MUSIC TEACHER EDUCATION AND EDTPA: A CASE STUDY By David J. Potter A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Music Education––Doctor of Philosophy 2020 ABSTRACT MUSIC TEACHER EDUCATION AND EDTPA: A CASE STUDY By David J. Potter In order to better understand how the edTPA has become accepted by music teacher education programs over the past decade, the purpose of this study was to investigate how one music teacher education program implemented the edTPA. Using a critical policy analysis framework, I examined the following research questions: (a) How did stakeholders understand the policy framing of edTPA? (b) How did stakeholders interact with, implement, describe, and make sense of their experiences with edTPA? (c) How did stakeholders frame their own sense of power and agency with respect to the development and implementation of edTPA? Research took place at Northeastern United States University (NUSU), a music teacher preparation program that has used edTPA since the initial pilot and has expressed support for the edTPA. The 15 participants included administrators, full-time faculty, part-time supervisors, and student teachers, as well as documents from each of these groups. Participants described edTPA as a high-stakes, standardized measurement that was used to define “good” members of NUSU. While acknowledged as stressful, the faculty rationalized edTPA as compatible with NUSU’s values and used it to pervade the curriculum. Tenured faculty and administration benefitted the most from edTPA while student teachers were the most negatively impacted. Recommendations include cutting costs for student teachers, localizing the rubrics, including narrative feedback, balancing the workload for student teachers, restoring decision-making to local stakeholders, encouraging critical and collaborative discussions, and ending the high-stakes mandate. Copyright by DAVID J. POTTER 2020 Erin. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the administrators, teachers, supervisors, students, and community in this study for allowing me the opportunity to speak and interact with each of you regarding this critical topic. It is a rare opportunity to have an institution full of people willing to open their doors to someone who is employing a critical lens. You have made me a more reflective educator and learner, and I will be forever grateful. Thank you for trusting me with your stories. To my advisors, Dr. Mitchell Robinson and Dr. Ryan Shaw, I can never thank the two of you enough for the impact you have made in my life. Dr. Robinson, from the time you called me and invited me to attend MSU, you have provided me with encouragement and have helped me to build a strong foundation for my career. You have been there for me through many highs and lows, and you have often impacted my entire research trajectory with a single sentence. Thank you for your leadership, your encouragement, and your mentorship. Dr. Shaw, it is hard to put into words how grateful I am that you joined the MSU faculty after my first year in the program. It was clear that you often knew what I needed, even if I did not know how to ask. I have learned more than I can articulate because of you. Thank you for believing in me, even when it was hard for me to do so. To Dr. Juliet Hess, thank you for helping me to become more thoughtful and reflective teacher and learner. To Dr. Marcie Ray, thank you for helping me to consider how music education can move beyond boxes and numbers. Finally, to my family, friends, colleagues, and teachers in and around MSU, thank you for your words and actions that have made it possible for me to be in this profession. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………………….....x CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………..1 A History of Standardized Pre-Service Teacher Evaluations…………..…………………5 Foundations of edTPA………………………………………………………………….....6 Other Precursors to edTPA………………………………………………………………11 Praxis……………………………………………………………………………..12 Praxis Core……………………………………………………………….13 Praxis II®…………………………………………………………………15 Praxis III®………………………………………………………………..20 Alternative Licensing…………………………………………………….23 Reciprocity……………………………………………………………………….24 Implications for Music Education………………………………………………..26 Purpose and Research Questions..……………………………………………………….30 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………………....31 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………31 Defining Stakeholders……………………………………………………………31 Non-Music Studies in Education….………………………..…………..………………..32 Videotaping………………………………………………………………………33 Academic Language……………………………………………………………...35 Teacher Preparation……………………………………………………………...37 Student Teacher Seminar…………………………………...……………38 Methods Courses…………………………………………………………38 State Licensure Requirements……..……………………………………………..40 Scoring………………………………………………………..………………….40 Resistance………………………………………………………………………..45 Cooperating School Programs and Supervisors ……..…………………………..46 Faculty…………………………………………………………............................50 Conflict…………………………………………………………………..50 Social Justice Education…………………………………………52 Agency…………………………………………………………………...55 Music Education…………………………………………………………………………62 Critical Policy Analysis………………………………………………………………….71 CPA and General Education…….……………………………………………….75 Feminist CPA ……..………………………….………………………….76 Critical Race Theory (CRT) and CPA…………..…………………….....79 Alternative Approaches to CPA in Education………….……….……….81 Music Education and CPA……………………………………..……..………….87 CPA and Teacher Education Programs…………………………………………………..89 Need for Present Study…………………………………………………………………..91 Purpose and Research Questions..…………………………………………………….....95 vi CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY………………………………………………………..96 Design…………………………………………..…………..……………………………96 Case Study...……………………………………………………………………..96 Sampling…………………………………………………………………………97 Description of Research Site……………………………………………………………..98 How Data Were Reported………………………………………………………………101 Coding of Interviews, Observations, and Artifacts ……..……………………...101 Trustworthiness…………………………………………………………………………102 Researcher’s Lens and Positionality……………………………………………………103 Limitations……...………………………………..……………………………………..106 Stakeholders at NUSU….……....………………………………………………………106 Student Teachers..………....……………………………………………………107 Sally………....………………………………………………………….107 Samantha………....…………………………………………………….109 Sandra………....………………………………………………………. 110 Sarah………....…………………………………………………………111 Stephen………....………………………………………………………112 Student Teacher Supervisors/Facilitators………………………………………114 Felix………....………………………………………………………….114 Faye and Frank………....………………………………………………115 Full-Time Faculty………....……………………………………………………117 Professor B………....…………………………………………………...117 Professor C………....……………………………………………….......118 Professor D.………....…………………………………………………..119 Professor E………....…………………………………………………...120 Professor F…….…....…………………………………………………...121 Professor G………....…………………………………………………...121 Administrators.………....……………………………………………………….123 Administrator A………....……………………………………………...123 Administrator B………....……………………………………………...124 CHAPTER FOUR: POLICY FRAMING PERCEPTIONS……………………………….…...126 Stakeholders’ Histories of edTPA………………………….…………………………..126 Personal History...………………………………………………………………126 External Standards………..…………..……………………………………...…130 Network Intervention…..…………..…………….……………………………………..135 Components of edTPA……………..…….……………………………………..136 Assessment………………….……..………………………….………………...141 Initial Mobilization of edTPA………………..……..…………..………….…………...143 Reaction……………………………………..………….……..………………..143 Curriculum Changes and edTPA……………………………………………….146 Sally and Sandra…..…………..………………………………………..154 Samantha and Stephen………………………………………………….156 Sarah…..…………..……………………………………………………158 Cooperating Teachers’ Responses to Stakeholders…………………………….159 Additional Placement Considerations………..………………………...162 Discussion……….……………….……………………………………..……..………..172 vii CHAPTER FIVE: INTERACTION AND IMPLEMENTATION……………………………..176 Administration…………………..………………………….…………………………..176 2013-2014 Institutional Report...……………………………………………….176 Music Education Assessment Plan……..…………..………………..…………178 Student Teacher Handbook…..…………..…….……………………………….179 TaskStream……………………..…….………………………………………...185 Additional Administrative Reports……..………………………….…….……..186 Full-Time Faculty…………………..…………..………………………….…………...188 Conferences/Sessions……………………………………….……..……………188 Session for Student Teachers………………………..………………….189 NUSU Student Teacher Website…..…………..……………………...………..192 PME and MTL……….…………………………………………………194 “Understanding Rubric Level Progressions”………..………………….197 NUSU Videotape Project……………………………………………….201 NUSU General Music Practicum Website……………………………………...204 Student Teachers……….……………….……………………………………..………..209 Student Teacher A…….……………….…………………………..……………211 Student Teacher B…….……………….…………………………..……………213 Student Teacher C…….……………….…………………………..……………215 Discussion..…….……………….……………………………………..………………..217 CHAPTER SIX: FRAMING POWER AND AGENCY………..……………………………...222 Power……….…………………..………………………….…………………………...222 Position………………………....………………………………………………222 Relationships……………………..……..…………..………………..…………224 Beliefs…………………………….…..…………..…….………………………………229 Perceptions……………………..…….…………………………………………229 A Hindrance to Teaching……………………………………………….233 Values…………………………………..………………………….…….……..235 “A Generational Thing”………………………………………………………...243 Beliefs and Misunderstandings…………………………………………………245 Impact and Agency…………………..…………..………..……………….…………...246 Beneficiaries……………..………………………………….……..…………...247 Disbeneficiaries.……………….…..…………..……………………...………...252 Well-Being……………..……………………………………………….254 High Stakes……………………………………………………………..256 Policy Validity…………………………….……………………………………259 edTPA Questions and Concerns.……………….……………..………..259 Discussion……..…….……………….……………………………………..…………..270 CHAPTER SEVEN: SYNTHESIS, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS……...275 Limitations……….……………..………………………….………………….………..275 Generalizability and Transferability……………………………………………276 Limitations of Critical Policy Analysis ………………..……………..………...277 Critical Discussion of Findings…………………………….……..…………………….278 Mandate, Opportunity, and Fear (The Power Networks of edTPA)……………278 viii edTPA and Street-Level Bureaucracy: NUSU’s Brand of edTPA……………..283 edTPA and Power Relationships……………………………………………….288 Networks and edTPA…………...………………………………………291 Who Are the Experts?......………………………………………………294 Mobilizing edTPA Over Time.................................................................295 Differential Impact at NUSU…………………………………………...298 Implications……………………………………………………………………………..303 Recommendations from NUSU…………………...……….…………………………...306 Cut or Remove the Cost………….……………….…………………………….306 Sally…………………………………………………………………….306 Stephen………………………………………………………………….307 Sandra…………………………………………………………………..307 Samantha………………………………………………………………..307 Professor B…………………...…………………………………………308 Localize the Rubrics and/or Include Narrative Feedback…...…….……………309 Sally…………………..………….……..……………….……………...310 Stephen………………………………………………………………….310 Professor C……………………………………………………………...310 Balance the Workload…………...………………………….……..……………312 Sally…………..……….…..…………..……………………...………...312 Faye………………….………………………………………………….313 Professor C…..……………………………………………..…………...313 Professor B……..……………..………………………………………...313 Stephen…..………………………………………….…………………..313 Professor E………………………………………………………...……313 Restore Licensing Decisions to Local Stakeholders………………………..…..314 Stephen………………………...……………….……………..………...315 Frank …….……………….…….....………………..……………..........315 Faye…….….……….……………………………………..…………….315 Professor C...……………………………………………………………315 Professor B….…………………………………………………………..316 Professor F……...………………………………………………………316 Encourage Critical and Collaborative Discussions.………………..…………...316 Stephen………………………...……………….……………..………...317 Sandra …….……………….……...………………..……………..........317 Professor C...……………………………………………………………317 Administrator B….……………………………………………………..318 Administrator A………………………………………………………...318 End the High-Stakes Mandate………………………………………………….320 Coda…………………………………………………………………………………….322 APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………………….326 Appendix A: Interview Questions (Semi-Structured)…………………………………..327 Appendix B: NUSU Policy Documents………………………………………………...328 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………330 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards and Learning Progressions for Teachers…...8 Figure 2: edTPA’s Common Architecture and Shared Pedagogy Cycle………………………….9 x CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION In November of 2013, the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity [SCALE] issued a 40-page report to state education agencies and teacher education programs detailing the first nationally available pre-service teacher performance assessment (Pecheone, Shear, Whittaker, & Darling-Hammond, 2013). The report detailed justifications for using this interdisciplinary performance tool as a measurement of teacher readiness. Out of the more than 3500 teachers from varying subjects who took the performance assessment that year, 58 percent passed, though passing was not consequential at the time. Under the recommended passing score of 42, 112 music, theater, and dance teachers were placed under the umbrella of performing arts and scored an average of 42.02. At the time of the report, six states had policies in place requiring the use of performance assessments, and the assessment was approved in each of these states. Six years after the 2013 report, this national assessment has been used in more than 40 states, with some states requiring the assessment for initial teacher licensure, graduation, and program accreditation (SCALE, 2019b). Consequently, the rapid changes in policy have pressured teacher education programs to accept this national assessment of teacher readiness, also known as the edTPA. While there were no music educators on the edTPA policy panel or implementation panel (Pecheone et al., 2013), music educators have been actively involved in handling the consequences of edTPA. One of the first public reactions to edTPA among music educators came during the 2013 Society for Music Teacher Education Symposium entitled, “A Music Education Professor’s Guide to Surviving the edTPA” (Heuser, Orzolek, Juchniewicz, Wagoner, & Schliff, 2013). It was also during these early days of edTPA that some music teacher educators began to change their curriculum to base it on the edTPA, with the belief that the edTPA would 1 be good for teacher education (Snyder, 2014). Other music educators like Powell and Parkes (2013) had trained to be scorers for the edTPA as early as 2012 and provided training to others on the topic. While the edTPA became nationally available in 2013, few voices in music education were openly expressing concerns about the edTPA, as the edTPA was an option, not a requirement (Powell & Parkes, 2013). Nevertheless, Powell and Parkes noted at the time that edTPA lacked feedback for teachers, had an unnatural timeframe, was expensive, and was more evaluation-based than assessment based. Perhaps the most alarming component of edTPA was addressed by Powell and Parkes in 2013: “How will states use this?” (p. 18). New York became one of the first states to use edTPA as a statewide high-stakes requirement for initial teacher licensing, including music, and educators responded with a desire to prepare students for passing edTPA while simultaneously opposing edTPA through online blogs and publications such as the Huffington Post (Singer, 2014). Ironically, organizations that were involved with developing the edTPA, such as the American Federation of Teachers, also expressed that the edTPA should not be used as a high-stakes requirement or an outsourcing of teacher evaluation (Sawchuk & Heitin, 2014). Nevertheless, Prichard (2018) found that 22 percent of states now require the edTPA for music teacher licensure, and national accrediting bodies like the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation are recommending that the edTPA be used as a benchmark for accrediting teacher preparation programs. In other words, while several researchers and organizations who were actively involved with the initial stages of edTPA have actively opposed edTPA as a high-stakes assessment, the high-stakes influence of edTPA has only increased in the national landscape (Prichard, 2018). 2 Creators of edTPA have portrayed the high-stakes implications as positive. Whittaker, Pecheone, and Stansbury (2018) contend that institutions, not the edTPA, are responsible for any negative effects that high stakes have on students, whereas they contend that as a high-stakes assessment, the edTPA offers “an opportunity for inquiry” (p. 5). They go on to state that high stakes would exist in teacher education programs with or without edTPA, and that edTPA is simply a replacement for local evaluations so that all candidates “meet the same standards and threshold level of competence” (p. 9). In other words, even though most local institutions of teacher education were not involved in the development of edTPA or the decision to make edTPA a high-stakes requirement, Whittaker et al. contend that the edTPA supports high-stakes decision making at the local level. Yet, the only decision that many institutions have is how they will respond. Responses to edTPA have varied, especially in the realm of music teacher education. Some researchers who once articulated positive aspects of edTPA have since been largely critical of edTPA (Parkes & Powell, 2015, Powell & Parkes, 2019). However, other music teacher educators contend that music educators must participate in edTPA in order to be effective in influencing policies surrounding music teacher education (Cangro, 2014). Some music educators like Meals and Kumar (2016) echo the creators of edTPA by describing it as a system that supports students. Additionally, Kumar (2019) considers the edTPA to be something that requires students to code-switch, which Kumar describes as an important process for understanding the edTPA. Yet, perhaps the most common responses to edTPA have been to focus on those who have succeeded on the edTPA (Arau, Miller, & Williams, 2016; Bourne, 2019; Hickey, Gwinn-Baker, Hasty, & Jampole, 2014; Snyder & Manfredo, 2014; VanAlstine, 2017). Overall, the discourse surrounding edTPA has largely shifted from critique to compliance. 3 The shift in music education parallels Singer’s work in the Huffington Post, where the writings have shifted from concerns about the edTPA (2014, 2016) to strategies for passing the edTPA (2017). Studies of edTPA in music education have been limited for a number of reasons. First, many edTPA studies in music education have taken place out of convenience, that is, they have taken place within the researcher’s own institution. Given the high-stakes component of edTPA, there is a pressure for researchers to focus on helping their students to pass the edTPA and a pressure to avoid critique (Whittaker et al., 2018). Additionally, given that most edTPA research in music education has been focused within researchers’ own institutions, it has been difficult to provide generalizable insights concerning the edTPA in music education. Lastly, music education studies of the edTPA have often been restricted to one focus group, specifically, preservice teachers, inservice teachers, or teacher educators. An instrumental case study of edTPA implementation within a music teacher education program provides unique opportunities to examine voices that have been missing from the policy debate. Studying a music teacher education program that expresses systemic support for the edTPA through the lens of critical policy analysis can serve as a means for listening to stakeholders at varying levels of power within the same institution, thus illuminating ideas and concerns about edTPA that may not have been previously considered. Finally, as the institution has expressed support for edTPA, it serves as a critical case, because troubles about the edTPA within a supportive institution are likely to exist in many institutions. By listening to voices seldom heard in music education policy discourse, the perspectives can better inform who has won and lost as a result of edTPA, and how music educators can become active participants in creating and recreating policies based in community, collaboration, and equity. 4 Throughout this chapter, I will provide an overview of the history of teacher evaluations, edTPA, and how its history informs the need for policy studies in music education. A History of Standardized Pre-Service Teacher Evaluations The edTPA has become one of the most ubiquitous evaluations of pre-service teacher quality in the United States. In less than ten years, the edTPA has transitioned from concept to practice in more than 40 states. Furthermore, while some teacher preparation programs use edTPA as an assessment of pre-service teacher quality to inform future practice, other teacher education programs use it to fulfill state requirements for initial teacher licensing and/or paths to continuing certification. Additionally, to comply with accrediting boards such as the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), several teacher preparation programs use measurements like edTPA as a requirement for graduation. Even so, the use of third-party measurements for licensing, continuing certification, and graduation did not begin with edTPA. Instead, the enforcement of edTPA is built on the convergence of federal policies, accreditation boards, and several forms of measurement that were used in the early 2000s, especially the Praxis SeriesTM. Furthermore, creators of the edTPA reference federal policies, governing boards of accreditation, and previous measurements of teacher evaluations as the foundations for edTPA. The purpose of this section is to explore the policies, practices, standards, and measurements of pre-service teacher quality that have served as precursors to edTPA. First, I will examine the precursors referenced within the edTPA field reports. Then, I will consider the role of the Praxis tests as national precursors to edTPA referenced within professional literature. I will conclude by considering how Praxis, edTPA, and other assessments have emerged as gateways for teacher candidate licensing, continuing certification, and graduation. 5 Foundations of edTPA In 2013, Pecheone, Shear, Whittaker, and Darling-Hammond released a summary report of edTPA, which has since been shared with many states for the purposes of adopting edTPA. As Pecheone et al. (2013) explain: edTPA is the first nationally available, educator-designed performance assessment for teachers entering the profession. It provides a measure of teacher candidates’ readiness to teach that can inform program completion, licensure, and accreditation decisions… (p. 1) Pecheone et al. go on to explain that the edTPA can be used by states to grant initial teacher licenses. They explain that the standard for passing the edTPA and obtaining initial licensure “Just meets the definition of performing effectively the job of a new teacher” (p. 26). While subsequent field reports have used the words “licensing” and “certification” interchangeably (Pecheone, Whittaker, & Klesch, 2016, 2017, 2018; Pecheone, Whittaker, Shear, & Klesch, 2015), Pecheone et al. (2013) use the word “licensing” almost exclusively to describe the credentialing of pre-service teachers, an action taken at the state level (Haskelkorn & Calkens, 1993). By comparison, Pecheone et al. (2013) use the word “certification” to describe those who have received training to score the edTPA and those who are National Board certified, or recognized by an agency outside of the government (Haskelkorn & Calkens, 1993). Furthermore, Pecheone et al. (2013) describe edTPA as aligned to the Interstate [New] Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium, or InTASC (1992, 2013). Furthermore, InTASC (1992) describes licensing as a state mandate in which a teacher meets “standards of minimal competence established by each state to protect the public from harm” (p. 9). On the other hand, InTASC (1992) describes certification as a standards-based award granted by a national 6 organization, such as the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), for meeting “professional standards that exceed those demanded by most states for licensure” (p. 9). While the edTPA is used to license teacher candidates, it is effectively standards-based, building on precursors such as the NBPTS portfolio, which is used by teachers who have at least three years of teaching experience. While NBPTS has never been used for pre-service teachers, InTASC (2013, 2020) contends that all teachers should be judged by the same sets of standards, stating, “What distinguishes the beginning from the advanced teacher is the degree of sophistication in the application of the knowledge and skills” (p. 6, emphasis added). Additionally, the InTASC standards have been used by the majority of states in the United States, and several states have encouraged teacher preparation programs to implement the standards since the 1990s (Weiss & Weiss, 1998). The 2013 edition of InTASC include ten standards pertaining to the learner/learning, content knowledge, instructional practice, and professional responsibility. The 2020 version remains unchanged with regard to the ten standards, and while the standards differ to an extent from the edTPA standards, it is notable that two writers of the edTPA standards, Hyler and Patterson, were also on the standards setting panel for InTASC. Furthermore, three out of the four leaders of the committee were members of edTPA’s policy panel, including Diez, Paliokas, and McWalters. In other words, nearly a quarter of the members of InTASC’s standards drafting committee were also involved in the development of edTPA. In addition to edTPA sharing commonalities with the InTASC standards, the learning progressions are also similar in that both use rubrics as a means for comparing teacher performance. However, the writers insisted that while InTASC (2020) was meant to be a sophisticated and cyclical model (see Figure 1) for supporting teacher growth, it was not meant 7 to be a linear judgment of teacher effectiveness, writing, “They are not in their current state, however, an evaluation tool in the sense of being tied to processes that have been validated for high stakes judgments” (p. 11). Figure 1: InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards and Learning Progressions for Teachers Even so, the document does recommend using the document for teacher evaluations and related research in local contexts, stating: “It’s about the teaching practice and not about the individual teacher” (p. 12). In other words, the edTPA is linked to InTASC in that they both establish a set of standards for teaching and learning, and they both break down the standards into specific criteria that seeks to objectively show differentiated levels of teacher effectiveness. Furthermore, they both posit teacher development as a cycle for teaching as a profession, though edTPA’s cycle is limited to three components, including planning, instruction, and assessment, while also omitting reflection (see Figure 2). 8 Figure 2: edTPA’s Common Architecture and Shared Pedagogy Cycle It is not surprising how similar Figure 2 is to Figure 1, especially considering that a quarter of InTASC’s Learning Progressions Drafting Committee consisted of edTPA developers. Mary Diez and Kathleen Paliokas served as the sole chairs of the committee, and Stansbury, an employee of SCALE and fellow edTPA advocate (Pecheone et al., 2018), was one of the committee members. In other words, a quarter of the committee consisted of individuals directly involved with the development and implementation of edTPA. Given the strong presence and leadership of InTASC by edTPA developers, it is understandable that Pecheone et al. (2013) would reference portfolios piloted by InTASC as a precursor to edTPA. While InTASC’s (2013) new standards focus on consistency for preservice and in-service teachers, they also developed portfolios for pre-service teachers, such as the Performance Assessment Development Project, or PADP (Moss, Schutz, & Collins, 1998). In describing their piloting of PADP, Moss et al. (1998) explain: 9 The purpose of our overall research agenda is to develop and evaluate a methodology for the assessment of teachers in which experienced teachers, serving as judges, engage in dialogue to integrate multiple sources of evidence about a candidate to reach a sound conclusion. (p. 140) Moss et al. (1998) go on to explain that each candidate submitted multiple lessons and provided documentation of student learning, including lesson plans, videos of instruction, student artifacts, and reflections. Each portfolio was then scored by two reviewers using the InTASC standards. While Pecheone et al. (2013) reference NBPTS and InTASC assessments as precursors to edTPA, the assessments were all scored by two reviewers and included reflection sections, whereas the edTPA has no reflection section. Moreover, according to Pecheone, Merino, and Klesch (2019), over 90 percent of edTPA portfolios were scored by one reviewer. Additionally, unlike the edTPA, neither NBPTS nor InTASC were used for high-stakes decisions on a large scale, but instead were limited to a few local contexts (Moss et al., 1998). In other words, while NBPTS and InTASC portfolios held several similarities to edTPA in their use of standards, their scalar differentiation of practice, and their implementation of portfolio-based measurements, neither was used for high-stakes decisions, such as initial teacher licensing. However, Pecheone et al. (2013) reference one more portfolio as a precursor to edTPA which did have high-stakes consequences: The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT). The development of PACT coincided with federal reforms. In 1998, Congress passed amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the amendments reformed higher education by providing financial incentives to states that developed accountability systems for monitoring teacher preparation programs within their respective states. California responded by enacting legislation (SB 2042) that included teacher performance assessments among the 10 requirements for teacher credentialing, or initial teacher licensing (Pecheone & Wei, 2007). Additionally, universities who enacted teacher performance assessments early on were offered financial rewards for their participation (California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, 2001, 2008). Finally, while California was under contract with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) at the time, PACT was developed as an alternative performance assessment. Additionally, while ETS offered the California Teaching Performance Assessment, (California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, 2001; Riggs, Verdi, & Arlin, 2009), PACT was the only model that referenced the NBPTS as their framework (Pecheone & Wei, 2007). In 2008, California made the passage of a teacher performance assessment a requirement for program completion, or graduation in education (Reagan, Schram, McCurdy, Chang, & Evans, 2016). Furthermore, some institutions have made PACT necessary for graduation by requiring passage to complete individual courses and programs of studies (Holy Names University, 2014; Pepperdine University, 2017). Other states soon took notice, and in 2009, Washington adopted a policy requiring PACT or edTPA to be used “for program completion and recommendation for licensure” (Reagan et al., 2016, p. 13). Other Precursors to edTPA In 2015, the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) conducted a review of literature to justify construct validity within the edTPA. Consequently, while Pecheone et al. (2013) only reference NBPTS, InTASC, and PACT in the initial edTPA field report, SCALE’s (2015a, 2015b) literature reviews include several more precursors to edTPA. Included among the list are Washington’s ProTeach Portfolio, the Georgia Teacher Leader, and the Missouri Teacher Assessment. However, by referencing ETS’s Praxis tests within their literature 11 review, SCALE has effectively referenced the most common measurements of pre-service teacher quality used in the United States over the past 25 years. Additionally, researchers such as Mahoney (2015) have considered the relationship between Pearson assessments and ETS assessments to inform accrediting organizations. Given the emphasis on edTPA as a recent addition or alternative to ETS’s Praxis tests in many states, the purpose of this next section is to review ETS’s Praxis exams and their resulting impact on student teachers, both in music education and education as a whole. Praxis In 1993, ETS launched the Praxis Series tests, replacing the National Teacher Examination that had been administered by ETS since 1948 (Bejar, 2017, p. 597). According to ETS (2018b), All states have an abiding interest in ensuring that teachers have the knowledge and skills needed for safe and effective practice before they receive a license. To aid states in this effort, the Praxis tests are designed to assess test takers’ job-relevant knowledge and skills. (p. 6). Like the edTPA (Pecheone et al., 2013), ETS (2018b) uses the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing as a guide for developing tests. Also, like the edTPA, Praxis cut scores for teacher licensure are set by each state (Tannenbaum, 2012). According to Tannenbaum (2011), in a study of 530 panelists, 88.39 percent believed the Praxis cut scores to be “about right,” 9.74 percent considered the scores to be “too low,” and 1.87 percent considered them to be “too high” (p. 7). Unlike the edTPA, which uses 23 different test handbooks, with each one being used for a (set of) subject area(s) for the purpose of measuring teacher performance (Pecheone, Whittaker, & Klesch, 2018), there are more than 140 different Praxis tests, and they are used for a variety of 12 subjects and purposes, including multiple choice, constructed response, and measurements of teacher performance (ETS, 2005). While edTPA is exclusively a teacher performance assessment, there have been three different categories of Praxis exams, namely Praxis I, Praxis II, and Praxis III. Moore (2007) describes the intent of the Praxis Series as follows: The Praxis Series is a sequence of three points that measure candidates’ knowledge and skills before the admission into teacher education (Praxis I), after completion of a program (Praxis II), and during the first year of teaching (Praxis III). (pp. 95–96) In 2012, Blackford, Olmstead, and Stegman reported that the Praxis tests were being used in 39 states. This was an increase from 34 states over a decade earlier (Gitomer & Latham, 2000). Furthermore, Georges, Borman, and Lee (2010) found that 12 states developed their own licensure exams using the Praxis Series as a resource. That said, Blackford et al. found that Arkansas and Utah were the only states to use all three Praxis tests. Additionally, Arkansas used all three Praxis tests for licensing and continual certification (Bunn & Wake, 2015; Ezell, 2005). Nevertheless, Praxis’s growth in high-stakes influence has been slower over time than the edTPA. Praxis Core According to ETS (2005), the purpose of the Praxis Core1 tests are to “measure basic academic skills in reading, writing and mathematics. These exams are designed for use as a precursor to entry into a traditional teacher preparation academic program and for state licensure” (p. 1). Presented in pencil and paper format or computer format and consisting of multiple choice questions and an essay (Rikard & Norden, 2006; Steinberg, Brenneman, 1 Previously known as Praxis I. 13 Castellano, Lin, & Miller, 2014; Youngs, Odden, & Porter, 2003), the test is often compared to the scholastic aptitude test (SAT) (Blue, O’Grady, Toro, & Newell, 2002; Gitomer & Latham, 2000; Pool, Dittrich, Longwell, Pool, & Hausfather, 2004; Wakefield, 2003). Furthermore, Pool et al. (2004) found moderate correlations between the SAT math/verbal scores and the Praxis Core math/reading scores. Additionally, Brown, Brown, and Brown (2008) found a very strong correlation (r = .997) between Praxis Core scores in reading and Praxis Core scores in writing, suggesting that a strong reading test would predict a strong writing test (p. 35). In a report for ETS, Tyler (2011) acknowledges, “the standardized performance differences found on the Praxis I tests of basic academic competencies are similar to those found on the SAT, ACT and GRE tests and similar assessments used for admissions purposes” (p. 9). Implementation of the Praxis Core varies by state and by subject. For example, Henry (2005) noted that while 21 states were using Praxis tests at the time, only one state, Arkansas, used the Praxis I test for music teacher licensing. By 2010, the number of states increased to 31 (Georges et al.), but by 2012, the number reduced to 23 (Blackford et al., 2012). May, Willie, Worthen, and Perhson (2017) replicated Henry’s study and found that 27 states required passage of Praxis Core for music teacher licensure. Furthermore, 25 out of the 27 states offered no alternatives to Praxis Core. The period of time in students’ careers during which they would take the Praxis Core has also inconsistent, ranging from high school to post-graduation. However, Tyler (2011) found that teachers who took the Praxis Core in their first two years of college scored higher than those who took the test after their first two years. Furthermore, many universities use Praxis Core as a requirement for admission into teacher education programs, and others have found that Praxis Core tutoring at the university level increases Praxis Core scores (Longwell-Grice, McIlheran, 14 Schroeder, & Scheele, 2013). Even so, while Gitomer and Latham (2000) found in a study of 200,000 candidates that 3 out of 4 passed the Praxis I, some have found the Praxis Core to be an inequitable tool for program admission (Bennett, McWhorter, & Kuykendall, 2006; Gitomer & Qi, 2010; Graham, 2013). Some have also expressed concerns about racialization during the test taking experience (Petchauer, 2014, 2016; Petchauer, Baker-Doyle, Mawhinney, & Ciarkowski, 2015), as well as cutoff scores effectively removing a disproportionate number of people of color from the profession (Memory, Coleman, & Watkins, 2003). Praxis II ® ETS (2005) describes the Praxis II as subject specific tests, stating, “These exams are designed for prospective teachers applying for state licensure” (p. 1). This principle is used to fulfill elements of No Child Left Behind, which require teachers to be highly qualified (Blackford et al., 2012). While not as commonly compared to SATs, Brown et al. (2008) found a moderate correlation (r = .579) between Praxis II scores and SAT scores (p. 35). Additionally, Wall (2008) found strong correlations between ACT scores and Praxis II scores. While edTPA tests music teachers under the umbrella of performing arts (Pecheone et al., 2013), almost every state uses a music-specific content test. For example, Parkes (2019) pointed out that California, New York, Oregon, Oklahoma, Missouri, Michigan, and Minnesota each have their own content exams. Additionally, a majority of states use as the Praxis II, which offers two music-specific tests. One test convers music content and instruction, and the other covers music content knowledge. In order to develop the test questions for both tests, ETS (2005) consulted the National Association of School Music, the National Association for Music Education, the College Music Society, the Society for Music Teacher Education, and InTASC (p. 6). The content knowledge test costs 120 dollars to take, and the content and instruction test costs 15 146 dollars (ETS, 2019; Hoffman, 2016). Test takers must also bring photo identification to the test site (Hoffman, 2016). According to the study companion (ETS, 2018e), “The Music: Content Knowledge test is designed to assess a beginning music teacher’s knowledge and understanding of music and music education” (p. 6). Topic sections include, but are not limited to, music history and literature, theory and composition, performance, pedagogy, professional issues, and technology. Selected response and constructed response questions are both included. In comparison, “The Music: Content and Instruction test measures indicators of the beginning educator’s professional readiness to teach K-12 music in each of the three major music education specialties: general, instrumental, and vocal music education” (ETS, 2018d, p. 5). Furthermore, the content and instruction test removes theory and composition and adds instructional activities to the test. Nevertheless, Collins (1996) points out that while the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards had no music educators on their board, music educators were actively involved in the creation of Praxis II. Henry (2005) found that 23 states had policies in place requiring music teacher candidates to pass the Praxis II exam for initial teacher licensure. Arkansas teachers in particular were required to pass the Praxis I and Praxis II. This number has since increased. Georges et al. (2010) and Blackford et al. (2012) found that 31 states mandated Praxis II, and May et al. (2017) found that 30 states require music teachers to pass the Praxis II. Out of the 30 states, 21 use the music content and instruction test, while 9 use the music content and instruction test. Some questions and concerns have emerged concerning the Praxis II. While Gitomer and Latham (2000) found that 90 percent of test takers passed the Praxis II, Moser (2012b) found that some students were overwhelmed during their studies for the Praxis II and never took the test. 16 Still others failed the test three times, ultimately choosing an alternative route to teacher licensing by pursing a “different content area” (p. 9). Moser (2012a) also found that as the test content changed, the percentage of students who passed the Spanish Praxis II declined in Mississippi every year from 2007 to 2010. Cobb (2010) conducted a study of 50 graduate on- campus students and 50 graduate online students and found that online students scored significantly higher on the Praxis II. Additionally, Wall, Johnson, and Symonds (2012) contend that Praxis II has undermined traditional teacher education programs and encouraged the paradigm of “teaching to the test” (p. 39). Furthermore, in their analysis of Praxis II, Sandarg and Schomber (2009) express concern that the content in Praxis II does not reflect the skills necessary for teaching. The disconnection between Praxis II and teaching skills is particularly concerning, as Gitomer (2007) reports that test takers have higher grade point averages than previous test takers, “Praxis passing rates have decreased substantially” (p. 3). Several researchers expressed concerns regarding the ways that the Praxis II privileges whiteness. For example, Albers (2002) pointed out that the Praxis II content exam for English mostly tests students based on the works of White authors from Europe and the United States. Consequently, as Albers (2002) explains, “The dominant culture with its primarily white values and traditions is assured its continued dominance in secondary English classrooms” (p. 122). Furthermore, Albers stated that by requiring the Praxis II for initial teacher licensing, the test effectively became a policy that forced student teachers of color to either “reproduce the culture of the dominant classes” or fail the test and be denied teacher licensing (p. 122). Consequently, Albers described the test as causing personal harm, describing the impact on candidates as “devasting,” and leaving instructors with ethical dilemmas regarding curriculum and test 17 preparation (p. 119). Lastly, Albers’s (2002) points out the systemic dangers of high-stakes testing and the potential damage that may ensue. Thobega and Miller (2008) found that male students scored higher than females on the Praxis II agriculture content test, and they expressed concern about the appropriateness of the test, as they noted that while the test was required for licensing and continual certification in that field, ETS had not provided evidence of the test’s validity or reliability. While Thobega and Miller could not account for the 18.9 percent variability in scores based on gender, they expressed concern that the test reflected content outside of the school’s agriculture curriculum and wondered if the test “may lead to inappropriate discrimination between males and females” (p. 107). Overall, Thobega and Miller’s results show that the Praxis II has been used in the past without accounting for validity and reliability, and the results suggest a reproduction of gender hierarchies that privilege maleness in the field of agriculture. These gender and racial differences in scores have also been found in areas of elementary education, English, mathematics, and science (Gitomer & Qi, 2010). These results may have a detrimental impact on both marginalized candidates and marginalized students. As Goldhaber and Hansen (2010) explain concerning Praxis II’s consequential impact on Black P-12 students, “replacing the failing Black teacher with a passing White teacher considerably decreases student outcomes” (p. 28). Hones, Aguilar, and Thao (2009) also problematize Praxis II’s privileging of whiteness and its subsequent impact on bilingual candidates, stating, “One could argue that the Praxis II serves a role of keeping many non-native English speakers out of the teaching profession, just as Jim Crow laws once kept non-Whites out of the voting booths” (p. 19). Nnazor, Sloan, and Higgins (2004) also warn that the Praxis II contributes to an accountability movement that threatens the missions of historical Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). 18 Furthermore, Koza (2002) posited that the high-stakes usage of Praxis II will also undermine efforts to diversify music education and music teacher education. Elpus (2015) found the Praxis II music test data to be particularly problematic with respect to both race and gender. According to Elpus (2015), “Analyses indicated that White candidates earned significantly higher Praxis II scores than did Black candidates and that male candidates earned significantly higher scores than did female candidates” (p. 314). The predictive margins for passing by race and gender are particularly concerning when considering that several states use the Praxis II as a high-stakes determination of initial teacher licensing. While all While male candidates averaged above the modal and median passing score on their first and second attempts, White females averaged above both on the first attempt but below the modal passing score on the second attempt, and below both on subsequent attempts. Meanwhile, Black males averaged above the median pass score on the first attempt and below both the modal and median passing score on subsequent attempts, and Black females averaged beneath the modal and median passing score on all attempts. After reflecting on Albers’s (2002) discussion of how the English Praxis II effectively reproduces the paradigm of whiteness in education, I believe that a critical policy analysis would likely find similar paradigms of whiteness and maleness. For example, upon examination of ETS’s practice tests, the names of musicians listed in the test included Riley, Orff, Copland, Colwell, McGinty, Suzuki, Dalcroze, Kodály, Gordon, Laban, Ives, Ellington, Mason, Reimer, Zwilich, Husa, and Sousa.2 In all, 13 of these people are White males, two are White females, 2 I omitted Martha Graham from this list, because she was not listed in the test, but only in the answer key as a choreographer for whom Aaron Copland wrote Appalachian Spring. I also omitted Phyllis Weikart from this list, both because she was not listed as the correct answer, and because she is a physical education teacher by trade. 19 one is an Asian male, one is a Black male, and none are Black females. Furthermore, out of the “right” answers, all of the names were of White males, except for one about Anne McGinty, whose name was the answer to the question, “Which of the following composers has written most extensively for young bands?” (p. 25). Consequently, I concur with Elpus (2015) that more research should be done to examine the content of Praxis II, as I find the lack of representation and potential misrepresentations of names outside of White males to be potentially a form of cultural reproduction in music education that may, as Albers (2002) puts it, cause harm. Praxis III ® While Praxis III is no longer advertised by ETS and has been replaced by the Praxis Performance Assessment for Teachers (PPAT), the exam had more similarities to edTPA than any other Praxis assessment (ETS, 2017). Praxis III was developed in the early 1990s and served as a foundation for ETS’s development of teacher performance assessments (ETS, 2017). However, unlike edTPA, which assesses performance across multiple lessons, Praxis III focused on the observation of a single lesson. Consequently, according to Youngs et al. (2003), all states that utilized Praxis III were required to administer the assessment at least two times for each candidate. As Dwyer (1998) explained, “Its primary focus is the integration of discipline knowledge and pedagogical practice in the live, complex, and interactive context of the classroom” (p. 167). Also, unlike the edTPA, the multiple observations did not have to be of the same unit or units of instruction (Youngs et al., 2003). Common evidence for assessment included “classroom observations as opposed to videotaped lessons, samples of student work, and written reflections of practice” (Youngs et al., 2003, p. 228). According to Myford et al. (1994), early iterations of Praxis III included 21 different criteria for teacher assessment, which were then reduced to 19 (Blackford et al., 2012), and 20 eventually replaced by PPAT (ETS, 2017). However, the criteria were consistently placed into four categories (Myford et al., 1994): “Organizing content for student learning… creating an environment for student learning… teaching for student learning… [and] teacher professionalism (p. B-2). One of the writers of this study, Charlotte Danielson, eventually adapted this framework to create the Framework for Teaching, which is commonly used to observe preservice teachers and in-service teachers (Colwell, 2019a; Edmund & Chen-Edmund, 2019; Milanowski, 2011). Additionally, according to Dwyer (1998), Praxis III is designed to be a complementary assessment to Praxis II. Porter (2010) also notes that while Praxis III scores correlate with the GPAs of music education students, there is no correlation between Praxis II and Praxis III scores. While less common than the Praxis I and II, the Praxis III was used for continual certification, initial licensing, and graduation, yet its usage varied by year and by state. In terms of policy, while Youngs et al. (2003) reported that nine states required candidates to pass teacher performance assessments in 2001, few states specifically used Praxis III for teacher licensing (Porter, 2010). According to Cole, Tonlin, Ryan, and Sutton (1999), some states like Ohio used Praxis III as a mandatory gateway to both teacher licensing and professional certification, also described in Ohio as a “five year professional license” (Moore, 2007, p. 100). Additionally, Geiger (2002) reports that performance assessments were required for program completion in Alabama. In keeping with the intentions of ETS, Youngs et al. (2003) found that Arkansas used the Praxis III as a mandatory requirement for first year teachers between 2001 and 2002. Zirkle, Martin, and McCaslin (2007) found that Louisiana offered Praxis III among multiple routes to teacher licensure. Cole et al. (1999) contended that the Praxis III encouraged collaboration between preservice and in-service teachers while providing teachers with a means for developing a 21 professional electronic portfolio. Additionally, Giebelhaus and Bowman (2002) found that preservice teachers mentored by inservice teachers with knowledge about the Praxis III performed higher on most of the components than those who did not have mentors with Praxis III training. Support from university faculty also appears to impact Praxis III scores. One example of this support came out of Ohio State, where approximately 40 students enrolled in a teacher licensure clinic prior to taking the Praxis III and all passed (Zirkle, 2005). On the other hand, Praxis III did not require teachers to be observed by someone in their content area (Youngs et al., 2003). Additionally, as Conway (2003) pointed out concerning Ohio’s implementation, “There is no money from the state to fund this process, and it is therefore completely up to the school districts to provide competent mentors” (p. 196). Moreover, Firmin, Markham, and Gruber (2015) contended that using Praxis tests for both new and experienced teachers resulted in experienced teachers being replaced by inexperienced teachers. Furthermore, Firmin et al. (2015) explained that Ohio’s House Bill 153 required teachers in “poorly- performing schools to retake” the Praxis, a law they described as dangerous (p. 81). Given the issues of funding, it is notable that ETS has since removed Praxis III, which was designed for the very purpose of observing and measuring 1st year teachers. Instead, the Praxis III has been replaced by the Praxis Performance Assessment for Teachers (PPAT) (ETS, 2017). Furthermore, unlike the Praxis III, the PPAT is designed to “assess the instructional capability of pre-service teachers prior to receiving their teaching license” (ETS, 2018a, p. 5). Furthermore, like the edTPA, Praxis III’s replacement, the PPAT, focuses on “a teacher candidates’ readiness” (p. 6). 22 Alternative Licensing Several researchers have expressed concern about the combination of policy, Praxis, and their resulting impact on teacher education programs. Boyd, Goldhaber, Lankfird, and Wyckoff (2007) note that the highly qualified provision of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) effectively equated graduation from a teacher education program with the passage of a state licensure exam. Hourigan (2011) contends that the highly qualified provision of NCLB and the emphasis on data and recruitment incentives provided through the “Race to the Top” (RttT) grants effectively increased the number of teachers entering the classroom who did not have experience in a methods course or student teaching. This is possible through alternative licensing or certification, which May et al. (2017) describe as: (a) certifying those holding a bachelor’s degree in a field other than education; (b) providing a pathway for interested individuals who did not complete an accredited teacher preparation program, but who wished to obtain the training necessary to become a teacher; and (c) assisting those who hold emergency certification to become fully certified. (pp. 82–83). Moreover, while Geiger, Crutchfield, and Mainzer (2003) report that teachers seeking an alternative license could not teach without having passed the Praxis I, Pool et al. (2004) explain that the Praxis I is not an indicator of future success as a teacher. Likewise, Colwell (2006) states that there is no proven correlation between the Praxis II scores and quality music teaching. Even so, Chen (2016) notes an increase in those enrolled in alternative routes from 2003 to 2012, and according to May et al. (2017), as of 2012, “14.6% of teachers in public school classrooms entered teaching through an alternative pathway” (p. 82). Furthermore, as Nierman and Colwell 23 (2019) point out, “A teacher endorsed to teach English could also be granted a license to teach music on the basis of an acceptable Praxis II score alone” (p. 189). While alternative licensing allows those with a degree to gain certification through passing the Praxis exams, those who major in a field of education may find that they are unable to receive their degree if they do not pass. For example, for students enrolled in the College of Education at the University of Utah (2019), “Failure to meet PRAXIS II testing requirements may delay a student's graduation and successful completion of the student's program” (p. 1) For students in the Early and Elementary Education program at Salisbury State University (2019), “Candidates must pass Praxis II before graduation” (p. 1). Brigham Young University (2019) specifies Praxis II as a requirement and explains the consequences for not passing, stating: A student who does not obtain a passing score on the Praxis II test associated with his or her teaching major must change to a non-teaching major. A student who does not obtain a passing score on the Praxis II test for his or her teaching minor must drop the minor. (p. 1) Similarly, Mitchell, Robinson, Plake, and Knowles (2001) note that Praxis II has been used by universities like Coppin State University as a graduation requirement (p. 285). Reciprocity As previously mentioned, most preservice teachers in the United States are likely to face a standardized measurement in their path to initial licensure. Furthermore, most will encounter the edTPA or the Praxis, though many similar forms of assessment have been developed and used in various states and institutions. However, while edTPA and the Praxis Series are both touted as national assessments (ETS, 2018b; Pecheone et al., 2013), the standardization of these assessments are determined at the state level. As Manna and Wallner (2011) note, 24 Federal policy did articulate a specific definition of quality, which required teachers to possess a bachelor’s degree, full state certification, and expertise in their subjects. As with content and performance standards for students, though, the law left the states to tackle substantive matters. (p. 171) Furthermore, Manna and Wallner (2011) explain that states standardize tests like Praxis through the use of cut scores, “So even though many states could prepare data saying that more than 90 percent of their teachers were highly qualified, expectations regarding substantive quality were by no means consistent or uniform across the nation” (p. 171). The chances of a preservice teacher getting an initial license partially depends on the state in which they seek a license. For example, while ETS (2018c) reports that most states use a cut score of 150 out 200 on the Praxis Core for math, three states use a score of 142. For the Praxis Core writing test, while most states use a cut score of 162, North Dakota uses a 160, and Washington and South Carolina use a 158. According to Hoffman (2016), for the Praxis II: Music Content and Instruction test, while most states used a cut score of 152, Connecticut used a cut score of 168. The Praxis II: Music Content Knowledge is far more varied. ETS (2018c) reported 14 different cut scores used by states, with cut scores being as low as 139 in Hawaii, and as high as 161 in New Hampshire (p. 4). This is similar to circumstances surrounding edTPA, where a student can pass with a 35 out of 75 in Oregon but must have a 41 out of 75 in neighboring California (SCALE, 2018). Despite inconsistencies in test score requirements, most states hold reciprocal agreements with one another. According to May et al. (2017), with the exception of New Mexico, New York, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, every state in the US has taken part in a reciprocal 25 agreement with one another through the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. Implications for Music Education As Porter (2010) notes concerning initial music teacher licensure, it is “all over the map” (p. 461). That said, Porter also notes that standardized testing has become more prominent in music education than ever before. In most states, a music teacher can expect that they will not enter a teacher education program, let alone, graduate, unless they pass a standardized test like the Praxis I. Additionally, in most states, a music teacher can expect that they will not be licensed to teach if they do not pass a content-specific test such as the Praxis II, and depending on the university, may not be able to graduate with a degree in the field of education. The history of ETS and edTPA may account for the inconsistencies in initial teacher licensure. While edTPA is used by 869 teacher education programs (SCALE, 2019b), edTPA measures preservice teacher quality rather than in-service teacher quality. In other words, while edTPA is based on the certification standards provided by NBPTS, it is used for licensing, not certification. Similarly, as Bejar (2017) explains, “Historically, ETS tests have been concerned with aiding the transition to the next educational level and, to a lesser extent, with tests designed to certify professional knowledge” (p. 597). Consequently, while Praxis III was developed for beginning in-service teachers as a means to obtain continual certification, yet the model has also been used for the initial licensing, and even program completion, of pre-service teachers. Praxis II was designed to be used by preservice teachers at the completion of their program for initial teacher licensing, yet it is also used in some cases for graduation, and it is often taken earlier in a teacher education program (Mitchell et al., 2001). Finally, Praxis I was designed for entry into a 26 teacher preparation program, yet the test is often used later in a program and used as a licensure requirement. Many of the issues surrounding the precursors of edTPA, especially the Praxis Series, focus on the way they have been used to distribute data to state, federal, and accrediting organizations. As Robinson (2015) explains, The use of better data is a good step toward improving the quality of music teacher evaluation practices, but without p, even the best data will not lead to appropriate and authentic assessment practices. (p. 16) Furthermore, when data surrounding an assessment is misused, the use of the assessment itself is compromised. For example, Nierman and Colwell (2019) contend that the policies surrounding Praxis and edTPA remove teacher education programs from the decision-making process with respect to initial teacher licensing. Consequently, preservice teachers may find themselves focusing more on test preparation and less on field experience and professional development. Unfortunately, researchers have noted that neither the edTPA nor the Praxis II provide predictive validity of teacher quality (Parkes & Powell, 2015; Payne & Burrack, 2017). Policies regarding the standardized testing of music teachers have led to inappropriate testing of preservice teachers for licensing and a general neglect in developing in-service teachers for continual certification. As Payne and Burrack (2017) explain: Standardized tests reliably measure the pre-service teachers’ knowledge about the profession, but do not directly relate or demonstrate complete understanding of their student teaching semester or first teaching experiences. (p. 14) The precursors of edTPA can be found in more than 30 years’ worth of teacher assessment, policy, standardization, and accreditation practices. Together, they push and pull between 27 measurement for teacher improvement and measurement to determine a teacher’s ability to demonstrate “good teaching” (Braskamp, Brandenburg, & Ory, 1984, p. 15). The tension is likely to disadvantage music educators, since with the exception of Connecticut, there have historically been a lack of evaluation systems that have been specific to music (Conway, Krueger, Robinson, Haack, & Smith, 2002). Worst of all, the combination of edTPA, high-stakes pressures from NCLB and RttT, and data demands from accrediting bodies serve to perpetuate issues of racialized measurement (Au, 2015; Madeloni, 2015). Overall, few precursors to edTPA are music-specific, and the most prominent, Praxis II, has been criticized for the inherent bias of the content (Elpus, 2015; Koza, 2002). The precursors of edTPA have either been silent about music education or have presented a limited perspective of music education, thus calling into question how teacher quality is determined. Nevertheless, schools with music education programs have participated in NBPTS-endorsed (2019) initiatives like edTPA, PPAT, and even the National Observational Teaching Exam, an online-based teacher performance exam involving student avatars (Witherspoon, Sykes, & Bell, 2016). However, one precursor of edTPA, the Beginning Educator Support and Training Program, may provide some ideas for improving music teacher evaluation practices. In 1986, Connecticut passed the Education Enhancement Act, which led to higher salaries, increased funding for mentorship, and the Beginning Educator Support and Training Program (BEST) (Robinson & Krueger, 2003). While they note that BEST is not for everyone, some of the benefits of BEST have included music teaching based on music standards, artistic processes based in creating, performing, and responding, and an integrated peer review of a teacher’s balance of creating, performing, and responding. While the portfolio focused on in- 28 service teachers, it is important to note that each new teacher was assigned to a mentor teacher in music, and university music faculty were actively involved in the conversation. Combined with a three-tiered system going from initial teacher licensing to continual certification, which begins as a student and continues long into a teacher’s career, BEST presents an integrative model of assessment in music education that, with the proper support from the state, can encourage collaboration between universities and schools. Moreover, BEST provides a potential framework for developing opportunities for music teachers to obtain degrees, initial teacher licensing, and continual certification without falling into isolation and individualism (Conway et al., 2002). In essence, music teacher education should not exist in isolated events, but instead should be a community-based experience so that an undergraduate student can collaborate with music peers and mentors at the university level and school district level. By doing so, music education becomes less of a competitive race to the top and more of a communal experience, coming full-circle with the profession. In this first chapter, I have attempted to describe the need for this study. By providing a history of edTPA research and practices in music education, followed by a zoomed out view of teacher evaluation in music education, my goal has been to provide a context for how edTPA emerged in music education, as well as describing the role of music educators in creating and implementing previous evaluation policies. By examining the roles of stakeholders within a single music teacher education program that implements the edTPA, I will be able to see how the edTPA came to be within that institution, how it has changed over time, how different stakeholders have implemented the edTPA, and who wins and loses as a result. Thus, the combination of edTPA policy discourse with perspectives from stakeholders, especially preservice music teachers, supervisors, music teacher educators, and administrators, will help to 29 synthesize new understandings of edTPA’s development and implementation. Furthermore, by examining a critical case, I will be able to gather insights previously unexplored that can inform many music teacher education programs. To better understand my reasoning for conducting a critical case study of an institution’s implementation of edTPA through the lens of critical policy analysis, I will provide a review of literature surrounding the topic. In Chapter Two, I begin by examining some of the justifications for the development of edTPA as policy, with a particular focus on validity and reliability as compared to other music teacher portfolios. I will then shift to examining literature pertaining to the implementation of edTPA, with a particular emphasis on how students have navigated the edTPA as described in the literature. I will conclude with studies of preservice music teacher experiences with edTPA and how these studies compare and contrast with my own study. Purpose and Research Questions In order to better understand the political roles and experiences of stakeholders in the evaluation of preservice music teachers, the purpose of this study is to investigate how one music teacher education program implements the edTPA. Research questions include: How do stakeholders understand the policy framing of the edTPA? How do stakeholders interact with and implement the edTPA? How do stakeholders frame their own sense of power and agency with respect to the development and implementation of edTPA? How do stakeholders describe and make sense of their experiences with edTPA? 30 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction As noted in Chapter One, while preservice teacher evaluations have existed within music teacher education for decades, the edTPA is one of the only national assessments to become policy without the input of music educators. Furthermore, when states adopt the edTPA as hard policy with high-stakes consequences, there can be many potential consequences. This chapter presents a literature review of stakeholder experiences with edTPA. Following this section, I will present a review of literature related to critical policy analysis. I will then conclude by making a case for conducting a critical policy analysis of edTPA in music teacher education. Defining Stakeholders According to Camarena (1999), “A stakeholder is a group or individual who can affect or is affected by an organization’s attainment of its goals” (p. 4). Such groups and individuals hold differing roles and levels of power, and these roles can change over time (Boonstra, 2004). Additionally, As Marshall (2000) explains, given that power is asymmetrical among stakeholders, narratives are fundamentally contrasting, and at times, competing. Furthermore, stakeholders interpret and mediate policy differently at multiple points in time, thus generating struggles and conflict among stakeholders (Ball, 2006; Shahjahan & Torres, 2013). In other words, over a period of time, a stakeholder can hold multiple roles that differ in agency over time. As stakeholders, preservice teachers are the usually the most affected by edTPA and like all members of the music education profession, none were given a voice in the development of edTPA. Consequently, to highlight the voices of the group of stakeholders previously unheard and most affected by the development of edTPA, I begin my literature review with works that 31 feature the voices of preservice teachers and those who have taken the edTPA. I then turn to literature that highlights the perspectives of faculty, including administration, teacher educators, supervisors, and co-operating teachers. Undergraduate student teachers are positioned to experience a variety of policies in education. Some of these policies are found within a teacher education program, such as the completion of coursework and following the guidance of a university supervisor. In their field placements, student teachers develop new professional relationships with their students, their cooperating teachers, and other stakeholders, such as principals, classroom teachers, and the surrounding community. However, many student teachers are also required to meet policies at the state level, including testing requirements and performance assessments, such as edTPA. Consequently, student teachers, or teacher candidates, often navigate relationships with authorities at the university level, the field placement level, and the state level. The purpose of this section is to describe the experiences of student teachers who have been impacted by edTPA. Attention will be given to research that highlights the experiences of student teachers across content areas, including music education. I will conclude by highlighting the experiences of music teacher candidates and consider potential connections to general education. Non-Music Studies in Education Student teacher experiences suggest that edTPA’s intersection with general education is highly varied. Some student teachers perceive edTPA as a form of teacher preparation modeled after in-service teacher evaluations and National Board Certification (Davis, Mountjoy, & Palmer, 2016; Lunsford, Warner, Park, & Morgan, 2016). Other candidates see it as a performance-based form of teacher assessment and accountability (Butler, 2015). Still others view edTPA as a collaborative experimental model of lesson planning (Chizhik, Chizhik, & 32 Gallego, 2017), and at least one student teacher saw edTPA as a guide for differentiating instruction (Huston, 2016). However, while many studies offered a variety of candidates’ perceptions of edTPA, two themes emerged concerning the foundations of edTPA. The first theme involves the videotaping of student instruction, and the second involves the use of academic language in writing and instruction (Shin, 2018). Videotaping Noel (2014) conducted an action research project surveying 23 early childhood education candidates to determine their comprehension and perceptions of the edTPA. Each candidate participated in a methods class that included a mock edTPA in preparation for the real edTPA. The students reported time constraints and a need to understand the language better. Noel (2014) also notes that students who were enthusiastic about the course tended to reference the reflective practice of videotaping as the primary reason for their support. On the other hand, those students who saw the course as a form of edTPA preparation were less enthusiastic. Noel concluded that students benefitted from the experience more when they were thinking about interactions with children instead of the project’s connection to edTPA requirements. Xiao and Tobin (2018) likewise conducted a study of 23 early childhood preservice teachers who were tasked with creating mock edTPAs for a methods class. They found that candidates were initially uncomfortable with videotaping themselves. Yet, by the end of the course, student perceptions were far more positive, and Xiao and Tobin conclude that videotaping should be a practice throughout a student’s experience in a teacher education program. In a separate study of the same participants as Huston’s 2016 study, Huston (2017) included more details of the candidates’ experiences, including how the edTPA’s videotaping 33 requirement helped them to reflect on their practice. One student also expressed a willingness to retake the edTPA due to the reflective component of videotaping their teaching. While the 2017 study is not as explicit in its support of edTPA compared to the 2016 study, Huston expresses in both studies that the video component of edTPA supported the professional development of teacher candidates. In a self-study of 14 students in their Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program at the City College of New York, Kleyn, López, and Makar (2015) found that one of the most positive experiences reported by students involved the videotaping of lessons. Kleyn et al. (2015) note that collaboration increased between students and faculty as a result of the edTPA mandate. As one candidate described concerning her navigating edTPA at the same school as another candidate, “We are lucky to be in the same school working together, I videotaped Amelia this week and she will do it this week for me, it really makes everything so much easier. I am not alone!” (p. 97). Additionally, one student who passed the edTPA found it to be a relevant tool for teacher reflection and “a better assessment than all the other tests that don’t really have to do with teaching” (p. 103). Jackson, Kelsey, and Rice’s (2018) instrumental case study of candidate perceptions of technology mediated observation revealed positive experiences. In their study, Jackson et al. (2018) conducted semi-structured interviews with nine agricultural education candidates about their perceptions of technology implementation in preparation for using edTPA. In addition to reporting themes of reflective practice, one student teacher spoke about a unique collaborative experience when she asked the broadcasting class and teacher at her field placement to assist with videotaping her lesson: 34 He was really excited. He sent me two kids that brought me everything down there. Brought me the microphone, set everything up, came back at the end of class took everything away, and put my video together and sent it to me. It was so easy. (p. 5) Overall, Jackson et al. supported the use of videotaping with edTPA, as they considered the student teacher experiences to reflect an increase in collaboration with students and colleagues. Furthermore, the study affirms the value of videotaping as a means to generate feedback from both colleagues and supervisors (Kleinknecht & Gröschner, 2016). While many studies revealed positive perceptions of the video component of edTPA, Bacon and Blachman (2017) note some concerns pertaining to specific field placements. As a group of student teachers described, Most parents refused to sign the consent form to record their children… many of the parents did not hold legal immigration status and felt intimidated when I showed up with permission slips for them to sign… My students felt like they were being watched by the camera and would get nervous and not work to their full potential” (p. 283) Thus, Bacon and Blachman point out that while student teachers generally appreciated the reflective benefits of videotaping themselves, they were also concerned about edTPA’s mandates surrounding videotaping, especially with regard to the impact on students and their families. Academic Language Using language specified in the edTPA handbook was a challenge for many candidates. Bacon and Blachman (2017) found that the language used in edTPA was voiced by candidates as stressful, “tough to navigate,” “easily misunderstood,” and “very different from language used to instruct us” (p. 282). The challenges were not limited to special education candidates. Miller, Carroll, Jancic, and Markworth (2015) point out academic language issues from an 35 interdisciplinary perspective, stating, “In our experience, candidates tend to struggle with translating the general language from the edTPA task prompts to the design of a specific learning segment” (p. 51). Lahey (2017) also found that teacher candidates struggled with the academic language portion of edTPA. Consequently, Lahey offers a list of principles voiced by preservice and in-service teachers who worked together to navigate the language of edTPA. This included displaying academic language and providing readings that are challenging. Lahey concludes that teacher candidates benefit from working with in-service teachers on academic language in the context of edTPA. Troyan and Kaplan (2015) explain that the writing demands of edTPA reduce personal reflections to impersonal analyses of teaching. They describe a single case study of a world language teacher’s experiences in a class that helped students to navigate the language functions of edTPA. Troyan and Kaplan (2015) found that the candidate’s writing transitioned from personal private reflections such as “I want to pull my hair out” (p. 377) to critical academic reflections, or what the edTPA considers to be objective writing. Furthermore, the candidate believed that removing personal pronouns from the writing was a sign of academic growth, or in the candidate’s words, “How can we write in a more academic way or in a using-“I”-less” (p. 384). Thus, in the same way that the edTPA prioritizes the learning over the learner, it also prioritizes the writing over the writer. The candidate in this study scored a 50 on the edTPA, well above passing. Additionally, the candidate had a degree in journalism before taking this course, prompting Troyan and Kaplan to suggest, “Candidates who bring less formal training in writing or less fully developed writing skills would also need explicit training, practice, and coaching to be successful on the edTPA” 36 (p. 386). Overall, the article reinforces the idea that not only is writing valued in edTPA, but a specific style of writing that is less personal in delivery. Roosevelt and Garrison (2018) build on concerns that edTPA focuses on language at the expense of teaching. They tell the story of a first-grade teacher who said that she could not hear her students’ questions because she was too focused on incorporating behavioral techniques such as appropriate vocabulary and accountable talk. As Roosevelt and Garrison point out, Stephanie cannot hear the children because, as she explains, she is expected “not to entertain ... questions which are ‘off topic’” — she clarifies that this means questions that are “perhaps very on-topic for the book as a whole, but not for the planned teaching point.” There is no room for listening itself, much less for creative improvisation, qualitative intuition, or sympathetic insight. (p. 189) Consequently, Roosevelt and Garrison assert that the edTPA is over-prescriptive, preventing candidates from getting to know their students. Teacher Preparation Due to the sweeping policy implications of edTPA, universities have adjusted their student teacher seminars to focus on the edTPA (Councill & Baumgartner, 2017; Fayne & Qian, 2016; Kim, 2019; Zhou, 2018). Additionally, many students are now taking courses that incorporate edTPA preparation before they begin their student teaching (Bustamante & Novella G., 2018; Lahey, 2017; Ledwell & Oyler, 2016; Paine, Beal-Alvarez, & Scheetz, 2016; Treadwell, Cameron, & Manson, 2017; Williams, Hart, & Algozzine, 2019). Consequently, while candidates usually complete the edTPA during their time in a student teacher seminar, some are also experiencing the edTPA through methods courses. Therefore, I present candidates’ experiences from both contexts in this section. 37 Student Teacher Seminar Bacon and Blachman (2017) conducted a study of 39 student teachers who used the Special Education edTPA handbook over the course of three semesters. Using the framework of disability studies in education, they found that students reported the following benefits: “the reflective piece made me a better teacher,” “the edTPA provided me with insight as to the thought process I should be going through every time I plan a lesson,” “I learned how to identify target behaviors and how to collect data on them,” (p. 281) However, they also reported several drawbacks: I was frustrated because [the edTPA] has taken away from other techniques and practices that could have been learned and applied to better my teaching… I was unable to enjoy my student teaching experience and was unable to become creative because I felt I had to focus on passing the edTPA. (p. 281) Furthermore, several candidates were concerned that the special education edTPA required them to focus on one student at the expense of all students. One candidate also questioned the applicability of edTPA, saying, “The expectations are not realistic [because] a teacher’s job is so much more complicated in an urban setting…can the exam really account for all contexts, especially the Bronx?” (p. 283). Overall, candidates saw the edTPA as an overstandardized infringement of their student teacher seminars. Methods Courses An (2016) conducted a self-study of her experiences teaching social studies methods in the advent of edTPA. While An’s focus was on improving teacher educator practice, course evaluations provided insights into student teachers’ experiences. When An (2016) took a resistant approach towards edTPA by not discussing it in class, students responded, 38 I am not happy that the course didn’t help me with edTPA… I felt the course was disconnected to what we are all going through with edTPA… I am still not sure if I can even have time to teach social studies during student teaching when edTPA will be taking too much time for me. (p. 24) When An incorporated edTPA into the course, the students wrote the following responses: The course helped me understand the edTPA better. It helped me see the big picture of what’s going on in teacher education and education in general. Although I am still overwhelmed, I feel I can better handle it. I liked that the professor explicitly showed how to deal with edTPA, how to teach what I want to teach while doing what I have to do. (p. 24) However, even after the integration of edTPA, one candidate still considered the edTPA portion to be time-consuming, while another candidate worried that they would not have time to teach social studies at all because of edTPA. The preservice teachers in this study demonstrate that the edTPA requirements often eclipse the goals of teacher preparation courses. Paine, Beal-Alvarez, and Scheetz (2016) likewise conducted a study of student teacher perceptions of an edTPA preparation course. There were 45 students in the middle grades and deaf education programs who participated in the course. Paine et al. (2016) found that the vast majority of students felt more prepared to complete the planning portion of the edTPA than the instruction or assessment portion. Additionally, while 95% of students found the prep course to be beneficial during the Fall semester, only 65% found it beneficial during the spring semester. One commented on this saying, “Although this camp truly helped me understand the process, I am still anxious about preparing this in the fall,” while another said, “I wish I had been out of 39 school one semester earlier to avoid this type of stress” (p. 163). Consequently, Paine, et al. suggest that teacher educators consider the implications of timelines in edTPA preparation. State Licensure Requirements In many states, passing the edTPA is a requirement for initial teacher licensing, and each state determines what constitutes a passing score. As a result, edTPA scores have become a source of controversy, as a single number can serve as a gateway into the teaching profession. Consequently, while many candidates have discussed perceptions of scores in the literature, others have questioned the reasoning for edTPA as an initial licensure requirement. Still others resisted the rules and requirements of edTPA altogether. As such, this section considers student teacher experiences with state licensure requirements through the lens of scores, licensure, and resistance. Scoring While Kleyn et al. (2015) found the videotaping to be beneficial for students, they found that the high-stakes scoring of edTPA caused candidates to feel unsure of their ability to pass. One student started crying due to stress, and when students were asked to describe their experience with edTPA using a sound and movement, “Typical actions included ringing their necks while making a choking sound, throwing hands up in the air as if in defeat, punching an imaginary enemy, or an exaggerated sigh of relief” (p. 103). Furthermore, one student failed the edTPA, in spite of being seen as a strong candidate in the eyes of the faculty, and said, “I’m just so disappointed. Disappointed in the sense that I worked so hard on this, and it still wasn’t good enough. It does on some level make me doubt myself because I do love teaching!” (p. 103). Micek (2017) focused on 4 students’ perceptions of edTPA. Three students passed. One student, Hope, failed the edTPA because her video did not upload onto the edTPA platform. 40 However, like one of the students in Kleyn et al.’s (2015) study, Micek (2017) reports that Hope found the edTPA to be an important assessment, stating, “They force you to be a good reflective teacher” (p. 96). That said, Hope reported a lack of support from her cooperating teacher, and another candidate wanted more support at the university level, such as “sample [edTPA] tasks” (p. 94). According to Micek (2017), “edTPA can prepare candidates for a summative assessment early in their teaching career” (p. 97). However, Micek’s descriptions of student experiences suggest tensions with this idea. For example, when students were asked about the easiest parts of the edTPA, one student responded, “Nothing” (p. 93). Furthermore, Hope described the assessment task as “not so easy” (p. 95). Consequently, she wrote 10 pages of commentary for Task 3 “so the scorers would think that she knew what she was talking about” (p. 96). Thus, Micek’s article presented a dialectic of opinions between the teacher educator, who viewed the edTPA as supporting student teachers, and student teachers like Hope, who did not. Davis and Wash (2019) reported student teachers having similar problems with the assessment portion of edTPA. Likewise, Hildebrandt and Swanson (2014) examined the scores of 21 world language teacher candidates and found mean scores below expectations exclusively within the assessment rubric. Kim (2019) also found the mean assessment scores of 16 art education students to be the lowest out the three edTPA tasks at East Carolina University. Likewise, Brown (2018) conducted a study of early childhood candidates and found that the candidates scored the lowest on the assessment portion of edTPA. In 2018, Greenblatt conducted a study of teacher candidates and educators to learn about the potential consequences of edTPA in New York City. The mean edTPA score for the 61 participants was 59.26, or above mastery level. However, in spite of high scores, interview data 41 from the study revealed several negative experiences with edTPA. One student teacher described the edTPA as time-consuming and stressful. Another candidate noted that the high-stakes nature of edTPA forced them to focus less on professional development and more on satisfying an anonymously-scored portfolio. Another student teacher feared the scoring process and was concerned that teaching in a low-income school would cause her to be scored lower. Some student teachers spoke about the authenticity of the edTPA and gaming the system to pass. Student teachers talked about tailoring their lessons to the edTPA rubric, tailoring who was in their class samples to make the assessment easier to pass, and writing hypothetical lesson plans for edTPA that they described as “fictitious” (p. 822). One candidate in Greenblatt’s (2018) study described doing whatever is necessary to achieve a passing score: You know what, I want to be a teacher, so I’m just going to shut up and do what they tell me to do. I literally went back at the end and added 30 more times of using jargon just to give them what they want. (p. 821) Okraski and Kissau (2018) found that content specificity in student teacher seminars was also important, especially with respect to scores. In a study of 496 student teachers, they found that student teachers who participated in content-specific student teacher seminars (i.e. science, art, etc.) felt more prepared and scored significantly higher on the edTPA than candidates who attended non-content-specific seminars. As Okraski and Kissau (2018) point out, one student who attended content-specific seminars “explained that her instructor helped her to connect her language instruction with what her students were learning in their content classes” (p. 694). Conversely, one student who did not attend content-specific seminars said, “I wish [the seminars] would have been more relevant to my content area. I felt like, as a math student 42 teacher, I was in the clear minority, and not a whole lot was done to support math specifically” (p. 696) Furthermore, students reported the content specific seminars to be more consistent in communication than the non-specific seminars. This became especially critical in conjunction with edTPA, as one student explained: “Instructors should take the time to make sure that they are clear on the edTPA format and criteria to create more uniform instruction on the process [because] there was plenty of contradictory information” (p. 697). They conclude by recommending that teacher education programs provide content-specific seminars to enhance edTPA performance. Chandler-Olcott and Fleming (2017) examined English pre-service teacher perspectives on edTPA for the purposes of initial teacher licensing. They note that edTPA’s connection to teacher licensing calls into question who benefits from the edTPA: All stakeholders agreed that it represented a partial picture of what candidates knew and could do in the classroom. Nina, a teacher candidate, articulated this shared position best, arguing that the assessment was limited because it did not ask what she saw as crucial questions: “Why are you doing this? Why do you want to teach? Why, why do you want to go through all this work, for assessing and for planning? Who is it really for?” (p. 31) Additionally, Chandler-Olcott and Fleming found that student teachers had inconsistent views of the edTPA, whereas cooperating teachers generally had more negative perceptions, and supervisors had more positive perceptions. Clayton (2018) conducted a mixed-methods study of student teacher perceptions of edTPA and found conflicting themes pertaining to the benefits and mandates of edTPA. One candidate shared that she failed the edTPA, causing her to want to reflect on how she could 43 improve. Yet, as Clayton (2018) explains, “This same candidate shared that she did not have time to reflect on her teaching because ‘you have to go home and do edTPA’” (p. 111). Clayton notes contradiction from participants that are temporal in nature as well: If I was [sic] talking to you during the edTPA, I’d say this was horrible and would be super stressed. . . . Now that it’s over . . . it gave me a lot to think about and to write about. . . . It was a good reflection practice. (p. 111) Still another candidate expressed positive perceptions of the edTPA until she found out that she received a low score on managing student behavior: The fact that I saw it afterwards and handled it afterwards . . . I did reflect on it. . . . I didn’t ignore it. I addressed it. And it didn’t make a difference. I still got dinged. . . . Isn’t that a good demonstration? When you have a kid act out in class and you handle that. Isn’t that part of teaching? . . . It doesn’t sit well with me to say, here, put on a show. Teaching is not a show. (p. 112) Greenblatt (2016) asserts that the edTPA works to deter students from teaching. As one teacher candidate who did not go into public education explained, I recognized that the kind of profit-motivated managerial control through ‘evaluation’ that the edTPA represents would be a continuing feature of any career teaching in state- controlled education. (p. 54) Another candidate who considered the edTPA to be “a good step toward a more valid assessment of how teachers teach” offered a practical reason for edTPA’s hindrance: “We were so busy planning around it that we sometimes actually had to turn down teaching opportunities!” (p. 52). Consequently, Greenblatt believes that edTPA may lead to teacher shortages. 44 Resistance Greenblatt (2018) found that while some candidates focused on compliance, others expressed concern about the ethics of edTPA in conjunction with public education or chose to not enter into public school teaching. As one candidate explained after passing the edTPA: My personal philosophical and ethical views about the importance of learning and education in a democratic society have led me to reject these high-stakes assessments and the authoritarian neoliberal ideologies and business interests that support them. (p. 820) Greenblatt concludes that while student teachers described the edTPA as rigorous, student teachers also described experiences that suggest the edTPA to be problematic. Dover and Pozdol (2016) framed an English student teacher’s experience through the paradigm of critical compliance. Under the guidance of a supportive mentor teacher and supervisor, the student teacher developed an edTPA portfolio using hip-hop: I want to take chances. I want to take that which I’ve built from scratch, what I’ve put my own creative energy into, and give it a go. After all, this is work that I believe in [but] . . . I can’t get out of the headspace that reminds me that I’m being constantly watched. (p. 44) The article does not say whether or not the student teacher passed. However, the article suggests that in the midst of the struggle between criticality and compliance with edTPA, narratives from multiple stakeholder groups, including student teachers, are critical to the edTPA discussion. Meuwissen and Choppin (2015) found that in the absence of receiving help from supervisors and cooperating teachers, student teachers developed a subculture of collaboration with one another. As one candidate explained, 45 We were all very into this mindset that we couldn’t talk to anyone [about our edTPA products]. So we started a secret Facebook group where we would post things on the wall about how to do certain things. . . . That was my primary source of help the semester I completed the edTPA. (p. 12) Candidates began to have secret meetings to proofread each other’s work. They also found YouTube videos labeled as edTPA, which as one candidate noted, “seems very incongruent with their confidentiality policy” (p. 13). Candidates even met together to discuss how to speak to cooperating teachers who were unfamiliar with and/or against the usage of edTPA. Essentially, when faced with supervisors, cooperating teachers, and an edTPA handbook, student teachers turned to each other to develop their own professional learning community. Cooperating School Programs and Supervisors In an early ethnographic study of music education candidates, Krueger (2014) found that students navigated between the priorities of university teachers and the priorities of cooperating teachers. Furthermore, these navigations shaped student teachers’ perceptions of teaching, and in turn, their career trajectory. However, student teacher perspectives from the past five years suggest that edTPA has entered into the balance of what student teachers must consider throughout their field placement experiences. Consequently, the experiences suggest that student teachers are navigating new realities in music education and education as a whole. Therefore, in addition to examining experiences with cooperating school programs, this section will also consider how student teachers are navigating relationships of power. Behney (2016) conducted a mixed methods study of 22 world language candidates’ perceptions of edTPA and found themes of disconnect between candidates and their cooperating teachers. For example, in order to pass the edTPA, one student teacher described having to 46 deliberately teach differently from the cooperating teacher. Student teachers also described cooperating teachers who were unaware of the edTPA requirements (Behney, 2016): Nothing. Zero. No guidance. No mentoring, no nothing…she was told from my supervisor and from my university that she’s not allowed to help me. Because of a lack of guidance, I didn’t do well on my edTPA, I think. (p. 280) Furthermore, Behney (2016) noted that student teachers who found their cooperating teachers to be knowledgeable about edTPA usually scored above the cut score, while those who did not have access to a knowledgeable cooperating teacher usually scored below the cut score. Overall, Behney (2016) points out that a major challenge for student teachers is balancing the need to fulfill a cooperating teacher’s expectations while also fulfilling the expectations of edTPA. As one student articulated, “It was kind of difficult to navigate both expectations, you know, being a guest in her classroom, her wanting her classroom conducted with a certain methodology that didn’t really align with what I was supposed to do with the edTPA.” (p. 284) In other words, Behney (2016) points out that students teachers are pressured to impose the values of edTPA within a cooperating teacher’s classroom, thus attempting maintain a positive relationship while simultaneously devaluing the knowledge that the cooperating teacher and community members within that setting have to offer. Kissau, Hart, and Alogozzine (2019) likewise found that teacher candidates benefited from being placed with cooperating teachers who were knowledgeable about the edTPA. In their study of 161 teacher candidates, Kissau et al. found that the 10 students placed with cooperating teachers who received professional development on the edTPA reported higher mean scores than the control group. Furthermore, while the 10 students placed with cooperating teachers with knowledge of edTPA all passed, 41 candidates in the control group received a failing score or an 47 incomplete. Kissau et al. conclude by recommending mandatory edTPA training for cooperating teachers. The matter of student teachers having factors beyond their control is a critical one, and educators have argued on Ravitch’s blog that it could be grounds for a lawsuit (Gorlewski, 2013). Meuwissen and Choppin (2015) found that edTPA’s implementation shifted policy control from teacher education programs to the state. Furthermore, they interviewed 24 candidates in New York and Washington and found that students were often left to navigate power relationships between themselves, their supervisors, their cooperating teachers, and the edTPA handbook. As an elementary candidate stated, “[Our program faculty] told us to read the [edTPA] handbook, just read the handbook. You can only read the handbook so many times... And you can’t really ask your supervisor for help” (p. 11). Strong words were also exchanged between supervisors and cooperating teachers, as one candidate describes: My cooperating teacher was trying to change my edTPA lessons, and my professor had to come in and say, “This is her exam, she has to do this. . . . This is what she has to show for edTPA.” And my cooperating teacher was not happy about that. . . . My professor had to run interference and say, “Look, this is her exam. Changing it is basically cheating, so back off.” (p. 12) The tensions between supervisors, cooperating teachers, and the edTPA policies also affected candidate relationships with administrators who in some cases discouraged students from recording students for edTPA. Consequently, candidates were forced to navigate multiple tensions that had little to do with enhancing their experiences. Overall, student teachers perceived their experiences with edTPA as power struggles that had little to do with actually assessing their readiness as teachers. As one teacher explained about 48 their edTPA submission, “I didn’t have much freedom. I didn’t feel like what I taught really had much to do with me” (p. 17). Student teachers felt that the edTPA did not reflect mentoring and relationship building: “My program focused a lot on nurturing the child as a whole, and the edTPA didn’t focus on that part of teaching” (p. 14). Instead, student teachers felt pressured to comply with a system that led to feelings of anxiety over development. As one candidate shared, “My cooperating teacher could just see how stressed I was trying to manage edTPA and her lesson plans. So I felt that it took away from my [student teaching] experience” (p. 17). Shin (2018) notes in a study of student teacher experiences of early childhood candidates in New Jersey that most student teachers described their experience with negative themes like “anxiety...stressed…drained…nervous…overwhelmed… mental breakdowns…lost sleep…” (p. 2). Shin also notes candidates felt detached from their students and cooperating teacher. As one candidate explained, Students often felt that they were performing and that’s not something that I wanted the students to feel when I came to the classroom. My CT [cooperating teacher] also didn’t seem too thrilled about this portion of the student teaching experience. (p. 3) Overall, Shin’s take on student teacher experiences with edTPA can be summed up in the in vivo title: “The edTPA took away from my student teaching experience” (p. 1). Consequently, researchers like Ratner and Kolman (2015) are examining how teacher educators in some universities are attempting to support teacher candidates, even to the point of sometimes breaking the rules embedded within edTPA. Still other researchers like Seymour, Burns, and Henry (2018) contend that cooperating teachers see that candidates are often stressed about the edTPA and wish to be more actively involved in their students’ completion of edTPA. 49 Faculty Like students, faculty experiences with edTPA vary. However, while student teachers viewed often framed the edTPA through the idea of the mechanics, faculty tended to focus much more on the values of edTPA. Thus, two themes emerged from this review of edTPA. This first pertains to faculty’s conflicts with or for the edTPA, and the second pertains to faculty’s agency to express conflict with or for the edTPA. Conflict Gurl et al. (2016) pointed out that while the edTPA was primarily developed by reading and math teachers, some math faculty expressed concerns regarding the edTPA. For example, while the faculty responded to demands that the edTPA be integrated into their curriculum and assessment course, they chose to make the edTPA count for 10% of the grade solely on the basis of completion, as the edTPA prevented faculty from viewing a student’s portfolio. Furthermore, while every student who submitted the edTPA passed, Gurl et al. pointed out that their feedback was negative, as students viewed the edTPA as teaching to a test and in spite of faculty embedding edTPA into the curriculum, “The number of times the edTPA was discussed were apparently more powerful than our attempts at avoiding this perception” (p. 59) Furthermore, while the faculty supported the edTPA as they considered it to parallel the Common Core Standards and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ standards, cooperating teachers often did not agree with or buy in to the edTPA. In a separate study of English/Language Arts Education faculty, Gurl et al. (2016) found similar results pertaining to the edTPA impacting curriculum, though the consequences to appeared to be more adverse. As Gurl et al. explained, “assignments had to be eliminated or significantly altered in both semesters of our only two English methods courses in order to 50 accommodate edTPA requirements, and not in ways that conform to the goals of the program” (p. 83). Additionally, they explained that out of 22 student teachers who took the edTPA, three failed. What particularly concerned them, however, was why they failed, saying that their portfolios were too creative and did not focus enough on academic language. Consequently, while they believed that the edTPA could be used to deepen learning for students during their coursework, they were concerned that the edTPA scores oversimplified teacher quality especially considering they found several student teachers who passed to be potentially less qualified than others who did not pass. In still another study of social studies education faculty, Gurl et al. (2016) found that the edTPA was responsible for ending previous relationships with cooperating teachers, as the teachers in those placements found the edTPA to interfere with the curriculum in their placements. What’s more, even when the faculty found teachers who would work with their candidates, the student teachers explained that the edTPA limited opportunities for inquiry and learning due to the requirement that students must submit 3-5 consecutive lessons that follow the guidelines of the rubric. In other words, given that many students have social studies every day, it means that the scope of the edTPA is limited to a concept-based rubric and only 3-5 days of instruction, which they argue, discourages opportunities for exploration and higher-order thinking. It should also be noted that while other student teacher portfolios such as the STP (Draves, 2009) recommend that student teachers teach 3 lessons for their portfolio, the scoring in that context is local, and student teachers may choose to include as many consecutive lessons as they wish. However, Gurl et al.’s (2016) study points to ways that faculty have found the edTPA to restrict P-12 student learning. 51 Social Justice Education Just as Gurl et al. suggest that suggest that the edTPA may discourage creativity and higher-order thinking, Kuranishi and Oyler’s (2017) study likewise posits that some theoretical frameworks may also be marginalized by the edTPA. Using collaborative oral inquiry, they conducted a self-study with the goal of understanding why the first author failed the Special Education edTPA. As Kuranishi and his teacher (Oyler) explained: Although Adam did exceptionally well in all of his courses and received extremely positive reviews on all program assessments— including 12 clinical teaching observations and four formal three-way evaluations…Adam failed the edTPA. (p. 300, emphasis in original) Adam also did not qualify for a second review, because his score was considered too low for a second review. However, one of the faculty members was an edTPA scorer. Upon review, the faculty scorer believed that all fifteen rubrics should have scored above a 2 except for one. What’s more, the lowest scores were found in the instruction portion where he primarily focused on implementing Universal Design for Learning and culturally sustaining pedagogy. Consequently, Kuranishi and Oyler concluded by questioning edTPA’s commitment to inclusivity and cultural responsivity in special education. As an associate professor and former high school teacher, Au (2013) conducted an informal self-study of his own institution and found that while the edTPA prompted interdisciplinary discussions about curriculum alignment across the institution, it also caused students to steer away from topics usually discussed in the teacher education program, such as social justice and policy. Furthermore, one of his students described the edTPA as specific, scripted, and inauthentic, saying, “The prompts provided by Pearson did not allow me to fully 52 express my teaching philosophy. In the three days I taught my edTPA learning segment, I lost a little of the joy that I find in teaching” (p. 1). Nevertheless, Au (2013) accurately concluded that the edTPA would be co-opted by the use of high-stakes testing and value-added measures (VAM) of teacher effectiveness, as edTPA writers Pecheone et al. (2016) have claimed predictive validity by connecting edTPA scores to the test scores of P-12 students who end up being in that teacher’s class in the years following the teacher’s completion of the edTPA. Additionally, Goldhaber, Cowan, and Theobald (2017) was one of the studies included as SCALE’s primary sources for claiming predictive validity on the basis of VAM, yet no references are made to the authors hesitancy about the findings or the consequential impacts of edTPA. Instead, Pecheone et al. (2016) point to a simple but alarming point that edTPA scores can predict whether or not someone gets hired, thus pointing to the idea that the stakes of edTPA scores go beyond initial teacher licensure, and into employment. In keeping with Au’s concerns regarding the impact of edTPA on teaching about social justice, Picower and Marshall (2017) conducted a study of 183 teacher educators from 14 states regarding the impact of edTPA on preparing culturally responsive student teachers. Several familiar themes emerged from the surveys, including concern about the corporatization of teacher education, narrowed curriculum that excludes CRT, and a decrease in candidates of color. Furthermore, as Picower and Marshall noted: Most TEs (70 %) reported that edTPA did not enhance their ability to prepare teachers for diverse settings and children with 59 % of TEs reporting that because of edTPA, their departments/school spends less time focused on issue of diversity. The strongest response was to questions related to how edTPA affects candidates. Most TEs (70 %) reported that 53 they believed their candidates’ ability to effectively teach diverse students in a range of settings was affected by the implementation of edTPA. (p. 201) As such, the participants recommended allowing for local scorers who know the candidates, developing an assessment framework focused on cultural competency, and putting less focus on writing skills. Finally, beyond their recommendation that the high-stakes mandate be removed, they reframed the reality of high-stakes itself, writing: In our current context in which our nightly news and social media feeds provide an onslaught of stories of racialized police brutality, hate crimes against members of the Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual, Queer, and Intersex (LGTBQI) community, domestic violence and harassment of women, and the rapid expansion of wealth inequality, it is clear that the stakes are too high to allow preparation of candidates to effectively examine and respond to issues of diversity to fall by the wayside. (p. 206) In other words, Picower and Marshall posit that the priorities of edTPA are misguided, and teacher educators should be spending less time on edTPA and more time on developing cultural competence. Behizadeh and Neely (2019) conducted a case study of their own institution. Based on their analysis of 16 candidates, most of whom were student teachers of color, they found, in their words, “that edTPA distracts candidates working in urban schools with historically underserved students from focusing on social justice education” (p. 16). While candidates saw the edTPA as an opportunity for reflection and assessment, negative impacts included mental and financial stress, design, detractions from students teaching, narrowed curriculum, time (one student noted that their edTPA involved 40 pages of writing), and effects on the profession. Behizadeh and 54 Neely also point that while instructors’ perspectives were not included in the study, the institution’s pass rate was 95%, suggesting that critiques regarding the edTPA had little to do with problems concerning the effectiveness of instructors in preparing candidates, but rather focused on problems with the edTPA itself. Dover (2018) likewise emphasizes that success with the edTPA does not equal support. In a mixed-methods study of 148 student teachers majoring in a variety of fields including music education at an institution in the Midwestern United States, 96% of them passed the edTPA, and a majority felt supported and prepared to take the edTPA as a result of their program. Nevertheless, according to Dover, “Candidates described their edTPA experience as distracting, redundant, and poorly aligned with their goals as preservice teachers” (p. 11). Moreover, students reported spending over 60 hours on the edTPA and effectively took over “all other expectations because edTPA took over everything” (p. 23). Dover (2018) also pointed out that while culturally responsive teaching is emphasized at the institution, it is not a rubric requirement, and only 4% of respondents found the edTPA to encourage candidates to employ it as per their previous coursework. Last, contrary to Whittaker et al.’s (2018) pressures that faculty must comply with edTPA for the sake of supporting student teachers, the student teachers insisted that faculty should speak out against the edTPA, especially with regard to the high- stakes pressures. Agency Other social justice education scholars like Henning, Dover, Dodson, and Agarwal- Rangath (2018) have spoken out against edTPA by turning critical self-narratives to emphasize the impact of edTPA as policy. In their self-study, researchers Dover and Dodson both worked at 55 universities that used the edTPA, though the approaches in resisting the edTPA were quite different. Dodson refused to participate in implementing or teaching the edTPA, writing: Knowing that other states had opted not to adopt edTPA, I felt outraged that my TEP was participating in this scam. As justice-oriented teacher-educators we thrive on the nuanced relationships between teachers and students that cannot be easily be measured with a standardized assessment. Our TEP had not so long ago crafted a conceptual framework to guide our curricula, course offerings and ethos to produce teachers who would be competent, caring, culturally responsive, collaborative, and committed, all while engaging in reflective practice. edTPA didn’t support our theoretical framework. So, I decided I wouldn’t support edTPA. (p. 21) Dodson also expressed concern that by not participating, the burden of edTPA would be heavier on her colleagues, and her lack of perspective during meeting would potentially marginalize the school’s social justice curriculum. Dover’s approach involved accepting an institutional appointment as edTPA coordinator during her first year as a tenure-track professor. Having spent over 2000 hours together with colleagues learning about the edTPA, she described herself as “a justice-oriented cog in a neoliberal wheel” (p. 16). Furthermore, after writing a critical study on the edTPA, Dover explained that writers of the edTPA in Dover’s state responded with a marketing campaign that personally attacked Dover and others who opposed the edTPA, describing them as “cranks” and getting in the way of students’ and parents civil rights to quality education. Dover described the experience, writing: It was awful, and without the support of extremely supportive colleagues and administrators within and beyond my college, would have been unbearable. What I found 56 especially troubling was that many of the actors involved were teacher educators fiercely advocating for a flawed policy that they had come to see as their only means of preserving and protecting the field. It seems that in the hotly contested, market-driven landscape of TPA policy, teacher educators are ourselves being repurposed as neoliberal weapons in the “war against teachers.” (p. 19) Overall, Henning et al. present two narratives of social justice teacher educators who took very different approaches. Yet they both point to the ways that Pearson and the edTPA discourage critical collaboration. Thus, the authors believe that knowledge pertaining to the edTPA must be shared by members of the teaching profession to encourage critical collaboration among faculty across the United States rather than only hearing about edTPA from those who developed the edTPA. One reason for the relative lack of studies in edTPA beyond the scope of self-studies may be attributable to Pearson’s regulations. As teacher education administrators and faculty Carter and Lochte (2017) pointed out, “Pearson closely guards all aspects of the edTPA, requiring scorers, education faculty, and students to sign non-disclosure contracts which have succeeded in silencing those most knowledgeable about the inner workings of the edTPA.” (p. 19). Another reason for the lack of studies may be due to a systemic silencing of teacher educators. In an examination of edTPA’s impact on social justice teaching, Edmundson (2017) pointed examples of silence and fear in his own conversations with faculty: As noted at the beginning, the author had to promise confidentiality to some faculty informants due to fear of the consequences of openly speaking of their concerns about the impact of the edTPA. One faculty member suggested that there was a “taboo” about criticizing it across Washington. The expectations of silence are often phrased as “we all 57 need to be part of the team,” or “this is happening, so get with it.” But the not-so-hidden message is that those who are critical may not be on the team much longer. This is why a number of the footnoted references are to anonymous “personal communications.” (p. 151) Thus, Edmundson pointed out that one teacher educator was told that she would not be rehired only days after she published an article criticizing the edTPA. One institution even told a faculty member, “If they didn’t like it, the institution would ‘find someone who did.’” Consequently, Edmundson posited that the higher the stakes, the less likely an institution will tolerate dissent, which may then account for the lack of critical studies regarding the edTPA from the perspectives of faculty in such situations. Fortunately, some faculty like Dover, Schultz, Smith, and Duggan (2015) have provided context for the inner workings of edTPA such as scoring, although their insights are worrisome. First, they point out that edTPA tutoring services can cost up to $885 or more and are advertised on sites like Craigslist and YouTube, suggesting that the edTPA is market driven from of outsourcing teacher evaluation. Furthermore, as one of the authors applied to be a scorer, they were concerned, as “the author was offered the job after a five minute telephone interview that included no discussion of curriculum, pedagogy, student learning, or any other aspect of teacher preparation” (p. 5). Moreover, the author was told that she would first be paid $10 an hour to receive 19-24 hours of training. After that, “She would be compensated $75 for each 50-80 page portfolio she scored; Pearson suggests scorers spend 2-3 hours on each portfolio” (p. 6). Consequently, beyond the edTPA pressuring student teachers to pass through the use of high- stakes consequences, the edTPA effectively incentivizes scorers to go faster, even to the point of spending only about a minute and a half on each page. Last, they point out that rather than 58 examining the portfolio holistically, the scorers are required to look for specific evidence according to the rubric and are encouraged to give higher scores to portfolios that include artifacts like graphic organizers as they were told by an edTPA scorer, “if it looks good, you can get the passing score” (p. 7). Overall, Dover et al.’s insights point to the idea that in addition to the edTPA being inauthentic for student teachers, it is also inauthentically evaluated. In a separate article, Dover and Schultz (2016) point out that as faculty members, they too have been deeply involved in the edTPA process, writing: Collectively, members of our faculty have spent hundreds of hours developing, delivering, and attending edTPA-related seminars, and many early-stage courses now include edTPA-related modules. (p. 103) Building on their commitment to teacher preparation and helping students to pass the edTPA, they point out that in contrast, edTPA scorers are held far less accountable than any stakeholders within their teacher education program. For example, while a representative of SCALE criticized edTPA tutoring sites like passedtpa.com no legal action has been taken against these companies (additionally, passedtpa.com is one of the sites used by the institution that researched for this study). Beyond the lack of accountability for tutoring sites and services, they point out that some scorers have worked as tutors to the point of adjusting student teachers’ wordings of their edTPAs in order to better the chances of a student teacher passing. In short, while the stakes for faculty, students and other stakeholders within the institution are high, the accountability for scorers is low. Some faculty and administration like Gitomer, Martínez, Battey, and Hyland (2019) have also called for a possible moratorium on edTPA, especially for consequential purposes. In their article, they explain that the high-stakes consequences of edTPA make the statistics of edTPA 59 misleading and lacking validity and reliability for the purposes of policy. Notably, as a write of the edTPA, Pecheone (2019a) was quick to respond on behalf of SCALE and Pearson, writing, “We categorically reject the conclusions of the recent Gitomer et al. (2019) article and firmly reject the call for a moratorium on the use of edTPA” (p. 1). Yet, in spite of Gitomer et al. (2019) focusing on the proposed moratorium of edTPA on the basis of more than 20 references to high- stakes, Pecheone (2019a) made only two references to high-stakes, stating that it is valid on the basis of its seven years of operation and its “high degree of quality control and accuracy” (p. 2). Nevertheless, the Gitomer et al. (2019) have demonstrated that critical analyses of the edTPA by university faculty are still emerging concerning the edTPA, even seven years after it was first enacted as policy. While empirical studies regarding faculty perceptions of edTPA, many blog posts and opinion pieces are filled with perspectives from faculty, as well as other stakeholders. Thus, some areas of open debate among teacher educators regarding the edTPA can be found online, such as on Diane Ravitch’s blog. Gorlewski (2013), for example, spoke to issues pertaining to how the edTPA is often implemented in states without parental consent, and then it coerces parents into consenting to having their children videotaped. Furthermore, Gorlewski criticized the anonymous scoring process, saying that it was getting in the way of relationship-based education and reducing candidates to a number. Given the online context, Gorlewski drew criticism from others, including Frank Livoy, the coordinator of Alternative Routes to Certification at the University of Delaware, Janine Shafer, a National Board Certified art teacher, Beverly Falk, a professor and former employee for SCALE, NBPTS board member Renée Middleton. The blog post also drew response from Adkins, a writer of the edTPA, who wrote: 60 Here I sit the evening before my 80-yr old mother heads into back surgery, and yet I am moved to respond to this, so let that be a tell. I believe this assessment is a significant step forward for our profession, formed by our profession, informed by the national board process, to create a standard of practice for entry level teaching that we have not yet had. We have allowed informal standards of practice to suffice for judgement for readiness. If we get fussed up now, I’m not sure what that means for us. (p. 1) Similarly, another writer of the edTPA, Jon Snyder, responded to the post, writing, One of the basic arguments here seems to be: 1. Pearson is bad. 2. Pearson distributes edTPA. 3. Therefore edTPA is bad. That is a little bit like saying: 1. McDonalds is bad. 2. McDonalds serves green salads. 3. Therefore green salads are bad. (p. 1) Still another writer of edTPA and director at Stanford, Andrea Whittaker, joined in the opposition of Gorlewski’s post by writing, “edTPA scorers DO appreciate the diverse experiences of teacher candidates in a range of settings because they themselves work in these settings every day” (p. 1) Overall, the comment thread from this blog post continued from 2013 until 2016, and while it included many individuals who were directly invested in edTPA and its affiliates, the post also featured comments from student teachers, teacher educators, and even Diane Ravitch who eventually posted in the comments section, “On edTPA: I oppose standardization and outsourcing of human judgment” (p. 1). Madeloni and Gorlewski (2013) asserted their opposition to edTPA as a form of standardization and outsourcing, and also noted that “edTPA is a 40-plus-page document featuring Pearson’s logo” (p. 1). Yet, the authors took the outsourcing and standardization a step further by asserting that their experiences as faculty with edTPA were interfering with their work 61 in facilitating identity development. Having previously received positive feedback from students regarding their work in facilitating social identity development during class, the first author began to receive frustrated messages from students regarding the edTPA. One student in particular wrote, “It seems you should either focus on the TPA or ignore it, but I don't see how we can do the TPA and have those other conversations” (p. 1). Madeloni and Gorlewski also pointed to ways that the edTPA has become a way to devalue educators in general. For example, as one professor described a meeting with student teachers after piloting the edTPA as “the most wrenching, heartbreaking hour of my profession career as a teacher educator,” and wrote that even though the edTPA was not high-stakes at the time, they still felt compelled “to fabricate and backtrack and lie to make their teaching fit” according to edTPA’s demands (p. 1). Still another professor was in trouble with her university for refusing to sign Pearson’s non-disclosure agreement, and she wrote to the authors, “I decided to leave my position and retire from the state system. I will not return to this insanity this fall” (p. 1). In summary, Madeloni and Gorlewsi opposed the edTPA as dehumanizing and called for educators to view education as a human experience that involves conversation, conflict, and love. Music Education Few studies in music education have discussed student teacher experiences with edTPA (Koziel, 2018), but those studies out there contain themes similar to those found in general education. For example, Heil and Berg (2017) conducted an intrinsic case study of seven music teacher candidates’ perceptions of edTPA at the University of Colorado Boulder. Heil and Berg (2017) note that one student teacher, Jennifer, was skeptical of edTPA before she started, as she found an article online saying that edTPA was ineffective. Additionally, her friend told her that the edTPA “took away from the student teaching experience” (p. 186). The issue of academic 62 language also emerged, as another student, Ben, commented: “I love how it taught me to look at my language and anticipate how my words will be... (mis)understood.” Consequently, another candidate, Cassandra, expressed frustration about writing 9 pages of commentary for edTPA instead of focusing on creative planning. Similar to some of the general education studies, the student teachers problematized the timeline for completing edTPA, the standardization of edTPA, ambiguous prompts, a lack of help from mentors, and isolation from cooperating teachers and students within their field placements. Furthermore, another student teacher expressed a disconnect between holistic teaching and what is measured by edTPA, saying, “We want to be good comprehensive teachers and build that in our students and.... we couldn’t show that” (p. 188). Instead, candidates felt pressured to avoid creative lessons in order to pass the edTPA. As another student teacher said, “It creates cookie-cutter teachers who learn to teach to the test” (p. 189). Consequently, the student teachers in Heil and Berg’s (2017) study expressed a desire to resist edTPA and related policies centered on performativity. As Cassandra explained, As far as mobilizing, I really appreciate so much that we’re having this conversation now. I felt like we were told “grin and bear it.” Which is the complete opposite of social justice and all the things we have been taught. (p. 190) In summary, Heil and Berg recommend student teacher seminars as an ideal environment to discuss the politics of standardized assessments like edTPA. In Meuwissen and Choppin’s (2015) study, one music teacher candidate attempted to translate the language of edTPA for the cooperating teacher to no avail: When I got [to my placement], I told my cooperating teacher about [edTPA] and he . . . hadn’t even heard about it. So I was the first person to come to him, or anybody in the 63 school, and they had no idea. He said, ‘Okay, bring in your packet and we’ll go over it.’ I brought in the handbook, and I was trying to explain it, and he said, ‘Figure out how to explain this to me and come back tomorrow.’ I didn’t know what to say. I was like, ‘Everything I need to do is here in the handbook.’ And he was like, ‘This is a language I don’t understand.’ (Music teaching candidate, June 18, 2014) (pp. 11–12) Furthermore, one music teacher candidate was likewise frustrated about attempting to prepare students for consecutive edTPA lessons as student absences would get in the way: The first day I was all set to do edTPA; I had practiced with three kids, and I was ready to do the video, and one wasn’t there. The second lesson, he was there, but after that, I had one more lesson to go and he wasn’t there again. So we held off and I taught them something totally different. And I said, ‘Okay, we’ll just do this lesson next week.’ . . . So now these kids are two weeks behind... but it was staged in a way where we were like, “Here’s your next lesson!” (p. 15) Consequently, while Meuwissen and Choppin are not music educators, the music education participants in their study pointed to issues of disconnect within their field placements that also emerged in the general education research. Similarly, York’s (2019) study included one participant who had previously earned a Master’s degree in music education and passed the edTPA. While the participant is currently an inservice teacher, the participant described the edTPA as disconnected from practices in the classroom, saying: Again, edTPA is not an educational tool for assessment in performing arts. It is a process that is meant to certify teachers through a rigorous analysis and writing. Music professionals, like me, are not trained to have a nuanced use of language. I found the 64 process frustratingly convoluted and unhelpful to the art and science of teaching. We can do better. (p. 87) In other words, just as Meuwissen and Choppin (2015) found the edTPA to disconnect student teachers from real teaching, York (2019) found that a current inservice music teacher still felt the edTPA to be disconnected to current practices in music. Koziel (2018) examined the perceptions of music teacher educators, not student teachers. However, several participants in the study described their student teachers’ experiences. For example, one participant found that student teachers were concerned about edTPA being mostly about writing: I heard it from at least one student last year and another student this year saying, ‘What's the point behind having to write so much,” because it's writing intensive and both of those students last semester and then now are not strong writers” (p. 71). Scores were also a concern, as one teacher educator noted: “The teacher candidates are ‘racing around trying to do everything that's on the rubric so they could get good scores’” (p. 75). Furthermore, Koziel notes that consequential experiences for teacher candidates included “stress and burnout” (p. 102). Similar to Heil and Berg (2017), Koziel (2018) wrote, Respondents reported that the teacher candidates wanted to teach music because it meant something special to them and they did not want to be constantly assessed, especially with instruments that don’t allow them to teach creatively. (p. 118) Overall, Koziel’s study, though limited in its examination of student teachers’ perceptions, shows themes consistent with student teacher experiences in the general education literature. With respect to edTPA, music education candidates are reported to experience stress, time constraints, more focus on writing, less focus on teaching, and creative constraints. Additionally, 65 Koziel recommends that more research be done on the experiences of all music education stakeholders, especially music teacher candidates. As a matter of policy, some music educators and institutions have been outspoken advocates for the edTPA. Using a politics of policy framework, Olson and Rao examined the high-stakes implementation of edTPA in Illinois and found that Illinois State University had a 99% pass rate, as well as several individuals who strongly advocated for the edTPA, including edTPA developer Adkins. Furthermore, music education faculty such as David Snyder (2014, as cited in Olson & Rao, 2017) expressed support for the edTPA, writing: Future classes at ISU will actually see examples of previous students’ written commentaries, sample assessments, and lesson plans. All of the music education faculty will require their students to use standardized lesson plans that address the required elements in the edTPA, and they will also require reflective writing assignments during their clinical teaching events that align to the various prompts in the portfolio. It is hoped that this added preparation will both strengthen the instructional skills of future teacher candidates and continue the trend of passing scores on this evaluation. (p. 386) It is also notable that Illinois State University was the only institute of higher education from Illinois to have faculty directly involved with writing the edTPA standards, though none of them were music educators (Pecheone et al., 2013). As such, Olson and Rao (2017) point to potential differences in ideology, and power to define teacher quality as the primary sources of debate with respect to the edTPA. Not all universities with music education faculty have responded the same way. For example, Bernard, Kaufman, Kohan, and Mitoma (2019) submitted a policy paper that opens up the conversations to multiple voices. In their study, they evaluated their music education and 66 elementary education programs at the University of Connecticut and spoke with student teachers, faculty, and cooperating teachers. Overall, they found that the edTPA diminished the learning experiences of candidates, perpetuated systems of inequity, and applied “developmentally inappropriate standards” for stakeholders (p. 1). Furthermore, Bernard et al. recommended that the state suspend implementation of the edTPA and instead consider alternative assessments that are more flexible, developmentally appropriate and supports the recruitment of historically marginalized teachers. Still other music education faculty and administrators have formed coalitions to state governments regarding the edTPA. Powell, for example, appealed to the Texas State Board for Educator Certification, mentioning in the appeal that one of the challenges for teacher educators today is that corporations like Pearson hold a great deal of power, and he concludes with the hope that teacher educators’ narratives will prove to be equally powerful in rebutting Pearson’s claims (personal communication, December 5, 2018) Powell and Parkes (2019) bring several years of experience into their analysis of edTPA, as they both trained to be edTPA scorers. During their initial experience, they noticed that portfolios were often scored higher if a student offered names of education theory, even if they were out of context. Furthermore, out of dozens of portfolios in which the first author observed scoring, not one score of 5 was given on a single rubric. Over the years, Powell and Parkes have not only written on the edTPA, but they have also advocated to their respective state governments to prevent the edTPA from being fully high-stakes. Moreover, while Powell continues to lobby policymakers regarding the edTPA in Texas, Parkes successfully advocated in New York for the Multiple Measure Review Process, “for teacher candidates who do not pass the edTPA, but can score within two points of the passing score and can demonstrate that they are 67 prepared to become a teacher of record” (p. 8). In summary, while Powell and Parkes (2019) recommended some short-term ways to improve the initial teacher licensure experience, they ultimately that all accountability-driven standardized assessments be abolished. While edTPA writers Pecheone et al. (2018) argue that faculty attitudes are often the problem and not edTPA, music educators like Cronenberg et al. (2016) offer compelling counterarguments. The researchers who collectively came from four different universities, conducted a self-analysis of their experiences as doctoral students and professors who were responsible for piloting the edTPA with 100 student teachers. Notably, they initially viewed the edTPA as a positive alternative to a multiple-choice test and worked collaboratively to determine how to implement the edTPA within their curriculum. Yet, as they pointed out, We approached this with a positive attitude but emerged with a skeptical one…Instead of preparing students to be teachers, i.e., to plan, teach, assess and reflect we felt trapped by the practical realities of the test, i.e., doing things “the right way” in order to score well on the rubrics. (p. 109) As a music educator, the lead author noted that the pressure on students to follow the rules of edTPA caused her to feel disconnected to her own critical philosophies of teaching and learning. Feeling forced to meet the demands of edTPA, she wrote: Contrary to my own examined beliefs, I found myself consumed, in helping my students to prepare for the edTPA, assuming a rule-following “just give them what they want” mentality. What I demonstrated to my preservice undergraduates this year was that the only way to succeed was to fill in the bubbles, completely, with a number 2 pencil, and to be sure not to color outside the lines… Like a buzzing overhead light that gradually fades from consciousness, my words about thinking critically and reflecting became 68 background noise and my actual message was received loud and clear: follow these rules and you will become a teacher. (p. 120) She described the edTPA a catalyst that caused her to cross personal and professional boundaries for the sake of helping her students to pass, including the distribution of her personal contact information and spending far more one-on-one time helping students on demand. Furthermore, Cronenberg expressed regret over feeling absorbed with edTPA and wrote: The regret I have over this has plagued me for weeks, making me exhausted, sad, and angry in a cycle of emotional turmoil from which I struggle to escape. While students appreciated my help on the edTPA, I am completely deflated by my preoccupation with the rules. What kind of teacher do I want to be? When my beliefs are tested, where do I stand? (p. 120) Overall, Cronenberg’s narrative provides a powerful account of how the edTPA presents not only a systemic impact of student teachers, but also on the faculty who help candidates to pass. While most music education faculty who have written about the edTPA have focused on policy and self-narratives, other music educators like Musselwhite and Wesolowski (2019) have expressed concerns about the edTPA on statistical grounds. Specifically, they examined edTPA’s reports of validity and reliability based on statistical analysis by focusing on music education. First, contrary to Pecheone et al.’s (2013) claim that females scored higher than males on the edTPA, Musselwhite and Wesolowski found that these differences could not be found in music education. Additionally, the planning rubrics and assessment rubrics were found to be much more difficult than the instruction rubrics. Moreover, another critical concern addressed by Musselwhite and Wesolowski pertained to the underusage of categories 1 and 5 on every rubric, as well as unexpected results from rubrics 9 and 14, suggesting that the overall rating structure is 69 compromised. Beyond these results, they also point out, “90% of scores are confounded with the rater, which leads to a large amount of variability and a lack of reliability. Therefore, the estimation of scores is not necessarily an accurate representation of student performance” (p. 16). In terms of validity, while Pecheone et al. (2016) claim validity through score linearity on the basis of item response theory, Musselwhite and Wesolowski (2019) point out that the edTPA only reports the full measure rather than breaking down linearity among the raters, performers and rubrics. Finally, Pecheone et al.’s statistical range falls outside the parameters for high-stakes usage, thus exacerbating an already dubious model for decision-making. Overall, Musselwhite and Wesolowski strengthen the argument that independent analyses of the edTPA are critical to the future of music teacher education. The work may also provide context to Powell and Parkes’s (2019) assertion that scores of 5 were never given during Powell’s time when he observed the scoring process. Student teachers have functioned, in essence, as a community. They share a common language of teaching and learning which they developed during their time as students. They have learned from mentors in their community, and they have co-constructed knowledge and plans to contribute to the next generation. The edTPA brought new technology and the promise of better teaching, and many have found these ideas to be exciting and beneficial. Yet, for many student teachers, edTPA also brought new mandates and requirements that changed their community. Student teachers described the edTPA as a new language that was valued over their own. Many stopped focusing on the learning goals of their instructors and started thinking about how they could pass the edTPA. Student teachers valued cooperating teachers less for their experience as teachers, and more for their knowledge of edTPA. Students experienced more conflicts and less opportunities for creativity. Student teachers were marked as ready to teach or 70 not ready to teach based on a single number, and this edTPA score affected many candidates’ senses of well-being. In some cases, the edTPA led to teachers leaving public education. However, some have resisted, choosing to risk a lower score for the sake of connecting with the people in their field placement and breaking the rules. Student teacher experiences suggest that candidates do not enter teaching because they love assessment. Instead, they enter teaching because they love teaching. The same can be said for music and music educators. Critical Policy Analysis Critical policy analysis, or CPA, focuses on paradigms of dominance and subordination in education, as well as those who seek to disrupt them (Apple, 2019). Additionally, Apple (2019) lists several policies that have prompted a need for such an analysis, such as standardization, continuous competition, notions of who is considered to be a “good” member of a school community, and what knowledge is valued as important. Furthermore, Apple does not see CPA as research done by an objective observer, but rather as subjective work that requires researchers to work relationally and be willing to reposition oneself. As Apple (2019) puts it, “We should constantly try to see the world through the eyes of the dispossessed and act against the ideological and institutional processes and forms that reproduce oppressive conditions” (p. 280). By doing so, Apple posits that CPA can contribute to understanding the ideological, social and economic contexts that inform the development of educational policies. In addition to examining hierarchies of domination and subordination, critical policy analysis also considers ideas of affords researchers with opportunities to consider policies across time and space. Many critical analyses of policies across time and space were primarily rooted in the work of Michel Foucault (1978/2009), who transitioned in the 1970s, as his editors noted, 71 From the analysis of wealth to political economy, from natural history to biology, and from general grammar to historical philology, while noting that this is not a “solution,” but a “problem” to be investigated more deeply. (p. 106) Furthermore, as Foucault began redefining constructions of problems pertaining to political economy, biology, and philology, Foucault’s approach transitioned from discourse analysis to “a genealogy of knowledge/power/relations” (p. 11). For the sake of comparison, while Foucault views discourse as an “archeology of knowledge" the purpose of genealogy is to, in Foucault’s words, reconstruct the function of the text, not according to the rules of formation of its concepts, but according to its objectives, the strategies that govern it, and the program of political action it proposes. (p. 59) By reconstructing policies through their purposes, strategies, and action, Foucault posits that genealogy first allows the researcher to “move outside the institution and replace it with the overall point of view of the technology of power,” that is, the framing, implantation, and differential impact of power among groups and individuals (p. 163). Second, Foucault argues that genealogy permits the researcher to examine the imbalances of law, discipline, and security, and to consider a policy’s “strategies and tactics that find support even in these functional defects themselves.” Finally, Foucault offers genealogy as a means for “grasping the movement by which a field of truth with objects of knowledge was constituted through these mobile technologies” (pp. 163–164). As such, genealogy rejects the norms and measurements provided within the institution and instead seeks to consider how the policy became mobilized in the larger field of knowledge. 72 Through the enactment of policy genealogy, or an examination, Foucault lays the groundwork for critical policy analysis that rejects institutional objectivity and function, and instead considers how policy economies, relationships, and networks perpetuate the legitimation and differentiation of power across time and space. Furthermore, Foucault’s invitation for researchers to move outside of institutional structures has prompted scholars to write countless articles, books, and manuscripts using similar approaches. Moreover, as Ball (2019) points out: Some of his texts are ‘writerly’ texts: that is to say they offer the reader an invitation to participate in the thinking about the problem, to engage in some co-production of ideas (p. 2). Thus, Foucault (1978/2009) opens the doors for critical policy analysis of genealogy, power relationships, reflexivity, mobilization, and most importantly, participation. Ball (2016), for example, uses critical policy analysis in tandem with Foucault’s work to examine “policy networks” within the educational system (p. 549). Ball posits a reimagining of power economies within education that is transmitted through organization, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. In other words, using the work of Foucault’s concept of power networks, Ball was able to map the mobilization of policies across spaces. However, one limitation to this approach was the absence of an analysis of genealogy. Nevertheless, Ball (2019) has written extensively on the topic of genealogy, as he describes the approach as a retelling of the history of liberalism. In the same way that policy networks reject the notions of linear hierarchies of power, Ball explains that genealogy rejects continuities of history and instead focuses on complexities, modalities, and disparities of power across time. In Ball’s commentary on Foucault: 73 Through genealogies, he retells the histories of disciplines, institutions and practices drawing on excluded and hidden texts or voices, therefore troubling the hegemony of established histories. As in relation to power, Foucault was also interested in the ‘other side’ of history – in ‘subjugated’ and ‘disqualified’ knowledges (p. 6) Thus, Ball asserts that both a genealogical approach and an analysis of policy networks can challenge taken-for-granted notions of policy and considers how policies are used for the purposes of dominance and silencing. As Young and Diem (2018) explain, when using CPA, “Policy is viewed as something to be critiqued or troubled rather than accepted at face value” (p. 79). Conversely, they explain that TPA focuses on making and adjusting policies, setting goals, and accumulating knowledge for implementation. Furthermore, TPA assumes that researchers can evaluate the entire process of evaluation and amelioration. In contrast, Critical Policy Analysis critiques every one of these processes. Building on critical policy analysis as a Foucauldian approach, Olssen, Codd, and O’Neill (2004) outline the potential benefits of Foucault’s influence. According to Olssen et al., Foucault’s contributions to CPA include the analysis of how schools are developed, how people with differing roles of power conflict with one another, and how history influences all ideas in education. Reviewing literature on “school failure” through CPA, Olssen et al. conclude that previous literature makes the mistake of separating groups of varying intersections rather than seeing them as connected in the context of genealogy. In other words, by shaping and reshaping the historical context of policy, a variety of policy frameworks and approaches are possible. 74 CPA and General Education While some researchers have sought to explain the definition of critical policy analysis, others have highlighted why researchers choose CPA as an approach to research. Diem, Young, Welton, Mansfield, and Lee (2014) for example, conducted interviews with 19 scholars known for their work with CPA. They found that the participants were concerned with growing disparities among people groups in education, an increased power centralization in education, and globalization in education policies. Furthermore, participants were frustrated with the stagnative nature of traditional policy analysis and interested in the expansion and evolution of CPA. Overall, while Diem et al. argue that there is no strict definition of CPA, there are common features that allow researchers to engage in a variety of purposes, methods, and combinations of theoretical frameworks. Some researchers use multiple approaches to critical policy analysis. For example, Cahill (2015) used CPA to examine inequalities in Ireland’s educational system, with a particular focus on social class inequality. Using Ball’s paradigms of policy text, discourse, and effect, Cahill uses CPA “to reposition social class as an important conceptualization in the educational equality debate and emphasize the centrality of class position” (p. 303). Another component that CPA researchers have repositioned in education policy analysis is the role of enterprise and industrialization. Smyth (1999) conducted a critical policy analysis of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Centre for Educational Research and Development. Smyth found that one of their documents, Towards an Enterprising Culture, that while initially appearing positive by using words like creativity, curiosity, and, teamwork, the document also uses the words enterprising as a euphemism for an education centered on business, dominance, testing, greed, competition, and self-interest (p. 75 443). Smyth’s study concludes that the rushed policy proposals found in the document undermine the importance of critical thinking and meaning making, and that policy makers need to be held more accountable for their rushed policies. Feminist CPA While Stephen Ball has often taken ethnographical approaches to critical policy analysis, others in the field such as Marshall and Anderson (1994) have opted to use frameworks such as feminism and postmodernism. Marshall and Anderson describe Feminist CPA as built on the premise that gender inequity is purposeful and that the dominant political agendas in education fundamentally benefit males. Furthermore, as Marshall and Anderson (1994) explain, “Feminist critical policy analysis is research that conducts analyses for women while focusing on policy and politics, and it asks about every policy or political action, ‘how does this affect females?’” (p.172) While Marshall and Anderson (1994) use a different framework from that of Ball (1994), both focus on the challenging discourses of policy that are taken for granted, giving voice to those who are often marginalized and silenced in education. Feminist Critical Policy Analysis has also been used in higher education. Building on the work of Marshall and Anderson, Shaw (2004) used Feminist CPA to examine welfare reform legislation from 1996 in the United States to examine the law’s impact on access to higher education. Shaw describes Feminist CPA as a framework that employs the following tenets: • “Gender must be a central focus of the research… • Gender, race, and other factors vary the effects of a particular policy… • Rely primarily on data collected on the lived experiences of women… • Designed to transform the institution or arm of the state in question” (p. 59). 76 Using Feminist CPA as a framework, Shaw (2004) found that the dominant notions of “moving off the welfare rolls” that were touted within discourses of welfare reform were contradictory to the actual increases in poverty for women (p. 74). Furthermore, Shaw found that the legislation adopted a “work first” discourse that did not recognize university studies as employment. Consequently, Shaw reports that working mothers were especially disadvantaged through the welfare law, often preventing them from access to higher education. While many CPA studies are housed in the realm of qualitative research and analysis (Young & Diem, 2018), others contend that there is a need for both qualitative and quantitative CPA research (Apple, 2019; O’Connor & Netting, 2011). For example, Padilla-Gonzalez, Metcalfe, Galaz-Fontez, Fisher, and Snee (2012) suggest Feminist CPA as a framework for conducting a quantitative study examining correlations between gender and research productivity. They found that by including gender as only one question within a broad set of questions limited the potential for analysis. Consequently, Padilla-Gonzalez et al. (2012) suggest using more variables, such as family care responsibilities, as they found significant differences in gender gaps concerning research, a notable difference from the previous studies. Furthermore, by using CPA, Padilla-Gonzalez et al. note that researchers can find missing voices by paying more attention to the questions that they ask. Similar to Padilla-Gonzalez et al.’s examination of missing data, Maslak (2003) conducted a comparative analysis of Education for All’s implementation of policies in South Asia. As Maslak (2003) notes, “That which is not contained in the documents may help to further our understanding of the policies’ shortcomings” (p. 82). Similar to Padilla-Gonzalez et al.’s (2012) study, Maslak (2003) found that even though factors such as school attendance were broken down by gender, the data failed to address the conditions that might influence girls’ 77 participation in school. In other words, Maslak points out that Education for All’s research does not take into account the social conditions affecting girls in each country funded by Education for All, thereby perpetuating issues of inequity and a lack of policy accountability. They conclude by positing that if stakeholders acknowledge the realities of power structures, then policy can be challenged. Feminist CPA has been used both as a method and a theory. Mansfield, Welton, and Grogan (2014b) used Feminist CPA to ask the question, “How well are women and minoritized others faring as a result of the current STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] discourse?” (p. 1155). By using Feminist CPA as a method and a theory, Mansfield et al. (2014b) had access to many methods of data collection, including policy documents, web sites, and news outlets, while simultaneously being able to focus on three states: Virginia, Illinois, and California. Using the constant comparison method, they found that the federal government enticed schools to implement STEM without providing adequate funding. They also found that the STEM initiative, combined with a stagnant economy, became unjust reasons for blaming teacher educators, who were mostly female. They also found STEM curricula to be rooted in discourse that “equates Western knowledge and sciences with the rational, European male” (p. 1175). They conclude that instead of repositioning policy that blames women and minoritized others, work must instead be done to facilitate human agency and fix the policies that negatively position individuals. While some scholars have used CPA through the lens of Feminism, others have considered CPA in conjunction with race. Anderson (2012) used Critical Policy analysis to examine how people of color have been underrepresented in higher education. In Anderson’s words (2012), 78 I contended that a significant and growing disjuncture existed between three levels of higher education that were critical to ensuring equity and access for historically underrepresented students: institutional practice and pedagogy, research and scholarship, and policy formation and analysis. (p. 133) Furthermore, Anderson builds on the work of Harper (2012), who explained that policy institutes in higher education generally fail to acknowledge issues with racism and contends that few studies have connected policy in education with race (see also Riehl, 2018). For example, Harper contends that few studies employ critical race theory [CRT] in higher education policy analysis. Critical Race Theory (CRT) and CPA Critical race theory acknowledges systemic racism, critiques dominant myths, and challenges norms through the use of counternarratives by voices of color. While Bell (1980) is often credited in legal studies as one of the founders of CRT (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995), the theory was expanded into education by scholars, including Gloria Ladson- Billings (1998). More recently, Hess (2017) and Bradley (2012) have used CRT as a framework for examining music education, while researchers such as Thornton (2018) and McCall (2018) have presented autoethnographic counternarratives pertaining to access and cultural capital in music education. Still other researchers such as Robinson and Hendricks (2018) have used double-consciousness as a framework in examining “how Black people in a White dominated society view themselves in relationship to the world they encounter” (p. 2). While Robinson was not referencing the framework of CRT, the work highlights the importance of counternarrative in challenging paradigms of white supremacy in music education and considering the political implications of counternarrative. 79 Until recently, critical policy analysis and critical race theory have rarely intersected in research. However, in 2017, Chandra Gill, Cain Nesbitt, and Laurence Parker wrote a chapter on the value of combining critical race theory with critical policy analysis, especially in the context of education. In their research, five themes emerged pertaining to the combination of CRT and CPA: • Both differentiate policy rhetoric and policy realities • Both consider the origins of policy versus the changes over time • Both consider systems and distributions of power • Both consider the systemic impacts of policy • Both seek out non-dominant groups’ reactions to policy Among the most important aspects of combining critical policy analysis with critical race theory is centering counternarratives by voices of color, or people of color who challenge dominant discourses. While few studies have employed CRT with CPA, Mansfield and Thachik (2016) used both to examine Texas’s Closing the Gaps 2015, “which aims to increase achievement and educational attainment for all along the educational pipeline, especially students of color” (p. 3). In addition to discussing the tenets of CRT including the “permanence of racism” (p. 4), “the centrality of counter storytelling” (p. 4), and the “faultiness of liberal thought” (p. 5), Mansfield and Thachik also focus on “the role of interest convergence,” or the question of how much dominant groups benefit from social justice initiatives. Furthermore, Mansfield and Thachik (2016) found that Closing the Gaps 2015 failed to address issues of segregation and unfunded mandates. They conclude by recommending that the state acknowledge a history of racial injustice. They also suggest including teachers, principals, parents, students, and community 80 members in policy discourse, financing the new policies, and utilizing provisions within the DREAM Act to increase the number of students going to college. Alternative Approaches to CPA in Education As researchers have worked to differentiate traditional policy analysis from CPA, Others have worked to explain where emerging critical frameworks have fallen short of accounting for systemic oppressions embedded within policy. Chase, Downs, Pazich, and Bensimon (2014) consider Kingdon’s (1984) multiple streams theory as valuable for its ability to highlight windows of opportunity and the unpredictability of policy. Chase et al. also highlight punctuated equilibrium theory as important for understanding how policy can progress in small increments over long periods of time and large increments in short periods of time. Last, Chase et al. highlight the advocacy coalition framework as important for understanding how different groups come together for the purposes of accomplishing a common policy interest. However, Chase et al. (2014) contend that these three frameworks are too traditional in that they do not account for “the differential impact of educational policy on minoritized and White students” (p. 674). Other researchers have used CPA to critique policies that have been developed on the basis of problematic frameworks. For instance, Kariwo, Gounko, and Nungu (2014) conducted a critical policy analysis of the higher education system in Zimbabwe and found that the pressures of globalization have led to an absence of local values and opportunities for ideological contributions. Consequently, Kariwo et al. explain that higher education systems have shifted in philosophical approach between Marxist ideas, capitalist ideas, and alignment with countries such as China. Yet, as Kariwo et al. point out, Zimbabweans’ values were often missing from policy discourse, and even as the universities grew by a factor of twelve over twenty years, the finances guaranteed to universities were not consistently met, and students who owed money to 81 the universities were even at times turned away from attending lectures. Kariwo et al. concluded that CPA was useful in seeing Zimbabwe’s progress in expanding access to higher education while also pointing out the need for consolidation and local voices within policy discourse. Chase et al. (2014) describe critical policy analysis as an alternative model of policy research. In their words, “The critical approach to educational policy emerged in the 1980s as a critique of social reproduction and discourse and defines policy as the practice of power” (p. 674). Furthermore, using CPA, Chase et al. reviewed drafted policies from seven states and found many of the higher education state transfer policies to ignore race, and therefore, needing accountability reporting. Furthermore, Chase et al.’s research highlights how inequities in policy are often hidden from public discourse. Consequently, by using CPA to analyze policy, researchers can begin to read between the lines and determine who wins and loses as a result of education policies. While holding on to globalization as a primary theoretical framework, Taskoh (2014) goes on to say, “This study relies on critical policy analysis (CPA) as its theoretical perspective” (p. 11). Taskoh used CPA to conduct a case study of internalization within higher education in Ontario. Taskoh (2014) defines internationalization as “a process of integrating international education into the curriculum in order to increase international cooperation, enhance national security and improve economic competitiveness” (pp. 22–23). Furthermore, Taskoh contends that by using CPA to investigate the practice of values, the study shows that while policies in Ontario enhance international cooperation and help students to thrive in a global economy, what is often lost are the humanitarian values in favor of economic values. Overall, Taskoh used CPA to reveal the contradictions in perceptions of whose voices are heard and who benefits in policy discourses, especially administrators benefiting and being heard more than students. 82 Not all CPA studies use an established theoretical framework. Winton (2012), for example, used a grounded theory approach to examine the policy cycles found within the Toronto District School Board’s Safe Schools initiative. Winton examined how the policies impacted racialized students and found that expulsion rates increased over five years by a factor of 10, with a disproportionate number of Black students being expelled under a zero-tolerance policy. As Winton (2012) explains upon analyzing the board’s final report, “One of its major findings was a board culture characterized by ‘a ‘culture of silence’ borne of fear of political or bureaucratic reprisal or both’” (p. 132). Overall, while the district did not keep track of racial data during this time of increased suspensions and expulsions, Winton concludes that finding the data is possible, and that critical policy analysis is useful in exposing sustained inequities. A few researchers consider CPA to be a theoretical framework. One example is Shahjahan and Torres’s (2013) study of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s International Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes, or AHELO: Using a critical policy analysis framework, we critically examined publicly available AHELO texts such as the OECD’s AHELO website, promotional material and declassified documents available on the website. (p. 609) By using this open approach to CPA, Shahjahan and Torres (2013) were able to cite theories as they emerged from interpreting the data. For example, they found that AHELO used global comparative assessment of college students, thus reifying tenets of neo-liberal public choice theory. Furthermore, Shahjahan and Torres conclude that AHELO relegates students to the role of consumer, universities to the role of commodity, and the economic market as the agent of trust. They conclude that the current trajectory will place AHELO as the global eye for quality control in higher education. 83 Critical policy analysis has also been used to analyze discourses in higher education. McDonald (2008) used CPA to investigate meanings of the term “academic freedom” (p. 1). McDonald analyzed the policies of 37 universities that used the term and found some commonalities, but no universalities, in the definitions of academic freedom. Distinct meanings of academic freedom included intellectual freedom, a right to inquire, participation in public debate, role as critic and conscience, voicing opinions about the university, and participation in governance and representation. Even so, McDonald writes that the freedoms are loaded with contingencies rooted in managerial language and reward systems that restrict the very freedoms that are purported by the universities. McDonald’s conclusion of a need to articulate fundamental rights pertaining to academic freedom serves as a reminder that discourses based in freedom have often been manipulated to limit academic freedom to a select few. While the Feminist CPA and CRT both consider voices missing from policy discourse (Mansfield, Welton, and Grogan, 2014a), still other frameworks consider missing values. Joo and Kwon (2010) used hermeneutics, or the interpretation of discourse, in conjunction with CPA to consider “invisible, but significant values that have been ignored within the current lifelong education system in South Korea” (p. 223). Using CPA through the framework of hermeneutics, Joo and Kwon examined The Social Education Act from 1982 and found themes such as the institutionalization of lifelong learning and unmet promises with respect to welfare. In other words, the policy was effectively a top-down initiative that has left citizens of South Korea feeling more like recipients rather than active subjects involved with the process. Joo and Kwon conclude that the initiative was too similar to initiatives often found in Europe, and the policy needs to be modified to honor cultural values pertaining to autonomy, integration, and active participation. 84 While the above researchers have considered multiple theories that can be used with CPA, others have considered new methodologies as well as theories. Jasmine Ulmer (2016) used diffraction as a methodology, which allows for multiple layers of analysis using multiple theoretical approaches. Using a theory of political ecologies and borderlands, Ulmer conducted a diffractive critical policy analysis of teacher leaders’ interactions with educational policy. As Ulmer (2016) explains, the borderlands framework is a metaphoric and geographic representation of personal and professional intersections that consider how identities are systemically separated, and how they are crossed. Additionally, Ulmer uses a political ecologies framework to serve as a metaphor for ecosystems in education, especially in the context of teacher leadership. Ulmer found many areas of tension, including idealism with realism, bridging roles as teacher and leader in multiple community contexts, self-image as a teacher-leader with others’ perceptions, authority without actual power, and inadvertently causing tension with stakeholders in the process of building relationships. Furthermore, Ulmer (2016) reports that some teacher-leaders were removed from leadership or even left teaching, yet the general consensus was that teacher-leaders were still better than having leaders from outside of education influencing pedagogical practices. Overall, Ulmer’s work serves as a parallel to O’Connor and Netting’s (2011) summary of CPA: The risks are high, but meaningful. Diem et al. (2014) found similar issues with managerial systems of punishment and reward through the lens of teacher evaluations in the United States during the 2010s. In their study, Diem et al. describe CPA as a set of frameworks, and they use them to highlight emerging themes in education, including heightened accountability, innovative redistributions of government authorities, and competition through reward-based funding structures. Furthermore, Diem et al. (2014) used CPA to examine United States policies such as “Race to the Top” to 85 analyze how words like leadership were being redefined to mean things like management, surveillance, performativity, and accountability. While CPA has been used in education for decades, it has been used far less often in music education. Furthermore, there are no frameworks that are unique to music education that use Critical Policy Analysis. However, there are frameworks related to CPA and unique to the arts. Paralleling the ideas of CPA as transformative (O’ Connor and Netting, 2011), Ingram and Drinkwater (2015) frame artistic expression as a form of analysis that disrupts dominant paradigms, working well with critical theories such as feminism and decolonization. Furthermore, paralleling Ball’s ideas of genealogy, Ingram and Drinkwater posit, “The critical use of the arts becomes a new way of imagining and speaking out about the ‘decoloniality of being’ and linking back to other ways of knowing and being that are grounded in the standpoint of the global common” (p. 176). Consequently, Ingram and Drinkwater (2015) posit an art-driven framework that is critical, creative, and collaborate. Using this three-pronged framework, Ingram and Drinkwater conducted a study in Canada of seven young women aged 14 to 19. One critical finding included a repositioning of gender and citizenship values from being construed as natural to being seen as reproduced by people in authority within their community. One creative finding included a need for more critical literacy and space for critical reflection. They also suggested that students have the chance to create and imagine new endings to books they may read in class. Findings from collaboration included the young women co-constructing knowledge, partnerships, and systems of support within their communities. While CPA is considered by some to be an inappropriate framework for offering policy solutions (O’Connor & Netting, 2011), CPA can be used to offer questions and implications. For 86 example, Mahony and Hextall (2000) conducted a critical policy analysis of the standards, performance, and accountability movement in England and concluded by offering an alternative agenda of inquiry. Their inquiry focused on the professional development of teachers, the privileging, marginalizing, and silencing of stakeholders, the development of inclusive procedures, and the role of conflict in education (pp. 158–159). Overall, Mahony and Hextall (2000) offer questions that speak directly to education as a whole, including music teacher education. Music Education and CPA To date, Kos (2018) is one of the only researchers to have published research in music education using critical policy analysis. Kos notes that while policy research in music education has increased, most of the research focuses on the National Standards for Music Education, sacred music, disability studies, assessment, evaluation, charter schools, and education laws in the United States. Furthermore, studies in music education have rarely focused on the synthesis of policy topics, problems, and solutions. Kos then explains that while a few studies have looked at the histories, locations, and implications of policies, they had not framed the policies as problems with causes, effects, or potential remedies. Kos (2018) did consider three articles outside of the realm of CPA to potentially be framed as CPA on the basis that they offer policy problems and solutions: Elpus (2011) and Vagi (2014) both looked at merit pay. Vagi drew primarily on psychological studies of motivation whereas Elpus drew on practical issues. Parkes and Powell’s (2015) analysis of edTPA presented a strong overview of the problems associated with the assessment and made policy recommendations. (p. 205) 87 It is important to note that Kos (2018) differentiates policy analysis, “empirical studies that illuminate the nature of a policy problem, investigate policies’ effects, or describe implementation” (p. 205), from policy research, “the systemic investigation of the various ways in which social problems can be addressed through policy” (p. 204). Furthermore, while referencing over a dozen studies as policy research, Kos declares that the studies are mostly value-neutral, and that CPA requires the adoption of a critical and ethical stance. Consequently, Kos (2018) offers the following questions for critical policy analysis in music education: • What are the origins of the policy? • Who was responsible for the policy’s development? • What was the justification for the policy’s development? • Who stands to gain and lose because of the policy? (p. 207) Using this framework, Kos examined the history of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Kos found that the National Association for Music Education, or NAfME, contacted its members urging them to contact their representatives. Furthermore, an advocacy alert was posted on the NAfME website, press releases were submitted, and approximately 10,000 letters were sent to congress. Kos made no mention of music in describing congress’ justification for the well-rounded provision that included music but stated that congress’ inclusion of more subjects was a tactic to gain support. Kos (2018) then states that the inclusion of music came at the price of losing the word “core” in describing the arts, meaning that while performance organizations and corporations may benefit from the change, music educators may not be so fortunate (p. 213). Even as few studies in CPA are focused for music education, few CPA studies have likewise focused on any one specific academic discipline. However, Rata (2014) contends that 88 CPA can be used as a research method for a single academic discipline. Rata posits a research methodology that focuses on three stages of educational research. First, the researcher should employ a critical sociological framework. Second, the researcher should analyze the policies embedded within a curriculum. Finally, the researcher should conduct analysis through the use of empirical studies. While focused on History, Rata (2014) explains the need for CPA by offering warnings that are transferable to multiple subjects: The selection of the significant knowledge to be taught to succeeding generations may be that chosen by various interest groups. This is likely to be social knowledge that will not be put on trial, but taken as belief, as fixed truth, and unamendable to critique and change. (p. 354) Rata contends that there is a need for researchers who understand history education to conduct policy research. Overall, Rata’s example is a reminder that curriculum is often framed by those who have a voice in the scope of policy research and implementation. Consequently, if teachers of varying disciplines are not able to highlight the missing voices in education, curriculum is likely to miss those voices. CPA and Teacher Education Programs To problematize taken-for granted policies and highlight missing voices in education, CPA research must be participatory. Building on the importance of participation, Levinson, Sutton, and Winstead (2009) focus on the role of communities of practice. Levinson et al. posit that policies can be interrupted and recreated in a local context by teachers, students, and sometimes, administrators who come together to participate in critical inquiry. 89 Using Levinson et al.’s participatory approach, Barlett, Otis-Wilborn, and Peters (2017) conducted a CPA study of stakeholders’ experiences with edTPA. Overall, they found that teacher education programs were interrupted by edTPA, while, as Bartlett et al. (2017) point out, “The edTPA policy discourse…has handed over teacher assessment to corporate education reformers” (p. 296). They go on to suggest that the high-stakes mandates surrounding edTPA should be removed in order to empower local communities of practice in teacher education. Tuck and Gorlewski (2016) employ a participatory CPA, and their study concludes with a call to action. Using CPA with critical race theory, Tuck and Gorlewski problematize the edTPA over issues of corporatization, outsourcing of evaluation, and the increased likelihood of biased scoring (p. 210). They also developed an alternative scoring tool that included factors such as “social context,” a section that is absent from edTPA (p. 212). They go on to explain the consequences of nonparticipation, stating, “Teacher education faculty who participate uncritically in the implementation of these policies perpetuate the fiction of race” (p. 213). Given the recent CPA research in music education, teacher education, and edTPA, there are many opportunities for research. Simultaneously, there is a need to critically examine every step of the process and consider voices missing in the context of music education, teacher education, and edTPA. CPA research requires action, participation, and reflection. As Tuck and Gorlewski put it (2016), “These are not just calls out, but calls to ourselves, as we continue to intervene, and to consider what our interventions have meant” (p. 215). Returning to Foucault’s (1978/2009) articulation of genealogy and networks of power, I contend that the edTPA is a network of power that is complex both in time and space that demands critical and participatory research. Moreover, by focusing on what Apple (2019) calls “the movements that are trying to interrupt these relations,” CPA affords researchers 90 opportunities to consider the differential impacts, movements, and narratives of stakeholders functioning inside and outside of the networks of edTPA (p. 276). Additionally, by using CPA, Taylor (1997) contends that the researcher is positioned to think relationally, “where frameworks are used to place cultural forms within broad patterns of social inequality and relations of domination” (p. 32). Finally, building on Shahjahan and Torres’s (2013) usage of CPA as a framework to examine participants’ agency in the context of neo-liberal markets of accountability, I contend that the edTPA functions as similar market or economic network for which participants frame their own narratives in its continued development, implementation, and agency across time and spaces. Consequently, in this study, critical policy analysis serves as my foundation for examining edTPA implementation within a music teacher education program. Need for Present Study As noted in the above literature, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that preservice teachers have much to say on the topic of edTPA. However, while students varied in their opinions of edTPA as an assessment tool, most students expressed concerns about the high- stakes mandate. Students have articulated experiences with edTPA ranging from panic attacks to leaving the profession, even if they were qualified to teach. Student accounts suggest that relationships between preservice teachers, co-operating teachers, supervisors, and even college professors have become strained as a result of the edTPA mandates. Finally, student accounts affirm data found within edTPA reports that preservice teachers who work in suburban settings are scored higher than those who work in urban or rural settings. While there are several studies that have examined stakeholder perceptions of the edTPA in music education (Heil & Berg, 2017; Koziel, 2018; Meuwissen & Choppin, 2015; Helton, 2018), there are notable gaps in the literature. For example, Meuwissen and Choppin (2015) 91 found tensions between the usefulness of edTPA as a large-scale assessment and its use as a high-stakes mandate in music education, but their evidence was limited to the accounts of two music education students. Heil and Berg (2017) examined the perceptions of seven music educators, but the study was intrinsic, within their own institution, and used frameworks outside of the realm of policy. Koziel (2018) used a sociological framework, but the study was limited to the perceptions of music teacher educators. Consequently, while Hébert (2018) articulates students, educators, and cooperating teachers as the groups primarily affected by edTPA, researchers in music education have often gathered information about the edPTA from only one group of stakeholders. Finally, while some researchers have used policy frameworks to describe cooperating teachers in in the context of edTPA (Abramo & Campbell, 2016), there is a lack of research in music education that provides firsthand accounts of cooperating music teachers’ perspectives. To date, Helton’s (2018) survey study of 46 student teachers one of the largest studies of preservice music teachers’ perceptions of the edTPA, and it is also one of only a few studies to use a political analysis framework. Specifically, Helton used Cochran-Smith, Piazza, and Power’s (2013) politics of policy framework for analyzing discourse. Moreover, while Helton (2018) acknowledges neo-liberal elements of the edTPA such as its effort to market teacher readiness as a score, Helton asserts that edTPA is driven not by the market, but by the state, writing: This study will view teacher licensure reform from the neoconservative perspective due to the edTPA’s function as a high-stakes accountability measure meant to represent a standardized set of measurable skills. (pp.7–8) 92 In other words, while Helton’s framework includes the analysis of discourse, all references to discourse surrounding high-stakes, standardization, and measurement are firmly rooted in the position that they are state-driven and state-controlled. Helton noted in the survey study, “Results of the analysis indicated the preservice music teachers’ perception of the edTPA’s high-stake use and formative elements were varied, mixed, and somewhat contradictory” (p. 106). Notably, after completing the edTPA, preservice teachers perceived themselves as less prepared, they perceived the edTPA as less fair in its ability to assess their strengths and weaknesses, and they perceived that the edTPA negatively impacted their ability to focus on the student teaching experience. However, student teachers consistently viewed the edTPA as a means for “reinforcing systemic ways to plan and justify instructional decisions, regardless of whether they were asked at the beginning or end of their student teaching experiences” (p. 112) While Helton’s study offers meaningful insights pertaining to student teachers’ perceptions of the conditions, agendas, ideologies, and influences, surrounding the edTPA, the study is also built on the premise that “neoconservative ideology is the basis for the political trends that created the need for the edTPA” (p. 6). Thus, Helton declares, “The edTPA, or a similar teacher portfolio assessment, will likely be part of licensure requirements for the present and foreseeable future” (p. 124). At the same time, Helton acknowledges that the study was conducted in Illinois using institutions including his own, where he expressed that policy-makers “seem convinced that the edTPA is a positive addition to licensure requirements” (p. 125). Finally, Helton’s conclusion that “the edTPA is a problematic tool for measuring teacher readiness” poses a challenge for music educators to consider ways to respond (p. 130). 93 My study, which seeks to understand the perspectives of multiple groups of stakeholders within a purposefully chosen institution through the work of critical policy analysis, may work to clarify the development, implementation, and impact of edTPA in music education. Furthermore, in using critical policy analysis to consider the policy genealogies and networks of edTPA, the study employs the theoretical concept of working outside the edTPA while also conducting empirical and participatory research pertaining to the edTPA. This study of edTPA can also provide important connections between the histories of music teacher performance assessment development presented in chapter one and the recent experiences of stakeholders implementing edTPA presented in chapter two. The issues of policy development and implementation, which are critical to any governing body’s decision to adopt a mandate such as the edTPA, have rarely been studied together. For example, discussions about the equitability of edTPA in music education are relatively absent from the research literature. Debates concerning the absence of music educators from the development of edTPA are mostly nonexistent. Few have discussed the potential connections between edTPA, the rise in alternative music teacher licensing, and the decline of students completing undergraduate music teacher preparation programs. Additionally, edTPA’s score-based privileging of student teachers in suburban placements (Schultz & Dover, 2017; Tuck & Gorlewski, 2016), the experiences of cooperating teachers, their support for connecting scores to teacher educator and program effectiveness (SCALE, 2015a, 2015b), and the potential impacts on stakeholders’ well-being all remain underrepresented in music education research. Lastly, given the rich research on the relationships and interactions between student teachers, teacher educators, and cooperating teachers, there is a notable lack of research in music education on how the development and 94 implementation of edTPA has altered the balance of these connections. All of these issues are of great importance, and this study seeks to explore stakeholders’ perspectives on these issues. In order to bridge the gap between policy development and policy implementation research in music education, this study uses critical policy analysis as a lens to bring greater flexibility to the work. While case studies in music education have used policy analysis in the past (Shaw, 2017), critical policy analysis provides a unique opportunity to consider the perspectives of multiple stakeholders while considering policy development, implementation, impact, and agency. This study will therefore consider all of these factors. Purpose and Research Questions In order to better understand the political roles and experiences of stakeholders in the evaluation of preservice music teachers, the purpose of this study is to investigate how one music teacher education program implements the edTPA. Research questions include: How do stakeholders understand the policy framing of the edTPA? How do stakeholders interact with and implement the edTPA? How do stakeholders frame their own sense of power and agency with respect to the development and implementation of edTPA? How do stakeholders describe and make sense of their experiences with edTPA? 95 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY Design In this study, I used a case study methodology and interpreted the data through the lens of critical policy analysis. Unlike rational forms of policy analysis which seek to explain how policies are made, critical policy analysis affords flexibility between macro and micro levels of analysis to consider what voices are missing from policy discourse. Similarly, case study research can be used to consider the diverse voices of power within an institution, such as teacher educators, co-operating teachers, and preservice teachers (Mertens, 2005). Furthermore, both critical policy analysis and case study research can be used to focus on a particular issue such as edTPA (Stake, 1995), consider the activity of implementing the edTPA within a period of time (Creswell, 2007), and conceptualizing those impacted, such as those who function within a music teacher education program. Case Study My research used a case study design, which Stake (1995) defines as “the study of the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances” (p. xi). Stake contextualizes the definition of a case in social science research, stating, “The case is an integrated system. The parts do not have to be working well, the purposes may be irrational, but it is a system” (p. 2). Consequently, I chose a case study methodology, as it allowed me to learn from multiple stakeholders within a single system, in this case, a single music teacher education program. The case study was also instrumental, as I sought a general understanding about a single issue (Stake, 1995), in this case, edTPA implementation within music teacher education. For the case, I looked at a single music teacher education program. Consequently, by using instrumental 96 case study, I was able to primarily consider the issue of edTPA in music education within the bounded case of a single music teacher education institution. Furthermore, while institutional case studies of edTPA implementation are not new (Fayne & Qian, 2016), this study was unique in that as an outside researcher, I purposefully selected an institution to maximize learning about edTPA implementation in music education. Moreover, I purposefully selected program where I had access to stakeholders with varying degrees of power and agency in the context of edTPA, thus reinforcing a diversity of voices (Mertens, 2005). The timeframe for the research was bounded to a school year and restricted to activities that relate to the edTPA (Creswell, 2007). Sampling Building on Stake’s (1995) requirements for purposeful sampling, I selected an institution using critical case sampling (Patton, 2002). The selected case has used edTPA since 2012, and the music teacher education program expressed strong support for the edTPA, with members often presenting on the topic at national conferences and offering tools to students and cooperating teachers. Consequently, the case fit Patton’s definition of a critical case: Critical cases can be found in social science and evaluation research if one is creative in looking for them. For example, suppose national policymakers want to get local communities involved in making decisions about how their local program will be run, but they aren’t sure that the communities will understand the regulations, then less educated folks are sure to find the regulations incomprehensible” (p. 237). In the context of the study, I posited that if this institution has stakeholders that are struggling with the edTPA in spite of years of support by stakeholders and for stakeholders, it is likely that many music education institutions are struggling with the implementation of edTPA. 97 Description of Research Site Northeastern United States University (NUSU), like the pseudonym’s namesake, is located in the Northeastern United States. The university consists of several hundred employees a few hundred graduate students, and several thousand undergraduate students. In addition to being located in proximity to other colleges and universities in the area, the university houses several schools within the university, including a school for music studies. More than half of the undergraduate and graduate students are female, and more than half of students are White. The university also holds a high job/continuing education placement rating. NUSU’s music school works with many students who major in areas inside and outside of music, including a music education major. The school’s resources include classrooms, theaters, a recording studio, a library, and several full-time and part-time faculty. Among the full-time faculty, all faculty are required to have a terminal degree. NUSU’s school of music holds accreditation through the National Association of Schools of Music. Faculty are also required to work with P-12 schools in some capacity. New faculty members are provided mentorship and opportunities for tenure. Additionally, the school of music is well-funded relative to the many departments within the university, and the school maintains a network of on-campus and off-campus faculty. Supervisors may work with as many as a dozen or more students in any given semester, and online courses and face-to-face instruction are considered to be equally weighted in workload. Much emphasis is placed on the music education major. For example, according to the university’s governance system, the dean of the school of music is required to spend a majority of time focusing on the activities taking place within the music education program. However, while the school of music is separate from the rest of the university, some members of the faculty 98 are actively involved in policy implementation at the university level. For example, faculty from the school of music periodically meet with stakeholders from other colleges and departments at NUSU to discuss how to effectively implement new teacher preparation initiatives, including the edTPA. NUSU has acknowledged the edTPA as high-stakes and responded by participating in the 2013 edTPA pilot and providing validity and reliability training to all essential faculty. In their institutional reports, they determined these forms of training to be valuable in preparing supervisors for the high-stakes consequences of edTPA. However, in their report, they also acknowledged that the edTPA combined with additional state-level policies has made it difficult to find co-operating schools and teachers who would be willing to invite student teachers and field experience classes. In an attempt to alleviate co-operating teachers’ concerns, NUSU has worked to offer professional development opportunities to potential co-operating teachers in the surrounding area, as well as partnering with other universities. NUSU also acquired a grant to assist stakeholders in implementing the technological components of edTPA, including the videotaping and online components. Overall, in spite of the challenges described, NUSU describes the edTPA as a high-quality framework that helps preservice teachers while also holding them accountable. In addition to what was described in the institutional report, the college of music has released extensive documentation for supervisors, students, and cooperating teachers. For example, the documents provide cooperating teachers with areas of the edTPA to discuss with student teachers that the school describes as mutually beneficial, as well as providing links to SCALE’s presentations on the edTPA. The document also encourages preservice teachers to discuss the theory-based components of edTPA with the cooperating teacher. Furthermore, the 99 school of music describes the edTPA as authentic, constructivist, and an important way to support equitable teaching. In addition to the edTPA being required for all music education majors in order to receive initial music teacher licensure, the music education department has also released an assessment report which will take effect during the 2019-2020 school year. Included among the assessment plan is that students display musical content knowledge, and edTPA results are included as a form of evidence. edTPA results are also included as evidence of students developing their abilities to plan and assess student learning, in which at least 4 out of 5 students are expected to pass. Additionally, the music education department has piloted a revised handbook to adjust to more thoroughly address edTPA requirements for students and cooperating teachers, noting this change in their assessment report. Personnel in the music education department have also been intentional about their engagement with edTPA. Multiple members of the faculty have been trained by Pearson and have scored edTPA portfolios. They have also published works and presented on the topic of edTPA at various conferences and professional development meetings. Furthermore, the level of public support for edTPA at the university is strong, especially within NUSU’s school of music. Based on NUSU’s institutional reports and handbooks, I determined the site to exemplify Patton’s (2002) definition of a critical case. NUSU’s reports showed strong support for the edTPA at the university level and (especially) within the school of music. Additionally, the music faculty’s publications and presentations on the edTPA showed a repeated pattern of support, as well as commitment to following the recommendations provided by creators of the edTPA. Moreover, the school of music is an intact location where the music education department is held in high esteem at the university level. Additionally, members of the school of 100 music are actively involved in the development and implementation of university-level policies. Consequently, as Patton (2002) explains critical cases, “If that group is having problems, then we can be sure all the groups are having problems” (p. 236). How Data Were Reported For the purposes of exploring how stakeholders perceive the policy framing of edTPA at NUSU, I gathered data from multiple sources. First, I examined policy documents released by the faculty, staff, and administration of NUSU concerning edTPA. These documents, which are all housed on NUSU’s music website for student teachers, include internal documents developed by the members of NUSU, and external documents developed by organizations, including external universities, non-for-profit organizations, and for-profit corporations. The documents addressed issues, including, but not limited to: The edTPA handbook, the student teacher handbook, academic language strategies, crosswalks to other teacher frameworks, edTPA consent forms, addressing common concerns about the edTPA, explanation of the rubrics, due dates for submission, observation forms, strategies for student teachers, strategies for cooperating teachers, and connections between edTPA and previous coursework. I paid particular attention to who was responsible for developing each of these documents, when they were developed, and how the documents are used at NUSU to frame edTPA as policy. Finally, I used the narratives from participant interviews to explore how stakeholders framed edTPA. Coding of Interviews, Observations, and Artifacts My study used the process of eclectic coding (Saldaña, 2016). For example, in order to attend to elements of location and positionality, I used attitude coding, as Saldaña puts it, “documenting descriptive ‘cover’ information about participants, the site, and other related components of the study” (p. 85). I also used in vivo coding, values coding, and dramaturgical 101 coding for interviews. Given the varied beliefs and experiences described in previous edTPA studies, I used values coding (Saldaña, 2016), as it can be used for interview transcripts, field notes from observations, and potential participant artifacts, such as edTPA work. Another important process of coding in this study was the use of dramaturgical coding. Saldaña (2016) notes that such coding is appropriate for case studies: Dramaturgical Coding approaches naturalistic observations and interview narratives as “social drama” in its broadest sense. Life is perceived as “performance,” with humans interacting as a cast of characters in conflict. Interview transcripts become monologue, soliloquy, and dialogue (p. 145) Moreover, Saldaña encourages dramaturgical coding of interviews, field notes, and artifacts for the purposes of “reflecting on the objectives, conflicts/obstacles, tactics/strategies, attitudes, emotions, and subtexts” (p. 147) . Thus, dramaturgical coding helped to answer critical components of the research questions, including interactions, implementation strategies, and perceptions of power. Trustworthiness While studies have traditionally used terms like validity and reliability, Lincoln and Guba (1985) consider trustworthiness to be a more appropriate set of terms, especially in naturalistic inquiry. Trustworthiness, which h they describe as “credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability,” serve as qualitative equivalents to “internal validity, external validity, “reliability, and objectivity” (p. 300). In order to ensure credibility, I employed data triangulation (Merriam, 1998; Morse, 2017; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Patton, 2002; Stake, 2010) through the use of multiple collection methods, including interviews, observations, examinations of documents and artifacts, and member checks of interview transcripts. To ensure transferability, I 102 met regularly with two informed music education policy researchers to share observations and consider new ideas and perspectives (Morse, 2017; Patton, 2002). In order to establish dependability, I examined the data through the lens of critical policy analysis and determined the compatibility of the data to the research questions (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Patton, 2002). Finally, to enhance confirmability, I employed reflexivity by articulating and considering my own role as a researcher using critical policy analysis, as well as writing researcher memos following each interview and observation, and sharing the memos with informed researchers throughout the duration of the study (Given, 2008). Researcher’s Lens and Positionality In order for me to better provide context for where I am coming from as a researcher examining issues of equity and marginalization in music education policies, it is important for me to point out that my perspective is not objective. Furthermore, in my review of research, I found several examples of systemic marginalization against people with a variety of intersections, including, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, nationality, and gender identity. Furthermore, my own positionality makes ma a subjective instrument for conducting this study. I am a White cisgender male of Western European ancestry who was born in the United States, grew up in a middle-class family, and was exposed to English in my home and at school. I have continually benefitted from White privilege, as I have had access to privileges that are unavailable to many, including access to ensembles, instruments, lessons, learning notation, music technology, and higher music education. Consequently, throughout my work, I have sought to be reflexive in my positioning, and while my study focuses on policy issues related to development, implementation and marginalization, I seek to be, as Hess (2018) put it, “vigilant of the potential to reinscribe a paradigm that many of us wish to disrupt” (p. 131). 103 My approach to this research came from multiple connections, both to the research site and to my experience with portfolio-based teacher evaluations. Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to work with faculty from several universities in the United States, including NUSU. More significantly, I served as an elementary music teacher in Memphis, Tennessee, where I witnessed the effects of high-stakes teacher evaluation policies before and after music teacher input. In my first year of teaching, fifty percent of my teacher evaluation was based on the test score growth of my students in subjects like reading and math. A group of music teachers in Tennessee responded by developing a portfolio for inservice music teachers that would allow music teachers to provide multiple measures of student growth at two points in time based on music standards chosen by the teacher. These portfolios by music teachers and for music teachers were also peer reviewed by music teachers. In addition to receiving feedback from the portfolio, the portfolios scores replaced what used to be my evaluations scores based on test data outside of music. Within one year, I went from struggling to achieve a high enough teacher evaluation to remain employed, to becoming one of the highest rated teachers in the district. I was first introduced to edTPA as a cooperating teacher. My student teacher’s supervisor, Ellen Koziel, was writing a dissertation on edTPA, and the three of us would often compare and contrast the components of edTPA with the inservice music teacher portfolio. My first experience reflecting on the high-stakes impact of the edTPA case when my student teacher passed but informed me that her friend did not pass. The upshot was that while the inservice teacher portfolio saved my own job, the edTPA meant that a potential colleague was unable to enter the profession. During my first year at Michigan State University, I studied music teacher perceptions of the Tennessee portfolio and I found that music teacher voice, agency, and feedback played a 104 large role in perceptions of teacher evaluations. Consequently, at the encouragement of Professor Mitchell Robinson and Professor Ryan Shaw, I began to examine the edTPA, often inquiring about policy development, agency, implementation, and impact, all factors that I experienced firsthand as an inservice teacher in Memphis. Finally, as a student teacher supervisor at Michigan State University, I was responsible for evaluating students through observations and reviewing student teacher portfolios, a performance-assessment similar to the edTPA, but with a few exceptions. First, the portfolio was developed by music educators. Second, the portfolio includes a reflection portion. Third, students are provided with feedback in addition to their scores. Lastly, instead of sending the portfolios to a third party such as Pearson, the portfolios were scored internally by the student teacher supervisors. Overall, my role as a researcher came from connecting with people at NUSU in the past, peer reviewing inservice and preservice portfolios, researching and experiencing high-stakes policies, and serving as a cooperating teacher for someone who has taken the edTPA while being supervised by an edTPA researcher. Throughout each of these experiences, my perspectives on teacher evaluations have changed, and my perspective changed throughout my experiences at this research site. However, while there were potential benefits to the experiences such as empathy I brought to the research, there were also challenges, as Shaw (2017) explains: This proximity to the topic potentially lent insight and empathy to my research report. However, it also is important to acknowledge the distance that exists between the researcher and the research site, participants, and phenomenon of interest. (p. 398) Consequently, needed to exercise, as Patton (2014) describes it, “self-awareness, political/cultural consciousness, and ownership of one’s perspective” (p. 64). 105 In my use of critical policy analysis, I also used caution, as it is centered in conflict (O’Connor & Netting, 2011), As O’Connor and Netting explain, “The idea is that change occurs through a clash of opposites” (p. 219). Consequently, there are pros and cons to CPA. Pros include the ability to challenge the status quo and affect political change. However, O’Connor and Netting also warn that CPA often involves dismantling structures in place without necessarily offering solutions. Consequently, even as CPA deconstructs the consequences of policies, CPA itself can lead to consequences. In summary, O’Connor and Netting (2011) declare, “In the process representation, negotiation, persuasion, and even intimidation (intentional and subintentional) may result. All have ethical considerations that should not be ignored.” (p. 234) Limitations I anticipated limitations to the study. For example, while the study was a critical case, it was nevertheless a single study and not generalizable to all music teacher education programs. However, as Patton (1990) explains, “While studying one or a few critical cases does not technically permit broad generalizations to all possible cases, logical generalizations can often be made from the weight of evidence produced in studying a single, critical case” (pp. 174–175, emphasis in original). Stakeholders at NUSU Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (1997) define stakeholders as those who have power, legitimacy, and urgency in relation to something else. Stakeholders are paramount to NUSU, as the job description for their dean includes the following requirement “Communicate with stakeholders, both internal and external to the college” (Document 1). The statement implies that NUSU sees, as Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (1997) put it, “stakeholders identified as primary or 106 secondary stakeholders” (pp. 853–854). Furthermore, in their first institutional report to the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education after the passage of edTPA their state, NUSU identified the following groups as stakeholders in their professional educator preparation summary: “Faculty, alumni, students, and P-12 teachers and administrators” (Document 26). The study was therefore guided by NUSU’s definition of stakeholders. I obtained IRB permission from both my institution and from NUSU in the summer of 2019. However, NUSU asked me to limit my study to faculty and students, as cooperating teachers were not considered under the purview of the university. Consequently, my study was limited to administration (full-time and part-time), faculty (full-time teacher educators), supervisors (part-time facilitators), and student teachers. Most of the administrators, faculty, supervisors, and student teachers hold or have held multiple policy roles. For example, every student teacher supervisor is required to be a graduate of the NUSU music program. Additionally, some full-time faculty supervised student teachers while others did not. One administrator began supervising student teachers during this study, while another part-time faculty member stopped supervising student teachers to take on a state- level administrative role. Still other faculty and administrators who were on faculty during the initial implementation of edTPA do not interact with student teachers directly. Student Teachers Sally Sally was a senior at NUSU who double-majored in vocal performance and music education. When I first contacted Sally about the study, she had already started her fall 2019 student teaching. While Sally’s student teacher placement was in the same state as where she grew up, the place, in Sally’s words was “literally the opposite of where I went to high school.” 107 Sally went on to speak about how her previous experiences and how they compared and contrasted to her student teacher setting: I think my school was like 97% White. This school, like I specifically requested in my student teaching interview. I was like, I don’t care about socioeconomic status because I understand we don’t get a lot of education on diversity at NUSU so I was like, I think it’s important for me to be exposed to different cultures. And then on top of that I really wanted to be with a female teacher for both placements, because I always had male music teachers growing up. And so from there I was placed [here] and I think I just wrote this the other day, it is like 49% Hispanic, and I think 29% African American. I would say there’s probably three Caucasian students within a class of 30 so that’s really just the opposite literally of where I went to high school. So yeah, that’s been really cool to have some flip side. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Sally taught for eight weeks at an elementary school placement and then taught for eight weeks at a high school choral placement. After completing her student teaching, Sally hopes to get a Master's degree in performance and teach in choral setting: I think I’ve just always felt more of a connection with older kids. Like I would love to teach middle school. I just think that that grade is just, I mean, those years are just so funny. And so having the opportunity to work with those kids in a choral setting I think is something I’m really looking for more so than general music. (Interview, November 16, 2019) 108 Samantha Samantha was a senior at NUSU who majored in music education and student taught during the spring of 2020. I first met Samantha during a student teacher meeting on November 8, 2019. We then met on campus on campus the next month where discussed her NUSU journey: I’m a clarinet player… on the band track.3 I’ve always had a love for music. I started in fifth grade… what really set it off was in middle school…gotten a teacher and her main instrument was clarinet… she gave me private lessons, but for free. She took an interest in me and I enjoyed that, because I liked what we did in band, in it was more advanced stuff. So it was fun, and she was challenging me, and I was like, “I want to do this in high school. I want to audition for the wind ensemble.” (Interview, December 11, 2019) Samantha went on to talk about choosing music education for the mentoring opportunities: I wanted to do music… junior year I was like… “ What should I do with music?” And my director… did what’s called a side-by-side concert. He took all of the fifth graders of the entire district… two or three schools. They sat in with us with the wind ensemble, and it was a really cool experience mentoring fifth graders and then seeing them excited about us playing with them. And I think that’s what sparked like, “I think I want to do like the education aspect of it.” And then I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do music education.” And then I liked it ever since. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Samantha eventually chose NUSU for the familiarity, access, and quality: 3 At NUSU, all music education students are required to select a track, specifically, band, choral, orchestra, or general music. Students on the band track take 61.5 credits which require courses unique to the band track, including elementary wind practices, secondary wind practices, and a beginning instrument practicum. 109 There’s…two NUSU grads from my high school. I had looked into [other schools] and honestly, NUSU was the first school that I auditioned to and I got in… I liked how with NUSU they have off-campus auditions….with the other ones, I’d have to literally go to the school and it’s kind of tough at home in terms of transportation and things like that. So for NUSU, they had auditions 30 minutes from my house at a high school, so I just auditioned there and I ended up getting in so I was like… “From what I heard, it’s one of the really best music education schools, so I’m going to go there.” But I was terrified because I had never seen the campus… I had no idea what the school looked like, but I knew that I was going in the right direction. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Sandra Sandra was an undergraduate music education major who was also completing her student teaching in the Spring of 2020. At Sandra’s request, we met at a café near campus one month after the November student teacher meeting. Sandra began by identifying her early childhood experiences with family as a musician and as a teacher, respectively: There’s a picture of me at my first, second Christmas with a microphone singing Frank Sinatra. I’ve been singing since then… and I have always loved teaching. When I was little, I would always try to teach my brother stuff. I [would] write on the mirror with dry erase markers and teach my grandma because she was so sweet and actually pretended like she was learning something. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Sandra went on to talk about the impact of her teacher in high school: First year of high school, my chorus teacher started…her first year too... I was like, “I want to be exactly like you,” …I was the first person that she told when she was pregnant with her second kid. We’re best friends at school... I remember in ninth grade, I 110 remember sitting on the steps in her room during a lesson and one of my older friends was saying that she was going to start applying to school for music education and I was like, “I want to do that.” I wanted to do music education. My teacher was like, seriously? And then I was fixated on NUSU. That’s actually where she went… I wanted to go there. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Furthermore, while Sandra came to NUSU originally wanting to teach high school choir, she has since expressed an enjoyment for teaching elementary general music as well: I’ve always really wanted to teach high school just because of the rep… for a while I was pretty set on high school and then I had a practicum with young kids and I was like, they’re really fun, so now… whatever I get is fine. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Sarah Sarah was also a senior majoring in music education and student teaching during the spring of 2020. After meeting at the student teacher meeting, Sarah requested that we interview through a video chat. We then met via Zoom during the first week of her student teaching on January 10, 2020. During our conversation, Sarah described both her personal experiences and student teaching experiences as “different,” and said, “Music is something I’ve always been involved in throughout school… But up until literally my junior year of high school, I was going to pastry school. (Interview, January 10, 2020) One of her music teachers changed her mind: My elementary band school band teacher… I always visited her because my mother worked at the school…towards junior year of high school… college application time, she’s like, “…You’re going to come for me one day when I retire.” I…laughed it off. But… (then) I was like, “That’s not such a bad idea.” So here I am… I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else. (Interview, January 10, 2020) 111 Sarah also described herself as having a variety of musical experiences prior to attending NUSU, including playing piano starting at the age of five, singing since elementary school, playing clarinet since elementary school, and starting on trombone in high school. Furthermore, Sarah was excited about her student teacher experience, because it involved multiple musical settings: Two and a half days a week…at the high school doing orchestra… something I’m totally not familiar with, so putting myself into this is giving me another leg up…AP Music Theory, and Theory I… lessons…two full days in the elementary school doing general music, and then… (a) half middle school day, which is something nobody else gets is middle school experience… So not only am I getting all grade levels, I’m getting all subject areas too, which is really great. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Sarah has found her placement to be validating due to her variety of musical experiences, and her experiences at NUSU have made her open to a variety of positions in music education: Even with my experience on piano, I love general music. I went into college saying I’m going to be a band director, but I don’t feel as that anymore because I found everything else and I experienced it and I like it so much… my interests have really pushed me to be open when it comes to applying for positions. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Stephen Stephen was a senior music education student who played the saxophone, was on the band track, and was assigned to student teaching during the spring of 2020. Stephen expressed interest in the study during the student teacher meeting, and we met over Zoom on January 11, 2020. Stephen’s performance experience dates back to fourth grade: I started the saxophone…I really liked it, and from that point on I wanted to become a music teacher… I just worked up my primary instrument through high school and studied 112 privately with a teacher. I participated in a lot of festival performances through [the] state and auditioned at NUSU as well as for other schools. (Interview, January 11, 2019) Stephen chose NUSU for their reputation in music education and the price, which he described as “half the price of some other schools” (Interview, January 11, 2019) Stephen also earned a performance certificate at NUSU, which he considered to be an important part of his career: Being a good performer does inform your teaching to an extent. Obviously, the other half being… educational theory and how students learn, but… if you can showcase what you’re trying to teach, it makes it a lot easier for students. (Interview, January 11, 2019) Stephen also discussed teaching close to where he grew up, and only in instrumental contexts: Due to some family circumstances… I was placed at home, but they don’t usually do that… I’m teaching… at [an] Elementary and Middle School in the [local] school district and hopping between… teaching instrumental music and beginning orchestra… the private lessons and conducting… And then… the other half… to…when I graduate, I will be teaching at [a] high school… helping students with solos, conducting large ensemble pieces… co-teaching with my host teacher to help tackle, essentially in a tag team effort, the large program that he has to maintain. (Interview, January 11, 2019) Stephen considers his placements to be both unusual and fortunate, saying, My peers… have gotten a general music and a band… most of my cohorts in the area are band track… I was lucky… I aim to be a high school band conductor coming out of NUSU, to have gotten a double band placement… because we’re also only allowed through our program to teach with NUSU alumni. (Interview, January 11, 2019) 113 When taking the experiences of Sally, Samantha, Sandra, Sarah, and Stephen into account, it is clear that their values, or what matters to them, vary. For Sally, it mattered to her that she would be able to teach and learn in settings different from the racially homogenous setting where she grew up, as well as having a stepping-stone to her master’s degree. Samantha valued personal mentorships and access to a quality education. Sandra valued relationships and wanted the opportunity to teach music to people of different ages. Sarah wanted the opportunity to engage in multiple musical roles, grade levels, and subjects. Finally, for Stephen, it mattered to be somewhere familiar where he could focus on a single musical role and discipline, in his case, performance and band. Student Teacher Supervisors/Facilitators NUSU hires part-time faculty to serve as student teacher supervisors who more recently have been described by NUSU as facilitators. Part-time supervisors/facilitators are NUSU alumni who are usually retired or semi-retired. I interviewed one part-time supervisor and conducted a focus group with two others. Felix Like all student teacher supervisors who are not full-time faculty at NUSU, Felix is a graduate of the school. Additionally, when I first contacted Felix in October 2019, he had already been selected to serve as an officer for the state music association and was therefore serving his last semester as a student teacher supervisor. When we met in December 2019, Felix described his aspirations as a music educator: I always knew I wanted to be a music teacher. I didn't want to be a pianist. I didn't want to be a conductor. I didn't want, I wanted to be a music teacher. So, so the, the, the 114 process from beginning to end, that process was very important to me. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Felix described himself as an “old guy” who served as the director of music in the same town for 35 years where he taught students, mentored colleagues, and hired new teachers in a state which he described as having “some of the finest band directors…some of the finest orchestra and choral people…[and] some of the finest general music teachers that you could ever find” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Felix’s worldview is informed by several experiences, including his 35 years of teaching/administration, his leadership of a state association that he has described as traditional, his four years of experience supervising student teachers who are required to complete the edTPA, his current work supervising four student teachers, and his family. In addition to being married to a music teacher, Felix has a nephew who is currently completing the edTPA. Faye and Frank Faye and Frank are married. They are both student teacher supervisors at NUSU, and we conducted a focus group together in November of 2019. Faye and Frank are graduates of NUSU, and they each have over 30 years of experience teaching music and serving as a co-operating teacher for many student teachers. Additionally, both serve as consultants to music associations and organizations, and while both work as student teacher supervisors/facilitators at NUSU, Frank also works as a student teacher supervisor for instrumental student teachers at another school in the state. Faye and Frank particularly take pride in the music educations in their area, as shown in this conversation: 115 Faye: We look for real quality teachers. we're very fortunate [that] we taught, both taught in [this] area. And Frank also was the administrator for the county musical organization, which is one of the strongest in the state. And he knew them all from an administrative type of position. And we, you know, it's like a big family. Frank: We've had the opportunity through the County music educators to guest conduct, to work with other guest conductors, to run programs, [and to be] on auditions. You're getting involved and you know the people that have the good programs, and you see the performing groups or you hear about their reputation, and then you watch them teach, and you go into their school, you go into their classroom, you see whether they're time managers, and they are efficient with their teaching approach with the kids. They're good with kids. You know, they're good models for behavior. They treat kids with respect. They have a good program. They get a lot of content and solid curriculum taught. [The] performance groups are impressive from hearing them. You'd go to evaluation festivals, we'll go and listen to various groups play and then you ask around, you know, and you just find the best people you can for these kids. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Furthermore, while Faye and Frank have developed international reputations for their work in music education, they have also supervised student teachers for the past five years, a role that they have found to be very important to the future of music education: Frank: The biggest thing that we'd like to provide to those kids, is classroom management opportunity, because that's what they don't get, and conducting opportunity, and rehearsal, [that] they know the difference between conducting and rehearsal, getting both of those items. 116 Faye: The whole ultimate goal of all this is I really want to create really good educators because it's been our lifelong career. I'm still in it. I don't want to give it up. I mean, I really believe in what it does for the world and I'm, I don't want something to impede that. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Faye, Frank, and Felix were the only part-time supervisors interviewed for this study, and they all live far away from the NUSU campus. They all have over 30 years of teaching experience, they all take pride in the local and state-level music programs, and they all serve in leadership roles, both within NUSU and outside of NUSU. Furthermore, each of them presented narratives that highlighted Ulmer’s (2016) interpretation of critical policy analysis through the lens of political ecologies and borderlands. In other words, each of them valued relationships with their students and colleagues, each of them gave examples of separated and crossed identities, each of them navigated ecosystems of music education (schools, associations, organizations, etc.), and each of them experienced tensions among stakeholders. Full-Time Faculty Professor B I first learned about Professor B’s work as a professor and edTPA scorer in April of 2019, my first contact with Professor B came in September of 2019, and I interviewed Professor B in November of 2019. During the Fall 2019 semester, Professor B taught courses at NUSU, including principles of music education, elementary music practicum, and marching band technique. Professor B earned his doctorate at a Research I institution and has frequently worked as a band director. Professor B is currently an associate professor of music education at NUSU, and he described his work as both a professor at NUSU and an edTPA scorer for Pearson: 117 This is my sixth year at NUSU and edTPA has been in…my doctorate was not an edTPA place…. I had no idea what it was until I got here… I chose to dive kind of all in. So I went through and became a scorer for edTPA for a while as a way of learning about the exam. I've been very conscious about not letting any of that experience that I shouldn't share with people, did not share it, like to respect the expectations of what Pearson has. But it's been a great window into the exam… it’s been a really good professional development tool that I had as part of that. And I then carried that into how I sort of helped facilitate some things here. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor B pointed out that while he coordinates edTPA preparation in and around NUSU, including the incorporation of edTPA informational meetings, bootcamps, and professional development meetings, “It’s not an official role… as a newer faculty member I just thought… I could be proactive… no one asked me. I just took it on myself” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Furthermore, Professor B. explained that he works with about three quarters of the music students at NUSU, and while students do not usually contact him when they are in student teaching, they do meet with him if something goes wrong with the edTPA. Professor C I first learned about Professor C’s work as an assistant professor and student teacher supervisor at NUSU in September of 2019, I contacted him that same month, and I interviewed Professor C in November of 2019. During the Fall 2019 semester, Professor C taught courses at NUSU, including practices in classroom instruments, elementary string practices, string practicum, and orchestra techniques. Professor C also supervised two student teachers in the area. he earned his doctorate at a Research I institution where he also supervised student teachers, and he has worked with the National String Project. 118 Professor C taught orchestra for ten years in public schools, and he spoke about his background, and how it compares and contrasts with student teachers at NUSU: Every place… since I did my own student teaching back in the 90s… was different. In the 90s, I only just had the one placement…middle school and high school orchestra teaching… once I went into student teacher supervision… a decade later, there was a new component…your secondary orchestra placement….this became the norm… And this is what we do here. So it's two placements. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor C had not used edTPA until he started working at NUSU: When I came to NUSU, there was no mention in the hiring process of the edTPA, because in the hiring process there was no mention of me doing student teacher supervision. The position that I came here for was string music education… And then they looked at my resume after I was already in the job and said… “Alright, you're going to do student teacher supervision.” I began…my second year at NUSU, the week before that, they said, “There's this workshop that we'd like you to go to. It's on Tuesday.” I showed up on Tuesday…they said, “You missed the workshop. It was on Monday”… I really got zero training on the edTPA… knew pretty much nothing about it going into my first semester being a student teacher supervisor. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor C is one of only two full-time faculty who also supervises student teachers, and he is the only full-time faculty who meets with student teachers who are in the immediate NUSU area. Professor D Professor D has taught at NUSU for more than two decades. While I met Professor D ten years ago, September 2019 was the first time that I had contacted him regarding the edTPA. I interviewed Professor D in November 2019. He taught a plethora of courses over the years, both 119 at the graduate and undergraduate level. During the fall 2019 semester, Professor D was teaching courses in music teaching and learning, elementary general music practicum, and philosophy and issues in music education. Professor D also supervised two student teachers. Professor D earned his doctorate at a Research I institution and has taught choral, instrumental, and general music. When I asked about how the edTPA was introduced at NUSU, Professor D responded, It just sort of happened and there was an expectation that teacher education programs would do it and there was a great deal of pushback because, “What is this?” Because there was no preparation. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Furthermore, Professor D discussed how he views is own role in the university, especially in the context of edTPA: I think defining my position here is very difficult to begin with because of what the institution is, etc. But as looking at the intersection, perhaps between the requirement that the students take the edTPA and my responsibility as a teacher educator here might be the thing to talk about. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor E I first spoke with Professor E in September of 2019. We connected again in November 2019, and I interviewed Professor E in December 2019. Professor E teaches choral practices, conducting, and directs multiple vocal ensembles at NUSU. Professor E described his background in more detail during our interview: I started at NUSU in January, 2016. I came up as a visitor… I was teaching two sections of conducting.... men's ensemble, which… we no longer have. Now… classroom community chorus. I was still a doctoral student at [another school]… I had the graduate student internship working with the women's chorus at [the other school]… I was busy 120 and I had a church gig at the time too. I was the… point person with all of the guest artists that we were bringing in. (Interview, December 10, 2019) While Professor E’s responsibilities are less “overloaded” now, he still describes his current responsibilities in terms of multiple roles: My primary is performance. I've got a secondary appointment in music ed… it's not required of me now to go to the music ed departmental meetings, but I still do… I would like to see there be more cross dialogue. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Furthermore, of all the full-time faculty in this study, Professor E was the only participant study who identified his music education classes as a secondary responsibility, and performance/ensembles as a primary responsibility. Professor F Professor F has also taught at NUSU for more than two decades. After informally observing one of his classes at NUSU in November 2019, I asked to interview him about the edTPA. Professor F agreed, and we conducted the interview in December 2019. Professor F’s primary work is in music education, but he is also the coordinator of technology for the NUSU music department. Professor F teaches courses in music business technology, principles of music education, band techniques, the NUSU Latin ensemble, and also provides professional development credits to graduate students who present at the state music conference. Professor G Professor G has taught at NUSU for more than a decade. While Professor G’s official title at NUSU has been “Visiting Instructor,” she has served as the coordinator of music in special education for several years. Furthermore, Professor G teaches special education music, special education music practicum, and offers professional development credits to graduate 121 students involved with the state music therapy conference. Having learned about Professor G’s experiences, I asked to interview her in November 2019. She agreed, and I interviewed her in December 2019. Professor G described her role at NUSU in this way: I run the music special ed concentration… I teach all of the classes within the concentration that are part of the NUSU curriculum… I primarily teach music and special ed, which is required now for all music ed majors in the school, because [the] state now requires that every teacher has a special education course. So at NUSU we decided to turn it into the music in special ed course that we already had from the concentration into that course, because an intro to special ed didn't make any sense because it's so different for music than it is for reading and math…I do a strategies for teaching [a] self-contained classroom, and then I do the special ed practicum. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Professor G also holds degrees in music therapy and special education combined with her experience as a board-certified therapist.4 While some professors have taught at NUSU for less than five years, others have been there for longer than 20 years. Some have student teachers, and some do not. Some work primarily in the music education department while others teach music education in a secondary role. Furthermore, those professors who taught at NUSU tended to discuss edTPA in a larger historical context, whereas newer faculty spoke more about specific experiences with edTPA. 4 NUSU requires all full-time teaching faculty to hold terminal degrees in their field. Due to Professor G’s board certification in music therapy, and decades of clinical experience in music therapy, Professor G’s Master’s degree is regarded as terminal for the purposes of teaching music therapy (Bunt & Hoskyns, 2014). 122 Administrators For the purposes of this study, I define administrators as those whose position requires them to spend the majority of their time in managerial capacities outside of teaching. However, it is important to note that the two administrators’ positions are quite different, as described below. Administrator A Administrator A has taught at NUSU for over a decade, and she serves as department chair and professor of music education at NUSU. She also holds a Ph.D. from a Research I institution and serves in national leadership roles for a major music association. Admin. A was my first contact at NUSU, and we first spoke about the study in June of 2019. After several phone calls and email exchanges during the five subsequent months, I sat down with her for an interview in November 2019, and she spoke in depth about her role as an administrator: This is my second year as department chair, so prior to that I, you know, I was teaching full time obviously. My role then was just as a regular faculty member teaching campus community band, teaching instrumental practicum, teaching general music practicum, sometimes teaching band tech, teaching online courses for [the] Master's program, and then I was kind of very strongly persuaded (laughs)… to take over as department chair, because our department chair was retiring. (Interview, November 7, 2019) While her work as department chair is full-time, as she explained, “I still am actively teaching general music practicum, which I love.” (Interview, November 7, 2019) In describing her responsibilities, Admin. A described a sense of responsibility to balance multiple ideologies in the music education department: Department chair is quite challenging because I was… a district supervisor when I was teaching K-12, but it was nothing like this (laughs). So, my role here, I see it as a 123 leadership role for the department, but also a liaison between upper administration and our department, and being a spokesman for our department, and promoting the progressive ideas of our department, as well as honoring the tradition of NUSU (Interview, November 7, 2019) Administrator A also spoke about several projects for which she is also involved, including the updating of alumni surveys to reflect the InTASC and edTPA protocols, reforming access/admissions policies by bringing music education professors into the decision making, and building new faculty lines within the program. Administrator B Administrator B has taught in and around NUSU for over thirty years. Having retired from the local schools a few years prior, her current part-time role at NUSU involves coordinating the music education field experience. She holds a graduate degree from a Research I institution and serves in state leadership roles. Admin. B also works as a liaison between the school of music and NUSU’s education department as a whole. Admin. B has frequent conversations with superintendents, cooperating teachers, and student teacher supervisors around the state, and she is also supervising student teachers during the spring 2020 semester. I stopped by her office in December 2019, and she agreed to recording a brief interview. Administrator B discussed many of her roles and responsibilities as bridging gaps of understanding, building relationships, and fostering connections between the NUSU music department and public schools. Administrator A also discussed challenges in her role, including the department’s need to satisfy two sets of accreditation standards, a need to increase student observation hours from 100 to 150, and a need to build better relationships with student teacher supervisors and cooperating teachers. 124 In the following chapters, answer the research questions through the data gathered in this study. In Chapter Four, I discuss how stakeholders perceive the policy framing of edTPA. In Chapter Five, I describe how stakeholders interact with, implement, and make sense of their experiences with the edTPA. In Chapter Six, I explore how stakeholders frame their own sense of power and agency with respect to the development and implementation of edTPA. Finally, in Chapter Seven, I provide a synthesis of my findings, implications for music teacher education, and policy recommendations. 125 CHAPTER FOUR: POLICY FRAMING PERCEPTIONS In this chapter, I explore how NUSU framed policies pertaining to edTPA. Building on Ball’s (2006) commitment to listening to voices seldom heard and Kos’s (2018) assertion that CPA in music education should consider both the origins of policy and who was responsible, I provide a synthesis of information gleaned from participant interviews and observations. I begin by considering stakeholders’ histories of the edTPA using Foucault’s (1978/2009) concept of genealogy: “i.e., the way they are formed, connect up with each other, develop, multiply, and are transformed” (p. 165). I begin by considering participants’ personal histories with edTPA, including their understandings and connections to its formation, development, implementation, and transformation into a standardized practice. From there, I use Ball’s (2016) description of policy networks to consider how edTPA’s components have influenced stakeholders’ perceptions of assessment. Moreover, using the work of Ball, the section addresses how stakeholders “rethink the frames within and scales at which new education policy actors, discourses, connections, agendas, resources and solutions of governance are addressed” (p. 2). Then, I examine stakeholders’ responses regarding the mobility of edTPA, including reactions, perceptions of curricular changes, and reactions to the edTPA in various placements, or as Ball describes it, “policy mobility” (p. 2). I end by discussing the findings. Stakeholders’ Histories of edTPA Personal History Sally, Samantha, Sandra, Sarah, and Stephen all heard about the edTPA during their first semester at NUSU in a course called Principles of Music Education, or PME. Furthermore, none of their teachers from before NUSU had any experience with edTPA. For example, Sandra’s 126 high school choir director graduated from NUSU in 2006, five years before edTPA was piloted, and for Sally, she was introducing the edTPA to her former teachers. The supervisors and FT faculty all described first being introduced to the edTPA at NUSU. Faye and Frank were introduced to the edTPA five years ago when they started supervising, and when I asked Felix about when he was first introduced to edTPA, he replied: I was swimming in the deep water doing all I could to keep my head above water when I started. So this is my fourth year doing it… they teamed me up with the supervisors. So [we] kind of had like a little mentor thing going on, and I literally jumped in the deep water and started swimming. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Similarly, Professor E had never heard of edTPA until he taught at NUSU, saying, “I didn’t even know edTPA was a thing before I got to NUSU… I didn’t really start learning about the edTPA until my second semester on campus, which was fall 2016” (Interview, December 10, 2019). While Professor G has been at NUSU for over ten years, she remembers the introduction of edTPA as part of a larger accountability movement, saying, We were going to start using edTPA as part of student teaching. I can’t remember exactly when that was. It seems like a lot of the stuff was all happening at once. So this and the Common Core Standards…was just kind of one big culminating thing…it probably was eight, nine, 10 years ago. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Professor C’s introduction to edTPA was particularly notable, as he served as both a teacher educator and a supervisor: I first came to knowledge of edTPA when I came to NUSU... So really it was when I came to NUSU that I first started to become aware of the edTPA. It was my second year here at NUSU when I began doing student teacher supervision. And so that was the first 127 year that I had to deal with the edTPA. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor C also pointed out that his former supervisory positions never involved edTPA: So previous college teaching positions for me…did not use the edTPA…I was overseeing student teachers as part of my assistantship and.. Did not use the edTPA. And before that I did some student teacher supervision for my alma mater, and they also did not use the edTPA there. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor F also noted that as a 20-year tenured NUSU teacher, he is not licensed in the state, saying, “I haven’t gone through that process myself. I’m certified in several other states…but I never went through this process myself. (Interview, December 10, 2019). Professor B also pointed out that if he wanted to be certified in their state, he would need to take the edTPA. Nevertheless, participants found some familiarity with edTPA. Samantha, said that during her time as a freshman in a high school wind ensemble, her teacher implemented elements of the edTPA like contextualizing and scaffolding so that her introduction to edTPA felt familiar: He would have an essential question…The main objective of the day, he would put that on the board… something that you would see on the edTPA. Or we learned about doing [a] contextual thing. So I remember we did “Mambo” from West Side Story and the rhythms were a little different for us too. I remember he’d have just the rhythm on the board, but we didn’t know it was in the actual piece and then warming up on that… I noticed he would do that towards the answer. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Others like Faye and Frank pointed to functional familiarity, as NUSU already had online components and assessment components embedded into the program when edTPA came along. Professor B was the only participant who reported learning about the edTPA before coming to NUSU. Furthermore, it was his introduction to edTPA at the Biennial Colloquium for 128 Instrumental Music Teacher Educators that influenced his decision to become an edTPA scorer: The first time I encountered it was I saw Sean Powell and Kelly Parkes present on it at IMTE. In 2012ish… Actually, that’s probably where I got the idea to become a scorer…both of them went through and did the scoring for a year or two and I thought, “Hey, I could do that too.” (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor F, who has taught at NUSU for about twenty years, saw the edTPA as a responsibility of the faculty to implement “humanely,” saying: As a practicum teacher, I remember the conversations that we had and the decisions that we made to build into our early field experience, the types of processes that edTPA was going to require our students to engage in. We started developing assignments in the course of the general music practicum, particularly because that covered all of our students, opportunities to engage in those kinds of processes so that when they arrived at their student teaching… it wouldn’t be the first time. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Professor F also described his response as “self-preservation” to ensure that students continue to get licensed through NUSU. Using a boxing metaphor to describe how faculty need to prepare themselves and students for the high stakes of edTPA, he commented, “We have to be ready to bob and weave and prepare students to do [the same]” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Faye and Frank expressed responsibility as helping students determine their readiness and desire to teach, saying that they have worked with more than 50 student teachers for over 30 years, both as cooperating teachers and as student teacher supervisors. Moreover, Administrator A described her responsibility as a teacher and administrator to be promoting student-centered instruction, balancing tradition with innovation, and using the edTPA to encourage both. 129 External Standards The word “standard” was mentioned by participants more than 100 times during the interviews, though no participant mentioned the word more than Administrator A. Administrator A addressed a plethora of standards, including the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium, NAfME’s old and new standards, the state’s, and NUSU’s standards. Moreover, Administrator B described NUSU’s standards as both transitioning and layering, saying, “We have to do CAEP, then we also do NASM [National Association of Schools of Music.” (Interview, December 9, 2019). Administrator A described the edTPA mandate as a “back door” opportunity for student teachers to use the state and national standards, encouraging cooperating teachers who would otherwise not use the standards to reconsider approaches, especially in ensemble settings: Our student teachers are now feeling empowered [to say] to their cooperating teachers or their facilitators, “I’d like to do my edTPA project with my band, or I’d like to do my edTPA project with my chamber orchestra. And those facilitators and cooperating teachers, some of them are starting to see that yes, it is possible. And I think it’s a kind of a back door. The reason why they’re saying that is because of the changes that they are seeing in their own standards and their own state standards now that have been in place in [the] state for a couple of years now. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Thus, Administrator A sees the edTPA as a catalyst for cooperating teachers to reconsider what can work in their classrooms, especially in ensembles. While Administrator A sees teachers and state standards changing, she believes that the edTPA has remained unchanged: I don’t see any changes in the edTPA when it first rolled out to what we’re doing now. I 130 think it’s the acceptance [of]… what’s expected in the state and national standards with what is expected for the students to do with edTPA. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Moreover, Administrator A expressed a need for teachers to change their teaching: The state learning standards, which were adopted in 2017, I mean, that’s only two years ago. With the new standards in the schools… I think it’s going to have to take some time, either that they’re going to have to transform the way they teach or they’re going to have to leave the profession one way or the other. (Interview, November 7, 2019) I mentioned to Administrator A that the edTPA standards in the performing arts handbook had changed. When NUSU piloted the edTPA, the edTPA handbook referenced the 1994 music standards—as a footnote. Thus, while the National Core Arts Standards were developed in 2014, they were not included in the edTPA handbook until September 2015. Still, Administrator A’s support for edTPA demonstrated how faculty have aligned NUSU’s standards with the edTPA. While administrators A and B spoke about the standards themselves, a number of teacher educators spoke about standardization, or as Professor C described it, the extent to which the previously described sets of standards have held power over others. Professor D was particularly concerned with organizational tensions with outside groups, especially NASM and CAEP, believing NASM standards to be too narrow while also holding more power than CAEP: NASM…has the political power to enforce its will… through compliance… accreditation protocols…and the way it defines what musicianship is…And then you have the poor struggling CAEP just scrambling for legitimacy. (Interview, November 7, 2019) While Professor D described CAEP as facilitating a more open approach to teaching and learning, he considered NASM to be perpetuating the conservatory model over the past 40 years: 131 Ever since this sort of 80’s dismantling of the education system, higher education system, as well as the protracted long takeover of the public school systems by corporatization… we fatefully threw our lot in from normal schools to conservatories, and therefore our identities turned into conservatory musicians. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor D’s concerns regarding NASM provided a meaningful context for why he found the edTPA to be a meaningful disruption, as edTPA is aligned with the CAEP standards. Professor D’s use of words like “disrupting” are examples of what Smyth (1999) would describe as policy euphemisms for words like “incorporation.” Grugel and Rigirozzi (2018) likewise point out that the word “disruption” is itself neoliberal in matters of policy, emphasizing incorporation and privatization. Moreover, Emerson Elliot, a director of special projects for CAEP, was also a member of edTPA’s policy and final implementation panel (Pecheone et al., 2013). While NASM is a standalone organization with music-specific standards, CAEP’s standards incorporate the InTASC standards and NASM. Overall, NASM may be struggling to maintain autonomy while CAEP is moving towards the incorporation of large-scale organizations. While Professor D examined standardization tensions among accrediting bodies, Professor C described the tensions of standardization through the lens of standardized testing, It takes these decisions out of the hands of teachers… and puts it into the hands of people who are…psychology people or maybe they’re assessment people… they don’t need to be making all the decisions. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Furthermore, Professor C described the edTPA as a standardized test, saying, There is a standard cutoff score… to pass… a benchmark that you must reach… I as the student teaching facilitator have no control whatsoever over the way that the test is 132 formatted… It’s something that was put together… graded by someone else, somewhere else... guided by the rubrics, and they [the scorers] have got to create a score based on rubrics. And to some extent, the graders of the test don’t really get a choice in that either. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Thus, in his view, “it’s not a teacher created assessment” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Professor E expressed the standardization of edTPA as the result of centralized governmental agencies and was concerned that there may not be an alternative: It’s a really impersonal way to interact with another human being. I don’t think that evaluative value system allows for a genuine human interaction to occur that is community oriented… But as things become more and more centralized…I don’t personally see a way to not do that. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Therefore, while Professor C viewed the edTPA as a product of standardization, Professor E viewed the state as the source demanding driving standardized products like edTPA. Foucault’s (1978/2009) concept of policy genealogy provides a meaningful lens for questioning who has been involved with driving the policies surrounding edTPA. Foucault explains how interdisciplinary efforts towards progress, or disciplinarization, expose a more reflexive understanding of policy actors as opposed to viewing policy as only driven by the state: When disciplinarization is connected, [not] with a concentration of state control, but with the problem of floating populations, the importance of commercial networks, technical inventions, models, community management, a whole network of alliance, support, and communication constitutes the “genealogy.” (p. 165) The types of groups described by Foucault were in fact involved in the edTPA’s development, including the state of California, Stanford University, and Pearson, among many others. 133 While NUSU’s state government has been pushing for standardization over the past decade, universities, corporations, alliances, and P-12 school communities have also been involved in the effort. Ten years ago, the state drafted a resolution calling for “strengthening the exams for the certification of teachers,” included initial teacher licensing protocols in their “Race to the Top” application and piloted a state-level performance assessment with 500 candidates and 250 faculty (Document 54). What’s more, several university faculty and administrators from the state and members of the state department of education were involved in the development of edTPA. Consequently, while Professor E describes the edTPA as state-driven, standardization has been touted by many of the above-mentioned groups, including NUSU, as progress. Professor F takes a questionable stance, highlighting edTPA as a reaction to earlier standardized tests for initial teacher licensure. As Professor F explains with respect to the states: They were looking at edTPA versus Praxis… we went this way and some other people went that way. But all of it was the result of a dissatisfaction with the sort of standardized testing approach to, teacher certification. So it had its origins in a place that I think most of us here would be somewhat supportive of. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Nevertheless, Professor D notes that that the state attempted to develop its own portfolio but decided to abandon it in favor of implementing the edTPA. What most participants agreed on was that the state and its teacher education programs have ceded control to Pearson through the edTPA. As Professor C explained, There’s, there’s a huge amount of money, and it goes to the Pearson testing people, and they spent a lot of money creating this test. They get a lot of money for administering and grading this test. "They" [are] a corporation. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor D likewise called it “an example of an outsourced kind of market-driven thing” 134 (Interview, November 7, 2019). Furthermore, as an edTPA scorer and teacher educator, Professor B described the edTPA as product-driven, saying, “Rather than it being about the journey, it is about the result” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Unlike genealogy (Foucault, 1978/2009) which considers how multiple groups come together to develop an interdisciplinary valuing of process for the sake of progress, most participants attributed the edTPA to one group or idea, such as the 2014 national music standards, Pearson, or the state. Yet, when synthesizing their comments together combined with Professor G’s description of the edTPA as being part of a larger standards-based accountability movement, it becomes clear that the origins of edTPA are the work of many groups, including NUSU, in order to place a standardized value on the process of teaching. Understanding the history of edTPA at NUSU as a both/and development rather than an either/or is critical to understanding edTPA as a genealogy, as Foucault notes: “If we want to avoid the circularity that refers the analysis of relations of power from one institution to another” (p. 165). By synthesizing participants’ framings of the edTPA, it becomes clear that while the state was involved with the edTPA, the origins and development of edTPA consist of several networks of intervention. Network Intervention By seeing edTPA’s intervention at NUSU as a network of components and assessments that vary in framing from person to person, it becomes easier to break down the varied responses to edTPA. For example, I conducted a word search of all of my interview, focus group, and observation transcripts, searching for the words, “the edTPA is,” and participant responses ranged from discussing edTPA’s (in)compatibility with standards, knowledge, skills, goals, and thoroughness, to edTPA’s (in)authenticity in engaging students in learning and determining 135 teacher readiness. Still others described the edTPA as difficult, confusing, or as Professor E described himself, “still more ignorant than I am knowledgeable about what the edTPA is” (Interview, December 10, 2019). While many of these statements were varied and even contradictory, they nonetheless showed that an entire institution was actively engaged in the edTPA, even as their understandings conflicted. Furthermore, while the state required students to pass other tests as well, Sandra articulated the massive scale of edTPA, saying, “The edTPA is this big [hands wide out] and the other [tests] are this big [hands close together]” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Therefore, in order to unpack the scope of edTPA at NUSU, this section addresses how NUSU stakeholders describe the intervention of edTPA, both in its components and as an assessment. Components of edTPA Sarah described the edTPA in the exact same way as SCALE: “planning, instruction, and the assessment” (Interview, January 10, 2020). When I asked her about the philosophy of edTPA, she described it as content and structure that is rooted in relationship-building, saying: A lot of it had to do with classroom management… how you’re approaching your students, how are you choosing content… and structure. A lot of the things that we talked about easily translate into things I’ll have to be executing through the edTPA and my lessons… things I’m going to take into account. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Others like Sally broke down some of the relationship-based content and structure required as part of edTPA, including videos, cultivating a positive learning environment, positive interactions with students, following the edTPA lesson plan template, classroom setup, purposeful sampling of students, and student engagement. Sally also described the importance of academic language and references to education theorists, describing them as “buzzwords” and 136 listed examples such as “Bloom’s Taxonomy” (Interview, November 16, 2019). Samantha offered components, including the edTPA outline, selecting students based on differing achievement levels, clear objectives, essential questions and contextual understandings, opportunities for inclusion, and incorporating video commentary with time stamps. Overall, they each described the components of edTPA as how someone teaches, rather than what they teach. Sandra discussed music-specific components of edTPA as “the big breakdown of how each lesson can incorporate performing, connecting, creating, and…responding” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Sandra also expressed the importance of critical thinking in writing edTPA: There’s a lot of critical thinking that goes into writing a document. You have to use the correct terminology…(and) meet certain standards while making them individual to your classroom. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Sandra also discussed the what and why of edTPA assessment: You could have written the best edTPA lesson plan but if it doesn’t work then it’s not a good lesson plan. And you have to understand why it didn’t work. Is it, did you put too much on their plate? Could it just be a fluke of the day? (Interview, December 10, 2019) However, Sandra also found that describing the implementation of edTPA was challenging, saying, “It was hard for me to get through, and then the whole practicum where we used the edTPA lesson plan I was like, “What is happening?” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Sandra’s concerns highlighted frustrations with the edTPA in class, as her experience was reduced to passing or failing as opposed to being offered guidance. Similarly, Stephen was frustrated with the lack of feedback for growth and described the edTPA as “rubrics.” Nevertheless, both Sandra and Stephen also had positive things to say about the edTPA. Sandra finds the edTPA to be reflection-based. Likewise, Stephen considers the edTPA to be 137 “building blocks of a teacher…planning, instruction, and then reflection” (Interview, January 11, 2019). Overall, most of the student teachers viewed the edTPA as a tool for personal reflection. Felix also described the edTPA in a positive manner, though he defined the edTPA differently from Sarah and SCALE, saying, “It’s simply the linking, you know, those planning purposes to [the] execution to the evaluating. I mean it’s, it’s, it’s really the three components and it really makes perfect sense” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Moreover, while the student teachers described the edTPA in terms of components and quality, the supervisors focused on descriptions of intensity. Faye described it as time-consuming “thesis” of “Master’s quality,” that is a “45-page paper” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Similarly, Frank said that several sections require writing seven to nine pages each, that students need access to students with IEPs, need to use the academic language prescribed by edTPA, and submit a plethora of evidence under strict protocols. Additionally, Frank said that the edTPA privileges presentation quality over content creativity, “like auditioning for a symphony orchestra behind a black curtain. You’re judged only on your presentation that moment” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Overall, while Faye and Frank believed that the edTPA may allow for creativity, they were concerned about the quantity and intensity of the work required to be creative. Faye and Frank’s emphasis on thoroughness was likewise mentioned by several FT faculty. For example, as Professor B stated, I think it asks more explicit planning, certainly more detailed planning and more thorough discussion of assessment then would take more reflection than likely would take place in the context of an everyday teacher’s life. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Similarly, Professor D described the edTPA as an increase in a student teacher’s documentation: I don’t see it so much as the conversations having changed. I just see it as there’s an extra 138 added component to the conversation, which has to do with documenting effective teaching for this project. (Interview, November 7, 2019) In addition to describing components of edTPA like “engaging versus deepening learning…language function…differentiated instruction…[and] planning” Professor B went on to say that the assessment component is often missing from music education today: edTPA encourages people to look at what they would do differently based on the assessments, which I think is a valuable way of looking at assessment, as it does provide you evidence of learning and it does provide you some feedback about what might be misunderstood or what was particularly well understood. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Overall, while Professor B agreed with Faye and Frank that the components of edTPA involved more work, he also found the work to be relevant to music educators’ professional development. While Professor B focused on edTPA as an assessment, Professor D described the edTPA as a tool for planning, and reflection that can be used to encourage student-centered instruction: So much of the edTPA… we’ve been doing for a long time. We’ve been doing reflective journals, which would be called analysis of teaching. We’ve been asking students to base their selection of curricular materials designs on students’ interests. We’ve been operating from a constructivist perspective. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor D also described the language components of edTPA as aligned with NUSU’s philosophy of constructivism in that they allow for collaborative meaning-making: You can talk about melody, that’s academic language… pitch movement… metaphors of how music makes you feel… the rhythm being really lively and exciting, and you can say what is it that makes it lively and exciting. It got really fast. It got really slow. This is all academic language. Academic language is not theory. (Interview, November 7, 2019) 139 Thus, Professor D differentiated academic language from specific music theory/content: Individuals who graduate from this institution would never use solfege. Instead what we would do is [ask], “How is it that you help the students understand melodic contour or pitch movement? What were the things that you engaged, and how did you create a problem for them,” rather than, “How did you practice singing sol, la and mi?” We just literally say, “This is not good vocabulary, because there’s not a generative fit… not a congruence to [our] philosophical foundation.” (Interview, November 7, 2019) In other words, Professor D believes that the edTPA is a tool for students to construct musical meanings and definitions without the imposition of method-based music vocabulary. Administrator A similarly described the edTPA prompts as an examination of how someone teaches, as opposed to only focusing on what someone teaches: It’s not for the elite, it’s not for how, how fast can you play scales and it’s not for a measurement of a skill. Sure, they have to have skills. I mean we are, we’re incorporating skills and talk context, but how are you teaching? (Interview, November 7, 2019) Administrator B also described the what and how in edTPA as a cycle of structure and practice: The edTPA lesson plans, they ask you the same thing…three to five different ways… How are you going to engage them?... structure and practice, it’s all kind of the same thing… part of the idea…behind edTPA is…your planning… should be reflected in your instruction… you should be able to assess your instruction… you then see that assessment cycle back around to the planning. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Overall, while participants often provided varied descriptions, participants across the board described the edTPA as a tool for documenting professional growth when teaching. 140 Assessment Both Stephen and Samantha described assessment, especially in the edTPA, as a teacher’s ability to develop rubrics, assign scores, and give grades. Likewise, Sandra described assessment as “a test and a grade,” saying, “Assessment sounds like standardized testing to me and when I hear the word, that's why I have a visceral reaction” (Interview, December 10, 2019). When I asked her specifically about the assessment portion of the edTPA, she responded, I don't think that kids should ever be told that their interpretation of music is wrong, which is how assessment feels…like there's a right or wrong answer and you're assessing whether they got the right answer and the wrong answer. (Interview, December 10, 2019) In other words, Sandra, Stephen, and Samantha each saw assessment in the edTPA as a metric for making judgments. Moreover, Sandra viewed assessment in the edTPA as potentially invalidating her students and their contributions. Similarly, Sarah described assessment as impersonal, saying, “I feel like assess is more, something that's done to [you], or done to somebody else” (Interview, January 10, 2020). Additionally, Sally comments that even with self-assessment, “I think that's really important to see yourself almost from like a third perspective and understand how you're appearing and are you really meeting these requirements” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Overall, the student teachers described assessment as a formal and impersonal administration of a scored test. Several teacher educators provided similar descriptions of assessment, especially in the context of edTPA. For example, Professor B described assessment as data-driven evidence, Professor E described assessment as scores and feedback, and Professor C described assessment as a system of accountability. Professor F emphasized assessment as quantitative, saying, Assessment focuses on more on concepts of measurement…quantitative terms…what 141 score was achieved on this? It could be going back to that pencil and paper, did you get the right answers? Or if it's a more subjective activity, like, how successfully did this person, utilize harmonic movement in this piece… you can still put a number on that. You can use a sliding Likert type scale… you could take a group of judges and see if they all agree that this one was better than that one. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Overall, while the students focused on assessment as a test, all but one faculty emphasized assessment as feedback and accountability through data, scores, and measurement. Professor D focused on the use and misuse of assessment, saying, “We do follow the statistics of how our students do, [and] we have a huge dissonance with the way they conceptualize assessment” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Some misuses included: Channeling… hierarchy… ranking… rubrics…(it’s) not about assessment, it's about ranking…accountability…there's a confusion between the tool and its purpose…an accountability tool and not an assessment tool. (Interview, November 7, 2019). Conversely, Professor D contended, “assessment should be about… students' ability to look in and inquire more” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Consequently, while the edTPA uses rubrics to score the student teachers, Professor D encouraged the student teachers to avoid using rubrics and encouraged constructivist assessments that focused on reflection, dialogue, and inquiry. Felix often described assessments as judgements and used the words “assessment” and “evaluation” interchangeably saying about the assessment task in edTPA, “The evaluation is definitely the hardest of the three pieces…Part three (Interview, December 11, 2019). Administrator A also described the words interchangeably, saying: We have middle state assessments that we have to share and evaluate our programs. And edTPA has been a factor of measurement of success of our programs because of the 142 outcomes of our student teachers. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Moreover, Administrator A expressed concerns about assessment and evaluation validity, saying: You could have a fantastic teacher that pushes students into thinking for themselves…maybe the students don't want to think for themselves…And then they give a poor evaluation of the instructor. So those are not a good, true assessment of the portfolio for the faculty. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Overall, the stakeholders had varying definitions of assessment ranging from reflection and inquiry, to value-neutral data, to judgements made by one person to another. Thus, the variations may explain Felix’s comment that student teachers struggle with the assessment task of edTPA. Initial Mobilization of edTPA Reaction For those faculty who were present during the initial rollout of edTPA at NUSU, the responses mostly centered on strategizing student success on the edTPA and working with cooperating teachers. As Professor D, who was on faculty during the rollout of edTPA, stated: It’s not going away soon here. I don’t know whether it’s going away nationally, I don’t know that there’s enough critique or mass movement or enough investment, of other ideologies for edTPA to be replaced. So I’m in it for the long haul, so to speak. So it’s not good to critique something that you can’t necessarily get rid of… I’m all for critiquing the edTPA for its liberal, neoliberalist stance... But that’s not going to help my young men and women pass the test… Yeah, it is a bad thing to some extent, but it could be a good thing. How can we make it a good thing?” (Interview, November 7, 2019) Additionally, Professor D saw the edTPA as an institutional responsibility, saying: “There was a responsibility of this institution and all institutions… To develop a stronger, more coordinated 143 and partnered relationship with cooperating teachers. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Beyond seeing the edTPA as a responsibility, Professor F, who was another teacher educator at NUSU during the rollout of edTPA, viewed the edTPA as an opportunity, saying, Any crisis is an opportunity, and you can count on educational policy to change… It’s not driven by the profession … These sort of initiatives that say, “Everybody’s got to do it this way,” … But…it gives us an opportunity… An imperative to revisit what we’re doing and how we’re doing it... I think we did that and then also looked toward how… we align ourselves with that process to make life easier for our graduates. That’s, I think, what primarily drove our decision… we came up with a fairly coherent response to it, in terms of… the curriculum… the impetus of those assignments hasn’t changed significantly, but the language that we’ve used has. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Furthermore, he saw the edTPA as an opportunity to reflect without changing NUSU’s values. Current on-campus faculty have focused less on critiquing edTPA, and more on helping students to pass. Thus, Professor B became an edTPA scorer so as to help students with edTPA: We can all be frustrated about it, but it’s not necessarily going to be productive right now. So, let’s think about ways we can support the students. My motto is we can’t get out of it, so we might as well get into it. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor B also concurred with Professor F that the edTPA has not changed NUSU’s values: It’s not like our program is different because of the edTPA… we are using vocabulary from the edTPA and we’re using terminology… I think there’s probably some things that are clearer because of the vocabulary from the edTPA. But it’s not like all of a sudden we’re an edTPA preparation program. That’s not the case. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Lastly, Professor B criticized some negative responses to edTPA that he has heard, saying, “I do 144 get frustrated when people say that it’s an exam that’s not necessarily helpful for having a person think about teaching” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Professor C expressed disappointment about not having enough training on the edTPA during his first year as a student teacher supervisor, which he believed may have influenced the outcome for one of his student teachers who did not pass the edTPA that year. Dr. C has since studied the edTPA and described his role and response to edTPA as working to reduce students’ anxiety and “assuage their fears” (Interview, November 7, 2019). While teacher educators focused on assuaging student teachers’ concerns, Administrator B focused on reducing concerns for student teachers and those in their placements, saying: What connections can we make with the public schools to help our college students… achieve with edTPA without interrupting the educational program they’re receiving? How can edTPA enhance…rather than detract? (Interview, December 9, 2019) Thus, students focused on cooperating teachers’ concerns with edTPA, as Stephen explained: That’s one of the biggest disconnects as far as the edTPA and their requirements versus what you experience as an inservice teacher. I’ve talked to my high school band director before when he was explaining the, uh, pre and posttest in music curriculum…and then at the end of the year…the difference in score determines the teacher’s effectiveness. That’s a very flawed system. (Interview, January 11, 2019) Furthermore, Sarah addressed concerns regarding cooperating teachers’ as well, saying, “Ensemble teachers are like, ‘Oh, I don’t have time for this’” (Interview, January 10, 2020). Additionally, student teachers were hearing reactions from colleagues as Sally said: “People in my studio, they’re like, ‘Oh, the edTPA sucks,’” and when Sally heard about edTPA’s initial teacher licensure requirements, she “was so stressed out” (Interview, November 145 16, 2019). Moreover, Sandra described the edTPA as “unnatural,” saying, It’s weird…they want it to be like a math question where there’s one right answer. But really, there’s a million right answers and you never know which one’s right until they grade it, which my brain doesn’t work like that. (Interview, December 10, 2019). While Sally’s concern here is one of many concerns about the edTPA expressed by student teachers, others at NUSU were aware that students were concerned, especially, the student teacher supervisors, as Felix described: “And of course before student teaching starts, we send this stuff out, you know [asking], ‘what are you worried about?’ And it’s always edTPA” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Furthermore, Faye and Frank’s concerns were evident right up to the end of our interview, when Frank said, “We’re just trying to look out for the welfare of the kids,” and Faye responded by saying, “I agree.” Curriculum Changes and edTPA While participants discussed thoughts and feelings about edTPA when it first came out, some also spoke about how they responded, especially with respect to curriculum. For Administrator A, the edTPA was already linked in with the NAfME standards, and she described how the edTPA was used in practicum to shift students’ focus from content to pedagogy: So the edTPA is right on board with… NAfME and our arts standards, and they’re all interlinked… valuing the same thing. One of the reasons why we use edTPA…In practicum is to help prepare them and give them practice and guidance through the process and getting them used to speaking… the academic language and thinking about… the students’ learning processes, rather than the technical outcomes at the time… helping them to rethink how they teach and why. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Furthermore, Administrator A spoke about how the edTPA was used or not used by faculty: 146 It’s varied…Our students are growing up… through their coursework here. Our faculty… the ones who utilize the edTPA in their classrooms and assignments see this and use it and are comfortable with it. There are some faculty who don’t use it. They don’t think it’s necessary because they’re getting it in other classes, “So I’m just going to be teaching how I always teach…for the skills.” But most… are implementing these standards and the edTPA model…and [are] very accepting of it. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Overall, Administrator A described the edTPA as something used in courses like general music practicum5, and she viewed it as important and helpful for faculty to use. Administrator B likewise discussed how she has advised ensemble directors at state conferences on how to use the edTPA in their curriculum, saying I’ve been encouraging ensemble people to do [it], because a general music lesson plan, it works right? You know, it follows all of the boxes that edTPA requires. Ensemble rehearsals are where it’s harder for folks to grasp that. So… I really stress using your piece of music as a unit… really strong score study. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Administrator B also offered several concrete examples that might be used with the edTPA: And then the beauty is you use that template for any piece of music you want to do... Choristers Guild… Band and Choral Quest…Composersforum.org….Blueprint for Band. …Shaping Sound Musicians… and all of the Teaching Music Through Performance has so much rich information. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Notably, while Administrator A focused on pedagogy Administrator B focused on content. Professor B’s curricular response to the edTPA involved the idea of “borrowing” ideas 5 There are several practicum courses which each offer students to opportunity to work with P-12 students. Chapter 5 describes how the edTPA is particularly embedded in the curriculum of general music practicum. 147 from the edTPA: Professor D and I…most frequently teach MTL6…we’ve…made a lot of the curriculum changes that would include vocabulary… we have not changed the way we teach… just borrowed some vocabulary. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Furthermore, Professor B described his use of edTPA in his teaching: I teach…PME7…so I started using a lot of the vocabulary in the demo teaching…some semesters I teach practicum… So I am helping students through the positive learning environment, engaging learners and deepening learning…I started doing the student teaching workshop to give students information about the edTPA and then turned that into a more protracted experience because I saw the students were still pretty worried about it. So I turned that into the three-hour, one day thing, (and) our NAfME group asked me to do a presentation…so I did that. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Lastly, Professor B discussed his future curriculum plans with regard to online learning: A distance learning thing of offering students support… that’s probably a project that’s in the near future for me… It’d be great if instead of having to write out an answer to these questions I get, I can just say please watch this video. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor B also pointed out that edTPA is covered in general music practicum, not instrumental. While the edTPA may not be covered in instrumental practicum, Professor C has made it a point to include it in his classroom instruments class, as he described: They’re sort of like preparation for an edTPA project. So I’ll have my students within, say, a classroom instruments class, develop a four-lesson sequence for teaching students 6 Music Teaching and Learning. 7 Principles of Music Education. 148 how to play the ukulele, or… on bucket drumming to help their students with developing their rhythmic acuity, for example. So they’re creating sequenced lessons, working towards a specific purpose that could be applied towards an edTPA project that they might execute as part of their student teaching. (Interview, November 7, 2019) While Professor C’s teaching focuses on helping students to see themselves as teachers he described his student teacher supervision duties as more procedural, especially with edTPA: Once you have students from NUSU who are now doing their student teaching, they still go in feeling that trepidation, that little bit of fear and worry. The conversations shift to … “How do I navigate all of the rubrics,” or, “How do I get subtitles on my video examples?” So it becomes procedural worries rather than a worry about how it’s not going to be good enough or I’m not going to be able to do this. It just becomes, it becomes about the process of completing the task. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Thus, while Professor B always focused on reducing stress, the mode of reducing stress shifted. While Professor B and Professor C focused on language and procedures, Professor D framed the use of edTPA in NUSU’s curriculum as a tool for rethinking how teachers teach: Part of your job as the teacher educator is to actually reframe away from the technical, rationalist kinds of ideas that you find in the edTPA and say, you know, we have an opportunity here to rethink what this means…a young man in our practicum experience… they do some components of pre-edTPA stuff…they videotape their own teaching… discuss their teaching and provide evidence in the video of their teaching of how they engaged, how they used academic language. (Interview, November 7, 2019) While Professor D focused on the edTPA as a tool for examining how teachers teach, Professor E described his use of NUSU’s edTPA resources as a way to display one’s “best self,” saying, 149 I’ve used that as a backbone for…practicum. But now, even in practices, how to design a lesson plan… the foundational ideas that need to be in this lesson plan… the hoops that you’ll have to jump through as a student who is taking the edTPA. And how does that look different than the real teaching…if I can be really quite frank, how do you game something to basically show your best self? … a skill you need to develop as a professional going into an interview. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Thus, while several teacher educators and administrators utilized edTPA to reshape how teachers teach, Professor E used it to reshaping how teachers look as they teach. Professor F viewed the edTPA as a tool that required students to demonstrate their pedagogical knowledge through a portfolio as opposed to multiple-choice tests at NUSU, saying: We’ve taken some of the larger assignments and broken them up into parts…in practicum … positive learning environment, engaging students in learning, deepening student learning during instruction, and then they do a curriculum summary and report cards…and…analyzing teaching. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Additionally, Professor F discussed NUSU’s webpages that contain links to edTPA resources for student teaching, MTL, and general music practicum: The way… [they] play out is hopefully fairly straightforward…So for edTPA, a video instructional commentary, promoting positive learning, students’ engagement, deepening learning, analyze, teach, those things all come from edTPA and they formed the backbone of the assignments that the students do through the practicum. So it’s almost in a sense, like a dry run through. (Interview, December 10, 2019) In addition to using MTL and practicum courses as practice runs through the edTPA, Professor F also described an increase in self-assessment, especially with respect to video reflection: 150 The most useful thing of a portfolio is the self-assessment component. And that’s really what we’re mostly engaged in here… the process of students grinding the lenses that they’re going to look at their work through. So as they engage in that process, then when they get to the edTPA process, they’ve already kind of prepared those lenses…“What kinds of materials am I going to generate that are going to be most useful in that process.” Because you can collect thousands of hours of video. What should you submit and what should you say about it? (Interview, December 10, 2019) Professor F covered many of the ideas presented by other teacher educators in the study, yet he was the only participant to describe the curricular changes as changing of the teacher’s “lenses,” as opposed to changing the teacher, the content, or the pedagogy. Professor G was mostly an outlier with respect to curricular response, as she considered edTPA to be more related to student teaching than the special education music practicum: edTPA has traditionally really been something that’s part of student teaching. So while we do stuff [that] kind of leads up to it…some of the faculty use the edTPA lesson plans as part of practicum, some of us do not. But edTPA has really been part of the student teaching process more than… the day to day practicum (Interview, December 9, 2019) Notably, while the general music practicum classes focus on adapting lessons for edTPA, Professor G explained that in her class, the process is reversed: I have a few projects where they have to take a lesson plan that they’ve done for practicum and then make adaptations…there are some faculty that are actually using the edTPA lesson plan, and then others are using their own …Some…are really simplified and then others are quite complex reflecting the edTPA. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Professor G has also developed tools for helping students meet edTPA’s language requirements 151 while also documenting tools for serving students with special needs: The academic language demands… language function… I actually had to look that up the first time… language functions, what are they talking about? So I literally have a sheet that I give to students when we’re talking about IEPs and stuff. And I’m like, when you hit language function, here’s a sheet that gives you an idea of what they’re talking about, because that’s not something we talk about in music. (Interview, December 9, 2019) In essence, while some practicum classes focused on generating lessons based on the demands of edTPA, other classes viewed the edTPA as secondary and outside the scope of music education. Student teacher supervisors saw a direct connection between the rise of edTPA and the reduction of other curriculum initiatives, especially TaskStream. In 2013, TaskStream included ten tasks: professional documents (i.e. resume), self-evaluation, videos of teaching, five exemplary lesson plans, two professional development plans, student teacher seminar, attendance, documentation of weekly teaching schedule, a reflective journal, dispositions self- evaluation checklist, and lesson plans for each class taught (Document 56). The tasks were based on ten performance standards, including content knowledge, working with others, personal responsibility, positive relationships, integrity, pedagogical competence, flexibility, and respecting diversity. 8 While student teachers initially completed ten tasks on TaskStream during their student teaching, The tasks and standards have since been merged into content knowledge, classroom management, communication (which can be used in the edTPA), and the edTPA itself, while components such the reflection journal have since been removed in favor of edTPA. Frank pointed out that edTPA quickly became the priority in student teaching in lieu of TaskStream: 8 For more information on TaskStream, see Chapter 5. 152 When edTPA came along, that was reduced to four… the ones that particularly helped get the edTPA launched… to figure out what the students know at this point so they can proceed with their edTPA plan. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Frank worried that the change represented a shift from students’ needs to edTPA’s demands: much of our education these days is oriented… the last several years, towards individualized instruction. And there’s a part of that in the edTPA that says, yes, they have any IEP…But bottom line is, everybody has got to fit into one mold to pass the edTPA… this is a national standard. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Thus, Frank viewed edTPA’s hybrid of individualization and standardization as contradictory. In helping students to pass, Faye and Frank would provide two pieces of advice to student teachers, First, Faye emphasized that before starting the edTPA, “Read the whole thing and know where you’re going” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Second, Frank said, “Do not just depend on one class, you know, do your project with three different groups and tape it all” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Thus, Faye and Frank saw the edTPA as the single heaviest impact on student teacher seminar meetings, and they committed a great deal of time to the edTPA handbook and technology issues during the meetings. Student teachers heard about the edTPA early on at NUSU, as Sally describes: “I would say probably when I first took…PME. I took it my freshman year, second semester” (Interview, November 16, 2019). Samantha described her first experience with it as articulative, saying: We learn about these things in PME, the vocab, contextual understanding and scaffolding and… it’s important to know about the principles and foundation so that… talking with fellow educators, they can understand what you’re trying to get across and it shows that you know what you’re doing. (Interview, December 11, 2019) 153 However, most in-depth work with edTPA did not happen until MTL, as Sandra explained, “They had mentioned it a couple of times (in) PME…But the first time I remember really talking about edTPA was (when) I had… MTL” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Then, given that Sally, Samantha, Sandra, Sarah, and Stephen were on different tracks (i.e. choral, general, and band), their experiences with MTL and Practicum varied widely. Sally and Sandra Sally, a singer on the choral track, described MTL as a class that she took during her sophomore year where “we heard the buzzwords of like creating a positive learning environment” (Interview, November 16, 2019). Furthermore, in her junior year, “we did a mock edTPA. So that was the first time I really saw what I’d have to do. We had to go and answer it, like write the prompts and take the video clips and all that stuff” (Interview, November 16, 2019). For Sally, the practicum classes heavily focused on assessment, which influenced her approach to the edTPA during her student teaching: A thing we really got pounded in our heads was… to have both formal and informal assessments. I always…have the informal assessment…Not every lesson I had had a formal assessment…. usually the informal [was]…“ how much are they participating? Can you see that their mouths are moving when you’re singing solfege? Are they doing the hand signs? … engaged? … having fun?” …how they’re interacting with their classmates. And then formally… write the solfege (and) answer a subjective question… “Why do you think solfege is important? How do you think you can use it?” a checkpoint of how well these kids are grasping it was nice… It’s not for you, it’s for them, and to see, “How am I doing?” …finding the balance. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Additionally, Sally discussed language function, theories, and practices, which Sally described as 154 easier to implement in general music than in choral music. For example, while one of her professors spoke positively about culturally responsive pedagogy, Sally said that the same professor responded negatively to her attempts to incorporate CRP in a choral ensemble: I wrote this whole paper on it for the end of my practicum experience, and [he] ripped it apart. He’s like, “This is not a useful tool. You cannot use this in the classroom.” … [yet] our entire choral education was based upon was CRP. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Sally also attended Professor B’s edTPA bootcamp prior to her student teaching, which she described as a “two-hour workshop.” While she aspires to be a choral teacher, given the curricular conflicts with her teacher and the advice given to her during the workshop, she ultimately chose to do her edTPA in her first placement, which was general music, saying, “We were told…do it in your first placement…if something bad happens, you always have the second placement…do not wait for the second placement” (Interview, November 16, 2019). Sandra, who also is on the choral music track, described doing the mock edTPA during practicum as a struggle, theoretical, and confusing: There was an outline of each of our lesson plans in my practicum class… we had to take our lesson plan and put it into that format. And I was like, “Well, this could go here and here and here and here… But there’s a “right” answer. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Sandra also questioned writing 15 weeks’ worth of lesson plans, for non-existent students: They just kind of said like, “Well, while you’re working on this, make up a class, make up a couple of kids that are in your class, and you have free reign on what they do, because they’re not real.” …it was still difficult. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Sandra also never taught on her own due to the class size, though she found that to be beneficial: There was like 15-20 people, which it’s supposed to be like four or five…kind of helpful 155 though, because each lesson was taught by about three people. So I worked with two other people on writing a lesson plan. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Even so, while Sally felt prepared for her experiences with edTPA, Sandra worried that her preparation was too theoretical and not concrete enough, saying, “What happens if Cameron gets up and pees herself in the middle of class?” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Samantha and Stephen While Samantha, a clarinetist in the band track, heard about edTPA in PME and developed an edTPA-related curriculum in MTL, “The first time I used edTPA was actually in my elementary general music practicum” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Furthermore, Samantha described the experience as a troubleshooting of her curriculum and language use: I didn’t really use the edTPA until I started teaching elementary general music…the first assignment…was just hard to understand on my own because it’s just like, “Oh, here’s the assignment, submit it,” kind of thing. And I had to redo it. And then the professor got a little, not upset, but she was like, “No one did it right?” (Interview, December 11, 2019) The professor was apparently frustrated because Samantha wrote her lesson plan on a blank page rather than using the edTPA template, did not use the academic language that her professor wanted her to use, and she did not include timestamps with comments in the video: And then in my head I was like, okay, maybe if it was presented…how we do it, then it would have been better. So that was my first experience using it…I had to figure it out on my own…And I sort of understand it now, which I’m glad we were given the opportunity to realize the mistake now before I go off and do it and then make that mistake when I actually student teach. So that was my first experience using it and it was kind of confusing with all the language and things like that. (Interview, December 11, 2019) 156 Samantha and others were also required to redo their assignments in practicum if they did not cite educational theories/theorists, if they did not describe the timestamps in their videos, and/or if they did not use specific academic language. Yet, she was more concerned about band, saying: It’s funny…in general music it seemed like a hassle... But then I saw how beneficial it is because like I’m going to be doing this, so I kind of wished that there was in the band one, because all we had to do was submit our lesson plans by like Friday night… we taught Tuesday… and he would give comments about it. I never received anything that I had to redo. So it’s just, “OK, good. Hundred.” I’m like, “OK,” but there was no assignment or reflection… We do debrief after, but it’s not edTPA really. He’s like, “Oh how did the lesson go?” And that was it. I wish there was more support with edTPA…. because I feel like it might seem easier to do edTPA and things like that for younger students or just in general music and not band. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Similar to Samantha’s experiences, Stephen described his primarily curricular experiences with edTPA being in general music practicum: The most edTPA-like experience looking back was our general music practicum. Our professor asked [for] teams of three teachers because it was a relatively small class, six people…We had to record our lessons, and periodically…write about…developing our rapport with the students, deepening our understanding, and the topics that you’d see on the edTPA in a short, two-page response, to help prepare us for that reflection part of the test. And I think that’s very helpful, something that maybe other practica could have expanded on… how to operate technology, how to look back and reflect on our work…seeing as though our time will be greater than it was with the half hour of instructional allotted for a practicum. (Interview, January 11, 2019) 157 Given Stephen’s current placement teaching only band classes, he found his curricular experience with edTPA to be inadequate, especially with regard to assessment, saying, They gave us more of a bare-bones, more skeletal look at it, the exam in general, and didn’t talk about how for different categories such as choral, instrumental or general music, how specifically those rubrics can be satisfied. (Interview, January 11, 2019) Sarah Out of all the participants, Sarah had the least to say about edTPA and how the NUSU curriculum had been altered in response to the exam. However, Sarah believed that edTPA was interwoven in most of the courses and only regretted that the edTPA boot camp was canceled: PME… definitely started looking at it in MTL… But it was always weaved into our assignments…planning lessons and executing those lessons and the way we’d reflect…through edTPA prompts. We got really familiar with the sections and how to begin answering those questions. The only thing that I feel as though it is unfortunate, Professor B couldn’t do his… whole overview… So we’ve got all the separate, but, the thing I’m not sure about now going into it is… how I should start and what it’s going to look like as a whole. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Additionally, Sarah discussed that while the term “edTPA” was not often referenced in class, she still planned on using her practicum experiences with Professor D when completing the edTPA: Our general music practicum… had to do with reflecting on our teaching and answering those prompts… I’m assuming those are actual sections of the edTPA that we have to do… Writing and doing those assignments… positive learning environment, the deepening learning…the video clips and dissecting them…. I felt a lot of what I was writing about was based off myself/how I was teaching rather than what I was using…the 158 content itself, the curriculum… a lot of it was me based. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Furthermore, Sarah talked about her experiences with Professor D, who was both her practicum teacher and student teacher supervisor. Sarah emphasized that while many of the components of practicum and student teaching incorporated edTPA, Professor D did not mention edTPA: We had…this past semester… a preliminary course. But again, that didn’t have anything to do with edTPA…A lot of it was… treated like a grad level course where it was philosophies and things like that and teaching strategies. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Thus, participants described the edTPA at NUSU as edTPA-focused, -absent, and -embedded. Cooperating Teachers’ Responses to Stakeholders While this study does not include the firsthand perspectives of cooperating teachers, as Administrator A noted that cooperating teachers are considered external to NUSU, participants from each group in the study regarded placements to be among the most complicated aspects of implementing curricular practices associated with edTPA. Administrator B noted that time, not content, is one of the most prevalent concerns among cooperating teachers: I don’t think it’s what the students want to do that’s a problem… most cooperating teachers are happy to have them experiment…I don’t think that’s a problem. It’s more the reality of time… not talking about pressure for performance, that’s not it. Just the day to day, we need to get this done…even general ed teachers. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Thus, cooperating teachers were not responding negatively to new ideas, but time constraints. While Administrator B saw time as the issue, Professor D believed that cooperating teachers feared student teachers negatively affecting their own evaluations of teaching: They didn’t want to put a student teacher in a position that would jeopardize their own scores. So, they were very self-interested, and so, “We’re not taking student teachers 159 anymore, because our own teacher evaluation scores are being based upon what’s happening in the classroom.” (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor D also believed that cooperating teachers’ and supervisors’ negative responses to the edTPA were due to a disconnect between those groups and the NUSU faculty: They operate sort of as a shadow faculty… their experiences of teaching 35 years in the schools trump a lot of the activities and a lot of the warnings and things that are happening in here. We have a disconnect between what’s happening on campus and… the school. So many of the cooperating teachers, I don’t know, nor do any of the faculty know really for the most part…they’re this distant body of people that we don’t have relationships with. We don’t have policies that support them. We don’t have in-services that attend to their professional development. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Overall, while Administrator B was concerned about cooperating teachers’ time, Professor D expressed concerns about the teachers’ connections to NUSU faculty, or lack thereof. Professor C expressed positivity, saying, “I trust cooperating teachers to give input” (Interview, November 7, 2019). However, Professor C said it helped to work with teachers who already experiences the edTPA: Cooperating teachers that I placed student teachers with who are younger and who went through the edTPA…they’re more open to having the student teacher come in and do the edTPA during the rehearsal time (Interview, November 7, 2019) Conversely, many experienced teachers who would otherwise be happy to work with the student teachers have since declined NUSU’s requests due to the edTPA. Professor B believes that negative responses from cooperating teachers stem from a lack of content knowledge regarding the edTPA: 160 There is an interesting phenomenon…we have all these inservice teachers, none of whom took the edTPA… students that would have taken edTPA in its first year, they’re probably just on their way through the tenure process… most of the students that we would have, most of them have cooperating teachers…(who) would not have been a part of the edTPA. And to that extent, they’re not familiar with the exam. They don’t know the terminology… have differing views on the value of the exam, and then the support they may provide the student…could be hurtful or helpful. They may give bad advice, which I’ve seen a few different times. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Consequently, Professor B has focused on providing professional development to cooperating teachers as a means of encouraging coopering teachers to have more of a hands-off approach: I’m giving the professional development session at [a local] music educators conference in February to talk about edTPA… We did some things at the [state] conferences… we’ve also advocated that if you have one of our student teachers, please recognize that the edTPA is not your job. It is their job and they have support from NUSU. Please encourage them to leverage that support. Please just help them become better educators. Do not stress about what a language function is. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor B told cooperating teachers that they could provide technical support with the camera, edTPA scheduling, and offering student teachers context of students’ prior knowledge, saying: look at them teaching their edTPA lessons in the third or fourth week, reflecting…during the fifth and sixth week and then starting to write them either while they’re with you or sort of as they continue on through the rest of the program…They just need to make sure that they have the time…do the lessons, and… have three to five lessons on the same central focus relatively continuously. And we’re good. (Interview, November 7, 2019) 161 Overall, Professor wanted cooperating teachers to allow student teachers to get started on the edTPA quickly, and encouraged cooperating teachers to take a hands-off approach to the edTPA. Additional Placement Considerations The edTPA also impacted where and when student teachers choose to complete their edTPA and often completed the edTPA in their first setting, as Professor C described: It’s two placements…we encourage our students to… execute your edTPA project at your first placement….if it goes wrong… fouls up, you’ve got your second placement when you can try to do the edTPA again. If the student teacher is placed in elementary general first, we encourage them to do their edTPA project at the elementary general level, which would then not be a rehearsal type of thing. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor B also explained how student teachers working in two placements for a limited time further compels student teachers to complete the edTPA in their first setting: The way we do it here is an eight week and an eight week. Elementary and secondary… (if) you submit it on week two of your next placement, then you wait the three to six weeks or whatever it is to get your feedback…your score back, and you find out there was an issue that you need access to kids again in order to fix. And now it’s July one. There’s no kids in school. (Interview, November 7, 2019) While Professor B found completion of the edTPA in the first placement as strategic, he was concerned about edTPA changing the student teaching experience from growth to passage: The criticism that it fundamentally influences and changes…the student teaching experience, I found that to be true, and it is unfortunate that… has become with too many an edTPA passage journey rather than an induction into the profession journey…I didn’t want edTPA... I would…go back to…learning to teach. (Interview, November 7, 2019) 162 Even so, NUSU’s collective response to the edTPA has shifted from induction to passing edTPA. Professor G also noted that in the era of edTPA, students have to respond to the disconnect between NUSU and their placements by scrambling for resources that are both relevant to the placement and usable in the edTPA: Normally with student teachers, that has to do with trying to figure out specific adaptations. They know that…but they don’t have the knowledge base yet to be able to do that really well on their own. They’ve put some basic things into place, but they know that there’s probably something else that they should be doing. So frequently they’re looking for a book or a website or something that has some resources… or an idea or two that might get them thinking in a different way. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Professor G also noted that because student teachers are often far away, they are getting limited feedback and instruction from on-campus faculty, so students are often searching for new resources for edTPA without working with the faculty who helped them to understand edTPA. While Professor G focused on how the edTPA limits students’ opportunities to access, feedback, and resources, Faye and Frank noted that the edTPA limits cooperating teachers’ positioning as a knowledge source: You know, the 15, 20, 25 year teachers who are master teachers…and then: “Teach our way. Here’s our student teacher…teach that student teacher to teach our way, not your way.” That’s sometimes a deal breaker (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Frank also noted that while some of the cooperating teachers have come to learn the edTPA, Many of them have no idea about it…That's always surprising to me. This has been around for quite a number of years, and some of the sponsor teachers go, “Oh, I don't know.” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) 163 Nevertheless, Faye explained that the edTPA prevents student teachers from receiving help: And some of the teachers that they're working with, the sponsor teachers, they have no clue about it. Some can be helpful and some can't… But the directions make it clear that it's not our job and it's not the sponsor teacher's job. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Consequently, while cooperating teachers often have a great deal to offer, the edTPA can limit the potential for collaboration between the student teacher and the mentors within their settings. Faye and Frank reiterated that while student teachers consistently attend general music placements first, their allotments of class time to teach are inconsistent: Faye: General music in many districts can meet twice a week and they can get four sequential lessons. But if they meet once a week, or they're in a performing group, or something… there's a chance you won't even get those lessons taped, never mind in the time allotted. Frank: If you've got an eight-week quarter and the first week is the first week of school, Obviously not much teaching is going on, you're not setting up your edTPA. And then if you have a five-lesson plan, you start in the third week, there's a day off or whatever… it's just that tight schedule that is so stressful. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Furthermore, Frank emphasized that student teachers have about a week and a half from the time that they start in their placement to get to know the students, learn what the students know, and make an effective plan accordingly thus forcing them to work with urgency and haste. Faye and Frank also referenced the assessment task as a reason to pick the general music placement over an instrumental or choral placement, saying: With a large performance group and small lesson groups and the large ensemble at the high school level, it's pretty difficult to come up with a valid assessment that's cut and dry, that's it's easy to easy to quantify. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). 164 He described ensembles as risky due to the larger numbers of students and greater odds of absences: If there's seven kids in the lesson...and one kid's absent for a week…you've lost your sample. Same thing in choral… we found at NUSU, the supervisors all agree…to be an easier project at the elementary general music class. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Overall, they believed that general music edTPAs gave student teachers the best chance to pass. Faye and Frank also advised student teachers to record all the time, as Faye said: “Most of them will tape everything so they can pick their taping, and they’ve all found out that that’s the only way to do it” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Lastly, they advised students to choose topics that are less complex while showing evidence of student growth, as Frank explained: Get your central focus more simple so you know what you're assessing. You only have three or four lessons, you're not going to get that all in…come in with a unit that the kids probably already know…go from A to B, not A to A. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Overall, while Faye and Frank viewed cooperating teachers in a positive light, the time caused them to advise students to do their edTPA projects fast, simple, and first. While Professor D’s frustrations about student teacher placements focused on the cooperating teachers, Felix’s frustrations about the edTPA focused on the full-time faculty: Student teachers spend so much time dealing with that and… I don’t know that the on- campus faculty have any idea. September and January and February are awful months… Depending on where they came from and where they’re student teaching, sometimes edTPA, they just, they can’t connect. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Building on Faye and Frank’s emphasis on inconsistency, Felix said of his cooperating teachers: Everybody’s different. A lot of mine have [a] sink or swim attitude. They throw you in 165 and [let] you go. (One) works very well on the, “Okay, here’s the band, here’s what you’re going to do,” and he’s spectacular with looking backwards and correcting and fixing. Others of them are very, “I want you to do A, B, and C, and here’s how I want you to do it.” Student teaching is brutal. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Felix also mentioned that, during the student teacher seminars, “So much time was spent on edTPA,” including deciding their topic in preparation for student teacher seminar: On campus, they…get that conversation started before they come to meet with me… I’ve asked them to prep… we have a big conversation about it to be thinking about what they might like to do….nine out of 10 of them have kind of come up with a plan for general music… when they come to me… [they] should have some idea… mechanical… something creative or something historical. (Interview, December 11, 2019) In some cases, student teachers were still working on edTPA after the semester was over: Two of them are struggling here, [and] now have the last few days to kind of get things wrapped up, and they won’t submit until probably after the first of the year. But both of them are going back for Master’s degrees. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Overall, Felix described the edTPA as a project that requires the students to commit themselves to it before, during, and in some cases, after their student teaching to be successful. While administrators, full-time faculty, and supervisors focused on the student teachers and cooperating teachers, the student teachers focused on their students, as Sally explained: We had to research the school… heavily and just talk about the dynamics of the building, who the superintendent is…the diversity of it…we… give our students this questionnaire so that we’d get to know our edTPA class, which is fun. (Interview, November 16, 2019) After that Sally completed the edTPA in her first placement using solfege, a topic she liked. 166 Sally selected a group of fifth graders who were part of the school chorus to be part of her general music sample because she saw those students more often than others outside of chorus: They knew that they were like guinea pigs and a lot of them I was pretty close with because they were also in chorus. So we had a cool relationship there. (Interview, November 16, 2019) She also collaborated with other student teachers from NUSU with a choral background, asking: “What are you doing for this part? How do I write this?...We have a group chat…everyone that’s…in [this] county… four of us… always sending… “This look okay? What did you guys do for this?” Then… my best friends are student teaching, so we promised… to proofread everyone’s. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Overall, Sarah worked with her students and other student teachers in her area. Thus, while Sarah competed her edTPA in a general music setting, she also connected with her choral aspirations by working with both students and colleagues who likewise had choral backgrounds. Like Sarah, Sandra was teaching in a similar area, teaching elementary general music in her first placement, and teaching choir in her second placement, albeit in a middle school rather than a high school. Sandra admired her cooperating teacher, who she called “the queen of music education [in the area]” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Furthermore, she planned on working on the edTPA in both settings and conferring with both cooperating teachers on the topic. Unlike Sarah, Sandra expressed concern about writing lesson plans for the edTPA prior to meeting the students: I want to know…the students…before I plan…I’m such a realist about that. I don’t want to walk in…with the whole 15-week lesson frame and then…be so different than what I was expecting…I need to know who I’m working with. (Interview, December 10, 2019) 167 Sandra also expressed concern about the disconnects between teaching edTPA lesson plans at NUSU and teaching edTPA lesson plans alone in her placements: I feel like the worst part for me is when it’s just me by myself. I had horse blinders on, then I’m just going to look for things to do that’ll fill in a blank spot on a piece of paper. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Moreover, Sandra appreciated the opportunities for team teaching and relationship building at NUSU, and she was concerned about losing both of those opportunities while doing the edTPA. Some students struggled with aligning their track with edTPA, like Samantha, who explained, “My first placement is in elementary general music and choral…I’m not really a choral person. And the second placement I have is high school band. (Interview, December 11, 2019). Thus, Samantha planned to complete two portfolios after speaking with a colleague: My mentor [in] the professional music fraternity, we’re pretty close. I asked, because this is her second year of teaching… “What do I do? How was it for you?... What do you think? When I should do my edTPA?”… She said that it’s nice to do it in elementary… do the edTPA right away so that if you realize that it’s not going well, then you can try again with the band…So you have two portfolios. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Thus, Samantha incorporated her experiences with community, mentorships and revisions into her edTPA by teaching close to home, relying on a mentor, and completing the edTPA twice. Like Samantha, Stephen was on the band track and also received a placement that allowed him to live at home, yet he is doing is edTPA in a band setting, as he explained: My track at NUSU is band track, so I haven’t taken any of the say general music coursework and practica that would allow me to a make a more informed edTPA lesson plan and synthesis based on that. (Interview, January 11, 2019) 168 Stephen also sought the counsel of alumni who have already taken the edTPA, saying: My other colleague…doesn’t seem to be as rattled as I am…about, “Well, I have no experience with assessment,” “How am I going to do this?”… though we all have had very similar experiences…as far as level of preparation. Other people who I’ve talked to [who] have already done edTPA…said…it’s not as big of a deal as it seems. You’re essentially just turning in work…writing reflections. (Interview, January 11, 2019) Still, Stephen expressed concern about his lack of edTPA preparation in the band setting, saying: Overall, as of now, the way NUSU has given us the information, the rather loose or unclear requirements going into this, we might not be able to do the preparation, before the semester that we’d want to, so we essentially feel left in the dust or essentially just hung out to dry. (Interview, January 11, 2019) Stephen’s concerns include teaching subjects outside of general music, time, topics, planning, and teaching opportunities. However, Sarah could circumvent a number of these concerns. Sarah was one of two students who were staying in their placement for the entire time, thus allowing twice as much time to build relationships and complete the edTPA in one setting: everybody else is going to get eight weeks separate. But we’re there…for the whole 16 weeks, we have a weekly schedule... the really awesome part about it all is… seeing the same group for the whole semester. (Interview, January 10, 2020) As previously mentioned, Sarah taught elementary general, middle school chorus, middle school band, high school orchestra, and multiple music theory courses, thus leaving her with several choices for an edTPA topic and setting. Sarah also considered the student population, saying: The population…is very high Latinx. So that is…going to give me a huge advantage using what they bring to the table in my lessons... I’m a huge advocate for (it), especially 169 recently having put myself in this project… that’s the route I’m going to take…I’m definitely going to use the student body to my advantage. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Additionally, Sarah’s supervisor was Professor D, so Sarah maintained continuous contact with faculty at NUSU who had the most time and experience implementing the edTPA. Sarah also spoke about her opportunities to teach early in her placement. For example, Sarah taught during the first week of student teaching: I’m getting the feel of things and meeting the kids and it was a lot of fun. (I) had to teach some lessons too which not everybody else has to do like during observation week. So, but that all went well and fine. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Sarah also liked her placement, as one of two student teachers and being able to co-teach. Beyond their co-teaching, Sarah enjoyed the district-wide cross-curricular and project- based happenings, Sarah believed that the district’s policies positively impacted her edTPA: The structure of my edTPA… might be a little different…we're project-based [not] just, you know, teaching concrete musical concepts, especially at the elementary level…This …project-based approach… I can use it (to) my advantage. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Sarah gave an example of a current project being completed in her placement: They’re both doing really awesome projects… using the musical elements…So the AP music theory students got to learn a little bit about copyright…not really an AP topic, but it helps with this project. They learned a little about the copyright law and they got to choose a case and they’re reopening the case and analyzing… “Did so-and-so copy this person’s song?” They’re analyzing each of the songs, harmonies, timbres, textures…and fighting for/against it. So that’s really interesting, because one, they got to choose what case they did… based off of… music they liked. (Interview, January 10, 2020) 170 Sarah gave another example of a project that was in progress for her Theory I class: Called “What makes music awesome,” they can work alone or in groups. They chose a song. Again, they’re taking the elements, analyzing them in the song, how they work in conjunction with each other, how they work separately, how it influences mood… emotions, more of a meta-function in music, that can be another basis of a sequence of lessons, to explain and present why this song is awesome, literally. It’s really interesting that it’s student-centered… also student directed to a degree that this project was given to them, but completely open to approaches they want to take. (Interview, January 10, 2020) In essence, Sarah’s placement was an outlier in that it was 16 weeks long, involved a preparation course with Professor D prior to going to the placement, used project-based learning, included co-teaching with a colleague, and involved pedagogy in elementary, middle, and high school in a variety of music disciplines, including general, chorus, band, and orchestra. Sarah’s circumstances afforded her privileges in responding to the edTPA that were not afforded to others. Sarah was the only individual in this study to have Professor D as her supervisor, a co-writer of the edTPA-embedded student teacher handbook, edTPA embedded practicum course at NUSU, and one of the original faculty present when NUSU first implemented the edTPA.9 One of Sarah’s cooperating teachers was also a co-writer of NUSU’s student teaching handbook who worked with student teachers on edTPA in the past. Moreover, by being at a16-week placement, Sarah had twice as much time to connect with her students and develop an edTPA accordingly. In other words, Sarah has access to more time, more people with a knowledge of edTPA, and a greater variety of class options than other student teachers. 9 For more information pertaining to the handbook and course materials at NUSU, see Chapter Five. 171 Discussion Throughout this chapter, I have examined the following research question: How did stakeholders understand the policy framing of edTPA? Understanding each groups’ and participants’ history is essential to bringing a deeper understanding of how and why these stakeholders viewed the edTPA with such similarities and differences. One of the most important aspects of critical policy analysis is that it seeks to turn away from dominant discourses of policy and consider voices seldom heard (Ball, 2006). Furthermore, CPA rejects the notion that policy is objective and seeks to understand the framing of policy as a human interaction (Ball, 2003). Therefore, in order to answer how stakeholders framed the edTPA as policy, it became important to understand the power and positionality that each participant brought into their experiences. None of the students had heard of the edTPA until they came to NUSU, and only about half of the faculty were involved with NUSU’s initial implementation. Additionally, most of the faculty in this study who came to NUSU after the initial implementation often described it as a struggle. For faculty present during the its initial implementation, the edTPA was the culmination of a standards and accountability movement that included new and updated initiatives like Common Core, CAEP, INTASC, and NAfME standards. For a few faculty who were present during its initial implementation, they framed the edTPA as a positive alternative to constructed response tests or bubble tests, an opportunity to engage in new standards, experiment with new pedagogical ideas in student teacher placements, and consider a more open and constructivist approach to teaching and learning. On the other hand, faculty who came to NUSU after the initial implementation framed the edTPA as a product-driven standardized test that centralizes power, putting it in the hands of Pearson and the state. Thus, edTPA was historicized as an opportunity, but it was also described 172 as a function of accountability movement driven by neo-liberal policies driven by multiple groups, including the state, P-12 institutions, corporations, standards-setting panels, and institutes of higher education, including NUSU. Moreover, With the exception of Professor G, those who were at NUSU during the initial adoption of edTPA legitimize it more through their verbal support and implementation. Overall, the students described the edTPA as a framework for building relationships with students, a means for incorporating performing, creating, responding, and connecting, and an opportunity for teachers to reflect on their planning and instruction. The supervisors described it as thorough, and the faculty asserted that it was student-centered and helped students to think more deeply about assessment. One faculty member described the edTPA as constructivist, which he pointed out as a core component of NUSU before edTPA had become part of the curriculum. Overall, administration and some faculty described the edTPA as a means for shifting the focus of teaching from content to pedagogy. Furthermore, all participants framed the edTPA as a tool for documenting professional growth. In addition to stakeholders viewing edTPA’s framing of assessment as problematic, they also held diverse understandings and misunderstands of the purpose of assessment. For example, students took issue with the assessment portion of edTPA as an inappropriate attempt to objectify artistic processes that are fundamentally subjective, such as interpretation. Furthermore, they described the assessment portion as a form of testing, grading, and judgment. Faculty, supervisors, and administrators tended to differ widely on the definition of assessment in the edTPA. Notably, the supervisors described the assessment task of edTPA as the biggest struggle for student teachers. In other words, the edTPA was framed as functionally compatible with NUSU for the sake of documenting plans and instruction. However, the assessment portion 173 was generally repurposed as reflection, suggesting that the task was the least aligned with NUSU’s values, which may account for why students often struggled with the assessment task of edTPA. The faculty initially responded to the edTPA as a mandate, and therefore focused almost immediately on ways of mobilizing it to facilitate student success. For faculty, facilitating student success meant lessening anxiety and preparing students to pass the edTPA while maintaining NUSU’s core values, which they did not see as a conflict. However, participants from all stakeholder groups noted that due to the response of wanting to pass, the edTPA pervaded the student teaching experience, including student teacher seminar. Furthermore, with while administration noted that most of the faculty have responded to the edTPA by embedding it into their curriculum, participants from all groups noted that cooperating teachers’ responses to edTPA were sometimes negative, especially among experienced teachers. Faculty have also responded to cooperating teachers’ concerns by offering presentations on the edTPA and presenting on the topic at state conferences. Even so, according to participants, many cooperating teachers responded to the edTPA by refusing to take on any more student teachers, as they believed the edTPA to be devaluing their time and experience. Additionally, several participants from different groups noted that they believed that their responses to edTPA, while necessary, were changing the nature of the student teaching experience from an experience of professional induction to a practice of procedural compliance. For student teachers, their choices in responding to edTPA were often dependent on their individual circumstances. For example, Sally responded to edTPA by completing it with a group of fifth graders, because she saw them more often than other students and also happened to be in the school chorus. Sally also responded by getting involved with a group chat with her 174 colleagues to review one another’s edTPA portfolios. Sandra and Samantha responded by committing to writing an edTPA in each placement and then choosing one. Stephen’s placement only involved teaching band in two separate settings, so while his plan was to do one, he was deeply concerned about his lack of preparation in preparing an edTPA for band. Ultimately, Sarah’s response was the most open in that she had many options in terms of what class she wanted to teach, how long she wanted to take to complete the project, and who she could ask for advice. Overall, participants described their responses to edTPA as not changing the NUSU curriculum before student teaching. However, for most participants (except for a select few), responding to the requirements of edTPA during student teaching changed the student teaching experience. To put it another way, participants considered the edTPA to be useful in helping students to think about the “how” of teaching instead of the “what” prior to student teaching. However, once student teaching began, the completing the edTPA shifted the teaching focus from “how” to “what.” In Chapter Five, I will examine policy documents created and developed by NUSU stakeholders that describe stakeholders’ interactions with and implementations of edTPA. Notably, while almost all of the policy documents posted on NUSU’s website were developed and posted by administrators and tenured faculty, I also examined edTPA documents submitted by student teachers. 175 CHAPTER FIVE: INTERACTION AND IMPLEMENTATION In this chapter, I examine how stakeholders interact with and implement the edTPA. To better understand how the edTPA has been implemented at NUSU, I examined policy documents that were developed by members of the NUSU community. For the purposes of this chapter, I use Stephen Ball’s (2006) description of policy as text and discourse developed by stakeholders, as well as borrowing aspects from Shahjahan and Torres’s (2013) CPA of value-embedded data.10 Furthermore, I limit the definition of stakeholders to the stakeholder groups already considered in this study, that is administrators, teacher educators/supervisors (described in one group as “faculty”), and students. I begin by presenting my analysis of policy documents11 put forth by the NUSU administration, followed by interview themes from the faculty, and I conclude with themes gleaned from interviews with the student teachers. Administration As mentioned by Administrator B, NUSU is accredited through the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation [CAEP] and the National Association of School of Music [NASM]. Furthermore, in 2013, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE] was administered by CAEP, meaning that NUSU was required to meet NCATE’s requirements, including documentation plans for “continuous improvement” (Document 26). 2013-2014 Institutional Report According to NUSU’s 2013-2014 institutional report, NUSU interacted with the edTPA as a result of the state receiving funding through “Race to the Top,” which triggered the P-12 10 For more information on Ball (2006) as well as Shahjahan and Torres (2013), see Chapter Seven. 11 Documents include, but are not limited to: Reports, postings, handbooks, conference presentations, video transcripts, logs, templates. For more information about the documents, see Appendix B. 176 adoption of the Common Core State Standards and an annual performance review of teachers based on test scores and observations of instruction: This has led to an extremely stressful environment for P-12 personnel, negatively affecting the availability of field placements. For teacher preparation programs, all new certification exams are being implemented, the most significant being the adoption of the edTPA assessment. All programs have had to realign their curricula on a very short time frame to prepare our candidates to be successful on these new certification assessments. (Document 26) Furthermore, in response to the “stressful environment” of evaluation emerging at the P-12 level, NUSU took a compliance-based approach to edTPA as per NUSU’s certification officer: As an institution of higher education offering teacher preparation programs, we must comply with requirements of the state, and we often must respond programmatically to changes in certification requirements. This has recently happened with the implementation of new certification exams, including the Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), which directly impacts our teacher candidates during their student teaching experiences. (Document 26) Seeing the edTPA as mandatory, the education department saw an opportunity to get in on the ground floor and secure advantages for their students: In the spring of 2013, our education unit enacted a full pilot of the edTPA before it became a high stakes endeavor for our teacher candidates. As some of our students were also part of an official pilot with Pearson (the company administering the exams), we gained valuable experience with the process of completing the edTPA, and also about the requirements of the external evaluation. (Document 26) 177 In addition to piloting the edTPA before it was high-stakes, supervisors were offered training by edTPA experts, including the implementation of edTPA rubrics, and a $43,000 grant to prepare faculty. Consequently, according to the report, Faculty are completing curriculum mapping exercises to ensure that courses align with the new certification exam components…faculty are currently modifying programs to include components that parallel those changes to ensure authenticity in the preparation environment. While these changes are still in process in some areas, they will ultimately provide students with a more thorough preview of many aspects of the daily environment for a professional educator. Capturing video with subsequent critical self-evaluation, now part of a required task for candidates to successfully complete as part of their teacher performance assessment certification exam (the edTPA), is an included component of teacher preparation programs (Document 26). Overall, the document details a sweeping change to teacher education at NUSU that includes mandatory videotaping, rubrics, and the framing of edTPA as an evaluative, but logical response to high-stakes teacher evaluations. Music Education Assessment Plan In order to meet CAEP’s requirements for assessment and unit evaluation, the music education department is required to submit assessment plans every three years, “based on student learning outcomes” (Document 26). As such, Administrator A drafted a document in 2019 detailing guidelines for effective planning and assessment based on student learning. Furthermore, while the assessment plan was a requirement for the music education department as a whole, Administrator A noted that components of the plan, including edTPA scores, could be used as evidence of teacher educator effectiveness. 178 According to the plan, the department chair (Administrator A) is provided with the edTPA results of all music education students. Additionally, the criteria “for success,” include three components: Two evaluations in the middle and at the end of student teaching by a supervisor, and a passing edTPA score of 38 or more. In order for the program to meet these outcomes, “At least 80% of our students must meet or exceed the expectation (passing score of 38) of their first attempt at the edTPA test” (Document 35). However, while the edTPA is listed among the institutional student learning outcomes [ISLOs], it is not described as “Teacher Work Samples” (Document 35). Instead, NUSU continues to use an online portfolio called TaskStream, a separate ISLO designed as work sample evidence. What is clear is that among all of the required state tests and work sample requirements, the edTPA is the most prominent in the assessment plan. Student Teacher Handbook In addition to the edTPA being passed down as a critical component in the institutional report and the music department’s assessment plan, the edTPA has now been implemented in the student teacher handbook by the administration and full-time faculty. According to Administrator A, the handbook was likewise revised in response to the CAEP standards and the InTASC standards to include more resources for evaluation: We revised our student teaching handbook and now we are working on getting this into the TaskStream model where our student teachers and our student teaching facilitators and cooperating teachers work with. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Additionally, the handbook describes the edTPA as aligned with other frameworks, including the 2014 NAfME standards, Danielson’s Framework for Teaching, and Marzano’s Teacher Evaluation Model. 179 Beyond seeing the handbook document as a means of compliance, Professor D described it as the music education department’s first declaration of theoretical beliefs, and edTPA is placed at the center: In preparation for student teaching, music education faculty on the NUSU campus have been using the dispositions of curiosity, experimentation, and critical reflection to help students learn how to create positive environments for learning, how to engage K-12 learners in musical activities, and how to deepen young students’ understanding of the fundamental artistic processes involved in musical engagement. These three instructional ideas are a critical part of the Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) program required by [the state]. We have found the edTPA to be an excellent framework for helping young teachers understand pedagogy more deeply and for holding them more accountable for articulating what they know and can do and how well they know and can do it. (Document 14) Thus, contrary to some participants’ suggestions that the edTPA did not change NUSU’s values, the edTPA was instead at the center of their philosophy. Moreover, the document describes the edTPA as a documentation of “authentic practices” that “reveal the impact of a candidate’s teaching performance on student learning” (Document 14). Furthermore, the document explains that teaching is a performance that can be demonstrated at all levels of experience. While many of the above ideas are expressed in the edTPA reports released by Pearson, the handbook also contains several interpretations not addressed in edTPA’s reports. For example, under the analysis of student learning, the handbook described generativity (experiential learning), vibrancy (hands-on learning), and residue (personal sense of achievement) as the primary components of student learning. Additionally, in order to meet 180 edTPA’s requirements for engaging learning in musical concepts and contexts, the handbook states, “Learning experiences must 1. Move from whole to part, 2. Develop the ability to perceive sound in relations, and 3. Proceed from the concrete to the abstract” (Document 14). However, the most revealing interpretation of the edTPA pertains to the writers’ interpretation of edTPA in relation to constructivism, a term not used in the edTPA field reports or handbooks: The overall assessment framework is guided by a conception of constructivist learning and explicitly articulates how student teachers function equitably in their approach to diverse backgrounds and learning needs in the classroom. (Document 14) Hence, the edTPA, which the handbook calls “The Educational Teacher Performance Assessment,” is effectively framed by the handbook as means for holding students accountable for facilitating meaningful experiences of student learning (Document 14). The writers of the handbook also expressed the idea that the edTPA benefits P-12 schools and higher education, saying: “Adopting the edTPA benefits schools and their students, teacher candidates in music education programs, and schools of higher education” (Document 14). Describing the edTPA as a means for accelerating teacher readiness, they also describe it as improving relationships between student teachers and cooperating teachers, saying, Cooperating teachers can now share a common expectation for the culminating experience of student teaching and better understand their roles in the process of helping teacher candidates complete this process. edTPA brings a new sense of shared ownership in the outcome of the student-teaching experience. (Document 14) The handbook goes on to describe how assessment and evaluation are integral to the collaborative experience. Student teachers are required to complete seven components, and while edTPA is one of the seven components, a separate component is “evaluation,” which is described 181 as, “[an] ongoing formative assessment aimed at student teacher progress and development” (Document 14). Assessment is also described in the evaluation chapter as a “shared responsibility among the university facilitator, the cooperating teacher, the student teacher, and the music teacher education program” for the purpose of supporting students, though no such definition or purpose is given for evaluation (Document 14). In the same chapter of evaluation, the handbook begins with a quote by Elliott Eisner, stating, “Not everything that matters can be measured” (Document 14). It goes on to emphasize the importance of qualitative feedback in helping student teachers to identify areas for growth, specifically noting that scores are not a form of qualitative feedback. However, in the very next paragraph, the handbook states that the edTPA, along with the InTASC standards, provide qualitative feedback: The InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards (2013) and the edTPA frameworks (2013) are used as the primary frameworks for formally assessing student teacher growth and development. Both of the frameworks use qualitative criteria for assessing growth and describe these qualities on development continua. (Document 14) Consequently, while the handbook cautions against measurement and emphasizes the importance of feedback, the handbook regards the edTPA as a meaningful source of feedback than can also serve as a measure for initial teacher licensure. Notably, the chapter makes no reference to the word “rubric” or the fact that students’ “feedback” comes in the form of 15 rubrics. Beyond the issues of measurement, evaluation, and feedback, the handbook also encourages potential employers to use the measure as a factor in the hiring of music teacher, saying, 182 School administrators can now have greater assurance that teachers can positively impact student performance. The edTPA process gives potential employers a sense of the competence of a teacher candidate based on a common set of expectations and standards. (Document 14) Incidentally, Felix elaborated on the idea of edTPA in relation to student teacher results: If I were an agency that was hiring somebody, which I did for years, I would want to know that score. Not, not that that would necessarily make or break my decision, but, but I would want to know that score. I think that that not only does it measure the academic standing of that kid, I think it measures an understanding of what being a good teacher is. (Interview, December 11, 2019) In short, while the handbook’s chapter on evaluation focuses on feedback over measurement, the handbook conveys on multiple occasions the marketability of teacher candidates who complete the edTPA due its use of measurement. While much of the handbook is geared towards student teachers, the writers also offered many suggestions to cooperating teachers for interacting with the edTPA. In the chapter on mentoring, the writers begin with a quote by Sharon Feiman-Nemser, saying, “Like teaching, good mentoring is a practice that must be learned” (Document 14). Furthermore, in addition to providing a bulleted list of what it means to be a good mentor, the writers discuss their interpretation of good mentoring in the context of edTPA: Be a good mentor and take an educative perspective on the whole process. Bridge campus learning with student teacher learning and create a timeline for helping a student teacher accomplish each of the tasks in the edTPA. (Document 14) 183 Elaborating on these ideas, the handbook encourages cooperating teachers to discuss the curriculum, context, profile, and music education philosophy of the school. Cooperating teachers are also encouraged to help students narrow their curriculum choices by suggesting topics, sequences, literature, and schedules. Beyond this, the document asks cooperating teachers to co- select the edTPA focus groups, discuss particular issues about the selected group, engage in a gradual release of that group to the student teacher, make sure that all students have turned in their video release forms, and provide assistance with video recording. In addition to offering suggestions and ideas of good mentoring to cooperating teachers regarding the edTPA, the student teaching handbook also provides a table of acceptable and unacceptable supports. For example, acceptable supports include offering resources/references, technical assistance, probing questions about the student teacher’s edTPA, and even co-planning a lesson, as long as the justification for co-planning is provided in the commentaries. However, according to the document, cooperating teachers may not edit, publicize, or prescribe specific samples or ideas pertaining to drafts of the edTPA. The document also states, “CT encourages ST to record all teaching episodes for reflection and use the camera provided for each ST by NUSU (no cellphone recordings).” However, during the edTPA meeting, Professor B gave a demonstration on how to videotape the edTPA using a cellphone in landscape mode. The edTPA is the primary focus of the student teacher handbook. While the student teacher handbook is less than 70 pages long, the edTPA is mentioned more than 70 times, almost as many times as the name of the school itself. By comparison, TaskStream, the portfolio-based component of student teaching described as work samples in the Music Education Assessment Plan, is mentioned less than 10 times. Thus, by implementing the edTPA, NUSU has shifted 184 away from a portfolio model demonstrating artifacts of teaching over a long period of time, and towards an emphasis on teacher performance in a short period of time. In describing, implementing, and making sense of the edTPA, the document serves as NUSU’s philosophy of student teaching, placing edTPA at the center, even to the point of including a description of the edTPA in a “dear colleague” letter at the beginning of the handbook. What’s more, the document serves as a call for all stakeholders to buy in to the edTPA and adopt a common set of teacher performance standards and outcomes, saying, The perspectives and learning goals of the music education faculty, student teachers, cooperating teachers, and university facilitators are mutually interactive, with each member of the team working toward a common purpose of music teaching excellence. (Document 14) Accordingly, the handbook describes the edTPA as a shared experience that must be owned by all stakeholders in and around NUSU. Overall, the handbook positions edTPA as an essential way for all stakeholders to demonstrate “good” teaching and “good” mentoring. TaskStream TaskStream is the online platform NUSU uses for eportfolio submission and analysis. While NUSU previously required students to complete 10 tasks on TaskStream, that number has been reduced to four in light of the edTPA. The four remaining tasks include score preparation and analysis, classroom management, communication, and professionalism. Nevertheless, according to the student teacher handbook and NUSU’s student teacher website, the communication task is also designed for the edTPA as well: In fact, this TaskStream Project is perfect for beginning to plan your edTPA project… This connects to the edTPA tasks 1- Planning and 3- Assessment… b/c of its usefulness 185 and practicality in getting to know students and for you shaping future lessons and for background information for the edTPA. (Document 16) The tasks contained some music-specific suggestions that are not always required for edTPA, such as marking a score, practicing conducting in front of a mirror, and constructing rehearsal plans. However, the document indicates that student teachers may also use the TaskStream assignments as part of their edTPA if they wish, though it is not required. However, according to the document, the edTPA is mandatory: “edTPA must be completed and submitted to TaskStream as a requirement for student teaching and the Music Education Degree at NUSU” (Document 16). Furthermore, while passing the edTPA through Pearson is required for licensing, submitting edTPA through TaskStream is required to graduate. Additional Administrative Supports Beyond the core documents mentioned above, students at NUSU are provided with several additional resources. Examples include a calendar denoting the requirement that supervisors observe them at least four times (Document 13), a form authorizing them to work at their placements (Document 10), a form requesting permission to videotape students (Document 11), and observation logs requiring students to observe and analyze teachers using a template similar to that of edTPA (Document 12). Additionally, student teachers are provided with a lesson plan template that reflects the components of edTPA, including planning, assessment, and instruction, which is described as “learning/teaching experiences” (Document 17). NUSU’s Teacher Certification Department also provides instructions on how to import, clip, and export videos for the edTPA using iMovie and QuickTime for a Macintosh operating system (Document 55). Additionally, the tutorial discussed how to lower the quality of the videos so that they would meet the requirements for limited file sizes as required by TaskStream. 186 Overall, the documents and events sanctioned by the administration of NUSU demonstrate an interactive commitment to the edTPA process that challenges all stakeholders to challenge their own perceptions of teaching and consider what the edTPA has to offer. However, a recent abstract for a seminar at NUSU suggests that just as the 2013-2014 institutional report described inservice teachers as under stress in the aftermath of “Race to the Top,” student teachers and faculty may be stressed by edTPA today: The acronym edTPA often causes panic and uncertainty to students and faculty of teacher preparatory programs. Students need support and reassurance that coursework will adequately prepare them for certification requirements, while faculty want to ensure autonomy to teach best practices, while not “teaching to the test.” Many institutions find themselves employing a sense of triage to ensure students are successful and achieve edTPA certification requirements. (Document 36) In other words, like Professor B who described his interactions with students who did not pass the edTPA as an experience akin to “triage” (Interview, November 7, 2019), some administrators at NUSU recognize that stakeholders are struggling with the high-stakes implementation of edTPA. Nevertheless, the document goes on to state the purpose of the session as being “to develop a plan to better embed the importance of performance-based instruction into current coursework,” thus suggesting that the solution to problems with the edTPA is for stakeholders to become betters performers of teaching (Document 36). This recent abstract is a reminder that in making sense of teachers’ struggles, the administration is not questioning the quality of edTPA itself. Instead, administrators are continuing to work to make “better” teachers, which have effectively been defined as individuals who can demonstrate “better” performance-based instruction as per edTPA’s requirements. 187 Full-Time Faculty While the administration of NUSU was focused on developing a core philosophy and curriculum that aligned with the edTPA, the teacher educators at NUSU were developing documents to demonstrate their own knowledge of the edTPA and how to convey that knowledge to others. For example, one faculty member who was eventually hired by NUSU noted experience preparing students for the edTPA (Document 27). Other faculty were active presenters on the edTPA at state conferences (Document 2), promoting edTPA sessions on Facebook (Document 3), and even discussing the edTPA as the topic of a keynote address at a regional conference (Document 34). Therefore, while the administrators have been responsible for articulating the idea that NUSU believes the edTPA to be a representation of good teaching, the full-time faculty have been primarily responsible for transmitting NUSU’s message accordingly. Thus, faculty have likewise served as policy agents by implementing NUSU’s interpretation of edTPA across spaces and communities in and around NUSU. Conferences/Sessions At each of the conferences, the primary objective was to engage cooperating teachers in a discussion about the edTPA. Additionally, at least nine members of NUSU’s music department presented together on the topic of edTPA. Among their main points, they asserted that the edTPA is “not just another hoop for students to become licensed,” while also stating, “You cannot be certified without passing the edTPA” (Document 2). Additionally, they emphasized that cooperating teachers are not obligated to use “academic language” as described in the edTPA, though they explained it as: 188 The professional language of musical creators, performers, listeners, musicologists and music critics, sound engineers, etc. the 2014 NAfME anchor standards are perfect examples. (Document 2) Finally, while they emphasized that student teachers are solely responsible for implementing the edTPA framework, they asserted that the edTPA is derived from what the students have learned at NUSU, and they encouraged cooperating teachers to “empower your ST to experiment with a variety of student centered approaches” (Document 2). Session for Student Teachers Another aspect of these faculty-driven presentations was the incorporation of alumni. Specifically, about a third of the presenters at the state conference presentation were alumni who are currently teaching P-12 music. Additionally, one of those individuals has become an edTPA scorer, and has since presented on the edTPA at NUSU (Document 21, Document 25), listing among his qualifications, Sponsored 8 student teachers in the past 6 years [including NUSU]…Assisted 2 of them in preparation for edTPA (they both passed!). Qualified scorer of Performing Arts edTPA portfolios. (Document 21) With respect to planning he told students to choose their class carefully. While he offered music theory classes, small group instrumental lessons, elementary general music classes, and ensembles as examples, he warned students, “We expect to see teacher/student interaction! Not just conducting!” (Document 21, emphasis in original). With respect to instruction, while the student teacher handbook describes the edTPA as rooted in constructivism, the cooperating teacher in the above presentation described edTPA as, 189 “HOLY COMMON CORE BATMAN!” (Document 21, emphasis in original). Furthermore, in implementing edTPA, the document instructs students on language function, saying: Choose 1 of the following! (Don’t resist!) Analyze, compare/contrast, describe, explain, express, identify, interpret, perform, summarize, [or] synthesize. Find a place in one of your lessons where you have students do one of these things! (Document 21, emphasis in original) The presenter went on to explain an example of how to plan a lesson using language function by focusing on analysis, using the vocabulary of dynamics such as mezzo forte. He also differentiated examples of syntax by having students list the names and symbols needed for different dynamics, and discourse by having students circle and discuss different dynamic markings. Notably, the presenter explained that analysis is not only one of ten acceptable language functions, but that it is also a way to display discourse and syntax. With respect to assessment, he told students to avoid assessments that use “True/False, Multiple Choice, or written exam/quiz with short answers” (Document 21). Furthermore, the presenter noted that candidates must provide written and oral feedback, stating that multiple choice tests do not provide adequate feedback. Furthermore, he encouraged specificity, saying, “Never assume we [edTPA scorers] know what you are talking about! If it is not there, we will not assume you meant for it to be there!” (Document 21, emphasis in original). Yet, he also warned that any feedback that contains errors or is unrelated to the objective receives an automatic 1 on rubric 12, meaning that students need to exercise caution in their feedback. When it comes to submitting the portfolio to be scored, the presenter offered a set of “Little known facts[s],” saying: 190 Scorers only grade one task at a time in the order of the three tasks. Scorers only have access to one task at a time. Once scores for Task 1 rubrics are submitted, they cannot be changed. So, if you want something considered in rubrics 1-5, you must place it somewhere in Task 1! If you address it in Task 2 or 3, it will NOT be considered in Task 1. Do NOT rely on your scorer remembering something you provided in Task 1 for Tasks 2 or 3! Restate it or find a place for addressing it! It is OK to be repetitive in this assessment!12 (Document 21, emphasis in original) In other words, the presenter indicated in his document that clear videos, elaborate assessments, and repetition throughout the portfolio are critical to scoring high on the edTPA, because once a reviewer scores a task, the scorer cannot go back on their score. Furthermore, while the presenter discussed the passing score for the state, he also explained, “There is a ‘mastery score’ for [the state]…[a] score of at least 48, average rubric of 3.2013” (Document 21). The presenter’s final tips for preparation highlight dilemmas pertaining to time and quality of writing. As the presenter explains: Plan in advance and take your time in choosing wisely, but remember that you need to complete this relatively fast. We do not deduct scores for spelling mistakes or poor grammar/writing, but come on! You are going to be a teacher! (Document 21, emphasis in original) 12 In my interview with Sally, she stated that she had to be very repetitive because she was told that each reviewer only looks at one rubric, or at the most, one task. I wondered if the statement in this presentation was the reason for Sally’s misunderstanding. 13 I had not heard the term “mastery score” during the interviews. In fact, during the edTPA session, students were encouraged to score just high enough to pass, rather than trying to score as high as possible. 191 Accordingly, the statement encourages students to pay attention to the way they write, especially because they are working to become teachers. In short, the implication becomes that poor writing reflects poor teaching. In making sense of the edTPA for student teachers, the NUSU graduate’s presentation is a demonstration of someone in a position of power interpreting for others what good teaching looks like according to the edTPA. Having also described his own positioning as an edTPA scorer, he emphasizes that student teachers should interact with edTPA by aligning their lesson plans to Common Core, spending lots of time being repetitive about how they are following the rubrics, and writing as much as possible. Furthermore, by defining mastery as a numeric score, he effectively stated that scoring a 48 becomes the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher. NUSU Student Teacher Website While the music education faculty at NUSU have been active in presenting on the edTPA at conferences, one of the most sweeping and centralized efforts of implementing the edTPA can be found through the NUSU student teacher website (Document 9). Developed and maintained by Professor F with the assistance of faculty, the homepage states, The information on this site is from varied sources; PME [Principles of Music Education] and MTL [Music Teaching and Learning] classes, AACTE [American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education] students, and faculty. (Document 9) Moreover, while the homepage is primarily directed towards student teachers, the page is also evidence of the way NUSU interacts with and implements the edTPA by creating resources for PME, MTL, and student teaching. 192 Below this statement on the homepage are three buttons, including “handbook, dates and forms” (Document 8), “TaskStream information,” and “edTPA Information” (Document 9). When clicking on the edTPA, users are directed to a page with links to several external documents from edTPA, including the edTPA handbook, the edTPA “Making Good Choices” handbook14, edTPA submission dates, edTPA videotaping policies, and information on academic language. (Document 7). Other documents on the page include an edTPA document on the performing arts rubrics with passages highlighted by NUSU faculty, videotaping hints from another institute of higher learning (Document 23), the alumnus presentation on edTPA mentioned earlier in this chapter (Document 21), information and principles from PME and MTL, and a curriculum project from MTL. The website also includes a link at the top for cooperating teachers, which in addition to some of the links mentioned above, also includes external links to academic language according to Edutopia, and several edTPA links, such as an edTPA guide, connections to Marzano, connections to Danielson, connections to InTASC, and “edTPA Myths and Facts” (Document 6). In addition to the co-op page link, there is a link to teaching methods and frameworks, which includes links to external websites for Orff, Kodály, Suzuki, Dalcroze, and Gordon, and More Gordon [sic] (Document 5)15. On the same page is a link to Understanding by Design [UbD], a framework developed outside of music by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe to address desired results, evidence, and planning through backward design (Document 4). However, out of all of 14 According to SCALE (2019), “Overall, Making Good Choices examines edTPA tasks within an interactive cycle of planning, instruction, and assessment. This document will help you think about how to plan, instruct, assess, and reflect on student learning, not only for completing edTPA, but also for effective teaching into the future” (p. 1). 15 As of April 24, 2020, the links for Kodaly, Dalcroze, and Gordon were broken. 193 the approaches listed on the page, UbD was the only framework to be referenced on “Toolbox Info from PME and MTL” page on the student teacher website (Document 18). PME and MTL According to NUSU’s course catalog, Principles of Music Education is described as a course that explores theories and encourages students to develop their own “personal view of teaching” (Document 37). Building on the ideas expressed in PME, MTL then focuses on “application of pedagogical principles to achieving musical goals across diverse educational contexts” (Document 38). After these two courses, students enter into their respective practicum courses depending on their track, and ultimately, their student teaching. Furthermore, the faculty posted a page of names for student teachers to remember when completing their student teaching and the edTPA. Among the names include music educators and ethnomusicologists such as Peter Webster, Alan Merriam, Bennett Reimer, Lucy Green, Andrew Gregory, Eunice Boardman, Evan Tobias, Bruno Nettle, Patricia Sheehan-Campbell, Mark Campbell, Janet Barrett, Linda Thompson, and Mark DeTur (Document 18) Other names outside of music education and ethnomusicology include Benjamin Bloom, Abraham Maslow, Alfie Kohn, Joseph Schwab, B.F. Skinner, Tony Wagner, Jean Piaget, Lee Vygotsky, Joan Bransford, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Jerome Bruner, Howard Gardner, Ted Sizer, Bill Ayers, John Dewey, Elliott Eisner, Catherine Fosnot, and Jacqueline Brooks. However, of all the names and analyses on the page, the longest of all of them is the description of UbD by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (Document 18). Once again, UbD is the only approach described in both the PME/MTL Toolbox and the teaching methods and frameworks page, and no mention of the word music or art is made within the summary/analysis. However, UbD is 194 mentioned in edTPA’s review of research as a justification for content validity, especially with respect to validating Rubric 1: Planning for Content Understandings (SCALE, 2015a, 2015b). While no references to “music” or “art” are made, there is an emphasis on performances, presenting to audiences, and culminating projects. Furthermore, performances are described as being standards-based, and instruction is described as constructivist. Additionally, the principles of assessment mirror the advice given in the alumnus’ presentation by encouraging constructed responses instead of selected responses like multiple choice questions. That said, the backward design element of UbD referenced by edTPA for content validity involves time, as the faculty explain: Effective curriculum development reflects a three-stage design process called “backward design” that delays the planning of classroom activities until goals have been clarified and assessment designed. (Document 18) Furthermore, while the faculty describe UbD as “research-based best practices,” it is nevertheless time consuming, which may be difficult for a student to accomplish in an eight-week-long student teacher placement. In a separate document on NUSU’s edTPA page, the faculty posted a set of principles from the MTL course which speak to the people we teach, the content we teach, and the framework for our teaching. Using many of the names described above, the faculty offered a synthesis of principles for teaching and learning. With respect to the learner, they wrote: Effective teaching mindsets involve empathy and an understanding of the components of intrinsic motivation, student self-worth and self-efficacy and the need for student self- determination and autonomy. Students learn best when their needs, backgrounds, perspectives and interests are reflected in the learning program. Effective teaching 195 involves acquiring relevant knowledge about students and using that knowledge to inform curriculum work, classroom teaching, and assessment. (Document 15) With respect to content, they wrote: Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Artistic literacy emerges out of mindful engagement that involves imagination, investigation, construction, and reflection. To develop understanding of musical structure and context, students need help in constructing perceptual skills, practicing them, reflecting on their use, and placing them a context. We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development. (Document 15, emphasis in original) Finally, with respect to working within a framework, they wrote, “A well-designed curriculum that promotes artistic literacy and lifelong learning is comprehensive, relevant, sequential, and balanced” (Document 15). To assess the quality of learning, they encouraged consideration of the experiences ability to produce new experiences, the experience’s connections to personal meaning, and the immediate and long-term impact of the experience. In short, the principles expressed in these classes offer a core philosophy of empathy, authenticity, and experience within the music classroom. While the document provides a powerful set of principles, the principles may conflict with the principles of edTPA. For one thing, UbD is notably absent from the document. More important, the edTPA handbook makes only one reference to the word “experience” within the rubrics (Rubric 7). Additionally references to the word “authentic” are found only three times in the edTPA handbook, and the word is absent from the rubrics. Finally, the word “empathy” is absent from the entire edTPA document, and words like “rapport” and “respect” are used instead. 196 While Document 15 makes no mention of UbD, the MTL curriculum project is nevertheless rooted in UbD (Document 20). Designed by Professor D, the curriculum project is centered on designing and planning strong essential questions. Building on the work of Wiggins and McTighe, Professor D poses criteria for an essential question, including the question’s ability to produce new questions/experiences, general spiral learning, encourage further learning, interest students, sustain interest over time, offer multiple ways of learning, facilitate individual skill building, and solve a musical problem. As Professor D writes, In MTL, we say that essential/generative questions lead to more learning and ‘create a need to know’ for students” (Document 20). The document also provides examples of recurring questions in life, “What is music? Why do people respond to music,” questions within a discipline, and questions that help students to make sense of ideas, such as “What skills do we need to express ourselves musically? What ways have people invented to describe music?” (Document 20). To help students understand what an essential question is, the document gives examples of what an essential question is not. For example, the document provides the following non- exemplars: “What instruments are in the brass family? What pitches are used in the main theme?” (Document 20). Furthermore, Professor D offers two example questions as being generative or essential: “How do we decide what is a good piece of music? What do we need to do to create a convincing and emotionally moving composition?” (Document 20). Overall, the project is a synthesis of planning powerful questions that could be used in an edTPA project while offering ideas of emotion not discussed in UbD or edTPA. “Understanding Rubric Level Progressions” While as a rule I am not reviewing edTPA documents unless they were developed by members of the NUSU community, I will review NUSU’s copy of “Understanding Rubric Level 197 Progressions,” for two reasons. First, the document has been altered by faculty in that several portions have been highlighted for students. Second, while the document explains the rubrics in greater detail, the document is not available to the general public, as it states, The information contained in this document is confidential and proprietary to Pearson of the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE). It should not be circulated to unauthorized persons. (Document 22) Therefore, given the circumstances for obtaining this document, I believe that it is pertinent to consider the faculty’s highlights and their implications. Rubric 5 requires candidates to embed assessments into their planning. Furthermore, the faculty highlighted a passage explaining what would constitute a score of 2: Examples of limited assessments include a single assessment, assessments that focus on a single kind of knowledge or skill OR assessments that gather only informal information (such as asking questions to individual students or observing without record keeping). (Document 22, emphasis added) At the same time, while the edTPA handbook uses the words “limited evidence” to describe assessment planning that is considered to be scored as a 2, the highlighted passage above shows that a candidate must use multiple assessments, multiple kinds of knowledge/skill, and include formal documentation, that is, a written record. Rubric 6 requires candidates to demonstrate a positive learning environment. However, the faculty highlighted a passage in Document 22 that is not present in the edTPA handbook: “Candidates sometime describe events that do not appear in the video or conflict with scenes from the video – such statements should not override evidence depicted in the video.” The 198 highlighted passage is a reminder that regardless of a candidate’s written narrative of context, the reviewer’s interpretation of the video trumps the candidate’s written explanations. Rubric 7 requires students to actively engage in music, with the difference between a score of 3 and a score of 4 being that a 3 addresses knowledge, content, and/or expression, whereas a 4 develops exploration of the same. Document 22 explains the difference between addressing and exploring, as highlighted by the faculty: “[At level 3,] although these content understandings are evident in conversations, they are addressed at the cursory level.” The document goes on to give a level 3 example: The candidate has students in the jazz band improvise over a set of F-Blues changes, but does not use the scalar nature of the improvisation to discuss how this relates to the chord changes in the piece the students are performing. (Document 22) To put it another way, in order to receive a 4 demonstrating student exploration, it is not sufficient for the students to improvise over the chord changes using the appropriate scales, but rather, the teacher in this example must also verbalize with students what is happening. Rubric 8 requires candidates to deepen student learning by evoking student performances and responses. However, as the faculty highlighted, student response is critical to a decent score on Rubric 8: “At Level 1, there are few opportunities in the clips that students were able to express ideas or respond to directions to guide the performance” (Document 22). On the other hand, having students talk is highly valued, as described in the examples of a Level 4: Referring to a previous student response in developing a point or an argument; calling on the student to elaborate on what s/he said; posing questions to guide a student discussion or performance; soliciting student examples and asking another student to identify what 199 they have in common; asking a student to summarize a lengthy discussion or rambling explanation… (Document 22) To put it another way, a performance without discussions could potentially score as low as a 1, whereas a lesson with “rambling” can potentially score a 4. Rubric 10 requires students to adjust instruction as per the needs of students. However, as the faculty highlighted in Document 22, “If a candidate’s proposed changes have nothing to do with the central focus, this rubric cannot be scored beyond a level 2.” Simply put, while the rubric states that the teacher should adjust instruction based on the students, the unpacking rubrics document makes it clear that the purpose of adjusting instruction is to tend to the objective requirements. In the same way that Rubric 6 explains that reviewers’ interpretations of video footage trump a candidates’ written commentary, Rubric 14 points out that video footage alone is not sufficient, and commentary must accompany the footage. The NUSU faculty highlighted an example in Document 22: [For a Level 3,] It is not sufficient for the candidate to point to the artifact and make a general statement that, for example, “As seen in the work samples, the student used the vocabulary as they performed the piece of music as a class.” The candidate must explain how the students used the identified language, e.g., “Students 1 and 2 used the vocabulary words (whole note, half note, 2/4 time) as they interpreted the rhythms using counting syllables before they performed them (video time stamp) Student 3 was trying to interpret the rhythms without the use of counting syllables, so he needs to demonstrate his understanding of the underlying rhythmic structures through the use of the counting system (video time stamp).” 200 It also notable that the faculty highlighted discourse as needing to be discipline-specific and then provided examples of discipline-specific language as being Western notation and time signatures. Therefore, while the NUSU’s highlighting of passages may potentially help students to pass the edTPA, the highlights nonetheless denote examples of how confidential edTPA documents reveal a hidden curriculum within the rubrics, especially one that focuses on an ability to write and talk about teaching. NUSU Videotape Project In order to provide student teachers with an example for accomplishing Task 2 of the edTPA, the faculty developed sample questions, prompts, and examples for student teachers to consider for edTPA rubrics 6-10. The form has also been used as a project for general music practicum. As rubric 6 focuses on learning environment, the faculty offered the following sample questions: Boys and girls, what do we need to do to create a positive learning space? What are some ways we can use to achieve our goals? What do good listeners do? What does it mean to collaborate? (Document 24) For rubric 7, engaging student in learning, the faculty offered several prompts for presenting students with a problem and offering direct instruction, concept construction, role playing, and skill development: How will you know you have done it well? When will we know that the whole class [has] done well? Let me see. Let me hear. What did you discover? What did you not understand from what you found? What else do you need to know? What did you discover about teaching your friend? What was hard? What was easy? What did you learn about your own learning? What do you think are the hard parts here? Why? What can you 201 do to make the hard parts easier? How could you look for help? Where could you look for help?16 (Document 24) For rubric 8, or deepening student learning, the faculty offered the following suggestions as prompts: Think-pair-share; peer teach; student journals and reflections/blogs; role playing as critics/composers/performers/detectives/reporters; listening and comparing; [and in red font] extending and refining student answers. (Document 24) As rubric 9 focuses on subject specific pedagogy, the faculty emphasized that the student teacher should study a tune, including the composer, time, place, context, subject, expression, techniques, structure, and sound. (Document 24). Finally, for rubric 10, which covers analysis of teaching effectiveness, the faculty wrote: “Transcribe the video, analyze the video for the principles, look for blank spots, then ask others where possible blind spots may be” (Document 24). Overall, the template focused on score/tune study, prepared questions, teaching strategies that facilitate student independence, and checking for errors in teaching afterwards. Overall, the NUSU student teaching website is thorough and filled almost a thousand pages of documents that demonstrate how the faculty are working, not only to offer student teachers resources for the edTPA, but also to implement the edTPA through four core courses of the music education major, that is, PME, MTL, Practicum, and Student Teaching. However, while the documents provide thorough descriptions and prompts for planning and instruction, far less information is offered on assessment. 16 As I read the faculties suggestions for prompts, I was fascinated to see how similar the questions were to my own when I presented on “Techniques for Top-Notch Observations” at the 2016 NAfME conference, which focused on the Danielson Framework for Teaching. 202 Out of all the pre-student teaching courses offered in the music department at NUSU, general music practicum embeds the most edTPA content by far. Furthermore, the elementary and secondary general music practicum courses are described as follows: Designed to acquaint students with the professional world of music education while providing teaching experiences. Emphasis is placed on developing general music teacher competencies in planning, organizing, evaluating, and teaching. (Document 39, Document 40) By comparison, the band and string practicum course descriptions both say, “Topics include curriculum planning, rehearsal and lesson strategies, recruiting procedures, scheduling, programming, repertoire, and student evaluation” (Document 41, Document 42). Furthermore, while the general music practicum courses focus on topics closely related to the edTPA, the instrumental practicum courses consider topics not mentioned in the edTPA, such as rehearsal strategies, programming, and repertoire. However, the choral music practicum goes even further away from the edTPA framework in its course description, saying, This course provides the undergraduate choral music education student the opportunity to conduct and rehearse young artists in a choral context. Students will gain practical understanding of the developing child's voice as they observe, study, rehearse, conduct, and perform a wide variety of choral literature for children's voices. (Document 43) Thus, while the other courses use buzz words from the edTPA like planning and teaching, the choral practicum uses words like conduct, rehearse, perform, and choral literature. 203 NUSU General Music Practicum Website The homepage of general music practicum website indicates that there are five sources of information, with one being the edTPA (Document 44). Additionally, the edTPA is included in half of the written assignments listed in the syllabus. For example: You are required to complete a writing assignment about your teaching that relates directly to the following edTPA prompts: Creating a Positive Learning Environment, Engaging Learners and Deepening Learning. You will also be required to write an essay on analysis of your teaching. (Document 45) Additionally, students are required to complete a mock edTPA video: You are required to add to your music teaching professional portfolio by uploading a “presentation-ready” version of your practicum edTPA video commentary. Post this to the “Competencies” section found on the portfolio. Corresponding videos and plans must accompany the edTPA video commentary. Other artifacts that demonstrate your professional growth are optional but must reflect the intent of the portfolio. (Document 45) In addition to listing the edTPA as an integral part of the course syllabus, the website contains information on edTPA in the majority of pages on the site, including the calendar, the general music assignments, the “links” page, and of course, the “edTPA” page (Document 44). Several links on the edTPA page of the website are also on NUSU’s student teaching site, including the principles from MTL, the scaffolding document (Document 19), the edTPA instruction rubrics, and the edTPA academic language document. Some external links not offered on the student teaching website included two documents on curriculum and instruction from Iowa’s Common Core State Standards, NAfME’s list of essential questions for each standard, 204 and a link to passedtpa.com, a site containing strategies for passing the edTPA, including a portfolio exemplar that received a perfect score (Document 46). Internal documents included a document about questions to integrate into planning (Document 47), a document titled “Effective Assessment” (Document 48), and students’ exemplar documents that address language function (Document 53) The document of questions was developed by faculty to help preservice teachers to consider what kinds of questions they might ask, “for helping learners become competent in music” (Document 47). Furthermore, the document divides the questions between critical thinking and “developing/assessing conceptual understanding” (Document 47). While over 40 questions are posted in the document, some music-specific questions for critical thinking include: Are you going to include rhythmic variation in your composition? Why are you leaving out examples of music making outside the range of classical music? Which recording best expresses what you think the piece is trying to express? Why do you think the question about the role of lullabies in human music making was asked? (Document 47) Music-specific questions for assessing and developing conceptual understanding included: What is a song? How do people use music? What logic does your playlist have? What do you need to do to play this piece successfully? How can we express the desired emotion of the piece better through our instrument (or singing)? How is perception in music related to production in music? How do people express themselves through music? What makes music expressive? What skills do we (people) need to understand music? (Document 47) 205 Beyond having questions for students, the faculty also wrote questions for the teacher to consider about their own teaching: What are the nine functions of music in human society according to Merriam? Reflecting on the role culture plays in music, what are the main justifications for teaching music in the schools using a cultural functions framework? In a cultural functions framework for teaching music, what options does the teacher have in designing curriculum and planning instruction? What are the similarities and differences between teaching musical forms and musical roles in culture? Furthermore, while the document offered a wide range of questions for assessment, no references to scores, tests, or rubrics emerged. Instead, the concept of assessment was rooted in questioning, growth, and discovery. Upon clicking the link on the edTPA page titled “Effective Assessment” (Document 46), a document opens titled, “Creating a Culture of Evaluation.” (Document 48). Within the document created by one of the practicum instructors, assessment is defined as, “the appraisal of individual student performance,” whereas evaluation is defined as “the appraisal of a program” (Document 48). However, the document does go on to say that evaluation can be used to make a judgment about a person, and that if the judgments provide feedback that inform decision- making, they are useful. Furthermore, while the document describes students in relation to assessment, the document describes teachers as evaluated. The document goes on to define a performance assessment as “Assessment that measures student performance on concrete tasks or activities…often attached to rubrics” (Document 48). Furthermore, the document demonstrates that the edTPA is an assessment of student learning that evaluates a teacher education program by offering feedback regarding a student teacher’s 206 readiness to teach based on the artifacts submitted by the student teacher. Yet, in their justification for evaluation and assessment, the writers articulate: The primary function of evaluation is to provide information. Evaluation of student learning is primarily clinical where the aim is not to classify students or to promote or fail students. Instead the aim is to secure information in order to enhance their educational development. (Document 48) Nevertheless, according to the document, edTPA assignments are linked to 75% of a student’s grade for the class (Document 48), and those who do not complete them cannot pass and go on to student teaching (Document 45). On the assignments page of the website, a description is provided regarding the four portfolio assignments for the semester, titled “Practicum edTPA Video Instructional Commentary:” A formal 12-page video self-critique of your teaching will be required during your student teaching. For Practicum, you will be expected to write a modified version in 4 separate assignments. (Document 50) Specifically, the assignments cover four out of the five prompts in Task 2 of the edTPA, that is, learning environment (250-300 words), engaging students in learning 250-300 words, deepening student learning (400-500 words), and analysis of teaching (400-500 words) (Document 51). Absent from the list of requirements is subject specific pedagogy. In spite of the widespread adjustments to include edTPA in general music practicum, one assignment is notably absent of any edTPA language or procedures: The final teacher development synthesis. (Document 50). Described as a professional development profile, students are asked to write a reflection of their development as a teacher, a component not 207 present in the edTPA. In addition to the assignment being a reflection, students are also given the choice between writing a 4-5 page written reflection or creating a 5-8 minute verbal reflection on video, a choice that is also not provided in the edTPA (Document 52). While some of the pedagogy was centered on philosophies associated with edTPA, much of the content appeared relatively unaffected. In what was described as student informances, students in grades PreK through 6 shared a variety of content (Document 44). For example, PreK shared “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” sung with shakers, “Five Little Turkeys” as a chant/fingerplay, “Teddy Bear” as a song/dance, “Engine Engine Number Nine” marched to a steady beat, and demonstrated form on sticks while listening to Leroy Anderson’s The Syncopated Clock. Kindergarteners and first graders demonstrated musical interpretations of picture books using instruments and movement. Second graders sang and described the background of a Japanese song titled, “Yuki” (snow), performed another song using ukulele and movement, and performed an Irish jig. In grades 3 and 4, the students made a mindmap of emotions that they felt when listening to a piece of music, and created a movie that included their own original music, scripts, acting, and instrumentation. Finally, grades 5 and 6 sang the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da along with new lyrics that they created, and then used instruments to demonstrate a piece they created based on their interpretation of two works of art by Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh. In essence, the primary difference between the younger grades and the older grades was that while the younger grades mostly performed through singing, instruments, and movement, the upper grades mostly responded through mindmapping emotions, and/or created through arranging, composing, and improvising (Document 44).17 17 It is notable that Kindergarten and first grade played sounds to accompany parts of the story, though it is difficult to determine whether this was for the purposes of creating or performing in this context. 208 The General Music Practicum provides the most sweeping inclusion of edTPA of any pre-student teaching course at NUSU. Three quarters of a student’s grade is based on edTPA- related assignments, four out of the five rubrics from Task 2 of edTPA are covered in practicum, and the curriculum summary assignment requires student to identify a single language function. However, while the faculty provides a document on effective assessment, the document makes no reference to edTPA, nor are there any student exemplars of edTPA-appropriate assessments. Instead, the final assignment of the semester focuses on reflection, a word that is not present in any of the edTPA rubrics. Student Teachers While there is a lack of NUSU documents on the NUSU student teaching website pertaining to assessment beyond the need to use constructed responses, several student teachers from NUSU have released their edTPA documents, thus allowing for context regarding how student teachers are completing the edTPA, including how they have completed the assessment portions. Additionally, the documents released by student teachers provide an insight into how student teachers have interacted with and implemented the edTPA. The general music practicum website includes a few student exemplars. For example, the faculty highlighted one student’s commentary on promoting a positive learning environment in the context of a lesson about entrepreneurship in music: During our discussion of collaboration, I said “What is the difference between being mean and constructive criticism? and the students responded with “It is criticism, but you tell them in a nice way and you are being helpful” (2:50-4:15). It was evident that the students understood... For example, one student said, “I think your product seems very fun, but your pitch would be even better if you were more excited about it” (4:20 - 209 6:03)... Each of these instances in this segment of the lesson illustrates my goal of establishing mutual respect and rapport with students, which are essential elements for cultivating a disposition of collaboration and for establishing a positive learning environment. These teaching strategies are supported by the research of Brooks who states that a positive environment is created with “no winners and losers,” and further supported by the fact that students illustrated respect towards each other. (Document 49) The student’s reference to Brooks pertains to Jacqueline Brooks, a science teacher and STEM advocate who has also published research on constructivism. Furthermore, given the constructivist approach promoted by faculty at NUSU, it is understandable that this passage would be a noted exemplar. In another example of language function from the perspective of curriculum planning, the faculty posted another exemplar by six students who worked together to implement a project using expression as their language function: Students will be split up into two groups. The groups have four members who have composed several haikus. The students created their own haiku and compose a musical accompaniment for the haiku. The compositions will be performed by the two groups at the informance. Both groups have four compositions. Each composition will be written down on a template and projected for the audience to see during the performance. Since each student is having their own haiku performed they will be responsible for assuming the role as conductor and coordinator of their group. They are in charge of instrumentation, dynamics, rhythm and general expressive qualities. The student in charge will write out their own template and choose what rhythms go with what words, and when and how the instruments accompanying them will be played. (Document 53) 210 Elaborating on the language function, the students wrote: Students learn about and explore the different ways that music is expressive; all the moods, ideas, and emotions that can be expressed and the ways to express these things, such as form, instrumentation, dynamics, tempo, articulation, etc. (Document 53) Consequently, the project was deemed exemplary by faculty because the students articulated one of the language functions as defined by edTPA—expression. Furthermore, the students were able to write about how their teaching connected to expression, and they included both sequential examples and a list of vocabulary words specific to music. Student Teacher A While neither of the above artifacts presented on the NUSU practicum website demonstrated a clear articulation of assessment, some NUSU student teachers have chosen to post copies of their edTPA which have shown how student teachers are using assessment in practice. Like many students at NUSU, while Student Teacher A’s performance concentrations were voice and violin, she chose to complete her edTPA with a 4th grade general music class, which she also listed on her resume (Document 30). In choosing her central focus, Student Teacher A wrote: Developing precorder18 technique through treble clef composition and performance in 4th grade general music” (Document 31). She also provided five of the NAfME 2014 Standards covered within the lesson, all falling within the domains of creating and performing. She described her objectives as broader than the central focus, saying, “By the end of the lesson a student can identify the jobs within a group, identify and respond to the criteria when shown examples, [and] explain how a 18 A “precorder” is described by Suzuki (2020) as a “pre-recorder,” or a “beginning wind instrument” with “specially designed polished wind chambers” and “raised tone holes.” (p. 1) 211 group can work together to solve a problem” (Document 31). Student Teacher A also included prior knowledge from the previous year, including a working knowledge of precorder and notation, and common errors, including overblowing, not covering holes properly, and holding the instrument in the wrong hand. Building on the emphasis on questioning at NUSU, Student Teacher A’s plan was loaded with questions, including: What are some strategies we can use to strengthen our precorder skills? How might an etude help us with some of our problems? What is the purpose of this etude? What skill is it practicing? Does this etude meet the goal it is trying to achieve? Is there improvement in the skills it is practicing? Is this etude appropriate for my ability level? Does this practice skills that are too hard or too easy for me right now? Is there the correct number of beats in each measure? Are my stems pointing in the right direction? Are my time signature and clef marked correctly? Am I using the repeat sign or double bar-line correctly? Do I have a correct number of measures? Does this meet our needs What happens if we disagree? (Document 31) While Student Teacher A’s use of questioning aligned with the course content at NUSU, what was more confusing was her use of assessment, which included techniques like “show me,” thumbs up/down, observation, and think-pair-share, all of which NUSU encourages for edTPA’s Rubric 8: Deepening Student Learning, but not for edTPA’s assessment task (Document 31). Nevertheless, Student Teacher A assessed students based on their abilities to show with their hands the proper number of beats in a half note, giving yes/no/maybe responses to questions using their thumbs, observing students as they played, and using accountable talk with peers. 212 Student Teacher A then passed the edTPA, writing on her website, “I received a score of Mastery,” thus suggesting that she scored a 48 or higher (Document 32). Student Teacher B Student Teacher B majored in music education at NUSU with a concentration in clarinet performance and taught band for 7 weeks in his secondary student teacher placement, but he completed his edTPA during his first placement in an elementary general music setting. As Student Teacher B explained, For my elementary placement, I student taught K-3 General Music and 3rd Grade Chorus for 8 weeks…In my short time, I created 2 lesson units for a 4-week period for grades 1 and 3. The students were taught a variety of musical material, with added review, new material and future material in each lesson. (Document 33) Student Teacher B also focused on note values for his edTPA, as he explained in his teaching philosophy: I believe that all students should have an opportunity to learn about music. Music is an exciting part of life and it is heard everywhere that an individual may be. I want students to understand how music works; from melodies to rhythms, note values to dynamics, I want students to understand music with deeper meaning than just "something on the radio". All individuals should have chances to be able to listen to music and gain the ability to comprehend the very mechanics of what music is. (Document 33). Furthermore, he described his edTPA as “highly successful with the students due to the repetition of the rhythm chant” (Document 33). Student Teacher B chose 3rd grade and broke down the central focus into three parts: Artistic skill in creating rhythmic melodies, knowledge of note values, and contextual 213 understanding of the composer of the week (this contextual understanding was changed after the first lesson). Pre-instructional planning included a prior knowledge of self-space, steady beat, and some rhythm. Student Teacher B wrote 4 lesson plans, and each plan referenced between 12 and 16 standards from NAfME, encompassing standards in all four domains. Additionally, Student Teacher B referenced two Common Core Standards pertaining to comprehension and collaboration: Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker offering appropriate elaboration and detail, [and] use information gained from illustrations (e.g. maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where when, why, and how key events occur. (Document 33) For each lesson, the “I can” statements progressed from identification, to technique, to creating. Unlike Student Teacher A, there were no questions to be found in any of the four lesson plans, but rather a focus on teacher-directed instruction. Even the learning environment preparation was teacher-directed, specifying, “Sit legs crossed, hands in their lap with no talking” (Document 33). Furthermore, content included Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, echo chanting of Western notation values and rhythm syllables, “America,” and a singing game titled “One in the Middle” (Document 33). Additionally, all of Student Teacher B’s assessments were informal. For lessons 1 and 2, the teacher visually assessed the students as they played instruments, and in lessons 3 and 4, the teacher visually examined the rhythmic word chains that the students created. Overall, while the central focus was music-specific, the standards were unclear in connection, the assessments were informal, and the planning was teacher-centered. Nevertheless, Student Teacher B also passed the edTPA. 214 Student Teacher C Like Student Teacher A, Student Teacher C also studied music education at NUSU with a concentration in violin. However, of the three edTPA portfolios presented in this chapter, Student Teacher C was the only one to complete her edTPA in an ensemble or instrumental setting. Additionally, she was the only student to provide a separate document detailing her assessment protocols. Furthermore, Student Teacher C’s topic was repertoire driven and used the same central focus and language functions, though she chose expression as a central focus, whereas she chose identify, analyze, and compare/contrast as language functions, contrary to NUSU’s advice to that candidates use only one language function (such as expression). Student Teacher C started with five objectives in the first lesson, then six in the second, and concluded with seven in the third lesson. However, the objective that appeared to be the most pertinent to her central focus stated, “Students will have opportunity for self-expression and exploration of their ideas within the means and guidelines of the piece” (Document 28). Student Teacher C also provided a list of prerequisites, including chamber music performance experience, bowing experience, and experience performing notation. Student Teacher C also provided common errors, such as shyness in performing lead parts, unsteady rhythms, shifting positions, intonation, and syncopation. Similar to Student Teacher B, none of the three lesson plans included questions. However, she does note several times in the lesson plans a need to ask questions to check for understanding, and at the end of lesson 3, she explains, Relevant questions are listed on a handout” (Document 28) In short, Student Teacher C included her written questions in her assessment handouts for students. Student Teacher C lists a variety of resources and technologies that she uses in her lessons, including several websites, technologies, and instructional materials. Additionally, she 215 lists five NAfME standards and four Common Core State Standards. She also employs Lee Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking. Most of all, every lesson articulated a combination of informal and formal assessments. For lesson 1, while Student Teacher C described four informal assessments involving questions and observations, she described the formal lesson as a written artifact: Students will fill out a self-assessment form, with the freedom to ask questions and make comments. Student teacher will use this form to check the student’s perspective of growth and understanding of themselves and give feedback. Student teacher will provide written feedback on these rubrics and give them back during the next lesson. (Document 28) While lesson 2 had students fill out a self-assessment of growth, Student Teacher C included an additional rubric-based assessment: Student teacher will fill out rubric that examines the student’s understanding of the topic thus far through their paper representation, attempts at editing performance, verbal explanation, and comments on other student work. Students will receive this in the next lesson. (Document 28) Finally, lesson 3 concludes with students filling out a worksheet answering questions. In a separate document, Student Teacher C developed the rubrics and worksheets that she used as part of her formal assessments. Furthermore, in lesson 1, Student Teacher C had her students rate themselves from 1 to 5 the extent to which they understood the piece. However, the assessment also included a narrative element where students wrote answers to questions regarding what they liked about the lesson and what they would want to do differently. 216 Additionally, while lesson 2 used a similar assessment with a few variations (such as a 1-3 scale), Lesson 3’s assessment asked students to construct responses to the following questions: Why is it important to know about the composer of a piece you are playing? How does knowing about the culture of the time period help you perform the piece? What kinds of technical changes did you make in your playing? What did you learn that you will take with you into your next chamber music experience? How does translating the Italian text allow you to play more creatively and musically? (Document 29) Beyond the constructed response section in lesson 3, Student Teacher C also constructed a rubric using a 1-5 scale measuring four criteria, including technical alterations, understanding text and symbols, incorporating new knowledge of the work, and expressing musical ideas (Document 29). Student Teacher C also used second person language for students and breaks down what each set of terms mean. Out of the three portfolios that I was able to access for this study, Student Teacher C’s offered the most clear and concrete explanations of formal and informal assessments. However, my own judgment about Student Teacher C speaks to the idea that the edTPA examines a candidate’s ability to write about teaching. Furthermore, it should be noted that Student Teacher A graduated summa cum laude from NUSU (Document 30), and Student Teacher B earned his degree with distinction. Discussion Over the course of this chapter, I have analyzed NUSU’s policy documents as text and discourse (Ball, 2006) to address the research question, “How do stakeholders interact with, implement, describe, and make sense of their experiences with edTPA?” Early administrative reports suggest that the administrators viewed edTPA as part of a larger accountability 217 movement in P-12 education to define “good” teaching. Furthermore, in order to lessen what they saw as stress on the part of many P-12 teachers, administration described the edTPA as something in which they “must comply” and “must respond” (Document 26). Furthermore, NUSU administrator worked to reframe their curriculum in a way that would demonstrate program improvement and define “good” teaching. As for the music education administration, program improvement and student “success” meant that 80 percent of students were passing the edTPA (Document 35). Furthermore, if students were passing the edTPA, then faculty could use those scores as evidence of being a “good” teacher educator. The student teacher handbook expanded on the notion of “good” teaching by embedding the edTPA throughout the document. Because the handbook was geared toward multiple groups of stakeholders, it became the responsibility of the writers to make sense of the edTPA for readers, which they attempted by comparing the edTPA to the NAfME standards and the works of Danielson and Marzano. Beyond defining the edTPA as good, they called it an “excellent framework” that could demonstrate “good” teaching (Document 14). Furthermore, they described the edTPA as constructivist and feedback-driven tool that would benefit all stakeholders, including future employers who could use a student teacher’s edTPA results in their hiring deliberations. Beyond looking at the student teacher, the document describes what it means to be a “good” mentor in the context of edTPA, and they describe the edTPA as something in which all stakeholders need to buy in to, especially cooperating teachers. In addition to expanding distribution of edTPA to stakeholders, the administration also raised the stakes. While the state requires students to pass the edTPA to gain certification, NUSU took things a step further by requiring students to submit their edTPA in TaskStream to graduate, thus expanding the parameters of edTPA from determining a “good” teacher to also determining a 218 “good” graduate. Overall, building on the work of Sato (2014), the administration used the edTPA to make sense of what it meant to be a “good” stakeholder based on their experiences with edTPA. Moreover, using Ball’s (2006) analysis of policy as discourse, the handbook shows how a select few teachers and administrators had the authority to dictate values of good teaching, provided it remained within the general values and frameworks of edTPA. While the administration primarily focused on definitions of “good” in the context of edTPA, faculty were more focused on implementing and articulating NUSU’s interpretation of a “good” edTPA across spaces. Furthermore, the faculty documents extrapolated the application of edTPA to multiple settings as well as demonstrating how edTPA scores differentiate between “good” teaching and “mastery” teaching (Document 21). Explanations of “good” teaching with the edTPA included lots of repetition, writing, connections to Common Core, and referencing teaching frameworks like UbD. Even so, not all of the courses that used edTPA aligned with the language of edTPA, and while NUSU focuses on values like empathy in their curriculum, the word is nowhere to be found in edTPA. Furthermore, the faculty’s highlighting of passages in edTPA’s unpacking of rubrics demonstrates a hidden curriculum that defines “good” teaching within the confines of one’s ability to write about it and talk about it. Thus, by reimaging NUSU as an institution that prepares “good” teachers through the edTPA, the faculty has, to borrow from Shahjahan and Torres, (2013), framed poor teacher preparation and quality as the problem, and framed edTPA as a large-scale quality assurance solution. The notions of good expressed through the edTPA ultimately affect the people for whom teachers seek to serve—the learner. Aside from offering sample prompts for teachers using gendered language such as “boys and girls,” the prompts ask P-12 students to define what “good” students do. Additionally, P-12 students are shown on the practicum homepage 219 demonstrating the music making that they developed through preservice teachers work with the edTPA. Furthermore, the edTPA has not only pervaded the curriculum with constructions of “good,” but also the grading, as edTPA assignments account for 75 percent of students’ grades in general music practicum. Even so, while the practicum course defined performance assessments as usually based in rubrics, the instructors tended to lean more toward inquiry-based assessment, and the portfolio assignments focused on the instruction portion of edTPA rather than the assessment. If administrators were the ones who described the edTPA, and the faculty were the conveyors of edPTA, then the student teachers were the consumers of NUSU’s brand of edTPA. Students in the practicum class incorporated constructivism, focused on academic language, and included music-specific vocabulary. Additionally, student teachers included passage of the edTPA as part of the resume, with one student teacher noting on her website that she passed with mastery, or a score of 48 or more. Each edTPA portfolio also had a consistent central focus, a description of sequencing, and a context for assessment, all of which were described in courses prior to student teaching. Furthermore, several plans explicitly stated not only the NAfME standards, but also the Common Core standards. Where the student teachers differed from each other the most were in their assessments. Student Teacher A limited assessment through student response to thumbs up, thumbs down, and thumbs in the middle, while Student Teacher B’s assessment included no student responses. Student Teacher C offered the most thorough opportunities for student responses, and students assessed themselves in speech, narrative writing, scoring, and performing. Thus, while the documentation of planning and instruction were fairly consistent among the three student teachers, they each nevertheless took very different approaches to assessment, thus reinforcing 220 Ball’s (2006) policy as text. In other words, the student teachers’ variations in assessments show how edTPA’s assessment task has prompted plural responses from stakeholders that are “both contested and changing” (p. 44). Similar to Shahjahan and Torres’s (2013) study of OCED’s AHELO, the documents show a pattern where edTPA is regarded as trustworthy by NUSU stakeholders. In their study, Shahjahan and Torres describe trust as the confirmability of a “space of equivalence” where individuals can make individual choices regarding the quality of an experience or commodity (p. 607). Thus, NUSU’s documents establish NUSU part of the edTPA brand. In other words, administrators have primarily been responsible for developing the descriptions of NUSU’s implementation, and faculty have primarily taken charge of its distribution. Students have been the consumer, both literally and metaphorically. They pay 300 dollars to submit the edTPA, they develop portfolios that reflect NUSU’s brand of edTPA, including planning, instruction, and assessment, and they focus on academic language while occasionally including a focus on constructivism. Collectively, NUSU stakeholders are engaged in a collective system of market- driven values in which the edTPA serves as the space for standardizing what it means to be “good” in education. In spite of edTPA’s national monitoring and quality control of music teacher education programs, Chapter Four and Chapter Five suggest that stakeholders in and around NUSU still find the assessment portion of edTPA to be problematic. Furthermore, both the participants and the documents demonstrated inconsistencies in responses to assessment. Therefore, in the next chapter, I will examine how stakeholders frame their own sense of power and agency with respect to the development and implementation of edTPA. 221 CHAPTER SIX: FRAMING POWER AND AGENCY Power The previous chapters focused on NUSU stakeholders’ interactions, implementations, descriptions, and sensemaking of edTPA. In this chapter, I consider how stakeholders framed their own sense of power and agency with respect to the development and implementation of edTPA. I incorporate narratives from interviews and present themes of power, beliefs, and impact. I use Foucault’s (1982) concept of power relationships, Kariwo et al.’s (2014) concept of missing values, and I explore who wins and loses as a result of a policy, following Kos (2018). Sub-themes include position, relationships, perceptions, values, beneficiaries, disbeneficiaries,19 and policy validity. Position Critical policy analysis recognizes that a stakeholder’s positioning can strongly influence one’s agency in the development and implementation of policy. Moreover, each participant had a different take on the extent and roles through which they had a voice at NUSU. Administrator A framed her power and positioning through her work on ad hoc committees responsible for updating the edTPA process at NUSU, supervising updates to TaskStream that incorporated edTPA, and sat on one of NAfME’s committees, although “edTPA has not come up at all” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Administrator B viewed herself as a liaison to the university at large and local schools, saying, edTPA is impacting everyone. Yeah. I hear it from the other side of the college as well. So I’m on a couple of committees with [someone] who’s in charge of certification for the 19 I am appropriating this term from Zwikael and Smyrk (2011) who define a disbeneficiary as “The entity experiencing the loss of value” (p. 58) 222 college. So the edTPA is always a conversation with the public schools because their goals are not always what our goals are. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Furthermore, Administrator B noted that the music department held a lot of influence on the university as a whole. In her words, “We’re keeping them afloat” (Interview, December 9, 2019). For each student teacher in this study, the impact of edTPA varied based on their position. Sally described how having a semester left after student teaching helped her: I still have another semester…so there’s not as much stress for me as… everyone else in my county graduating. This is the last thing they need to do, then they’re going to try to get certified [licensed]. They have a lot more pressure to finish this than I do, which has been nice. But I’m also very excited to finish these grad school applications so I can really… work on it [the edTPA] just even 10 minutes every single day…they usually say by the end of the semester you should have it done. (Interview, November 16, 2019). Thus, graduate school applications lessened the immediate impact of edTPA for Sally. While Sally, Samantha, and Stephen all spoke about performance and ensembles, Sarah framed her position and future plans through her versatility as a music educator, saying: “What’s your ideal position?” I’ve never been able to answer that question. I always thought that was not the greatest… But… this week…they were like, “that’s nothing you have to worry about. That makes you more versatile.” (Interview, January 10, 2020) Sandra also expressed flexibility but was concerned about her length of time at NUSU: I'm in my sixth year of undergrad, which is so embarrassing to say. Everyone goes at their own pace… But I had a hard time figuring out what I needed to focus on. A lot of the music education concepts were difficult… and when that happens for me personally, I shut down if something is difficult. (Interview, December 10, 2019) 223 Ironically, while practicum steered Sandra away from high school teaching and towards elementary (her edTPA setting), she also described the course as “so hard” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Overall, timing, future aspirations after graduation, flexibility to teach in variety of settings, and personal perceptions of effectiveness contributed to student teachers’ perceptions of their own power and positioning. Thus, they were positioned in Foucault’s (1982) “system of differentiations” where conditions of timing, flexibility, understanding, and aspirations all account for differentiated perceptions of privilege and status among individuals (p. 792). Relationships The supervisors and teacher educators viewed themselves in relations to several groups at NUSU, or as Professor E put it, “in multiple worlds” (Interview, December 10, 2019). They also discussed their limitations, separating their roles from their actions, or in Professor D’s words, “a separation and fragmentation of what the teacher educator is and/or could do” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Professor E described his roles in performance and music education as a privilege, but he worried about how the edTPA would affect future connections with students: I’m privileged here at NUSU… in multiple places, which gives me a good context… I’m (also) severely disadvantaged… I see my students in their practices class, (but)…I don’t see them out in the field… former students… didn’t see them working…I have… limited context understanding… long-term effect of edTPA. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Nevertheless, he has found some ways to be related to the decision-making processes at NUSU, including evaluations, practice courses, competitions, and sophomore review. While some professors spoke about high-stakes decision-making, Professor D focused on how the edTPA mandates impacted music teacher preparation programs’ identities: 224 The imposition and the requirement… with high stakes implications for employment are huge… there’s no longer local control…self-identity. The identity of institutions began to become eroded…standardized, and the teacher educator now becomes a tool of a for- profit organization such as Pearson… autonomy, agency, dignity, integrity, history, research… becomes marginalized, if not ignored. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Thus, Professor D saw institutions struggling against the edTPA to maintain respective identities. Professor D’s reflects Foucault’s (1982) description of power relations, as the struggles of individuals against those in power stem from a common set of circumstances, including, “ideological state violence, which ignore who we are individually” (p. 781). In other words, as edTPA continues to expand to more institutions across the United States, Professor D believes that several institutions oppose the edTPA as a powerful threat to their values. Thus, as Foucault writes, “all these present struggles revolve around the question: Who are we?” (p. 781). Returning to his own role as a music teacher educator at NUSU, Professor D believes that individuals in similar positions hold greater levels of power than the edTPA: Music teacher educators have the potential for the greatest power… through… curriculum… instructional practices… relationships with students… the end in view… (using) the tool [edTPA] in a way that supports student learning and not… onerous obligation… thinking about it as (a) learning tool… their students critique the larger social cultural structure that would impose such a tool. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor D also expressed concern about cooperating teachers and supervisors, saying that these individuals lacked critical perspectives to facilitate critical discussions with students: I don’t think that’s going to come from the cooperating teacher…the fourth-grade general music teacher or the high school band director... the structure of how supervisors or 225 facilitators are generally hired and employed. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Finally, Professor D posited that teacher educators are not using the edTPA to facilitate critical discussions with students because they are too busy struggling over their own roles: There’s a lot of ego issues, role identities, and…the function of the teacher ed…It has an ambiguous function. It continues to be whittling down… many will say, “It’s much more prestigious for me to be a researcher than…work with kindergarten children... I have to do the edTPA? That’s… Walmart work for women.” You’ve got all these social hierarchies… roles and conceptions in teacher education for them to come to a position where they see what they do is actually educate teachers. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Overall, while Professor D agrees that the edTPA has caused some crises of identities within institutions, he also sees the edTPA as a tool for teacher educators to foster deeper connections. Felix also believed that power relationships were influencing decisions associated with the edTPA, though he considered the decision-making to exist more at the state level: Somebody at state ed… got up one day and went, "Oh, this is great." And then they buy into it, and I don’t know that [the] state ever looks very clearly at the why…So I always question…why we do the things we do here. (Interview, December 11, 2019) As an executive officer of the state music association, Felix spoke about edTPA with state and NAfME affiliates, including a former NAfME president, and he believed that the state music association was too resistant to change, especially in applying the edTPA: [The state] has its own evaluation systems…very, we’ll use the word “traditional,”…do not change easily…same way for decades…a struggle that…especially young teachers struggle with now… I’ve watched that very carefully. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Felix explained that he is leaving his position as a student teacher supervisor to take on a position 226 in the state’s music association, yet he feels that is power to affect change is limited with edTPA: It’s… very difficult to find out…where I fit… the tradition piece of it, that’s not going away… at the same time… things are changing quickly. We live in a pretty progressive world…I’m going to have to find a line in there. (Interview, December 11, 2019) As a matter of power and position, Felix’s relationships afforded him the opportunity to speak about edTPA with state and NAfME officers. Yet, Felix found the primary source of conflict with the edTPA to be a struggle between privileging tradition and privileging progress. Administrator A described her future potential for affecting power relationships by explaining who she wanted in the NUSU music program and how to make that happen: Our department used to have…a voice in the admission process…we haven’t in at least 10 years. We’re slowly trying to get more involved in the admission process, and identifying, and advocating for students who are interested in coming to NUSU, and could be very talented, progressive music teachers. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Thus, while Felix spoke of conflict between progress and tradition, Administrator A saw them as means for fostering new relationships and by focusing on pedagogy rather than content. According to Administrator B, teachers and administrators outside of music at NUSU viewed the edTPA as a “huge” conversation of interdisciplinary tensions at the university level: It’s not just the ensemble thing…colleagues who teach social studies are saying, “This is a challenge. I’ve got an exam I have to prepare kids for. If I spent three weeks on this edTPA… then I haven’t taught this and this and this.” And does that mean we need in education to back off content and do some things more in depth at the expense of others? But then, how do you make those decisions? (Interview, December 9, 2019) In other words, while Administrator A discussed the importance of pedagogy over content, 227 Administrator B explained how covering more pedagogy through the edTPA impacts content. Sandra had a friend who majored in special education who took the edTPA, and she wondered from an interdisciplinary standpoint how edTPA measures pedagogy: If you’re a history teacher…taking some form of the edTPA… the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776… fact. If a kid draws a picture of a flower when they listened to a piece of music, there’s no way of saying if that’s right or wrong, because they had a personal experience... You can’t look at their interpretation…and say this is wrong, because… it’s individual… Judging somebody based on their interpretation, I don’t think is beneficial… grading, you start to believe that your interpretation is the right one, somebody else’s doesn’t match, that’s a problem. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Thus, Sandra was concerned about evaluating subjective experiences of teaching and learning. Sandra’s comment demonstrates another feature of Foucault’s concept of power relations in that she “struggles against the privileges of knowledge” (p. 781). Sandra opposed the idea that an edTPA reviewer graded teaching practices as right or wrong, as she believed teaching and learning to be contextual and interpretive. Sandra showed, as Foucault writes, “opposition to the effects of power which are linked with knowledge, competence, and qualification” (p. 781). Moreover, all participants struggled with ideas embedded in edTPA and how they compared and contrasted with their own. Overall, conflict was not about institutions, but ideas, as Foucault (1982) posits: “The main objective of these struggles is to attack not so much ‘such or such’ an institution of power, or group, or elite, or class but rather a technique, a form of power” (p. 781) Thus, Sandra opposed edTPA’s techniques to objectify what she found to be subjective. The participants’ responses also demonstrated Foucault’s (1982) six commonalities of power relations. First, the struggle with edTPA is not limited to NUSU, but rather, a matter of 228 conflict among hundreds of institutions across the United States. Second, the edTPA is a struggle that removed power from faculty and put it in the hands of reviewers who do not answer to NUSU. Third, the clash is immediate and imposed on individuals, such as the sacrifice of content for the sake of pedagogy. Fourth, the edTPA triggered struggles over individual status and whose voices count in the decision-making process. Fifth, participants struggled over edTPA’s privileging of history, research, curriculum, ideology, content, and pedagogy. Lastly, they struggled between accepting parts of the edTPA and outright rejecting other parts. Beliefs This study rejects the notion of examining the edTPA as a rational policy; as Foucault writes, “The relationship between rationalization and excesses of political power is evident” (p. 779). Moreover, Foucault emphasizes that rationalization can be dangerous across contexts and disciplines, and rather than examining the “internal rationality” of power, an examination of power relations can be useful in determining one’s position and group/individual struggles. Understanding stakeholders’ beliefs regarding power relations and edTPA help to better understand the struggles and confrontations of each participant. Subjectivity and confrontation stand in contrast to the purpose of edTPA, which purports to objectively determine teacher readiness by examining a candidate’s planning, instruction, and assessment. Students at NUSU also navigate a program with a set of philosophies and beliefs, and stakeholders are navigating different systems of objectives, accountability, hierarchies, and rationales. As multiple groups are locked in multiple power relations and confrontations of ideology, the purpose of this section is to examine the beliefs of stakeholders, especially with respect to the edTPA. Perceptions Administrator A’s beliefs were rooted in her research of a previous administrator of the 229 school, whom she sought to emulate. She saw her job as uniting content and promoting progressive teaching, and she viewed the edTPA as non-hierarchical and developmental: “Artistic skills, knowledge, contextual understandings through self-expression, creativity, exploration, improvisation.” Those words were not… in the nine standards… they were at the bottom. It was a hierarchy…sing, read and notate music, perform on instruments… There’s not a hierarchy anymore. It’s an intersection. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Administrator A reiterated that the edTPA did not explicitly change content, but instead deprivileged performance, and she believed in a both/and approach to content and the edTPA: We as a department…our cooperating teachers…our university supervisors who are on board with this can help to make that transition in the schools. It’s not just…from the bottom up…(or) from the top down.” It’s got to be both. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Some others agreed. Professor B’s referenced Sato’s (2014) position that the edTPA is constructivist, saying, “It happens to more or less align” with his beliefs (Interview, November 7, 2019). Professor D agreed, and he referenced Colwell (1988) to say that NUSU’s affiliation with NASM was a greater problem than edTPA. He used Leonhard’s (1985) work to assert that music educators allow themselves to be controlled. Using Eisner’s (1993) works, he said that while he believes that the rubrics of edTPA stemmed from Iowa’s growth rubrics from the 1980s, what matters more about the edTPA is the criteria itself. Finally, Professor D referenced Zeichner (1995), one of the individuals involved with the edTPA, saying that the reason teacher educators resist the edTPA is because they would rather do research than teach, seeing them as separate. Beyond discussing Sato (2014), Professor B appreciated the rigor of the edTPA, as he explained it as: More explicit…detailed planning… assessment…reflection than likely would take place 230 in the context of an everyday teacher…I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking students…beginning their career… to go through…that. (Interview, November 7, 2019) He also described the edTPA as formative for students, saying: There are some really valuable things…being forced to think about them through this process… differentiated instruction… planning to support students with particularly needs… your students would be enriched… doing that. (Interview, November 7, 2019) In other words, Professor B saw the edTPA as a formative, reflective, and deep assessment. Professor E also believed that the edTPA was a formative tool for reflection that focused on the how of teaching rather than the what, as he described here: The edTPA does not standardize…curriculum… In my practices class, I don’t have a set curriculum beyond the basic structural framework…culturally responsive pedagogy… voice change, that’s going to be relevant wherever you’re teaching. But I don’t teach them how to score study Western art music and conduct that…I expect them to learn how to learn…(a) process of self-learning. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Furthermore, Professor E saw the edTPA as a tool for shaping his own teaching as well, saying: You’re never done in… your own education…I’m not giving them a recipe, I’m teaching them how to cook and how to learn how to cook …to be inclusive… because I don’t know who their future students will be…it’s the process… thinking through it… the edTPA is reflective of that…it’s not a set curriculum. (Interview, December 10, 2019) In essence, Professor E found the edTPA as teaching a process rather than a product. While most of the full-time faculty saw the edTPA as a meaningful framework for teaching and learning, Professor G perceived it as great in theory, but difficult in practice: edTPA reflects what we wish the real world was like…we want teachers to be thinking of 231 all of these things…a seasoned teacher…does it all kind of automatically…edTPA is really great at getting younger… initial certification [licensed] teachers to think about all of this stuff. At times, I wonder if it’s overwhelming. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Simply put, Professor G believed that as a learning tool, the edTPA can be very meaningful, but she also thought that it would be a better fit with inservice, rather than preservice, teachers. Supervisors spoke positive of the edTPA framework, including Frank, who called it “a high-level academic exercise” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). For Frank, timing mattered: It would be valuable to have had a year’s worth of teaching or at least a complete student teaching and then get into your teaching and make it…maybe part of the second year… ongoingly certified. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Moreover, Faye thought that student teacher may not be ready to focus on the “how” of edTPA: I think going into a classroom and getting used to young people, we’ve seen the full gamut with kids, kids that are people that are comfortable with kids and people that have no idea how to talk to them. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Felix also noted that the “how” of teaching is much easier for experienced teachers to perceive: It’d be interesting to have done this all… At 60 years old, it’s so easy to see what’s good teaching now and what’s not good teaching. It really is all about the reaction of the kid… that’s what the edTPA people want to see. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Additionally, Frank spoke about the timing of edTPA, describing it as the wrong time [in] a student’s college course sequence…they’re so nervous about going to student teaching… it is…at an awful time…difficult… student teaching for a week and a have to come up with something that’s good. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Finally, Faye and Frank perceived the edTPA as taking away from both the student teacher 232 experience and the children’s learning experiences in the classroom, as Faye explained: Second-grade classroom, you sit in front of the class, you’re reading the story, and that’s all you do, that’s a wonderful experience. Each child can assimilate…react… without discussion, they’ve been exposed to art and they are better for it…you don’t need to justify… react…. assess…(but) lately in education, we aren’t allowed to… give the kids a good experience, because you always have (it) …as part of something…assessing it at the end…it removes the art of teaching. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Thus, they viewed its implementation as negatively affecting both student teachers and children. A Hindrance to Teaching Student teachers brought up beliefs ranging from philosophical soundness of the edTPA framework to being overwhelmed by the edTPA requirements. As Sally put it, “It encourages as much growth as it is sort of a hindrance in my experience” (Interview, November 16, 2019). However, one of the most salient points made by the students was the tension between what they wanted to do in the classroom and how the edTPA restricted their activities. Before Sally began her student teaching, she had several colleagues tell her, “It’s a lot of just saying the same thing over and over again” (Interview, November 16, 2019). She found this to be true during her student teaching and said, “It’s a little weird. Why [do] you have to keep like restating yourself and saying, this is why I’m doing this?” (Interview, November 16, 2019). She also found the repetition requirements to impact her time for other assignments: Having to repeat myself over and over again, it’s…taking too much time… and it wouldn’t make their lives easier… Also NUSU requires us to do assignments on top of that. It’s been hard to find the balance. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Questioning the requirements, Sally said, “They like it to be very thorough and very academic… 233 there’s a lot more concise way…they don’t encourage that” (Interview, November 16, 2019). While Sally expressed concern about repetition requirements, Stephen was concerned about edTPA’s rubrics and their subsequent impact on teaching. In Stephen’s words, The rubrics…might not necessarily cater… to an ensemble setting…looking more for hardened evidence of learning…in a rehearsal setting, that can be harder to come by unless you…participate in more writing assignments…that might not be the most accurate representation of what the student learned. (Interview, January 11, 2020) Sally, who chose general music for completing the edTPA, expressed a similar sentiment: I think there’s a more established baseline for how you teach general music… I think that’s why there’s a little more tension. And I think the general music teachers are a little more flexible with ways that they can go about it. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Thus, Stephen validated the “what” of edTPA, but problematized the restrictions of “how.” Sarah expressed concern about the lack of reflection in the edTPA, saying that unlike edTPA, “reflect is more of a personal thing” (Interview, January 10, 2020). Moreover, Sandra jokingly described edTPA reviewers as being “like gremlins sitting somewhere on a roof being mad at everybody,” but added, “I don’t think that people give the edTPA to see everybody fail…like, ‘Oh, this is fun, we’re going to give out zeros for the day, like speeding tickets’” (December 10, 2019). Yet she worried about the lack of feedback if she did not pass: I don't know how to fix my problem. I don't know what to do. Obviously, I've gotten to a point where I'm taking the certification [initial teacher licensure] exam so I know what I'm doing, but can you offer some of that help? (Interview, December 10, 2019) Lastly, while Sarah and Sandra described the edTPA as relation and feedback barriers, Samantha discussed edTPA as a financial barrier and wondered why past teachers were not affected: 234 It costs so much money… The edTPA, again, I'm a little iffy on [it], just because… it's seven years ago that teachers prior didn’t have to do it. Maybe that makes us… better educators, but I wouldn't say we are [or] we will be. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Overall, they described edTPA as a hindrance to teaching, reflection, feedback, and licensing. Values Administrator A considered the edTPA to be a tool that promotes progressive pedagogy, but believed some teachers to be antagonistic toward it, saying, “It’s… sometimes difficult for them to work with because of…unfamiliarity… traditions that are still in place” (Interview, November 7, 2019). As a NAfME member, she praised the way edTPA places pedagogy over content, but criticized her state association and others for prioritizing content: Our national leadership is there, but…pockets around the country…the state leadership is hanging on to the old standards… skills that you can check off with a rubric… a test… teachers feel that their hands are tied… They really would love to do these things. But the administration in their schools or their districts may be putting different requirements… tests and performance exams or scores at contests or trophies… a visible concrete measurement rather than, “Look what our students can do… how musical they are…how creative they are in…becoming a musician.” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Moreover, Administrator A asserted that changes in pedagogy must happen at multiple levels: We are at a transition…I hear this at the council…and I…fight back, “…change has to happen at the college level before it can happen in the schools,” And I say, “…We’re making changes, (but)… (it) has to be accepted by the schools.” We can’t prepare students for being innovative music teachers with inclusivity and diversity in the ways that they teach unless the administration allows that. (Interview, November 7, 2019) 235 Thus, she believes edTPA to be a cause worth of acceptance at all levels of governance at once. Professor D, who likewise described the edTPA as “positive,” said that ensemble teachers needed to stop regarding the edTPA as something to do in the first placement. Moreover, saying, “they have rigged the system in that way,” Professor D problematized ensemble teachers for prioritizing “conducting” and “performances” over the edTPA. (Interview, November 7, 2019) He also worried that student teachers would think that the edTPA does not work in ensembles: The students…come away thinking… I’m going to use the framework “free edTPA” for a moment, that… positive learning environment, engaging children, deepening their understanding, analyzing…and assessing them doesn’t occur in an ensemble. It only occurs in a general music setting…That’s the power of the music paradigm… to reproduce itself among future teachers, they get the impression, because… edTPA is an onerous task…it’s high stakes…and onerous that they have to do it in general music… something they don’t want to do anyway. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor D also expressed frustration with NUSU’s use of tracks, saying: You have to look at the…paradigm itself…its belief that… although we are certified to teach in pre-K to 12th grade… certified to teach everything in music…we think in terms of track. So boys and girls, young men and women come to think that, “I can be a band director, but I’m not a music teacher.” I had a teacher… who was offered a position…She was let go… she was in elementary band. The next job that came up was high school chorus, and she said, “I’m not applying for it because I can’t do it”… She had the identity and the belief that she was incapable of doing anything but band… you asked how edTPA might be more positive… I think we have to think about the teacher education mindset and the curriculum…first. (Interview, November 7, 2019) 236 Furthermore, Professor D believes that several organizations need to be dismantled: NASM, the state… lay…things that you must do to be certified… couple that… with the state [music] organization, because it’s… reproducing itself… we’ve been trying to negotiate…in a position of no power... Jeffrey Kimpton… said, “…get rid of NASM accreditation.” I’m hoping to do that… I think that is… one of the largest things that’s…quite detrimental to our degree programs. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor D affirmed edTPA but worried about its openness to theories and approaches in music that he found problematic, saying, “What disturbed me most…about edTPA is this openness does not control… unethical [music] practices that have gone unexamined” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Moreover, Professor D’s critique of both NASM and some approaches to music teaching and learning highlighted his beliefs that music educators deserved more critique than the edTPA. Overall, Professor D viewed edTPA not as a change agent in itself, but as a tool to be used for making music education better or worse. Professor B was also frustrated with the separation of general music and ensembles, especially in edTPA implementation, and attributed it to supervisors and cooperating teachers, saying, “A misconception by some of our cooperating [teachers] or some of our university supervisors [was] that instrumental music ed was incompatible with the edTPA. So I did confront that” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Moreover, while on campus, Professor B told them that the edTPA was about planning, differentiating, facilitating, engaging students, deepening learning, and using appropriate pedagogy. Thus, he summarized his point by saying, “You can do that in band, and if you don’t think that, the problem is probably more how you would teach than the edTPA” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Nevertheless, Professor B admitted that the edTPA was rarely covered in instrumental 237 practicum courses, saying, “It’s really just the general music practicum that uses the edTPA,” though he also comments, “I don’t think it’s been an intentional choice not to have the edTPA as part of it” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Furthermore, Professor B’s insights point to internal influences, such as coursework and timing, saying, “I think more students are probably doing it in their general music settings largely because…they want to just get it…out of the way" (Interview, November 7, 2019). Professor E focused on the separation of performance and music education at NUSU, describing it as systemic, problematic, and preventing communication about issues like the edTPA from happening across campus. Thus, while studio faculty choose applicants and have one-on-one time with students, they are “completely siloed of” from other departments, and: Music education has no say in who the music education students are, is what that comes down to. Performance faculty have basically complete jurisdiction on who comes in into what degree program into NUSU. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Therefore, wanted new conversations at NUSU ranging from auditions to edTPA. While Professor E had positive things to say about the edTPA, he expressed concern regarding how the edTPA as a gatekeeping device that conflicts with pedagogical development: One of the real challenges, especially when writing something like the edTPA lesson plan, is the idea of being spontaneous and planning things out…You can’t write out a lesson plan and every exact detail in advance because I don’t think you’re actually teaching (Interview, December 10, 2019) Moreover, Professor E believed that the edTPA conflicted with culturally responsive teaching, as he viewed the edTPA as a scripted performance of teaching rather than a spontaneous process, so “they are literally passing through some sort of gatekeeping… (whereas) real teaching, their 238 plans can be intentionally left open” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Therefore, while he believed in shifting focus from content to pedagogy, he also believed that using the edTPA as a gatekeeping device compromised the pedagogy presented in each portfolio. Felix expressed frustration with the state music association’s resistance to edTPA, and he worried about how the state association privileged ensembles over general music, saying: Band, orchestra, choir…drives it. And there is a whole component of classroom music and curriculum, you know, committees and all of that stuff that nobody knows anything about because they just don’t have the visibility factor. (Interview, December 11, 2019) He also questioned why the state passed an evaluation system for inservice teachers, but abandoned a portfolio system for preservice teachers, asking, “Why is that? Because [it] doesn’t want to deal with it on their own and it’s easier to just buy-in?” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Felix also questioned why the edTPA measured teacher performance, whereas the state association’s evaluation systems measured solo and ensemble performance, saying: Is it more valuable for the student teacher to prepare a piece of music and get up there and conduct in front of a couple of adjudicators or is the edTPA project, or (are they) apples and oranges, or (does it not) matter? (Interview, December 11, 2019) While he decided that both mattered, he viewed edTPA as being only about teaching, not music. Like every other student teacher in the study, when I asked Samantha how the edTPA was referenced in band practicum, she said, “It wasn’t at all. There were no assignments for the band practicum” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Furthermore, Samantha is completing her edTPA in the general music setting but wishes that she had been more comfortable exploring other options. Yet, while professors told her that the edTPA could be done in a band rehearsal, 239 her colleagues tended to describe the edTPA as more compatible with younger students in general music settings. Moreover, she concluded, It seems like it’s more work in a band setting or… choir setting than it is in general music, because it’s just straightforward, “This is what we’re doing.” (Interview, December 11, 2019) Therefore, while Samantha was on the band track, she found general music to be a safer choice. As previously mentioned, Stephen was determined to complete the edTPA in a band setting by combining his general music practicum experience with his instrumental background. While Stephen expressed frustration with his lack of preparation for completing the edTPA in a band setting, he was also concerned with how the edTPA measures student learning like a test: Students may not be the best test takers. You may have students who genuinely don’t remember things...they might not be things that needed to be touched on…things that you haven’t talked about…didn’t get to it in the curriculum…might not be the best measurement of teacher effectiveness. (Interview, January 11, 2020) Therefore, Stephen worried that the current systems in place at the state level, including edTPA, focused too much on scores, and he questioned their validity in measuring teacher effectiveness. Just as Samantha discussed a lack of experiences with edTPA outside of general music, Sarah said that outside of general music methods courses, the edTPA was only talked about. Furthermore, Sarah taught 11 low brass students during her beginning instruments course and commented, “I was not thinking about edTPA. I was thinking about, “How am I going to get these kids to play this note,” and she determined that she “couldn’t speak on the ensemble and edTPA.” (Interview, January 10, 2020). Sarah also described the edTPA as concept discussion, which she did not experience growing up: 240 Especially when I was in school…I didn’t learn theory concepts in band and chorus…occasionally in band lessons… never a whole group experience…it’s fairly easy to do and… it is a time issue. But taking the time, even through the repertoire… it can be very easy to just explain these concepts and how they’re working in a piece of music that you’re already experiencing. It doesn’t need to be too much time taken out, like some may think…[but] like I said, I’m not probably going to use that for my edTPA, because that’s things I have to think about more. (Interview, January 10, 2020) In general, Sarah believed that the edTPA tested a student teacher’s ability to talk about a lesson and discuss concepts pertaining to the lesson, and she perceived it as time-consuming. While Stephen expressed concerns about the consequential validity of edTPA vis-à-vis scoring, Sarah was particularly concerned with assertions of edTPA’s construct validity. Thorndike (1976) described construct validity as the extent to which a test can make “inferences about a person,” that in the context of scoring, “one needs an understanding of what the test score means, [and] what it signifies about an individual,” and one must determine “the accuracy with which the test describes an individual in terms of some psychological trait or construct” (p. 8). While edTPA does not explicitly claim construct validity on the basis of bar exams for lawyers or board exams for doctors, creators of the edTPA have referenced professional readiness as a construct and made the comparison in several documents, including Sato (2014), whose work is referenced in NUSU’s student teacher handbook. Two months prior to our interview, Sarah attended the edTPA informational meeting where Professor B compared the edTPA to the bar exam for lawyers, saying: I'm not necessarily going to advocate for or against it, because it doesn't really matter if we like it or not, we're just going to do it. One of the goals in there was to set up an 241 experience like what attorneys go through, what medical doctors go through as some sort of entry exam into the profession. So attorneys, they take the bar exam, if you're familiar with that. Medical doctors take board examinations, and for teachers… this was designed to be the bar exam for teaching. (Observation, November 8, 2019) However, Sarah problematized the notion of edTPA being a parallel to bar exams for lawyers: Is the bar exam like a written test that you sit down and take during a lot of time? Okay, so it’s completely different. This [the edTPA]…it’s asking so much more of you, which… how much is it going to help me in the long run? (Interview, January 10, 2020) Overall, Sarah found the edTPA to be far more involved, challenging, and irrelevant than the bar. Building on Sarah’s point regarding the tensions between the so-called experiential purposes of the edTPA and the concept-driven practices required by students, Sandra expressed frustration about putting teaching into a “box,” saying: The problem that I run into is NUSU… they try to put different lessons into a box of, “This method is,”… I can see in a, PME or MTL class, a teacher…saying, “This is the lesson plan. Which method are they using,” which my brain would explode because… there are so many different methods… almost every single [one is] different…movement is really important... (there are) a bunch of different methods, but there’s still movement in almost every teaching method. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Sandra also worried that the academic language portion of edTPA, like her courses that used edTPA, privileged specific methods and philosophies rather than allowing for a hybrid: It’s more of a recipe… a lesson plan. You need a little bit of this method and a little bit of this, and NUSU focuses a lot on, "Let’s write a lesson plan that’s focused on Orff." [short pause] How? [laughs] …How am I supposed to do that? For me [who]…shuts down 242 pretty easily, I don’t remember any of them except for one or two. They’re too similar to put a name on them. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Sandra described her experiences with the edTPA as placing moments of teaching and learning into specific boxes with specific names and concepts. Moreover, unlike Administrator A, she described the edTPA as naming the “what” of teaching rather than discussing the “how.” “A Generational Thing” Upon listening to the students’ narratives, it became clear that their beliefs about the edTPA were sometimes diametrically opposed to the beliefs of some of the faculty and administration. However, one idea that every group brought up throughout the interviews pertained to their beliefs regarding age, and the beliefs were remarkably similar. For example, when discussing which cooperating teachers supported the edTPA, Administrator A said: A lot of them are more of the younger ones, I guess you could say, or who are NUSU graduates themselves…But some of them who are older cooperating teachers or used to the old standards and are just starting to feel comfortable with the new NAfME standards and the new state standards, you’ll find that some of them will say “Oh you don’t do your edTPA with me. Do it with this other teacher.” (Interview, November 7, 2019) While Administrator A did not see age as a cause for resistance, she nevertheless believed that those who were resistant to, or uncomfortable with edTPA were generally “older” educators. For Administrator B, the age of people was less relevant compared to the amount of time spent with the edTPA, and she believed the main reason for resistance to the edTPA was time: I think this will also get easier as we have teachers who went through edTPA, because right now you’ve got maybe what, six, seven years of teachers who’ve done edTPA… these people are just getting tenured, and so they’re not even having student teachers yet. 243 So when that layer begins, which is probably going to begin in the next couple of years when they begin having student teachers, then I think we’ll see a big change in that acceptance of how edTPA works, because they’ll have been through that process and they’ll understand it. (Interview, December 9, 2019) In other words, Administrator B believes that the older the edTPA gets, the more cooperating teachers there will be who have taken the edTPA to help other student teachers. Professor C built on both administrators’ beliefs about time spent with edTPA and the age of the cooperating teachers, saying: It depends partly on the age of the cooperating teacher, and it depends partly on their previous experience with the edTPA. So, more experienced teachers, older teachers who graduated well before the edTPA often will express to me fears about being able to support the student teacher in the edTPA process. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor C went on to discuss how teachers who have completed the edTPA, and sometimes those who already had a student who completed the edTPA, are more comfortable, saying: I haven’t had any pushback from teachers who actually experienced the edTPA taking on a student teacher… who wants to do their project at a school, maybe that has a performing ensemble…It tends to be the older, more experienced teachers who did not experience the edTPA as part of their licensure that are the ones who tend to… because they have not experienced it before. They tend to be more worried that it’s going to take time out of good…teaching that they’re already doing. (Interview, November 7, 2019) In general, Professor C described teachers who completed the edTPA as the most comfortable taking student teachers, teachers who had a student teacher who completed the edTPA as willing, and “older” teachers with neither of these previous experiences as the least comfortable. 244 Frank also mentioned age but said that cooperating teachers should have the right to say no to edTPA, comparing it to how music educators have had the right to say no to philosophies: It’s tough for old dogs to embrace… when music learning theory came out… there were a lot of advocates…But most of them…were young teachers who went through the training, that you can do for music learning theory… I think we feel that some of the older professionals that have so much to offer are just saying, “enough. I’m done.” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Frank believed that even as music learning theory did not become a mandated requirement, edTPA should likewise be a choice, not a requirement. Moreover, Felix did not believe that failing the edTPA equated a students’ lack of readiness to teach, saying, “I'm going to say no, I don't think so. You're talking to an old school guy here” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Felix’s response was a reminder of how often participants took their own age into account when discussing edTPA. Notably, the people who discussed age the least were the students, and only when Sally discussed how she and her colleagues set up an online chat to review each other’s edTPA work, saying, “I think it’s also a generational thing” (Interview, November 16, 2019). Beliefs and Misunderstandings While the students in the study had many important insights, students also received some misinformation. For example, while one entire edTPA portfolio is reviewed by a single reviewer (and occasionally reviewed in full by a second reviewer), Sally believed that each task was reviewed by a separate reviewer, causing her to be more redundant with her writing: Different people are reading it… I wish there was a bit more consistency in who was reading it so that I wouldn’t have to keep restating everything that I’m doing… From what we’ve been told, there’s this board that evaluates it, and one of our teachers is on it 245 and he told us that not everyone is reading your whole thing. They’ll just get a little snippet and they’ll, let’s say, grade. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Sally had also been told that she did not need the edTPA for graduation, though she had previously thought that the edTPA was required (which it is): I was so stressed out. And then at one of the meetings, she’s like, “Yeah, you don’t need to submit it to graduate.” I’m like, “Are you serious?...I thought you had to.” But then some teachers are telling them that they have to before they graduate or before the semester is over. So just to be safe, I’m going to finish. (Interview, November 16, 2019) While Sally’s misconceptions regarding NUSU’s requirements and edTPA’s review process did not become detrimental factors for Sally (who passed the edTPA), they were a reminder that the implementation of edTPA has involved misunderstandings, both inside and outside NUSU. While some misinformation might have emerged regarding edTPA’s mechanics for licensing and evaluation, a more common misconception was that edTPA included reflection as a core component. For example, when I asked Stephen about the most important component of edTPA, he replied, “I do believe the reflection is the most meaningful,” yet while planning, instruction, and assessment are all part of the edTPA, there is no reflection component within the rubrics of edTPA (Interview, January 11, 2020). Furthermore, Sandra also said, “I think there is an aspect of edTPA that has like a reflection,” which is not true when it comes to scoring. Impact and Agency Up to this point, I have attempted to avoid discussing the edTPA’s impact on individuals at NUSU and have instead sought to illustrate the knowledge and experiences with the framing and implementation of edTPA. So far, using Foucault’s (1982) concept of power relations, I have examined participants’ perceptions of power as subjective struggles between their own values 246 and the purported rationalizations of edTPA. I have also considered stakeholders’ beliefs regarding the tensions within and between edTPA and NUSU. Furthermore, while previous sections of this chapter have addressed individual struggles and institutional tensions with edTPA, the following section will address the nature of power in conjunction with edTPA. Foucault (1982) points that power is not a sovereign entity, but an action, writing: The exercise of power is not simply a relationship between partners, individual or collective; it is a way in which certain actions modify others…Power exists only when it is put into action. (p. 788) Foucault also notes that “power is not a function of consent” but conflict, which is why understanding histories of phenomena in societies is of critical importance, as it informs “the results proceeding from their interaction” (p. 795). Having examined histories of edTPA, NUSU, and various points of contention, I turn to describing the impact of edTPA on the participants of NUSU. Specifically, I explore benefits, disbenefits, how it has impacted individuals, and how their experiences may offer questions and ideas pertaining to the edTPA as policy. Beneficiaries Administrator A believed that student teachers, especially those who graduate, as the beneficiaries of edTPA. When asked about who benefits from the edTPA, she replied, The ones who are seeing the benefits of it, and they really don’t see the benefits of it until they are out of student teaching and into a position, are our graduates. I think they are seeing the benefits of…the guidance through the edTPA… transforming their way of thinking and teaching that has been helped by the edTPA model…the ones who are out in the field, the recent graduates who are now strong leaders and teachers in their schools. (Interview, November 7, 2019) 247 Overall, Administrator A believed that the edTPA was integral to facilitating a transformative experience for students that has helped them to become leaders in the profession. Professor D described the edTPA as a conditional opportunity to benefit several groups, as he described: The edTPA is yet and fortunately, positively, a wonderful opportunity for boys and girls, young men and women who go through our teacher education programs to say, “I must engage children in learning…. learning vocabulary… sequential instruction… deepening their learning…guided by principles of education, whatever those happen to be or whoever your program decides to rally around as the principles of education… At least this is the potential…and again this isn’t me stating a positionality, if there are some clued in people that can seize the moment… see this as an opportunity to use that framework to strengthen what has been [a] historically marginalized education component in the education of future teacher educators. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Beyond benefitting student teachers, he believes that the edTPA may benefit P-12 students by helping encouraging student teachers to develop P-12 learners’ autonomy: A teacher education program can guide its energies and say, “this is an opportunity for us to solidify what is our philosophical and pedagogical foundation here. We can start in our intro class and say, “We don’t do behaviorism here because it’s unethical… Instead, we do these things because this is what we philosophically and ethically believe in.” Here’s how their principle works… (in) helping boys and girls become self-determining, self- efficacious, autonomous, developing their own potentials… You do that by asking them questions. You do that by creating environments in which they are exploring and discovering. And so you lay your philosophical foundation clearly and you say, “Okay, if 248 you’re engaging children in learning, how do you do it through these principles that develop self-autonomy? (Interview, November 7, 2019) Thus, while student teachers like Sally described using systems like solfege in their edTPAs, Professor D believed that teacher educators benefited by having the opportunity to use edTPA to change dominant philosophies and approaches to music education in the United States: See it as a vehicle for…righting some of the wrongs that I think have been heaped upon music teacher education since its fateful day that it emerged with the conservatory model at the early part of the 20th century. (Interview, November 7, 2019) In summary, Professor D saw the edTPA as a potential catalyst for reform, experiential learning, and develop autonomous learners in Pre-12 music education where everyone could win. While administrators viewed student teachers as benefitting from the edTPA, supervisors contended that only certain student teachers benefitted from the edTPA, with many missing out. As Felix explained, “the kid who buys into the edTPA project and can see the value of the edTPA project comes out a winner. That’s not a ton of kids” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Felix went on to explain that maturity was the primary determinant for student teachers, saying: Are you a better teacher because you’ve done this edTPA project? I think they [student teachers] would probably say yes, the ones that were mature enough to connect to it and see the value in it. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Felix provided two examples of how he described “mature,” first equating it with “academic”: The girl that I was looking at yesterday is academically strong, highly motivated and clearly OCD. I mean she’s type A, so the amount of effort that went into her project is so far superior than the bulk of the other ones that I’ve had. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Then, Felix described “mature” in terms of experience and discussed a new inservice teacher: 249 She took the job up here, so I met her…first year teacher doing a fabulous job, she’s not certified [here]. And so she needed that edTPA project. So the school had called me and said, “Would you help her get started”… it was right when I was starting my kids, so I was like, “Yep”… It’s remarkable. She’s a total overachiever. I mean, she’s going to do very well …She is truly going to gain so much from this. It’s because they’re her kids… It’s her own program. She’s invested at all levels. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Notably, after Felix provided these examples, he began to question the word “maturity” itself: Maturity is a huge thing and I think you’re more mature, I don’t know, are you more mature when you’re getting a paycheck and somebody’s watching you every day, than when you’re student teaching? I don’t know. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Thus, Felix’s examples of maturity fit Frank’s two requirements for benefitting from the edTPA: The student (who) is going to do better with edTPA is the natural teacher who was a good writer (and) good student. I mean, I think those two things will be pretty good for the success to point to a success for that edTPA project. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Therefore, while on-campus faculty believed the edTPA to benefit all student teachers, supervisors believed that the edTPA only benefitted inservice teachers and/or student teachers who were both comfortable with detailed teaching and writing. Samantha was ambivalent about the edTPA, especially because she wondered why previous teachers whom she respects did not take the edTPA: When I would observe teachers, I’d be asking them advice for the edTPA. Most of them are like, “Oh yeah, I didn’t do that.” So then I question, “Why was it brought up or how did it come to be or why did it come to be?” And then I wonder, “Could anyone be a teacher [back then]?”... I mean, I feel like it is good [now], because then it shows who 250 can teach I guess, but I don’t know, because I feel like someone might be able to perform better in meeting the teaching aspect, but then they might not be good at articulating, but then we’d have to be [good] at both. (Interview, December 11, 2019). Nevertheless, when asked at the end of the interview who benefits from the edTPA, she replied, “maybe the teacher, or the student as in like me, that would be doing it, the teacher that would be doing it, because you’re thinking more about what you’re trying to do with your students” (Interview, December 11, 2019). When I asked Sally who benefits for the edTPA, she replied, “The students, honestly” and when I responded, “You’re talking about student teachers,” she said, “No, the students” (Interview, November 16, 2019). Sally then described how it helped them to remember concepts: I was like, what did you like about this? What didn’t you like? And so we talked about it, and so one of my students, she’s so cute, she raised her hand. She was like, “Well, I feel like this last lesson today kind of just like summarized everything we’ve been doing for the last five weeks.” (Interview, November 16, 2019) Sally expressed satisfaction during that moment, as she viewed it as evidence of the students understanding what she was trying to convey, and in her words, “it really affected them positively” (Interview, November 16, 2019). Overall, some on-campus staff agreed that the edTPA at least benefits all graduates of NUSU’s music education program. However, student teachers and supervisors were more ambivalent on the matter, and some of their examples pointed to differences in impact across groups and individuals. Thus, the edTPA functions as a set of principles, which, to use Mashaw’s (1994) words regarding policy, “rearranges rights, privileges, immunities, statuses, or the like. There will be both beneficiaries and disbeneficiaries of those arrangements” (p. 225). 251 Disbeneficiaries When I asked who is not benefiting from edTPA, Administrator A said, “The ones who are not seeing the benefit right now are the ones who don’t use it. It’s as simple as that” (Interview, November 7, 2019). She then gave specific examples of those who might not benefit: The faculty who are not even familiar with it because, “Oh, that’s something that you do in MTL [or] in general music practicum. I don’t have to worry about that.” The cooperating teachers who are saying, “Oh, just go ahead, you do that in your general music placement. It’s not going to work here with my program,” the ones who are resistant because they don’t see that they need to be a part of it… Those are the ones who are not benefiting because they are unfamiliar with it. Or, as some of our student teaching facilitators say, “They don’t have the time to deal with it.” And again… administration, with the, “Oh, you’ve got this concert coming up, you’ve got that to do.” And it’s all performance results… [an] upcoming concert or upcoming festival or upcoming competition. (Interview, November 7, 2019) While Sally believed that the edTPA might benefit PreK-12 students, she found the edTPA to be difficult for student teachers. When asked who may not benefit, she replied: The student teacher…it’s been hard to balance the actual teaching aspect and then all of the work on top of this. When I get home, I’m so tired. I don’t want to have to write any more than I already have to do… it’s tedious. (Interview, November 16, 2019) She also struggled with having different classroom management from her cooperating teacher: The classroom management was so difficult, especially that school… I’m not one to yell, but my sponsor teacher yells a lot. And that was hard to navigate. How do I find my way of classroom management? So that was tricky. (Interview, November 16, 2019) 252 While she considered herself to be fortunate to have an edTPA group that demonstrated positive behavior, some of her colleagues did not and videotaped several classes doing the same thing: (I) knew I really wouldn’t have issues with their behavior and stuff. But…my friends recorded two third grade classes, let’s just say… picking which class they’re going to actually take… and then delete the other classes. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Overall, Sally described the edTPA as “tedious” five times, and while she was glad to have a position helped her to complete the edTPA, she expressed concern for her colleagues, saying, “It’s taking the most out of the student teachers” (Interview, November 16, 2019). While Samantha liked the idea of using edTPA as a means for developing teacher identity, she too was worried about the timing and requirements of edTPA: The amount and terms of how much you have to submit and write…pages on pages…it just seems stressful…you teach all day and then you’re tired, but then you have to do all the work and then…repeat again… It’s kind of like doing everything all at once. That can seem like a lot. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Samantha also discussed how few cooperating teachers have any knowledge of the edTPA, and even if they do, “We were told not to ask them for help” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Thus, she was concerned about the limited time frame and support for completing the edTPA. While Sally and Samantha spoke about issues of support during student teaching, Sandra was concerned that she had not received enough support before going into student teaching: The edTPA is so hard for me to understand and wrap my head around it, and…there’s not a lot of, I don’t want to say not a lot of help…but they’re like, “Here, do this, and if you can’t do it, then maybe you should go do something else. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Sandra’s discussion of support was a reminder that for many students, the edTPA became a 253 problem, whether it was student teachers not being able to communicate about the edTPA during student teaching, or feeling pressure to say nothing fi they did not understand part of the edTPA. Well-Being Throughout the interviews, participants used the word “stress” more than 40 times, and the word was mostly articulated by student teachers and their supervisors. Faye and Frank gave several explanations pertaining to the edTPA, saying: Faye: It puts an added stress and some of them are stressed out from the very beginning and can’t enjoy the kids and the process… Frank: Thrown… at an awful time that they all have to deal with their stress and emotions… Faye: More stressed out, if you will, than years ago… Frank: Constant stress… overwhelming stress for the whole semester that, “I’ve got to get this done, every spare minute…feeling like I’m getting behind.”… extra stress… when they’ve got plenty. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Frank problematized the edTPA, saying that many student teachers today are already stressed by a general socialization with audit cultures, giving them fewer opportunities to make mistakes: That’s all they’ve known… social media… excess… multitasking…all the time…. we really admire their accomplishments when it comes to the requirements that they’re needing to do compared to what we did… how much everybody’s looking over their shoulder all the time… the kids, they’re stressed. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) They also felt stressed for them as Frank said, “We’re stressed about it because we see the stress that the kids go through,” and they worried that other members of NUSU were unaware: The supervisors feel the need to keep addressing the fact that the students find it very, 254 very stressful…we’re trying to make it as easy for the students as we can. I mean, it’s from the standpoint of let’s remove the stress here. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Frank summarized his concerns by saying in regard to the student teachers, “It’d be nice to just relax and enjoy teaching, you know?” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Full-time faculty were divided on the impact of edTPA on well-being. Professor E, for example, described the edTPA as “tedious,” but also saw benefits outweighing disbenefits: My students, I think it’s really hard for them… but I think they see the value in it… after walking through what we do with it, even though it is tedious, it’s less psychologically difficult than they anticipated that it would be. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Professor F described the edTPA as an unavoidable cause of anxiety in which faculty could help: We made a good choice when we chose to format our approach using the language that had to be in the processes that edTPA uses. And when you do that, it shouldn’t be such a horrible, scary thing. You know, it’s still, it’s always going to be fraught with anxiety, because it’s high stakes. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Even so, Professor D believes that teacher educators’ attitudes cause the stress, not edTPA. He then gave an example of a time when he attended a national gathering of music educators where the topic was edTPA and two individuals spoke up during the conference, and in his words: Did nothing but rant and rail at how evil it was… if we were already predisposed to call it a bad thing, we're not likely to have a conversation about it. So, I distress at the fact, and I continue to be distressed about the discourse around edTPA as being particularly negative. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Overall they held teacher educators, not edTPA, responsible for lessening the levels of stress. 255 High Stakes Not all teacher educators shared the same sentiment. For example, Professor G described the edTPA as “overwhelming” several times, saying, a young teacher when they sit down and they look at it all… write all this up and then, it doesn’t go the way that they’ve planned… it’s discouraging… edTPA is throwing so much at them at once that they get overwhelmed. (Interview, December 9, 2019) Moreover, students visited her to say, “I survived the edTPA” (Interview, December 9, 2019). While Professor C has developed several tools in preparing teachers for edTPA, he still expressed concern about the high-stakes of edTPA and its impact on well-being: I began wanting to be a teacher when I was in seventh grade… if I had spent from the age of 12 through high school, that takes me to 18 and then four more years of college…so 10 years dreaming of being a teacher. But now I can’t because I’m two points short on the edTPA, that’s high stakes. The gravity of this determination… is such a huge part of my life. …if that was determined based on missing out on two points on the edTPA, I’d be devastated. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor C described the edTPA as impacting the well-being of juniors and seniors too, saying: There is almost universal trepidation. They are worried about this edTPA project. They’re worried about the planning…the execution… they’re worried that, “If I can’t… I’m not going to be able to go on...as a music director.” (Interview, November 7, 2019) Yet, Professor C was the only teacher educator to describe his own anxiety about it, saying, “I worry that for some students they will not become teachers” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Providing context to his worry, Professor C started by telling me about one of his students who failed the edTPA: 256 I’ve had one student whose computer crashed… videos were destroyed… Why isn’t that student teaching today? Not because he wouldn’t be a good teacher… not because he’s not smart… Why isn’t he a licensed teacher today? Because he had a computer problem. That’s a problem…when you’re trying to develop good teachers and you’re excluding people from teaching because of technology. (Interview, November 7, 2019) He also told a story of his first year at NUSU when one of his student teachers failed: I still do not believe that I gave this student teacher enough support because I didn’t know enough myself at that time, and that student teacher was angry about the level of support that I gave... I do not blame that student teacher for being angry. We did not have a conversation about it, but the student teacher communicated with me their anger…and… felt…treated unfairly and not properly supported. And when they did not pass the edTPA, their anger was directed at me, not unjustifiably so. (Interview, November 7, 2019) While Professor C explained that alternatives to edTPA used to exist when he started at NUSU, those paths have since closed, making the edTPA more high-stakes than ever. Professor D’s responses about student well-being primarily stemmed from his work helping students who have not passed the edTPA. Consistent with Professor G’s survival metaphor, Professor B described the beginnings of his meetings with students who do not pass the edTPA as “a little bit of triage,” focusing on reaffirming students and saying to them: The edTPA… does not determine whether or not you’re a good teacher… just… whether or not you’re licensed right now. Do not let this color… work that I saw you do in class for three or four years. You’re thoughtful and interested in helping children learn about music. Let’s put that aside and… fix this (edTPA) issue. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Thus, he intervened by helping students to not equate edTPA with their self-efficacy as a teacher. 257 He also spoke about the high-stakes element of edTPA and what makes it different from other high-stakes tests: It’s very different qualitatively than their other exams…there’s an emotional element… students then feel more personally invested…it took so much work to send in… students will put tens of hours into these sometimes. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Furthermore, Professor B expressed concerns about the feasibility of retaking the edTPA: [With any other state test,] if you don’t pass it, you can go back and take it again. And I think one of the elements that’s stressful for students is…the idea of it being unfixable I think is part of the stress of it. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Moreover, while Professor B liked the framework of edTPA, he problematized the policy, saying, “I don't care for the high stakes element of it…how much it costs…. what it puts the students through” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Professor D elaborated on the high-stakes: High-stakes…colors the experience so much. I hope this isn’t an insensitive metaphor, but having a gun to your head, it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing while it’s there, you’re going to be stressed out and bothered by it, even if you’re eating a delicious steak, like it’s going to be uncomfortable. (Interview, November 7, 2019). Professor B’s statement is indicative of Campbell’s (1979) aphorism, and in Campbell’s words: I come to the following pessimistic laws (at least for the U.S. scene): The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor. (p. 85, emphasis in original) In summary, any potentially positive experiences that would have been prompted by the edTPA are effectively distorted by the high-stakes decisions resulting from the edTPA. 258 Policy Validity Colwell (2019b), one of the music educators referenced by Professor D during our interview, describes policy validity as the extent to which an idea can be transferred into policy. Also, Colwell uses the term it to focus on the transferability of assessment policies across spaces: With some understanding of the complexity of arts/music policy, one quickly realizes that policy created for one school or location has to be rethought when that policy is encountered somewhere else. The transferability of policy is limited and becomes critical with policy validity. (p. 133) Furthermore, Harris (2009) asserts that policy validity can be examined within teacher quality initiatives by examining their signals (high-stakes), improvement plans (professional development), and cost. Professor B’s analogy in the previous section comparing edTPA to being like “having a gun to the head” while “eating a delicious steak” serves as a reminder that in addition to the edTPA attempting work as policy across multiple spaces, it also purports to serve as professional development while being high-stakes. Given that Harris (2009) viewed professional development and high-stakes as separate functions when accounting for policy validity, it is important to consider how stakeholders perceive the two functions together. Furthermore, given Colwell’s (2019a, 2019b) concerns regarding the implementation of assessment policies across multiple spaces of governance, this section also explores how participants observed, questioned, and expressed concerns regarding the impact of edTPA as policy at NUSU. edTPA Questions and Concerns Participants at all levels of power in NUSU expressed concerns about the edTPA, including its use as a barrier to teaching. For Administrator B, she questioned the use of scores: 259 I wonder how much we’re driving people away from being teachers, people going into education. And that’s a frustrating thing. How much is the emphasis on testing and scores? For the money that they [teachers] make, It’s like, "Is it worth it for that amount of money? No, I’m not going to do it." (Interview, December 9, 2019) As such, Administrator B wondered if edTPA contributes to teacher reduction and attrition. The students’ questions about edTPA paralleled Administrator B’s, and then some. Samantha, for example, questioned the content and cost as a matter of policy: I would ask them [edTPA] what their thoughts were in terms of the benefits or disbenefits of edTPA to get their perspective so that I can understand. And then, again, like I guess the policy of like the finance, that would be policy. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Administrator B’s comments also paralleled Stephen’s questioning of scoring and the performative aspects of edTPA. For the sake of context, Lyotard (1984, as cited in Ball, 2006) defines performativity as “a principle which establishes strictly functional relations between a state and its inside and outside environments” (p. 71). Focusing on the edTPA, Powell and Parkes (2019) described performativity as an “enacted fantasy” where teacher performance is not about performance vis- à-vis singing and playing, but rather, performance of a teacher at a student to make an impression on a third party (p. 7). The distinction between the two understandings of performance are critical. Musical performances are only limited by context, and process and learning are both possible (via lessons, practice, etc.). However, as Powell and Parkes (2019) point out, teacher performance, especially in the context of testing, must include not only a performance product, but also engagement with learning, authentic inquiry, and a context for process. Furthermore, just as Parkes and Powell (2015) found context, authenticity, and engagement to be missing from 260 the edTPA, Stephen’s question suggests similar pieces missing from the edTPA, as he asked, “What are the overall goals of making these questions?...I feel like this is more of a performance- oriented test instead of a process and learning oriented test” (Interview, January 11, 2020). Students also questioned the structure of edTPA and how it accounts for spontaneity. For Sandra, questioned the implications of teaching students with special needs as part of her edTPA: I had a class that was all behaviors. There were times that we had to finish our lesson in the hallway because one kid was throwing stuff in the room…or…you only have one kid because all the rest of them are having isolated tantrums. How are you supposed to know what to expect?... The edTPA is very good for general education, but special education, it’s so specific that you’re set up for failure. (Interview, December 10, 2019) In addition to the impact of unexpected circumstances in an edTPA lesson, Sandra was also concerned about the consequences of not remembering which methods to reference, saying, “What if, I can’t remember whose teaching method has solfege in it?” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Furthermore, while Samantha and Stephen had questions about scoring, performativity, and cost, Sandra had questions about the content and pedagogical consequences of edTPA. While the students had questions pertaining to scores, cost, content, pedagogy, and consequences, Sarah’s question hits at the heart of edTPA’s claim that it represents real teaching: As an educator, and how’s it all going to fit together for what I’m doing with my students? What is going to be the way I’m going to use all of these separate components in a way that makes me an effective teacher, a desirable one, and one that will put me on the market? I think that’s where my disconnect is with it all is how I’m going to use all of it as sort of a cohesive sort of thing to better myself. (Interview, January 10, 2020) Thus, Sarah’s question problematizes edTPA’s claim of validity and professional development. 261 While Sally could appreciate the need for accountability, she also believed the high stakes to be too high: I wish there wasn’t as much weight on it. It’s scary that if I don’t pass this, I can’t teach. I don’t like that…I get it, It totally makes sense, but it just makes me a lot more anxious regarding the whole thing. I wish it wasn’t as scary. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Furthermore, while Sally was fortunate to have a cooperating teacher who had experience with edTPA, she expressed concern for student teachers who did not, as her cooperating teacher shared that her first student teacher who took the edTPA did not pass. In other words, student teachers placed with cooperating teachers who did not have experience with the edTPA were effectively at a disadvantage when it came to passing the edTPA. Samantha also described the edTPA as stressful, saying “It seems like it’d be the end of the world if you fail it” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Clarifying her reasoning, she said: It costs a lot of money… that’s like the one thing that people think of like, “I have to pay all this money again to redo it,” but also because if you were to fail, you put so much work into this. And it’s just like, "Oh no, what did I do?" (Interview, December 10, 2019) Samantha also spoke more specifically about the cost: It costs $300 to do it… I had a friend actually telling me he actually has a job now. He teaches at a school around here, and he was saying, “Yeah, I’m certified, but all the exams that I had to take is a lot of money.” So I guess if it was cheaper that would be cool. But I just wonder, where does that price come from? I guess maybe from the people that hire the proctor, but why is it $300? But yeah, I guess that’s one thing that’s the annoying aspect of being certified is, why does it cost too much to do something that you want to do? (Interview, December 10, 2019) 262 Samantha then described the cost as a “barrier,” saying: I don’t like it, because we pay so much just to go to school already. As an undergrad to pay even more additional fees just to do what we want to do seems like a lot… I understand it should cost something, but… if it’s going to be over a hundred dollars it’s too much… we’re literally going into school already and it’s a bunch of fees that we’re already spending to get our education. So why can’t our work be enough to show, “Okay, I can be certified”? Why does the money have to come into it?...I’m not in the best financial status.. but for me, I feel it’s like a barrier. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Samantha also pointed out that the cost of edTPA has negatively impacted others, saying: I spoke with someone yesterday, literally last night, and she was texting me asking questions about how to register for [tests] and I was telling her I had to figure it out on my own because I didn’t realize that you paid just to register. Now you have to schedule. So she was confused about that. And then she was like…, “Oh my God. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Because she also struggles financially. So it just seems like a barrier and it shouldn’t be. (Interview, December 10, 2019) In summary, when asked about whether the edTPA should be a requirement, she replied, “The only reason I would say no is because it costs so much money” (Interview, December 10, 2019) Sandra viewed the edTPA as a simulacrum, or as Powell and Parkes (2019) describe it, “a representation of a teaching practice that does not exist” (p. 7). In Sandra’s words, It's not authentic. Writing down, “this is exactly how I'm going to act in the classroom”? If I went up in the classroom and taught exactly like how my edTPA lesson plan said, kids would be like, "Who the hell are you?” (Interview, December 10, 2019) Moreover, Sandra discussed the limitations of edTPA’s vocabulary and language functions: 263 It’s always good to know the vocabulary (and) the terminology…But having a teacher also say, “This is how you talk to a kid.” We had a whole unit about…if a kid has a drug or alcohol addiction or kid comes in wearing a Trump hat and another kid who’s Mexican gets all upset about it… real-life scenario teaching. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Sandra also viewed the edTPA assessment task as impractical in some contexts, saying, “Older kids…are not going to draw a picture for you of what they heard. They’re going to be like, "are you kidding me?" (Interview, December 10, 2019). Finally, Sandra viewed the edTPA planning section as a failure to serving students with special needs: The edTPA lesson plan would have been so detrimental to a special ed music class, because basically if we’re talking lifeboats20, a special ed lesson plan is all lifeboats because you never know what’s going to happen. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Overall, she considered the evaluative demands of the assessment, instruction, and planning tasks to compromise the validity of the entire framework. Stephen believed that the edTPA scores would keep student teachers from trying new things: As far as the overall impact, I don’t believe that a score on a test will be able to determine your overall effectiveness… the requirements are unclear… right now…they’d be more likely to end up messing something up (and)… not be able to display as much as what of what they’re able to do (compared to)…completely organic lesson plans with the help of their university facilitators and cooperating teachers… able to show more of the strengths and weaknesses… more accurately. (Interview, January 11, 2020) 20 When discussing her favorite professor at NUSU, Sandra provided a story of her teacher offering an analogy between lifeboats and having a back-up plan during a lesson. 264 Having echoed Sandra’s concerns about spontaneity, he also had concerns about the assessment: Honestly, that’s the part that I’m the most worried about because ensemble and performance work is so subjective, even though there is an objective answer as in, “You’re not playing this dynamic right. This rhythm is incorrect,” sort of a thing… at a concert or a performance, you…can’t pinpoint [and] say, “Student A didn’t do this correct, they must not understand this concept fully.”…in a solo performing setting, that might be easier. But in public schools, more often than not, the focus is on communal music playing. (Interview, January 11, 2020) Thus, Stephen problematized edTPA’s scoring as invalid, saying, “I feel like having more objective qualifiers for a subjective field doesn’t really work” (Interview, January 11, 2020). Given that Stephen viewed the edTPA implementation as flawed, he also expressed cost and high-stakes concerns similar to Samantha and Sally: This is the biggest test on our road to certification. This is the most expensive, so we actually need to, more than ever, make it count, because we might not be able to afford to take the test again. And again, we want it to be in a place when we graduate to actually go out into the workforce and find a job. So the fact that one test that has its fair shares of holes so to speak, and authenticity, rules over whether or not we actually get to be teacher is a little bit stressful. (Interview, January 11, 2020) Stephen was also the only study participant to comment edTPA’s lack of music educator input: The different accomplishments that are set to be completed in these policies, they’re not necessarily made by musicians, they’re not musicians in the field actually participating with these students, and different zones of proximal development would be more appropriate to actually feed into the creation of these policies to make them… more 265 attainable. (Interview, January 11, 2020) Overall, while Sarah described the lead-up to edTPA as “a little scary” (Interview, January 10, 2020), Stephen answered her question asking if the edTPA makes for better teachers stating it would “not be the best measurement of teacher effectiveness” (Interview, January 11, 2020). Felix echoed some of Sally’s concerns about student teachers working with teachers who have less experience with edTPA, especially given the stakes: I’ve made some mistakes… big ones. Of the stupid ones, one of my kids sliced the video, which is an absolute, no, no, so the kid got an incomplete…I haven’t had anybody fail, but I’ve had…incompletes because of mechanical things, which I could have probably headed off had I known… a video with less than five kids in it... little things, but I literally (have) been kind of learning along the way. (Interview, January 11, 2020) Felix also echoed Stephen’s concerns about assessment of student learning, saying, “I would think that would be harder to find in a large group ensemble” (Interview, December 11, 2019) Moreover, in answering Sarah’s question of edTPA’s purported connection to teacher readiness, Felix said, “I don’t think there’s much correlation, if any” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Felix also found the edTPA to be incompatible with the flexibility necessary for some student teacher placements: edTPA…for many of them, they struggle…In an ideal world, those kids would have everything planned out the last couple of weeks of August…task 1… thought through and task 2… How (you are) going to do it. But let’s face it. They don’t know…the curriculum…building…(or) what kind of flexibility and freedom that their sponsor teacher is going to give them. (Interview, December 11, 2019). Yet, the hardest part for Felix was that he saw the edTPA as not music-based, and said: “I would 266 hate to think that edTPA was taking away from that” (Interview, December 11, 2019). Faye and Frank worked with student teachers who did not pass the edTPA and found their lack of passing to be an indictment of the edTPA. They believed that the edTPA was taking away from the musical experiences of teaching, as Frank explained regarding a mentee who failed the edTPA, “She was a smart girl, a fiddler and a violinist at a high level. She did her project on the coolest thing. I mean, it was just out there creative” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). While Frank described her project, which focused on composition, as “brilliant” and “really clever,” the student did not pass, to which he said, “I think it kind of broke her a little bit.” Frank shared that she is not teaching, so he and Faye have since been wary of any creative edTPA projects, as they worry that they might not pass edTPA standards, which Faye described a violation of the idea of experiencing art for art’s sake, or “reading a story to read a story, having human contact…we lose that” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Building on Stephen’s and Sandra’s assertion of the edTPA as performative and inauthentic, Frank described the edTPA as manipulative, saying, It’s…a manipulation. We tell the kids, “Try to use every word in the glossary in the back,” and they go, "(sigh)." They try to figure it out… But it’s a real technical challenge and kind of an artificial rating upgrade, you know. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Thus, Frank described edTPAs scores as lacking validity and “difficult to come up with a valid assessment that’s cut and dry…easy to easy to quantify” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). Further impacting edTPA claims of content validity, Professor F described the notion of edTPA as an educative assessment to be “spurious,” saying, Narrative is a whole lot more useful than a score…If I can take that score and say… this falls below…acceptability… am I allowed to resubmit additional work…reassessed… get 267 a higher score or a passing score? It’s only educative if I understand what the number means, and… if I’m allowed to take that information and… improve…. given the context of edTPA… that’s probably a difficult claim to make. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Professor E offered a similar concern about edTPA serving as a barrier without being educative, saying, “The students don’t really get feedback… they either pass the hurdle… through the barrier, or they don’t” (Interview, December 10, 2019). Professor D spoke to the control as well: I understand that passing the test is part of all of that… evidence, market, quality control business… edTPA is an onerous task that the students feel this is onerous. And so not only is it onerous to do, it’s high stakes for them. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Furthermore, while Professor D often praised the edTPA as an open framework, he expressed concern about the assessment task of edTPA, saying, “The assessment is the most closed in terms of its framing and ideology” (Interview, November 7, 2019). While others described issue of content validity and consequential validity, Professor B was particularly concerned with process validity. More specifically, it became the task of faculty to explain the answer to the question, “What the hell is language function?” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Additionally, student teachers were balancing edTPA requirements with cooperating teachers’ suggestions, which sometimes led to not passing the edTPA: One of the requirements…is that they have individualized student assessment data. One cooperating teacher asked the student to teach this unit that she had already developed… nothing but group assessments within it. The student did that, submitted their edTPA and got a score that, I forget the code, but it got, it wasn’t a fail, but it was like we couldn’t assess this because it wasn’t individualized student data. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Building on Professor F’s point about edTPA’s lack of feedback, Professor B said, “You don’t 268 get much edTPA feedback from edTPA when you don’t pass” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Professor B pointed out that sometimes resubmitting an edTPA meant changing the language to convey an idea over and over again in order to pass. Speaking about the student who received a condition code21 for not having individualized student data, he went on: We had a student…the way he wrote the commentary made it confusing. He had a composition in a general music setting… (a) rhythmic composition project, he had them organize it and then he put the three examples of student work and got confused by how edTPA asks you to talk about… achievement groups. Even though it was… individual work, the scorer… seeing the word “group” so much, they assumed it was… students working collaboratively and then flag that as ungradable. (Interview, November 7, 2019) In the end, given Professor B’s experience as an edTPA scorer, he and the student discussed the issues, the student emphasized that the assessments were individual assessments, and he was successful upon resubmission. Yet, Professor B’s point about condition codes without context point to another failure of edTPA, especially with regard to providing test takers with feedback. As much as Professor C problematized the edTPA, he emphasized that he does not oppose the edTPA: Don’t take from this… that I’m against the edTPA. I’m not. It’s really… the high stakes matters of the edTPA, that’s where it becomes a problem, because it doesn’t show the growth. It only shows this idea of, “Here’s the product.” (Interview, November 7, 2019) 21 According to Pearson (2019), “If your submission does not meet the Submission Requirements, a condition code may be applied during the scoring process…if two or more condition codes appear in a single task, the task and whole portfolio totals will not appear in a single task, the task and whole portfolio totals will not appear on the score report—instead the task and portfolio will be reported as ‘incomplete’” (p. 1). Pearson lists approximately 25 different ways to receive a condition code. 269 Professor C worries that it benefits strong writers while being a barrier for individuals who are otherwise excellent music educators. Moreover, he tied impact to development saying, “It’s not an assessment that’s created by the graders, and it’s not created by the teachers who are requiring that their students take part” (Interview, November 7, 2019). Additionally, Professor C asserts NUSU members lose agency in the education of their teachers due to edTPA’s barriers: There’s not much agency…I as a teacher get to determine the content of the classes that I teach, and…should be trusted to determine whether or not my students have learned what it is that they should have learned. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor C explained that edTPA removes him from that decision-making process: Student teaching is viewed as a class with a syllabus. Whether or not students fail my class to some extent is no longer up to me. So I have less agency. The students within my class… They’re going to complete this project or they’re not… they will pass the class or not pass the class based on that, which is not a choice. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Overall, Professor C’s expressed that while the framework of edTPA may be open to facilitating agency, the implementation of edTPA has effectively silenced members in and around NUSU. Discussion In this chapter, I have examined how stakeholders frame power and agency, especially with respect to the impact of edTPA. Understanding stakeholders’ beliefs regarding the edTPA can provide a deeper discussion into impact and whose voices have been missing from policy discourse. Furthermore, in order to better understand the systems of power, agency, and marginalization with the implementation of edTPA at NUSU, I analyze the findings from this chapter using Foucault’s (1982) concept of power relations. In other words, I considered systems of differentiation, objectives, establishment, institutionalization, and rationalization. 270 While there were many commonalities among stakeholder groups, one cannot ignore the differences in power. The faculty who held the highs levels of power at NUSU, namely Administrator A and Professor D (the longest-serving professor in the department) were the most supportive of edTPA. Together, they described the edTPA as a grassroots movement that benefits student teachers, and by extension, all music education stakeholders. Using mantras like “free edTPA,” they described resistors it as those who miss out and make things difficult for others. They described the edTPA as progressive and positive while describing teacher educators who were against it as old and egotistical. While Professor D problematized the high-stakes component of edTPA, he rationalized edTPA as an outgrowth of neoliberalism in the United States rather than as an edTPA problem. Thus, they held the edTPA up as the established tool for making better teachers in music education. The rest of the faculty offered mixed answers to the edTPA, including Professor C who described having a student fail, yet still described the edTPA as a good tool for teacher development. However, with the exception of Administrator A, Professor D, and Felix, every other participant described student teachers as the ones who are the most negatively impacted by the edTPA. Furthermore, Felix qualified his answer by saying that “mature” candidates benefited, defined “mature” as pre-service teachers with a “type A” personality, or inservice teachers who are already employed. The view of most participants that student teachers are the most negatively affected conflicts with the notion of edTPA being a “grassroots” effort. One of the primary reasons that most participants took issue with the edTPA was due to the high stakes component, which appears to be the foundation for the power relationships that were catalyzed in its implementation. Nevertheless, faculty found ways to rationalize and justify using the edTPA. 271 Moreover, their positive descriptions of edTPA in spite of problems with the policy call into question how their own support or lack thereof affects their own position at the university. While the edTPA is viewed by most faculty as problematic, tacit support for the edTPA affords stakeholders with privileges in the form of funding, support, and trust from other stakeholders. Another component critiqued by almost every participant was edTPA’s lack of feedback The edTPA has been used as an open framework for students during their coursework, but closed and reduced to scores during their student teaching. While participants used edTPA as a tool for both coursework and student teaching, their stories show evidence of student teachers often losing out in both experiences. At best, student teachers will pass edTPA while enduring inauthentic teaching practices and stress. At worst, they will pour countless hours into a failed portfolio, view the failure as insurmountable, develop antagonistic relationships with mentors, and ultimately, exit the profession before showing what they can do for music education. The edTPA functions as a system of privilege and power. Yet, I agree with Professor D that the edTPA by itself is not power, but merely a tool. Moreover, the edTPA enacts power by privileging and marginalizing through its implementation by the state, NUSU, and its stakeholders. As such, knowledge of the edTPA has become the currency of power that has been transmitted differently to and from stakeholders leading to differential impact, thus establishing the need for critical policy analysis as opposed to rational policy analysis (Chase, Dowd, Pazich, & Bensimon, 2014). Furthermore, those with the highest levels of power view the student teachers as the beneficiaries and are able to articulate similar values in NUSU’s policy documents. Similar to the students in Taskoh’s (2014) study, NUSU students were often left unheard in NUSU’s implementation of edTPA. While supervisors expressed concerns about the edTPA having a negative impact on student teachers, their concerns are often written off by 272 those in power. Therefore, like Kariwo et al.’s (2014) study, NUSU’s policies perpetuated the silencing of local values in and around the student teacher placements. When I asked one faculty member who wins and loses from edTPA, that person described the question as uncomfortable and declined to answer. This discomfort may stem from functioning in a system that props up edTPA, as individuals at NUSU experience privilege and marginalization as a result. Those in power like Administrator A and Professor D never mentioned student teachers struggling with the edTPA, and instead articulated it as an enlightened and established form of teaching. For the rest of the faculty, their views were completely dependent on whether or not they decide to think about the high-stakes component of edTPA. For the off-campus supervisors, they see how it affects student teachers, and while it may cost them legitimacy among those in power at NUSU, they are nevertheless concerned. Finally, the student teachers have one choice: Pay $300 and pass the edTPA by demonstrating what they described as an inauthentic version of teaching, or choose another career. Foucault (1982) asserts that an analysis of power relations requires the establishment of differentiations, objectives, establishment, institutionalization, and rationalization. Thus, I contend that all five criteria are present in the struggles between stakeholders of NUSU and in their implementation of edTPA. Those who held higher positions of power could determine the values of NUSU, including support for the edTPA, which afforded those in power certain privileges from the state and the institution. In order to maintain the values they established, those in power at NUSU placed support and successful completion of the edTPA as priorities that they expected all stakeholder groups to implement accordingly. While those in power at NUSU were subjected to state policies such as students needing to pass edTPA to obtain initial teacher licensing, they put more weight on other groups to comply with edTPA, be it students 273 needing to complete it to receive their degree in music education, teacher educators who needed to incorporate it to show their effectiveness as an educator, or cooperating teachers who needed to comply with the process to be seen as worthy of being supervisors or mentor teachers. Those in power at NUSU have institutionalized the edTPA by mixing it with previous philosophies of the institution to generate, as Foucault puts it, “General surveillance, the principle of regulation, and, to a certain extent also, the distribution of all power relations in a given social ensemble” (p. 792). Building on Foucault, NUSU functions as a social ensemble, which explains why there were differing levels of support, implementation, and critiques of the edTPA. Moreover, the development of NUSU as a social ensemble implementing the edTPA in spite of concerns regarding the high-stakes impact of edTPA speaks to the ways that edTPA has been rationalized by all stakeholder groups, including students. In other words, the power of edTPA is neither inherent nor intrinsic. Instead, it is exercised gradually, transforming and mutating across time and space based on the actions of stakeholders. Over the past three chapters, I have focused on how stakeholders understood the policy framing of edTPA, how they interacted with, described, and made sense of their experiences with edTPA, and how they framed their own sense of power and agency with respect to the development and implementation of edTPA. In Chapter Seven, I will provide a synthesis of my findings, offer policy recommendations as conveyed by the participants, and conclude by offering my own recommendations and reflections based on the findings. 274 CHAPTER SEVEN: SYNTHESIS, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS Limitations To better understand these findings, it is important to consider the limitations surrounding this study. First, because this is a case study using a qualitative approach, it should not be generalized to all settings. Instead, Stake (2010) explains the purpose as: Not to reach general social science understandings but understandings about a particular situation. By understanding better the complexity of the situation, we should contribute to setting policy and professional practice. (p. 65) Furthermore, this study operates under a different set of conditions from quantitative studies that often rely on validity. Instead, I focused on credibility by gathering data from a group of individuals who work together, examining the variations of data, and achieving data saturation, complete with confirming and disconfirming evidence pertaining to the edTPA (Given, 2008). While the setting is localized, thus invalidating the potential for generalizability, the localized context is essential for the purposes of critical policy analysis, as participant narratives and documents offer pause to consider and critique how relationships and power in education impact standards, competition, valuing of knowledge, and notions of what and who is “good” (Apple, 2019). Furthermore, I have considered the edTPA with nuance in my own role as a researcher, as I will also be teaching at a university that uses the edTPA. As such, the purpose of this critical case study has not been to critique NUSU, but rather to pause and reflect on edTPA’s impact on music teacher education and to consider what this means (Tuck & Gorlewski, 2016). In this critical case study, it was my hope to convey the perceptions of 16 individuals. Student teachers’ narratives regarding the edTPA have been rare in music education research, and while the supervisors were occasionally described as “old” and even “outsourced” by a few 275 faculty and administrators in this study, I paid close attention to their insights as well. Overall, I wished to better understand the perspectives of each group and why such tensions emerged. While faculty tended to offer the most varied perspectives regarding edTPA, the policy documents and implementation were often carried out by a select few who strongly supported the edTPA. Finally, I noticed that in some cases, a few faculty members exerted more power than one or both of the administrators based on their own status within the school. As a teacher educator who has presented on teacher performance-based rubrics such as the Danielson and Marzano models, I have sought to be self-critical and reflexive regarding my own views, which is why I include the participants’ policy suggestions in this chapter as well as my own. Generalizability and Transferability Given the confidentiality regulations associated with edTPA, access was an issue throughout the study. It was my original plan to observe student teachers at their placements, to interview cooperating teachers who work with NUSU, and to collect copies of the edTPA from the students I interviewed for this study. Unfortunately, I was not permitted to contact cooperating teachers, as the NUSU administration considered them to be external to the institution, and therefore ineligible for interviews. Furthermore, due to Pearson’s requirements that students not share their portfolios with anyone other than NUSU affiliates, Pearson, or SCALE, my access to edTPA portfolios was also limited (Pearson, 2017). Other limitations involved maintaining confidentiality of NUSU to the best of my ability, restrictions regarding Professor B’s ability to discuss his work as an edTPA scorer, and NUSU’s decision to cancel the edTPA boot camp in December, 2019. Over the course of my study, I gathered more than 15 hours of video and audio footage from participants at NUSU, as well as over 1000 pages of documents pertaining to NUSU’s implementation of edTPA. Consequently, my data is sufficient 276 for analysis of NUSU with respect to how they have framed themselves as an institution and community, though the lifting of some of these limitations would have enriched the work. Selection bias was part of this study. Aside from my purposefully choosing NUSU due to its success with and support of edTPA, I initially contacted faculty who had been recommended to me by one of the administrators. Furthermore, I contacted more participants after I had the opportunity to encounter them during my first visit. During my stay at NUSU, I was able to connect with four out of the five student teacher participants who were part of this study (Sally was the only participant who responded prior to my visit). Ultimately, data from my interviews with participants varied widely, suggesting that I had a strong combination of both confirming and disconfirming evidence regarding the implementation of edTPA. Overall, one faculty member provided the greatest amount of disconfirming evidence regarding critique of the edTPA, which added nuance to the study. At the same time, the repetition of specific concerns regarding the edTPA that emerged from all groups provided strength to the data set. Their stories helped to offer a new understanding regarding the development, framing, interacting with, and implementing of the edTPA. Limitations of Critical Policy Analysis This study aims to be among the first empirical studies in music education to consider the edTPA through critical policy analysis. While several studies have been published regarding the edTPA, including ones in the realm of music education (Koziel, 2018; Heil & Berg, 2017; Helton, 2018), there is a dearth of policy studies examining stakeholders’ perspectives in music education. Consequently, it is difficult to fit this study into the larger sphere of music education research, which may serve as a limitation, though recent studies in music education have provided precedents for using policy frameworks (Kos, 2018, Shaw, 2017). 277 Using CPA as a framework may also serve as a limitation. To date, only a few researchers have described CPA as a framework, and even fewer have done so in higher education, with the exception of Shahjahan and Torres (2013). While Kos (2018) employed CPA in the context of music education, no studies have used CPA as a framework in a music teacher preparation program. Yet, many CPA researchers have explored topics that relate to issues with the edTPA, thus providing a foundation and precedent for a CPA of edTPA in music education. Critical Discussion of Findings Over the course of this study, I have presented findings pertaining to NUSU’s interactions with and implementations of edTPA. In this section, I focus on the findings from NUSU and how they can inform music teacher preparation programs, especially with regard to circumstances that have triggered the adoption of edTPA, approaches to education that may or may not align with edTPA, how positionality has influenced reactions to the edTPA, how acceptance or resistance to the edTPA has impacted relationships among music educators, and how the edTPA has led to divisions in the constructions demonstrating music and teaching respectively. Drawing upon the work of critical theorists, I will consider the study in relation to Foucault’s (1982) concept of power relations, Apple’s (2019) paradigms of dominance, subordination, and disruption, Ball’s (1994, 2016) description of power networks in pedagogy and curriculum, Smyth’s (1999) examination of policy euphemisms, and Chase et al.’s (2014) call to consider “the differential impact of educational policy” (p. 674). Afterwards, I will offer some of the participants’ recommendations, as well as my own recommendations. Mandate, Opportunity, and Fear (The Power Networks of edTPA) In Chapter Four, I sought to understand how stakeholders understood the policy framing of edTPA. In general, participants discussed how they were introduced to edTPA, how they 278 compared and contrasted edTPA to their own philosophy, and how they have responded to edTPA as a mobile policy that is made and remade across space (Ball, 2016) and time (Foucault, 1978/2009). For the faculty and administration who were at NUSU during its initial implementation, the edTPA was a logical step forward in what they saw as an accountability and standards movement already taking place in P-12 schools. They viewed the mandate of edTPA as mandatory and immediately worked to make the best of what they viewed as an unavoidable gateway for students. They also viewed the edTPA as a constructivist framework that aligned with their own values of cultivating a learning environment, professional growth, and pedagogy over content. For them, it was an opportunity to demonstrate alternatives to conservatory-based methodologies that they believed were all too common in schools in and around the state. NUSU’s response to edTPA was to embed it into their curriculum, as they believed it would bolster their opportunity to highlight the “how” of teaching over the “what” of teaching, without changing their core values. Thus, by adopting a national performance assessment as a means for challenging what they perceived to be a NASM-driven conservatory paradigm, the faculty and administration took on the role of what Ball (2016) describes as “glocal actors,” or: Homophily [ties through common beliefs], social relations [ties through building new relationships], global forms [how connections shape policy on a larger scale], and a dispotif of governance [heterogenous support for the exercise of power]. (p. 533) Overall, for the faculty and administration present during its initial implementation, the edTPA represented an opportunity to articulate, mandate, distribute, and systematize a set of ideas that they rationalized as unavoidable and prioritized as potentially empowering for NUSU. 279 While all participants framed the edTPA as a tool for professional growth, the framing of edTPA as an opportunity ended for the rest of the participants at student teaching. Described by most participants as product-driven, standardized, and centralized, the need to pass the edTPA pervaded the student teaching experience, shifting the focus from growth and reflection to compliance and fear. Faculty and supervisors often balanced the need to lessen student teachers’ fear and anxiety and were often spending more time on edTPA than any other topic. Participants also had differing views on the purpose of assessment in edTPA, and students tended to respond negatively to the assessment task. Also, while faculty and administration reached out to cooperating teachers to offer professional development on the edTPA, several cooperating teachers stopped taking student teachers due to the edTPA, viewing it as a waste of their time and experience. Finally, while one student teacher offered mostly positive responses to edTPA, she was also the only student teacher in the study to have 16 weeks in a single student teacher placement. Furthermore, she was working with a faculty supervisor and cooperating teacher who were both involved with writing the edTPA-embedded student teacher handbook. In summary, the student teacher experience represented a shift in focus from the “how” of teaching to the “what” of teaching due to the compliance issues and fear surrounding the edTPA. When considering Kos’s (2018) assertion of the need for CPA researchers to describe the origins of a policy, the participants described the edTPA as something that has been made and remade repeatedly over the past decade. Furthermore, the faculty who were at NUSU took a traditional, positivist, and ontological approach to the policy by focusing, as Young and Diem put it, “considerable energy on planning, adoption, implementation, examination, and/or evaluating educational changes” (p. 80). Furthermore, seeing the policy as “not going away,” they sought to facilitate a positive experience by aligning the edTPA to their own values. 280 By interpreting the edTPA as fitting with NUSU’s local and constructivist values, I contend that the faculty are participating in what Ball (2016) describes as a policy network: Means and end, constantly evolving, expanding and mutating, it is an architecture of social relations, ‘girders’ and ‘pipes’ and ‘circulatory systems that connect and interpenetrate’ the local and the national. (p. 13) By functioning as policy actors who implement the edTPA, NUSU legitimates the policies of edTPA, showing that it can be made and remade in various context due to its apparent openness and flexibility. In return, members of the NUSU community are investing and reinvesting in differing levels of relational benefits and affordances within their environment, which Ball (2016) describes as “network capital” (p. 9). Thus, faculty who came to accept and implement the edTPA during its initial rollout have made a large investment in edTPA over time. Time and space appear to be key factors in the acceptance of edTPA. While some faculty have had years to fit edTPA into their curriculum, others have needed to jump in, having had no say in its initial implementation. This especially applies to students, as they are challenged by the particular struggle of implementing the edTPA within their respective placements. In other words, the edTPA imposes varying levels of responsibility on student teachers to function as policy actors, or as Apple (1993) puts it, those who participate “in the creation of meanings and values” (p. 238). Yet, as Parkes (2019) explains, placing student teachers in such a role is not authentic, as student teachers are guests in their placements, and “do not set the curriculum and have limited time to develop relationships with the students they are teaching” (p. 242) Nevertheless, student teachers are pressured to establish edTPA-based values in a short time within their settings, as Ball (2016) puts it, “At some speed, gaining credibility, support and funding as they move, mutating and adapting to local conditions at the same time, often treated 281 separately and re-assembled on-site” (p. 4). Again, not all levels of responsibility were the same for student teachers, nor were their respective levels of network capital, or the production of benefits afforded through their environment and relationships (Ball, 2016). Sarah, for example, student-taught in a school with a supervisor and cooperating teacher who were already steeped in the policy development. For others, however, the levels of responsibility were higher and the network capital lower. As such, some like Sally planned her edTPA prior to student teaching based on practicum experiences and took part in online chats with fellow students. Overall, student teachers were pressured to develop a product as evidence of their readiness to teach, thus changing the NUSU curriculum during student teaching from a process- based approach to a product-based experience. The shift from process to product may also explain why participants had differences of opinion regarding the purpose of assessment, as descriptions ranged from an emphasis on growth and connection to accountability and objectivity. Consequently, student teachers struggled the most with the assessment task in edTPA. Given the shift from process to product, it is clear that the edTPA forced changes to the NUSU curriculum. Ball (2016) explains this as a fundamental consequence of policy moving across levels of implementation, saying, “as policies move they change the sites and the landscape through which and across which they move” (p. 13). Policy networks may also explain why cooperating teachers resisted the edTPA, especially experienced music teachers who have come to invest time in the development of their own philosophies of music education. Moreover, cooperating teachers are not required to use the edTPA, and therefore, their decisions are guided by different values that do not include the pressures of a mandate. Building on Apple’s (2018) 282 framing of CPA, I posit that NUSU has become a “site of crucial struggle over authority and identity, indeed over both the very meaning of being educated and who should control” (p. 277). edTPA and Street-Level Bureaucracy: NUSU’s Brand of edTPA In Chapter Five, I examined policy documents to consider how stakeholders understood, interacted with, implemented, described, and made sense of their experiences with edTPA. I considered Lipsky’s (2010) take on street-level bureaucracy, which describes the implementation of policy at the local level, and the individuals who carry them out. As Lipsky explains, “the exercise of discretion was a critical dimension of much of the work of teachers” (p. xii). Thus, due to a lack of time and resources to respond to standards, teachers are compelled to respond in simplified performances of teaching that impact quality for the sake of standards. Upon my review of NUSU documents, I found time, resources, standards, simplification, and issues of quality to all emerge as points of conflict throughout this chapter. In keeping with critical policy analysis, I reflected on the documents through the lens of Ball’s (2006) policy as text, or “representations which are encoded in complex ways, and decoded in complex ways” (p. 44), and policy as discourse, or “what can be said, be thought, but also who can speak, when, where, and with what authority” (p. 48). Using CPA, I acknowledged implementation of the edTPA to be both complex and rooted in power relations (Foucault, 1982. By doing so, I was afforded the flexibility to consider the edTPA at NUSU through contexts of influence, text production, practice, outcomes, and strategy (Ball, 2016). I also took a genealogical approach to the documents, allowing me to consider the times and spaces for which the documents were implemented (Ball, 2016, Foucault, 1978/2009). Overall, policy genealogy was critical to my analysis of edTPA as I used it to remove masks of political neutrality and problematize potential forms of political violence embedded within the documents. 283 Because Chapter Five focused on NUSU documents and artifacts related to the edTPA, I found Shahjahan and Torres’s (2013) framing of CPA to be particularly meaningful. For example, they examined an assessment22 with the view that the documents are “texts that construct social practices and discourse, and vice-versa” (p. 609). Second, in using CPA, they rejected notions of policy linearity and neutrality, and framed policies as multifaceted and conflicting. Moreover, in examining policy documents, they called for “a critical examination of texts for their assumptions, implications, evaluation in texts, value assumptions, representation of social agents, and rhetorical and persuasive features” (p. 609). Therefore, in examining NUSU’s edTPA documents and artifacts, I noted rationales, purposes, and sensemaking embedded in the artifacts. Finally, as noted in previous chapters, the policies, standards, and accreditation practices of the past three decades have often focused on developing tools to measure what it means to be a “good” teacher (Braskamp, Brandenburg, & Ory, 1984). Yet, Foucault (1978/2009) argues that such imperative declarations of “good” are “very flimsy when delivered from a teaching institution or even just on a piece of paper” (p. 18). Researchers like Hébert (2018) and Dover and Schultz (2016) have also pointed out that SCALE (2019) describes the edTPA as a valid measurement of “good” teaching and publishes materials like Making Good Choices, showing that notions of “good” pervade the development and implementation of edTPA. Therefore, building on the work of Apple (2019), I critiqued taken-for granted notions regarding the edTPA, and used CPA as a tool for questioning and troubling notions of who or what is labeled or branded as “good.” 22 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s International Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes. 284 NUSU documents described both the edTPA and NUSU’s implementation of edTPA as “good.” No document associated with NUSU portrayed the edTPA in a negative way, and instead described it as an “excellent framework” for determining “good” teaching, and by extension, “good” stakeholders. The edTPA was viewed as trustworthy, and they focused on how to describe, distribute, and use edTPA throughout NUSU’s curriculum. The cycle of declaring the edTPA as valid started with administration who were told that the edTPA was mandatory and that implementing it would spare stakeholders from otherwise inevitable stress. Administrators were required to develop edTPA-embedded assessment plans showing outcomes that provide evidence that their programs are “good,” and in the music education department, a “good” program meant having at least 80 percent of student teachers pass the edTPA. As administrators were defining the goodness of their program by pass rates, they also developed documents for determining who is “good” in achieving that goal for NUSU. They then placed their own brand on edTPA by not only making it required for initial licensure, but also making it required for graduation. Hence, as a matter of street-level bureaucracy, the administration responded to a stressful mandate by reducing the definition of their “good” music education program as being one in which at least four out of five students could pass the edTPA. While the edTPA was taken for granted as “good,” and while the administration mostly focused on describing who was “good,” the faculty were responsible for making sense of what it meant to be “good.” Furthermore, it was their job to distribute these meanings of “good” while also finding ways to fit edTPA within their own framework of constructivism. However, while NUSU’s values include empathy, authenticity, and experience, many of the values portrayed in the documents pertaining to passing the edTPA focused on repetition, writing, Common Core, and earning a score high enough to distinguish oneself as passing with mastery. 285 Student teachers’ edTPA documents reflected the ideas presented by the faculty, including the use of repetition, detailed writing, incorporating Common Core, and in general, following the prompts of edTPA while also including some constructivism. Furthermore, student teachers viewed passage of the edTPA as a marketable achievement, included it in their resume, and even conveyed it when their scores were at a level that was considered to be mastery, thus distinguishing themselves from those simply considered to be “good” teachers. Consequently, while student teachers were focused on neo-conservative values such as passing the edTPA to fulfill state mandates (Helton, 2018), they also focused on neo-liberal goals in seeking edTPA scores that would make them competitive in the labor market. I turned to Shahjahan and Torres’s (2013) concept of global policy spaces for teaching and learning. They determined how stakeholders made sense of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation Development’s Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes and found the assessment to be rooted in neo-liberalism by placing stakeholders into roles, with the student as the consumer, the university as the commodity, and the market as the trustworthy agent. I likewise found the edTPA to be the agent of trust within NUSU’s policy documents, which offered advice on how to be a “good” stakeholder at every level, often using the edTPA as the standard for “good.” Furthermore, NUSU is the commodity whose quality is determined by the edTPA. Therefore, in order to demonstrate quality, the administration developed their first student teacher handbook offering the program’s core philosophy. By embedding edTPA within the philosophy of the student teacher handbook and encouraging faculty to incorporate edTPA in their curriculum, administrators have branded NUSU’s music education program with an edTPA seal of approval. Faculty and supervisors have also taken a part in the commodification of NUSU, serving as the distributors and marketers, and interpreters of NUSU’s constructivist 286 brand of edTPA. Ultimately, this leaves the student teacher as the consumer who pays to attend NUSU, takes the edTPA-embedded courses, pays for the edTPA, assembles their edTPA at a school, and receives results telling them how “good” of a teacher they are. When considering the parallels to Shahjahan and Torres’s (2013), I would argue that NUSU has joined hundreds of other institutions in becoming part of a neoliberal project. With edTPA serving as the neo-liberal standard for who and what is considered “good” at NUSU, it has effectively become the primary structure of dominance that threatens NUSU’s values of empathy and authenticity in teaching and learning. As Apple (2019) puts it, “‘Reforms’ are increasingly transforming what counts as a ‘good’ school, a good teacher, a good curriculum, a good parent and a good student, a good community, legitimate culture, important evidence, and so forth” (p. 277). Notions of good pervaded the NUSU curriculum, and given that the name edTPA shows up almost as much as NUSU’s name in the student teacher handbook today, it is essential to consider edTPA in terms of, as Apple writes, “the dialectics of policies and of both their hidden effects and long term consequences—both good and bad” (p. 285). This is not to say that the documents’ lack of negativity pertaining to edTPA equates with complete support for edTPA. Ball (2006) points out that the analysis of text as policy is far more complex, taking into account, time, space, and the reader, and “It is critical to recognize that the policies themselves, the texts, are not necessarily clear or closed or complete” (p. 44). For example, Ball’s emphasis on a continuously open text was especially apparent when discussing assessment, as participants disagreed on how to frame assessment, and the documents were likewise inconsistent in their descriptions of assessment. While there were several documents pertaining to assessment, the definitions and interpretations were often muddled, suggesting that 287 students’ struggles with the assessment task may not have stemmed from an institutional lack of knowledge, but rather, an institutional lack of agreement regarding its purpose. Overall, in my analysis of NUSU’s documents, I sought to deneutralize, decentralize, and unmask the neoliberalism of edTPA by considering the policy genealogy of edTPA at NUSU. I examined NUSU’s street-level bureaucracy, values and sensemaking through the policy documents distributed by NUSU’s stakeholders, especially administration, faculty, and students. As a matter of street level bureaucracy, the documents show that the edTPA was accepted at face value and implemented by stakeholders for the sake of simplifying complex demands for accountability and measurement in the aftermath of “Race to the Top.” The administration held the power to accept edTPA passage as a mark of quality and used edTPA pass rates as NUSU’s mark of quality. Moreover, while faculty values of authenticity, empathy, and experience were found in some of the documents, greater recognition and promotion were given to faculty documents that focused on edTPA preparation. Thus, over time, the student teaching seminar has focused less on the qualities of the experience and more on the quantities of writing and repetition. Finally, while student teachers as consumers of NUSU accepted the edTPA as a mark of quality, they began to market themselves, basing their value as teachers, both on passage of the edTPA and their ability to demonstrate a “mastery” score. edTPA and Power Relationships Using Foucault’s (1982) concept of power relations in Chapter Six, I considered the question of how stakeholders framed their own sense of power and agency with respect to the development and implementation of edTPA. In general, those who held the highest positions of power were the most supportive of edTPA, namely, tenured professors and administrators. Those in positions of power viewed the edTPA as something to be wholly promoted among groups, as 288 they believed that student teachers benefitted the most from edTPA while also believing the edTPA to be a valid pedagogical tool for strengthening all areas of music education. On the other hand, those who held the lowest positions of power—student teachers—believed that the edTPA should be critiqued more often among administration, faculty, and students, as the student teachers found themselves to be the most negatively affected by the edTPA. On the whole, those in middle positions of power—supervisors and most faculty—were either ambivalent about the edTPA, or they were criticized by people in authority at NUSU as “old” and “traditional.” By examining perceptions of the edTPA among stakeholders, I have found an example of Foucault’s (1982) “system of differentiations which permits one to act upon the actions of others” (p. 792). Specifically, those in power at NUSU have used edTPA to silence subordinate faculty’s oppositions while also making them intermediaries for forcing student teachers to comply with a system that is rooted in “status and privilege” (p. 792). Tenured faculty have nothing to lose and everything to gain by describing the edTPA as good for students and music education. Yet, given that student teachers described the edTPA as inauthentic, costly, and high- stakes, the edTPA leaves student teachers with little to gain and much to lose. Thus, the rest of the faculty are faced with a dilemma in that they may lose their own status in the eyes of those in power by opposing the edTPA, but while they may benefit from supporting the edTPA, it is difficult for the faculty to face student teachers who are sometimes struggling, or even failing. As the edTPA is used as a high-stakes barrier for student teachers and as an indicator of program effectiveness for administration, faculty are left with limited agency for critiquing the edTPA and lots of agency for rationalizing the edTPA. Professor C, for example, who was among the most critical of the edTPA, used the word “good” more than 50 times during our discussion of edTPA. Moreover, while several faculty were critical of the edTPA, Professor D's 289 comment from Chapter Four provides an overarching rationale for discouraging open critique at NUSU: “Yeah, it’s a bad thing to some extent, but it could be a good thing. How can we make it a good thing?” (Interview, November 7, 2019). In other words, even if the faculty accept the edTPA as “bad,” they are nevertheless pressured to uphold the edTPA and make it “good.” Student teachers described the edTPA as stressful, costly, and a forced measure of compliance, and their descriptions are critical components of edTPA’s power. Without the threat of losing one’s chance to get their degree or initial teacher licensure, there would be no reason for student teachers to complete the edTPA in such a short time frame that forces the use of inauthentic plans, pedagogy, and assessment. Furthermore, without the threat of losing one’s position at the university, there would be no reason for middle-level faculty to feel compelled to pick and choose the parts of the edTPA that they like and do not like. Instead, they decide for themselves how they wish to educate students without feeling the need to intentionally force the edTPA into their curriculum. In a way, only administrators and faculty who have reshaped their curriculum around the edTPA stand to lose from its removal, as the lack of standardization may make it more complicated to monitor the activities of stakeholders, thus lessening the efficiency of NUSU’s current systems of surveillance and potentially de-centralizing their own roles. Surveillance not only functions to bring power to edTPA, but it also serves to make NUSU an agent of edTPA. By demanding a pass rate of 80 percent or higher, requiring edTPA completion for graduation, and describing the edTPA as an “excellent framework” in the student teacher handbook, NUSU’s administration and faculty have institutionalized the edTPA as both an imperative barrier to teaching and a means for defining a “good” member of NUSU. By incorporating the edTPA into the curriculum through both soft policies like covering it in student teacher seminar or hard policies like requiring edTPA artifacts to count as up to three quarters of 290 students’ course grades, middle-level faculty become participants who are monitoring students’ work without having a say regarding the goodness of edTPA, or lack thereof. Students are left with no choice but to carry out the work that has been imposed upon them, as they are being watched by countless edTPA-related entities from the first year at NUSU until the moment they pass the edTPA. Consequently, passing the edTPA represented a form of liberation in a way that no other test or course had done before, and when a student teacher informed me that they passed the edTPA, their correspondence was accompanied by many exclamation points. Foucault’s (1982) final insight regarding analysis of power relationships speaks to what he describes as “degrees of rationalization,” saying: The exercise of power is not a naked fact, an institutional right, nor is it a structure which holds out or is smashed: it is elaborated, transformed, organized; it endows itself with processes which are more or less adjusted to the situation. (p. 792) Rationalization is the most powerful and dangerous tool perpetuating the power of edTPA at NUSU. Considering how faculty described the edTPA as being like triage, survival, self- preservation, and “having a gun to your head while eating a delicious steak,” descriptions akin to experiences that threaten one’s life, I wonder: How has the edTPA been rationalized over the years to justify such violations of life and existence? Networks and edTPA Throughout my study of edTPA at NUSU, I found complex and multifaceted examples of benefits and disbenefits (Kos, 2018), dominance and subordination (Apple, 2019), disparities in access to resources (Diem et al., 2014), and differential impacts of power among individuals and groups (Chase et al., 2014). Building on the ideas of Foucault (1982), I posit that the edTPA at NUSU functions as a network of power relations. In other words, the edTPA is powerful at 291 NUSU because stakeholders at NUSU accept it as powerful and put it into practice, though the levels, times, and spaces of acceptance and implementation vary. Unlike Professor E who contended that the power of edTPA came from the state, Foucault (1982) explains that power is not created by the state, but is instead exercised by people and appropriated by the state, thus leading to the rationalization of edTPA as state-driven: This is not to say, however, that there is a primary and fundamental principle of power which dominates society down to the smallest detail; but taking as point of departure the possibility of action upon the action of others (which is coextensive with every social relationship), multiple forms of individual disparity, of objectives, of the given application of power over ourselves or others, of, in varying degrees, partial or universal institutionalization, of more or less deliberate organization, one can define different forms of power. (p. 793) Variations of dominance and marginalization among participants were extensive and varied. Consequently, by considering Foucault’s emphasis on policy relations and social networks, it becomes difficult to view the edTPA at NUSU as strictly hierarchical, because the function of power constantly changes across spaces, such as the implementation of edTPA at an informational meeting, at a conference, or in a student teacher placement. Thus, every stakeholder in this study has been involved in a network of mobilization for the edTPA. While some stakeholders at NUSU chose to keep it absent from their curriculum as much as possible, others embedded edTPA into their coursework as a model for process-based teaching. Still, others focused on the edTPA as a function of product-based teacher performance. Thus, the edTPA is modified and manipulated by stakeholders across time and space while also becoming more and more established and accepted as a rational policy. In other words, the 292 longer it has been in place, and the more it has been used in new spaces, the more it has rooted itself in the ontological argument that edTPA should be accepted because it is already exists (Fabrikant, Bolton, York, & Hodge, 2017, Hart & Wakeman; Swanson & Goulette, 2018, Ward). As Richerme (2019) points out, “Policy texts often have the greatest impact not when they are mandated, but when they go misrecognized as common sense” (p. 101). Ball (2016) accounts for the issue of mobility in his discussion of policy networks by describing such networks as a flexible hybrid of hierarchical and heterarchical relationships: New narratives about what counts as a ‘good’ policy are being articulated and validated, new forms of policy are made thinkable, new voices are given space within policy talk, and new forms of participation are created. A new mix of hierarchy, heterarchy and markets is being constructed. (p. 21) Ball’s discussion pertaining to the hybridization of hierarchies (vertical governance), heterarchies (horizontal governance), and markets (space of governance), speaks to how spaces of governance and policy implementation are changing. Thus, he finds the issue to be important when taking students, teachers, schools, and measurements of performance into consideration. When considering the edTPA through Foucault’s conception of social network and Ball’s interpretation of power networks, the commonalities are abundant. The edTPA is constantly being made “new” every time NUSU drafts a student teacher handbook, sets standards for edTPA pass rates, adjusts the curriculum, presents a session on edTPA, and so on. Each document and presentation becomes a form of policy indoctrination, conveying the edTPA as valid regardless of the punitive consequences, something Swanson (2013) describes as “policy evangelism” (p. 975). Notions of “good” based on the edTPA pervade the NUSU curriculum, and groups of stakeholders are constantly changing. While social networks and policy networks 293 of edTPA at NUSU have ebbed and flowed over the past decade, the principle of implementing edTPA without question as the agent of trust (Shahjahan & Torres, 2013) has remained a constant. The power networks of edTPA reach far beyond the scope of NUSU. While future studies are needed to describe the groups of actors involved with edTPA on a global level, Pearson’s (2020) global leadership team may serve as an example, as one of the members has coauthored SCALE’s administrative reports of edTPA since 2014 (Pecheone et al., 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019b). Moreover, even as NUSU continues to adapt its values at a local level to those expressed in the edTPA, performance assessments and high-stakes standards of preservice teacher quality continue to be mobilized on a multi-national scale (Adie & Wyatt-Smith, 2019). Who Are the Experts? There is a profound disconnect between those who are deemed experts and those who are held the most responsible for implementing the edTPA as policy, especially in music education. For example, not one music educator was involved in the development of edTPA as policy, yet music teacher preparation programs are pressured to use it. By itself, the notion of drafting music education policies without input from music educators is problematic and, over the past ten years, has yet to be remedied. Yet, the disconnect runs deeper than the initial development and occurs in the implementation across time and space, as Ball (2016) explains, “While education policy analysis is beginning to have things to say about flows, spaces, state and institutions, much less attention has been devoted to the lives and labor through which policy work is shaped and done” (p. 21). Such is the case with the student teachers who are forced to use the edTPA. The relative neglect of students, their lives, and their labor in making edTPA policy within their 294 respective settings constitutes one of the most unexplored disconnects in considering edTPA’s lack of validity. In Chapter Two, I described how a synthesis of edTPA literature revealed how student teachers were shifting from valuing their own knowledge and the knowledge of their instructors, to placing exclusive value on knowledge pertaining to the edTPA and how to pass it. Previous studies in music education only examined the perceptions of one group at one time. Yet, based on the findings of multiple groups of stakeholders at NUSU, I believe that in addition to the edTPA’s lack of proven validity (Gitomer et al., 2019; Musselwhite & Wesolowski, 2019; Nierman & Colwell, 2019; Parkes & Powell, 2015; Payne & Burrack, 2017; Powell & Parkes, 2019), the high-stakes mandates and neo-liberal demands of policies like edTPA also constitute potential violences against individuals and communities (Giroux, 2014). Worst of all, the edTPA forces student teachers to commit the act of imposing the philosophies and policies of edTPA within their placements, for which they are effectively scored based on their ability to impose the edTPA upon children and their cooperating teachers. Therefore, the edTPA continues to create a veil between the policy “experts” (edTPA creators, administration, etc.) and the edTPA mobilizers, especially student teachers and those within the placements who seek to help the student teachers. In summary, using Hollow and Brass’s (2018) constructions of performativity, the neoliberal reforms and disconnects of edTPA allow “experts” outside of NUSU and other institutions to “govern schools from a distance,” and “collegiality is replaced with competition,” which “not only changes the teacher’s behavior, but it also changes the teacher” (p. 363). Mobilizing edTPA Over Time While participants described the edTPA as stressful but necessary, the current climate of stress can be traced back to 2013, not only based on the words of faculty who were there at the 295 time, but also based on the documents from that time period. In an age of increasing stress and a declining teacher workforce, it is important to consider how stress has influenced the development and implementation of policy. The common perception today is that stress and high stakes are a normal part of teacher education. Yet, even in P-12 schools, high-stakes initiatives like No Child Left Behind and “Race to the Top” have only occurred over the past twenty years—two decades that saw a sharp increase in teacher performance assessments, an increase in privatized education, and a decrease in P-12 teachers, including music educators. As a teacher in Memphis, I saw teachers quit or lose their jobs based on perceptions of teacher performance. I watched teachers leave the profession, not because they found teaching the students to be stressful, but rather, they determined the teacher evaluation policies to be too stressful. For NUSU, they saw No Child Left Behind and “Race to the Top” as a warning. They believed that high-stakes teacher performance was coming to higher education, and they wanted to take active steps to potentially reduce the stress on their stakeholders rather than delay what they considered to be inevitable. As Professor F described it, NUSU was practicing “self- preservation.” Based on the documents and interviews by stakeholders and the political precedents in P-12 education, NUSU’s choice to adopt the edTPA came down to four points: • High-stakes teacher evaluations are not going away. • The sooner we accept the edTPA, the sooner we can reap the rewards of acceptance. • The edTPA framework is open enough for the purposes of aligning with our curriculum. • The longer the edTPA is in place, the more people will come to accept it. Upon examination of these four points, NUSU likely made what they considered to be a rational choice regarding high-stakes evaluations. But many other questions remain. To what extent has NUSU’s choice to participate perpetuated the decision to continue using it in the state 296 as a high-stakes measurement? It is also ironic that edTPA has become the norm for high-stakes teacher performance in the state, especially given the state’s implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which relaxed the necessity for standardized, high-stakes teacher evaluations of P- 12 teachers. It is particularly ironic, because that was the same year in which the edTPA became high-stakes for institutions that adopted the edTPA. Furthermore, why did the state choose to abandon its own portfolio of work samples, especially given how previous local and statewide submissions of work samples have demonstrated higher levels of relatability, validity, and reliability compared to the edTPA (Bauer, 2008; Draves, 2009; Payne & Burrack, 2017; Tucker & Stronge, 2005; Watkins & Bratberg, 2006)? The NUSU administration reaped several rewards early on by piloting and adopting edTPA, including tens of thousands of dollars in grant money, training and information from the office of state certification and Pearson, and alumni who have since become edTPA scorers, NUSU presenters, and/or cooperating teachers. The initial student teachers who used edTPA in the early years gained a special advantage in that their score was not connected to teacher licensing, so they received any potential benefits of edTPA without the high stakes. Thus, while stress may have been the catalyst for the adoption of edTPA at NUSU, those who were willing to rationalize and justify the use of edTPA at NUSU early on were rewarded with low stakes and large amounts of social capital. Furthermore, those individuals hold positions of high power in and around NUSU today, and none of them are required to work with student teachers who are in 8-week placements today attempting to pass the edTPA. In other words, time, space, and rationalization have all contributed to separating those who implemented the edTPA in its early years from those affected by the edTPA today. Furthermore, student teachers today are not 297 afforded the same opportunities with respect to edTPA interaction, implementation, and submission. Differential Impact at NUSU Critical policy analysis serves as a reminder that not only is each stakeholder group impacted differently due to the edTPA, but that those groups’ views have changed over time. CPA is a reminder that beyond asking who is the voice speaking, we must also ask what is the voice speaking, as Foucault (1982) describes that we must understand the perspective of both the person and the time in which the person is offering their perspective. Furthermore, in this section, I will argue that many of the justifications for edTPA as expressed at NUSU have been rooted in an antiquated understanding of edTPA based on its initial low-stakes implementation. I will also describe how the constructivist appropriation of edTPA that once allowed for experiential learning at NUSU has since led to inequitable practices that privilege specific forms of knowledge and pedagogy over others. When taking curriculum into consideration, student teachers who did not have a strong background in general music tended to be the most negatively impacted by the edTPA. By comparison, administrators and teacher educators generally praised the edTPA for its openness and its alignment with the National Core Arts Standards, which NUSU has also adopted. Additionally, faculty who used the edTPA in their curriculum described constructivism as a framework for which they saw as common to both the edTPA and NUSU’s curricular values. However, while the edTPA is briefly mentioned in the PME and MTL courses, only the general music practicum course offers instructions on how to complete any part of the edTPA. Consequently, those students who student teach in placements outside of general music today are likely disadvantaged by their lack of experience implementing the edTPA in an ensemble setting. 298 Additionally, while a few students spend as long as 16 weeks in the same student teacher placement with a supervisor who was involved in the development and implementation of edTPA at NUSU, most students teach in two eight-week placements with supervisors who have less knowledge of the edTPA. Furthermore, students with two placements (who happen to be the majority of students) are encouraged to consider preparing an edTPA in both placements in case the first one does not work out well. Consequently, student teachers in multiple placements are spending more time writing, editing and performing their teaching than their one-placement counterparts who are spending more time building relationships with their students and future colleagues. In other words, while the appropriation of edTPA as a tool for constructivism empowered a variety of opportunities for experiential learning during its initial low-stakes implementation, the choice to hold to the same belief under the current paradigm of high-stakes evaluation ultimately empowers edTPA as a tool of privilege and marginalization. Given the differences in placements and the consequences thereof, student teachers may be advantaged or disadvantaged based on their supervisors, their tracks, and whether or not they complete their edTPA in a general music setting. In other words, because the NUSU curriculum was developed by a select few faculty and administrators, student teachers tend to be at an advantage when they work with those individuals. On the other hand, newer faculty and supervisors who were outside of the scope of NUSU’s curriculum development described student teachers in some cases not passing. From their perspectives, reasons for not passing included student teachers submitting lessons that were creative but not aligned to the edTPA prompts, and student teachers not being repetitive enough in the writing. Yet, in spite of the faculty holding multiple degrees and decades of experience in teaching, they also blamed themselves, believing in some cases that they lacked the knowledge of edTPA to help student teachers pass. 299 Given that NUSU uses the edTPA as a mark of determining student teacher success and program success, I contend that student teachers rely on faculty and supervisors for their knowledge of edTPA above all else. Therefore, student teacher success on the edTPA may depend less on what student teachers know, but who they know. In other words, when considering Kos’s CPA question regarding who wins and loses as a result of policy, the “winners” among student teachers are those individuals who have access to financial resources, access to stakeholders who are in the know about edTPA, and sufficient time to complete the project. Unfortunately, very few student teachers have access to all three, and most are likely to find the edTPA to be at best, a stressful experience, or at worst, difficult to pass. Student teachers at NUSU are also caught in a crossfire of curriculum and accountability tensions. The music education programs falls under the accreditation of both NASM, which focuses on music curriculum, and CAEP, which focuses on education program curriculum. Moreover, as Parkes (2019) described the tensions between NASM and CAEP as compounded by “state legislation and state agreements positioned to quantify teacher readiness from all programs” (p 232). Further placing students in the crossfire is the requirement to be auditioned and admitted by the performance faculty, while their requirement for graduation involves their submission of the edTPA, a portfolio that measures their ability to talk and write about teaching. Additionally, student teachers are negotiating the philosophies learned at NUSU with the philosophies of their cooperating teachers, which may not align with the edTPA, especially given the state association’s resistance to the teacher performance-based emphasis of edTPA. Furthermore, even as student teachers continue to struggle with the edTPA, the administration and faculty do not see edTPA as the problem, but have instead chosen to place blame on NASM, those involved with NUSU’s audition process, and those who hold “traditional” views toward 300 curriculum and instruction within the state music association. Yet, in the end, while participants argue that the edTPA may be a tool for undermining these three groups, students have no voice in any of the discussions, and as Stephen aptly pointed out, neither did music educators when it came to the edTPA’s initial development. In other words, music educators continue to argue with one another while aspiring music educators are being kept out of the profession by something for which music educators had no input whatsoever. Thus, building on the CPA work of Hextall and Mahony (2000), I contend that curriculum and accountability disputes at the expense of preservice music teachers will continue until we ask the question, “Who ought to have a say in the education and professional development of teachers?” (p. 158). Having never spoken up against SCALE, Pearson, or the creators of edTPA, the faculty have become agents in the implementation of high-stakes evaluations at NUSU. Thus, the purpose of assessment has been lost in translation, a fact which even Sato (2014), a writer and supporter of edTPA, admitted can threaten the validity of edTPA. Nevertheless, NUSU references Sato (2014) as justification for using the edTPA, it as the article also describes the evaluation of edTPA as driven by a community of professionals. Therefore, to critique the edTPA is to critique both the professionals who created the edTPA and those at NUSU who deemed it as valid. The notion is particularly disturbing, as it places Pearson, SCALE, and a group of anonymous scorers as, similar to Shahjahan and Torres (2013) might put it, the agents of trust over those in the local communities in and around NUSU. After all, who in the “professional community” is doing the monitoring of edTPA? As the policies currently stand, even Professor B, who is himself a scorer of the edTPA, is forbidden from disclosing any information about the monitoring process. Faculty have lamented a loss of agency in teacher licensing determinations, 301 and supervisors have lamented student teachers who have abandoned topics for the edTPA that were exciting but vague and deemed, as Faye put it, “not worth the gamble” (Focus Group, November 5, 2019). It is therefore no wonder that student teachers have come to view assessment as impersonal, or the opposite of communal. NUSU has been involved with the edTPA since it was piloted. Faculty expressed concern about Task 3, yet no changes have been made. Students have expressed concerns about the rubrics, yet no changes have been made. Administrators have questioned the scoring policies, yet the policies have only become increasingly difficult and disconnected. The disregard for the concerns of stakeholders raises the question: Is anyone listening, and if not, how can the edTPA be seen as valid? Given the lack of input from music educators in the initial development of edTPA, it makes sense that no writer of the edTPA has made a single comment about music education in spite of several scholarly pieces on the topic (Parkes & Powell, 2015; 2019). Furthermore, Sato’s (2014) passage below (and by extension, NUSU’s reference to the work in their student teaching handbook) suggests that the question of validity has never been open for discussion: The question to continue to explore will be “Is the field of teacher education ready to agree upon a common conception of teaching that underlies performance expectations for teaching?” Or do we continue to bear with the tensions and strife (as Philip Jackson predicted) that variety and difference in our conceptual assumptions create? (p. 433) The irony of such a statement is that variety and differences are critical to constructivism, community, and dialogue. Critical policy analysis embraces tensions, strife, and conflict, because in the midst of the conflict, relationships of power are exposed, and new ideas emerge. Furthermore, if NUSU and music teacher educators as a whole wish to maintain core values of 302 empathy, authenticity, and experience, then we as music teacher educators must challenge our own assumptions and consider how values can change over time. Only then can we find ourselves having greater empathy for our student teachers who are often quietly complying with a policy that has been forced upon them. Implications To better understand how the edTPA has become accepted by music teacher education programs over the past decade, the purpose of this study was to examine how one music teacher education program implemented the edTPA. The study was necessary due to the lack of critical policy research on the edTPA in music education (Kos, 2018). While there are many studies that have examined the edTPA, few have examined the political and sociological implications pertaining to who benefits and who is marginalized as a result of edTPA (Bartlett et al., 2017; Tuck & Gorlewski, 2016), and virtually none in music education. This study aimed to consider stakeholders’ perceptions of framing, interaction, implementation, and agency with the edTPA. In this study, I also addressed the differential impact among groups (Chase et al., 2014; Taskoh, 2014), examined the power relationships of edTPA in and around NUSU (Foucault, 1982), and considered how the edTPA was mobilized by NUSU stakeholders (Ball, 2016). Using Kos’s (2019) questions of policy origins, responsibility, development, and impact, I contend that the edTPA was borne out of stress, fear, and notions of expertise. In an attempt to make the best out of a poor situation, the faculty became responsible for its development and justified it by appropriating a constructivist approach, which they believed would support their values of empathy, authenticity, and experience. Unfortunately, while several stakeholders may have benefitted from the edTPA in its initial years, student teachers are effectively being introduced to a world of impersonal judgments and inauthenticity which they are in turn 303 implementing in their placements. Time will only tell how such acts will influence their future teaching. Apple (2019) points out that CPA is built on the recognition of dominance and subordination, which I also found in this study. In 2019, NUSU developed a student teacher manual with a written philosophy of who is considered to be “good” in music education, effectively silencing anyone who may disagree. Furthermore, Ball (2016) points out that policies are built and rebuilt on site, and student teachers are essentially evaluated on their ability to implement and interpret the edTPA policy at their respective placements. As Foucault (1982) points out with power relationships, the student teachers reproduce edTPA’s values not by consent, but by mandate, as their only alternative is to not receive their teaching license or degree. Thus, when seeing the edTPA beyond its face value (Young and Diem, 2018), it becomes evident that the edTPA is an expanding market for making judgements about the quality of actions, organizations, and even people. Moreover, the edTPA is facilitating a shift in music teacher education wherein stakeholders normalize their use of the word “good” to describe actions, organizations, and people. As participants collectively used the word “good” more than 200 times during our interviews, I contend that the edTPA reduces musical experiences to a set of goals and dehumanizes people to binary judgments of “good” and “not good.” NUSU’s brand of edTPA also brings credence to the 19 CPA researchers in Diem et al.’s (2014) study who expressed concerns about increasing disparities and centralization in education. In other words, it was clear that faculty were expected to be non-critical, local values were considered to be less relevant (Kariwo, 2014), and student teachers were expected to bear the financial and performative burdens of edTPA. Furthermore, while Smyth’s (1999) CPA found evidence of policy euphemisms in OECD’s documents, I found similar examples of 304 participants using words like empowerment, reconceptualizing, grassroots, free, open, educational, and opportunity to describe the edTPA. Yet, I often found that these words tended to be euphemisms that were rooted in compliance, performativity, hierarchy, restriction, and high-stakes. In other words, edTPA thrives not by defending or changing itself, but by finding those in higher education who are willing to use it. Moreover, as they modify and manipulate the edTPA for their own purposes, they rationalize edTPA’s disparities, centralization, and marginalization by covering them up with history, language, and ontological beliefs. For these reasons, I believe that taking a passive approach towards edTPA will only perpetuate the power and impact of edTPA while simultaneously implicating music educators in its implementation. Therefore, in considering an active approach to problematizing edTPA. I draw upon Levinson, Sutton and Winstead’s (2009) emphasis on recommendations from a local context, Bartlett, Otis-Wilborn, and Peters’s (2017) recommendations based on stakeholder experiences, and Tuck and Gorlewski’s (2016) emphasis on offering policy alternatives. Far more research is necessary to consider how and why music educator preparation programs adopt the edTPA. In a few years, the edTPA will have been in place for ten years, thus allowing for new potential analysis if someone were to replicate this study. Interviewing cooperating teacher regarding their perspectives on edTPA would provide invaluable information to the music education community. Given Administrator B’s hypothesis that people will come to accept the edTPA in a few more years is also a study worth considering. Future research should build on narrative frameworks as well. While I employed critical policy analysis, music educators may benefit from employing critical theories that consider marginalized groups in higher education. Given the multiple roles of leadership held by individuals in this study, researchers may also benefit from the political ecologies and 305 borderlands frameworks (Ulmer, 2016). Again, critical policy analysis is not a common framework in music education, but as Shaw (2015) explained, such policy frameworks help to bring visibility to policy initiatives, who was involved, how policies were implemented, how they changed over time, and who benefits. Recommendations from NUSU During my time at NUSU, I was given the opportunity to listen to the narratives of 16 individuals. Each person’s story evoked a wide range of responses, and had I been given permission, I would have relished the opportunity to hear them speak with one another in a group. However, it was important to the faculty of NUSU that no individuals, especially students, be known to anyone else in the study. Therefore, drawing on Patton’s (2002) artistic and evocative criteria, I have taken the participants’ policy recommendations and attempted to simulate what the conversation might look like if they were all in the same room. Cut or Remove the Cost The cost of edTPA is an unethical burden to place on student teachers. While many previous studies have problematized the cost of edTPA, one unique finding from this study was that student teachers were generally unaware of the cost of edTPA until just before their student teaching. In a way, the university withheld the financial ramifications of edTPA until just prior to students teachers’ entry. If NUSU thinks it is right that someone pay for edTPA, I suggest that NUSU defray the cost for students by covering the cost themselves. Better yet, why not choose a portfolio that can be scored by teacher educators in the area at no cost to the student teachers? Sally The price is three hundred bucks. It’s very hard for us to afford that. Most of us are still in undergrad, and NUSU doesn’t allow us to work while we’re student teaching. So that 306 is absolutely something I would try to change. Just a little less, maybe 150? I don’t know, but I feel like it’s almost an elitist thing of, “You have to have this amount of money in order to pass this,” even if you’re the best teacher in the world, “if you don’t have $300, you can’t get certified [initial teacher licensure].” So I just think there’s an issue with that. (Interview, November 16, 2019) Stephen We might not be able to afford to take the test again, and, again we want to be in a place when we graduate to actually go out into the workforce and find a job. (Interview, January 11, 2020) Sandra Cause then what happens if you get, you get nothing back or you get a score back and you say what happened? And they say your idea for the lesson plan wasn’t right then just change everything. Like, you know, knowing that can save you a whole lot of time and money if you think it’s just one little section instead of going back to step one and changing that. (Interview, December 10, 2020) Samantha My mom, she recently got her license. She’s a realtor agent now, and she had to pay a hefty fee just to get that. So I guess that’s just standard, if you want to be certified [initially licensed] in something, you got to pay the money for it. But then I just wonder, where does that amount come from? So I mean, maybe if it was lowered it’d be nice. But the fact that we had to take the three separate exams, and they each have their own costs, it seems like a lot because it adds up pretty quickly. I don’t know what could be done at a state level or school level. Maybe more opportunity for students to have some sort of aid? 307 I was lucky because a few weeks ago, I don’t know how they got my name, by I got an email of a voucher. So basically, for my music test, I actually got a full waiver, so I haven’t had to pay for it. But I don’t know how I was selected or if there’s a process. And I told my friend that I got a voucher and she goes, “Oh, I wish I was that lucky.” So I guess having students know if there’s options of what they can apply for some things like this, for aid. (Interview, December 11, 2019) Professor B I just don’t think we’re enriched by having this, students go through a $400 I forget if it’s $300 or 400 it’s a lot, a $400 exam that is administered by a large corporation that provides limited feedback about their teaching, and is a barrier to their entrance into the field. There is no justification for forcing music education students to pay $300 on top of their tuition to complete an exam that was not developed by music educators. If the edTPA is required by the institution, then the institution should cover the cost. If the edTPA is required by the state, then the state should cover the cost or allow institutions to score the edTPA locally so that there is no need for students to pay $300 for the edTPA. While I acknowledge that all stakeholders who use the edTPA are implicated in the power relationships associated with edTPA, forcing student teachers to be financially responsible for the edTPA, especially given the existing time commitments is highly problematic. Building on the idea of local scoring and the work of Tuck and Gorlewski (2016), I recommend that music teacher preparation programs score the edTPAs locally and consider modifying the rubrics for their respective programs. At NUSU, for example, this may mean changing some of the assessment rubrics to reflect their values. Furthermore, there are several 308 alternatives to the edTPA that are less expensive, made by music educators, and only scored by music educators. For example, Draves’s (2009) study details a portfolio that was designed by music teacher educators and scored by music educators within their institution at no cost to the student teachers. Overall, I believe that such assessments by music teachers and for music teachers offer possibilities so that there is no need for vouchers, because every student would be able to complete a portfolio for free. Localize the Rubrics and/or Include Narrative Feedback According to SCALE (2020), “edTPA is available national in 27 individual content areas as a multiple measures system” (p. 1). Simply put, SCALE’s statement is false for two reasons. First, the fifteen measures are effectively examining the same ideas, which is why student teachers are often writing the same things over and over in their edTPA. Second, the lack of narrative feedback means that students are not nearly as concerned about each rubric score as they are concerned about the overall score. Therefore, I agree with Tuck and Gorlewski (2016) who sought to find alternatives to the scoring tools currently employed by edTPA. Beyond the redundancy and lack of narrative within the implementation of edTPA rubrics, there needs to be a larger conversation regarding the balance of planning, instruction, and assessment. Draves (2009), for example, notes that the music-specific Student Teacher Portfolio (STP) focuses on four tasks: Instructional design, instructional implementation, assessment of learning, and analysis of teaching and learning. I should also point out that while the edTPA lacks a rubric on reflection, the reflection rubric within the STP was found to be particularly reliable. When I consider how many student teachers at NUSU spoke about how much they value reflection, I believe that states should consider alternatives to edTPA that place value on individual reflection, as well as social context (Tuck & Gorlewski, 2016). 309 Sally There’s a lot of rubrics. Maybe they’re able to condense them? (Interview, November 16, 2019) Stephen For people not necessarily oriented toward general music, say choral, instrumental, or any form of ensemble music, there could be a little bit of tweaking done for the rubrics to show evidence of student learning in that specific setting. Because with lecture-based courses you actually have their written work to fall back on and different actual artifacts of learning to present. But with a performance, say in an ensemble setting, they got the notes right, they can have the rhythms and dynamics et cetera correct, but what do they actually retain that’s lost in the performance? (Interview, January 11, 2020) Professor C Alternative ways to pass the test based on the student’s strengths and weaknesses that should not affect whether or not they’re a good teacher, I think that that would be really, really important. I think being able to show the planning process, maybe in pictures, maybe showing the planning process through some alternative means other than “I’m going to write this in a way that’s going to meet the definitions that are on this rubric.” Simply put, the values and actions expressed in the edTPA lack validity on multiple levels. Aside from an overemphasis on objectives and a valuing of talking over music making, the rubrics are effectively used as a tool for high-stakes decisions in music education. In addition to the problems I mentioned with rubrics 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, and 14 in Chapter Five, the fundamental problem with the rubrics in the performing arts edTPA are that they are mostly identical to the other 26 edTPA subject areas. Given the complexity of each academic discipline, especially 310 music education, it is important to consider what is lost when a music teacher is expected to teach like a reading or math teacher. In short, in an attempt to simplify content and build reliability, the edTPA sacrifices context and validity. Consequently, if institutions choose to continue using the edTPA, each institution should conduct a review of the rubrics to analyze how the ideas and beliefs about music teaching and learning expressed within their institutions and surrounding communities. Such an analysis should include cooperating teachers, supervisors, faculty, administration, and student teachers in the discussions and determinations, as such an endeavor would be far more likely to generate conversations rooted in “talk with” one another rather than “talking at” one another. Finally, considering how much work student teachers put into the edTPA, no student teacher should receive rubric results without narrative feedback. Moreover, to better inform their rubric scores, student teachers should receive narrative feedback from someone they know and trust, such as a music department chair, teacher educator, supervisor, and/or cooperating teacher. Therefore, I strongly oppose Pearson’s (2017) statement, which reads: Once the candidate submits the assessment materials to Pearson for scoring, neither the candidate nor authorized faculty have access to the candidate’s submitted materials in the Pearson ePortfolio system. (p. 2) Nevertheless, edTPA does allow a student teacher to retain a copy of the edTPA prior to submission. As such, if an institution must continue to use the edTPA, a cooperating teacher, supervisor, faculty member, and/or administrator should provide feedback to the student teacher based on the retained copy. Such work can serve two purposes. First, the student teacher is provided with narrative feedback from someone whom the candidate knows, thus providing a 311 better opportunity for connection and professional development. Second, if the feedback is inconsistent with the edTPA results, such feedback may inform future decision-making regarding whether or not the institution or state should continue to use the edTPA. Balance the Workload The issue of balancing the workload is related to the rubrics, yet it requires consideration, as it is a consequence of the rubrics in that student teachers are essentially writing and recording as much as possible in order to pass. Additionally, student teachers are compelled to write over 40 pages worth of materials, videotape up to 30 minutes of performative teaching, and spend countless hours choosing materials to submit to an unknown individual who may or may not be a music teacher. Thus, the demands of edTPA are neither educative (Parkes, 2019) nor do they support NUSU’s purpose of student teaching at NUSU, which is to develop authentic and empathetic experiences working with students. Moreover, the workload demands of edTPA combined with the brevity of the placements make such interactions virtually impossible. Consequently, when it becomes the norm for student teachers to be spending more time writing than they spend interacting and building relationships with their cooperating teachers, students and colleagues, something is wrong. Sally It’s interesting. The edTPA requires anywhere from two to 30 minutes of video footage, which is kind of weird… Then on top of that, the writing is pretty much like, cause they give requirements of this cannot exceed five pages. This cannot exceed nine pages. So they tell us, “Try to reach eight or nine pages.” Obviously you can’t go over, but they want us to pretty much use as many words as we can. I don’t agree with that. (Interview, November 16, 2019) 312 Faye To throw it at a student and have a 40+ page paper thesis on top of their active student teaching puts much more demands on their time than college itself. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Professor C Being able to write about teaching is not an adequate means of assessing whether or not somebody is going to be a good teacher…Completing this well doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be a good teacher either. I would like there to be wiggle room and there needs to be wiggle room. Professor B They would have been a part of this program anyway, so I don’t feel like I would have wanted the exam to force it (Interview, November 7, 2019) Stephen Essentially the point that I’d want to drive home is that it should be more personal instead of product-centric. That’s been the core of my argument throughout the entirety of the interview because essentially what is a number going to do in teaching you how you can improve as a teacher? (Interview, January 11, 2020) Professor E I think it’s a really impersonal way to interact with another human being. I don’t think that evaluative value system allows for a genuine human interaction to occur that is community oriented. Building on the previous suggestions regarding rubrics, feedback, and localization, Bartlett et al. (2017) suggest that the edTPA should be scored and assessed by music educators within the 313 student teachers’ local communities of practice, and I agree. By doing so, student teachers can know who is looking at their work, and they can focus more on building relationships in the community and developing their teaching. Rather than filtering through hours of camera footage and writing countless pages to manufacture a product that sells their viability as a performer of teaching, student teachers can instead videotape their teaching and write for the purposes of reflection, which NUSU has clearly attempted to emphasize in their coursework. When the candidates know that the function of their teaching is to work as a member of a community of practice rather than as an agent for implementing the edTPA, such knowledge will fundamentally change the quantity, quality, and purpose of the workload for the better. Restore Licensing Decisions to Local Stakeholders Under the current policies of NUSU, no one who works at NUSU is trusted with approving a student teacher’s initial licensure. This is because no student teacher can be licensed without passing the edTPA. By removing local communities from having the final say, the edTPA has violated the autonomy of local communities and forced NUSU faculty and students into being agents of edTPA’s appropriation of authority. In other words, the edTPA has not earned anyone’s trust, but rather it has demanded trust without consent. Trust is one of the most important aspects of teaching and learning, as it is a function of safety and consent. To learn without fear, a student must feel safe and be able to trust the teacher in the classroom. To develop without fear, a teacher must feel safe and be able to trust the colleagues and administration within the school’s community of practice. To be clear, I am referring here to students and teachers in both the NUSU setting and within the state’s P-12 schools. If the purpose of teacher licensing is to classify a student teacher as safe to have teaching P-12 students, then it is critical that stakeholders are able to trust those who are making 314 those decisions. Such trust must be given by consent, which is why I believe that the cooperating teachers, supervisors, and faculty at NUSU should ultimately have the final say in determining a student teacher’s readiness for the teaching profession. Stephen I believe if there has to be a final judgment made as far as the certification grounds, if anyone, that should be between the university facilitator having seen their plans and their work, and the cooperating teachers. To have an outside party look at it without having been in the classroom with the exception of those, I believe up to 10 minutes snippets of instruction, it doesn’t make sense, because the people who are with you most are your teachers and your supervisors. So, if anyone, they would be able to address more serious issues with your teaching, help you fix them, and things like that to determine whether or not you’re actually ready to go into the field. (Interview, January 11, 2020) Frank Faye It should be the direct supervisor of that student teacher’s job to either say “yay” or “nay” on that student teacher... The edTPA seems like it’s too previous in the kid’s career to judge their future. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) I agree. (Focus Group, November 5, 2019) Professor C I trust teachers. I do. I trust supervisors or facilitators to help to make that call. I trust cooperating teachers to give input into that… I trust the teachers at this university. I trust the teachers at most universities… I don’t believe that we need to get to the end of a four year degree where somebody has done really, really well in the music teacher education 315 program, get to the end of it and then they don’t do well on a test, and I wash my hands of it. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor B My first preference would be to get a degree from a teacher licensure program that offers teacher licensure. Have that degree be enough for you to enter the field. That would be my first option. (Interview, November 7, 2019) Professor F I mean, there’s a certain part of me that feels like, if you have a cooperating teacher and a supervisor who are observing you on a regular basis and are able to sign off on you why is that not good enough for the state? (Interview, December 10, 2019) Encourage Critical and Collaborative Discussions A number of people who helped to create the edTPA have claimed that opposition to the edTPA is both problematic and potentially damaging to student teachers (Pecheone et al., 2018; Sato, 2014). These notions are both false and dangerous, as they have served to silence teacher educators who may wish to express concerns regarding the edTPA. Furthermore, criticisms of edTPA should be embraced, not rejected. Furthermore, by engaging in critical conversations about the edTPA and other systems of power and performativity, we open the doors to new connections, relationships, and a fundamental that we are each human and worthy of being. No quantity, brand, or label of “good” can ever change that. In Ingram and Drinkwater’s (2015) art-driven CPA of students aged 14 to 19, the participants emphasized a need to speak back to the reproduction of ontological values by developing spaces for supporting critical literacy, reflection, co-constructions of knowledge, and community partnerships. Building such a space would be difficult at first. As Professor B and 316 Professor D noted, many educators are angry about edTPA. These are stories that need to be heard, as listening to their stories would be integral to NUSU’s values of empathy. Furthermore, there are people associated with the NUSU community who have been hurt by edTPA. They deserve to be heard. Yet, in order for those impacted to be heard, NUSU must choose to not place stakeholders into a hierarchy based on their support for or opposition to edTPA. Instead, stakeholder’s narratives must be viewed as more important than the edTPA. Stephen I think it would be more of a positive impact because if they [faculty] share their concerns, then we can bounce off of them and essentially say, yes, I agree with this. I don’t agree with this. Well, how would we implement, you know, how would we implement or change, alleviate some of the concerns that you have as a teacher, someone who’s actually in the shoes that we want to be in? So, I feel like actually if they were more forward about their honest opinions on the test, that would be very beneficial toward the students. (Interview, January 11, 2020) Sandra The one thing I do wish there was a little bit more of which I don’t know how you could do this with edTPA is learning from other educators. That was one of the coolest parts for me of my classes that focused on edTPA. (Interview, December 10, 2019) Professor C There needs to be more input from the teachers and from the facilitators and from the cooperating teachers and from the university faculty. It’s this idea of the validity of this test in terms of the, the gravity of the decision that’s being made because of the test. That is, to my mind, the biggest fault of this test. That’s what I want them to know. (Interview, 317 November 7, 2019) Administrator B Some of the ideas I’ve had would be like video conferencing with cooperating teachers. So prior to the start of the semester, if the music ed staff could have a video conference with all of the cooperating teachers for that semester, you know, one hour, you know, but it has to be two ways. It can’t just be, here’s what you need to do for our student teachers. It has to be what do you need from us? And I don’t know that that piece is always there so that it becomes a dialogue. And then I think if there’s that “what do you need from us” piece, then they become more open to, “Yes, I can do this with edTPA.” (Interview, December 9, 2019) Administrator A Communicate with each other, and if you're not already doing so, find out about each other's philosophy in each other's documents and see how they are related. Just open up the lines of communication. So a couple of us on the NAfME council, the NAfME who work with edTPA, let's bring that into the conversation in our meetings. Let's see how it supports and links the ideals of the NAfME national standards. And edTPA designers, talk with the national organizations, talk with the state organizations and show them that they're not just out there to make expensive tests (laughs), hopefully that's not the reason, that they're not just out there to design expensive tests and make money, but they're using sound educational foundations for these tests. Communication is the first step and listening to one another. (Interview, November 7, 2019) While the stakeholders above expressed different opinions about the edTPA, they all shared the idea that communication among stakeholders has been lacking regarding the edTPA, 318 and that must change. Administrator A is right to point out that in spite of edTPA’s influence on music education, conversations regarding the edTPA at NAfME are rare, and NAfME has not published a position statement on the test. Additionally, while the edTPA has been discussed on several occasions through the Society for Music Teacher Education, I believe that there is a certain degree of disconnect between P-12 teachers and higher education regarding the matter of edTPA. Therefore, I recommend a larger collaborative discussion with students, teachers, and administrators from P-12 schools and higher education institutions alike who have been affected by the edTPA, which may be made possible through the Music Education Policy Roundtable of NAfME. Furthermore, in conducting such conversations, we must not be afraid of conflict, and we must be prepared to engage in uncomfortable conversations. Without the ability to speak with one another regarding the issues surrounding edTPA, it is likely that this test will instead continue to speak for music education institutions across the United States. In chapter two, I wrote about An’s (2016) self-study of her social studies methods course, and noted that students wrote negative reviews of her teaching when she took a resistant approach to edTPA by not discussing it with her students. In other words, while An’s approach to edTPA was resistance-oriented, it was also avoidance-based, thus it did not give students the opportunity to respond. However, I believe that resistance to edTPA in music education may fall within a larger scope of activism where discussions of edTPA can be a catalyst to, as Hess (2019) describes, “enable students to embrace, trouble, and explore” (p. 62). In the context of music education, I believe resistance is an important element of activism. Therefore, contrary to previous calls for compliance (Sato, 2014; Whittaker et al. 2018) and avoidance (An, 2016), an activist approach to edTPA that seeks to engage students and colleagues in critical and 319 collaborative discussions may serve as the most assertive form of community development and resistance to neoliberalism. End the High-Stakes Mandate The high-stakes mandate is arguably edTPA’s greatest manipulation and violence against student teachers, schools, institutes of higher education, and the surrounding communities. As De Lissovoy and McLaren (2003) explain in their work on accountability in education: In reducing learning to a test score, policy makers seek to make the knowledge of disparate individuals commensurable. Never mind that violence is done to the concreteness of that individual’s humanness and particularity; once knowledge is reified in this way, it can be manipulated and described in the same fashion that one is accustomed to manipulating and describing products (commodities) of all kinds. (p. 133) To put it another way, when a test score is used to determine someone’s future, the act itself is reductive and dehumanizing. Additionally, the violence committed by the edTPA is made worse, because in addition to using scores as a basis for determining candidates as “unfit” to teach, the determination is made after a student has invested tens or even hundreds of hours of labor into an attempt to demonstrate who they are as teachers and people, to say nothing of the financial cost of enrollment. No test should hold that much power, nor should any test be used to commit such violence. It is important to remember that the current high-stakes paradigm was not how edTPA started at NUSU. Instead of rolling out the policy as a high-stakes mandate from day one, which would have likely made a profoundly negative impact on its data reports, the edTPA was rolled out to communities, including NUSU, as a low-stakes pilot, thus making community members the agents of edTPA without those members being able to witness the eventual consequences of 320 their tacit support. What’s more, the longer the high-stakes mandate remains in place, the more music education as a whole will be devalued by the high-stakes mandates and standardized values embedded within the edTPA. Finally, music teachers and learners must be mindful of their own respective experiences of socialization with regard to high-stakes evaluations over the past decade. Consider, for example, the impact of “Race to the Top” (RttT), a high-stakes initiative that was used by NUSU as a rationale for piloting the edTPA. As Lavigne and Good (2019) point out, before RttT, 15 states implemented high-stakes measures of teacher quality. By 2015, in spite of only 18 states receiving federal funds, 43 states implemented similar measures. Moreover, while the U.S. Department of Education stopped reporting the statistics of the funded states in 2017, 40 states continued to use similar measures. Thus, for many P-12 teachers across the United States, high- stakes teacher evaluations have become normalized, and the normalization of high-stakes has now also pervaded the realm of higher education. Just as NUSU was intentional about implementing the edTPA in response to RttT’s use of high-stakes, music educators must be diligent in their efforts to recognize, trouble, and critique any measurements for which future teachers are involved. Overall, if teacher licensing continues to be dependent on an edTPA score, then cooperating teachers, supervisors, and teacher educators will continue to be passed over in the decision-making process in favor of nameless, faceless evaluators who know neither the candidate, the placement, or the teacher preparation program. Any possible benefits that may come from the edTPA are effectively hollowed out by the high-stakes mandate, as its engine is not education, but stress. Once again, trust and responsibility should be restored to music teacher preparation programs to make final decisions regarding the readiness of student teachers. 321 Coda Having lived in high-stakes teacher evaluations for almost a decade, I have encountered points of conflict where I have fought, fled, and complied with stressful mandates and directives. Yet, while my roles have changed from novice teacher, to mentor teacher, to graduate researcher, to assistant professor and coordinator of music education, my experiences with high-stakes accountability and identity-based growth remain strikingly familiar. Thus, I conclude this study with a personal reflection of own experiences with high-stakes evaluations, and how they have shaped my own approach to teaching and learning. As a teacher, I learned what it felt like to have half of my teacher evaluation rating be determined by reading and math test scores while the other half was determined by unannounced fifteen-minute observations of my work as a teacher scored by someone outside of my discipline. During that time, I learned what it felt like as a first-year teacher to be told that I might not be cut out for teaching. I also learned what it felt like to instead have half of my teacher evaluations determined by a multiple-measures, narrative driven portfolio of student growth designed by music teachers, for music teachers, with feedback given from music teachers who I knew and could trust. Similarly, I learned what it felt like to have music teachers who knew me come into my classroom, see my work, provide feedback, and conduct the other half of my evaluation. Furthermore, I learned what it felt like to have a mentor who could speak up on my behalf, bring context to my work, what it meant to feel safe and to grow. When I worked as a cooperating teacher for a brilliant student teacher who had to take the edTPA and complete several observations, my immediate response was to think of ways to ease the process. I emphasized objective-driven lessons with her, modeled my portfolio-making 322 process, worked the camera, and even presented that year at a NAfME conference on how to score high on teacher observations. In my mind, I knew that she was a creative, collaborative, and kind educator, which happen to be the three most important qualities to me, and I wanted to make sure that no “first impression” got in the way of her career. When I became a graduate student, I was hit with the consequences of my previous actions. The same portfolio that saved my job had been turned into a scored portfolio by the state absent of feedback and made to fit for almost all academic subjects. The portfolio for music teachers by music teachers had mutated into more of a market-driven, high-stakes tool that became a stumbling block for music teachers across the state. Moreover, in my aim to protect teachers from negative first impressions by presenting techniques for highly-scored observations at NAfME, I had not considered how the absence of critical discussions effectively became a tool for supporting high-stakes observations. Lastly, while I was able to help my student teacher with the edTPA because it was somewhat similar to the portfolio I had completed as an in-service teacher, I had not considered how such parallels only served to reify many of the aspects of the edTPA, including the high-stakes violences that led to one of my student teacher’s colleagues not teaching today. Now, I sit here thinking about what it will be like to be a first-year assistant professor coordinating a music education program at a university that uses the edTPA in Wisconsin. What’s more, I wonder what the future holds given the recent events surrounding COVID-19. For example, as per the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (2020): The Governor has suspended the edTPA requirement due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. This suspension remains in effect as long as the health emergency is in place. The department has submitted to the Legislature a permanent rule change to remove the 323 edTPA requirement from administrative rule, providing approved preparation programs flexibility in how they assess teacher candidates' performance in the Wisconsin Teacher Standards. We expect this rule change to be in place in early summer. What is more, while some states have taken similar temporary measures, others have recently sought to make the adjustment more permanent, such as Georgia’s State School Superintendent Richard Woods, who stated, Now more than ever, we should be removing barriers that make it harder for qualified individuals to join the teaching profession. The COVID-19 crisis has made clearer what many of us already knew: measuring a teacher's preparation and skill is more complicated than a high-stakes assessment tool can capture. The edTPA assessment served a purpose, but it has become clear over time that it caused unintended barriers and burdens for teachers entering the profession. Its removal as a requirement for teacher certification will help us strengthen the pipeline of passionate, qualified K-12 teachers. I have been fortunate to converse with my colleagues and future students in and around the university concerning the edTPA, and I look forward to our continued opportunities for critical, creative, and collaborative conversations. I look forward to finding ways to cut the cost for students, explore local alternatives, encourage narrative feedback, and most of all, I look forward to listening. As for the current suspension of the high-stakes mandate; for me, this study is not an ending, but a beginning. NUSU is an institution full of wonderful human beings who are doing amazing things, and like me, they work in an institution that uses the edTPA. It is my sincere hope that this study serves as an opportunity for institutions to imagine a world of music education built on principles of empathy, compassion, and inclusion instead of high-stakes 324 testing. As I prepare to use this study as a springboard for conversations with stakeholders in and around my university and state as well as organizations like NAfME, NASM, and CAEP, I hope to remain reflexive as I listen to more stories from those who have been affected by edTPA policies. It is my hope that each of the organizations will find opportunities to engage in genuine debates about what it means to be a music teacher and learner in the 21st century. I invite all who read this to consider the value of dissonance in facilitating meaningful collaborations, because in the end, assessment, like policy, is not about content or terminology—it is about people. 325 APPENDICES 326 Appendix A: Interview Questions (Semi-Structured) 1. How would you describe yourself in relation to your roles and responsibilities at the university? a. How do your experiences at the university compare and contrast with your roles and responsibilities? b. How would you describe the most important elements of your role at the university, and how do they compare and contrast with elements that take up most of your time? c. How would you describe a typical day for you within the teacher education program? d. How did you come to work in your current capacity in relation to the teacher education program, and how would you describe your goals for the future? e. How have your roles and responsibilities intersected with the edTPA? 2. How would you describe the edTPA? a. How has the edTPA been communicated to you in various contexts? b. How would you describe the role of individual and group work in relation to edTPA? c. How would you describe your interactions with edTPA? d. How does your conception of edTPA compare and contrast with the conceptions of your students, colleagues, supervisors, and/or school community? e. How would you describe the role of planning, instructing, and assessment in the context of edTPA? 3. How has the edTPA changed over time? a. How have your previous experience of edTPA compared and contrasted with your current experiences? b. How does the preparation for edTPA compare and contrast with the experience of taking the edTPA? c. How would you describe the edTPA with respect to anticipated or unanticipated moments? d. How has your communication and implementation of the edTPA changed over time? 4. How would you describe the impact of edTPA? a. How has the edTPA impacted you? b. How has the edTPA impacted schools in the area? c. How has the edTPA impact your students (if applicable)? d. How has the edTPA impacted your colleagues? e. How has the edTPA impacted your supervisors? f. How has the edTPA impacted your program and the institution as a whole? g. How would you predict the impact of edTPA in the future, and why? 5. How do you feel about the way music teachers are evaluated? a. How would you describe your level of satisfaction with the graduation, licensing and certification requirements in your institution and state, including the edTPA? b. How do you believe music teachers be evaluated, and how does edTPA compare and contrast with your belief? c. How would you change the current models of music teacher evaluation in your institution? d. How can the experience of music teacher evaluation be made better for all music teachers, students, and stakeholders? e. How would changing the current evaluation models impact different stakeholders? 327 Appendix B: NUSU Policy Documents Document 1: Job Description for NUSU Dean (including accreditation duties) Document 2: Conference Presentation of edTPA duties of Cooperating Teachers Document 3: Social Media Post Promoting Faculty’s Conference Presentation of edTPA/Co-ops Document 4: Description of Understanding by Design Document 5: “Teaching Methods and Frameworks” Page on NUSU Website Document 6: NUSU Webpage for Cooperating Teachers Document 7: NUSU’s edTPA Webpage Document 8: NUSU’s Webpage of Handbooks, Important Dates, and Forms Document 9: NUSU Student Teaching Homepage Document 10: Student Teacher Employment Form Document 11: NUSU’s Letter Requesting Permission from Parents to Videotape for edTPA Document 12: NUSU Student Teaching Observation Log (including edTPA narrative synthesis) Document 13: NUSU 2019-2020 Student Teaching Calendar (including evaluation due dates) Document 14: NUSU Student Teaching Handbook (to students, faculty, supervisors, and co-ops) Document 15: Principles used in NUSU’s Music Teaching and Learning [MTL] Course Document 16: TaskStream Projects for Student Teaching (including edTPA submission) Document 17: NUSU Teacher Performance Assessment Lesson Plan Template Document 18: Names of Researchers in Principles of Music Education [PME] and MTL Courses Document 19: List of Vocabulary Pertaining to Scaffolding and Activities for Learning Document 20: K-12 Curriculum Project for MTL Document 21: NUSU Alumni/edTPA Scorer’s Presentation of edTPA Prep for Student Teachers Document 22: SCALE (2015). Performing Arts: Understanding Rubric Level Progressions. Document 23: External University Document Providing Video Recording Guidance for edTPA Document 24: NUSU’s edTPA Video Project/Template with Music-Specific Sample Prompts Document 25: NUSU Alumni/edTPA Scorer’s Notes from edTPA (from Document 21) Document 26: NUSU’s 2013 Institutional Report of Continuous Improvement to NCATE Document 27: Faculty Resume Including edTPA Prep Among Employment Qualifications Document 28: Student Teacher C’s edTPA Lesson Plans Document 29: Student Teacher C’s edTPA Assessment Documents Document 30: Student Teacher A’s Resume including edTPA completion in Elem. Gen. Music Document 31: Student Teacher A’s edTPA Lesson Plans and Assessments Document 32: Student Teacher A’s Webpage of Statement Including edTPA “Mastery” Score Document 33: Student Teacher B’s Webpage of Philosophy, Resume, and edTPA Portfolio Document 34: Conference Program Promoting Professor B’s Keynote Address Regarding edTPA Document 35: NUSU’s 2019-2020 Assessment Plan Completed by Administrator A Document 36: NUSU Seminar Focused on edTPA-Embedded Instruction Document 37: NUSU’s PME Course Description Document 38: NUSU’s MTL Course Description Document 39: NUSU’s Elementary GMP Course Description Document 40: NUSU’s GMP Course Description Document 41: NUSU’s Band Practicum Course Description Document 42: NUSU’s String Practicum Course Description Document 43: NUSU’s Choral Music Practicum Course Description 328 Document 44: NUSU General Music Practicum Homepage [GMP] (Curriculum, Videos, etc.) Document 45: NUSU General Music Practicum Syllabus (edTPA Assignments/Grades Included) Document 46: NUSU GMP edTPA Webpage Links (passedtpa, NAfME Standards, Iowa Core) Document 47: Sample Questions for Music Teaching, Learning, Criticality, and Assessment Document 48: Professor D’s Values for a Culture of Evaluation in Music Teaching and Learning Document 49: NUSU GMP Exemplar of Students’ Written Analysis Using Language Function Document 50: NUSU GMP’s edTPA Assignments including Task 2 Mock Assignment Document 51: GMP Directions on What to Write for edTPA Video Commentary Assignment Document 52: GMP Final Synthesis Assignment (written or video narrative) Document 53: GMP Student Group Exemplar Demonstrating Language Function (Expression) Document 54: NUSU’s State Education Department FAQ of Certification Changes (2009-2013) Document 55: NUSU’s edTPA Video Tutorial for QuickTime and MacOS Document 56: NUSU’s TaskStream Requirements in 2013 329 REFERENCES 330 REFERENCES Abramo, J. 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