Schools and Staffing in the United States: A Statistical Profile, 1993-94

July 1996

Highlights

This report summarizes findings from the 1993-94 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). It also provides some comparisons with the earlier administrations of this survey in 1987-88 and 1990-91.

Trends: 1987-88 to 1993-94

The number of students per full-time-equivalent (FTE) teacher and average class sizes have declined, but most of the decrease occurred between 1987-88 and 1990-91 (table 1.2).

The percentage of students who belonged to a minority racial-ethnic group increased from 28 percent in 1987-88 to 32 percent in 1993-94 (table 1.3).

The proportion of teachers belonging to a minority racial-ethnic group increased only slightly between 1987-88 and 1993-94, from 12 percent to 13 percent (table 1.4).

Prekindergarten and extended-day programs have become increasingly common. In 1993-94, 30 percent of all public school offered care before and/or after school, about double the percentage that had offered care in 1987-88 (figure 1.4).

Although public school teachers' satisfaction with their working conditions did not change between 1987-88 and 1993-94, private school teachers were more likely to be satisfied in 1993-94 than in 1987-88 (table 1.12).

Teachers were more likely to report that they certainly would become teachers if given the chance to start over, but in 1993-94 they seemed less likely to consider teaching a permanent career than they did in 1987-88 (figures 1.6 and 1.7).

In constant dollars, scheduled salaries for public school teachers declined between 1987-88 and 1993-94, while scheduled salaries for private school teachers have increased (table 1.13).

Schools and Students

The nation's 107,000 schools enrolled a total of 46.6 million students in 1993-94 (table 2.1).

About 41.6 million students were enrolled in 81,000 public schools, while the remaining 5 million students were enrolled in 26,000 private schools (table 2.1).

The average public school in central cities and urban fringe communities had over 600 students, while in rural areas the average public school had about 400 students (table 2.2).

Sixteen percent of all elementary and secondary students were black; 12 percent were Hispanic; 1 percent were Native American; and 3 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander (table 2.3).

Public schools were more likely than private schools to offer bilingual and ESL services, just as limited English proficient students were more likely to be enrolled in public schools than private ones (tables 2.3 and 2.4).

In 1993-94, 30 percent of public and 48 percent of private elementary and combined schools offered extended-day programs (table 2.6).

The Work Force

There were approximately 2.9 million elementary and secondary school teachers in 1993-94—2.6 million in public schools and 380,000 in private schools (table 3.1).

Nearly half of all schools had no minority teachers, while 13 percent of all schools had at least 30 percent minority teachers (table 3.6).

Fifty-one percent of all new teachers have participated in a teacher induction program (table 3.8).

Ninety-seven percent of all teachers engaged in some form of professional development activity in 1993-94 (table 3.11).

Teaching Assignments

About 91 percent of public school teachers and 80 percent of private school teachers held full-time teaching assignments in 1993-94 (table 4.2).

Full-time teachers were required to spend an average of 33 hours per week in school, but spent additional time on school-related activities (table 4.3).

Elementary school teachers in self-contained classrooms spent an average of 21 hours per week teaching the four core subjects (table 4.4).

On average, departmentalized classes had 23 students in public schools and self-contained classes had 25 students (table 4.5).

Compensation

In 1993-94, full-time teachers earned an average base salary of $34,200 in public schools and $22,000 in private schools (table 5.2).

The average salary for a teacher with a bachelor's degree and no experience was $21,900 in public school districts and $16,200 in private schools (table 5.3).

Overall, 84 percent of teachers and 85 percent of principals received medical insurance paid for entirely or in part by their districts or schools (tables 5.4 and 5.5).

Thirty-one percent of public school districts provided step increases on their salary schedules for completing inservice training or college credits (table 5.6).

In the Northeast, 98 percent of the districts had collective bargaining agreements, a much greater proportion than in other regions of the country (table 5.7).

Opinions and Perceptions

When presented with eight goals of schooling and asked to choose the three that were most important to them, about 60 percent of both public and private school principals chose "promoting academic excellence" as one of the three (table 6.1).

About 25 percent of all teachers and about 10 percent of all principals reported that students' lack of preparation to learn and a lack of parent involvement were serious problems in their schools (tables 6.2 and 6.3).

Eighty-nine percent of school principals reported that they had a great deal of influence on decisions regarding school discipline policy, compared with 38 percent of teachers (tables 6.5 and 6.6, figure 6.3 and 6.4).

Overall, 11 percent of public school teachers were highly satisfied with their working conditions, compared with 36 percent of private school teachers (table 6.7).

Nearly 40 percent of public school teachers and more than 50 percent of private school teachers said they would become teachers again (table 6.8).

Teacher Supply and Demand

In both public school districts and private schools only about 0.3 percent of teaching positions were left vacant or filled by a substitute teacher and another 0.2-0.3 percent of teaching positions were withdrawn because a qualified applicant could not be found (table 7.1).

In 1993-94, about one-fifth of public school districts and one-quarter of private schools offered free teacher training to prepare teachers to teach in fields with current or anticipated shortages (table 7.5).

In 1993-94, about 11 percent of public school teachers and 16 percent of private school teachers had been newly hired by their schools (table 7.6).

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For more information about the content of this report, contact Stephen Broughman at Stephen.Broughman@ed.gov.