What's Going on with [Aspiring] Teachers Failing their Certification Tests?

Great Debates
1

This is a very interesting report:

The report goes on to say that large percentages of education graduates are failing basic certification tests. The parts of the test they do worst on are the domain knowledge tests for reading, writing, and math.

An example is California’s CBEST exam. Apparently, only 66% of education grads pass the test the first time. Only 81% pass it after multiple attempts, meaning 19% of graduates in Education cannot pass the test and get their certification.

The test is ridiculously easy. None of the material is above grade 10 level.

There is a CBEST practice exam you can take:

I tried it, and got 49/50 on the math part without pencil and paper, and got two wrong on the reading test because I was going fast and misread the question.

I’m not trying to brag, because I can’t imagine any high school grad failing this test, let alone a graduate with an education degree. I gave the test to my son, and he aced it. 100%. I’m guessing that just about everyone reading this would get over 90%.

If anyone wants to try the test, I’m curious to see how hard you find it. And speculation welcome on how 1/3 of grafuates from education faculties are failing it. I find it baffling.

Apparently you get four hours for each section of the test. I did the math and reading together in about 45 minutes, so people can’t possibly be running out of time.

You can also try the Praxis test, which is used in other jurisdictions. It looks about the same, and has similar results.

2

I didn’t try the whole (practice) test, but I did try the first few questions. I didn’t find them difficult for me, but I did have to think about them. But it didn’t surprise me that some people (even education graduates) have trouble with them. Lots of people are “bad at math” and especially at “word problems”: figuring out what calculation they have to perform in order to answer a question or analyze a situation that is described in words, which is what a lot of those sample problems are. And I fear that all too many people are not that good at reading comprehension.

3

Only possible answer: California is churning out abysmal teachers.

4

:face_with_raised_eyebrow: :roll_eyes:
I don’t know what to say, except perhaps you didn’t note that the test was not for people who are already teachers. It is to join the program to become a teacher.

In other words, no one could possibly draw the conclusion that

But instead one would draw the conclusion that CA, in the quest to have the best teachers, is setting the bar very high. Maybe too high.

https://www.fairtest.org/cbest-goes-trial

The test is said to be racially biased.

Because of the CBEST, many non-white teachers have been barred from working with public school students, regardless of how successful they were in the classroom. California state records show that the pass rate for whites is 80%, but only 35% for African-Americans, 49% for Latinos, and 53% for Asians. Ethnic minority students are currently estimated to comprise 60% of the states public school population, and linguistic minorities make up over 30% of California public school students.

As a result of the judge’s rulings, the state finally undertook a study of the CBEST’s job- relatedness after twelve years of use. The state’s own expert has conceded that at least 60% of the test’s math section is not job-related. Plaintiffs’ counsel claim that the state’s study also shows little correlation between the rest of the CBEST and the jobs for which the test is required. The state has resolved, before trial, to modify the CBEST math section. It has also agreed to substantially expand the time for taking each CBEST sub-test from approximately one hour and five minutes to as much as four hours.

Other evidence which hs surfaced over the past few months indicates that California set CBEST passing scores at levels substantially higher than those recommended by ETS, apparently in an attempt to gain points with the electorate. When the state rejected ETS’ recommendations, it did so without the psychometric evidence needed to justify the increase and in spite of substantially increasing the number of people of color who fail the test.

And of course, many white students who want to be teachers can pay for a C-Best prep course, which apparently dramatically increases one chances of passing.

Note that due to that lawsuit, and other issues CA has recently reduced the number of tests required.

5

What’s Going on with Teachers Failing their Certification Tests?

Your title is misleading @Sam_Stone Sam_Stone.

6

I got 80% for reading and about 62% for math. I misread a question here or there on reading and my math has always been bad.

7

The first link points to a different problem: individual teacher-training programs in California are churning out abysmal teachers.

It is common for teachers to dismiss testing as not showing anything about students that the teacher doesn’t already know. Which completely misses that point that testing sometimes provides information that the student doesn’t know and/or that the parents don’t know.

In this case, the original article suggests that teacher training institutions have been getting away with inadequate preparation of their students, that identifying the high failure rate will give students and accreditation bodies more leverage, and that the level of detail needs to go further, to identify individual courses within the institutions.

Personally, I’d feel pretty pissed of if I spent real money and/or several years of my life getting a teaching qualification, only to find I couldn’t pass certification.*

I got 97% on math. I misread a couple of questions and there is some culture specific information there.** Depending on what the certification is for, grade-school/ junior high math may not be relevant. Also, tests like this are known to have a race/culture bias.

I don’t think the content level is too high: I would certainly hope a 5th Grade teacher would be able to teach all that content. If there is a shortage of “teachers who can’t do arithmetic but can do other stuff”, then I think there should be alternate pathways to certification, that still allow such teachers to be labeled as “so good at other stuff, like teaching kids, that we should hire them even though they can’t do arithmetic”.

If there is a real problem with people failing the test because “they can’t do arithmetic tests”, then that’s a problem with teacher training right there: they need to be able to teach their kids that arithmetic is achievable.

* But you shouldn’t assume that is true of all the people who never passed certification. Lots of people graduate with the realization that they really don’t want to be teachers, and failing certification is an opportunity for a life change.

** I always make that kind of error, in tests as in real life.

8

I think you are severely underestimating the variability in human ability to do well in our current society/school system. Having taught high school in two different countries I’ve observed a lot of students who just don’t get it. Some of them give up and fail, but a not small number work hard at their school work and pass tests, but they don’t understand the content, it doesn’t relate to their everyday thinking, it’s an isolated continent of their brain made up of “test passing skills”.

These students may pass a relatively high level test in a course they are in, on the day after cramming for it, but fail to get a very basic question from topics they “learned” a week, a month, a year or more ago.

Now this all exists on a spectrum, and there are few students who are like this for all subjects, but the number who are like this on at least some subjects and topic are quite numerous and I wouldn’t be surprised if they make up more of education majors than a lot of other majors. They may want to make a difference, emulating some teachers who believed in them (because there likely were many that saw their floundering in a class and couldn’t hide their impression). Or they may default to education because they couldn’t get into any other program. I don’t know what kind of grades you need to get into a education program in the US, but with the pay and status given to teachers I’d think it’s a safe bet that it’s not a high bar to pass.

Another possible explanation, I find this likely but didn’t research the requirements, is that the math component is required to pass, and math is by far the subject where this sort of “temporary competence” is the most common.

9

I also think it’s worth to notice that certification tests aren’t all that. In this Literature review on licensure test predictive validity the results vary a lot and, based on just reading this review, some of the positive findings seem to smack of “p-hacking”, with correlations for just parts of the tests for just parts of the teacher population, or they are statistically significant, but not of practical significance. For instance a paper on the Massachusetts MTEL test showed that:

A one standard deviation in teachers’ MTEL performance is associated with an improvement
in student test scores of about 0.024.

That’s a 2.4 % of a standard deviation change for the average student if a teacher is a standard deviation better on the certification test.

Also this from a North Carolina paper is important to notice (although I don’t really trust education researchers to use statistical tools):

increasing the test score cutoff in North Carolina to the higher standard used by Connecticut “would lead to the exclusion of less than 0.5 percent of the teacher work force estimated to be very ineffective teachers, but would also result in the exclusion of 7 percent of the teacher workforce estimated to be effective teachers”

10

As has already been stated CBEST is NOT a certification test. It’s essentially a state entrance exam that determines whether students have the basic skills to get INTO teacher training programs.

Arguing that the number of people who pass the CBEST is an indicator of how bad teacher training programs are is a bit like arguing that med schools are churning out bad doctors because the MCAT’s are hard to pass: you’d be using the entrance tool to measure exit proficiency.

11

It sounds like they’re testing basic math needed (for example) that have to be present be considering passing more complex math. If you can’t add, subtract, multiply and divide how could the applicant hope to master statistics? But if so, wouldn’t a college entrance exam like ACT/SAT already provide that information?

12

NO. I don’t know what to say, except perhaps you didn’t note that the test was not for people who are already teachers. It is to join the program to become a teacher.

In other words, I’d like to think thatno one could possibly draw the conclusion that individual teacher-training programs in California are churning out abysmal teachers.

13

Are you sure about that? The CBEST is described as a certification exam, not an entrance exam. And why all the talk about some teaching program grads doing better than others, if it’s an entrance exam? Shouldn’t the debate then be about high schools, rather than teaching programs?

In any event, the results shocked me. I am sure some people have trouble with the exam. The question should be whether such people should be teachers.

I do not believe you could graduate from a matriculation (university bound) high school program in Canada without being able to pass tests much harder than this one. The fact that high school grads, let alone teaching grads, are failing this in such high numbers should be considered a massive failure of the American public education system.

The fact that black applicants do much worse should be seen as an example of true systemic racism - in the public school system, by teachers and school administrators and school boards. They are failing minority students miserably, and deflecting blame by claiming that the questions themselves are racist, rather than that they are failing to give basic educations to minority students.

14

The CBEST and the Praxis exam are definitely certification exams for teachers, not entrance exams:

From here:

https://doe.nv.gov/Educator_Licensure/Competency_Testing_Requirements/

The CBEST:

https://www.ctcexams.nesinc.com/PageView.aspx?f=GEN_AboutCBEST.html

You can write the test if you have a high school diploma. Maybe some schools use it as an entrance exam to avoid wasting theirs and the student’s time, but the actual purpose of the exam is to test basic skills needed to be an educator, and you have to pass it or get an exemption before you can get a teaching license.

15

In the early 1950s, when I was in HS, one of the teachers claimed that, on average, a HS teacher had finished in the 4th quintile of his HS class. I guess it shows.

16

It’s true that one cannot become certified to teach in California without having taken the CBEST, though there’s been a proposal to allow coursework to However, the CBEST is generally taken BEFORE ADMITTANCE TO A TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM.

Currently, a teacher candidate is required to prove proficiency in basic reading, writing and math by passing the CBEST or other approved exams. The test is usually taken before a student is accepted into a teacher preparation program. [Bolding mine.]

Source.

So yes, I am sure.

17

Back in the Dark Ages when I took all those tests, the CBEST was what I had to pass to set foot in a classroom, even as a substitute. It wasn’t required to get into the Ed. program, but everybody took it within the first semester or so. The real Certification tests were the Praxis Single-Subject tests, which you took to prove you knew the subject, degree in it or no. Since my degree was in Remedial Basket-Weaving I had to Praxis all 4 of my credentials. The tests were hard, but obviously not impossible. The CBEST was dead simple and my feeling walking out of the exam was that anybody who couldn’t pass that test in 2 tries shouldn’t be allowed to teach anything. Over the years I have mellowed and would now allow a non-CBESTed teacher to maybe teach PE. Or Ceramics. But not any real subject. The test is just too damn easy. YMMV.

18

Okay, first of all you aren’t correct. It doesn’t matter when they take it - the point is that it is not an entrance exam, it is a certification exam. Some programs may use it as an entrance exam under the notion that anyone who can’t pass it shouldn’t be in the program, but it was developed as a minimum kmowledge exam required to be certified as a teacher.

if there a difference between a ‘teacher training program’ and a degree in Education? Is a teacher training program something mormally taken after a degree as a specific prep to teach? Does every teacher go through a ‘teacher training program’? Can they do it in lieu of a degree in Education?

19

This is the part that I can’t shake. If fully 1/3 of high school grads are failing it, and more than half of black students are failing it, that should be an ‘all hands on deck’ moment for the education establishment. They are clearly failing at what they are supposed to be doing. Instead we get a lot of woke nonsense about biased questions and whether such a test is really needed at all, rather a deep, heartfelt look at how the K-12 educational system is failing students.

20

I believe how it works in California is as follows: You get a BA or BS. If you want to become a teacher, you follow that up with an additional course of study to get a teaching credential. This is where you get teacher training which is taking education classes and practical training in the classroom with mentor teachers. The BA or BS does not have to be in education and probably would be, for example, a science degree if you were to teach high school math or biology.