Beyond edTPA: Why Georgia EPPs Are Choosing EPiC™

For years, many Georgia educator preparation programs invested enormous time preparing candidates for edTPA® while simultaneously managing complex scoring, reporting, and accreditation requirements.

With the Georgia Professional Standards Commission no longer requiring edTPA, programs have an opportunity to rethink what they want from a culminating performance assessment.

The question is no longer simply, "What will replace edTPA?"

It is, "How can we choose an assessment that reduces administrative burden while providing better evidence of candidate readiness and stronger data for program improvement?"

Rather than selecting another assessment that simply checks a box, educator preparation programs can choose one designed to support candidates, faculty, and the program long after the final score is recorded.

That philosophy guided the development of the EPiC™ Key Assessment.

Assessment Should Measure Authentic Teaching—Not Just Documentation

A culminating performance assessment should capture what candidates know and can do in authentic classroom settings.

Like edTPA, the EPiC Key Assessment allows teacher candidates to submit classroom videos and supporting artifacts that demonstrate their instructional practice. Rather than relying primarily on extensive written documentation, candidates provide evidence drawn from real teaching experiences.

The goal is not simply to document teaching but to evaluate instructional practice using authentic evidence that reflects the complexities of today's classrooms.

Reliable Scoring Builds Confidence

Collecting authentic evidence is only part of the process. Programs also need confidence that candidate performance is being evaluated fairly and consistently.

The EPiC Key Assessment uses Evidence-First™ scoring, which grounds evaluations in specific, observable evidence markers rather than broad impressions. By anchoring scoring to clearly defined instructional practices, faculty can make more consistent scoring decisions while reducing unnecessary subjectivity.

Reliable scoring benefits everyone. Candidates receive fairer evaluations, faculty gain greater confidence in assessment results, and programs can trust the data they use to monitor candidate performance over time.

Assessment Data Should Lead to Action

Too often, performance assessments end when candidates receive a score.

The EPiC Key Assessment extends the value of assessment by connecting results directly to the EPiC Support Dashboard, where faculty can access real-time candidate and provider reports and analyze results using multiple measures across cohorts, certification pathways, and program areas.

Instead of asking only whether candidates met expectations, faculty can begin asking deeper questions:

• Where are candidates demonstrating the strongest growth?

• Which instructional practices consistently present challenges?

• Are there patterns across certification pathways or program areas?

• What changes to coursework, clinical experiences, or candidate support could strengthen future outcomes?

For example, a faculty team may discover that candidates across multiple cohorts consistently score lower on a particular instructional practice within the EPiC Key Assessment. Rather than relying on anecdotal observations or assumptions, faculty can use those assessment results to identify trends, assign targeted Practice Modules or PD Bytes™ through the EPiC Support Dashboard, and monitor whether candidate performance improves in future assessment cycles.

Assessment becomes more than a summative measure of candidate performance. It becomes the starting point for targeted support, informed faculty decision-making, and meaningful program improvement.

Looking Beyond Compliance

The removal of Georgia's edTPA requirement represents more than a policy change. It gives educator preparation programs the opportunity to choose a performance assessment based on educational value rather than compliance alone.

The EPiC Key Assessment was developed with that opportunity in mind. By combining authentic classroom evidence with Evidence-First scoring—and extending the value of those assessment results through the EPiC Support Dashboard—EPiC helps programs do more than evaluate candidate performance. It provides meaningful evidence that strengthens coaching, informs accreditation, supports faculty decision-making, and helps educator preparation programs continuously improve.

As Georgia educator preparation programs consider what comes next, the most important question may no longer be "What replaces edTPA?" Instead, it is "What assessment will best prepare future educators while helping our program become stronger every year?"

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