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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (405751)	5/13/2003 12:58:47 PM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

It also helps with the property values...

To: sandintoes who wrote (405751)	5/13/2003 7:38:57 PM
From: goldworldnet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Teacher tests key to reforms story.news.yahoo.com Yahoo! An obscure trial challenging New York state rules requiring teachers to pass competency tests wrapped up testimony in a federal court in New York City last month. More than 3,300 black and Latino teachers sued the state, saying their careers were derailed after they flunked certification exams. To the teachers, the issue is about fairness. They claim the tests for basic math and literacy skills have nothing to do with their performance in the classroom. And they say because minority teachers failed at far higher rates than whites, the tests were biased. The decision, expected this summer, will reach beyond the careers of these teachers. It will help determine the future of a White House plan to improve teacher quality. Teacher testing is a key part of President Bush (news - web sites)'s education-reform bill signed into law in January 2002. Under one provision, every public school student must be assigned a ''highly qualified'' teacher by September 2005. Each state can set its own standards (news - web sites), but at a minimum, teachers must either have majored in the subject they teach or pass a test of their knowledge in the field they instruct. If the New York teachers win the back pay and benefits they are seeking, other states might feel pressure to dumb down their certification tests. Yet they already are so easy that test experts say they merely measure high school-level skills. Worse, a win for New York teachers would put their plight ahead of students' needs. That would perpetuate a troubling cycle in which inadequate teachers turn out poorly educated students. Several studies show that teachers who score low on the tests and have skimpy knowledge of the subjects they teach tend to end up in low-performing schools. In New York City, poor kids are three to four times more likely to draw unqualified teachers, reports the Education Trust, a non-profit group that advocates for schools in high-poverty areas. Certainly, many of the New York teachers who are suing the state deserve sympathy. They were already on the job -- some with many years of classroom experience. But the general-knowledge tests they failed are important. During the testimony, education experts established links between testing -- for both basic skills and subject content -- and classroom competency. Carnegie Mellon economist Robert Strauss calculates that student achievement would rise 10% if school districts required the teachers they hired to score in the top quarter on certification tests instead of the bottom quarter. Such benefits are already apparent in Texas. Research there shows that poor children assigned above-average teachers five years in a row progress enough to close the test-score gap separating poor and middle-class children, according to the Education Trust. Test scores are not the only factor in determining who's a good teacher. But they are a gauge school reformers can't afford to lose. * * *