PRAXIS -- Test for Teacher Certification

The purpose of this message is to alert readers to an alarming development.

Yesterday morning I took the PRAXIS test for elementary school teachers. The school of education where I work is concerned about our pass rate and they have been urging and paying for faculty to take the test.

Thirty-eight states require a passing score on one or more of the 147 PRAXIS subject area tests. The other 12 states use either within state tests or contract with NES to develop tests tailored to their state. These tests are certainly high stakes for the teacher candidates because failure can mean they have wasted a lot of time in a school of education and now will be denied a teaching certificate.

The stakes have been enormously enhanced through a section added to the higher education authorization bill (Title 2, Section 207) passed by congress two years ago . There has not been much written about this law, but you can be sure it is very much in the mind of deans of education schools. It requires the yearly publication of pass rates on these tests in institutional reports. This means that education schools will be rank-ordered in the media according to their pass-rates. In addition, there is a requirement that any school that fails to have at least 70 percent of its graduates pass whatever teacher certification test their state requires, risks losing all federal funding. That means everything from Pell grants to NSF grants to an engineering schools. You can be sure that this has gotten a lot of attention at colleges and universities.

I can't speak for what is happening in the 12 states not using PRAXIS, but what this means is that ETS through this test is now able to exert considerable control over the curriculum of schools of education. Schools have no choice but to teach what ETS says is important. At least on the Elementary Education Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, ETS has made a clear and almost total commitment to progressive education. Reading items are devoted to whole language, language experience, reading writing work shops, etc. They promote a balanced approach to reading, which means that although they believe in whole language they are willing to concede that phonemic awareness is also important. They don't think it should be taught, mind you, just that it is important. Beginning readers will certainly learn it through osmosis or something. Math is completely NCTM based. Science is strictly inquiry-based. The distracters or wrong answers tend to refer to direct instruction practices such as requiring correct spelling, using tests, memorization, etc.

Make no mistake about it. Education in America today is a battle between two cultures: the culture of progressive education and the culture of traditionalists who believe that all students should learn conventional curriculum at a high level. The forces of progressivism dominate teacher education now through the faculties of schools of education and their accreditation through NCATE. Now with this legislation, at least in 38 states, education students must be taught the principles of progressive education and learn to eschew the principles of systematic instruction if they wish to become certified.

George K. Cunningham
University of Louisville