Ding Dong! The ALST at LAST is Dead!

That’s right, be happy/sad that you have likely wasted more money on a certification test that made you feel frustration, rage, and righteous indignation. At least the Regents have been listening to the chorus of protests from all corners of the state, and it seems there is likely to be some more wiggle room coming our way on the edTPA. 

Meanwhile, lost in all the crazy news coming from Washington DC, is the move by Congress to undo much of the ESSA (see New York Times story here). The teacher preparation regulations are gone, and AACTE seems pretty happy about that. Once the new law is signed by you-know-who, it’s likely to create confusion at the state level because, in Chris Minnich’s words quoted in the Times, “the states are planning and doing stuff.” Disruption, chaos, all against a backdrop of the depressing testing season, declining enrollments in teacher preparation programs, rising class sizes, you name it.

But I have to leave you on a happy note. Listen to this magnificent rendition  of You Raise Me Up with the amazing PS22 Chorus and Celtic Woman and have a happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

Whac-A-Mole

If you feel that the nation is playing political Whac-A-Mole one tweet or headline at a time lately, you’re not alone. Here in New York, those attempting to become teachers have been feeling that way for some time with the policies coming from Albany regarding teacher certification exams. In the latest round, the task force recommendations have been released, but you probably didn’t even know there was an edTPA task force. This sort of important work is buried in the Regents’ meeting minutes:

“Commissioner Elia gave an update on Regent Cashin’s work with the edTPA Task Force. The Task Force is reviewing current regulations and practices related to the edTPA, the literacy requirement, and student teaching requirements.” (from December 2016)

The committee made the following proposals to fix myriad problems (the memo from D’Agati is here):

1.        Convene a standards setting committee to review and potentially recalibrate edTPA score requirements;

            What this means is they may lower the cut score and raise it incrementally (as they are doing in the state of Illinois where a passing score is currently 35. In New York it’s 41).

2.        Establish a multiple measures review process so a teacher candidate who fails the edTPA within a narrow margin may be recommended for certification by program faculty based on other evidence of readiness to teach;

            Apparently highly qualified, award-winning teacher candidates are capable of not passing the edTPA, and institutions have no recourse other than to recommend resubmission to Pearson. This would give some control back to colleges, but it could be murky as to how that would work exactly. Coupled with a lowering of the cut score, even temporarily, there is likely to be political grandstanding on this issue.

3.         Work with teacher educators to review edTPA handbooks of concern, with two possible outcomes:

—    Handbook revision, or

—    SED approval of an alternative performance assessment when a mismatch occurs between the edTPA and professional practices in a particular teacher education specialty area;

            This is about those edTPA exams that are in specialist areas, most notably special education, library science, foreign language, and performing arts. I don’t think they really plan to just revise the handbooks. Teacher educators in these fields want to toss the edTPA and find something more suitable. Despite promises that changes were coming to these edTPAs, it’s been a case of too little too late (or nothing at all).

4.        Review certification exam costs and evaluate pass rate variations in different certification areas and across different student populations, as well as why they occur;

            There is absolutely no data on just how disastrous edTPA has been in terms of discouraging potential teacher candidates from continuing to pursue their goals of becoming  teachers. Everyone I speak to in my circle of teacher educators has multiple examples of people who gave up, in some cases even after finishing student teaching. It’s not just that the edTPA is daunting and hard to complete while meeting all the other demands of program completion. It is also that the costs are prohibitive, and many simply have to return to other kinds of full time employment. Once that happens, they just give up.

5.         Eliminate the Academic Literacy Skills Test, which duplicates other parts of the certification process;

            Hallelujah! I am praying everyone will agree this is the worst test on the planet. Goodbye ALST, you won’t be missed.

6.        Examine the Educating All Students exam for possible content problems and to assess variations in pass rates across certification areas;

            As Professor Devin Thornburg has pointed out, the EAS is riddled with ill-defined problems with no clear right answer. Instead, finding the right response is about identifying language use and assumptions being made in the wording of the question.

7.         Examine statewide discrepancies regarding the length and content of the student teaching experience.

            This is a problem that is not going to go away no matter what the Regents decide. Increasingly, people are moving into full time classroom teaching who are already working in education in various capacities, and it is challenging to figure out how to manage the requirements of student teaching, short of leaving their jobs altogether. That is not financially feasible for most people.

The Regents are meeting on Monday next week. You should temporarily stop calling and tweeting and emailing your senators and representatives, and get in touch with your Regents. Let them know your perspective on these proposed changes. Then, if there are proposed changes in the coming weeks open for public comment, it will be time to really make some noise.

Maybe you’d like to speak your mind on the question posed by Professor Alan Singer on Huffington Post this morning:

             Why keep edTPA at all?

Enrollment in teacher preparation programs statewide is tanking. Oh and there’s this: the Regents also moved to approve in 2017 budget priorities this line item:

Excessive Teacher Turnover Prevention Grant Expansion ----- $4 million

OK, let's go!
Need help with talking points? See UUP press release.

Higher Education Committee Members.

Find your representative.

UPDATE 2-12-17 More details from D'Agati here and here. 

A Sad Day at the Circus

Yesterday the New York State Board of Regents had a meeting. Most of the time they were apparently trying to wrap their brains around HEDI, a new ed acronym you’ll be hearing a lot about. New York’s Chalkbeat  called it “matrix madness” and the education summit held on May 7^th in Albany was dubbed “evalapalooza” on Twitter  and elsewhere. But for those of us in teacher education, the real nail biter was the discussion about so-called “safety net” provisions for the new teacher licensure examinations that have been a source of chaos, confusion, heartache, and despair. Send in the clowns, because you are in for a helluva ride.

Let’s start with how the news was officially reported. Jessica Bakeman of Capital New York wrote that the Board of Regents voted to further delay full implementation of new teacher certification requirements. The specific provisions of the emergency amendment which goes into effect immediately can be found on pages 5 and 6 here. The good news for students who are struggling to pass these exams is as follows:

•           Anyone who takes and fails the horrible ALST exam before the end of June next year can use a grade of 3.0 or better in equivalent coursework approved by the institution’s administration.   

•           The EAS exam’s cut score will be temporarily amended and lowered to an as yet to be determined number (this will happen in June apparently) and will be retroactive, so for those who missed passing by a small margin, it’s likely you won’t need to retake the test. You will eventually receive a written notification with an updated score report.

•          If you take and fail one of the new CST exams, you can take the older version, which is presumably easier, and use a passing score on it to be certified. Pearson is always happy to reactivate an obsolete test if it means more potential revenue!

•          Which brings me to the last but not least safety net extension of the edTPA. Remember I wrote about the earlier revision to the edTPA safety net provision,  so now just add a year and it should all be clear. You submit your edTPA, and if you fail, you get a voucher from the state to take the obsolete ATS-W, which you must pass by the end of June next year, but you still have another year to meet all other certification requirements. This means we won’t be fully out of the safety net woods until June 30, 2017.

Of course behind the scenes there has been a massive effort to educate and inform stakeholders of just how nightmarish this bungled rollout has been. Even David Steiner, architect of Relay and member of the Deans for Impact was quoted by Yasmeen Kahn of WNYC  as saying the edTPA was “over ornate” and the “multiple hoops to jump through to get it all organized feel a bit heavy to me.” I suspect he and others behind the close-down-bad-teacher-education-programs agenda had to back down when they saw the enrollment numbers across the state take a gigantic nose-dive. Brittany Horn, an education reporter for the Times Union tweeted yesterday:

Jessica Bakeman reported that Chancellor Tisch blamed colleges for poor performance on the new licensure exams. Otherwise, she reasoned, how could one college have high passing rates and another have low scores? I guess this means that she hasn’t fully grasped the clear connections between performance on standardized tests and factors beyond the control of the teacher. It is sad and scary that the person in charge doesn’t seem to understand how the South Bronx is different from the Upper East Side, or how Teachers College is different from City College just up the street. Luckily the Regents are asking tough questions and raising serious concerns that are likely to end up back in the hands of lawmakers.  

Meanwhile, those who want to balance on the high wire, fly on the trapeze, and enter the uncertain teaching profession have a safety net to fall into – for now.