A Quarter Century of Changes in the Elementary and Secondary Teaching Force: From 1987 to 2012. Statistical Analysis Report. NCES 2017-092

This report utilizes the nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) to examine changes in the elementary and secondary teaching force in the United States over the quarter century from 1987-88 to 2011-12. The report focuses on three key demographic characteristics: the size of the teaching force, the level of teaching experience of the teaching force, and the racial/ethnic composition of the teaching force. SASS is a large-scale sample survey of elementary and secondary teachers and schools in the United States. SASS has been conducted seven times--in school years 1987-88, 1990-91, 1993-94, 1999-2000, 2003-04, 2007-08, and 2011-12. SASS was developed to obtain comprehensive data on teachers, including a wide range of information on teachers' backgrounds, characteristics, qualifications, and workplaces (Haggstrom, Darling-Hammond, and Grissmer 1988; Ingersoll 1995). As a result, SASS is an excellent source of data for examining changes in the demographic characteristics of the teaching force in the United States. SASS is administered by the Institute of Education Sciences' National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Education. This report builds on and expands an earlier study by Ingersoll, Merrill, and Stuckey (2014) that analyzed SASS data to explore what demographic trends and changes have, or have not, occurred in the elementary and secondary teaching force since the late 1980s. This earlier study found considerable changes in the teacher force, with significant, but under-recognized implications. Among the key findings were that the teaching force has become: (1) larger--The teaching force dramatically increased in size, growing at over twice the rate of student enrollment; (2) less experienced--With increases in hiring there has also been a correspondingly large increase in the number of teachers who are beginners in their first several years of teaching. In 1987-88, the modal, or most common, teacher had 15 years of teaching experience. By 2007-08, the modal teacher was in his or her first year of teaching; and (3) more diverse--The teaching force has rapidly become more racially/ethnically diverse. Growth in the number of minority teachers has outpaced growth in minority students and has been more than twice the growth rate of White teachers. The objective of the Ingersoll, Merrill, and Stuckey (2014) study was to provide a broad overview of national changes in the demographic characteristics of the teaching force and to explore some of the possible reasons for, and implications of, the changes discovered. It did not disaggregate the data, nor did it investigate how the changes differ by type of teacher and by type of school. These variations are the subject of this report. This analysis investigates how changes in these characteristics of the teaching force--the number of teachers, the level of teaching experience, and the racial/ethnic diversity of the teaching force--varied across different types of teachers and across types of schools in the 25 years between 1987-88 and 2011-12. The data analysis shows that these changes have not been distributed evenly across teacher and school types. The following are appended: (1) Standard Error Tables; (2) Methodology and Technical Notes: Overview of the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey and Overview of the 1987-88 Schools and Staffing Survey; (3) Description of Variables Used in This Report; and (4) Glossary of Terms. [For the previous report, "Seven Trends: The Transformation of the Teaching Force. Updated April 2014. CPRE Report. #RR-80," see ED566879.]