PRAXIS Exams
House Bills Dwight Evans; 1231, 1232. 1233
House Education Committee:
Status of Minority Teachers in PA
Ladies and gentleman. Thank you for inviting us here to speak to you regarding the status of minority teachers and their needs in the state of PA. For the past five years, we have traveled and assessed the state to determine the status of educational needs expending my own personal monetary funds. We are not recipients of any state, Federal, local, matching, business, foundation or community funding. Therefore, the testimony I am about to impart is strictly non-partisan and represents the voices of those who are your non-voting constituents- the children of Pennsylvania.
Points to cover
1) Urge you to strongly consider Rep. Dwight Evans’ bills to encourage minority teachers.
2) Investigate why there are no African American, Hispanic or female department chairs at the Department of Education in Harrisburg yet this institution creates the policies that affect millions of minority students in Pennsylvania
3) Investigate why so many minority students after four to five years of teacher training cannot pass the Praxis exam and A) determine if the Praxis is culturally biased B) create a curriculum to compensate for student deficiencies C) institute another exam instead or D) find other alternatives to certify teachers.
The opinion presented here today is reflected from an individual, not as an academic professor, who has lived for three years undercover in the ghettos of Philadelphia as a minority white, taught in a school in center city Philadelphia as well as Germantown, and who has also lived on Native American reservations, with Eastern Indians and Asian families. No Caucasian can ever know what it feels like to be in a minority culture, work your way up from the ghettos and poverty, secure scholarships to college only to have the system deflate will, passion and self-esteem by implementing road blocks through culturally biased curriculum and testing.
To begin with valuable statistics, the American classroom is dramatically altered from the 1950’s. As you can see from Appendix A, according to the US Department of Education and the Bureau of Statistics, in the 1950’s the majority of students were white, tomorrow they are Asian, Hispanic and African American. Caucasian is the minority. And we are failing to meet these ever changing needs in the classrooms. In Appendix B and C the differences in family structure, households and psychological ramifications diverges from the 1950. Clearly, the classroom demographics have dramatically altered yet we are still teaching teachers in the methodology from 100 years ago.
As these gentlemen will attest, there are more African males in PA in prison than in institutions of higher learning. There is a 58% dropout rate of Hispanic males. Yet, when I attempt to exonerate Steven here before the City Council of Philadelphia as a model for youth, we were chastised and demoralized. Steve’s mother when he was a baby pushed him along on a skateboard until he was old enough to push it himself. Steven became the first African American youth to be an International Skateboard Champion. He resides in Philadelphia. At 17, he drove a Mercedes, not because he was gun running or distributing drugs but because he worked and worked day and night to become an expert. This young man should be held as a model for African American youths as inspiration away from crime, gangs and violence.
The Valley Gang is the largest gang in Philadelphia and its members have now turned from crime and violence to assisting youths to stay away from these modes of behavior. Mr Theatre lives on a paupers salary, and has spent the past 25 years keeping teens off of the streets through theatre and drama. These two gentleman I met serving time in PA prisons (and can give you first hand research on the inner working of the prison system) and are attempting to steer youths away from crime and violence. Haitian here came from Haiti and with no money, turned to crime to earn an income. This young man attended NYU and while traveling in foreign countries, learned crime. None of these gentleman would we white Anglo Saxon Caucasian want teaching our white youths in the classrooms. Yet, they are the very people who turn the lives of youths around everyday, on the streets where it counts. None of these people can pass a Praxis exam.
Minority students who somehow struggle to get out of poverty and the ghetto and win their way to institutions of higher learning through numerous obstacles, are further blocked by, in my opinion, culturally biased Praxis exams. After four years of teacher raining, most African American and minority youths fail the exam. To further their humiliation, if they score less than 70%, their results are broadcast throughout the state. As a dyslexic, it took me three times to pass my SAT’s. If my grade had been public domain, I guarantee you, I would have never attempted to repeat it again. Yet, we expect that after humiliating these students for our culturally biased curriculum and exams, that somehow they should brush themselves off time and time again, and keep on trying. Would you have the courage after so many hurtles and obstacles were placed in your path? We all agree that some measurement must be used as a yardstick to determine proficiency, but it is about time we begin to look at what that measurement tool must be.
In addition, top minority students who manage to pass the Praxis exam and receive certification from the all white certification committee, are courted by suburban school districts with low crime rates, better school environments and higher salaries. Urban districts cannot compete with the incentives suburban districts have to offer. And why to mostly Caucasian districts want minority students as teachers? It is assumed by principals and school boards that IF any violence or crime occurs, minority teachers will have the understanding to alleviate the problems and or prevent them. It is a win-win for everyone except urban districts. Rep. Evans bill to create scholarships for minority students in return for having them contract to work in urban settings for five years is drastically needed.
Anglo Saxon Caucasians do not have the same mental mindset, cultural conditioning or understanding to teach diverse cultures, no matter how hard they try. Dr. Karl Pribram of Stanford University has conducted studies on differences of minority mothers to Caucasian mothers in their relationship with their children. In one example alone, a white mother communicating with her one year old was describing a rock. She asked the child, “What’s this?” However, in the same example, the response of the African American mother was, “How does this feel?” (Study Attached in Appendix D). Clearly, the perspective on this one incident alone demonstrates the cultural differences that exist from early stages of development in children that are diminished, demeaned and demoralized in Pennsylvania classrooms.
The governor’s answer has been to privatize and publicly chastise 12 school districts in the state. I would like to encourage you to view the logs of members of the Department of Education in Harrisburg that demonstrate how many times they have observed in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Reading, Chester Upland or Pittsburgh School District classrooms before their public flogging. Yet, the day after the Empowerment Bill was passed, representatives of the Governor’s office were at Chester Upland School District informing them about the moves to privatize. Where was the Department of Education for the years the school districts were struggling and asking for assistance? How many teams were deployed from the Department of Education to help? None.
For the most part, Charter schools are a privilege on the part of faculty and students rather than a right. As wonderful as this laboratory setting may seem, in Pennsylvania it has had little success in changing the status quo of the school district it inhabits. Charter Schools like the Harambee Institute of Science and Technology in Philadelphia, are giving students an identity, a community, nurturing and competence, the essentials lacking in most urban districts. From the very beginning, this charter concept has been labeled as a threat to public education by some and adds to the difficulties of dwindling finances from state and Federal coffers. Charter schools are considered ‘evil’ by schools districts because they supposedly take away the financial base of the district. For every child that attends a Charter school, the jurisdictional public school district must pay that Charter school a per-pupil amount as equated by the tax base. For some school districts that could be anywhere from $6,000 per year to $8,000 per year per student. In Pennsylvania, children who attend Charter Schools, for the most part, cannot use any public school resources. This includes participating in after school programs, sports clubs or summer school. This is in direct violation of the purpose behind Charter Schools which was meant to enhance the district not detract from it. The problem of novelty for the human condition always engenders fear- especially fears of loss. So charter school have been plagued in Pennsylvania with the assumed fear of loss of jobs, funding and collapse. Unfortunately, districts do not see Charters as a means out of the dilemma of declining student performance.
In addition, the combination of vouchers and Charter schools has posed an impending peril for school districts. In a hearing a few weeks ago, Rod Hartle of Clarion School District in the western agricultural portion of the state which has a per pupil ratio of $6,000 per child, found a bill in mid October for 7 students who are attending Charter schools on line. In a rural schools district, which has an agricultural base and few students, $42,000 is a lot of money to lose for one year. The legislators of PA are deliberating about the dilemma.
The mayor of Philadelphia this week has exemplified this misperception by declining 23 of the 25 Charter applications. For example, one of the reasons the mayor declined one school application is because in those areas private Catholic schools exist where the children attend school. The private school children would then come to the Charter school, adding to the burden of the school district. These children were not previously enrolled in the public school and the district did not receive reimbursement for them. What you are not told is that the Chinatown area charter has been declined because the public schools there are so deplorable, parents have no other choice but to send their children to the Catholic schools. Imagine the parents in China town for example, who are Buddhists or Hindu’s having to send their children to Catholic school because it is the only decent school in the area. Yet, in many states, charter schools have been the redeeming quality for faltering, unmanageable public schools.
The voucher or privatization of schools like Chester Upland, which has been taken over by the governor through the Empowerment Act of 2000, is now becoming a private school. This means that the parents in that area will receive a stipend from the state to attend the private school of their choice In Chester; there is only one public school and two charter schools. If the tax base in Chester is $4,000 per pupil because of the economic base then that is all parents will receive in reimbursements. However, the private school has no ceiling over what it charges for tuition because it is a private enterprise. So, the private school charges $6,000 per pupil. Where do poor parents find the resources to pay for their child’s education? Further, as a private school, it has the digression to permit or eject students based on behavior, grades or any other standard it chooses. It can also raise tuition year after year without any obligation to students with vouchers. These schools tend to become elitist and poor children are barred from attending for one reason or another. These are the untold secrets with vouchers. Just because the state allots certain amounts of money per pupil does not mean that it will cover the yearly tuition and book fees.
A prime example is the Edison project, private schools across the nation established by a group of wealthy businessmen who assumed that operating a school was no different than operating a good business. Confident in their philosophy, it is listed on the stock exchange. Seeking to cure the ills of education, the schools were internally organized with methodology that reflected the deficiencies Americans considered critical to restore order- such as under paid professionals, lack of ownership by major players, longer school year to complete subject matter. Children have a longer day and school year and wear uniforms. Teachers are paid higher salaries and receive stock in the company. Company executives designed the curriculum. In a television interview, owner Chris Whittle, stated that they have exactly the same problems as every school and recently they have been collaborating with local pubic schools to ‘think tank’ the problems away. In addition, Chris must constantly focus on the bottom line- his stockholders, whose interest is profits. Is this a cure for the educational dilemma? Do profit margins and a child’s welfare go hand-in-hand? If vouchers were the answer, then one state in the US that has had vouchers for thirty years would be number one in the nation in education. Do you know what state that is? My point exactly.
Attila the Hun in his great strategy of war always found the weakest link in the opponents battle strategy and struck that weak link repeatedly until they fell. Distance Learning has managed to capitalize on weaknesses of the educational infrastructure and come in through the back door. What is going to occur in Pennsylvania is that the on-line schools will be attracting more and more of bright and wealthy children and the public schools will be left with the poor minorities. It is time to see things differently.
1) The problem is not going to go away but get worse unless something is done to alter the teacher training programs, encourage minority teachers and redesign K-12 curriculum. Let me reiterate my opening statement; Urge you to vote for Rep. Dwight Evans bills to encourage minority teachers.
2) Investigate why there are no African American, Hispanic or female department chairs at the Department of Education in Harrisburg.
3) Investigate why so many minority students after four to five years of teacher training cannot pass the Praxis exam and A) determine if the Praxis is culturally biased B) create a curriculum to compensate for student deficiencies C) institute another exam instead D) find other alternatives.