Today’s high school students are showing less interest in pursuing careers in education, and teachers in the profession are feeling burnt out and underpaid, according to a new report from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB).
Megan Boren
The report – created in partnership with Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education – examines responses from teachers-in-training and available student data to discern how members of Generation Z – those born between 1996 and 2012 – view careers in education.
Student interest in working in education continues a generally downward trend across eight states in the U.S. South, the worst still being Louisiana with 3.7% in 2022, according to researchers’ analyses of ACT data. Arkansas, which among the eight usually has the highest interest, saw decreasing interest at 6.1% in 2022 compared to 6.9% the year before.
The scope of the study was primarily confined to data from Kentucky and Tennessee. In those two states, on average, education-related subjects are the sixth most popular intended major. This puts the major below the likes of science, social science, engineering, business, health sciences, and those undecided.
Among high school students who did intend to major in education, female students continue to make up the vast majority in both Kentucky and Tennessee at 77% and 83%, respectively. Though in the former, there was a slight decrease from 79% the year prior in 2021. In Tennessee, the 83% in 2022 marked an increase from 80% in 2021. Tennessee also experienced declining male student interest in education, with rates falling from 19% of interested students in 2021 to 16%.
White students continue to make up most of the students intending to major in the field, according to ACT data shown in the report. The gap in numbers between racial and ethnic groups is distinct and hard to miss. In Tennessee, in 2022, white students made up 78% of those intending to major in education, followed in second by Black students, who made up 9%.
Despite decreasing interest for working in education, enrollment trends for the two states’ high school introductory teaching courses complicated the story.
