You were absolutely right about your first point, and I've edited to reflect it. My point was don't assume what is true for the average is true of every individual member. (And honestly, at my school, the "likely" to be an exception is true because it's a desirable place to teach and the applicant supply way exceeds the demand.)
(I do think that there may be a problem with using scores from people who study a subject to project about people who practice in that field: I suspect that the absolute dumbest of the students never pass the certification exams. I concede though even if you reviewed the scores of employed teachers, their average scores would likely be lower than the average scores of people practicing in most other professions.)
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Originally Posted by KSig RC
One solution here is to severely limit teachers' classes to only those things they have mastered, especially at the middle/high school levels - increasing specialization could help. This would also allow the 'continuing education' criteria to focus on interpersonal skills work, etc. I'm not sure how you can help in elementary education, however - it seems there a large number of empathic or nurturing personality types gravitate to the work, which may not create the best pool to draw from. I don't really know.
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A large enough group of people who have mastered the skills doesn't seem to exist for this to work, especially of people who would work for the pay.
(Unless maybe you are thinking of the same international students who dominate the TA positions in college. )
I think that you need empathetic and nurturing people to teach elementary schools. I'm not sure that people without these traits could do the job. But there's no reason why you couldn't find intelligent, and empathetic, nurturing people at the right price.
I think changes to the system are much more important right now than teacher recruitment because a great teacher at a school that won't allow him or her to be effective won't produce student learning gains. Even mediocre teachers are likely to be able to teach more effectively if the system is better and more effective methods are embraced by colleges of education, states, and school systems. If we make changes to the system, and we plateau in student performance, then we should start throwing more money at teacher salaries to attract better people.