Teacher tests: 'Unfair, financially crippling'

Eight months after graduating from SUNY Brockport with a degree in education and $80,000 in student loan debt, Robert Fatone's dream of becoming a certified teacher is on hold because of new state exams.

Fatone and his fellow 2014 graduates are the first to take the state's more rigorous certification tests, and they're not doing particularly well. The 2014 results released in November show a dramatic drop — more than 20 percent — in the number of candidates being certified.

Critics say the state Education Department's failure to provide study materials in a timely manner doomed many new teaching candidates. Without the materials, colleges were unable to prepare them for the tougher exams. Some say those students should be allowed to take the old tests.

Lohud chart: 2014 teacher certification exam passing rates

Lohud chart: Passing rates by school

"It's unsettling," said Fatone, a 2010 Mahopac High School graduate who has passed two of the four new tests, twice failed the third and has not yet taken the fourth.

"We went through college with no study guides, no format, no test prep," he said. "So there was nothing the teachers could do for us."

State officials and education reform advocates say the bar had been set too low and the tougher tests are what's needed to improve not only the quality of K-12 teaching, but also the training of would-be teachers. Colleges can lose their accreditation if less than 80 percent of their students pass the exams.

Without state certification, candidates struggling with the tests — which come with fees of between $100 and $300 each time they're taken — cannot teach in public schools. Would-be teachers say that, by requiring the new tests without providing adequate study materials, the Education Department has added to their debt and stalled their careers.

Scores drop

Locally, colleges have seen a dramatic dip in student performance on certification tests. Only 34 percent of College of New Rochelle students passed the Academic Literacy Skills exam, which measures critical reasoning and analytical skills. Until this year, pass rates were generally above 85 percent.

SUNY colleges saw their pass rates drop to 60 percent and 70 percent from above 90 percent in previous years. The test — which shows a prospective educator's ability to teach Common Core skills, was passed by 68 percent of students statewide.

"The results reveal some remarkably poor preparation the teacher candidates are provided by most programs," said Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality. "For years, teaching has been one of the easiest professions to get into. And teacher ed majors have the highest grades than any other major. That's a huge disconnect because it is a challenging profession."

She said teacher quality is a national problem and colleges should become more selective.

"Research shows that we are increasingly drawing from the bottom third of high school graduates," Walsh said. "We have to make teaching competitive and reward the better performers."

Merryl H. Tisch, chancellor of the state Board of Regents, says the new certification examinations ensure that teaching candidates have the "knowledge, skills and abilities to be effective teachers."

Tisch was responding to a Dec. 18 letter from Jim Malatras, Cuomo's director of state operations, asking how the teacher training and certification process could be made more "rigorous to ensure we recruit the best and brightest" teachers.

"We recently posted institutional pass rates on these exams on the Department's website in an effort to promote transparency and accountability for teacher preparation programs," Tisch wrote. "The pass rates on these exams reflect the increased rigor of the revised certification process and demonstrate that New York is fulfilling the commitment in the 2013‐2014 budget to develop a 'bar exam' for teachers."

Improving the quality of teachers will ultimately benefit students, said former state Education Commissioner John King as he introduced the tests last year.

"New York is raising standards for our students," said King. "To maximize the success of that effort, we also need to raise the standards for the educators who will teach them."

More prep sought

The biggest change faced by 2014 graduates was a new exam — the Teacher Performance Assessment, or "edTPA." The test requires submission of an online portfolio of work, including a video of the candidate teaching. Although colleges and teachers were most nervous about that component of certification, the passing rate on it was 81 percent — the second highest for any of the four certification exams.

"The bigger problem is that the tests came on very suddenly without a lot of preparation... That it is punishable is not fair," said Alfred S. Posamentier, dean of the Mercy College School of Education. "A person's career is hanging in the balance."

While Mercy is re-evaluating admissions criteria, raising standards very high is not the answer, Posamentier said.

"We need to keep a level bar and develop outstanding teachers," he said. "Straight As alone do not a good teacher make. It's someone who can relate to students."

But it was the lack of state-provided preparation materials that most critics point to as the biggest problem.

"Some of the details and materials came in late 2013 and it was quite late to introduce that into the teaching program. It came out just as some students were heading out to take the exams. Many students were caught in that transition," said Peter Brouwer, dean of SUNY Potsdam's School of Education and Professional Studies.

Although the state for years had said it would be rolling out new tests, Brouwer said no information on content or the exam framework was ever provided.

"We had no sense of how students could prepare. After the tests, there was no diagnostic information for the next time," he said.

"We want our students to be successful," he said, adding that the college is now focusing more on writing and offering test-preparation workshops. "As we better understand the test, we are trying to integrate more of that into our curriculum."

Schools react

The College of New Rochelle has been conducting workshops for current students and recent graduates to help with the tests, said Dean Richard Thompson. The college is also looking at the "whole process" — making changes to the curriculum and re-examining admissions criteria.

"We are all in favor of accountability at all levels, but when tests are not familiar, they pose a barrier to students," he said. "Our primary focus is on helping our students be successful."

Kristie Debitetto of Eastchester, a 2014 Hunter College graduate, passed her edTPA on the first try but had to take two other tests twice before passing. She is now a teaching assistant at Quaker Ridge Elementary School in Scarsdale.

As an English major, she says she was baffled when she failed the literary skills test the first time. The test was more about following a set structure than about comprehension or analytical skills, she said.

"I wasn't using the specific structure of writing that they wanted," Debitetto said. "I feel like they are trying to make all teachers fit one mold. Everyone has their own style of writing."

Thomas Pinto, an Eastchester High School alum who graduated from SUNY Brockport in 2014, decided to enroll in the master's program there rather than first seek a teaching position. He said he was worried about failing the certification tests and was waiting to see what the governor would do.

"This was not a test I was prepared for at my school," Pinto said. "I didn't go to college and pay upwards of $100,000 to be self-taught. (The Education Department's) decision has been financially crippling to students, and is totally unfair."

Pinto's father, Tom, said he was infuriated by the state's implementation of the tests and the financial uncertainty it means for thousands of families.

For the state "to throw (teaching) candidates under the bus and put them in career and financial ruin in an attempt to cover up their own errors... is nothing short of despicable," he said. "No one is disputing the need for more rigorous standards. That's a pink elephant raised by the SED and Regents to shamefully deflect attention from the real issue — candidates not being given anything close to a fair chance ... to prepare for such standards or tests."

State Sen. George Latimer, D-Rye, favors a two-year moratorium on the new tests.

"The norm is for certification test content to be part of curricula beginning sophomore year," he wrote to the governor last month. "Since the final handbooks for the new exams were not provided by (the state Education Department) SED until fall of 2013 at the earliest, this was obviously impossible for the graduating class of 2014 and 2015."

As colleges scramble to boost their test results next year, some current students and recent graduates are looking for professions outside of teaching.

Fatone, who works as a part-time gym teacher at a private school, said he was disillusioned that he couldn't apply to a public school to become a full-time teacher until he passed the exams. Retaking the tests multiple times is another financial burden, he said.

"Many of my friends are going right back to school or working jobs unrelated to teaching since they are still trying to pass the tests," he said.

Twitter: @SwapnaVenugopal