As Indiana schools face a teacher shortage, many would-be teachers are failing state exams required for their teaching license, reports WTHR Indianapolis.
The CORE teacher assessment tests, administered by Pearson Education, replaced the Praxis II teacher exams three years ago.
During the 2015-2016 academic year, only 36% of prospective English teachers passed the CORE middle school English language arts exam. A dismal 32% of would-be Indiana math teachers passed the CORE middle school math test. And only 18% of aspiring science teachers passed the CORE middle school science exam. Other CORE exams – including history, social studies, reading, economics and geography – all show first-time pass rates of less than 50%, according to state testing data obtained by WTHR.
Maggie Comer, a summa cum laude honor graduate of University of Southern Indiana, majored in history and minored in political science and secondary education. She failed the historical perspectives exam four times.
Check out the Study Guide and you’ll see why. I think I know the correct answer to the first question (B), but isn’t analyzing multiple causes a useful skill for any historical research?
Bombarded with complaints about the exams, the Indiana Department of Education and Pearson Education
changed many of the tests, “either adding more time for questions to be completed or changing the number of correct answers required for a passing grade,” reports WTHR. “Scores improved in some of the content areas. But in other areas, scores remained woefully low and, in some cases, they dropped even further.”