Policy makers have begun requiring teacher performance assessments, such as edTPA®, with established validity and reliability in teacher education for certification, program approval, and/or accreditation (Darling-Hammond & Hyler, 2013). Proponents of edTPA argue that the measure is an authentic yet standardized way to assess candidate…

Once lauded for its potential to increase the quality of novice educators entering the teaching profession by representing a performance-based assessment akin to professional licensure examinations in other fields, edTPA was discontinued by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission (GaPSC) as a required credential for professional educator…

While there is interest in pathways-aligned high school math reform among secondary education stakeholders, change in high school math depends a great deal on policies, practices, and norms at the higher education level. This report focuses on the role of higher education in influencing (encouraging or deterring) secondary education math reform.…

Used by over 800 educator preparation programs in more than 40 states and the District of Columbia, edTPA seeks to measure content-specific outcomes of beginning teachers as a high-stakes assessment. Many states also use edTPA to inform teacher licensure or certification decisions, making the assessment consequential for individual teacher…

The purpose of this article is to detail the creation of an assignment, after Covid-19 moved our university's instruction online, that helped students make sense of how K-12 teachers were adjusting their own pedagogy. The assignment included two parts: 1) students conducted an interview of their cooperating teacher to understand how they had to…

Like most states, Georgia until recently depended on an assessment of content knowledge to award teaching licenses, along with a licensure recommendation from candidates' educator preparation programs. While the content assessment reflected candidates' grasp of subject matter, licensure decisions did not hinge on direct, statewide assessment of…

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is dedicated to improving results for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities ages birth through 21 by providing leadership and financial support to assist institutions of higher education (IHEs), states, and local districts. During a 5-year period, OSEP…

The field of teacher preparation is falling short of its most important responsibility: ensuring that the teachers we train are ready to do the job. For more than a decade,TNTP preparation programs produced teachers who were no more or less effective than teachers from any other program-- some were great, some were poor, most were about average.…

Improving teacher preparation is critical to long-term improvement in teacher quality. More than 200,000 new teachers enter classrooms each year. Increasing student enrollment, the retirement of baby boom generation teachers, and high attrition in their first five years (between 40 and 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession) have…

Previous chapters in this monograph have reported on a series of research studies that examined the adoption of an instructional innovation, model-based instruction (MBI), by teachers in three stages of career development: preservice/student teachers (STs), induction teachers (ITs), and experienced/cooperating teachers (CTs). All the teachers were…

In the first decade of the 21st century, the nation, the states, and colleges and universities began to grapple with the challenges of globalization, changing demography, the implications of the digital era, and of a less expansive public sector. Although not a transformative period for higher education, the decade saw significant innovations in…

Prospective teachers in many states must pass a competency test prior to receiving an initial teaching certificate. Because of the high stakes associated with them, educator competency tests can play a major role in modifying the nature of teacher training programs. To investigate the nature and extent of such changes, deans and faculty at teacher…

Describes POET (Principles of Educating Teachers), an ongoing statewide effort to improve the quality of Georgia's preservice teacher education in middle school mathematics and science. Explores POET's goals, foundations, processes, and activities and notes what POET staff have learned about statewide teacher education reform. (SM)

This book contains a collection of papers on the politics of teacher education reform. The book begins with "Introduction to the Politics of Teacher Preparation Reform" (Karen Symms Gallagher and Jerry D. Bailey). Part 1, "Issues From the National Arena," includes "The Politics of Teacher Education Reform: Strategic…