“We Do Everything with edTPA” interrupting and disrupting teacher education in troubling times

Abstract

This chapter juxtaposes our analysis of dilemmas related to high-stakes teacher performance assessments with excerpts from a recent electronic chat between the authors and a private edTPA “tutor” to illustrate the complexity of preparing candidates for teacher licensure in the midst of neoliberal educational policies. Written as a series of narrative interludes or interruptions-a parallel to how we see edTPA disrupting our work as teacher educators-this chapter offers a rhetorical representation of the absurdity that results from the corporatization of teacher evaluation. In so doing, we seek to highlight the ethical conundrums that outsider evaluation presents across the teacher preparation landscape, while simultaneously modeling critical responses to these disruptive educational policies.