Firenze Sage: How to tell an incompetent teacher … [questions asked prospective teachers]

Question 1: Which of the following is equal to a quarter-million? a) 40,000, b) 250,000, c) 2,500,000, d) 1/4,000,000 or e) 4/1,000,000.

Question 2: Martin Luther King Jr. (insert the correct choice) for the poor of all races. a) spoke out passionately, b) spoke out passionate, c) did spoke out passionately, d) has spoke out passionately or e) had spoken out passionate.

Question 3: What would you do if your student sprained an ankle? a) Put a Band-Aid on it, b) Ice it or c) Rinse it with water.

Guess whether these questions were on a sixth-grade, ninth-grade or 12th-grade test. I bet the average reader would guess that itâ€s a sixth-grade test. Wrong. How about ninth-grade? Wrong again. You say, “OK, so theyâ€re 12th-grade test questions!” Still wrong.

According to a Heartland Institute-published School Reform News (September 2001) article titled “Who Tells Teachers They Can Teach?”, those test questions came from prospective teacher tests. The first two questions are samples from the Praxis I test for teachers, and the third is from the 1999 teacher certification test in Illinois. According to the Chicago Sun-Times (9/6/01), 5,243 Illinois teachers failed their teacher certification tests.
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How much do we spend on education until we junk the whole system and start over.

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