This study takes a fine-grained look at the inaugural implementation of a high-stakes teacher performance assessment (the edTPA) from multiple perspectives and chronicles how participants used the reading, writing, and discussion of poetry to cope with and sometimes critique the edTPA. Teacher researchers sought to understand multiple perspectives…

Notes that within the past five years, the national standards movement has prompted many states to turn to the use of test scores to hold students and teachers accountable to higher standards in academic achievement. Discusses the unintended consequences: pervasive emotional pressure, reductionist views of literacy, conflicted views of teaching…