Beginning in May 2014, all education program graduates in New York State (NYS) must pass new and/or revised certification exams in order to become certified to teach in NYS. Early childhood teacher candidates enrolled in an approved NYS teacher preparation program are required to pass the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST), Content Specialty Test (CST-Multi-Subject or Multi-Subject: Teachers of Early Childhood (Birth-Grade 2)), Educating All Students (EAS) test, and a Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA Early Childhood) in order to be recommended for certification. The new teacher certification examinations serve as a critical benchmark of a candidate's readiness to teach in NYS. Research has shown that the edTPA can be used as a learning tool for pre-service teachers and as a form of feedback for teacher education programs. In an effort to utilize the edTPA and the subsequent results as a learning opportunity for a teacher preparation program, this paper addresses two studies. Study 1 investigated teacher candidates' perceptions about their preparation and readiness for the edTPA based on the support they received from the teacher preparation program and their coursework. The findings from this study suggest that early childhood teachers' perceptions of their readiness for a teacher performance assessment may indicate the extent to which their coursework prepared them to meet the requirements of the edTPA. Study 2 examined if the actual scores the teacher candidates received on the edTPA matched their estimated scores. The findings from this examination indicate that the teacher candidates were confident in their preparation, skills, and overall readiness for the edTPA.