“While I genuinely appreciate and value that edTPA is a way of making certain that teacher candidates demonstrate the knowledge and skills required to help all students learn in real classrooms, I am deeply concerned at the impact I see it having on aspiring educators,” says Patel-Lye.

Jason Gilmore, a Guilford resident and art teacher at McDonough Middle School in Hartford, was named the recipient of the 2020 Rogers Educational Innovation Fund, a $5,000 annual award for an innovative project for elementary- or middle-school level classrooms.

“Without edTPA, I believe my colleagues and I could better focus on attracting and supporting teachers into the shortage areas that already exacerbate the issues faced by many of our districts, especially those with high concentrations of students of color and students living in poverty,” says Violet Jiménez Sims, an assistant clinical professor at the Neag School of Education.

Jason Gilmore of Guilford, Conn., an art teacher at Hartford’s McDonough Middle School, has been named the Neag School of Education’s 2020 Rogers Educational Innovation Fund award.