Skip to content Skip to navigation

Stanford and Pearson collaborate to deliver the Teacher Performance Assessment

Stanford and Pearson collaborate to deliver the Teacher Performance Assessment

The new assessment is poised to become a national standard for evaluating teacher effectiveness.

New York City–March 17, 2011– Today at the International Summit on the Teaching Profession, Stanford University announced that it will collaborate with Pearson for delivery of the Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA)—a nationally available, performance-based assessment for measuring the effectiveness of teacher candidates.   

The TPA was developed by a team of Stanford researchers led by Drs. Linda Darling-Hammond and Raymond Pecheone. The work was grounded in the successful experiences of developing performance assessments for licensing of teachers in California.  The development was supported by a consortium of more than 20 states and their state departments of education, licensure boards, and institutions of higher education, as well as the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE).

“Developing teacher effectiveness is as important as measuring it,” noted Dr. Darling-Hammond. “Studies have concluded that not only do performance assessments predict teachers’ later effectiveness, they also can help teachers improve their practice.”

The Teacher Performance Assessment
The TPA features the Teaching Event, focusing on student-teaching experiences over a 3–5 day learning segment with a class of students. Throughout the learning segment candidates organize and submit evidence of their teaching (e.g., video clips of instruction, lesson plans, student work samples, teacher assignments, daily reflections) to create their own personal Teaching Event portfolio.

Based on the submitted evidence, which is later scored by trained evaluators, faculty and candidates can discuss how various classroom activities impact student learning.  Faculty can examine this evidence and analyze their students’ scores across several dimensions of teaching to evaluate and improve their programs.

“The TPA responds to the need for added focus on classroom-practice based assessment,” says Dr. Sharon P. Robinson, President and Chief Executive Officer of AACTE.  “As a nationally available, performance-based instrument, the TPA provides an enhanced information base to guide the improvement of teacher preparation programs and the teacher candidates they train.  The membership of AACTE is appreciative of this opportunity to bring TPA to our professional community.”

The TPA pilot project is occurring during the 2010–2011 school year, with increased field testing in 2011–2012. Once field testing is complete, it is expected states may begin using the TPA to satisfy their licensure requirements.


Pearson’s Role
Pearson will provide Stanford University with the capability to deliver the TPA nationally via a web-based platform that allows for electronic submission and nationwide scoring of the assessment.

“One of our goals at Pearson is to do all we can to help policymakers and practitioners effectively deploy digital innovations to transform public education,” said Douglas Kubach, Chief Executive Officer of Pearson’s Assessment and Information Group. “Through a uniform process for capturing and scoring teacher performance in authentic classroom settings, we can ensure the comparability and reliability of results to enable TPA to become a national standard for evaluating teacher effectiveness and building teacher capacity.”  

Dr. Raymond Pecheone, Executive Director of the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE) who has helped lead the design of the TPA assessment, noted about the collaboration with Pearson: “We are pleased to begin working with Pearson as we forge ahead with the nationwide delivery of a student centered performance assessment of teaching.  Pearson brings innovation, capacity and experience to deliver and support scoring of a highly reliable and valid assessment of teaching that is aligned to the teaching standards of the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) and Common Core Standards.”

About Stanford University School of Education
Aiming towards the ideal of enabling all people to achieve maximum benefit from their educational experiences, the Stanford University School of Education seeks to continue as a world leader in ground-breaking, cross-disciplinary inquiries that shape educational practices, their conceptual underpinnings, and the professions that serve the enterprise.

About Pearson
Pearson (NYSE:PSO), the global leader in education and education technology, provides teacher licensure testing, teacher professional development, career certification programs, testing and assessment products, innovative print and digital education materials for preK through college, student information systems and learning management systems that set the standard for the industry.  Pearson’s other primary businesses include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group. For more information about the Assessment & Information group of Pearson, visit http://www.pearsonassessments.com/.

For more information, press only:
Adam Gaber, Pearson, 800-745-8489, adam.gaber@pearson.com, @Apgaber (twitter)


Get the Educator

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Back to the Top