Because I Said So

Stop Worrying Parents!

by Danielle Wood

If you're like me, you worry about just about everything-- what to feed your kid so they're healthy, how much sleep they need to be awake come homeroom, what they're learning in school and how you can help...

Well, there's at least one thing you don't need to worry about, according to a new study from the Educational Testing Service: despite media moans that teacher quality in America stinks compared to the days of yore, teacher quality is actually getting better, not worse. The reason? Strangely enough, part of it has to do with the No Child Left Behind Act.

When most parents (me included) hear the words "No Child Left Behind", they think of standardized testing and curriculum requirements. But NCLB has not only meant more testing of students, it's meant more testing of teachers. And since 1998, both states and teachers' colleges have been required to report how their teachers (or soon-to-be graduates) have done on the Praxis test.

First, a caveat. The Praxis test is used by a variety of states as part of their teacher certification process. And it's designed by the Educational Testing Service, who put out the study. That said, the study points to an intriguing trend: when the results from 153,000 people in 20 states and the District of Columbia were compared, new teachers (credential-ed in 2002-2005) gave their predecessors (1994-1997) a run for their money. They beat them by 13 points in their verbal SAT scores and 17 points with their math scores. And the percentage of candidates with GPAs of 3.5 GPA or higher rose from 27% to 40%.