A similar situation exists on the ACT admissions test. But educators countered that these studies involved only students who intended to become teachers. That question was answered in Pennsylvania by the state's secretary of education, Eugene Hickok. He studied the high school grades of every teacher trainee in the state's 91 colleges. This is a clear demonstration of insufficient academic skill for such a demanding profession as teaching.
Many teachers are bright, and most are dedicated to their calling.
But that does not gainsay the fact that as a group they lag behind their academic colleagues. On the Graduate Record Examinations taken by college seniors, educators score at the bottom of the eight graded professions. The second problem is that once in an education school, trainees take a thin, eccentric curriculum. This is the stubborn sine qua non of the profession. The theory is that only by knowing the sociological and psychological basis of learning can we teach children, a concept that is increasingly shown to be false.