One of the common assumptions lurking in the background of our education debates is that “quality” of the teaching workforce has declined a great deal over the past few decades (see here, here, here and here [slide 16]). There is a very plausible storyline supporting this assertion: Prior to the dramatic rise in female labor force participation since the 1960s, professional women were concentrated in a handful of female-dominated occupations, chief among them teaching. Since then, women’s options have changed, and many have moved into professions such as law and medicine instead of the classroom.
The result of this dynamic, so the story goes, is that the pool of candidates to the teaching profession has been “watered down.” This in turn has generated a decline in the aggregate “quality” of U.S. teachers, and, it follows, a stagnation of student achievement growth. This portrayal is often used as a set-up for a preferred set of solutions – e.g., remaking teaching in the image of the other professions into which women are moving, largely by increasing risk and rewards.
Although the argument that “teacher quality” has declined substantially is sometimes taken for granted, its empirical backing is actually quite thin, and not as clear-cut as some might believe.