The Texas Teacher Test

The TECAT, the Texas Examination of Current Administrators and Teachers, is a test of basic literacy that was given to Texas teachers in March, 1986. The test, seen as politically essential to leverage a tax increase and pay raise for teachers, was intended to raise the public esteem of teachers by weeding out incompetents. Teachers expended massive effort in reviewing basic skills and drilling on test format. After two tries 99% of the 210,000 who took the test had passed. Shop teachers, special education-teachers, and coaches were overrepresented among the failures. The costs of district-sponsored workshops and the in-service day to take the test brought its public cost to a sum 10 tunes greater than policy makers had anticipated. Though most teachers agreed that literacy skills are prerequisite to good teaching, paradoxically, most also reported that being threatended by a low-level test of fundamental skills was demoralizing. Ironically, many think that the TECAT damaged public esteem for teachers because stories about incompetence in teaching and portrayals of teachers’ trepidation appeared alongside examples from a very easy test.