edTPA Teacher Certification Examination Pilot

What is edTPA?

edTPA is a performance-based, subject-specific assessment and support system used 

to emphasize, measure, and support the skills and knowledge that all educators need to be effective. For edTPA, teacher candidates prepare a portfolio of materials during their clinical or internship experience. Within the portfolio, candidates have the opportunity to demonstrate their effectiveness to support students, engage students in ambitious learning, analyze students’ learning, and adjust their instruction to meet their students’ needs.

edTPA in Texas

Forty of Texas’ educator preparation programs are participating in Year 3 of Texas’ edTPA pilot. Teacher candidates completing clinical teaching or an internship in your school district may be completing an edTPA portfolio, as edTPA is an approved certification exam for standard certification. Aligned to candidates’ certification areas, candidates select one of the subject-specific areas to complete their edTPA portfolio, and, throughout the development of the portfolio, candidates will receive support from their educator preparation program. Further, all pilot edTPA portfolios are double-scored and candidates are encouraged to use the detailed outcome data to inform their continued professional growth.  

edTPA and Student Privacy

Since a critical component of the edTPA relies on candidates submitting videos of their teaching, protecting student privacy is of extreme importance with video recording and the confidentiality and security of all edTPA materials (e.g., student work samples). As such, we wanted to provide some additional background to help address the potential concerns should they arise: 

• The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has provided a sample letter and release form—attached here— for parents, guardians, and students aged 18 or older, regarding the edTPA video recording process and student work submission. These materials have also been provided to educator preparation programs. 
• TEA encourages school districts and educator preparation programs to include a provision in their student teaching and internship agreements with candidates that describes the expectations for the candidate’s use, transmission, and destruction of classroom recordings for the assessment. 
• Video recordings can be structured to accommodate students who do not have consent to be recorded.
• Student materials must be submitted without identifying information. 
• The materials gathered are submitted securely to the electronic platform maintained by the testing vendor, where only officially trained scorers may securely access them. The scorers are not able to download or otherwise save the information provided for scoring. 
• The standard retention period for edTPA submissions, including videos, is four years, after which submissions will be destroyed. There may be exceptions to the standard retention period for extenuating circumstances, such as a score voiding or other challenge.

We appreciate your commitment to ensuring that teachers are well prepared to meet the needs of Texas students and look forward to working with you to learn from this pilot. If you have any questions, please email DeMarco Pitre (demarco.pitre@tea.texas.gov). 

Sincerely,

Emily Garcia
Associate Commissioner
Educator Leadership and Quality

Attachments:

Informed Consent for edTPA Video Release Form