I have mentioned studies about teacher ACT and SAT scores to my fellow teechurz. They are not too happy when they hear this. Of course, I’m just the token conservative in the teechurz lounge. Sadly I see many teechurz in my own publik scewl that are only here because they attended scewl here and now want to COACH here.
Me brudder is an engineer who got tired of being squeezed by low-quality, cheap Asian competition. He’s in a crash program at what was once a State Teacher’s College, and is now a State College. He tells me that most of the “How to Teach” classes are basically about trying to understand little Jimmy/Juan/JaMille’s background and deprivations and about trying to manipulate evaluations into soft-scored group efforts that will protect those who wouldn’t otherwise pass, so that the “No Child” tax money will keep coming in.
I share your grief, comrade. I, too, am a publik screwl teacher and notice the same phenomenon you are describing on a yearly basis.
In Buffalo every few years, the city teachers are required to take a proficiency test that high school students are supposed to(or required to, I don’t remember) pass to receive a diploma. Many of the teachers fail this test. They can’t even pass a test to graduate from high school.
Of course, the poor performance of the teachers is immediately met with cries of racism.
My son told one of his high school teachers that I had invented a new carbon dioxide scrubber for the Space Station. She asked “Why don’t they just open the window?”. He thought she was joking, but it turned out she did not know that there is vacuum in space.