DAB
08-01-2018, 1:44pm
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article215848065.html
no wonder the kids can't do math. the teachers can't do math either.
but at least they feel good about themselves, everyone gets a trophy, and no one has to wear the dunce cap.
Almost 2,400 North Carolina elementary school teachers have failed the math portion of their licensing exams, which puts their careers in jeopardy, since the state hired Pearson publishing company to give that exam in 2013, according to a report being presented to the state Board of Education Wednesday.
Failure rates have spiked as schools around the state struggle to find teachers for the youngest children. Education officials are now echoing what frustrated teachers have been saying: The problem may lie with the exams, rather than the educators.
Teachers in Florida and Indiana have also seen mass failures when their states adopted Pearson testing, according to news reports from those states. Concern about the validity of the Pearson licensing exams is so pervasive that it was discussed at this year’s National Education Association conference, said North Carolina Association of Educators President Mark Jewell.
“I hope this doesn’t lead to a mass exodus of new teachers and exacerbate our shortages,” he said.
The Board of Education, which last month granted beginning teachers an extra year to pass, plans to review the Pearson exams to see if the tests are actually measuring skills needed to teach elementary students effectively, or whether they’re gauging math that’s generally taught in higher grades.
Jamie Duda, who spent the past year teaching language arts in a Charlotte-Mecklenburg elementary school, believes it’s the latter. Two years ago, after getting her degree from the Arizona-based University of Phoenix, she passed her Arizona licensing exams on the first try. In North Carolina she passed the reading and general curriculum portions. But she failed math, the only part handled by Pearson.
Duda says she has one child who just graduated from high school and one in ninth grade. The older child “took honors and AP math classes and could not help me on some of the practice questions,” Duda said, while the younger said he didn’t expect to learn some of the material until 11th grade.
“I am confused as to why I am being tested extremely above the math level of my degree,” said Duda, who says CMS didn’t hire her for 2018-19 because of the failing grade, even though she got “great evaluations” during her first two years teaching.
New teachers have two years to pass all their required exams and get a permanent teaching license in North Carolina. Until 2014 they took a math test known as the Praxis, with pass rates hovering around 85 percent or higher, according to a presentation being given to the Board of Education Wednesday afternoon.
The state board adopted the Pearson math exams beginning in 2014-15 in an effort to bring the teacher exams in line with what students were being tested on. The first year only 65 percent of teachers passed the new “foundations of math” exam, falling to 54.5 percent by 2016-17, the most recent year reported.
During the first three years of the Pearson exam, that represented 2,386 failures.
In July the state board voted to give school districts the option of keeping teachers on for one more year, allowing them more time to pass the licensing exams. Board member Olivia Oxendine and state Teacher of the Year Lisa Godwin, who serves as an adviser to the board, both said they’re hearing about strong elementary teachers who can’t pass the math test.
Katie Steele, a special education teacher in Alexander County, said she graduated from Appalachian State with honors in 2015, has received “wonderful evaluations” and was named her county’s first-year teacher of the year. But she’s able to keep teaching next year only because of the extension.
“Many of us have taken each one 3-4 times each,” she wrote in an email. “There seems to be a magic number of about 4 times per test before Pearson ‘passes’ you.”
Steele said she attended a training session to help her pass the math exam: “I sat and cried in this training with TONS of other beginning teachers who can’t pass these tests.” She’s expecting her scores on her latest attempt at the end of this week. Between retesting and test-prep classes, “these test are costing new teachers hundreds and thousands of dollars,” she said.
Tom Tomberlin, the human resources director for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, was not available to answer questions before the presentation. The department has not responded to the Observer’s request for the cost of the Pearson contract.
According to the PowerPoint posted in advance, the state has named a committee of experts to review whether the Pearson test is aligned with the state’s K-8 curriculum. “A better test would be less about content knowledge and more about math knowledge to support strong teaching,” the presentation says.
The bigger question, according to the report, is whether success on licensure exams actually predicts effectiveness in the classroom. That’s going to be the focus of future study.
Read more here: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article215848065.html#storylink=cpy
:DAB:
no wonder the kids can't do math. the teachers can't do math either.
but at least they feel good about themselves, everyone gets a trophy, and no one has to wear the dunce cap.
Almost 2,400 North Carolina elementary school teachers have failed the math portion of their licensing exams, which puts their careers in jeopardy, since the state hired Pearson publishing company to give that exam in 2013, according to a report being presented to the state Board of Education Wednesday.
Failure rates have spiked as schools around the state struggle to find teachers for the youngest children. Education officials are now echoing what frustrated teachers have been saying: The problem may lie with the exams, rather than the educators.
Teachers in Florida and Indiana have also seen mass failures when their states adopted Pearson testing, according to news reports from those states. Concern about the validity of the Pearson licensing exams is so pervasive that it was discussed at this year’s National Education Association conference, said North Carolina Association of Educators President Mark Jewell.
“I hope this doesn’t lead to a mass exodus of new teachers and exacerbate our shortages,” he said.
The Board of Education, which last month granted beginning teachers an extra year to pass, plans to review the Pearson exams to see if the tests are actually measuring skills needed to teach elementary students effectively, or whether they’re gauging math that’s generally taught in higher grades.
Jamie Duda, who spent the past year teaching language arts in a Charlotte-Mecklenburg elementary school, believes it’s the latter. Two years ago, after getting her degree from the Arizona-based University of Phoenix, she passed her Arizona licensing exams on the first try. In North Carolina she passed the reading and general curriculum portions. But she failed math, the only part handled by Pearson.
Duda says she has one child who just graduated from high school and one in ninth grade. The older child “took honors and AP math classes and could not help me on some of the practice questions,” Duda said, while the younger said he didn’t expect to learn some of the material until 11th grade.
“I am confused as to why I am being tested extremely above the math level of my degree,” said Duda, who says CMS didn’t hire her for 2018-19 because of the failing grade, even though she got “great evaluations” during her first two years teaching.
New teachers have two years to pass all their required exams and get a permanent teaching license in North Carolina. Until 2014 they took a math test known as the Praxis, with pass rates hovering around 85 percent or higher, according to a presentation being given to the Board of Education Wednesday afternoon.
The state board adopted the Pearson math exams beginning in 2014-15 in an effort to bring the teacher exams in line with what students were being tested on. The first year only 65 percent of teachers passed the new “foundations of math” exam, falling to 54.5 percent by 2016-17, the most recent year reported.
During the first three years of the Pearson exam, that represented 2,386 failures.
In July the state board voted to give school districts the option of keeping teachers on for one more year, allowing them more time to pass the licensing exams. Board member Olivia Oxendine and state Teacher of the Year Lisa Godwin, who serves as an adviser to the board, both said they’re hearing about strong elementary teachers who can’t pass the math test.
Katie Steele, a special education teacher in Alexander County, said she graduated from Appalachian State with honors in 2015, has received “wonderful evaluations” and was named her county’s first-year teacher of the year. But she’s able to keep teaching next year only because of the extension.
“Many of us have taken each one 3-4 times each,” she wrote in an email. “There seems to be a magic number of about 4 times per test before Pearson ‘passes’ you.”
Steele said she attended a training session to help her pass the math exam: “I sat and cried in this training with TONS of other beginning teachers who can’t pass these tests.” She’s expecting her scores on her latest attempt at the end of this week. Between retesting and test-prep classes, “these test are costing new teachers hundreds and thousands of dollars,” she said.
Tom Tomberlin, the human resources director for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, was not available to answer questions before the presentation. The department has not responded to the Observer’s request for the cost of the Pearson contract.
According to the PowerPoint posted in advance, the state has named a committee of experts to review whether the Pearson test is aligned with the state’s K-8 curriculum. “A better test would be less about content knowledge and more about math knowledge to support strong teaching,” the presentation says.
The bigger question, according to the report, is whether success on licensure exams actually predicts effectiveness in the classroom. That’s going to be the focus of future study.
Read more here: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article215848065.html#storylink=cpy
:DAB: