New York evidently okay with Illiterate Teachers

So-called education "experts" in New York are planning to get rid of the literacy test they used for evaluating potential public school teachers because it's too hard for them to pass. 

They claim too many non-white individuals (those people without white privilege) fail the test. The problem is that while it may strengthen the literacy of kids in school, it weakens diversity within the profession. In other words, it's more important to have a racial diversity of teachers than it is to have teachers who are literate.

The difficult test in question is designed to measure reading and writing skills, which the layperson not well-versed in what makes a good teacher, often believes is more important than academic skills. In fact, that silly test is known as the Academic Literacy Skills Test,  but don't ask the newly hired teachers next year how to spell it--it's not their job. 

Their job is to be people of diversity. 

Professor of Education at Pace University, Leslie Soodak, served on the task force that made the recommendation. In fact, diversity seems to be her main goal in education of you read her research--Google her name. She says "We want high standards, without a doubt. Not every given test is going to get us there."

No kidding.

The literacy test was introduced in the 2013 - 2014 school year to raise the quality of teaching in New York and weed out the inferior students of education.

Proponents of the reform criticized the quality of students trying to become teachers. In a 2016 National Council on Teacher Quality study, it was found that 44 percent of teacher preparation programs reviewed, accepted people from the bottom half of their high school class.

But the test caused concern when only 46 percent of Hispanic test takers and 41 percent of black test takers were able to pass it on the first attempt, while white students passed it at 64 percent on their first attempt. Naturally, liberals cried "Racism!"

But a federal ruling in 2015 concluded the test was not discriminatory. Still, the liberal education community suggested the test has discrepancies between white people and the minorities.

"Having a white workforce really doesn't match our student body anymore," Soodak lamented, suggesting that she would be willing to undergo a heart transplant from a heart surgeon who passed Surgery 101 on the second try. Or else she doesn't think reading and writing are all that important.

Kate Walsh, president of National Council on Teacher Quality, (a term that is slowly becoming an American oxymoron) supports the literacy test. She claims that minorities tend to score less due to factors such as poverty and the "legacy of racism."

And all along you thought it was poverty that turned out terrorists.

The truth is, minorities score lower in part due to lowered expectations of them by their parents and teachers, and the lack of a stable home environment, in many cases.

According to Walsh, New York became "light years ahead of other states" because of this test, "when it comes to the teacher certification regimen."


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