A recent study from the National Center on Education Statistics provides fresh evidence of an old claim, that college graduates who pursue teaching are likely to have lower test scores and higher undergraduate GPAs than their peers. Among the graduates studied, more teachers (27%) performed in the lowest third on the SAT or ACT than non-teachers (17%). (Notably, the report does not distinguish between high school and elementary teachers, an important distinction since other studies have found that high school teachers perform relatively well academically.) Adding some fuel to the perception that ed schools offer easy A's, college graduates who were certified to teach had higher GPAs than other college grads, including the GPAs of uncertified, presumably private school, teachers.

There were a few other halfway-nifty factoids nestled in the report, as well:

* An increasing number of minorities are entering teaching, although Asians are still highly underrepresented in the teaching ranks;

* Graduates who started in community colleges are equally likely to become teachers as those who started in four-year institutions;

* New grads teaching in private schools reported higher job satisfaction than public school teachers.