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For Immediate Release
Thursday, July 23, 1998
Contact:Jan O'Keefe Feldman

Results of April Teacher Test for Each Higher Education Institution Are Released

Malden - State Commissioner of Education David P. Driscoll today released the results of the April 4 Massachusetts Teacher tests showing the pass and fail rates for prospective teachers by the institution they attended. The 1795 prospective teachers who took tests in April in communication and literacy and in various subjects entered on their registration sheets information concerning the 56 colleges and universities they attended. That data was then verified by the institutions; 54 checked the data and made corrections where necessary. Because in some cases there is a very small sample of students taking specific subject tests and a small sample of graduates from some of the institutions, results need to be interpreted carefully. Many schools have fewer than ten students who took parts of the test, so making a broad statistical conclusion in those cases is not sound. "These are the numbers from the April tests. Originally, we were scheduled to have these results in mid-August. I give credit to our test company, National Evaluation Systems, for working closely with Alan Safran, the Department's Chief of Staff, who persisted in ensuring that results for the April test would be available sooner. The data is solid. "I urge the institutions of higher education to accept the data for what it is -- which is a snapshot of performance on one round of testing -- and now analyze it and use it to strengthen areas of need," Driscoll noted. "I am also committed to the fact that we will have data for the July 11 second round, by institution and with other sub-categories and cross-tabulations, available no later than August 15. We will have test scores available no later than August 15 for prospective teachers as well," he added. "What I am interested in now is focusing the attention of state policymakers on the larger context. We face an impending teacher shortage. We must enhance the nobility of the profession. We must attract a diverse pool of highly qualified people to teaching, retain them, train them, mentor them, and develop them into masters. I am developing a draft framework for strengthening our abilities in each of these areas, and will have a proposal to announce very soon. The Board of Education has asked me to present a comprehensive initiative at our September 15 meeting." View the institutional score report



Last Updated: July 23, 1998



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