Who's Teaching, and Who Will Teach, Vocational Education?

Data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, and from New York and Texas, were analyzed in 1999 to identify prevailing trends in the vocational education (VE) teacher labor market. The data, all secondary sources, were analyzed by using a set of indicators for detecting shortage or surplus conditions, and a set of guidelines for developing behavioral models to explain labor supply choices on the part of individuals, and labor demand choices on the part of educational agencies. Among the main findings of the analysis were the following: (1) both the absolute size of the VE teaching force, and its size relative to the total teaching force, appear to have declined since the early 1980s; (2) although VE teachers tended to be evenly split between men and women, a great deal of occupational segregation existed across subfields; (3) compared with nonvocational teachers, VE teachers tended to be significantly older and have lower levels of educational attainment; and (5) existing data fail to capture the information needed to determine whether shortages exist in teacher labor markets. (Contains 169 references and 71 tables/figures. Appended are a description of the primary data sources and 32 supplementary tables/graphs from the National New York and Texas Teacher Databases.) (MN)