Accountable to Whom? Normalizing Culturally Sustaining Assessment

• In Event: 63.052 - Reclaiming Teacher Performance Assessment: Findings From the New York edTPA Alternative Scoring Consortium

Abstract

Objectives or purposes of paper
In the context of the implementation of a state-mandated, corporate-run teacher assessment scoring system, this paper will explore the implications of a teacher educator-run scoring consortium. Furthermore, it will consider how adopting such an approach as the norm, rather than the alternative, might influence the development of educators and the practice of education, facilitating a shift toward culturally sustaining practice.

This paper will consider the scoring process of a teacher performance assessment in relation to themes of collectivity and abundance versus individuality and scarcity; accountability, normalization, and power; and culturally sustaining pedagogies.

Perspectives or theoretical framework
This paper will use a critical theoretical framework based on the work of Freiere, particularly his collective interpretation of the notion of conscientization. This framework emphasizes distinctions between individualism and collectivism, highlighting the potential for transformation that occurs when shifting from an individualist orientation to a dialogic approach that privileges collective consciousness.

A Freireian perspective also underscores the significance of socially constituted context. A teacher-educator led scoring consortium exposes this context, while a state-mandated corporate-led scoring system conceals context in a cloak of standardization and objectivity.

Additionally, this paper will integrate a Foucauldian perspective to consider how interrelations of power emerge within and influence systems of assessment and how people who participate in these systems are affected by the normalization of such systems. Finally, the discourse of accountability will be interrogated to investigate how the notion of responsibility plays out in the materials related to the standardized instrument and in those related to the scoring consortium.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
This paper will report on and extend the efforts of the participatory action research project through narrative inquiry and document analysis.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Documents analyzed will include both materials related to the standardized assessment as well as those created through the collaborative endeavor defined as the scoring consortium.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions
This paper will emphasize the ways in which assessment processes affect, and are affected by, the contexts in which they are developed and implemented. The ways in which aspects of teaching and learning are normalized and determined to be effective are relevant to the possibilities of developing culturally sustaining pedagogies. Moreover, the discourse of accountability will be interrogated to investigate how the notion of responsibility plays out in the materials related to the standardized instrument and in those related to the scoring consortium.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
This work will investigate how the results from a collaborative, teacher educator-led scoring consortium might differ from those of a standardized, state-led process. This examination is significant because it highlights the social, cultural contexts in which teacher preparation and certification take place as well as the interrelations of power that influence decisions about who becomes a teacher, and who decides who becomes a teacher.

Author

• Julie Gorlewski, Virginia Commonwealth University