Teacher Education under Audit: Value-Added Measures, TVAAS, EdTPA and Evidence-Based Theory

Abstract

This article describes how evidence-based theory fuels an audit culture for teacher education in the USA, placing faculty under monitoring and surveillance, and severely constraining judgment, discretion, and professional decision-making. The national education reform efforts, Race to the Top and Common Core State Standards, demand fealty to evidence-based standards, while the Teacher Performance Assessment (EdTPA) requires teacher candidates to videotape their classroom lessons and submit the 'evidence' for review by external reviewers. The history of this theory, findings on the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS), a discussion between EdTPA and teacher education colleges, and examples of how faculty are expected to provide evidence of effectiveness, are all included in the article.Introduction: value, data, and evidence results in the Teacher Performance Assessment (EdTPA)

Quality of Feedback in Higher Education: A Review of Literature

“…As with public schools, institutions of higher education are facing increased accountability pressures in recent years to assess student performance [1]. For educator preparation programs (EPPs; i.e., institutions of higher education designed to prepare candidates for teaching across the U.S.), this pressure is particularly acute [2,3]. Nationally, summative assessments such as performance-based assessments (e.g., validated tasks including demonstrations of teacher-candidate knowledge and skills such as edTPA or PPAT) and licensure exams are being used more frequently to ascertain teacher-candidate effectiveness prior to a licensure recommendation [4,5].…”

The Neo-Liberal Turn in Understanding Teachers' and School Leaders' Work Practices in Curriculum Innovation and Change: A Critical Discourse Analysis of a Newly Proposed Reform Policy in Lower Secondary Education in the Republic of Ireland

“…In this way educational policy directives in an age of measurement (Biesta, 2010) are calling up a new and different kind of efficient, disengaged and effective teacher -'a teacher who can maximize performance, who can set aside irrelevant principles, or out-moded social commitments, for whom excellence and improvement are the driving force of their practice' (Ball, 2003, p. 223). The field of policy research shows an exponential growth in relation to the increasingly complex ways markets impinge on education ecosystems with their relays of power and symbolic control and the effect this has on school leaders' and teachers' work practices and teacher autonomy (Bernstein, 2000;Apple, 2012Apple, , 2013Lynch et al, 2012;Allais, 2012;Edling (2014); Liljestrand (2014); Price (2014); Süssekind (2014). Studies show that in high distance hierarchical societies, such as the Republic of Ireland, that education systems and the micro-politics of schools can leave both students and teachers at a distinct disadvantage (Lynch & Lodge, 2002;Lynch et al, 2012).…”

Measuring Growth within the Academic Major: A Case Study in Value‐Added Assessment

“…Research is somewhat limited regarding the use of value‐added assessment in higher education. But according to Price (2014), value‐added modeling gained popularity in the 1990s and continued through the 2000s as elementary and secondary school systems focused on standardized testing as a feature in assessing student achievement. There has been growing interest in using value‐added assessment models employed in K–12 schools in higher education as well (Pike 2016).…”