The Illinois General Assembly just passed a resolution to ask the Illinois State Board to end the edTPA. The include a seriously long list of “whereas’s” to outline why the don’t like the edTPA in that state. To break it down:
- Illinois has a severe teacher shortage – over 2,500 open positions at the start of school year last year
- The Teacher Shortage is seriously hurting rural districts in Illinois
- edTPA takes away significant time from the classroom
- Inner city school teachers are having a much more difficult time on edTPAP
- Pearson scorers are not teachers grading teachers
- There is a significant cost burden to the teachers and Pearson is profiting from this test
Teacher testing is becoming a huge issue across the country as the shortage becomes worse and we realize that the tests disproportionally affect teachers of color. New York lowered the cut score of their edTPA after they found it was keeping diverse teachers out of the classroom. More teacher testing reforms are definitely coming.
Resolutions don’t usually do anything, but it is interesting. I spent a lot of time this spring meeting with Illinois legislators and they do know they have a severe teacher shortage crisis. According to Title II, Illinois has had a 57% in education school enrollments in just 4 years and alternative certification is non-existent in the state due to rules that make it impossible to have a solid program.
We are keeping an eye on Illinois so that someday we can help with their teacher shortage.