Tougher Teacher Licensing Exams and a Question of Racial Discrimination
Israel Ramos, who graduated from the education school at Lehman College in the Bronx, failed New York’s toughest exam three times, once by just a few points. He passed on the fourth try. Credit James Estrin/The New York Times
Students are not the only ones struggling to pass new standardized tests being rolled out around the country. So are those who want to be teachers.
Concerned that education schools were turning out too many middling graduates, states have been introducing more difficult teacher licensing exams. Perhaps not surprisingly, passing rates have fallen. But minority candidates have been doing especially poorly, jeopardizing a long-held goal of diversifying the teaching force so it more closely resembles the makeup of the country’s student body.
“This is very serious,” said David Steiner, dean of the School of Education at Hunter College. “It reflects, of course, the tragic performance gap we see in just about every academic or aptitude test.”
On a common licensing exam called Praxis Core, a new test given in 31 states or jurisdictions that was designed to be more rigorous than its predecessor, 55 percent of white candidates taking the test since October 2013 passed the math portion on their first try, according to the preliminary data from the Educational Testing Service, which designed the exam. The passing rate for first-time African-American test takers was 21.5 percent, and for Hispanic test takers, 35 percent. A similar gap was seen on the reading and writing portions.
In New York, which now has four separate licensing tests that candidates must pass, an analysis last year of the most difficult exam found that during a six-month period, only 41 percent of black and 46 percent of Hispanic candidates passed the test their first time, compared with 64 percent of their white counterparts.
A federal judge is now weighing whether the test is discriminatory. And because of complaints from education schools that students have not had enough time to adjust, as well as concern about the impact on minorities, at least two states, New York and Illinois, have already postponed or loosened some of their new requirements.
Israel Ramos, who graduated from the education school at Lehman College in the Bronx, failed New York’s toughest exam three times, once by just a Tougher Teacher Licensing Exams and a Question of Racial Discrimination - The New York Times: