“Profile of Troops to Teachers” is available from the National Center for Education Information.
A relatively high percentage of former military personnel who enter teaching are members of racial or ethnic minorities, and many of them are finding work in inner-city school districts, concludes a report.
Thirty-seven percent of instructors in the federal Troops to Teachers program are members of minorities, according to the study, released Aug. 31. That is more than double the 15 percent minority representation in the overall K-12 public school teaching population, the report says. In addition, more than half the “Troops” teachers work in large cities or medium-size cities—a much higher proportion than the teaching population at large, the study found. Congress created the Troops to Teachers program in 1993. An estimated 8,000 former military personnel have become instructors through the program.
The survey was conducted by mail between April 8 and June 30. There were 1,431 respondents, all of them former military personnel who have entered K-12 teaching. The margin of error varied according to the response rates for different questions.
