Our research has led us to conclude that New York City public schools cater to a great deal of minority students, such as Hispanics and African-Americans. Together, they make up 68.2% of the public school student population. However, there is still an astonishing amount of diversity within the public school system, reflecting New York City’s cosmopolitan nature, and students of all creeds and races may be found within it. With over a million students within more than 1,800 schools, the New York public school system is undeniably the largest school district within the United States.

The teachers of New York City are primarily white females, though there has been an increase in diversity over the last ten years. The percentage of female teachers has been steadily increasing since 2000, and the percentages of Hispanic and Asian teachers have been slowly rising as well. However, the number of teachers within the public school system has been steadily decreasing, going from 78,882 in 2008-2009 down to 73,373 in 2011-2012. This decrease is mostly seen in the ranks of General Education teachers, whose numbers went from 62,374 in 2008-2009 down to 54,778 in 2011-2012. However, the number of Special Education teachers has been showing some notable growth. This can probably be attributed to the fact that Special Education teachers are generally paid more than General Education Teachers.

The average amount of years that teachers have been working within the public school system has been slowly increasing ever since 2005-2006, where it was 9.1 years, and today the average is at 10.7 years. This could mean that there are less new teachers coming into the public school system, or that more teachers are not retiring. However, given the fact that the median age of public school teachers has stayed at 40 since 2009, the latter scenario seems less likely.