Resolution on Teacher Testing
National Association for Multicultural Education

WHEREAS teacher admission and certification/licensure tests have been found to have questionable content, concurrent, construct, criterion-related, and predictive validity; and

WHEREAS teacher admission and certification/licensure tests have been found to have psychometrically indefensible methods for establishing cutoff scores; and

WHEREAS teacher admission and certification/licensure tests disproportionately eliminate Asian American, African American, Latina/Latino, Native American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, other candidates of color, and individuals with disabilities; and

WHEREAS teacher admission and certification/licensure tests are a chief obstacle to the national interest of recruiting a culturally, racially, and linguistically diversified national teacher force;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) call for the elimination of teacher admission and certification/licensure testing until such time as testing instruments have been designed that can predict candidates who will be academically successful in teacher education programs and who will be competent teachers in the school classroom.

Adopted at the NAME Business Meeting on November 11, 2001
Reaffirmed by NAME Board of Directors on January 18, 2001

The National Association for Multicultural Education is the leading international and national organization in the area of multicultural education. For additional information, contact NAME at name@nameorg.org or visit the website at www.nameorg.org. The NAME office is located at NAME, 5272 River Rd, Suite 430, Bethesda, MD 20816 and can be reached by phone at (301) 951-0022 or by fax at (301) 951-0023