THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA CONTINUES…The New York State Board of Regents just caved to the minority of people who couldn’t pass a literacy exam. Cries of racism caused the regents to hit the skids on the literacy exam for prospective teachers. This is outrageous and needs to be put back in place. Perhaps the prospective teachers need to study up to pass the test just like the students do.

The state Board of Regents voted Monday to scrap a literacy exam for prospective teachers, in a move some critics blasted as a damaging dilution of classroom standards.

Part of a package of certification tests introduced in the 2013-2014 academic year, the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) was intended to ensure strong language skills among aspiring instructors across the state.

But critics soon began to clamor for its abolition after minority test-takers passed at far lower rates than their white peers.

The pool of eligible teaching candidates plunged by 20 percent in the exam’s first year, and many blamed the test for inordinately disqualifying black and Latino applicants.

They also argued that testing the literacy of candidates who already had college degrees was redundant and unnecessary.

But critics slammed the test’s erasure Monday, arguing that the exam helped ensure that city kids were being addressed by instructors with basic language ability.

Via: NYP

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