A new test will allow teaching assistants to bypass federal college requirements, allowing them to keep their jobs.
MECHANIC FALLS – For the last two years, teaching assistant Robin Dufour believed that she would lose her job in 2006.
That’s the year the No Child Left Behind Act, a new federal education reform law, will require that teaching assistants in federally funded school programs take two years of college or receive an associate’s degree in order to prove that they are “highly qualified.”
Dufour, who has worked as an elementary school teaching assistant for 16 years, has only a high school diploma.
Married and the mother of five, she has neither the time nor the money to go back to school.
“I have a son who I’m putting through college so I can’t afford to put me through college, too,” she said.
But soon, Dufour will get the chance to keep her job without going to college.
Just by passing a test.
“It would make my life a lot easier,” said Dufour.
Starting this winter, the Maine Department of Education will offer ParaPro, a two-and-a-half hour, multiple-choice exam that assesses a person’s reading, writing and math skills and ability to assist a teacher. It’s an allowable option under the No Child Left Behind Act.
ParaPro will be the first exam that Maine has ever offered to teaching assistants.
“We thought the test was the most efficient, cost-effective, easy-access system we could make available,” said Judy Malcolm, education policy director for the Maine Department of Education.
In the past, Maine teaching assistants, also known as education technicians or ed techs, co uld be certified if they had a high school diploma or if they’d taken some combination of college classes and professional development. In some school systems, that now means few teaching assistants have the required college education.
“It has made them incredibly nervous,” said Rob Walker, president of the Maine Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union.
In Union 29, for example, Assistant Superintendent William Doughty believes that two-thirds of his teaching assistants do not meet No Child Left Behind’s college requirements.
Dufour is one of them.
A teaching assistant at Elm Street School in Mechanic Falls, Dufour has spent 16 years helping the town’s youngest students learn to read and understand math. It’s a job she has loved.
“It’s a really great feeling to know that you’re making a difference in their lives. And you really do,” she said.
She was bitter, she said, when she heard about No Child Left Behind’s college requirements. But she put her anger aside and started looking into classes at the local university and community college.
The cheapest classes would cost more than $200 each, not including books or fees. In order to get the 60 college credits she needs, Dufour would have to take 20 three-credit classes by January 2006.
The school system didn’t have the money to pay for it all. And Dufour, who recently got a raise, makes $10.01 an hour. In order to pay her bills, she works a second job at a group home for adults with mental illnesses.
She couldn’t afford the tuition, let alone the time. And all around her she saw hard-working, experienced teaching assistants who were in the same position.
“It’s going to push them out the door,” she said.
Maine officials hope ParaPro will change all that.
The test will cost $40 and may be paid by teaching assistants or their school systems.
Exams will be available online through every school system. A pencil-and-paper version will be available at test sites throughout the state. Assistants can take the test as often as they need to pass.
ParaPro will be available by Feb. 1.
“We thought this was a very good option,” said Malcolm at the Maine Department of Education.
After being away from school for so long, Dufour wonders how she’ll do on a standardized test. But she’s willing to give it a try to save the job she loves.
“I think this test would be wonderful,” she said.
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