Pre-K-12 Teachers | Research | NEA Resources | Substitute Teachers

What the Research Says

Early childhood education

• Only 26 states offer pre-kindergarten programs to needy children.
• Early childhood educators have an average salary range of $15,000 - $20,000.
• By 2003, half of all Head Start teachers will be required to have a degree in early childhood education.

Teacher quality counts

• Fully prepared teachers are more effective in the classroom, and their students demonstrate larger achievement gains than students whose teachers are not fully prepared.
  Source: Linda Darling-Hammond, 1992
• A 1997 study by the University of Texas at Arlington showed that Texas students perform better on state exams when their instructors are fully licensed in the subjects they teach.
  Source: National Commission on Teaching for America's Future

The search for qualified teachers

• Nationwide, some 2.4 million teachers will be needed in the next 11 years because of teacher attrition and retirement and increased student enrollment.
  Source: National Center for Education Statistics Predicting the Need for Newly Hired Teachers in the U.S. to 2008-09
• The projection jumps as high as 2.7 million when researchers factor in declining student/teacher ratios based on nationwide class size reduction efforts.
  Source: National Center for Education Statistics Projections of Education Statistics to 2008
• More than 2,800 NEA members and 6,500 teachers nationwide earned National Board Certification, the teaching profession's highest credential. Research shows that teachers who challenge themselves through the rigorous National Board Certification process improve their teaching -- and their students' learning.
  Source: National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, National Education Association

Teacher turnover

• In a typical year, an estimated 6 percent of the nation's teaching force leaves the profession and more than 7 percent change schools.
  Source: National Center for Education Statistics
• Twenty percent of all new hires leave teaching within three years.
  Source: National Center for Education Statistics
• In urban districts, close to 50 percent of newcomers flee the profession during their first five years of teaching.
  Source: Darling-Hammond & Schlan, 1996

Mentoring

Over the next 10 years, the U.S. Department of Education estimates 2 million new teachers will be entering classrooms. Many of these teachers will come out of excellent preparation programs and arrive with good, practical ideas -- but there's still more they can learn from experienced colleagues. No one can help teachers more than their peers can.

NEA supports teacher mentoring as a means to help new teachers transition from their pre-service experience to the responsibility for a classroom of children.

Who are new teachers?

• Almost two-thirds are younger than 27.
• Nearly half -- 42 percent -- have just finished college and never taught.

Why does NEA need to help them succeed?

• More than half of new teachers leave the profession in their first five years.
• New teachers who participate in induction programs, like mentoring, are nearly twice as likely to stay in the profession than those who don't.
• Research proves that a critical predictor of student success is teacher quality.

Source: "A Better Beginning: Helping new teachers survive and thrive - A guide for NEA local affiliates interested in creating new teacher support systems."

Greatest needs

• The greatest teaching shortages are in bilingual and special education, mathematics, science (particularly the physical sciences), computer science, English-as-a-Second-Language and foreign languages.
  Source: American Association for Employment in Education Teachers Supply and Demand in the U.S., 1998
• About 42 percent of all public schools in the United States have no minority teachers. Minority students make up 33 percent of enrollment in U.S. public schools, while the total of minority teachers reaches just 13.5 percent. By the early 21st century, the percentage of minority teachers is expected to shrink to an all-time low of 5 percent, while 41 percent of American students will be minorities.
  Source: National Center for Education Statistics
  Digest of Education Statistics, 1998

Teacher salaries

• The average salary of a U.S. public school teacher for the school year 2000-01 was $43,335 -- with 37 states below the average.
• Highest ranking states: New Jersey, Connecticut, and California.
• Lowest ranking states: Mississippi, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
• Teacher salaries from 1991-2001 increased an average of 0.3 percent per year based on NEA's report Rankings and Estimates 2000-2001. During this same period, school revenue receipts, total expenditures, and per-pupil expenditures increased significantly.

Source: NEA's Ranking & Estimates: Rankings of the States 2001 and Estimates of School Statistics 2002

Ironically, the nation's public school teachers spend an average of more than $400 annually on classroom supplies -- or collectively, at least $1.2 billion per year.
Source: NEA's Status of the American Public School Teacher, 1995-96

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