But the last 15 years have proved catastrophic for teaching, when it comes to both societal and economic value. In a 2024 paper , Matthew Kraft, an associate professor of education at Brown, and Melissa Arnold Lyon, an assistant professor of public administration and policy at the University of Albany, found that “the overall wellbeing of the teaching profession today is at or near historically low levels.”
Research shows that a majority of parents do not want their children to pursue teaching. In a 2022 survey, just 18 percent of adults surveyed said they were “likely to encourage their child or another younger person to become a K-12 teacher,” according to Kraft and Lyon. Not surprisingly, among high school seniors and college freshmen, interest in teaching has shrunk by nearly half since the 1990s. And the number of people seeking a teaching license has cratered since 2006.