Low edTPA Submission Rates Threaten Equity, Expose Flaws in Accreditation Standards Focused on Pass Rates

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

Abstract

The edTPA created a submission rate problem in NYS, reducing the diversity of certified teachers in ways that threaten equity, while exposing significant structural flaws in national and state accreditation and data collection policies that revolve around pass rates. One-third of the students who completed student teaching at my public, urban institution of higher education did not submit an edTPA in its inaugural year, 2014-15 (Author, 2016). Available data suggest that this is a state-wide problem, as over 20,000 students took CST exams, 11,000 students took the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST), 10,000 took the Educating All Students (EAS) test, yet only 5,000 submitted an edTPA (NYSED, 2014) a problem in SCALE’s field-test, when only 3,699 of 12,000 candidates submitted for all 15 rubrics (Dover et al 2015). Most Specialized Professional Associations (SPAs) and state accreditation agencies require that ten or more completers from the same program who take an examination attain an aggregate passing rate of 80% or greater(CAEP, 2015). This provides institutional pressure and support to provide programs with resources to help students master the content for those examinations. These tests have been taken in a single seating of one or more hours, involving multiple choice and constructed responses answered during the exam, and costing less than $100. The examinations provide uniform information about the programs because everyone submits them, so pass rates are meaningful and subject to analysis .

Neither SCALE, NYS nor programs collect, much less analyze, data about students who do not submit an edTPA. PEARSON might, theoretically, provide SCALE with data about candidates who register for edTPA without submitting, but it is programs and states who know the names of candidates who student taught yet did not submit. Assembled by program directors, data from 2014-15 in three programs at an urban public university system suggest that non-submission rates are tied to equity factors, either of the individual or the placement site. Students lacked the money for the edTPA, or lacked the money for all four exams (total price rose from $225 to $825) and left the more expensive edTPA for last. Students faced challenges by placement and even program (Ranter & Kolman 2016). Some had trouble creating a video, particularly if their school lacked equipment and they were using phones with difficult audio. NYS required an “opt-in” so collecting video and student work required students under 18 to return signed parental permission slips, a greater challenge in struggle urban schools. Undergraduates, who might enroll in time-intensive courses in addition to student teaching, were more diverse but less likely to submit an edTPA than graduate students in a post-bac program. Solving them involves seeking interest free loans for students, purchasing cameras, not changing curriculum. To date, NYSUT, UUP and PSC-CUNY, teacher and faculty unions, have played key roles in pushing state policy, not schools of education (UUP, NYSUT, PSC-CUNY, 2015).

Author

• David M. Gerwin, Queens College - CUNY