Dive Brief:

• Some companies have begun providing services to help teachers pass certification and evaluation assessments such as edTPA by editing their teaching videos and helping to write satisfactory lesson plans.
• In edTPA's case, the exam — which involves submitting a portfolio of lesson plans, videos and analyses of their work — is now used in 35 states, in some cases to certify teachers and in others to determine bonuses or promotions.
• The practice of companies editing teacher’s portfolios has raised questions of cheating, as have instances of teachers sharing their portfolios and the scores they received on them.

Dive Insight:

So far, it doesn’t seem that cheating is widespread. When the exam was administered in New York this year, the deputy commissioner of higher education found around 10 scores that had problems. And the line can be fuzzy, as teacher candidates preparing for the exam should be seeking out feedback from colleagues and supervisors.

One place teachers, administrators, and education officials can look to for guidance is the set of guidelines the test’s developers released alongside. And Pearson, which scores the exams, says candidates’ submissions are already scanned for plagiarism, although more subtle forms of cheating may escape notice.