Bending or Breaking: Appropriating edTPA Policy in Special Education Teacher Education

Critical Practice Approach to Policy Analysis

According to Levinson, Sutton, and Winstead (2009), a Critical Practice Approach to educational policy analysis differs from traditional policy analysis. In contrast to focusing on technical concerns about implementation and the extent to which a policy meets intended outcomes, a Critical Practice Approach examines the process associated with the appropriation or implementation of policy by multiple actors in local contexts (Braun, Maguire, & Ball, 2010; King Thorius & Maxcy, 2015). Only recently has this approach been applied to special education policy (King Thorius, Maxcy, Macey, & Cox, 2014).

This policy approach is grounded in perspectives on policy as a social practice, normative discourse, and as a practice of power. Although the text of policy is created by authoritative entities, such as the government or corporate charters, putting policy into action is a complex social process of creative interpretation (Levinson et al., 2009). The actual text or policy discourse attempts to create norms mandating “ . . . how things should or must be done, with corresponding inducements or punishments . . . .[It] (a) defines reality, (b) orders behavior, and (sometimes) allocates resources accordingly” (Levinson et al., 2009, p. 770). This approach views policy as a practice of power not only by those who create policy but also by those who examine policy and then “make it one’s own” (Sutton & Levinson, 2001). As part of the process, it is often the case that spontaneous and informal policy is developed to reify the original authorized policy. Levinson et al. (2009) identified a potential goal of critical policy analysis as a way to “inspire democratic dialogue and to foster and empower participatory agency in the democratic process” (p. 770).

The process of appropriating authorized policy in a local context involves negotiating meaning or “sense making,” making decisions, and taking action to put policy in place. Our goal in this study was to unpack actions taken by teacher educators faced with appropriation of high-stakes edTPA policy brokered by SCALE, administered by Pearson, and legislated by states while examining the role of power in the process.

Our study was guided by the following questions:

Embedding

One way that teacher educators implemented edTPA policy into action was by embedding content into preexisting structures. Teacher educators at all three institutions found ways to embed or insert edTPA content and tasks into courses. At IHE A, a teacher educator discussed how the edTPA prompted her to intentionally address content that was not previously included in her literacy course.

One of the things that I probably pay more attention to is communication demands . . . and I don’t think that is a terrible thing, in the planning, I mean. Just having it there in the [lesson] plan and emphasizing it, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

Teacher educators noted, however, that an indirect result of embedding edTPA content and tasks was that it infringed upon the course’s established goals and objectives. Teacher educators at IHE C remarked about changes in a key literacy course:

I think that’s the course [literacy] where I’ve noticed some of the impact. I’ve done that [embedded content] just to give students more support so that they’re not facing the edTPA right . . . at student teaching. I had a similar activity before in which they videotaped themselves. Then, they reflected on all of that. Instead of using the process and the procedures and the templates that I typically would have used, I shifted and now use the language that the EdTPA uses so that the students become familiar with the wording and the questions that they’re asked and things like that . . . so the students sort of understand the process a little bit better. It’s not necessarily the way I would probably have them do it or think about it.

Across institutions, teacher educators engaged in curriculum mapping activities that purposefully matched edTPA content and tasks with courses and teaching experiences. Policy implementation, therefore, directly affected syllabi, curricula, and content within their teacher education programs. Some of the additions and changes were viewed as beneficial to learning (e.g., addressing communication demands). In most cases, however, embedding aspects of the edTPA into existing courses was characterized as a means to specifically prepare students for the assessment (e.g., literacy course).

The process of embedding the edTPA initially did not challenge the authority teacher educators assumed in selecting and prioritizing content and practices in individual courses. Teacher educators compared, evaluated, and weighed edTPA content against their respective course content. As the process progressed, however, their accommodations extended beyond content and affected the practices and teaching experiences. In addition, teacher educators described how the edTPA changed their approach to teaching. One noted, “I’m not a real direct instruction kind of person and I’m learning that I have to be much more like that because the students are really demanding it.” Efforts to embed also challenged teacher educator’s professional knowledge and experience: “After 25 years, I do feel that this assessment has really put such a strain on what I know is best practice.” These changes represented the edTPA’s creeping of power into their planning and teaching.

Co-opting

Co-opting extends embedding by leveraging or applying something toward a purpose or goal different from the original. As the process of embedding continued, teacher educators realized the extent to which the edTPA content and tasks reshaped their courses. In fact, appropriation began to co-opt the very reform-oriented curricula that programs only recently had created as part of standards-based reform in addressing demands for accountability. Each IHE’s teacher educators commented that components of the teacher education program had been co-opted in one way or another by the edTPA.

Lesson planning was a striking example of co-opting for IHE C. Teacher educators developed functional planning systems and formats that were linked directly with methods courses. Redesigning lesson planning forms to ensure inclusion of all the nuances of the edTPA changed the process.

Lesson planning is a big anchor. It’s influenced by the fact that we have less flexibility around those forms because we see them as preparatory for the edTPA. So we have some anchor lesson planning forms that have taken us forever to develop and keep revising. Appropriately so, but that’s a big deal. It’s like we expect people to used them regularly-get use to them . . . so they would be in a better position to do the edTPA.

Teacher educators at IHE C went on to discuss how their lesson planning forms were not as functional and often at odds with what had been identified by the edTPA as important in the lesson planning process. In some cases, the edTPA was not suited for the contexts in which the teacher candidates were learning to teach. Teacher educators noted, for example, the focus on one learner did not fit well with planning for inclusion, a major emphasis in their program.

Teacher educators at IHE A felt the effects of an entire course being co-opted by the edTPA process.

I think in our program our students’ learning opportunities have been shaped by the edTPA. The second semester use to be work with your tutoring student and having a celebration at the end, ‘“oh and look how much progress [the student has made]!” Now, it is sort of like ‘“ok, do we have our 3 to 5 learning segments?”

Teacher educators at IHE B described co-opting of courses by identifying the content and experiences that have been lost.

And part of what gets pushed out, I mean look, the edTPA in my way of thinking about learning and teaching and what I’ve studied about teacher education is that the central parts of teaching are in fact planning and assessment. These are central tasks of teaching, so I don’t have any questions about that. But I think there are concomitantly several other central tasks of teaching that are especially key right now in the current debates about public education and those . . . feel like they are being shifted or pushed out.

Teacher educators also discussed losing focus on the practice of collaboration, differentiation, and the needed attention to issues of working with culturally, racially, linguistically, and ethnically diverse students. They argued the need for explicit emphasis on this content during student teaching, marginalized due to the time usurped by the edTPA.

Teacher educators across IHEs articulated how the language of the edTPA played a role in co-opting by shifting terminology and discourse. One teacher educator commented,

I shifted and now use the language that the edTPA uses . . . in some sense we’re getting bent . . . bending in our use of language. The big example I use is, see I still get confused the target learner. I still get so confused because I’ve used language like that and so have (other faculty members) through the years. But we’re trying to bend it into the edTPA language. So, like I always taught students to do the planning by picking 2 or 3 students and using those students as you go through the plan . . . but now the language has bent because the target has a different meaning and focus learner has a different meaning. I think the wind blowing to bend the branches here is certainly using the language of edTPA.

In each locally situated IHE, practices and courses were reshaped, in some cases beyond recognition, to assimilate to the edTPA demands. As a response, programs created new structures to manage the edTPA. When teacher educators at IHE C realized the extent that their courses had been co-opted by content, tasks, and the need to “pass” the edTPA, they decided to add two new courses to the certification program. The sole purpose for these courses was to facilitate students’ understanding of the edTPA and their submission of the edTPA in their final semester. Other institutions created special workshops and seminars.

Once the activity continued beyond embedding and turned into co-opting, conflicts related to teacher educators’ control over the curriculum moved to the forefront. Having been awarded a federal grant on program redesign from the U.S. Department of Education, teacher educators at IHE B discussed their research on best practices and how this work influenced the continuous improvement in their teacher education program. As well, they were disseminating what they were learning to the field through professional conference presentations and papers. They foresaw the potential power of edTPA policy and implementation to displace progress in their research and practice.

The point is that as this [the edTPA] is more deeply embedded into the programs, programs solidify the edTPA process and this becomes the feedback loop. We learn very little from it but what is put in. Therefore, the other program aspects that provide feedback on how our students and the students with whom they work do, is limited.

Teacher educators expressed concerns regarding how teacher education content, curriculum, and experiences in special education were influenced. They were charged with program design, curriculum, and course-level development. They were not independent in this charge as state policy and professional standards of practice guided content and performance expectations. Their teaching experience, higher education, and active engagement in the professional field, however, established them as experts in teacher education. Through their scholarship and research, they each contributed to the knowledge base supporting preparation of special educators. Implementation of the edTPA began to infringe on what teacher educators identified as their role and expertise. One teacher educator proposed,

This is the ultimate goal, if you are a conspiracy theorist, because what happens is that the more you do it, the more it feeds into the practices that have to be solidified. So, practice influences the larger practice of policy.

Reifying

Reification is a process of making something complex, concrete. As is often the case in policy appropriation, activities that begin as informal practices by local actors are reified into formal policy. Although all three institutions connected edTPA content with coursework, this practice evolved into a school requirement for IHE A. That is, much like with professional standards (e.g., Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium, INTASC) and course content, all courses were to document alignment with specific edTPA tasks and rubrics.

Something the School of Education has to do as a whole, now, is to incorporate edTPA tasks into course syllabi. We have to indicate in our . . . syllabus . . . how a certain assignment aligns with a rubric in the edTPA. We are trying to create like . . . .a habit of mind. Like when you get to the point of working on your edTPA . . . you’re going to feel comfortable doing it because you’ve been doing it all along. So, it’s mandated.

As a result of understanding preservice special educators’ need for support during the edTPA process, teacher educators created formalized strategies and workload policies. For example, at IHE A, teacher educators are assigned a “chunk” of students. If students want support or feedback, they must first have evidence of peer feedback, and then they can contact their assigned support person. As a result of the time that teacher educators were spending with students on the edTPA, discussions were initiated to craft a policy that provided a course release for every 10 students they supported.

After evaluating their own sense making of the edTPA, however, teacher educators questioned their ability to provide appropriate feedback to students, especially to students who did not pass the edTPA. Much of this frustration was based upon the lack of feedback that students and the institution received regarding student performance. A teacher educator from IHE B remarked,

Pearson takes it all and they don’t really give us anything, not better examples . . . they give nothing back. Faculty get only a school report, we get no feedback. How can I use the feedback they give to support my students? That’s antithetical to what their assessment is!

With limited feedback from Pearson and SCALE and the growing costs of time and other resources dedicated to implementing the edTPA, teacher educators at all three institutions felt hard-pressed to find good ways to support students who were not successful. Based on this, formalized edTPA retake policies emerged for individuals who did not reach the state cutoff score. At issue was the burden that the new retake policy imposed on students. Teacher educators at IHE C explained,

I was at a meeting with [edTPA Coordinator] and it was, you take it [edTPA] for $300. You retake it for from $100-$300. You likely enroll in another credit of student teaching or at least have to pay to be placed somewhere to possibly re-do the edTPA. And the burden shifts from us to students . . . which is interesting. If you have a student that struggles in the first place to pass the edTPA and, then, you don’t provide them with the same amount of support you did when they’re going through, the chance of them being able to pass the retake is possibly less that it was the first time they did it, right?

Reifying policy firms it up in a way that reduces flexibility for sense making or shifting action to respond to the needs of stakeholders. The power vacuum created by external sources including SCALE, Pearson, and each state, prompted institutions to seek ways to manage the edTPA. In the case of the edTPA in special education, appropriation created an unstable, sand-like state of affairs for teacher educators and students. A logical response was to try to create firmer ground.

In the face of diminishing power and autonomy, local policies were designed. One motivation for creating firmer ground for teacher educators was linked directly to concerns about time. The timeline from inception to launch of the edTPA had been long, years in most cases. Now, on the verge of becoming consequential, teacher educators recounted what they lost in the process; not only control over the curriculum but also control over how they spent their time. The time dedicated to edTPA appropriation took away from time they spent in supporting students, innovating in their teaching, and engaging in research and scholarship activities. Upon reflection, teacher educators noted that this infringement noticeably changed the shape of their work.

Teacher educators’ concerns about time also addressed the time students’ dedicated to the edTPA. They noted that the structure and demands of the edTPA interfered with “this precious time in learning teaching that is student teaching.” Teacher educators and students had little choice but to reallocate their time to focus on the edTPA as it was directly related to teacher education students’ access to the profession.

Making the edTPA Policy Viable

The first research question focused on how special education teacher preparation programs made the edTPA policy viable in their individual contexts. Across the three IHEs, similarities and pattern emerged. Embedding edTPA content into existing curriculum and courses initially was seen in all special education programs. Similarly, programs in math, social studies, early childhood, and secondary education all experienced edTPA-like tasks embedded into courses (Au, 2013; Jacobs, Smith, Swars, Smith, & Myers, 2015; Ledwell & Oyler, 2016; Liu & Milman, 2013).

As embedding content did not meet the full demands of preparing teacher candidates for the assessment, each institution began to insert more edTPA preparation into courses, so much so, that it began to co-opt the course and by default, in some cases, became an edTPA preparation course. Evidence of co-opting, due to the insurgence of edTPA discourse within courses, also has been documented in general education settings (Au, 2013; Johnson Lachuk & Koellner, 2015; Ledwell & Oyler, 2016; Lit & Lotan, 2013). Johnson Lachuk and Koellner (2015) wrote about retooling an entire literacy class to recreate the “ . . . plan-teach-assess cycle similar to what would later encounter in edTPA” (p. 91).

Finally, to support the edTPA policy, teacher educators created additional policies and practices that reified the new policy initiative. They engaged in these appropriation activities to make the policy viable in their individual settings. A pattern of appropriation emerged. All the IHEs started to implement policy vis-à-vis embedding which led to courses and content co-option, followed by creating new policy to further solidify the edTPA. The progression moved from least intrusive to most intrusive measures.

Beyond this pattern, what also emerged as an important part of the appropriation process were dynamics related specifically to power; not only power asserted by authorized policymakers but also teacher educators. Levinson et al. (2009) submitted that most educational policy initiatives are technocratic; that is, exerts control and enforce reform efforts, controlling the rules and outcomes. The edTPA appropriation process in the three special education programs in this study reflected this move toward a technocratic model and raised a central question, “Who are the experts?”

Power in Appropriation

Power dynamics were front and center for teacher educators across the three institutions and evident in the difficult negotiations regarding normative discourse. Sense making of edTPA terminology involved dissection and rote interpretation of edTPA terminology—an exercise in “guess my answer.” In many cases, interpreted meaning contradicted the expert knowledge of teacher educators as they attempted to bridge between concepts as defined in the edTPA and their application based on the demands of local settings. Efforts to craft edTPA policy viability in local settings resulted in the pushing in edTPA content and the pushing out curriculum content institutions designed as part of ongoing curricular reform efforts in their individual settings compromised content, practices, and critical philosophical underpinnings (e.g., equity/social justice) central to their programs (Parkes & Powell, 2015). Because students ultimately were evaluated based upon edTPA’s interpretation and by nonlocal evaluators, teacher educators were hesitant to impose critical discussion of edTPA discourse.

Aspects of edTPA’s normative discourse often conflicted with teacher educators’ expert knowledge and from their perspective, reduced the complexity of the context for which they prepared special educators. Whose interpretation is privileged? Parkes and Powell (2015) raised concerns about the impact of the edTPA on academic freedom, not only related to decisions teacher educators make regarding curriculum content but also related to restrictions that dictate how they prepare and support teacher candidates for the assessment.

The impact of normative discourse is not only on teacher educators but also on the teachers they prepare. Pugach and Peck (2016) noted that “cultural tools . . . afford (and constrain) specific ways of understanding and enacting the work of teaching” and point to the ways that standardized performance assessments such as the edTPA can become tools that “constrain the way teacher candidates’ view and define their work” (p. 7). The outcome of standardizing teaching students with disabilities reduces complex teaching decisions to fit a model that does not adequately translate to actual practice. Ratner and Kolman (2016) pointed out the dissonance between the edTPA and candidates’ teaching roles.

Teacher educators from the three institutions in this study, however, asserted their own power in the policy appropriation process in the only ways they could; initially, through resistance efforts and finally, through policy reification. Resistance was not related to the use of performance assessment to assess students’ “readiness for teaching” as all three IHEs supported and, in fact, used performance assessments. In special education, with confusion created by three handbook rewrites and the inadequacy of data to support the assessment’s reliability and validity, teacher educators at IHE C attempted to influence the timeline for implementation.

We did our acts of resistance . . . sent a letter that laid out all of the concerns about the edTPA that went to [state education department]; we used our national networks, which I do think had an impact, we went to state meetings and joined the faction of professors who were anti-edTPA and we tried to influence getting it on the agenda for the [state] Education Dean’s group.

Teacher educators at IHE B attempted a dialogue with policymakers regarding the point in a teacher’s development the edTPA might best demonstrate their performance. Because the edTPA intruded on the power of student teaching as a learning experience, teacher educators suggested that the assessment be completed in the second year of teaching. Although they had gained the attention of some legislators, administrators voiced opposition. One replayed comments she heard from school administrators regarding this proposal.

Are you kidding? We’re gonna have somebody on their second year who I finally got hired in the state that has an incredible alarming shortage of special educators. You’re gonna tell me you’re gonna test somebody in their second year, they’re not gonna pass and then they’re gonna skedaddle from teaching . . . you think I’m gonna tell them to make time to do this as a teacher in my school? No way!

These efforts to participate in democratic policy development largely were ineffective for these institutions. Ratner and Kolman (2016) in a qualitative inquiry into the experiences of teacher educators mediating the edTPA in their urban institution identified ways in which teacher educators resisted policy guidelines associated with the edTPA because of the impact it had on curriculum, their students, and relationships with participating schools and cooperating teachers. Like the teacher educators in this study, resistance was based on the ethical, pedagogical, and logistical dilemmas they faced.