Educator Licensure Test Called Culturally Biased
A special state task force of teachers, state education officials and hiring directors has been set up to determine if the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure is culturally biased.
More than half the Black and Hispanic applicants for teaching jobs in Massachusetts failed the crucial licensing test, raising concerns that fewer minorities will consider teaching in the state and questioning if one exam should make or break a teaching career. According to the Boston Globe reports, 52 percent of the Hispanics and 54 percent of blacks who have taken the decade-old exam, failed the writing portion, compared to only a 23 percent failure rate for white applicants. Blacks and Hispanics also fell behind their white counterparts in tests for English, history and math
Some of the minorities who flunked the tests complain that it is culturally biased – geared toward white applicants with liberal arts backgrounds who can identify with questions about ancient literature or investing in the stock market. Their criticism – along with that of education professors – first surfaced when the first test was administered in April, 1998. Then, 60 percent of white test takers passed the writing portion, compared with 24 percent of blacks and 40 percent of Hispanics.
Deans of schools of education throughout Massachusetts are also questioning if the test is culturally biased and whether their poor tests scores are a result of the achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian classmates in high school.
The task force studying this issue plans to publish its findings in a year or less.
A Cambridge, Mass. lawyer says he plans to file a class-action lawsuit against the state Department of Education and the testing company on behalf of three minority teachers who failed the test multiple times since 1998 and either lost their jobs or got demoted. Armando Jaime, an A-B student with a master’s degree in special education, got demoted from his $62,000 a year job in Boston Public Schools after failing the test eight times since 1998. “I felt devastated, thinking I went to school for nothing,” says Jaime, a 46-year old Spanish speaker from Puerto Rico. “My degree felt diminished.”
— Teachers of Color
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