Since 1990-91, the average salary for teachers actually fell slightly after adjusting for inflation, offsetting increases in the 1980s. Public Perception Public perception about problems facing the local public schools has shifted in the past several years. Between 1985 and 1990, an increasing proportion of people believed that drug use was a major problem facing schools. Then, the proportion of people who felt drug use was a major problem facing schools fell, from 38 percent in 1990 to 7 percent in 1995, before rising again to 16 percent in 1996. During the fall of 1993, there were 915,000 faculty in higher education institutions.
White males constitute a disproportionate share of college instructional faculty and staff.
However, this distribution varies substantially by age of faculty. Among full-time faculty under 30, the balance between male and female faculty is even and 21 percent of the faculty are minorities. However, there has been little change since the mid 1980s. Many of the advancements in performance that had been made in earlier years among black students have not continued or have reversed. White, black, and Hispanic students improved their mathematics performance between 1973 and 1996, among all three age groups.