Video: Who Is the Average U.S. Teacher?

What does the teaching profession look like? If you guessed mostly white and female, you’d be right—but the whole picture is a lot more nuanced than that. Let EdWeek reporter Liana Loewus explain in just over two minutes.

This data is from the U.S. Department of Education’s survey to a nationally representative sample of 40,000 teachers. This is the first time we’ve gotten new demographic data on the teaching force in four years, but going forward, this survey will be released every two years.

Some highlights:

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• The average teacher is a 42-year-old white woman, with 14 years of experience. She makes $55,000 a year and works 53 hours in an average week.
• There are some signs that the teaching profession is getting more diverse. The number of Hispanic teachers, for example, has inched forward. (It’s worth noting that studies have shown that increasing teacher diversity significantly is a long way away.)
• But where are all the male teachers? Gender diversity among the profession has gotten worse in the past four years.
• Charter school teachers are less experienced and more diverse compared to traditional public school teachers.

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For more details on the new federal data, watch the video, or check out Liana’s in-depth article in Education Week.