Maggie's Farm

Education majors are traditionally among the lower-IQ (*) students in a college---down there with journalism majors--(*) using the SAT/ACT as a proxy.

For teachers passing the Praxis teacher certification tests, their SAT scores compared to other college graduates are not quite what you claim. The Educational Testing Service report, Teacher Quality in a Changing Policy Landscape: Improvements in the Teacher Pool,compared the SAT scores of those who passed the Praxis tests for teacher certification with the average SAT scores of other college graduates.

Elementary, special ed and phys ed teachers have SATs below the average college grad- fitting your stereotype- but teachers certified in other subjects have average to above average SATs that apply to the subjects they teach.

We find from Figure 20 that for all college graduates who took the SAT-Verbal, the average score was 543. Teachers in the following specialties had an average score below the average SAT Verbal of 543: Physical Education, Special Education, and Elementary Education(517). Teachers in the following specialties scored above the average SAT Verbal of 543:Art & Music, Mathematics, Social Studies, Foreign Languages, Science, and English, in order of increasing scores.

Reading from the bar graph, I would estimate that certified English teachers averaged 573 on the SAT-Verbal. No, not top-of-the-line, but far from bottom of the barrel, and above the average college graduate.

We find from Figure 21 that for all college graduates who took the SAT-Math, the average score was 542. Teachers in the following specialties had an average score below the average SAT-Math of 542: Physical Education, Special Education, Elementary Education(510),Art & Music,English, Social Studies, and Foreign Languages, in order of increasing scores. We are not particularly concerned about Math SAT scores for English or Social studies teachers. For teaching specialties where math skills are important, Science (570) and Math ( 595) teachers scored above the 542 SAT-Math that college graduates averaged. (I am estimating from a bar graph) Not bottom-of-the-barrel, but instead above average.

Figures 20 and 21
SAT Verbal Scores by Licensing Area for Those
Passing Praxis Tests (20) and SAT Math Scores by Licensing Area for Those
Passing Praxis Tests (21)

Page 22, for 2002-2005.

There has been an effort in the last 20 years to make certification exams more difficult, making the dumbass stereotype less true in recent years.

If you look at amount of time studied to achieve a 3.5 or higher GPA, Ed School majors probably study the least amount of hours. Back in the day when college students had to work to get a good GPA, Ed School students really stood out for high GPA and low amount of time studying. But these days, a lot of college courses are guaranteed As, so the rest of the campus is getting to resemble the Ed School.

From my experience teaching school for 2 years, being bright helps, but is far from sufficient to be a good teacher. Put it this way: good salesmen and good teachers have a lot in common. Both need to know their product/subject. Both need to be able to persuade the customer/student that it is to their advantage to purchase/study. Persuading 7tb or 8th graders doesn't come easily for everyone. It didn't for me.