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 their classes, according to a major new international study.
The salary differentials are part of a pattern of relatively low public investment in education in this country, compared with the other 30 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 U.S. 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 Wednesday, covers 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 U.S. in higher education:
– College enrollment has grown by 20 percent since 1995 across the group, with 1 in 4 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 U.S. is producing fewer mathematics and science graduates than most of the other member states.
The report also says that a college degree produces a greater boost in income in the U.S. 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,” Schleicher said.
