Educational TPA Guidelines

Ok so I wasn’t in class last Wednesday and I do not have the “handout” that we should all be writing on. Instead I googled Ed TPA guidelines and looked at websites to get an idea of what we would be talking about in class on Monday. I have been reading things from the website: http://edtpa.aacte.org/ mostly, although I have looked at several teachers’ blog’s and other opinionated websites as well.

The TPA has a lot more support behind it than I thought. I, for some reason, assumed that Washington was one of only a few states that used this method of evaluation for teacher candidates, but I can see that the majority of states have adopted the TPA guidelines as terms of awarding teaching certificates. There does seem to be a lot of positive information about why the process is what it is and how it will ensure a positive influence on the educational structure of our school system.

It also just feels like a lot of propaganda on this edtpa.aacte.org website. Since this system has only been nationally used since 2012 all of the supporting data seems to have been collected in field tests performed in the 2011/12 school term. The field test data was evaluated, the program “finely tuned”, and subsequently declared fully operational in September of 2013. All of this data is very recent. We do not know if, long term, this system will lend to a positive change in the educational system. I think we are just waiting to see what happens.

The statistics given are a bit worrying. The nations teaching force is younger than ever. At least fifteen percent of current teachers in America have less than three years of experience with the number of new teachers graduating from training programs rising each year. Our nation seems to recognize the problematic system we use for education, and as a nation we have made education a priority for our people. I want to be a teacher so that I can be a part of positive change in education because I feel that our system is failing our students. I think a lot of other teacher candidates feel the same way. So the TPA is our answer to ensuring that teachers are ready and able to do the job. Is it the BEST way to determine? Probably not, but if time can teach us, and we are willing to change when given the new information that time provides, then this could be quite good.