I agree with Jan that there is certainly a maldistribution of the better, more experienced teachers, with more of them found in the wealthier and
suburban schools. I don't know of any studies specifically correlating Math SAT scores and Math teachers, and in any case, I am skeptical that SAT scores tell us that much about actual academic achievement [even the ETS defends them only as a predictor of how students will do in college, and given that their strongest correlation is with socioeconomic status of the testtaker, that is not surprising]. But there are studies looking at such things as GPAs and actual course work, and as you might expect, the wealthier school districts have the higher scoring teachers. There are, however, two counter trends here, such that this gap is not necessarily as great as one might think in a such a rapaciously market society. For one, some people prefer to live in an urban as opposed to a suburban setting, for all sorts of cultural reasons [access to institutions of art, music, culture and higher education, participation in minority ethnic, racial and sexual subcultures], and there are more likely to end up teaching in an urban settings. The proportion of gay and lesbian teachers in an urban school, for example, is much higher, in my experience, than in a suburban school. For another, there are those who go into teaching for political reasons broadly speaking, to 'empower' the disenfranchised [as a 'helping' profession, teaching attracts its share of them], and they will find their way more often into urban settings.
In any case, I believe that positive experience is the more important factor than academic preparation in making a good teacher. Teaching is a rather complex craft, especially outside of higher education, where you can not expect students to sit quietly through long, ponderous lectures, but you must learn how to actively engage them; it is the very rare college prof who could last more than a day in a high school. It takes a minimum of three years full time teaching before even the best of apprentice teachers have really mastered the craft. One of the markers of a failing inner city school is the incredibly high rate of turnover among teaching staff, such that students are almost always being taught by novice, unprepared teachers. It is the most difficult context in which to learn how to teach, and those that beat the odds in that regard, usually try to find a less stressful and demanding job ASAP. In studies of the stressfulness of occupations, inner city teachers ranks second, right below inner city cops. Remember too that schools of education are generally used as "cash cows" by universities, and, as a group, do a miserable job of preparing their students to be teachers.
But what remains fascinating to me about the question of the international comparisons of subject matter education, is that there are not the same in each subject area. Thus, although the US does not rank that well in comparisons in Math and Science, it does much better in comparisons in literacy -- a phenomenon all the more remarkable given the large number of immigrant, English language learners in our schools. A four year Department of Education study released in September looks at the world's twenty-two leading economic powers, and finds that only Canada, the Netherlands and the three Scandinavian nations have higher rates of literacy, and then only by a small margin; the United States is more literate than all of its major economic competitors, including Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China, among others.
[An aside: this positive record in literacy gave Bush all sorts of problems when he was trying to make his case for an "education recession." "In 1999," he ended up claiming, "the reading level of 9 year olds in the bottom quarter of achievement was below where it was in 1980." Statistically, this statement is accurate. But when you look at the results on an annual basis, you discover that the achievement results dropped from 1980 to 1990 -- when Reagan and Daddio occupied the White House -- and then began to improve again during the 1990s -- when Bill Clinton was President. The scores for 13 year old and 17 year old students conform to this general pattern. Insofar as there is a relation between who sits in the Oval Office and reading scores, and that relationship is, at best, quite tenuous, I must add, it would clearly be a whole lot better to continue with a Democratic administration in Washington.]
Now since almost everything we can say about American English and Social Studies teachers we can also say about American Math and Science teachers, and given that, at the elementary level, it is the very same teachers teaching literacy and numeracy, there is clearly something about the quality, the culture, of Mathematics and Science education that accounts for that difference. What that "something" is, is what I find so interesting.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
-- Frederick Douglass --
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