Teacher Diversity and Skills Test
Re “A Test That’s Costing Us Real Teachers,” Column Left, Jan. 9:
Teaching is an art. You either have a gift for it or you don’t. The finest teachers I have come in contact with are excellent in their field, but also have the ability to communicate that knowledge to their students.
If someone wishes to teach English or literature, by all means test their abilities in their chosen field. But don’t throw out a fine English teacher because of limited math skills. We are not only losing potentially fine minority teachers, we are losing potentially gifted teachers in general.
SUSAN CANTWELL HERNANDEZ
Palos Verdes
* In 1992, after 23 years of uninterrupted employment, I lost my job as an engineering geologist because my company “downsized” by “laying off” all the geologists older than 40. In order to seek work as a substitute teacher, I took the Calfornia Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST). I found the test to be absurdly easy, a joke!
RAY WALDBAUM
Glendale
* CBEST is intended to ensure that applicants for public school teaching jobs have minimum skills in reading, writing and elementary math. It is not a hard test.
If minority applicants fail the CBEST more often than whites, it is because we do not prepare minorities as well, academically, in school. The solution is to raise the academic quality of schools in minority neighborhoods by hiring better prepared teachers, not to abandon minority children to teachers who lack even the minimum academic skills measured by CBEST.
GEORGE JENNINGS
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Cal State Dominguez Hills
* CBEST is a cut-and-dried examination that tests rudimentary skills in math, English grammar and writing. It has nothing to do with race, and anyone who can’t pass it really has no business teaching at the secondary level.
On the other hand, Epstein’s belief that “much of the bottom of the barrel is filled with whites who had no trouble passing CBEST but are inadequate in the classroom” is pure racism. Had someone made the same statement about any other race, it would have been perceived as hateful and unworthy of publication.
ARNO KEKS
El Monte
* As a member of the Assn. of Mexican-American Educators (AMAE), I applaud the recent expose of CBEST. There is no evidence that CBEST accurately measures basic skills or competencies. The reality is that there is no correlation between those who pass the exam and those capable of good teaching. What is evident, however, is that since states have mandated teacher competency exams there has been a decline in the number of minority teachers.
AMAE is not opposed to strict professional standards for our nation’s teachers. We strongly believe that teachers must have the ability to read, compose a paragraph and compute a math problem. We do not, however, believe that CBEST is an accurate measure of these abilities for teachers of color. When 40% to 50% of future teachers of color (students who have graduated from our private and public schools and have been accepted into our institutions of higher education) continue to fail CBEST, then this qualifying exam needs to be examined for its racist consequences. If the intended purpose of CBEST is to improve the teaching profession, then let us create an unbiased way to assess the skills necessary to teach. Let us measure essential competencies such as: classroom management, language-acquisition skills, cultural sensitivity, conflict resolution, school-community relations, the use of alternative measures of assessment and ability to develop subject matter material.
THERESA MONTANO
Los Angeles
