Teachers and principals have a critical impact on the education experience of students in the United States. The National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) collects data from public and private school principals and teachers in order to better understand their characteristics and experiences. Using data collected during the 2017–18 school year, reports describing these findings for schools and principals were released in August 2019, and a new report about teachers was released in April 2020. During the 2015–16 school year, NTPS collected data about only public schools, principals, and teachers. The data collection for the 2017–18 school year included data about private schools, principals, and teachers as well.
Among the findings from the recently released teacher report are the following:
- Race and ethnicity. Seventy-nine percent of all public school teachers in the 2017–18 school year were non-Hispanic White, 7 percent were non-Hispanic Black, and 9 percent were Hispanic. Among private school teachers, 85 percent were non-Hispanic White, 3 percent were non-Hispanic Black, and 7 percent were Hispanic.
- Salary. Regular full-time teachers in public schools had a higher average base salary ($57,900) than regular full-time teachers in private schools ($45,300) in the 2017–18 school year.
- Work outside of school. In the 2017–18 school year, 18 percent of public school teachers and 21 percent of private school teachers held jobs outside their school system during the school year.
- Evaluation. In the 2017–18 school year, 78 percent of public school teachers and 69 percent of private school teachers were evaluated during the last school year.
- Among teachers who were evaluated, higher percentages of private school teachers than public school teachers agreed with statements about the positive impact of evaluations on their teaching. Eighty-three percent of private school teachers agreed that the evaluation process helped them determine their success with students, 84 percent agreed that the evaluation process positively affected their teaching, and 81 percent agreed that the evaluation process led to improved student learning (figure 1). Comparable estimates for public school teachers were 72 percent, 73 percent, and 69 percent, respectively.
Figure 1. Percentage of teachers who agreed with different statements about the positive impact of evaluations, by school type: 2017–18
More information about these and other topics (including teachers' years of experience, class size, and professional development) are available in the full report.
NTPS is a nationally representative survey of teachers and principals from public and private schools. For the public sector (but not the private sector), NTPS includes state representative data as well. NTPS uses scientifically proven methods to select a small sample of school faculty to provide information about major education issues related to school and staffing characteristics while minimizing the burden on teacher and principal communities. Without the cooperation and participation of districts and their teachers and principals, reports such as these could not be produced.
Data files for the 2017–18 NTPS will be released later this year. In order to protect the identities of respondents, researchers must apply for a restricted-use license to access the full restricted-use data files. Data will also be available through NCES's online data tool, DataLab, where users can create custom tables and regressions without a restricted-use license.
By Maura Spiegelman, NCES
