Publications

Of utmost importance in endorsing, selecting, or designing assessments to evaluate teaching quality is that the assessments are valid for their intended purposes. In the context of teacher education, assessments have been used for the purpose of demonstrating that those aspiring to be teachers are able to engage in key aspects of teaching, including designing […]

It has almost been one year since educator preparation programs (EPPs) across New Jersey have been released from using edTPA as a state-mandated teacher performance assessment. We interviewed EPPs at the onset of this change to see what performance assessments they planned to use instead, and we conducted a second round of interviews this fall […]

By Emily Hodge, Rachel Garver, & Drew Gitomer. As teacher preparation became increasingly institutionalized as a field of university-based study in the early 1900s (Lagemann, 2000), educator preparation programs (EPPs) became subject to critiques [...]

In 2022, New Jersey eliminated the requirement that all teacher candidates pass a standardized performance assessment for certification.

Policy change may bring benefits and burdens to organizations charged with implementation. When New Jersey removed the requirement to use edTPA as a teacher performance assessment, educator preparation programs (EPPs) foresaw both opportunities for program improvement and operational challenges in exercising their authority to adopt a new performance assessment.

In the wake of New Jersey’s 2022 legislative removal of the edTPA as a required performance-based assessment for teacher candidates, educator preparation programs (EPPs) have had newfound freedom in their performance assessments.

In June 2022, New Jersey enacted a significant change in how educator preparation programs (EPPs) would assess the quality and readiness of their teacher candidates through performance assessment.

Educator preparation programs (EPPs) in New Jersey are engaged in a nonstop cycle of recruiting, training, and graduating teachers for the state, which has experienced a severe teacher shortage.

The case of teacher performance assessment and the changing responsibility and authority of the New Jersey Department of Education and teacher preparation institutions will be providing an interesting opportunity to examine these questions.

By Drew Gitomer, Emily Hodge, and Rachel Garver On December 16, 2022, Governor Murphy signed legislation that removes the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) as a statewide requirement for teacher certification in New Jersey. The edTPA, adopted by New Jersey in 2016, is an assessment [...]