Ready to teach? Unions fight tests, assessments for new teachers

Teachers' unions don't like skills or knowledge tests for teachers -- unless everyone passes. They're too stressful. They're not aligned with what teachers will be doing in the classroom.

So teacher performance assessments were developed to do a better job of measuring readiness for the classroom, reported Stephen Sawchuk in Education Week in 2013. "The edTPA requires teachers to complete a portfolio centered on several successive days’ lessons," he wrote. "Teacher-candidates submit lesson plans and tapes of their teaching, evidence that they assessed their students and tailored the lesson to particular groups, as well as their reflections detailing what next steps to take."

California will dump the TPA, if legislation sponsored by the state teachers' union is enacted. Senate Bill 1263 would end teacher performance assessments and eliminate the requirement that teachers pass an exam proving they know how to teach reading, reports Diana Lambert for EdSource.

If the TPA goes, California will have no measure of teacher readiness, write two members of the state board that credentials teachers. "All other exam requirements for a teaching credential have been modified by the Legislature to allow multiple ways for future teachers to demonstrate basic skills and subject matter competence."

The TPA is expensive, stressful and unnecessary, and screens out teachers of color, says the state teachers' union. Some teachers say it's graded on the use of education buzzwords. “What does help to prepare educators is collaborating in classrooms with mentor teachers, working with clinical support supervisors, and quality teacher preparation programs," says Leslie Littman, California Teachers Association vice president. 

However, the Learning Policy Institute, headed by State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond, says eliminating the TPA is a mistake. LPI's research finds well-prepared candidates are more likely to pass the TPA, so the test shows which teacher education programs are inadequate.

A "narrowly focused study" of an earlier version of the TPA showed scores "predicted student achievement gains," according to the LPI report, writes Lambert. "Research from other states has also shown that scores on teaching performance assessments can predict teaching effectiveness."

In addition, disparities in TPA pass rates by race and ethnicity are "minimal," the research found.

Darling-Hammond, an emeritus Stanford education professor, is a very big cheese in California education. We'll see what happens.

Schools may not be as desperate for new teachers -- the sort who can't pass tests or put together a portfolio -- as they think.

For all the talk of a teacher shortage, many districts will be laying off teachers as pandemic funding runs out and enrollment declines.

Teacher vacancies sometimes reflect wish lists, writes Chad Aldeman. Facing a budget crisis, San Francisco Unified eliminated 927 unfilled positions and froze new hiring, he writes. "Media reports last fall decried San Francisco’s teacher shortages and cited the number of vacant positions the district had." But those vacancies are gone.

Laura Testino, a reporter from Chalkbeat Tennessee noted the same thing in Memphis, writes Aldeman. The district wiped out 450 vacancies. They didn't hire anybody. They just realized they couldn't afford to.