Number of times taking certification tests=quality as a teacher?

[ETA: THIS IS NOT DIRECTED AT ANY PARTICULAR PERSON.]

These kinds of tests are passable if you study. Certainly by someone that wants to be a teacher.

I wonder if the problem is overconfidence or lack of preparation.

 

I took 'em, passed, and never looked back.

Personally, I couldn't care less how many times it took someone to pass their CSET, CBEST, or RICA (those tests are all specific to California). I know some high quality teachers who said that things such as nervousness or too much time spent on essay questions inhibited them from passing on their first tries.

 

I took probably 6 or 7 Praxis tests and passed each one on the first try with very high scores.
At the time I took them, I was a full-time college student devoting all my time to study and review. I'm a good test-taker.
I have about a year of teaching experience as a student teacher and a sub. I love what I do but I know I am a total newbie.

A friend of mine had to retake some of her Praxis tests several times.
She's a full-time teacher, mom, and student. It's been years since she last took a math class, and as an elementary teacher, doesn't use math beyond 5th grade regularly. She had a hard time testing because of anxiety.
She has many years of classroom experience and is well-liked by students, teachers, and parents. She loved working with her students in a support position so much that she decided to get her teaching degree.

Which of us is the better teacher?

 

Of course it does as well as lawyer forums.... I know you have heard of lawyers taking the bar exam several times before passing.

 

Ok, but there's GOT to a difference between the Bar exam and the Praxis I.

 

no no no no, I am talking about lawyers and medical students having to retake the GENERAL KNOWLEDGE test several times.

This happens all the time for teachers, does it happen to lawyers and medical students as well?

 

There is no general knowledge test for law. The exam for licensure is the bar exam.

 

The exam for law that best corresponds to basic-skills tests like Praxis I or CBEST or FTCE General Knowledge (which is, in my view, misnamed) is the LSAT, actually.

 

but isn't the LSAT what you need to take to enter law school????? I thought we were talking about test for teacher certifications and/or endorsements in content area.......the exam lawyers take AFTER finishing law school in order to get their license to practice many seem to take over again before passing.

ETA: A bar examination is a test intended to determine whether a candidate is qualified to practice law in a given jurisdiction.

 

OK, let me pose the question differently.

Do we think that law and medical students would be having to retake the CBEST if it was required for them?

CBEST is California's general knowledge test.

 

I took the LSAT. I did pretty well on it, but decided law school was debt I was not willing to take on. Maybe someday.

But the LSAT is nothing like the GK or the PRAXIS I (I've taken both.) It is a rigorous test designed to measure college-level material, and critical thinking skills. The GK and PRAXIS I were material that topped out at 8th grade level, maybe sophomore level of high school at the highest.

Also, LSAT is a normed test, not a criterion test, so the scores are not useful for competency, as it's more like the ACT or SAT.

 

vateacher, basic-skills tests have also been under discussion: that's fairly likely to be what Pashtun meant, a post or two ago, by distinguishing between needing to retake a Bar exam and needing to "retake the GENERAL KNOWLEDGE test several times".

A subject-matter test isn't intended to determine, all by itself, whether a candidate is qualified to teach (except possibly for one of Florida's versions of ACP). Thus a number of states have, and more are considering, some version of TPA (Teaching Performance Assessment) for teacher candidates as they finish up their licensure program.

 

(Pashtun, our posts crossed.)

 

Do you know how many tries it takes to pass the NCLEX, Bar Exam and USMLE steps?


So that mean you're getting chitty nursing, legal and medical care?

 

I'd like to go on record and say that the TPAs kinda suck...they are long and ridiculous....recently passed all four..so so time consuming

 

This is just my experience with California's test, but I would be very worried about a teacher who had trouble passing the CBEST unless they had real issues/disabilities with taking tests. That test is the most basic of basic knowledge. Elementary level I'd even wager.

The CSETs are harder, and I can understand having trouble with those if you don't study, but a teacher should be able to put forth an effort into studying for these tests as their job is on the line.

I probably wouldn't have passed anything on weather or electricity if I hadn't studied. (I simply never learned it, and I never had to--though now I am very practiced in electricity; weather not-so-much.) And I definitely had to study for the specialized biology test, even though my major was biology. It asked very difficult essay questions that required a very broad understanding of biology and chemistry.

 

This is slightly off-topic, but does a really high score on one of these tests help you in any way? It seems like in education, beating the cut-off score by 1 point or by 3 standard deviations counts the same.

By contrast, a high LSAT score can make a big difference in your future.

 

Native_SC, I think Praxis still issues some sort of recognition of really high scores. Pearson tests don't, to my knowledge, and I know of one state in which all passing scores are reported just as PASSED.

 

The LSAT is very similar to other general knowledge tests like the SAT or GRE. I took the LSAT years ago and I thought it very closely resembled the GRE's verbal and logic sections. I'm gonna just outright brag here and reveal that I scored in the 99th percentile on the LSAT. I tend to ace verbal and logic tests, but am much more mediocre when it comes to math.

 

No No No

The LSAT contains zero law questions. I promise.

It is an aptitude test, period. Nothing about the law.

 

True: a test of aptitude/skills for law school, which is a somewhat different matter than aptitude to practice law. It's considerably more challenging than a teacher basic-skills test - a highly intelligent man I know described LSAT to me as "a mind-buster", except that his phrasing was much more piquant - but it remains the case that LSAT measures ability to DO law to about the same extent as basic-skills tests measure ability to DO teaching.