Toward Increasing Teacher Diversity

Since 2006, the National Education Association (NEA) and Educational Testing Service (ETS) have been working collaboratively to support teacher candidates in preparing for "The Praxis Series"[TM] of teacher licensure assessments, currently used in 41 states and territories. Their focus has been particularly targeted to assisting minority candidates. This work is foundational to the mission of both organizations. As they embarked upon this work, they realized that they needed stronger research into specific areas of performance gaps on teacher assessments between minority and nonminority candidates. They then jointly conducted research into this issue. The research involved both statistical analyses of "Praxis"[TM] data and field research, collecting information from faculty and candidates. The purpose of this research was to form a solid foundation of understanding to inform their efforts to support candidates. In this report, the author and her colleagues share the findings of that research, as well as a summary of their efforts, to date, to support teacher candidates. In the report, they focus on the disparate performance between minority and nonminority teacher candidates on licensure tests. The data show that minority teacher candidates score lower on average on their licensure tests. The data also show that minority teacher candidates take licensure tests later in their academic and professional careers, and that the delay correlates with lower test scores and passing rates. (Contains 8 tables, 2 figures and 11 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Brooke Whiting, Sarah Ferguson, Segun Eubanks, Jonathan Steinberg, Linda Scatton and Katherine Bassett.].