The Distribution of Academic Ability in the Teaching Force: Policy Implications.

Abstract

In 1981 we presented a study support ing the conclusion that teachers who score highest on measures of academic ability are most likely to leave teaching early.1 Our findings also indicated that those who score highest leave teaching in the greatest numbers and that those who score lowest are most likely to stay in the classroom.2 But the data from which we drew these conclusions were limited to North Carolina. Furthermore, we could not determine from these data whether those who left teaching in North Carolina did so to pursue teaching careers in other states. Thus the findings we reported could have stemmed from factors peculiar to the sample and the conditions under which those teachers worked. To discover whether our findings could be generalized to other teachers in other situations, we subsequently examined data drawn from a national sample. One of our reasons for