[JURIST] A federal judge on Friday ruled [opinion, PDF] that a new licensing exam for teachers in the state of New York did not discriminate against minorities. Kimba M. Wood [official profile] of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] said in his ruling that even though minority teachers tended to score lower on the test than other teachers, the test was a proper evaluation of the skills necessary to perform the job. The test, called the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) [official website], was first given in 2013 and tests teachers’ abilities to read and write, as well as their ability to master the Common Core standards for English. Some schools complained that the too many African American and Hispanic teachers were failing the test, as only 41 percent of African Americans and 46 percent of Hispanics passed. However, Judge Wood stated that the test was fair and that the “content of the ALST is representative of the content of a New York State public-school teacher’s job.” The ruling is a departure from Wood’s earlier decisions [NYT report] in which she ruled against exams.

Education related issues have continued to generate controversy in the US in recent years. In July the US Senate passed a bill [JURIST report] to revamp the controversial 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. The bill comes as part of an effort to overhaul the old law and give more flexibility to states in setting their own standards for student and school performance. In June the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled [JURIST report] in favor of tight regulations pointed at the for-profit college industry. The court ruled that the Education Department has the right to demand that schools show that their graduates are financially dependent enough to repay their student loans. In January Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed legislation [JURIST report] that will require all Arizona High School students to take and pass the US Citizenship test before they are able to graduate, beginning in the 2016-17 school year.