WASHINGTON — When Marquita Thomas-Brown first joined Delaware State University as coordinator for the Praxis teacher license exam in 2008, hardly any students took the university up on its free preparation course. Perhaps not coincidentally, hardly any students passed the exam.
But since making the course mandatory for freshmen, the number of students who pass the Praxis has shown mark improvement; from four students in 2008 to 24 during the last count, says Thomas-Brown.
DSU’s early intervention approach is actually one of many recommendations made in a new report released Wednesday that deals with ways to help more prospective teachers from diverse groups pass the teacher license exams.
The report, “Toward Increasing Teacher Diversity: Targeting Support and Intervention for Teacher Licensure Candidates,” was prepared by the Princeton, N.J.-based Educational Testing Services, the creator of the Praxis tests.
Speaking Wednesday at a forum on the report, Thomas-Brown said it was encouraging to know that she had discovered on her own what the ETS reports says is an effective way to improve preparedness for the exam.
“I think that this is just phenomenal,” she said of the report’s recommendation. “When I read this I was blown away because it made me feel good as a Praxis coordinator in knowing that I’m on the right track.”
Besides recommendations, the ETS report released a racial and ethnic breakdown of how teaching candidates from recent years have performed on various components of the Praxis, which is the most widely used teacher license exam in the nation.
