TRUE OR FALSE? COMPETENCY TESTS WILL IDENTIFY POOR TEACHERS

Can you find the error in English usage in the following paragraph?

Sarah has shown excellent progress during the first half of the school year. She is working at grade level in all of her subjects. However, I am concerned that Sarah continues to be shy and withdrawn. Perhaps there is a way for I to help her feel more confident about expressing her ideas.

Can you locale an error in sentence formation in the following passage?

The purpose of this letter is to request one day of professional leave. I have been asked to participate on a statewide committee, the committee meets on Friday, October 10th. Thank you for considering this request.

If you’re a Dallas high school student and you can’t answer these types of basic grammar questions, you may be in trouble. But if you’re a Dallas Independent School District teacher and can’t, you may be looking for another job this fall.

These two questions are samples of the types of problems Texas teachers will find themselves pondering on March 10. After years of heated public discussion on the issue of teacher competency, the state is finally requiring any certified teaching employee to pass a test that requires a basic command of the English language. The test will measure a teacher’s reading comprehension, writing skills, mastery of grammar and English usage. Any teacher who fails the exam will be given at least one more chance to pass it in the summer. Similar tests recently administered to teachers in Arkansas produced a 10 percent failure rate.

They’ve been told not to worry, but many of the 6,000-plus teachers in the Dallas schools are a little nervous about the test. “I think it’s a fear of the unknown,” says Bob Johnston, administrative assistant to school Superintendent Linus Wright. “But from what I’ve seen, the fears are unwarranted. If you know how to read and write you should be able to pass this test. Anyone who can’t pass it really shouldn’t be teaching.”

But Pauline Dixon, president of the 2,500-member Classroom Teachers of Dallas, is dead set against the test, claiming that a “paper and pencil will not tell Texas which teachers are incompetent. We’re not opposed to taking a test, but we feel that to weed out incompetent teachers, someone also needs to observe that person. We need something other than answering questions written for thousands of teachers.”

Last fall, the Texas State Teachers Association filed a lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency, asking a state judge to block the state from administering the test. Dixon thinks the test is inherently unfair. “Many of our teachers are qualified, but are just not test takers,” she says. “In addition, we have teachers who have taught only elementary students. For instance, a kindergarten teacher is out of practice with English usage. If you don’t teach something, it gets away from you.”

“I’m very much in favor of the test because I think it brings an awareness to teachers, a sort of consciousness of the profession,” says John J. Santillo, D1SD assistant superintendent for personnel. “I’ve taken the test. It’s not difficult, but it’s tricky. You can make a mistake very easily if you’re careless.”

If predictions hold true and 10 percent of Dallas teachers fail the test, DISD officials could be scrambling to recruit 600 new teachers before school starts this fall. State education guidelines allow school districts to apply for a one-year grace period for Hunkers, but that could lead to even stickier problems.

Says Johnston: “Can you imagine the public relations problem we’d have if the superintendent allowed 600 teachers in classrooms [after they] failed minimum competency tests?”