bracey SAT scores not good measure of teacher skills. A study this year found that teachers read as well as any other adults with comparable education. They read much better than the general public. From: "Gerald W. Bracey" To: , , Date sent: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 17:55:06 -0400 Subject: [wa-ed-deform] Re: SAT scores by college major / teacher This is not good data. First, who knows what high school students actually major in. Second, it is confounded with gender: most teachers are women and women score lower on the SAT, although they get better grades in college than men. A study in 1984 found that wouldbe teachers have a) similar highschool GPAs as those who say they will major in other things and, more importantly, identical college GPAs with other majors at the end of the sophomore year. The sophomore year is important because it is before future teachers start taking the "gut" ed school courses. this study was buried by the Reagan Department of Education. It was commissioned just after "A Nation At Risk" to prove that people who go into teaching are not very bright. I found it only by accident and reported it in my December, 1996 "Research" column in Phi Delta Kappan. A study this year found that teachers read as well as any other adults with comparable education. They read much better than the general public. Teachers with bachelors' degrees read as well as others with bachelors'. Ditto those with masters'. Teachers were outscored in prose literacy skills only by systems analysts and by only a few other professions in document and quantitative literacy. This study is summarized in my June, 1999 Kappan Research column.