The Supply and Demand of Elementary and Secondary School Teachers in the United States.

The Supply and Demand of Elementary and Secondary School Teachers in the United States. This essay examines the supply-and-demand of teachers at several levels including elementary. I know one thing. Regardless, our salaries will never be equal to our educations.



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Policymakers and educational administrators consider several factors when making decisions about the need for teachers. The number of teachers required in a district depends largely on K-12 enrollment growth patterns, the pace of teacher retirement and attrition, and desired teacher-student ratios. Other factors, such as high immigration rates within the population or policies on reducing class size, also contribute to the demand for new teachers (Yasin, 1998). This digest will give a brief overview of teacher supply and demand in the United States, including projections for the next 10 years.



PROFILES OF TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES



For the past ten years, the supply of public elementary and secondary school teachers has grown. Currently, the number of teachers in the United States is estimated to be 3.1 million, 2,666,034 of whom are teaching in public elementary and secondary schools (Snyder, 1999). Another 400,000 teach in private elementary and secondary schools (NCES, 1997). These estimates indicate an increase of about 17 percent since 1988. For the 1998-99 school year, there were 2,780,074 teachers in public schools. Over a million of those teachers (approximately 40 percent) were in the six states of California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Texas.



The number of elementary and secondary school teachers is projected to increase by 1.1 percent annually to a total of 3.46 million by the year 2008 (Gerald & Hussar, 1998). Elementary school teachers will increase to 2.05 million and secondary school teachers will increase to 1.19 million by 2008 (Gerald & Hussar, 1998). Similarly, elementary and secondary student enrollments are projected to increase to 54.27 million for the same time period. However, other factors such as teacher retirement and increased immigration will continue to increase the number of students, and thus the need for more teachers.