17% of Teacher Candidates Fail Tests of Ability

Despite “extremely low” passing requirements, 17% of prospective public schoolteachers are failing the certification exams that most states require of those applying for jobs, a federal study said Wednesday.

All but two states, Alaska and Iowa, require applicants to achieve minimum test scores, either when they apply for admission to a college of education or before they are awarded a license to teach.

The study, conducted by the Education Department’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement, said most of the tests are aimed at ensuring that teachers are literate and possess a minimum level of writing and math skills. They do not require teachers to demonstrate advanced levels of intellectual competence.

Lawrence M. Rudner, a former federal analyst who directed the study, said, “Many current certification testing programs . . . do not provide adequate standards and, hence, cannot live up to expectations.”

In the 27 states with admissions testing programs for prospective education majors, an average of 72% passed the tests.

Twenty-six states now test prospective teachers as a certification requirement, and 18 others are planning to do so soon. In the 22 states that made their certification pass-fail rates public, 83% of the applicants passed.

Rudner, in what he emphasized was his personal viewpoint, wrote: “The common practice of establishing extremely low passing scores further diminishes the ability of many teacher testing programs to support meaningful standards.”

The study said in 10 states that used the National Teacher Examination, applicants had to answer an average of 47 questions correctly out of 104 to pass. The cutoff ranged from 35 correct in one unidentified state to 53 in another.

“Given that the tests are not difficult and that the passing scores appear to be relatively low, one would expect virtually everyone to pass teacher certification examinations. Yet this is not the case,” the report said.

Chester Finn Jr., the Education Department’s research chief who ordered the study, said it demonstrated that teacher competency tests are no panacea.

“Teacher testing cannot yet be relied upon as a form of quality control, except of the crudest sort,” Finn said.