While college English professors are sticklers for correct grammar and usage, too many high school teachers are like, Hey, whatever, man. Or at least that s the finding of a national curriculum survey released last week by ACT. The survey of about 1,100 college English teachers and 828 high school English teachers asked each participant to rank six components of writing: grammar and usage, sentence structure, writing strategy, organization, punctuation, and style. For the college instructors, grammar and usage took first place while the high school teachers ranked it dead last.

What exactly does this finding tell us? Is it fair to say that the emphasis on grammar and usage place by college-level educators have just had it with the quality of student writing? Is this an indictment by advanced teachers against the teaching of their predecessors? Does the difference in opinion result from the difference in training or the discrepancy in classroom experience of the two types of teachers? More investigation is needed, but our hunch is that college professors are just sick of staring at rubbish.