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Teacher training levels provide a general indicator of teacher capabilities and can be an important factor in determining the overall quality of instruction and knowledge acquired by the students. The better educated U.S. teachers are, the better prepared students will be to meet the challenges of achieving sustainable development. For example, Figure 4.44 shows the percentage of secondary teachers with Master's Degree or more. In 1961, 14.6% of secondary teachers had less than a bachelor’s degree, but by 1996, the percentage was only 0.3%. Graduate-level training also increased during this period as indicated in the first figure. The percentage of public secondary school teachers having a master’s degree or higher in education, a subject matter discipline, or another professional field has more than doubled between 1961 and 1996.
Teachers’ knowledge of the subject matter they are teaching is also an important factor in determining the overall quality of instruction and the knowledge acquired by students. One indicator of teacher subject-matter knowledge presented in the second figure is the percentage of students taking classes from teachers who have academic training, either at the undergraduate or graduate level, in the subjects they are teaching. Teachers who are teaching subject areas where they have not been trained are less likely to be able to communicate challenging content in those subject areas when compared with teachers having stronger academic backgrounds in those subjects. (See Figure 4.45.) Teachers may not be teaching subjects for which they are well prepared because there is a lack of well-qualified candidates in some locations, the assignment policies of school districts, or for other reasons.
Link(s) to national databases (also see section on Related Internet Links):
http://www.sdi.gov/indicators/lc_teach.htm
Last Modified: May 14, 2002