All parents, all people interested in a better future for our state and our country, want the best education possible for our children. Not only do we naturally want our children to be successful, but we recognize that they will inherit this world, and the task of keeping it going. Of course, we want them to make the best decisions possible in order to better secure the most successful and peaceful future possible. We want them to be able to make the best decisions possible to that end, and that begins with the preparation they receive in school, and the people who provide the knowledge they need for that future.
We want our children to have the best education possible, and that begins with having the best teachers our schools can get.
However, we must question whether this is the best time to make our state’s teacher certification requirements tougher — in particular, adopting an assessment tool that at least two other states have dropped and three others have rejected.
The Texas State Board for Educator Certification on Friday voted to ask the State Board of Education to adopt the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment, a new licensing test that would replace the Pedagogy and Professional Responsibility exam, which is made up of 100 multiple-choice questions. The new assessment, designed by Stanford University researchers, requires teachers to answer essay questions, provide sample lesson plans, 15-minute videos of the teachers working in the classrooms and reports of the students’ progress.
The exam fee also would increase by $200.
Several states use edTPA, as the new evaluation is known. In some it’s mandatory and in others it’s optional. Some have tried it and scrapped it.
The system has both supporters and detractors.
Certainly, most people want the best possible assessment of teachers’ performance, just like they generally approve of standardized testing to evaluate students. And while it’s designed to weed out bad performers, this assessment, adopted at this time, might only make an existing crisis even worse.
Texas has long had a critical teacher shortage. School districts across the state, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley where the population is younger than normal, seek waivers almost every year to exceed class size mandates; without enough teachers, schools must place more students with the instructors they do have.
That shortage was made even worse in recent years first by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has produced worker shortages in many areas of our economy, but especially in the education field. More teachers also left the profession to protest recent state mandates that certain facts not be taught and certain books not be allowed, or that they teach information they might not support.
The edTPA may or may not be the best option for evaluating Texas teachers. Its implementation at a time when we can ill afford more losses in the classrooms, doesn’t seem the best idea. Officials would do well to spend more time gathering information both for and against the new system, and make their decision when our educator ranks can better withstand any losses the change might create.
