Overall, the proportion of bachelor’s degree recipients who had taught at the kindergarten through 12th-grade level within a year of graduation or who had prepared to teach but not taught remained steady during the 1990s.

Twelve percent of 1999–2000 bachelor’s degree recipients taught in a K–12 school within a year of graduation, up from 10 percent for their 1992–93 counterparts. However, the earlier graduates were more likely than the later ones to have prepared to teach¹ but not taught (5 vs. 3 percent). As a result, the overall proportion who had either taught or prepared to teach but not taught was the same for both cohorts (15 percent).

Among education majors, the 1999–2000 graduates showed a greater inclination than the 1992–93 graduates to teach: 80 percent of education majors graduating in 1999–2000 had either taught within a year or prepared to teach but not taught, compared with 71 percent of their 1992–93 counterparts (see table 37-1).

Teachers’ academic qualifications have been measured using college entrance examination (CEE) scores (SAT or ACT) or grade point averages (GPAs), although both measures have limitations (NCES 2005-161). Not everyone takes a CEE, and even if they do, their scores do not capture their college performance because the tests are taken before students enter college. GPAs measure academic performance in college, but grades are not standardized within or among institutions. The proportion of graduates who had either taught or prepared to teach but not taught increased between 1992–93 and 1999–2000 for those with the lowest CEE scores² (from 18 to 23 percent), but not for those with CEE scores in the middle range (15 to 16 percent) or at the highest level (10 percent in both years). There was no measurable change for graduates at any specific GPA level.

Among 1999–2000 graduates who had taught within a year of graduation, 66 percent taught first in an elementary school, 30 percent in a secondary school, and 4 percent in a combined school (see table 37-2). To place this in context, 63 percent of all teachers in 1999–2000 taught in elementary schools, 31 percent in secondary schools, and 7 percent in combined schools.³ Teachers with the highest CEE scores were more likely to have taught in a secondary school (48 percent) than were those with scores at the middle and lower levels (32 and 25 percent, respectively) (see table 37-2).

¹ “Prepared to teach” means either that graduates were certified or that they had completed a teacher education program or student teaching assignment but were not yet certified. (back to text)

²Graduates’ CEE scores are either the combined SAT score (sum of the SAT verbal and math scores) or the ACT composite score converted to an estimated SAT combined score. The three levels of scores represent the bottom fourth, middle half, and top fourth. Twenty-two percent of 1993 and 31 percent of 2000 bachelor’s degree recipients did not have scores. (back to text)

³ U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), previously unpublished tabulation (January 2006). (back to text)