If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try, Try, Try… 20+ Times?
While persistence has paid off for me personally, at least that’s what my wife tells me, I found this KVIA.com story sad and frankly a little scary.
The report the ABC-7 I-Team requested and purchased from the Texas Education Agency shows 11 pages of teachers’ names who’ve failed teacher certification tests more than five times, and they come from all three big school districts in town.
All teachers must at some point take and pass at least two tests: one measures how well they know their individual subject and the other measures generally how well they can teach.
It was that second test that apparently tripped up three other area teachers.
Julie Arias, who teaches middle school reading and English at Bassett Middle School, has failed the secondary professional development test 22 times, according to the TEA; the state says Jose Gallegos, who teaches English as a second language at Henderson Middle School, has failed it 25 times; and records show that Miguel Lucero, a Spanish teacher at Socorro Middle School, has failed it 21 times.
While the numbers are indeed startling, there’s no reason to think that these teachers aren’t qualified to be educators. The numbers also shed light on how many chances we give teachers to educate our kids.
This paragraph near the end really shocked me. First, I’m sorry. The fact that these teachers took a test on their ability to teach over 20 times before they passed it does give me a “reason to think that these teachers aren’t qualified to be educators.” Who is the author trying to kid? The only good thing about their testing problems is that they’re apparently highly motivated. Hopefully, that will help them to be successful.
Second, the line about “how many chances we give teachers to educate our kids” is a little disconcerting. How many chances do our kids get at an education? If a child gets a poor teacher, the long term impact on their academic achievement probably isn’t that great. However, if a child manages to get 2 or 3 poor teachers in a row, they can end up years behind their peers. Once a child gets behind, it is very difficult for them to catch up without significant and effective interventions.
It seems to me that teacher quality is a huge education reform issue. That’s why I’m a strong believer in the necessity of teacher compensation plans that give good and great teachers financial rewards for their above average effort and that either remediates poor teachers or helps them on their way to their next career. Great teachers work hard and they deserve to be rewarded. Poor teachers probably aren’t very happy in the classroom. They deserve the opportunity to find a job they truly love. Their students only get one chance. They deserve the best teachers we can give them.
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