Another Hacker News participant recently kindly shared in a comment a 2007 report by Educational Testing Service (ETS) titled "Teacher Quality in a Changing Pol

Another Hacker News participant recently kindly shared in a comment a 2007 report by Educational Testing Service (ETS) titled "Teacher Quality in a Changing Policy Landscape: Improvements in the Teaching Pool".[1] The report showed that even though changes in teacher license requirements are boosting selection of higher-SAT-score rather than lower-SAT-score aspiring teachers, elementary teachers are drawn from college students who scored significantly lower than most college graduates on the SAT math section (Figure 21 in the report). The mean score of a recent prospective elementary school teacher in the United States when that teacher took the SAT for college entrance was barely above 500 on the math section. Alas, in general, American schools are underperforming in teaching the most advantaged members of American society,[2] especially in mathematics,[3] while not doing well by the least advantaged young people in American society either.[4] The current efforts in preschools reported in the interesting article submitted here should be followed up by further reform of elementary school mathematics instruction. The book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma[5] is especially informative about what to do to help all learners in the United States learn mathematics better in early schooling. [1] http://www.ets.org/Media/Education_Topics/pdf/TQ_full_report.pdf http://www.ets.org/Media/Education_Topics/pdf/TQ_full_report... [2] http://educationnext.org/when-the-best-is-mediocre/ http://educationnext.org/when-the-best-is-mediocre/ http://educationnext.org/young-gifted-and-neglected/ http://educationnext.org/young-gifted-and-neglected/ [3] http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented/ http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented/ [4] http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/pisa2009/48165173.pdf http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/pisa2009/48165173.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf [5] https://www.engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attachments/01-askey_review_of_liping_ma.pdf https://www.engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attach... http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/q-a-with-liping-ma.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/q-a-with-liping-ma... http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematics-Understanding/dp/0415873843 http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic...