Monday, March 13, 2017

Yet another reason to homeschool

Apparently, the state of New York is contemplating doing away with a literacy test for teachers because too many "minority" applicants are failing it.  Now that's depressing enough--one would hope that any high school graduate, never mind a person with a bachelor's degree or more in education, would be able to pass such a test with flying colors--but it actually gets worse. 

Overall, nearly 40% failed, and when the Manhattan Institute reviewed the test exam, their professional writer achieved only a 55% score and noted that several of the "multiple guess" questions appeared to have multiple correct answers, but only one would be scored as correct.  This may explain why the exam did not predict (according to those with the data) success in the profession.

So what we have is a situation where the state board of education can't write a basic reading test, huge numbers of teachers may be dishonoring their almae matriae by not being able to read, larger numbers of teachers may be dishonoring their profession by not performing better than illiterate colleagues, and schools of education are acting as if the problem is primarily one of racial equity.

So for the sake of the great State of New York, here's a simple reading test; open a newspaper, read, and tell me what you just read.  You're welcome.

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