What’s Happening
Teaching Performance Assessments (TPAs) were originally intended to measure knowledge, skills and ability with relation to California’s Teaching Performance Expectations (TPEs). However, the experience of educators throughout the state has shown that TPAs have become a high-stakes, time-consuming, and costly barrier for aspiring teachers and do nothing to prepare educators for the realities of the classroom.
Senate Bill 1263 (Newman) would eliminate TPAs in California and dramatically improve our educator recruitment and retention pipeline in California during a teacher shortage crisis.
Take action by sending a letter today to urge legislators to support the bill to eliminate the TPAs.
TPAs Not Useful in Preparing Teachers for the Classroom
TPAs do not prepare teachers for the classroom and detract from programs with proven success. Aspiring teachers learn the teaching craft in the real world. Vital preparation for new educators includes:
- Working with mentors to improve their instruction.
- Having time to concentrate on developing quality lesson plans.
- Learning how to apply knowledge gained from a credential program in real classrooms.
Read on to see our union’s TPA survey results, which show the negative impact TPAs have on teacher preparation for in-classroom instruction.
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CTA Survey Results
Our union recently conducted a survey (n=1,284) of current teachers about their experiences with the Teacher Performance Assessments.
- Damage teacher preparation by imposing lengthy tasks of low preparatory value during a highly impacted phase of teacher preparation.
- Undermine activities teacher candidates identify as having high preparatory value, namely collaborating with mentors and teaching in real classrooms, focusing on teacher preparation coursework, and working with their university/district supervisor.
- Produce excessive levels of stress and anxiety, undermining the mental health and well-being of teacher candidates.
It doesn’t help prepare us to teach.
It causes us personal harm.
It should be eliminated.
Working with mentors in real classrooms.
Faculty-led preparation coursework and assessment.
Working with my preparation program supervisor.
The TPA undermines our preparation coursework.
The TPA undermines our clinical practice experience.
Again, it causes us real personal harm.
Negative Impacts on California’s Public Schools and Students
- TPAs cost aspiring educators $300 out-of-pocket, after thousands of dollars and substantial investments in their education and unpaid student teaching experience.
- TPAs disproportionately harm aspiring educators of color, creating a barrier to a more diverse educator workforce across California.
- Aspiring educators describe the assessment as a time-consuming burden after completing hundreds of hours of coursework and required student teaching.
- California registered a 16% decline in teaching credentials completed in 2021-2022 compared to the year before.
- California has seen a 70% drop in credentials awarded over the last decade, and there are currently ten thousand certificated position vacancies.
- Data shows that districts with the greatest hiring challenges are those serving students who are eligible for free or reduced-price meal (FRPM), are English learners (EL), and/or are foster youth.
- Reducing or eliminating the cost-burden of teacher preparation is vital to recruiting and retaining qualified teachers, especially for candidates of color, who face greater systemic barriers to entering the workforce.
Teachers in Their Own Words
We encourage you take time to consider teacher responses to the CTA TPA Survey about their experiences with EdTPA and CalTPA.
In Solidarity with Other States
We echo New York, New Jersey, Washington, Georgia, and Wisconsin and call for the elimination of high-stakes, standardized performance assessments like the EdTPA and California variant, the CalTPA.
Please see the web resources below for more information on the Letters to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), information about why other states are eliminating the TPA and general resources.
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Why Other States Are Eliminating TPAs
New York (eliminated 2022)
- Regents dump edTPA requirement for teacher certification
- New York officials vote to scrap edTPA teacher certification exam
- NYSUT applauds Regents for plan to eliminate edTPA requirements
New Jersey (eliminated 2022)
- Governor Signs Bill Eliminating the edTPA Requirement; Assembly Passes Various Education Measures
- New Jersey Educators Call for the Elimination of edTPA
- Elimination of edTPA a victory for all members
Washington (eliminated 2021)
- Speaking out against the edTPA
- Eliminating the edTPA to improve teacher diversity
- New teachers in Washington ask Gov. Inslee to eliminate an assessment requirement
Georgia (eliminated 2020)
- Georgia Eliminates the edTPA Requirement for Teacher Candidates
- Georgia eliminates one-size-fits-all assessment of teacher candidates
- Georgia Streamlines Certification for Educators
Wisconsin (eliminated 2020)
AERA: Assessing the Assessment: Evidence of Reliability and Validity in the edTPA
“In light of these findings, we argue that the proposed and actual uses of the edTPA are currently unwarranted on technical grounds.”
“We find that the new license requirement reduced the number of graduates from teacher preparation programs by 14%. The negative effect is stronger for non-white prospective teachers at less-selective universities. Contrary to the policy intention, we find evidence that edTPA has adverse effects on student learning.”
California has a teacher shortage. Its credentialing process is making it worse
“Numerous studies show that high-stakes performance exams like the CalTPA do not necessarily improve teacher quality or student performance. Instead, what the research does suggest is that standardized licensing exams reinforce a teaching cadre that is predominantly white and female in the state that has the largest and most diverse student population in the country.”
To realize the promise of a more diverse teacher workforce—equity for all students and justice for marginalized communities—teacher educators and policymakers must ensure that the ways in which they prepare and evaluate teachers are increasingly more relational, diverse, equitable, and just.
Is the edTPA a portfolio assessment?: Applying academic language in teacher education
“Based on the analysis presented in this paper, the edTPA is a TPA that most closely resembles a credentialing portfolio, rather than a learning portfolio, but lacks crucial qualities necessary for an authentic assessment”
Ready or Not, Here We Go! Preparing for the Education Specialist Teaching Performance Assessment
“This article discusses three significant obstacles in preparing candidates for the assessment: challenges associated with identifying focus students, insufficient preparation among mentor teachers, and program timelines.”
Researchers: Stop Using EdTPA Scores in Teacher-Certification Decisions
“They’ve created their own statistic here,” Gitomer said. “It’s really deceptive. It creates an illusion for something that’s clearly not true. That’s a huge, huge issue.”
Teacher Licensing, Teacher Supply, and Student Achievement: Nationwide Implementation of edTPA
We find that the new license requirement reduced the teacher graduates by a magnitude between 11.2% to 15.8%. The negative effect mainly occurs in traditional route programs, less-selective and minority-concentrated universities. Contrary to the policy intention, we find that edTPA has adverse effects on student learning.
Testing Injustice: Examining the Consequential Validity of edTPA
“Our 16 participants, who are primarily teacher candidates of color and many first-generation college students, and who all passed edTPA, unanimously indicated that edTPA increased their mental and financial stress, which they linked to design elements including high stakes, standardization, and external scoring. Participants also critiqued the construct of teaching represented in edTPA, arguing that dispositions and a social justice orientation are missing and that edTPA is more about following procedures than supporting candidate learning.”
UConn Professors: New Test Is Yet Another Hurdle For Aspiring Teachers Of Color
“The state’s new assessment for future teachers is biased against people of color and low-income students, according to a group of UConn professors, who said they want the state to stop using it and come up with something better.”
“The data reveal that despite institutional pass rates above the national average, the edTPA process negatively affected candidates’ sense of self-efficacy, agency, and readiness to engage in culturally and contextually responsive teaching. The article concludes with an analysis of how TPA policies socialize preservice teachers to prioritize compliance over agency, with troubling implications for urban teachers, students, and school communities.”
