"Many" Teaching Who Shouldn't Be?
by Frederick M. Hess • May 6, 2011 at 8:48 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
 Print |  Send |  RSS |
ShareOn Wednesday, I stirred a bit of a hornet's nest when I wrote, "I think that...many people teaching today probably shouldn't be." Given the charged response from readers demanding that I justify this assertion, I'll say a few more words.
First, it strikes me as a banal, unremarkable statement, one that I've uttered regarding attorneys, professors, journalists, salesmen, federal bureaucrats, think tankers, and district administrators. In this context it wasn't intended as an attack on educators, which is what made the heated response so noteworthy. People vary in talent, energy, and performance, and this means there are poor performers everywhere--even in fields with relatively stringent selection or hiring requirements.
Second, education hires a lot of educators. We've 3.4 million teachers in the U.S., which represents more than ten percent of the college educated workforce. That's twice the number of lawyers and doctors, combined. Th
