Chapter 1: The Evolution of Teacher Performance Assessments as a Measure of Accountability

Teacher performance assessments (TPAs) were developed by teacher educators in response to historical, social, economic, and political influences that have shaped the public’s perception and policy on education in the United States (Cochran-Smith, Villegas, Abrams, Chavez-Moreno, & Mills, 2016). Education stakeholders (i.e., the public, policy makers, think tanks, educational funders, and even teacher educators) are persuaded by U.S. economic and political imperatives to maintain strength domestically and internationally, as measured by student achievement scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA; Ravitch, 2013; Wilson & Tamir, 2008). Some stakeholders question the integrity of the U.S. educational system and blame teachers and the programs who prepared them, as gaps have persisted among historically marginalized groups of learners despite other potential systemic factors (Kumashiro, 2012; Ravitch, 2013; Wilson & Tamir, 2008). Additionally, the public’s attention has been drawn to historical events, such as Sputnik and the space race in 1957, and to alarming reports, such as A Nation at Risk in 1983 (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), escalating their concerns about the nation’s competitiveness and its educational health in a global society (Ravitch, 2013). More recently, politically-charged reformers, aiming to privatize education, further contribute to public concern by sending messages proposing competition via school choice and school vouchers, while jeopardizing public education, a “civil rights issue” and threat to U.S. democracy (Ravitch, 2013, p. 325; Zeichner, Payne, & Brako, 2015; Zeichner & Pena-Sandoval, 2015). Thus, education reform initiatives have aimed at the improvement of K–12 schools and their teachers and have emphasized, most recently, a standards-based curricula and standardized assessments (Cochran-Smith et al., 2016; Delandshere & Arens, 2001). Simultaneously, teacher educators have faced pressure for increased transparency and accountability focused on teacher preparation in a rapidly changing 21st century global economy (Cochran-Smith et al., 2016; Darling-Hammond, Wei, & Johnson, 2009; Delandshere & Petrosky, 2004; Newton, 2010). Proponents advocating for a professionalized teaching force have developed teacher performance assessments, arguing for the use of a valid and reliable measure of teacher effectiveness and an authentic yet standardized way to assess teacher candidate readiness for teaching that may be beneficial for program renewal (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Mehta & Doctor, 2013; Peck, Singer-Gabella, Sloan, & Lin, 2014; Wei & Pecheone, 2010). However, when TPAs have been used for program completion, certification/approval, accreditation, and/or graduation, the initiative has been met with responses from some educators who do not view the efforts as promoting reform but rather as a threat to their autonomy over their profession (Allington, 2005; Wilson & Tamir, 2008; Zeichner et al., 2015). Some teacher educators have recommended caution regarding the use of teacher performance assessments in high-stakes contexts, in non-educative ways (Whittaker & Nelson, 2013), which lead to consequences for teacher candidates (Bunch, Aguirre, & Tellez, 2009; Chung, 2008; Lit & Lotan, 2013; Meuwissen & Choppin, 2015; Meuwissen, Choppin, Shang-Butler, & Cloonan, 2015; Okhremtchouk et al., 2009) and their teacher preparation programs (Cochran-Smith, Piazza, & Power, 2013; Wei & Pecheone, 2010). In this chapter, I will discuss stakeholders’ evolving conceptualizations of teacher quality and teaching effectiveness, their shifting conceptions of teaching and learning, and the subsequent development and use of various teacher performance assessments.