Since about 1983 the venerable construct of critical thinking has become an educational juggernaut. See for an overview of this recent critical thinking activity, and also Follman (1991) for a correlative overview of the recent critical reading activity.A main plank in the rationale for enhancing critical thinking of children in general is the finding that 80% of third graders, more than half of seventh graders, and 36% of eleventh graders scored minimally or inadequately when reading critically (Vobejda). More specifically, of36,000 public and private school students, less than 1% ofthird graders, 8% of seventh graders, and 23% of eleventh graders performed at the highest level on reading performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

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As part of a job analysis of teaching conducted for the validation of a battery of initial certification subject area tests, 320 practicing Florida elementary teachers rated statements of teacher knowledge and skill for their importance in certification. A factor analysis of these ratings revealed a correlated configuration of factors: general knowledge and skills of teaching; subject-specific knowledge; theory of curriculum, pedagogy, and psychology; applied educational diagnosis and the maximization of achievement; and the professionalism of teaching. The factor structure obtained from the teachers' ratings was conceptually similar to the test blueprint produced by the examination development committee.

An investigation was conducted of differences between ratings provided by Florida practicing public school teachers and teacher trainers on knowledge and skill statements used in the development of teacher subject matter knowledge tests for initial teacher certification in the fields of (a) elementary education, (b) English,(c) gifted, and (d) specific learning disability. Respondents rated each statement on 5-point Likert scales on three dimensions: (a) job relatedness, (b) frequency of use, and (c) importance for initial certification. Surveys for each of the four fields were sent to Florida practicing teachers and to teacher training faculty. A two-stage cluster PPS sampling yielded eight response rates which ranged from 41% to 63% across the four fields. Statistically significant differences on 29 of the 60 factor comparisons were obtained between the two major group of raters (teachers vs teacher-trainers). Generally, teacher trainers registered higher ratings than did practicing teachers on all variables, especially in English.