Skills Test an Obstacle for Hundreds of Would-be Teachers
So CT adopts what sounds like a pretty straightforward test that prospective new teachers must pass – and ONE THIRD failed it! (But 93% of TFAers passed). Sadly this is probably a pretty good measure of the caliber of people graduating from our teachers colleges...
She enjoys student teaching, carries a perfect 4.0 grade point average and expects to complete her master's degree in the summer, but Stephanie Salafia's dream of becoming a public school teacher is on hold.
She is one of hundreds of prospective elementary and preschool teachers in Connecticut who have failed a required exam testing their knowledge of how to teach children to read.
About one in three test-takers in teacher preparation programs at colleges and universities across the state have failed the exam since the state began using it last year as a licensing requirement.
"I've taken reading courses. I studied for a solid month" for the test, said Salafia, a 27-year-old graduate student at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. Unless she passes the Foundations in Reading test when it is given again in March, "it will hold me back from getting a job in the fall," she said.
Failure rates exceeded 40 percent at some of the state's largest teacher preparation programs, including the campuses of the Connecticut State University system.
"I'm rightly alarmed," said state Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan. "It's clear to me there hasn't been enough attention to the science" of teaching reading, he said. "You can't teach something well that you don't know."
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Skills Test an Obstacle for Hundreds of Would-be Teachers
By Robert A. Frahm
www.ctmirror.org
posted by Whitney Tilson at 10:28 AM
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