Teachers in the United States earn less relative to national income
than their counterparts in many industrialized countries, yet they spend far
more hours in front of the classroom, according to a major new international
study.
The salary differentials are part of a pattern of relatively low public
investment in education in the United States compared with other member
nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a
group in Paris that compiled the report. Total government spending on
educational institutions in the United States slipped to 4.8 percent of
gross domestic product in 1998, falling under the international average -- 5
percent -- for the first time.
''The whole economy has grown faster than the education system,'' Andreas
Schleicher, one of the report's authors, explained. ''The economy has done
very well, but teachers have not fully benefited.''
The report, due out today, is the sixth on education published since 1991
by the organization of 30 nations, founded in 1960, and now covering much of
Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
In addition to the teacher pay gap, the report shows the other countries
have begun to catch up with the United States in higher education: college
enrollment has grown by 20 percent since 1995 across the group, with one in
four young people now earning degrees. For the first time, the United
States' college graduation rate, now at 33 percent, is not the world's
highest. Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Britain have surpassed
it.
The United States is also producing fewer mathematics and science
graduates than most of the other member states. And, the report says, a
college degree produces a greater boost in income here while the lack of a
high school diploma imposes a bigger income penalty.
''The number of graduates is increasing, but that stimulates even more of
a demand -- there is no end in sight,'' Mr. Schleicher said. ''The demand
for skill, clearly, is growing faster than the supply that is coming from
schools and colleges.''
The report lists the salary for a high school teacher in the United
States with 15 years experience as $36,219, above the international average
of $31,887 but behind seven other countries and less than 60 percent of
Switzerland's $62,052. Because teachers in the United States have a heavier
classroom load -- teaching almost a third more hours than their counterparts
abroad -- their salary per hour of actual teaching is $35, less than the
international average of $41 (Denmark, Spain and Germany pay more than $50
per teaching hour, South Korea $77).
In 1994, such a veteran teacher in the United States earned 1.2 times the
average per capita income whereas in 1999 the salary was just under the
national average. Only the Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland and Norway pay
their teachers less relative to national income; in South Korea, teachers
earn 2.5 times the national average. Teacher pay accounts for 56 percent of
what the United States spends on education, well below the 67 percent
average among the group of countries.
The new data come as the United States faces a shortage of two million
teachers over the next decade, with questions of training, professionalism
and salaries being debated by politicians local and national.
Joost Yff, an international expert at the American Association of
Colleges of Teacher Education, said training for teachers is comparable
among most of the nations in the study, and that they are all grappling with
similar issues of raising standards and increasing professionalism.
Though the United States lags behind in scores on standardized tests in
science and mathematics, students here get more instruction in those
subjects, the report shows. The average 14-year-old American spent 295 hours
in math and science classes in 1999, far more than the 229 international
average; only Austria (370 hours), Mexico (367) and New Zealand (320) have
more instruction in those subjects.
Middle-schoolers here spend less time than their international
counterparts studying foreign languages and technology, but far more hours
working on physical education and vocational skills.
High school students in the United States are far more likely to have
part-time jobs: 64 percent of Americans ages 15 to 19 worked while in
school, compared with an international average of 31 percent (only Canada
and the Netherlands, with 69 percent, and Denmark, with 75 percent, were
higher).
One place the United States spends more money is on special services for
the disabled and the poor. More than one in four children here are in
programs based on income -- only five other countries serve even 1 in 10 --
and nearly 6 percent get additional resources based on physical or mental
handicaps, twice or three times the rate in other countries.
The report shows a continuing shift in which the United States is losing
its status as the most highly educated among the nations.
The United States has the highest level of high school graduates ages 55
to 64, but falls to fifth, behind Norway, Japan, South Korea, the Czech
Republic and Switzerland, among ages 25 to 34. Among college graduates, it
leads in the older generation but is third behind Canada and Japan in the
younger cohort. While the portion of Americans with high school diplomas
remains at 88 percent across age groups, the average among member countries
is rising. It has gone from 58 percent of those ages 45 to 54, to 66 percent
of those ages 35 to 44 and 72 percent of those ages 25 to 34. A higher
percentage of young people in Norway, Japan, South Korea, the Czech Republic
and Switzerland have degrees than in the United States.
''The U.S. has led the development in college education and making
education sort of accessible for everyone,'' Mr. Schleicher said. ''It's now
becoming the norm.''
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
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