Outsourcing Community: The Impact of the edTPA on a Professional Development School Model

• In Event: 29.045 - edTPA's Threats to Equity in Teacher Education: Policy Analysis at Statewide, Program, and Individual Levels

Abstract

Professional Development Schools (PDS) are a form of teacher education in which K-12 schools and universities develop deliberate, mutual partnerships in order to benefit teachers, teacher candidates, and professors. The PDS model is built on trust and in the spirit of community. As PDS collaborations are developed the needs of both the K-12 community and the university are taken into account and those needs are met through a collaborative, transparent system of support. As Doolittle, Sudeck, and Rattigan (2008) stated, “PDS partners agree to be intentional and transparent in meeting the needs of a diverse body of students through their focus on building learning communities” (p. 305).

In this paper, we explore the impact of the edTPA on the community aspect of a professional development school model in a mid-sized university and suburban school district in the Southeastern United States. In the spirit of the PDS model, we include the voices of professors, teachers, and students. These collective voices reflect a narrative of the edTPA as divisive to community, disconnected from the goals of the PDS, and a source of community division.

Author

• Adam Wade Jordan, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill