More on the soft bigotry of low expectations of the left.
New York to eliminate literacy test for teachers in order to be more diverse
Image Source: Getty Images A New York literacy test designed to weed out unqualified teachers, called the Academic Literacy Skills Test, is to be done away with by the New York State Board of Regents as suggested by a task force according to The Associated P ress.
Test meant to raise teacher standards latest victim of diversity religion, minority students will suffer most.
New York State has been trying to raise teacher standards in order to solve the problem of low graduation and literacy rates in minority school populations.
That makes sense – how can an academically unqualified teacher be expected to help raise academic success among students. These increased standards were meant to help minority students by ensuring that qualified teachers were not limited to wealthier districts.
One of the key components of the push for higher teacher qualifications was a literacy test. The test is just one of several tests prospective teachers need to pass. That literacy test survived a court challenge in 2015. A federal judge found that the test, unlike prior tests, was not discriminatory:
… Judge Wood ruled that the state and Pearson, the testing company that helped devise the exam, had done a proper job of making sure that the “content of the ALST is representative of the content of a New York State public-school teacher’s job.”
Yet that has not stopped claims that the test is racist based entirely on the tests results, which Black and Hispanic prospective teachers passed as lower rates than whites.
Education reformers believe that tests like New York’s Academic Literacy Skills Test can weed out potentially lousy teachers.
The tests, however, came under intense scrutiny for their alleged racial bias, after just 46 percent of Hispanic test-takers and 41 percent of black test-takers passed it on the first try, compared with 64 percent of white candidates.
Plus, critics said, the test’s $131 price tag is too steep.
The Test Design summary describes the components, with the key components reading and writing.
So the NY State Regents, the government body that controls public education in NY State, has voted to scrap the test.
Read the rest over at Legal Insurrection.