Praxis Prattle

November 4, 2002: I took the Praxis II Social Studies: Content Knowledge test yesterday. The Praxis II series is a set of specialized subject tests used by various states as a prerequisite to teaching licensure; you may recall hearing a number of scandalous reports about the high rates of failure by teachers in some states when they first started using these. Now I can say with some confidence that the alarm caused by such failures is probably not warranted; teachers may all too frequently be incompetent, but their reasons for incompetence will not be indicated by these tests, since they are, in my opinion, measuring the wrong things -- or at best are measuring some of the right things in a very roundabout matter.

While I felt I probably performed well enough to meet state requirements, I was surprised to find how specific the questions were. The test lived up to it’s “Content Knowledge” subtitle, all right, for while it managed to stay above the inanity of requesting the specific dates of minor events throughout history, it was not by a very large margin. There was no essay component or any obvious attempt to see if I could draw any conclusions about broader trends in history or evaluate the relevance of a specific event. In short, a simple computer program with Google access could have passed the test, which should cause any rational person to wonder whether we should replace all social studies teachers with internet terminals.

If, in the weeks prior to the test, I had carefully read an AP-level World History textbook, an AP-level US History textbook history, and smaller books on introductory economics, sociology, and geography, I would have no doubt answered nearly all of the questions correctly – something that might have been nice know ahead of time. But this is missing the point. At various times throughout my life I have no doubt read material covering all of the exact information that was tested on. But much of this data probably only stuck in my head for a few weeks or months. As someone who has a pretty good memory and actually likes history, I must ask myself how useful these facts really are if they were forgotten so easily.

To recap, knowing all of the information on the test would have indicated one or more of the following:

1) I knew history to such a high degree that there could be no question of my knowing the more general material that I would actually be expected to teach in a secondary school.

2) I had very recently read the complete set of books mentioned in the above paragraph.

3) I was a already a veteran teacher: the crusty kind who remembers the specific details because he always makes his students memorize them. (The students, of course, soon suppress all memory of the experience.)

4) I was a simple computer program with access to Google.

Both (1) and (2) would at least suggest that I really liked history or was serious enough about it to remember all of those details and cough up the $105.00 to take the test, even if I considered it an ultimately pointless hoop I was jumping through merely to prove my sincerity. So perhaps the test has some value as a possible indicator of a committed teacher; one that might be used as part of a more complete evaluation scheme, but should probably not stand as a pass-or-die requirement to teach.