Profile of Teachers in the US 2011

Posted by on August 22, 2011

Snapshot 2011

A new survey from the National Center for Education Information (NCEI) finds that an influx of individuals from non-traditional backgrounds and entering the profession through non-traditional programs has altered the teaching force. One-third of first-time public school teachers hired since 2005 attended an alternative to college campus–based teacher preparation. According to the NCEI, findings from the survey illustrate striking differences between this non-traditional population and their traditionally prepared peers, especially in attitudes concerning proposed school reform measures and ways to strengthen teaching as a profession: eliminating tenure for teachers, performance-based pay, higher pay in high-needs schools and for high-demand subjects, recruiting individuals from other careers into teaching and administration, and using student achievement to evaluate teacher effectiveness. The findings also show similarities regardless of background in lesson preparation, age, length of teaching experience, and other variables. Nearly all public school teachers strongly support firing incompetent teachers regardless of seniority, are generally satisfied with their jobs, think they are competent to teach, rate their teacher-preparation programs highly, value working with colleagues, and plan to be teaching five years from now. NCEI surveyed 2,500 randomly selected K-12 public school teachers from MDR’s database of teachers, November 10, 2010 through June 20, 2011, using a 33-item mail and online survey questionnaire.

See the results: http://www.ncei.com/