Oregon Joins Movement to Assess Skills of Aspiring Teachers

PALO ALTO, Calif., March 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning in the 2017-18 school year, Oregon will require teacher candidates to pass the edTPA teacher performance assessment before they can get a license to teach.

Oregon is the latest of several states that will require teacher candidates to demonstrate core teaching skills that research shows improve student learning as a condition for licensure, certification or program completion. Teachers in Washington state already face the same requirement as of January 2014. 

The Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission earlier this month approved policy shift.

Developed by and for educators, edTPA is a subject-specific assessment that includes versions for 27 different teaching fields. Like other professional licensing examinations in fields such as medicine and nursing, edTPA seeks to ensure that candidates who pass have met the standards of knowledge and skill required of effective practitioners. It also encourages preparation programs to emphasize and support these elements in their training.

Led by Stanford University, more than 1,000 teacher educators and P12 teachers from 29 states and the District of Columbia and more than 450 institutions of higher learning have helped develop, pilot, refine and field test edTPA since 2009. Teacher preparation programs in 34 states and the District of Columbia are now using edTPA.

The Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission began discussing use of a statewide performance assessment in 2011. As part of its resolution, the Commission is committed to evaluating whether edTPA has an adverse impact on different candidate subgroups and in different content areas.

"We believe that the new performance assessment will confirm that Oregon programs are strong and provide evidence that new Oregon teachers are among the best prepared teachers in the nation," said Victoria Chamberlain, executive director of the Commission. "We are the home of the teacher work sample, which we feel uniquely prepares us to move forward in a positive manner. Additionally, we participated in edTPA field tests, so this is not new for us."

edTPA was declared operational in the fall of 2013 after two years of field testing at 250 institutions with more than 12,000 teacher candidates submitting portfolios for scoring.

"Our team looks forward to collaborating with Oregon's teacher preparation programs to ensure a smooth and thoughtful transition to edTPA," said Raymond L. Pecheone, the executive director of The Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE), which oversees edTPA and will provide training and resources to Oregon beginning this fall. "edTPA is more than an assessment. It is an educative process for candidates that requires support both from the state and from programs. Fortunately, Oregon has a history of performance assessment within teacher education and will have a strong foundation on which to build."

"We welcome Oregon to a growing network of teacher preparation programs that are working together to prepare teachers who are effective with all students," said Sharon P. Robinson, president and chief executive officer for the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. "Oregon is helping to elevate the profession by supporting a core set of expectations for what every teacher should know and be able to do, just as other professions require for licensure or certification."

Stanford is the sole owner of the assessment and oversees the development of all scoring and training materials. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education endorses and promotes edTPA. Evaluation Systems, a group of Pearson, is the operational partner that distributes the portfolios and organizes scoring and reporting of results with candidates and teacher preparation programs.  

Learn more at http://edtpa.aacte.org/.

Contact: Robert Johnston (301) 656-0348 [email protected]

SOURCE edTPA