What Were Your SAT Scores?
The Educational Testing Service doesn’t just grade students and produce teacher licensing exams, they also study teachers. According to The New York Times, the ETS reported Tuesday that the teaching profession is attracting a stronger pool of applications. “We’re seeing a pretty big jump in qualifications,” said Drew H. Gitomer, the ETS researcher who led a recent study that looked at a pool of prospective teacher candidates.
The ETS reports that teachers taking the Praxis subject-area licensing exams between 2002 and 2005 had higher SAT scores and better college grades than their mid-1990’s counterparts. Coming out below average for all college graduates, however, were teaching candidates for elementary and physical education.
Encouraging as this news may be for the 90,000 public schools nationwide, some studies report that the United States now recruits from the bottom third of college graduates while other countries, including Singapore and Finland, recruit from the top third. Also striking, according to the ETS study, is the degree of homogeneity among the nation’s prospective teaching force—mostly white and female—at a time when minorities comprise almost fifty percent of the student body.
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Comments
Which "studies report that the United States now recruits from the bottom third of college graduates while other countries, including Singapore and Finland, recruit from the top third?"
Posted by: Marvinlee | December 13, 2007 5:18 PM
Good point! Articles that refer to studies, expecially "some" studies, should provide references so we can check them out for ourselves.
Posted by: tim | December 14, 2007 12:47 PM
The original New York Times story did not cite their sources:
"The most successful educational systems in the world, like those in Singapore and Finland, recruit teachers from among the top third of their college graduates. By contrast, some studies over the years have found that the United States recruits from the bottom third."
Posted by: Elizabeth Rich | December 14, 2007 2:59 PM
Marvinlee and tim, here's a link to the ETS Press Release about their report.
http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.c988ba0e5dd572bada20bc47c3921509/?vgnextoid=0d450fff611b6110VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD&vgnextchannel=dd2d253b164f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD
From there, you can go to the full report for detailed info of interest to you.
Hopefully, teachers will take the time to read beyond the excerpts in order to learn what others know about who we, teachers, are.
Thanks, ETS, for releasing your observations.
Posted by: Bob Heiny | December 15, 2007 9:50 AM
The full ETS report is embedded in this Web Watch. Click on the words "they also study teachers" in the first sentence.
Posted by: Anonymous | December 15, 2007 12:39 PM