Schools And Staffing In The United States A Statistical Profile

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has recently released the 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), an integrated survey of public and private schools, school districts, principals, and teachers, conducted every 3 years. This report presents results from the recent SASS. In 1990-91, there were about 80,000 public schools and about 25,000 private schools in the United States, enrolling about 44.8 million students, almost 40.1 million in public schools and 4.7 million in private schools. Seventy-five percent of central city public schools had enrollments that were 20 percent or more minority. In 1990-91, there were 2.9 million teachers in the elementary schools and secondary schools, more than 2.5 million teachers of whom were in public schools. Seventy-three percent of teachers were female and 87 percent were white. Forty-nine percent of all schools had no minority teachers, and 46 percent of all teachers had a degree higher than a Bachelor's of Arts. In the study period, both public and private schools filled almost all of their approved positions, and 10 percent of public schools and 16 percent of private schools provided teacher retraining to fill fields with anticipated shortages. Information about teacher attitudes is also presented. Sixty-seven tables and 39 figures present survey data. Appendix A contains 27 additional tables by school typology. Appendix B contains the standard errors for selected tables. Appendix C presents technical notes. (SLD)