Ed Trust takes a look at teacher quality

Just in case you wondered how much teach quality matters - particularly vs exposure to advanced curriculum, Ed Trust has some sobering findings. In a report published on July 8th, the authors (Heather G. Peske and Kati Haycock) provide some scary numbers that reflect things we've heard before like - students in schools with high percentages of poor and minority students are twice as likely to have novice teachers. They are also more likely to have teachers teaching out of their primary subject area/area of certification. This was a particularly scary quote:

[T]here were stunning differences in levels of readiness according to the quality of teachers in a school. In schools with just average teacher quality, for example, students who completed Algebra II were more prepared for college than their peers in schools with the lowest teacher quality who had completed calculus.

These numbers are the sort of thing that would make me want to go hide under the bed.

Chris