This self-study explores an educational policy-making project initiated, facilitated, and implemented by direct stake-holders through a deliberative, intentional process involving teacher educators, policy-makers, and state regulators. As such, it serves as an example of a high-stakes political change process using principles of deliberative democracy. This study provides a description and analysis of the year-long process of developing a state policy for the assessment of teacher education candidates. In order to develop a more complete understanding of their particular roles in the process and the implications of this project for the field of teacher education at this specific moment in the history of educational change, the authors use narrative analysis as the mode of inquiry.