Just days before his contract was to be terminated for failing the National Teachers Examination, Jackson, Miss., schools Superintendent T.C. Wallace retook and passed the test, allowing him to keep his job.
The Jackson school board had voted last month to void the remaining two years of Mr. Wallace’s three-year contract if he did not pass the test by June 30, the day his provisional certification was due to expire.
By law, passage of the exam is required for administrative certification in Mississippi. Mr. Wallace took the exam in May, but learned last month that he had failed the general-knowledge section of the core battery, scoring 641 out of a possible 690, five points shy of the state-set passing score of 646. (See Education Week, June 19, 1996.)
The board already had started a search for an interim superintendent for the 33,000-student district when Mr. Wallace arranged a special retest with the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., which administers the exam.
He passed with a score of 654, and on June 27, after the state education department’s office of teacher certification verified the scores with the ETS, Mr. Wallace received his certificate.
