Aspiring elementary teachers: over 50% fail their licensing test on their first attempt, 25% never earn a passing score

Complete report 

 

Each year a significant number of aspiring elementary teachers, having successfully completed their formal preparation, are still unable to become licensed professionals. That’s because an alarming number of candidates fail their licensing tests, far surpassing the failure rate for other professions’ entry tests, bar exams, and boards. The fact that more candidates fail than pass on their first attempt, and a quarter are never able to earn a passing score, raises serious concerns—especially regarding the effect this failure has on diversity goals. While many factors going back to candidates’ earliest years of education may explain this phenomenon, higher education institutions are in the best position to alter this untenable outcome.

 

The licensing tests that slam the brakes on so many elementary teacher candidates’ careers assess subject knowledge in English, science, mathematics, and social studies—the spine of elementary curricula. Two companies, ETS and Pearson, supply these tests to states, with a current inventory of 22 different tests available. These tests vary in rigor and design, but generally share similar content and represent the widely held consensus by states and school districts for what elementary teachers need to know.

Historically, these tests have posed a greater challenge for candidates of color. Even allowing for costly and demoralizing retakes, a higher proportion of black and Hispanic candidates fail the most widely used content test (the focus of this report) than white candidates. 

Among black candidates, 62 percent on average do not qualify for a standard license because they do not pass this test, and among Hispanic candidates, 43 percent do not pass. 

These results are at the forefront of policy discussions because of the renewed imperative to increase diversity in the teaching profession. In fact, the need to build a teaching workforce that reflects the nation’s diverse student body has fed a growing movement to eliminate licensing tests altogether, removing one potential barrier to bringing more teachers of color (and more teachers, period) to schools. This call is unprecedented, as the need for teachers to demonstrate by some valid means that they know their subject matter has rarely been a subject of debate.