Reply #117: I do agree with that.

[noamnety]

I've taken the reading test, writing test, math test, and two subject area tests. 4 of those I maxed out the score, and the other (the math) I got one or two problems wrong.

That didn't shock me in general, because I am a great test taker, I kick butt on SAT style tests. But the thing that made me sit back and say "wait, this is odd" is that one of the subject areas I didn't feel I was fully qualified for.

I teach some multimedia studies classes, and I have everything short of a thesis for a masters in communication-multimedia studies. I'm comfortable teaching the class, because I stay within that realm. But the Communication Arts subject test also covered radio and print journalism which I have no training in. I answered the test with common sense and got the max score, but I know in my heart I shouldn't be teaching those. And that's fine for me, because I'm NOT teaching that area. It should be cause for concern that I can get hired to teach print journalism, though, and be considered highly qualified.

Also, we have one English teacher who I think is a great teacher ... but her spelling makes the rest of us cringe in staff meetings. I'm not talking about typos - I mean she'll be taking notes on a flip chart for our team, and has to stop and ask how to spell very basic words that have at times left the rest of us exchanging glances.

I'm confused about that. I'd rather see her stick to teaching social studies (she's qualified for and teaches both). She knows she can't spell, she tells that to her students up front. She can teach literature and meaning just fine, her teaching methods are strong and she has a lot of passion about the content. But I think it might be doing the kids a disservice to have an English class where the teacher isn't capable of correcting their spelling even when the mistakes are glaring. It makes me wonder about the content area test for English teachers - and about the basic skills test for reading and writing. Having maxed those tests, I don't have any sense of where the threshold is for failing them, but I suspect it's too low.