Inside the Star Teacher Pre-Screener

This Questionnaire is made up of 50 questions of which you will be given three possible answers. You must select the best possible answer and go to the next question. This test will evaluate your knowledge and skills when it comes to teaching lower income students. Before you take the test, you will need to provide us with some information that will be used for statistical analysis and tracking. Rest assured that your information is secure and at no time will it be sold or given to anyone outside the scope of this test.

Called “The Star Teacher Interview,” the instrument boasts a 95% accuracy rate in predicting which teachers will stay and succeed and which ones will fail or quit. High success rates result from the ability of the scenario-based interview to give a clear picture of the candidate’s beliefs about teaching at risk youth, and to predict how a candidate will behave on the job. Which ones will be able to handle the stress? The discipline? The unmotivated students? Those who learn differently?

Eliminating Teacher Turnover and Avoiding Deselection

The interview has been researched and replicated for over three decades by Dr. Martin Haberman, Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Dr. Haberman recently described the characteristics of successful teachers for children and youth in poverty in Kappa Delta Pi’s all-time best seller, Star Teachers of Children in Poverty.

On a Mission

Every year, the Haberman Educational Foundation awards several large school districts free training in an effort to identify star teachers for the nation’s neediest children and to cut down on teacher turnover in poor urban and rural areas. Convinced of the effectiveness of their highly focused mission, fulltime foundation staff work as volunteers and are paid only for daily work. Foundation leaders also assist grant-writers to provide training services to school districts a majority of whose children are on free and reduced lunch.

Paradigm-Changing Training and Tools

The day-long training to become an interviewer involves intense study of the belief systems of those who succeed in reaching and teaching children and youth at risk every day. Such children may be unmotivated, suffering from environmental violence, in post-traumatic stress disorders, learning different, abused, or neglected.

What do successful “star” teachers believe about what they’re doing every day? Participants have found that the day-long immersion into the ideology of star teachers of youth in poverty is life-changing. One San Francisco coach said, “I’m going to have to change everything I ever believed.

People, People, People

School renewal starts with the hiring process. What Fortune 500 companies know: that a company is only as good as its people. Schools can also learn to attract better people. But first, school leaders must be able to answer two basic questions:

What kind of teachers do we need?
Is the person I’m interviewing that kind of teacher? The Star Teacher Interview Training supplies these needed pieces to changing school paradigms and effecting reform.

Whole school systems large and small, from urban San Francisco Unified (CA) to rural Uvalde ISD (TX) now are enjoying greater student achievement, better morale, and fewer teacher turnovers as a result of improved teacher selection.

Dimensions Assessed

Persistence predicts the propensity to work with children who present learning and behavioral problems on a daily basis without giving up on them for the full 180 day work year.
Organization and Planning refers to how and why star teachers plan as well as their ability to manage complex classroom organizations.
Values student learning predicts the degree to which the responses reflect a willingness to make student learning the teacher’s highest priority.
Theory to Practice predicts the respondent’s ability to see the practical implications of generalizations as well as the concepts reflected by specific practices.
At-Risk Students predicts the likelihood that the respondent will be able to connect with and teach students of all backgrounds and levels.
Approach to Students predicts the way the respondent will attempt to relate to students and the likelihood this approach will be effective.
Survive in Bureaucracy predicts the likelihood that the respondent will be able to function as a teacher in large, depersonalized organization.
Explains Teacher Success deals with the criteria the respondent uses to determine teaching success and whether these are relevant to teachers in poverty schools.
Explains Student Success deals with the criteria the respondent uses to determine students’ success and whether these are relevant to students in poverty schools.
Fallibility refers to how the teacher plans to deal with mistakes in the classroom.