Worldwide, students who want to go into teaching tend to have poorer math and reading skills than students who plan to work as professionals outside of teaching, finds a new analysis of the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment.
In the United States, 52 percent of students expected to work in professions that require a university degree, but about 4 percent of them expected to work as teachers. That’s a wider gap than the average for industrialized countries studied.
Only 34 percent of teachers in the United States think the teaching profession is valued in society, according to the data. That is lower than other countries, like Singapore, where 68 percent of teachers said their profession is valued.
