Critics' Study Finds Flaws in Teacher Exams

By Ann Bradley

Massachusetts' controversial teacher-licensing tests are unreliable and of such poor validity that they should be discontinued, a study released last week by three critics concludes.

The critics--a testing expert, a professor of early childhood education, and an education writer and consultant--call themselves the Ad Hoc Committee to Test the Teacher Test. They organized last July after massive failure rates on the first few administrations of the exam prompted politicians to denounce the state's education schools and question the quality of their teachers.

( "Test Questions," Dec. 9, 1998.)

Committee members produced the 78-page paper on their own time and called a press conference last week at the State House in Boston...