Where do teachers come from?
If you live in or around NYC, John will be appearing in conversation with Randi Weingarten — the topic is “Unions and the Future Of Our Schools” — on Wednesday, December 14. Click here for tickets and info.
One benefit to my being a reporter is the opportunity to spend time with people who know more than I do. I had breakfast recently with Marshall “Mike” Smith, the Undersecretary of Education in the Clinton Administration, and our conversation inspired this blog post.
The assertion that our teachers come from ‘the bottom third’ has been in the air for some time. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to believe matters are worse than that, because he recently told a press conference that most came from the bottom 20 percent of college graduates.
In a recent post, Matthew Di Carlo of the Shanker Institute provided a credible analysis of the studies that seem to be the basis for the claim. Di Carlo says that two studies by McKinsey & Company provide
