Source: WRAL
With teacher turnover rates hitting new highs, the State Board of Education is seeking ways to address the shortage. In the past week, board members have considered removing an entry exam requirement for prospective teachers, which has become a barrier for certain individuals pursuing the teaching profession.
Ultimately, the State Board of Education voted 9-3 to recommend that state lawmakers end the entry exam requirement. According to WUNC, board members and a committee who studied the issue cited these reasons:
- Passing the Praxis Core was not associated with measures of teacher effectiveness, including completing a degree; passing pedagogy licensing exams; and being rated as “effective” based on supervisor evaluations and student test scores.
- African-American students have lower pass rates on the Praxis Core than their peers, and this affects the diversity of the teacher pipeline.
- Other states are trending away from requiring this standardized test for admission into teaching colleges.
- Not all North Carolina public school teachers today are required to take the exam– including teachers at charter schools and those who enter teaching through alternative pathways.
“We allow thousands of great teachers to join the field through other avenues,” Kimberly Jones, an advisor for the Professional Educator Preparation and Standards Commission, told WLOS. “The idea that one test on one day can prevent a student who’s that passionate from entering the field. It really was a common sense recommendation. Jones said. This is only one aspect of increasing teacher recruitment and retention.”
This is not the first time that the entry exam was removed to recruit teachers. The exam was temporarily not required during the COVID-19 pandemic, which helped increase teacher enrollment by 35%, according to the DPI.
“There isn’t a correlation between the quality of a candidate and their ability to pass standardized tests,” Jones told WLOS. “We know the same thing about our students. The recommendation would not have been made if we did not have a significant number of students applying to our education programs and being held back”.
According to the Public School Forum, North Carolina had more than 2,800 vacancies in K-12 teaching positions at the start of the 2023-24 school year. The state has seen a steady decline in the number of enrollees in teacher prep programs from 2018 to 2021.
