Fewer Teacher Candidates Pass New York State Certification Exams!

Dear Commons Community,

New York State saw a significant drop in the number of candidates who passed teacher certification tests last year as tougher exams were introduced, state officials said yesterday, portraying the results as a long-needed move to raise the level of teaching and the performance of teacher preparation schools.   As reported in the New York Times:

“In the 2013-14 school year, 11,843 teachers earned their certification in New York, a drop of about 20 percent from the previous two years.

Candidates without certification cannot teach in public schools, and education schools with high failure rates may eventually lose their accreditation.

The fall in certifications resembles, in some respects, the state’s experience with the Common Core, a set of more rigorous learning standards for students that has been adopted by New York and most other states. New tests aligned with the Common Core have led to large drops in scores and criticism from parents, teachers and some governors.

State officials and some education advocates say the new standards will help bring the supply of teachers more in line with demand.

“New York is producing too many teachers, and for me that is the biggest takeaway,” said Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “If we really want to solve much of what ails the teaching profession, we need to be more selective.”

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In New York, some education schools say the new teaching tests are hurting minority candidates the most. While many education experts celebrated New York’s result as an important step in enhancing teacher quality, state officials conceded that the new standards were likely to have a disproportionate impact on minority applicants. They described that situation as an extension of an achievement gap that begins in elementary school and continues throughout much of postsecondary education.

Administrators said they were starting to see some evidence of this at places like Lehman College in the Bronx, where passing rates for each of the new certification tests were lower than the statewide averages last year.

“We are largely serving what I would call minority populations not only because of the color of their skin,” said Harriet R. Fayne, the dean of the Lehman School of Education. “We serve recent immigrants. We serve individuals who have had interrupted formal education. We serve individuals whose first language might not be English.”

Ms. Fayne compared the first year of the new certification exams to the first year of testing under the Common Core, when test scores fell across much of the state. She said Lehman was working on several fronts to improve its passing rate in the coming years. “The issue is really one of time,” she said.”

Harriet Fayne makes a most significant point for those teacher education programs that serve largely minority and immigrant student populations.

Tony

 

 

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