Credit: Allison Shelley for EDUimages
For years, California has been faced with a shortage of teachers that predated the pandemic but which the pandemic certainly did not help. A key factor that exacerbates this shortage are the high-stakes teaching performance assessments (TPAs) used in the state, such as the California Teaching Performance Assessment (CalTPA), the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), and the Reading Instruction Competency Assessment (RICA).
These act as overly restrictive barriers preventing us from solving not just the teacher shortage but also our significant teacher diversity problem. This is why the introduction of Senate Bill 1263 last year was a sign of hope and a step in the right direction.
The original version of SB 1263, in essence, sought to dismantle the use of TPAs in the state of California and was strongly supported by those of us at the California Alliance of…
