Adult Education English As a First Language: Teachers Who Fail

Teachers who fail
A survey of certification-test scores yields alarming results
by Chris Davis and Matthew Doig
Dec 12, 2004

More than half a million Florida students sat in classrooms last year in front of teachers who failed the state's basic skills tests for teachers.

Many of those students got teachers who struggled to solve high school math problems or whose English skills were so poor, they flunked reading tests designed to measure the very same skills students must master before they can graduate.

These aren't isolated instances of a few teachers whose test-taking skills don't match their expertise and training. A Herald-Tribune investigation has found that fully a third of teachers, teachers' aides and substitutes failed their certification tests at least once.

The Herald-Tribune found teachers who had failed in nearly every school in each of the state's 67 counties.

But it is the neediest of children who most often get the least-prepared teachers.

Students in Florida's rural outposts and inner cities, those from housing projects and migrant camps, and those from black and Latino families were far more likely to have a teacher who struggled.

An analysis of the test scores of nearly 100,000 teachers found that children from Florida's poor neighborhoods were 44 percent more likely than their wealthier peers to have a teacher who failed the certification tests.

The findings raise questions about Florida's education reforms, which require students to pass standardized tests to advance, yet allow teachers to fail exams dozens of times and still stand at the front of a classroom.

And they highlight challenges that have dogged public schools across the country for years: How to attract more of the nation's top minds into a profession where salaries are low, and how to steer those teachers into inner-city and rural neighborhoods where children need the most help.

A state education official said Friday a recent study confirms that student learning suffers under teachers who repeatedly fail the tests.

The Department of Education study, the first of its kind, found that students learn less under teachers who had failed more than three times, said DOE spokesman MacKay Jimeson.

Nine percent of teachers failed portions of the tests at least four times, according to the Herald-Tribune study.

The state report, which wasn't released Friday, led DOE officials to reverse statements they had made last spring. The officials said then that they hadn't reviewed teacher scores because the tests have no bearing on a teacher's abilities.

Parents, teachers and education experts say there is a common-sense link between the test and a teacher's abilities.

If the question is choosing a teacher who aced the test on the first try or someone who finally passed after a dozen tries, the answer is obvious, said Eric Hirsch, vice president of policy and partnerships at the Southeast Center for Teaching Quality.

"I'd rather my child have someone who passed the test," he said. "The test says you have at least a minimal knowledge. Someone not demonstrating that should cause pause."

Do test scores matter?

Like most states, Florida requires teachers to pass three kinds of tests to earn professional certification.

One test measures basic knowledge of English, reading and math. A second tests a teacher's understanding of how to teach, the strategies needed to deal with children and the methods used in the classroom. The state also requires teachers to pass a subject-area exam that tests a teacher's knowledge of math, English, science or other specific areas in which they will teach.

The vast majority of teachers who fail a test eventually pass, usually on the second or third try.

But the Herald-Tribune found teachers who struggled for years to pass the test. Some were never able to pass and received a waiver that awarded them certification anyway.

"It's a bad sign," said Susan Blake, a parent at Booker Middle School in Sarasota. "If that's going to be their profession, you should be able to pass on the second try."

Many teachers don't.

The two worst performers on Florida's exams failed 59 times each. Both are physical education teachers.

Teachers who failed more than 40 times teach everything from middle school social studies and grade school to mentally handicapped and learning disabled children.

Nearly 1,400 teachers failed 10 times or more.

In Miami-Dade County, one teacher failed more than 40 tests. She has taught language arts to middle school students for nearly 10 years.

Florida's tests aren't random questions about education trivia. Committees made up of educators review and design questions to match what students are required to learn in every Florida classroom.

Hundreds of teachers, principals and university professors get involved in each test. Overall, thousands of people have a hand in writing the questions for all the exams.

Those educators form committees that determine what a teacher should know and come up with questions that test that knowledge.

Nationwide, districts are increasingly scrutinizing how teachers perform on certification tests.

Under President George W. Bush's sweeping education changes, encompassed in the No Child Left Behind Act, every student in the country must have a certified teacher by the 2005-2006 school year.

The law also bans districts from putting more uncertified teachers in poor and minority schools than in wealthy white ones -- an attempt to ensure that all children have an equal education.

The No Child Left Behind Act does not, however, address teachers who repeatedly fail their exams but eventually pass. The state has no method to consider teachers' scores, either.

In fact, most school districts hire teachers without ever reviewing their test scores or how many times they failed the test. Typically, teachers don't even know their own scores.

The database of test results for all teachers in the state is kept by the University of South Florida in Tampa, which gives teachers easy access to information about whether they passed a test, but not how high they scored.

Ignoring the problem

Before the Herald-Tribune started its analysis, the state had never reviewed certification tests to determine how teachers were performing, according to the Department of Education.

The scores have never been used to examine whether top-scoring teachers are evenly distributed among poor and rich schools.

In fact, the Department of Education refused to cooperate with the Herald-Tribune's investigation, and the newspaper eventually sued the department for failing to comply with a public records request.

Principals and school administrators in minority communities say they don't need to see the certification test scores to know that the system favors wealthy schools.

Inner-city and rural schools have long realized that they get more first-year teachers, more uncertified teachers and more teachers who aren't experts in their subject.

The shortage of top-quality teachers in poor schools is so prevalent that principals at those schools grudgingly accept it as a part of their job.

"I think most of us know it through our own experience and background," said Robert Lemons, dean of the college of education at Florida A&M University. "I think it's so obvious that we probably have people who think you don't need to research that."

Some education experts say that such attitudes undermine any chance of truly reforming public education because they ignore the root problem in America's system of education -- making sure children from all socio-economic backgrounds get an equal education.

The instructional inequity is particularly alarming in a state as racially diverse as Florida. In the fall of 2003, Florida became one of only seven states where the majority of its student population belong to minority groups.

A growing percentage of Florida's young people are finding themselves in schools that say they have a hard time hiring good teachers. If changes aren't made, more and more of the state's future work force will be educated in schools where teachers struggle with English and math.

That trend threatens to undermine education reforms that were designed, according to Gov. Jeb Bush, to close the achievement gap between white students and minority students.

Although Florida appears to be making some headway in closing the gap in student test scores, education experts warn that the only way to ensure poor and minority students get a top-notch education is to give them top-notch teachers.

"The single most important factor is the quality of teacher you have," Hirsch said. "In the end, it's that dynamic between the teacher and the kid."

Teachers' frustration

Through dozens of interviews with educators across the state, the Herald-Tribune found teachers who were frustrated with their peers. Many teachers had a horror story about someone down the hall whose teaching skills or enthusiasm for the job were sub-par.

But educators often are more frustrated with state officials who, in an era of increased accountability, have done little to weed out problem teachers and even less to transform teaching into a profession people want to pursue.

While Florida has pumped millions into teacher recruiting efforts, much of the money has gone to job fairs and marketing efforts that tout Florida's weather, lifestyle and theme parks.

Critics say marketing Florida's sun-and-fun lifestyle ignores the real problems: low salaries, a lack of support for struggling teachers and the need for tougher standards.

Principals in inner-city and rural schools complain that they are forced to hire novice teachers who don't have the experience or training to deal with impoverished children. Year after year, principals watch those teachers buckle under the pressure and leave the profession or flee to a school in the suburbs.

Yet the state has no programs to reward talented teachers for transferring to a poor school or to entice teachers at poor schools to stay.

The public school system does just the opposite. Teachers who transfer to wealthy schools have a better chance to get a salary bonus based on their students' performance on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

Just in the past few years, Florida has fallen from 18th to 21st in the nation for starting teacher pay, according to the American Federation of Teachers.

The Teaching Commission, a bipartisan group dedicated to publicizing the need for quality teachers, issued a warning earlier this year.

"We will not continue to lead if we persist in viewing teaching -- the profession that makes all other professions possible -- as a second-rate occupation," the commission wrote in its report. "Nothing is more important than ensuring that we attract and retain the best teachers in our public schools."

The urgency could be even greater in Florida, where the pressure to find new teachers is about to hit a historic high. The state is embarking on a hiring binge following the passage of a constitutional amendment that requires schools to reduce class sizes across the board.

Over the next decade, nearly 200,000 new teachers will have to be hired to keep up with growth and meet the requirements of the amendment that voters approved in 2002.

Most of those teachers won't be needed in wealthy suburban schools, where shortages are less of an issue. They'll be needed in high minority schools and poor schools, where finding enough teachers already borders on the impossible.

State Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, said if Florida doesn't address these problems, the repercussions will be apparent in the next decade.

"The only thing it's doing is destroying the lives and futures of Florida's children," she said. "Florida is going to suffer. The economy is going to suffer. Our tax base is going to suffer."

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