I'm glad to see Education Commissioner Deborah Gist is going to move forward with her decision to raise teacher standards.  The increase in standards was supposed to happen next year, but instead, Gist will phase the changes in over two years.  Rhode Island currently has one of the lowest cut-offs for test scores in the country, right there with Mississippi and Guam.  Once the standards are raised, they will be among the highest in the country.  This should be a source of pride, but instead, it has been criticized.

     At Rhode Island College, 30% of students typically fail Praxis 1.  Once the cut-off is raised, the failure rate will rise to 54%.  I see this as a way, of ensuring that only the best students are able to teach, but those who prepare teachers seem to disagree:

Increasing scores to 179 in a single year “would have decimated us,” he said. David Byrd, director of URI’s School of Education, said he is comfortable with boosting the cut score requirement. URI already requires higher scores than the state. But Byrd said he is not convinced that it is necessary to make the scores the highest in the nation.

“Being in the range of 173 to 176, I think gives you confidence in the overall skill level of the teacher, but above that level, it no longer predicts the quality of the teacher,” Byrd said. “These are tests that evaluate your ability to do math, not to teach math.”

     Byrd is correct in stating that a high score on the Praxis doesn't measure teaching ability, but it's rather foolish to minimize the importance of having the intellectual capacity to excel in your field.  Think about this: With the new standards, RIC's failure rate will almost double.  This means that over the years, there are many Rhode Island teachers who wouldn't have been allowed to teach in other states.  By raising these standards, we will raise the quality of Rhode Island's teachers.