The Tribune editorial “Pass/fail/fail/fail” (June 25) discusses “sorting who does and doesn’t have the right stuff to be a professional educator.”
Everyone wants the most effective teachers in classrooms, especially classrooms attended by the lowest-income students. But the questions are: what is “the right stuff” and how do we know if a professional educator-to-be has it?
Research tells us about the right stuff needed to teach what Sonia Nieto calls the “new majority” of public school students: students of color who are poor and from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Effective teachers who increase achievement for these and other students:
– Know the content they are teaching – Have pedagogical skills and ability to teach in multiple ways – Know how to motivate, engage, and assess diverse students – Nurture strong relationships with parents and community members – Teach in culturally compatible and responsive ways – Have experience
The Basic Skills test does not assess these nor does it correlate with effective teaching. Worse, it is denying entry into Colleges of Education of almost all people of color who meet the “right stuff” criteria above. Teaching candidates have to pass several more tests before becoming teachers — a content area test, assessment of professional teaching, and specific tests where needed (bilingual, for example). There are many opportunities to assess, pre-certification.
Rooting for simplistic definitions of best teachers diverts attention from significant issues for low-income children, like high rates of teacher turnover in low-income schools. Many “best” new teachers teach for one or two years and then leave, costing school districts thousands of dollars (estimated at $50,000) per teacher for recruiting, hiring, mentoring, and replacing them. More costly is the revolving door churn that negatively affects children’s academic learning and damages teachers’ professional learning communities.
Minority communities are not the only ones who are “clamoring” for diversity in the teaching force. Diversity is right and just, but more to the point, it is effective. Illinois has a very serious problem in preparing and retaining minority teachers. The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in minority students (to 40 percent) while minority teachers have decreased to 13 percent! With its cut scores set artificially high, the Basic Skills test is denying opportunity to candidates of color. The Tribune’s being cavalier about this represents a major problem in preparing teachers who truly have the right stuff.
— Anne Hallett, Chicago
