacy, supported by our supervisors, we achieved specific breakthroughs as described in the earlier portion of this chapter, in students successfully negotiating to a week (rather than for five minutes or a day) on student inquiries about witchcraft in Salem, religious beliefs in colonial New England, democracy and imperialism in Athens, and nineteenth century nationalism in one country. In addition, the edTPA brought a renewed focus to student prior knowledge. In our experience, many of our attempts to focus candidate planning on student prior knowledge were met with the reply that “students don’t know anything” about any of the material being taught, and certainly most student teachers focused on prior academic knowledge. In rubric three the social studies edTPA requires some attention to prior academic learning to earn a 2, and a 3 requires justifying learning tasks in terms of prior academic knowledge or cultural knowledge—a 4 requires description of both academic prior knowledge, and existing personal/cultural/ community assets. Although only the candidate in the Catholic school successfully met the requirements for a 4, the requirement changed candidate resistance to searching for prior knowledge into a willing search for prior knowledge. It bears mentioning that this not only aligns with the importance of attending to student schema and misconceptions as stressed in cognition studies (Donovan and Bransford 2005) but is also central to culturally relevant pedagogy, a central concern for social studies educators (Branch 2005). As reported in earlier chapters on mathematics and English education, we adjusted our syllabi in the Curriculum and Instruction course that accompanies the Initial Clinical Experience by eliminating longer curriculum assignments. Perhaps to a greater extent than in other programs, we adjusted our syllabi to assist our teacher certification candidates by requiring them to write about the context for learning in their school, and to craft one entire 3–5 lesson inquiry, complete with video and student work, to teach and reflect upon as a rehearsal for the edTPA. Our candidates had to teach at least two such inquiries around a central focus, since one was turned into us, and another one was used for the edTPA. They were free to share video, lessons and student work during class that might be used in an edTPA, but they had to have materials to hand us for grading that would not be used in the edTPA. Writing roughly the entire process associated with the edTPA took up the great majority of the possible assignments one could assign in the course. This may be an extreme reaction to the edTPA, but it bears remembering that there was no time to integrate elements of the edTPA across the various

Affordances and Constraints for the Program in Social Studies Education

111

courses in our program. We had a quick look at the edTPA in a spring 2013 pilot, and then our 2013–2014 students were faced with a consequential implementation and no cut score had been set. Our curriculum narrowing claimed two significant intellectual victims, semester long planning, and civics, each at the heart of our understanding of effective social studies implementation. One curriculum assignment at the center of the Initial Clinical Experience tackled the problem, previously described, that social studies curriculum typically consists of a series of topics, without any explicit attention to how students develop disciplinary knowledge and skills across the semester. For example, in NYS 11th grade American history includes as topics the Mexican American War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and Vietnam. Typically, each war might be taught as a unit, or a part of a unit, and would be assessed by a test that resembles the US History Regents exam. The documents or readings assigned for each war, and the test, would all be of comparable difficulty, and the assessment would not change either. One can describe this in edTPA terminology as requiring the same language function each time. To varying degrees, depending on the instructor, the Curriculum and Assessment course in social studies had a curriculum assignment that attended to planning across an entire semester. These assignments didn’t require 65 lessons, but rather some lessons from different units, and assignments across the semester. This allows beginning teachers to plan explicit teaching of a specific disciplinary skill at a beginner level, and to increase the complexity across the semester. As an example, one might begin with helping students read a single document, and work on drawing inferences from the evidence in one single document, taking into account the source, perspective and purpose of that document. A different assignment might ask students to contextualize a single document. A later lesson might have students compare two documents and see if the documents corroborate each other, or if they present conflicting accounts of the same event. Later in the semester, students might analyze several primary sources with attention to sources, context and corroboration, and then read a portion of an essay by a historian and use their evidence to assess the historian’s claim. Planning for a semester also lets teachers think about what all of those wars might have in common, and what they might want students to learn about how America fights wars generally. In order to prepare for the edTPA we completely discarded this semester long approach, and merely required two sets of 3–5 lessons around the same central focus. So while students may gain from the edTPA, they also lose powerful teacher preparation we used to give them. A central purpose of the social studies is preparing citizens and addressing social problems. The edTPA handbook lacks the word citizenship, the word civics appears on page one in a footnote to the National Standards for Civics and Government, while the word news is entirely absent and “present” appears on page 28 only to require a candidate to identify which students present in a video are the focus students and which are not. The edTPA places no value on connecting history or social science to the present, addressing civic issues, or addressing contemporary news sources. Instruction involving any one of these goals might fit into the edTPA rubrics, but they are not valued as such. Yet our program explicitly values a

112

6


notion of authentic intellectual work (Newmann and Associates 1996) that stresses connectedness to the present, or consideration of persistent historical issues (Saye and Brush 2006; Saye and SSIRC 2013). Past methods curriculum used to include requirements for explicit connections to the present, not simply “current events Fridays,” but integrated into the curriculum. Candidates in a global studies course might prepare assignments that asked students to study Islam in the news now as well as the past, or ask their students to consider contemporary revolutions when studying the French or Russian Revolution. In an election or primary year we would require all student teachers to prepare some election curriculum and showcase election related work during the Curriculum and Instruction course, whether it was middle school student ads for various candidates or a high school student analyzing an issue. While instructors will speak with student teachers about elections, there will no longer be a common emphasis across syllabi on engaging with state and national elections. The edTPA, as currently addressed, simply takes up too much curriculum space, and doesn’t value it. Indeed, the Common Core wants to prepare students for college and careers, but not as citizens.

Concluding Thought: Gambling It All on a Losing Wager As a performance assessment, the edTPA implies that if teachers demonstrate they can do the tasks that the edTPA measures, then all will be well in the classroom. In the case of social studies, the edTPA measures candidates’ abilities to assess prior knowledge, differentiate instruction, identify language functions, plan 3–5 lessons around a central focus and language function, and assess student learning (or lack thereof) to plan for next steps. The edTPA does not measure semester-long planning or civic engagement. The implication, particularly in states that adopt the edTPA for consequential use, is that in the absence of the edTPA, teacher education programs have not prepared candidates adequately in these areas. As detailed above, the edTPA has had, for our program, significant affordances in having students push harder for opportunities to teach in-depth. Yet there have been significant constraints, some related not to the edTPA alone but to the policy environment. New York State has rushed to require teachers to pass the edTPA with the highest cut scores in the nation without making other changes in social studies, such as eliminating the low-level recall multiple choice Regents exams in history. This lopsided policy represents a significant gamble that the primary reason why social studies instruction does not look more like the rubrics on the edTPA is because teachers have never learned how to teach in that challenging fashion. This is a huge bet, and decades of research in social studies education suggest that it is a losing proposition. Barton and Levstik (2004) noted, “there simply does not seem to be any evidence that teacher knowledge is the variable that predicts practice” (p. 251). They cite studies showing that a history teacher who earned a history Ph.D. and knew about social history approaches and post-modern debates still taught a “single

Concluding Thought: Gambling It All on a Losing Wager

113

story” course, and that education students who developed complex understandings of history in a historiography course and took a methods course that combined imparting history content with pedagogical know-how still aspired to tell good stories and put clear notes on the blackboard. They conclude that as long as teachers are expected to cover the curriculum and maintain control, pedagogical change is unlikely. Wineburg and Wilson (1993) make the same point, that it is not the certification standards prospective teachers must meet that matter, but the daily conditions that determine what happens in the classroom: Setting new standards for teachers is one thing; providing the conditions for their attainment quite another. For teachers on a vast scale to attain such standards, schools as we know them would have to change. Yet we wonder, for example, how many policymakers would consider a school day in which a third of a teacher’s time was devoted to reflection and ongoing study of the discipline he or she teaches? A school building that provided teachers with a carrel of their own removed from the hubbub of ringing bells and other demands? An approach to teacher in-service that looked less like an EST seminar and more like the sustained learning activities that characterize true professional development? (p. 764)

As this paragraph suggests, many school structures work against teaching with historical depth, rather than covering material that may be on the test. The lack of community for teachers who instruct classrooms in this manner prevents them from sharing the burden of cutting the curriculum, developing alternative assessments, or crafting lessons similar to those that the edTPA describes. The lack of time built into a teaching day for those activities is also unavailable for staying abreast of current historiography or perusing the vast and increasing number of sources that on-line archives have made available, or the latest work on teaching. Moreover, the tests in social studies are aligned with covering a great deal of material, rather than testing disciplinary reasoning or in-depth readings. The edTPA focuses on teacher knowledge of content, student literacies, and academic language function as though nothing else occurs in schools. Although the “context for learning” form asks candidates to describe “any special features of your school or classroom setting (e.g., charter, co-teaching, themed magnet, remedial course, honors course) that will affect your teaching in this learning segment” and to list “any district, school, or cooperating teacher requirements or expectations that might affect your planning or delivery of instruction, such as required curricula, pacing plan, use of specific instructional strategies, or standardized tests” none of those lists have any impact on the scoring rubrics, so a candidate may list them but no scorer takes them into account. Rubric One, focused on planning, requires lesson plans to tie facts to concepts, interpretations and arguments and there is no clause such as “UNLESS these students failed the state test once and they are reviewing facts to try and pick up enough multiple choice questions to pass” or “unless it is after May 1 and teachers are reviewing all of 9th and 10th grade to prepare for a state history test based largely on recalling facts.” SCALE provides no checklist to state officials for determining how many of those factors a candidate can survive, or at what point it simply is not feasible for a state to require the edTPA in a particular subject unless the state changes its mandates or school funding structure. SCALE lacks a form for candidates to use

114

6


in assessing a state test for alignment with the edTPA secondary social sciences history handbook, in order to conclude that a classroom focused on preparation for those exams will impede a candidate from designing instruction that will consistently score over a “2” on the rubrics and prevent the candidate for reaching the “cut score” required for certification. Although the edTPA allows a candidate to list factors, since they do not affect the rubrics, the edTPA as it is scored focuses on candidate performance to the exclusion of the structural factors that also impact teaching. Adopting the edTPA as a high-stakes measure for certification is to gamble that social studies instruction covers facts without linking them to ideas because teachers don’t know how to do otherwise, rather than looking at tests, curriculum mandates, and other demands of schooling. Focused solely on requiring teacher candidates to produce a particular performance over three to five lessons, the edTPA is likely to lack predictive validity if, as prior studies in social studies demonstrate, it is broader schooling structures rather than candidates’ pedagogical content knowledge or dispositions towards teaching that determine how they approach the classroom. The edTPA may usefully push our candidates and cooperating teachers towards more authentic instruction for 3–5 lessons, at the price of narrowing the teacher education curriculum, undermining academic freedom, and reducing the number of teacher candidates who complete certification requirements. In the absence of changes to the nature of social studies assessments, or the work conditions Wineburg and Wilson (1993) describe, or an elimination of simple curriculum coverage as a goal of instruction and greater acceptance of noisy classrooms as Barton and Levstik (2004) argue, the edTPA is unlikely to change classroom instruction once teachers are certified and subject to all of those pressures in their own classrooms. Education faculty need to re-align entire sequences of courses to ensure that candidates have the precise experiences that generate the necessary artifacts for edTPA, and cut back on other valuable assignments to allow student teachers to complete the portfolio. Teacher certification candidates must now focus on 15 rubrics that could hinge on their ability to supply historical literacy instruction, a positive aspect of edTPA, without addressing the barriers they will face as teachers if they attempt to make this their daily curriculum, and not a special 3–5 lesson interruption in traditional teaching. In the next and concluding chapter, we build on prior chapters’ examinations of the impact of the edTPA in the content areas of mathematics, English, and social studies in order to consider the affordances and constraints of edTPA for teacher preparation overall.

References Au, W. (2007). High-stakes testing and curricular control: A qualitative metasynthesis. Educational Researcher, 36, 258–267. Avery, P. G., Freeman, C., & Carmichael-Tanaka, D. (2002). Developing authentic instruction in the social studies. Journal of Research in Education, 12, 50–56.

References

115

Barton, K., & Levstik, L. (2003). Why don’t more history teachers engage students in interpretation? Social Education, 67, 358–361. Barton, K., & Levstik, L. (2004). Teaching history for the common good. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Branch, A. (2005). Practicing multicultural education in “United States History For Teachers”: The case of Dr. Johnson, Theory and Research in Social Education, 33(3), 305–328. Breakstone, J. (2014). Try, try, try again: The process of designing new history assessments. Theory and Research in Social Education, 42(4), 453–485. Brophy, J., Alleman, J., & Knighton, B. (2009). Inside the social studies classroom. New York: Routledge. Counts, G. S. (1932). Dare the school build a new social order?. New York: John Day Company. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught. New York: Teachers College Press. Dewitt, S., Patterson, N., Blankenship, W., Blevins, B., DeCamillo, L., Gerwin, D., & Sullivan, C. C. (2013). The lower-order expectations of high-stakes tests: A four-state analysis of social studies standards and test alignment. Theory and Research in Social Education, 41(3), 382–427. Donovan, M. S., & Bransford, J. D. (Eds.). (2005). How Students Learn: History in the Classroom. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Epstein, T. (2008). Interpreting national history: race identity and pedagogy in classrooms and communities. New York: Routledge. Epstein, S. (2014). Teaching civic literacy projects. New York: Teachers College Press. Erickson, L. (2000). Stirring the head, heart, and soul: Redefining curriculum and instruction. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press. Evans, R. (2004). The social studies wars: What should we teach the children?. New York: Teachers College Press. Gallavan, N. (2009). Developing performance-based assessments, grades 6-12. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press. Gerwin, D., & Visone, F. (2006). The freedom to teach: Contrasting history in elective and statetested courses. Theory and Research in Social Education, 34(2), 259–282. Gerwin, D., & Zevin, J. (2010). Teaching U.S. history as mystery (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Goodlad, J. (1984). A place called school. New York: McGraw-Hill. Grant, S. G. (2000). Teachers and tests: Exploring teachers’ perceptions of changes in the New York state testing program. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8(14), 1–16. Grant, S. G. (2001). An uncertain lever: Exploring the influence of state- level testing in New York state on teaching social studies. Teachers College Record, 103, 398–426. Grant, S. G. (2003). History lessons: teaching, learning, and testing in u.s. high school classrooms. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Grant, S., & Gradwell, J. (Eds.). (2010). Teaching history with big ideas: Cases of ambitious teachers. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Education. Grant, S. G., Gradwell, J., & Cimbricz, S. (2004). A question of authenticity: The document based question as an assessment of students’ knowledge of history. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 19(4), 309–337. Hawley, T. (2010). Purpose into practice: the problems and possibilities of rationale-based practice in social studies. Theory and Research in Social Education, 38(1), 131–162. Hess, D. (2009). Controversy in the classroom: The democratic power of discussion. New York: Routledge. Hess, D. E., & McAvoy, P. (2015). The political classroom: evidence and ethics in democratic education. New York: Routledge. Holt, T. (1990). Thinking historically: Narrative, imagination and understanding. New York: College Entrance Examination Board. Jenness, D. (1990). Making sense of social studies. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Kobrin, D. (1996). Beyond the textbook: Teaching history using documents and primary sources. Portsmouth: Heineman.

116

6


Lesh, B. (2011). Why won’t you just tell us the answer? Teaching historical thinking in grades 7-12. Portsmouth: Stenhouse. Levesque, S. (2008). Thinking historically: Educating students for the 21st century. Toronto: University of Toronto. Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Misco, T., Patterson, N., & Doppen, F. (2011). Policy in the way of practice: How assessment legislation is impacting social studies curriculum and instruction in Ohio. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 6(7), 1–13. Retrieved from http://journals.sfu. ca/ijepl/index.php/ijepl/article/view/303. National Council for the Social Studies. (1994). Expectations of excellence: Curriculum standards for social studies. Washington, DC: Author. National Council for the Social Studies. (1997). National Standards for Social Studies Teachers Washington. DC: Author. National Council for the Social Studies. (2002). National Standards for Social Studies Teachers Washington. DC: Author. National Council for the Social Studies. (2010). National curriculum standards for social studies: A framework for teaching, learning, and assessment. Washington, DC: Author. National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). College, career, and civic life (C3) Framework for social studies state standards. Washington, DC: Author. New York State Education Department. (1996). Learning standards for social studies. Albany: Author. New York State Education Department. (1999). Social studies resource guide with core curriculum. Albany: Author. New Yorks State Education Department. (2014). New York state common core grades 9-12 social studies framework. Albany: Author. Newmann, F. M. (1988). Can depth replace coverage in the high school curriculum? Phi Delta Kappan, 69, 345–348. Newmann, F. M. (1991). Classroom thoughtfulness and students’ higher order thinking: Common indicators and diverse social studies courses. Theory and Research in Social Education, 19, 410–433. Newmann, F. M., & Associates. (1996). Authentic achievement: Restructuring schools for intellectual quality. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Nokes, J. D. (2013). Building students’ historical literacies: learning to read and reason with historical texts and evidence. New York: Routledge. Paxton, R. J. (1999). A deafening silence: History textbooks and the students who read them. Review of Educational Research, 69, 315–339. Reich, G. A. (2009). Testing historical knowledge: Standards, multiple-choice questions and student reasoning. Theory and Research in Social Education, 37(3), 298–316. Rossi, J. A., & Pace, C. M. (1998). Issues-centered instruction with low achieving high school students: The dilemmas of two teachers. Theory and Research in Social Education, 26, 380– 409. doi:10.1080/00933104.1998.10505856. Rubin, Beth. (2012). Making citizens. New York: Routledge. Rugg, H. (1923). Problems of contemporary life as the basis for curriculum making in the social studies. In H. O. Rugg (Ed.), The Social Studies in elementary and secondary school (pp. 260–273). 22nd Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II. Bloomington, IL: Public School. Saye, J. W., & Brush, T. (2006). Comparing teachers’ strategies for supporting student inquiry in a problem-based multimedia-enhanced learning environment. Theory and Research in Social Education, 34, 183–212. Saye, J., & The Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative (SSIRC). (2013). Authentic pedagogy: Its presence in social studies classrooms and relationship to student performance on state-mandated tests. Theory and Research in Social Education, 41(1), 1–44.

References

117

Schug, M. C., et al. (1982). Why Kids Don’t Like Social Studies. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Council for the Social Studies, Boston. Shulman, L. S. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134(3), 52–59. Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning & Equity (SCALE). (2014). edTPA Secondary History/Social Studies Assessment Handbook. Palo Alto: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Thornton, S. J. (2008). Continuity and change in social studies curriculum. In L. Levstik & C. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of research in social studies education (pp. 15–32). New York: Routledge. Turk, D., Mattson, R., Epstein, T., & Cohen, R. (2010). Teaching U.S. History: Dialogues among Social Studies Teachers and Historians. New York: Routledge. Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. VanSledright, B. (2008). Narratives of nation-state, historical knowledge and school history education. Review of Research in Education, 32(1), 109–146. VanSledright, B. (2010). The challenge of rethinking history education. New York: Routledge. VanSledright, B. (2013). Assessing historical thinking and understanding. New York: Routledge. Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design, expanded (2nd ed.). Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Wineburg, S. (2004). Crazy for history. The Journal of American History, 90(4), 1401–1414. Wineburg, S. (2005). What does NCATE have to say to future history teachers? Phi Delta Kappan, 70(9), 658–665. Wineburg, S., & Wilson, S. (1993). Wrinkles in time and place: Using performance assessments to understand the knowledge of history teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 30(4), 729–769. Wineburg, S., Martin, D., & Monte-Sano, C. (2013). Reading like a historian. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Zeichner, K. (1999). The new scholarship in teacher education. Educational Researcher, 28(9), 4–15. Zevin, J. (2007). Social studies for the twenty-first century: Methods and materials for teaching in middle and secondary schools (3rd ed.). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Zevin, J., & Gerwin, D. (2010). Teaching world history as mystery. New York: Routledge.

Chapter 7

Signature Pedagogies and Other Implications

Abstract This chapter builds on prior chapters’ examinations of the impact of the edTPA in the content areas of mathematics, English, and social studies in order to consider the overall affordances and constraints of edTPA for teacher preparation. It addresses the broader implications of mandated performance assessments on pedagogy, research, and scholarship in teacher education, guided by the following questions: What are the implications of the current interrelatedness between policy, privatization, professionalization, and performance assessments of teachers? What are the relationships between performance assessments and teacher education? In what ways is the teaching profession approaching certain signature pedagogies in light of current reforms, and what are the implications for teacher preparation programs? Keywords Policy · Performance assessment · Privatization · Professionalization · edTPA · Signature pedagogies Recent changes in teacher preparation and certification have incited positive as well as negative reactions among stakeholders such as researchers, educators, policymakers, and prospective teachers. Our analysis considers performance assessments in the context of policy, scholarship, and practice in teacher education in recent decades in order to examine various aspects of edTPA and its implementation through the lens of the mathematics, English language arts (ELA), and social studies content areas during the first year of implementation. In previous chapters, we highlighted pertinent historical literature on teacher education (Chap. 2) in connection to the edTPA through the lens of policy, privatization, professionalism, and performance assessment (Chap. 3), before linking the discussion to the content areas of mathematics, English, and social studies (Chaps. 4–6). As stated in the introduction, our examination of the impact of the edTPA on our teacher education programs during the first year of implementation documents our experiences during a particular phase in the ongoing evolution of teacher © The Author(s) 2016 T.J. Gurl et al., Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29146-8_7

119

120

7


education programs in our state and across the United States. We discuss the ways in which the state policies that regulate edTPA implementation have augmented the role of privatization in teacher education by further intertwining teacher certification with the interests of private companies that operationalize the assessment in a proprietary fashion. We highlight how the edTPA, as a requirement for certification, interconnects both policy and performance assessment in teacher education and is undergirded by assumptions about professionalization in teacher education, assumptions that are embedded in national as well as international social, political, and economic trends. Our discussion aimed to exemplify how our proposed conceptual framework frames teacher education at the intersection of professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization. Given the benefits and challenges of performance assessments as discussed in previous chapters, both generally and in particular content areas, several affordances and constraints for teacher education are discussed below.

Affordances and Constraints for Mathematics, English, and Social Studies Teacher Education Programs that prepare secondary teachers in the content areas of mathematics, ELA, and social studies, as highlighted in Chaps. 4–6, will continue to be shaped by the edTPA and other assessments. However, some content areas are currently experiencing different issues than others. This chapter proceeds by discussing the affordances and constraints of performance assessment mandates in each of the content areas and concludes with a general discussion that considers the role of the edTPA in the development of signature pedagogies for teacher education. The existing professional standards for teaching mathematics, produced by the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and ELA, developed by the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), include the selection of worthwhile tasks, providing opportunities to deepen students’ conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and problem solving skills, literacy, and incorporating students’ interests and backgrounds. The professional standards recommending that teachers analyze their teaching and their students’ learning have long been part of the professional standards in the content areas. Using and evaluating pedagogical approaches such as incorporating technology, varying representations of concepts, creating communities using discourse, and assessment were all part of the recommended standards for teachers in mathematics and ELA. While the edTPA incorporates many of the existing recommendations, these are now mandated as requirements. In order to be successful in the edTPA, teacher candidates must plan a cohesive learning segment of 3–5 lessons incorporating students’ needs and backgrounds. Depending on the content area, the edTPA requires a focus on procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, literacy, and problem solving and reasoning skills. Candidates must then assess student learning and adjust teaching based on student outcomes (AACTE 2013). Thus, content of the edTPA is, in many important ways, in alignment with the professional

Affordances and Constraints for Mathematics, English …

121

content standards in the areas of mathematics and English language arts, affording teacher candidates a platform for displaying their teaching skills, evidence of their dispositions, and analysis of their teaching and students’ learning. Performance assessment and teaching portfolios, as discussed in earlier sections, has been widely recommended as an important part of teacher education, often, but not always, as formative assessments that contribute to candidate learning (DarlingHammond et al. 2005; Tillema 2009; Wolf 1996; Zeichner and Wray 2001). The edTPA provides a uniform way to assess candidates and incorporates many of the important recommendations in the content area professional standards. However, as a high-stakes assessment submitted at the end of student teaching, the edTPA provides fewer opportunities for candidates’ growth than the local assessments it might replace. Because the edTPA portfolio is based entirely on only 3–5 lessons submitted during fieldwork, there is limited opportunity for candidates to demonstrate growth through feedback and formative assessment. Although a candidate may resubmit one of the three tasks of the edTPA if necessary (at a significant cost), there is very little feedback given to the candidate other than a rubric score, and a sentence or two about how the rubric criteria were (or were not) met. Traditionally, professors, supervisors, and cooperating teachers provided extensive written and verbal feedback to candidates about their portfolios and other performance assessments. The edTPA diverges from the existing content area professional standards as well as the recommendations of expert teacher educators (Darling-Hammond et al. 2005; Tillema 2009; Wolf 1996) regarding the intent and purpose of performance assessments as a tool for growth and learning. It also indirectly privileges shorter-term curricular engagements in their field placements in subjects like ELA, in which learning goals and objectives might be met over a longer period of time, and more accurately represented in a portfolio that demonstrates the work of a unit rather than 3–5 lessons. In the context of social studies education, the edTPA as written offers particular affordances for an in depth reflection of historical events. As developed by SCALE (2014), the three stages of the edTPA portfolio (i.e., planning, teaching, and assessment) align with several widely used and highly regarded models of curriculum development (Brophy et al. 2009; Grant 2003; Levesque 2008; Wiggins and McTighe 2005). Of critical importance to social studies are the required three-tofive lessons of connected instruction that are designed to build student understandings of core concepts. The edTPA has afforded opportunities for social studies teacher educators to establish or develop a new norm of social studies instruction by prioritizing conceptual understanding over coverage of events listed in a curriculum. Of great significance for social studies educators is the introduction of the requirement to develop a rationale for their curricular decisions, of grounding curricular decisions in students’ prior knowledge, the planning of formative assessments and summative assessments that will allow their students to demonstrate their emerging understanding of the targeted central focus concepts and the evaluation of unit planning in light of evidence of student learning. The edTPA’s social studies rubrics, as described above, conflict with some local social studies practice that is far less conceptual in nature, or only beginning to grapple with having students construct arguments to meet Common Core

122

7


requirements. The edTPA affords the social studies program a language and rationale grounded in a state requirement for demanding that students teachers be afforded the opportunity to teach an issue for a longer time in greater depth, with formative as well as summative evaluations. The example in Chap. 6 that describes the social studies assistant principal intervening to allow a teacher candidate to spend a week of instructional time in the ninth grade solely on examining imperialism and democracy in Athens illustrates an affordance that improved a student teacher placement. An earlier discussion between social studies education faculty and the assistant principal of that school regarding the edTPA requirements helped bridge a curricular gap that can exist between the recommendations of teacher education programs and the practices of K-12 schools. This level of collaboration has long been called for by social studies and education researchers who see the central focus of education research to be the improvement of instruction (Zemelman et al. 2005). Along with the affordances of the edTPA in general, such as consistency with earlier professional recommendations in the content areas, and those particular to social studies such as those previously addressed, there are several constraints for all three content areas examined in this work. In mathematics, although it is possible that candidates whom might not have focused on mathematical language may are now requirement to do so, the language function as required by the mathematics edTPA is narrow and may be unnecessarily prescriptive. Discourse among students, and between students and teachers has long been a feature of good mathematics teaching (e.g., Artzt and Armour, 2001; Artzt et al. 2008, 2015) and has existed well before the highly prescriptive language function and syntax required by the edTPA. Similarly, in English language arts (ELA), the need to isolate and highlight a particular academic language function(s) in the portfolio contributes to narrowing conceptions of the interpretation and analysis of texts in an increasingly high-stakes context of standardization. As with in-service teachers who resort to skill-based methods to ensure that students earn passing scores on standardized tests even when those methods contradict their beliefs about teaching and learning in ELA (Graham and Marshall 2007), candidates are likely to focus exclusively on a particular language function in their lessons for the sake of isolating evidence and artifacts that will be accessible to edTPA portfolio reviewers. Along with the rise in standardized curricula in recent decades, an increased narrowing of focus in ELA curriculum (Agnostopoulos 2003; Costigan 2013) may perpetuate the exclusion of the language and literacy resources of lower-income students of color in racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse contexts (Gay 2000; Kharem 2006; Kinloch 2012; Ladson-Billings 2004; Paris 2012). In social studies, despite the affordances described above, some faculty in discipline are concerned that the edTPA may have limitations to push for greater depth and coherence in the content area. For example, as illustrated in Chap. 6, the candidate who included the Cold War submission scored highly on the rubrics in Task 3, assessment, by using a low-level function (“list”) but describing it as a higher level function (“comparing and contrasting”) for what the students actually did. The central focus of the unit, “the Cold War” lacked conceptual depth, and students did not form arguments. Rather, they simply described how the Cold

Affordances and Constraints for Mathematics, English …

123

War affected international relations. If an incongruence exists between the stated requirements of the edTPA handbook and the ways in which the portfolio submissions in social studies are actually scored, allowing a coverage approach, then this content area will lose these affordances. Furthermore, in social studies, the focus on 3–5 lessons is itself problematic since, unlike mathematics, social studies is not cumulative and has no built-in growth from lesser to greater complexity of understanding or growing mastery of disciplinary skills. Rather, the curriculum simply contains a series of topics, often covered and then tested by the same recall-based multiple choice questions. The format of the New York State Regents examinations, although intended for different grade levels, is identical, another sign that the state does not expect greater disciplinary mastery after another year of instruction, just knowledge of facts about the US, not facts about the rest of the world. In this context, the edTPA could limit the probability of impacting future teacher classroom practices, as it focuses on a brief moment of depth rather than helping candidates consider the pressing concern in social studies, how they will promote student growth over the course of a semester. As described in Chap. 6, more authentic instruction whose central focus unfolded over a one- to twomonth period, grappling with the autobiography Frederick Douglass wrote or providing evidence about the American colonists as part of global struggles for empire, simply did not fit into the edTPA. The student teachers had to either craft a shortened unit or radically redescribe a tiny fragment of their curriculum, yet one that contained a significant summative essay. The edTPA also omits any reference at all to citizenship or the civic goal of education, nor does even a single rubric provide a single point for connecting instruction in social science to the present. Yet these are, arguably, among the most crucial elements of social studies instruction. Additionally, in the current context of high-stakes accountability, where students’ standardized test scores have major repercussions for teachers and students alike, administrators at student teaching placement sites for all content areas may arguably deem that they have more of an obligation to the cooperating teachers whose jobs are on the line than to the student teachers whom they welcome in their schools. A further constraint for all of our content areas is the limited freedom within and beyond the courses that usually coincide with student teaching, such as methods or curriculum and assessment courses. Professors of methods courses in mathematics and ELA may feel required to incorporate into their classes the limited and limiting language of the edTPA and the particular approaches it privileges. In addition, given the emphasis on this particular form of assessment, other promising approaches such as collaborative lesson study in mathematics (Lewi et al. 2012) aesthetic education in ELA (Costigan 2013) or civic education in social studies (Rubin 2012; Hess and Mcavoy 2015), and instruction that makes connections to the present (Saye and SSIRC 2013) may be increasingly overlooked in already content-heavy methods courses. It is important to note that the field of mathematics education has not historically been opposed to performance assessments, either for students or for teachers, and performance-based assessment has been considered a best practice in ELA for decades. In fact, recent research suggests that engaging in lesson study (Lewis et al. 2012) improves student test

124

7


scores, encourages teachers to focus on student thinking, and improves mathematical knowledge for both students and teachers. Performance assessments in these content areas have been historically recommended as a formative assessment, and tool for growth and improvement. Furthermore, there are benefits for teacher educators to have the academic freedom to pursue a variety of pedagogical approaches. If innovative or diverse approaches to teaching such as those referenced above are shown to benefit the specific students with whom teacher candidates work, then teacher educators should be able to use their professional judgement to incorporate such pedagogical approaches into their curricula.

Relationships Between Policy, Privatization, Professionalization, and Performance Assessments of Teachers The intersection of policies and trends identified in this volume point to relationships between the edTPA assessment and teacher education. As researchers, scholars, and practitioners in teacher education, we must continue to examine how the implementation of the edTPA and similar assessments can shape teacher education. As discussed above in each of the content area chapters, there is evidence of a robust, decades-old effort to professionalize teachers. The NCTM (1991), NCTE (1996, 2012), and NCSS (1997, 2002) all developed and disseminated standards for teachers, including those for subject-matter knowledge, pedagogy, and recommended analysis of teaching and student learning. These organizations recommended that teachers create student-centered classroom environments, where students were encouraged to inquire about subject matter using the academic language customary to the content area. Although the requirements of the edTPA are consistent with these standards, teacher education programs are being held responsible for gains or losses in student achievement, which overshadows the impact of larger societal issues such as poverty and racism. We maintain that perceptions of the teacher education community, fueled by reports such as the one produced by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ, Greenberg et al. 2013), have set the stage for greater involvement of private entities in education. The convergence of privatization and policy in teacher education is of particular concern. While the importance of teacher performance assessments has been established, the need for a nationally available performance assessment remains questionable. It is understandable that embarking on a national performance assessment would require an organizational structure with resources to manage the dissemination of information, provide assessment support and personnel, and provide evaluative feedback to interested parties (Falk 2013). However, placing all of these responsibilities in the hands of a for-profit organization has the potential to undermine the transparency that is required in professional organizations and education. Such transparency necessitates public access to information, including

Relationships Between Policy, Privatization …

125

how the money gleaned from the performance assessment is used and who the assessment scorers are. Madeloni (2013) admonished that the involvement of Pearson results in an environment where “teaching and learning are commodified. The free exchange of ideas is limited by the demands of capital. The work of the public intellectual who is the teacher educator is reduced to technocratic piecework” (n.p.). Opportunities should exist for teachers, teacher educators, and others to provide feedback for revision and improvement. Pearson might also display a more transparent, open-door policy in which educators and teacher candidates have more access to currently proprietary information including the development of the assessments, rubrics, and guidelines and exemplars of candidates’ work. We also maintain that ongoing collaborative effort between teachers, teacher educators, non-profit funding entities, parents, and others acting at the local and community levels might broaden the conversation about the implementation of this assessment. We would also prefer that the edTPA handbooks and other SCALE materials were not proprietary, and would be available to all. Dover et al. (2015) offer another example of this constraint in a recent commentary published in Teachers College Record regarding their experiences with edTPA coaching and scoring. They offer two particularly significant points of critique. The first pertains to the amount of time that candidates devote to the logistical concerns of preparing the portfolio, such as consent forms and technical issues, beyond the planning and implementation of lessons and reflective practice: Candidates receive their scores—but no feedback—three to four weeks after submitting their portfolios … Given the time required to develop, teach, and reflect upon their edTPA portfolios, this means that many candidates are evaluated based upon materials created during their first weeks in the classroom (n.p.).

In addition to being evaluated based on materials from the very beginning of their field work, candidates’ success is also contingent upon the resources available in their programs (Au 2013). Like many other issues of access, certain logistical concerns are not part of every student teacher’s experience. Although Dover et al. (2015) critiques are based on anecdotal information, a similar point is made by Denton (2013) in his exploratory case study of a cohort of 74 teacher candidates in a teacher education program in Washington state, the first state for which the edTPA was consequential. In his analysis of high-scoring and low-scoring portfolios, Denton finds that candidates’ use of “strategies indicative of test-taking shortcuts may be helpful in earning points on edTPA” (2013, p. 33). Like other high-stakes assessments, candidates and schools with the means to do so so may avail themselves of resources to which less privileged candidates may not have access. Dover and colleagues’ (2015) second point of critique is that unlike multifaceted and longer-term local assessments of candidates in the context of their teacher education programs, edTPA scorers who may have no experience with the kinds of educational contexts in which candidates have conducted their fieldwork “determine proficiency based on a single, high-stakes snapshot” (n.p.). of three to five lessons and two 10-min videos. The experiences reported by Dover and colleagues, albeit anecdotal, present a performance assessment model that differs from the comprehensive, formative process predicted by Secretary Duncan in

126

7


a highly-publicized speech about the future of teacher education. In 2009, before the unveiling of the nationally available edTPA, Secretary Duncan described the “readiness” assessment as follows: One of their most promising initiatives to date is the development of the first nationally accessible assessment of teacher candidate readiness. Under this performance-based assessment, supervising teachers and faculty would evaluate student teachers in the classroom. And student teachers and interns would be required to plan and teach a week-long stint of instruction mapped to state standards and provide commentaries on videotapes of their instruction and classroom management (Dept. of Education 2009, n.p.).

Secretary Duncan’s vision of performance assessment as a measure of teacher readiness assumes that the candidates would be evaluated by supervising teachers and faculty based on a whole week of instruction, rather than the much more condensed and remote process that is currently in place. The process he described parallels best practices in many excellent teacher preparation programs, but it would be too difficult to mandate and regulate on a national scale, and this is where state policy and privatization enter the equation. Here, again, the interests of professionalization, policy, performance assessment and privatization intersect, to the potential disadvantage of candidates and teacher education programs. With regard to policy, we would advocate for more teacher educators to have a greater role in providing engineering opportunities for developing conceptual frameworks based on research-based and theoretically-grounded principles. There is continued need for evidence of the validity of the results of the edTPA, and for evidence of the reliability of the edTPA. Research is needed to determine whether teachers who have passed the edTPA or other such assessments have better student outcomes, addressing whether this assessment has any predictive validity. Current reports and white papers based on data from national board assessment data suggests that performance assessments will lead to such gains (Darling-Hammond 2010; Darling-Hammond 2013), but future peer-reviewed empirical research will be needed to determine the effectiveness of teacher candidates who have completed edTPA (or PACT) as an initial certification requirement as compared to those certified under different requirements. Furthermore, research is needed to examine the reliability of the results of performance assessments as conducted by private organizations and those traditionally conducted by teacher educators in educational programs. A key difference between PACT and edTPA is who does the scoring. PACT is scored locally by teachers and supervisors who are trained in local schools, while the scorers of the edTPA have no relationship with the local environment in which the candidates are teaching and working (Denton 2013). Although it might be argued that external reviewers bring greater objectivity to the scoring process, and their scores would therefore be more reliable, our programs’ high edTPA passing rates might suggest that our own assessments have been well aligned in evaluating and preparing our candidates and for the field.

What are the Relationships Between Performance Assessments …

127

What are the Relationships Between Performance Assessments and Teacher Education? In What Ways is the Teaching Profession Approaching Certain Signature Pedagogies in Light of Current Reforms? The teacher education profession has long advocated for and implemented various forms of performance assessments to both assess and facilitate the development of teacher candidates (Darling-Hammond et al. 2005; Wolf 1996; Zeichner and Wray 2001). Performance assessments can provide evidence of teacher candidates’ content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and pedagogical competencies and reflect the importance of high standards for teacher candidates. When developed and situated in teacher education programs, they often served as formative as well as summative assessments, allowing teacher candidates to reflect on their work and analyze the complexities of teaching (Wolf 1996). Overall, the edTPA hints at having the qualities of a formative as well as a summative assessment; it requires prospective teachers to reflect on the relationships between students, teaching context, planning, implementation, and student learning during the course of their student teaching. However, the administration of the examination, its immediate adoption as a requirement for initial certification, and the high-stakes context in which it has been implemented by several states, diminishes some of the possibility and promise of an formative assessment, rendering it mainly summative, unlike its predecessor, the PACT assessment. Although edTPA is stated to be based upon the PACT assessment, another key difference is that candidates who submit a PACT portfolio are allowed to obtain feedback from their cooperating teachers and supervisors, and are given feedback intended to contribute to candidate growth (Denton 2013).

Is the Teaching Profession Approaching a Set of Signature Pedagogies? As stated in earlier chapters, Shulman (2005b) recommended that education programs work toward coherence within and across the profession, similar to the signature pedagogies of other professions, such as law and medicine. A signature pedagogy should include methods of teaching and learning that influence candidates to “act like” a member of the teaching profession, should exemplify attitudes and dispositions that influence candidates to “be like” a member of the teaching profession, and should include deep assumptions about the best ways to impart knowledge so that a candidate can “think like” a member of the teaching profession (Shulman 2005a, b, c). We argue that determining whether the edTPA has the potential to induce signature pedagogies for the teaching profession depends more on its implementation, rather than the assessment as written. Unfortunately, due to the lack of exemplars, that is largely subject to interpretation.

128

7


The question of whether the edTPA will motivate pedagogies that allow for the development of the knowledge, skills and dispositions of the teaching profession requires an examination of the requirements of the assessment, then imagining what pedagogy would accomplish the required goals, given the lack of empirical data. As discussed previously, the edTPA consists of three interconnected tasks: planning, instruction, and assessment. The planning task is likely the most aligned with what might traditionally be taking place in teacher education programs: planning lessons and writing assessments for students. Since lesson planning and assessment have traditionally been part of teacher education programs, which have historically been criticized for the lack of a signature pedagogy, it is unlikely that this aspect of edTPA will be an agent of change in terms of the teacher education curriculum. The language functions and syntax that are required may prompt some change to the pedagogies of the profession, since teacher educators may incorporate the use of the required language and syntax into methods and other teacher preparation courses. As mentioned above, this may be an unwelcome narrowing of the curriculum in ELA and math, although it may amount to the introduction of higher order tasks in social studies classrooms where none might have existed before. The requirement that the central focus unfold over three to five sequential lessons prevents the edTPA from capturing authentic pedagogy as enacted in some social studies classrooms, thus limiting the range of a signature pedagogy. The second edTPA task, associated with instructional implementation, may provide more of an opportunity for the development of signature pedagogies for teacher education, especially its requirements to engage students in learning and deepen student understanding using discussion and discourse. As discussed earlier, traditional instruction often involved teachers lecturing passive students (Cuban 1993). Teacher candidates will not be able to replicate this type of instruction, and instead will be required to create engaging tasks, and to effectively question students based on their input. The onus will be on teacher education programs to prepare their candidates to both create engaging tasks, and to use questioning to deepen understanding. Teacher candidates will need the opportunity to respond to unexpected responses, and will need to practice eliciting information from, rather than delivering information to, students. Working on identifying common student misconceptions and anticipating likely student responses can facilitate the development of these abilities. Task 2 also requires the analysis of teaching effectiveness, which also may be fodder for signature pedagogies in teacher education, particularly the development of the language of what effective teaching might include, and what to look for in students, particularly evidence of learning within a class, rather than a few students answering questions correctly. These features, however, were often part of teacher preparation programs (e.g., Artzt and Armour-Thomas 2001; Artzt et al. 2008, 2015) prior to the mandated requirement of the edTPA. The third task, which requires the analysis of students’ work, may also contribute to signature pedagogies in teacher preparation. Candidates will need to use the language of assessment, analyze student responses, and give feedback for students to act upon. Part of a signature pedagogy might be to choose and develop assessments that are formative and allow for growth, while anticipating common conceptual

Is the Teaching Profession …

129

misconceptions in order to deepen student understanding. However, if the scoring of the task rewards low-order thinking such as “listing” a series of facts about a historical event, a signature pedagogy is unlikely to develop in social studies. Collaborative approaches to pedagogy may facilitate the development of all of the abilities described above that are assessed using the edTPA. Therefore, although the mandate is the edTPA assessment itself, the pedagogy that facilitates successful completion of the assessment might be related to earlier recommendations such as lesson study or other collaborative approaches to teacher education that might facilitate the development of the competencies discussed above.

Closing Thoughts The issues that complicate assessment requirements for teacher certification have little to do with criticism of performance assessment itself. As Au (2013) and others have expressed, and we experienced in our programs, “the edTPA provoked some healthy cross-program dialogue about curriculum alignment that had been sorely lacking” and has catalyzed efforts to revise course sequences and improve the coherence between coursework and fieldwork in many programs (p. 2). In addition, it promotes research-based practice and the integration of planning, implementation, and reflection in curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy in ways that paper-and-pencil or computer-based objective tests and constructed responses never could. It requires collaboration between university education faculty, cooperating/mentor teachers, and school administrators. However, despite these potential contributions to signature pedagogies in teacher education, the high-stakes nature of the operationalization edTPA can potentially counteract some of the benefits. The implementation of the edTPA instrument on a national scale currently depends on a private entity with legal and financial priorities, factors that are likely to negate some of the advantages that performance assessments are meant to afford. Darling-Hammond (2013) observes that while intentions of reformers may be admirable, the result for many new systems is that good–often excellent– teachers are lost in the process. The disjointed relationship between what teacher candidates experience and enact in their classrooms, and practices and the constraints for teacher education programs, reveal a dissonance between the edTPA as it is currently implemented and best practices for teacher preparation in all three content areas discussed in this book. In Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin (1995) observed that “because teaching for understanding relies on teachers’ abilities to see complex subject matter from the perspective of diverse students, the know-how necessary to make this vision of practice a reality cannot be prepackaged or conveyed by means of traditional top–down ‘teacher training’ strategies” (p. 597). These practices may hinder teacher candidates in their understanding of the purposes of their aspired profession, and they may exacerbate the inequities that already exist throughout the educational spectrum as those who have more resources learn to “perform” on the performance assessment in the same way that

130

7


students with more access to resources typically attain higher scores in traditional standardized tests. Au (2013) questions: What happens when a thoughtfully designed performance assessment becomes a highstakes, standardized test? Based on my own experience thus far, the implementation of the edTPA feels very much like what we already know about such tests (p. 3).

According to Au, when someone unknown and far away is scoring the work of our students, the high-stakes nature of the assessment overshadows its formative and reflective goals. As one of his students noted, It was difficult to teach authentically while adhering to the edTPA guidelines. Instead of planning my lessons as I would normally do, I had to repeatedly consult a 54-page handbook to make sure that I was following the script (p. 2).

While the edTPA is meant as an “authentic assessment” that demonstrates a candidate’s “teaching and learning process” (AACTE 2013, n.p.), the limitations of its implementation raise important concerns and require empirical research about the impact of the exam on teacher education. Finally, teacher education scholars and researchers would like to maintain the academic freedom to incorporate research-based strategies into methods courses, assessments, and teacher preparation programs. Collaboratively designed and implemented performance assessments could potentially bring together key stakeholders in teacher education. As Caughlan and Jiang (2014) observe, in an era where the state is “increasing its mediation of the pedagogical relationships between students and teachers,” teacher educators do not always get to decide what instruments and rubrics are used to evaluate their students (p. 385). Caughlan and Jiang’s critical discourse analysis of three different observation instruments used in teacher education programs across the US demonstrate that observation protocols can reflect the implicit as well as explicit values and commitments of teacher education programs. When a state requires all new teachers to pass the same instrument in the field, it is even more important to take note of how it positions teachers, students, and teacher educators, and how it defines teacher professionalism. [They] urge teacher educators to look critically at the instruments used to define teaching and professionalism for their programs, and to advocate maintaining their place in defining teaching and learning within their own programs, and with their novice professionals…Where a program cannot develop its own instruments, or where there is no room for modification, joining teacher candidates in a critical reading of the state-approved rubric allows for discussion in how to prepare for and frame the performance that is assessed (p. 385).

At minimum, those of us who prepare and work with teachers may want to learn from the best that the edTPA has to offer in order to continue to work toward holistic curricula and assessment in our own teacher education programs that include performance assessment in ways that incorporate our own vision and values. Such local and holistic curricula and assessments could be grounded in the principles and agendas of teacher education, as well as engaged in critical analysis of current and forthcoming mandates in the United States and internationally.

Closing Thoughts

131

In the present cultural, political, and socioeconomic context, we argue that such a critical analysis should always consider the increasingly intersecting interests in professionalization, policy, performance assessment, and privatization.

References Anagnostopoulos, D. (2003). Testing and student engagement with literature in urban classrooms: A multi-layered perspective. Research in the Teaching of English, 38(2), 177–212. American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. (2013). About edTPA: Overview. American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. http://edtpa.aacte.org/about-edtpa. Artzt, A. F., & Armour-Thomas, E. (2001). Becoming a reflective mathematics teacher (1st ed.). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Artzt, A. F., Armour-Thomas, E., & Curcio, F. R. (2008). Becoming a reflective mathematics teacher (2nd ed.). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Artzt, A. F., Armour-Thomas, E., Curcio, F. R., & Gurl, T. J. (2015). Becoming a reflective mathematics teacher (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. Au, W. (2013). What’s a nice test like you doing in a place like this? The edTPA and corporate education “reform.” Rethinking Schools, 27(4). http://www.rethinkingschools.org/ archive/27_04/27_04_au.shtml. Brophy, J., Alleman, J., & Knighton, B. (2009). Inside the social studies classroom. New York: Routledge. Caughlan, S., & Jiang, H. (2014). Observation and teacher quality: Critical analysis of observational instruments in preservice teacher performance assessment. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(5), 375–388. Costigan, A. T. (2013). New urban teachers transcending neoliberal educational reforms: Embracing aesthetic education as a curriculum of political action. Urban Education, 48(1), 116–148. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught. New York: Teachers College Press. Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). Evaluating teacher effectiveness: How teacher performance assessments can measure and improve teaching. Center for American Progress. http:// www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2010/10/19/8502/evaluating-teachereffectiveness/. Darling-Hammond, L. (2013). Getting teacher evaluation right: What really matters for effectiveness and improvement. New York: Teachers College Press. Darling-Hammond, L., Hammerness, K., Grossman, P., Rust, F., & Shulman, L. (2005). The design of teacher education programs. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world (pp. 390–441). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Darling-Hammond, L., & McLaughlin, M. W. (1995). Policies that support professional development in an era of reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(8), 597–604. Denton, D.W. (2013). Responding to edTPA: Transforming Practice or Applying Shortcuts? AILACTE JOURNAL, X(1), 19–36. Department of Education, US. (2009). Teacher preparation: Reforming the uncertain profession—remarks of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. Retrieved April 1, 2009, from http://www2.ed.gov/news/speeches/2009/10/1022 2009.html. Dover, A. G., Schultz, B. D., Smith, K., & Duggan, T. J. (2015). Who’s Preparing our Candidates? edTPA, Localized Knowledge and the Outsourcing of Teacher Evaluation. Teachers College Record, ID Number: 17914, Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org.

132

7


Falk, B. (2013). Response. In Diane Ravitch’s blog, “What is edTPA and why do critics dislike it?” Message posted to http://dianeravitch.net/2013/06/03/what-is-edtpa-and-why-do-criticsdislike-it/. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Graham, P., & Marshall, J. (2007). The way we teach now: Teachers of English in the new world of high-stakes assessment. English Leadership Quarterly, 30(2), 2–4. Grant, S. G. (2003). History lessons: Teaching, learning, and testing in U.S. high school classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Greenberg, J., McKee, A., & Walsh, K. (2013). Teacher prep review: A review of the nation’s teacher preparation programs. Washington, DC: National Council on Teacher Quality. Hess, D., & Mcavoy, P. (2015). The Political Classroom. New York: Routledge. Kharem, H. (2006). A curriculum of repression: A pedagogy of racial history in the United States. New York: Peter Lang. Kinloch, V. F. (2012). Crossing boundaries: Teaching and learning with urban youth. New York: Teachers College Press. Ladson-Billings, G. (2004). New directions in multicultural education: Complexities, boundaries, and Critical Race Theory. In J. A. Banks & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed., pp. 50–68). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Levesque, S. (2008). Thinking historically: Educating students for the 21st century. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto. Lewis, C. C., Perry, R. R., Friedkin, S., & Roth, J. R. (2012). Improving teaching does improve teachers: Evidence from lesson Study. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(5), 368–375. Madeloni, B. (2013). Pearson comes to teacher education, and we are supposed to be cool with that? National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/blog/ pearson-comes-teacher-education-and-we-are-supposed-be-cool. National Council of Teachers of English & International Reading Association. (1996). Standards for the English language arts. Urbana, Illinois and Newark, Delaware: Authors. http://www.ncte.org/standards/ncte-ira. National Council for the Social Studies. (1997). National standards for social studies teachers Washington, DC: Author. National Council for the Social Studies. (2002). National standards for social studies teachers Washington, DC: Author. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1991). Professional standards for teaching mathematics. Reston: Author. Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. Rubin, B. (2012). Making Citizens. New York: Routledge. Saye, J., & the Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative (SSIRC). (2013). Authentic pedagogy: Its presence in social studies classrooms and relationship to student performance on state-mandated tests. Theory & Research in Social Education, 41(1), 1–44. Shulman, L. S. (2005a). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134(3), 52–59. Shulman, L. S. (2005b). Teacher education does not exist. Stanford Educator: 7. Shulman. L. (2005c). The signature pedagogies of the professions of law, medicine, engineering, and the clergy: Potential lessons for the education of teachers. Talk delivered at the Math Science Partnerships (MSP) Workshop: “Teacher Education for Effective Teaching and Learning” Hosted by the National Research Council’s Center for Education, CA. 6–8 February 2005. Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning & Equity (SCALE). (2014). edTPA Secondary History/Social Studies Assessment Handbook. Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Palo Alto: Author. Tillema, H. H. (2009). Assessment for learning to teach: Appraisal of practice teaching lessons by mentors, supervisors, and student teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(2), 155–167.

References

133

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Wolf, K. (1996). Developing an Effective Teaching Portfolio. Educational Leadership, 53(6), 34–37. Zeichner, K., & Wray, S. (2001). The teaching portfolio in US teacher education programs: What we know and what we need to know. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 613–621. Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A. (2005). Best practice: Today’s standards for teaching and learning in America’s schools (3rd ed.). Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Index

A A Nation at Risk (ANAR), 12, 34 A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st century, 13, 34 AACTE (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education), 2, 20 Academic language, 54, 72, 76, 81, 94, 113 Accountability, 2, 4, 16, 18, 19, 30, 32, 33, 35, 38, 39, 54, 65, 68, 77, 78 Accreditation, 18, 67, 80, 107 Aesthetic education, 123 An agenda for action, 50 Analysis, 4, 5, 17, 20, 36, 47, 54, 57, 90–92, 94, 95, 103, 105, 110, 119, 124, 130 Authentic assessment, 73, 130 C C3, 92, 93 CAEP (Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation), 2, 57, 67, 81, 93 California law SB 2014, 18 Central focus, 93–95, 98, 99, 101–103, 105, 110–112, 121–123, 128 Certification, 4, 9, 10, 18, 21, 31, 36, 55, 56, 73, 74, 76, 80, 84, 93, 95–97, 100, 107, 109, 114, 119, 120 Citizenship, 30, 90, 96, 111, 123 Civic education, 91, 123 Close reading, 4, 69, 70 Cold War, 95, 104, 105, 108, 122 Common core, 53, 71, 93, 112, 121 Compulsory assessment, 6 Contextualization, 5, 6, 46, 66, 106 Cooperating teacher, 17, 34, 57, 59, 61, 76, 77, 82, 94, 95, 97–102, 105, 106, 113, 114, 121, 123, 127

Coverage, 91, 99, 100, 106, 114, 123 Critical English education, 71 Culturally relevant, 11, 12 Culturally relevant pedagogy, 110 Culturally sustaining, 76 Culturally sustaining pedagogy, 76 Curricular engagements, 121 Curriculum, 3, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20–22, 34, 38, 45, 46, 50–52, 56, 57, 59, 66–68, 71, 75, 76, 79, 80, 82, 90–95, 98–100, 103, 110, 111–114, 121, 123, 128, 129 D Department of education, 1, 2, 18 Disciplinary knowledge, 66, 90, 91, 95 E English education, 74, 75, 79, 80, 82, 110 English language arts (ELA), 5, 6, 66, 67, 71, 72, 76–82, 93, 119–123, 128 English language learners, 51, 58, 83, 101, 102 Equity, 3, 12, 32, 34 F Feedback, 18, 36, 54, 58, 62, 76, 84, 97, 99, 100, 103, 107, 121, 124, 125, 127, 128 Field experience, 34, 77, 79 Field placements, 57, 59, 62, 121 For-profit organization, 124

© The Author(s) 2016 T.J. Gurl et al., Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29146-8

135

Index

136 G Goals 2000, 92 H High-stakes, 4, 19, 20, 32, 38, 45, 46, 66, 73–75, 77, 82, 84, 89, 90, 101, 107, 114, 122, 123, 127, 129 High-stakes assessment, 121 I Identity, 71, 74, 76 Implementation, 1, 3, 4, 11, 22, 23, 45, 46, 51–53, 55–57, 62, 66, 69, 74–79, 82–84, 89, 92, 94–96, 107, 108, 111, 119, 125, 127–130 Innovation, 94 Inquiry, 10, 22, 79, 83, 91, 98, 106, 108, 110 InTASC, 18 L Language, 5, 16, 17, 32, 34, 51, 54, 56, 58, 60–62, 65–73, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 83, 90, 91, 93–95, 97, 101, 102, 105, 119, 120, 122–124, 128 Language function, 54, 57, 58, 60, 62, 76, 112, 113, 122, 128 Learning goals, 121 Learning objectives, 84, 121 Lesson study, 14, 17, 23, 123, 129 Literacy, 15, 38, 67, 69–71, 74, 78, 91, 93, 114, 120, 122 M Mentoring, 10, 76, 77 Methods courses, 78, 79, 80, 83, 123, 130 N NAEP, 2, 12, 15, 16, 22, 47 National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 14 National Commission, 1, 12 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), 92–94, 124 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), 5, 66–68, 71–74, 76, 120, 124 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), 5, 16, 45, 46, 49–55, 59, 62, 120, 124

National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), 19, 124 NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education), 2, 11, 18, 19, 36, 55, 57, 66–68, 73, 76, 79–81, 83, 93 NCTM standards, 5, 49–52, 59 Neoliberal economic theory, 4 New York State, 3, 4, 51, 55, 70, 71, 74, 78, 80, 90–95, 101, 108, 112, 123 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), 2, 16, 91 O Observations, 56–58, 61, 65, 79, 94 P Pacing calendar, 91, 94, 98 PACT (Performance Assessment of California Teachers), 6, 12, 17, 18, 36, 66, 73, 84, 126, 127 Pearson, 3, 10, 34, 37–40, 53, 75, 109, 124, 125 Pedagogical approaches, 23, 47, 49, 51, 66, 120, 124 Pedagogy, 3, 6, 20, 22, 32, 45, 46, 65, 66, 70, 71, 72, 79, 90, 94, 99, 110, 119, 124, 127–129 PISA, 2, 9, 12, 15, 16, 22 Portfolio, 3–5, 29, 33, 36, 37, 54–57, 60, 62, 73–84, 95, 96, 98, 101, 114, 121, 122, 125, 127 Poverty, 2, 33, 34, 70, 124 Powerful English, 71 Prejudice, 2 Prior knowledge, 94, 101, 102, 110, 121 Professional standards boards, 2 R Race to the Top, 2, 3, 11, 12, 19, 52, 73, 91 Reform-based practices in mathematics, 4, 9 Regents exams, 98, 108 Reliability, 3, 4, 18, 37, 105, 109, 126 Requirement, 3–5, 12, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 33, 36, 39, 40, 45, 46, 51, 54–62, 64, 75, 77, 78, 82–84, 89, 92–101, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112, 113, 120, 122, 126, 128, 129 Rubric, 3, 22, 33, 35, 56, 60, 61, 65, 81, 94, 95, 101, 103, 107, 108, 112–114, 121–123, 125, 130

Index S SCALE, 1, 3, 4, 12, 37, 59, 60, 61, 74, 76, 77, 93, 102, 104, 107, 108, 113, 121, 125 Schools of education, 2, 19, 94 Signature pedagogies, 5, 6, 9, 17, 32, 35, 119, 120, 127–129 SIMS, 13 Social justice, 20, 21, 34, 71, 78, 79 Social studies, 1, 3, 6, 12, 16, 17, 46, 89, 90–114, 119–123, 128, 129 Standardization, 2, 4, 9, 16, 18, 33, 41, 69, 122 Standardized curricula, 50, 51, 53, 67, 68, 75, 92 Standards, 2, 5, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 30, 32, 33–38, 45, 46, 49, 50–57, 68, 72, 89–95, 108, 111, 113, 120, 121, 124, 126, 127 Student teacher placement, 122 Submission rate, 96 Supervisor, 34, 37, 52, 56, 61, 76, 79, 94, 97– 102, 121, 126, 127

137 T Teacher candidates, 22, 34–37, 41, 53–56, 58, 62, 74, 77, 93, 97, 109, 114, 120, 125–130 Teacher education community, 124 Teachers College Record, 125 Teaching certification, 3, 20 TIMSS, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 47 Topic, 94, 95, 103–105, 108, 109, 111 Transmission, 90, 95 V Validity, 3, 18, 36, 37, 108, 114, 126 Video, 4, 9, 15, 32, 37, 57–59, 82, 109–111, 125 Videotaping, 34, 61, 82, 97 W Washington state, 107, 125 Writing, 3, 15, 21, 57, 61, 67, 69–71, 73, 78, 81, 99, 101–103, 106, 107, 110, 128 Writing assessment, 128