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Comment by 542458 | Hacker News Reader

It’s worth noting that this practice test was not available at the time the requirement was put in place (P18 of the judgement). While teachers that were raised in Ontario would be somewhat familiar with the grades 1-9 math curriculum, teachers not from the region would be more or less going in blind in terms of what content to expect. This is one factor that affected the judgement.

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Having taken a look at those sample questions, would you really want a teacher who cannot complete them without explicitly preparing for them to be teaching your children?

They're not particularly complicated and I'd expect not only every teacher to able to complete them, but every student as well. This continuous dumbing down standards in the interests of equality of outcome does not end well for anybody.

Honestly, I’m fine with my kid’s dance or history or whatever teacher not being able to pass that seeing as how the test was given blind and in a high-pressure environment.

The judgement seems pretty clear that the province was not able to demonstrate that teacher math scores produce significantly better student scores - any correlation was weak at best. It appears that pedagogy skills are far more important than being able to ace a standardized test. If there had been a demonstration otherwise my option would be different.

To be clear, teachers who teach subject X should know enough to teach it (once given sufficient prep time), but I don’t care if they know subject Y, or if they lock up when given a standardized test.

Maybe I’m just a bit more sympathetic than normal here since I always did poorly on big high-pressure math tests (but could do non-test-based content with flying colors).

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, teachers in Ontario (and most places, I imagine) do not specialize in a subject until high school or so. So most teachers needs to be able to teach every subject.

This is besides the point though, in my opinion. Any teacher being unable to do basic arithmetic is extremely alarming. It calls into question their entire credentials as a teacher. Anyone who graduated high school, let alone college should be able to do arithmetic.

This isn't a case of teacher in subject X has some knowledge gaps about subject Y. This is a case of a teacher missing basic adult competencies.

After looking at a handful of questions, I'd want a teacher who couldn't initially pass this test to be trained in math at this level first, but not disqualified from teaching. Teach them what they need that they're missing.

If they can’t do basic grade school math, it’s probably safe to assume their entire education is extremely limited and they’re functionally illiterate. Like can’t balance their check book illiterate. So I wouldn’t expect them to have the rounded peripheral knowledge needed for a top tier education. Why would we want people with such poor educations teaching children?

You're confusing literacy with numeracy. To give you a counter-example to what you're saying, my son reads above grade level, but has math anxiety, and would struggle with some of the questions that mixed percents and fractions, especially on a timed test. If he decides he wants to teach, he'll be great at it, but he'll need to level up in math skill and get more comfortable with juggling numbers in his head.

Your comment about wanting better-educated people to teach is legit. But we have, in America at least, run-down areas with crappy primary schools. Some of those kids will feel a calling to teach. What should we do about that? Find resources to help them get to where they need to be, or tell them they're too dumb?

If they've finished college and plan on going into education and can't mix fractions and percents, then it has nothing to do with their primary school math scores.

Which is actually a much larger question - how are teachers graduating from university without being able to do 5th grade math?

https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/mt/UserFiles/File/Master_of_Tea...

So to become a teacher you have to complete either 36 or 72 hours of math education over a single 6 month period, even teaching math in grade 12. That's it. That's less than 2 hours of math per week over 6 months.

More scary is that it DOESN'T mention exams. There seems to be no need to actually remember anything. You have to complete "practicum" which seems to be 2 months of helping out a teacher in a classroom, and "more" in the second year.

I'd want them to have the opportunity to be trained in it if they want, but the test isn't the problem here. This is basic math.

The only thing that makes sense about lowering standards rather than increasing efforts to help people meet those standards is this is a consequence of increasing labor prices, and an attempt to keep expenses lower by not having to compete for well qualified teaching candidates.

End result will be further stratification of society via price segmentation where well resourced members of society can afford to purchase better quality education. This already happens, but these measures will help it become even more stratified across more of the population.

Any adult should be able to go in blind and ace this test. Why do people set the bar so low

I would love to live in that world.

Wait till you see the test that is asked of Police officers. There's a joke about that one goes something like this:

The only question is "how much is 2+2 ?". Any answer between -3 and 22 except 4 is considered correct.

Why are these low bars being lowered even further, every single passing year? That should be the next question one asks themselves...

That's bad (tests definitely should publish practice tests), but for god's sake, it's grade math curriculum. It should be passable without any practice.

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