Attracting talented people to the teaching profession in sufficient numbers has long been difficult in California.

Most teachers are women. In elementary grades, nearly nine out of every ten teachers is a woman. In high schools, this ratio is lower — six out of ten. Eight out of ten teachers are white.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) keeps track of trends in the teaching workforce. It doesn't change quickly.

Nearly 90% of teachers in elementary grades are women

In 1964, the social context for teaching was very different than it is today. Over half of working women with college degrees worked as teachers. Few professions were open to them at that time! By 1996, there were considerably more options for women, and the teaching profession's share of employment for female college graduates had fallen to 15%.

In movies and TV shows, teachers are usually cast as white women. There's a reason. According to the California Department of Education, white women account for nearly half of California's teaching staff (45% in 2018-19). The second largest group is white men (16%).

It's not just a trend in California, either. Across the country, most teachers are white, and it's not changing quickly.

The lack of diversity in the teaching profession is bad for kids. There is evidence that students benefit from having teachers of diverse backgrounds. In particular, black male students tend to do better in school when they have at least one black male teacher.

Teaching is a choice

K-12 education is very labor-intensive and therefore expensive. Staff-related costs (wages and benefits) are by far the largest category of expense in the school system. As the US economy has grown more productive, wages for jobs requiring a college degree have risen at about twice the rate of inflation. The average teacher's salary, which has merely kept pace with inflation in the last 50 years, has failed to keep up with this trend.

Teacher pay has merely kept pace with inflation.

Is teaching attracting fewer top students?

Pay isn't the only thing that matters to talented young people as they choose a profession. But it does matter. As young people make choices about their future career, the relative attractiveness of pay makes a difference. Over time, teacher pay has tended to grow more slowly than pay in other professions. The strongest students don't necessarily choose to become teachers.

Research by ACT in 2015 confirmed this conclusion. Many high school students take the ACT exam as part of the process of applying for college. Along with the exam, students are asked to fill out a survey indicating their interest in various college majors. "Interest among ACT-tested graduates in becoming educators continues to decline at an alarming rate," reported ACT in its 2015 Conditions of Future Educators. "Students interested in education have lower-than-average achievement levels, particularly in STEM areas."

The declining interest in education as a profession is more acute in California than in other states like New York. Nationally, ACT found that about five percent of those taking the ACT were interested in teaching or other education-related professions. In California, only three percent expressed interest in education-related work.

No one expects wealth from a teaching career. Some top students want to become educators even if other options might be more comfortable. One study found that the percentage of teachers, especially female teachers, from top institutions has not changed much from the late 1980s to 2016.

Does it actually matter whether teachers have strong academic qualifications before they begin teaching? California doesn't collect the necessary data to answer the question. Research from Missouri, however, suggests the answer is yes, at least for mathematics. Better-scoring teachers deliver better-scoring students. Across the globe, students have higher reading and math skills when their teachers have better cognitive skills in literacy and numeracy.

How to get great teachers. Even men.

If you want brilliant people to become teachers, ask them. They might say yes. The power of asking is a core part of the recruiting success of Teach for America, a non-profit organization that actively encourages top talent from top colleges to enter the teaching profession.

Asking is also a key strategy of the EnCorps STEM teachers program, which recruits experienced STEM Experts to become teacher-leaders serving high-need students. If you're wondering whether teaching is for you, and what would be involved in making a career switch, have a look at Teacher.org.

The United States could learn a lot from other countries about how to make teaching a highly sought-after profession. A 2015 report by the Center on International Education Benchmarking, How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World, examines the recruitment and selection practices in five countries with a reputation for good teaching. It finds that money and status count:

The selection process for teachers in these countries extends beyond academics. These countries select for a variety of skills and personal qualities, such as:

• Ability to work well with children and collaborate with adults.
• Personal and communication skills.
• Conceptual, analytic, and problem-solving abilities.

Self-selection plays an important role in the teaching workforce, and cultural norms can play a limiting role. American culture doesn't routinely or automatically suggest to men that teaching can be a good career choice for them. It's not an easy impression to change, but not impossible, either. For example, changes in the nursing profession offer some hope. In 1970, less than 3% of registered nurses were men; as of 2021, the percentage was closer to 12%.

Updated January 2018, October 2018, January 2019, November 2019, March 2021, August 2022.