Statistical Analysis Report:

The Status of Teaching as a Profession, 1990-91

January 1997

Executive Summary

The objective of this report is to provide an empirical examination of the status of elementary and secondary teaching as a profession in the United States. The primary data source for this analysis is the nationally representative 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), conducted by the (NCES).

Teacher professionalization—the movement to upgrade the status, timing, and working conditions of teachers—has received a great deal of interest in recent years. This report addresses several questions concerned with this topic: How professionalized is elementary and secondary teaching? To what extent can elementary and secondary teachers be considered professionals, and to what extent can elementary and secondary schools be considered professionalized workplaces? Moreover, to what degree does teacher professionalization differ between various kinds of public and private school across the United States?

This focus of this report is professionalization—not professionalism. The latter refers to the attitudes and beliefs of those who are considered to be, or aspire to be considered as, professional. The former refers to the degree to which particular employees and their workplaces exhibit the attributes, characteristics, and criteria identified with professions and professionals. This report assesses levels of teacher professionalization in elementary and secondary schools by examining a selected set of traditional characteristics used to distinguish professions from other kinds of occupations:

Credentials

the use of professional criteria for hiring teaching job candidates

Induction

the provision of mentoring programs for beginning teachers
the effectiveness of assistance provided to new teachers

Professional Development

the provision of financial support for teachers' continuing education
the extent of participation of teaching staffs in activities sponsored by professional teaching organizations

Specialization

the extent to which secondary-level teachers teach subjects that match their fields of training

Authority

the extent to which teachers influence school decisions concerned with key educational issues

Compensation

the normal teacher starting salaries offered by schools
the highest teacher salary levels offered by schools
the numbers of paid benefits provided by schools

The 1990-91 SASS data show that, on the one hand, most elementary and secondary schools exhibited at least some of the characteristics traditionally associated with professionalized workplaces. The data also show, however, that despite a decade of reform initiatives, most schools lacked many of the characteristics associated with professionalization. For example, only a minority of schools provided assistance to new teachers that the teaching staffs strongly agreed was effective. Only a minority of schools provided financial reimbursement for teachers’ continuing education tuition and fees. In only a minority of schools did principals report their faculties to have as much decisionmaking influence as they themselves had over key educatioml issues. Finally, starting salaries for teachers in most schools were lower than those in many other occupations that require a college education.

The data also show that schools varied in their degree of teacher professionalization, depending on the type of school. For instance, high-poverty public schools were less professionalized than public schools in more affluent communities, most notably, in professional development activities and their degree of faculty decisionmaking influence. Moreover, large public schools were slightly more professionalized than small public schools in several ways, including salary levels and paid benefits. On the other hand, large public schools were slightly less professionalized than small public schools in other ways, including assistance for newcomers and faculty participation in professional development programs.

The most striking differences in levels of teacher professionalization, however, were those found between public and private schools. The teaching job in private schools was in many ways far less professionalized than in public schools. Comparing across the characteristics examined in this report, public schcols in more affluent communities were among the most professionalized of all schools. On the other hand, non-Catholic religious private schools were among the least professionalized of all schools. Public schools, as a whole, were more Iikely than private schools to use a full range of professional hiring requirements (e.g., certification in area of specialization, substantive training in area of specialization, completion of accredited training program, passage of examination). In addition, public school teachers did less teaching out of their fields of training. Public schools more often provided a full range of paid benefits (medical, dental, life insurance, retirement). Finally, both starting and end-of-career teacher salaries were higher for public school teachers than for private school teachers.

On the other hand, teachers in private schools were more likely to report that assistance to beginning teachers was effective than were public school teachers. Moreover, private school principals more often reported their faculties to have substantial decisionmaking influence over key educational issues.

This report closes by discussing the important implications these findings have for current education research and policy in several areas, such as teacher credential the problems and prospects of beginning teachers decisionmaking in schools and comparisons between public and private schools.

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For more information about the content of this report, contact the SASS staff at NCES.