An Inconvenient Truth About Teacher Quality « The Core Knowledge Blog

An Inconvenient Truth About Teacher Quality « The Core Knowledge Blog:

An Inconvenient Truth About Teacher Quality

by Robert Pondiscio
December 5th, 2011

Tags: assessment, Assessment and Testing, Curriculum, Dan Willingham, David Grissmer, math, NAEP, reading, standards, teacher quality
Posted in Assessment and Testing, Curriculum, Education Practice, Literacy, Teaching,accountability | No Comments »

If teacher quality is the most important factor in student outcomes, then why are math scores rising, while reading scores stay flat? Do we just happen to have really good math teachers and really lousy reading teachers? That can’t be: in the case of 4th grade teachers, the exact same teachers are responsible for both subjects.

Or maybe it’s not the teachers. Could it be the curriculum?

That’s the question posed by Dan Willingham and David Grismer in an op-ed in the New York Daily News this morning. They point out intriguing data from the National