North Carolina education officials are recommending that the state end a testing requirement for college students who want to become teachers.
Typically, for a college sophomore to be admitted into a program at their university to complete a degree in education, they have to first pass a test called the Praxis Core that’s designed to test math, reading and writing skills.
That testing requirement was waived in 2020 due to the pandemic – and that year, about a thousand more students enrolled in teaching programs across the state, compared to years when the test was required.
“What you see is an uptick of 35% [in statewide enrollment in teaching colleges],” said Randy Penfield, Dean of UNC-Greensboro’s College of Education.
The next year, the Praxis Core test was once again required, and statewide enrollment at teaching colleges dropped. Enrollment in education programs has continued to decline since then, contributing to an on-going teacher shortage. That's raised questions about whether the Praxis Core test is a barrier to recruiting and training more teachers.
The State Board of Education voted 9-3 last week to recommend that state lawmakers end the requirement. Board members and a committee who studied the issue cited these reasons:
- Passing the Praxis Core was not associated with several other measures of teacher effectiveness, including completing a degree; passing pedagogy licensing exams; and being rated as “effective” based on supervisor evaluations and student test scores.
- African-American students have lower pass rates on the Praxis Core than their peers and this affects the diversity of the teacher pipeline.
- Other states are trending away from requiring this standardized test for admission into teaching colleges.
- Not all North Carolina public school teachers today are required to take the exam– including teachers at charter schools and those who enter teaching through alternative pathways.
In fact, most beginning teachers today take alternative pathways to licensure that don’t require a bachelor’s degree in education. Teachers who pursue these pathways tend to be career-changers who have a degree in their subject area. As former North Carolina Teacher of the Year Leah Carper pointed out, that means many teachers today never had to take this exam.
“There is absolutely no correlation between an excellent educator and someone who has passed this test, because half of our educators in North Carolina have never even looked at that test,” Carper argued at the June State Board of Education meeting.
Carper noted that the 2023 North Carolina Teacher of the Year Kim Jones didn’t take the Praxis Core because she has a bachelor's degree in English — which is the subject Jones teaches — rather than in education.
But state board member Olivia Oxendine questioned how the public can trust that teachers are prepared to teach if the state lowers its standards.
“It just bothers me to know that a little bit at a time, there seems to be not just in this state, but maybe across the nation, a chipping away of high standards,” Oxendine said before voting on the issue.
Oxendine, State Treasurer Dale Folwell, and Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson voted against the recommendation to end the testing requirement.
