TEACHER PERFORMANCE ON NATIONAL TEACHER EXAMINATIONS AND STUDENT MATHEMATICS AND VOCABULARY ACHIEVEMENT

Almost all of the efforts to validate the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) have failed to consider the relationships between teacher performance on the NTE and student achievement. This study, however, examined the importance of Weighted Common Examinations Total (WCET) scores to the prediction of mathematics and vocabulary achievement. Initial findings indicated that teachers with higher WCET scores were associated with significantly higher levels of student mathematics and vocabulary achievement, and the WCET scores accounted for 2 to 3 percent of the variance of the student achievement measures. Yet when teacher race was controlled, the WCET scores were no longer significant predictors and the magnitudes of their contributions decreased. Thus, WCET scores were significant predictors of effective teaching when variance shared with teacher race was included. However, WCET scores without this shared variance were not significant predictors of effective teaching. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.