WASHINGTON -- The growing racial and ethnic diversity of the nation's public school pupils isn't reflected among the teaching staff, which remains overwhelmingly white and female, according to a study released yesterday.

Male teachers are an increasingly endangered species in America's public school classrooms, comprising 21 percent of the teaching work force, the lowest percentage in 40 years, the National Education Association reported.

At a news conference, NEA President Reg Weaver noted the "troubling" lack of diversity in the teaching work force, saying it deprives pupils of minority and male role models.

"Many young people come to school without having a father at home, and when they're able to have access to a male teacher as a father figure, it certainly bodes well for them, and the same thing with minorities," Weaver said.

The typical public school teacher is white, female, 46 years old and married with school-age children, according to the NEA, which used figures drawn from the 2000-01 school year.

The NEA conducts its study of the status of the public school teacher every five years to give the public and education policy makers a "snapshot" inside the classroom. The NEA is the nation's largest union, representing 68 percent, or 2.7 million, of the nation's teachers.

According to the report, the majority of U.S. teachers -- 56 percent -- now have master's degrees, compared with 23 percent in 1961, when the NEA began the teacher study. In addition, today's teachers have an average of 15 years of full-time experience. The largest percentage of teachers, 43 percent, have been teaching more than 20 years.

"Children attending public schools today ... are being taught by the most experienced teachers ever," Weaver said.

Other highlights from the NEA report:

The average class size is at an all-time-low in elementary school -- 21 pupils per class. Secondary-school teachers have an average class size of 28 pupils, down from the 31-pupil average of 1996 but still higher than the low of 23 in 1981, the report showed.

Teachers spend an average of 50 hours a week on their duties and spend an average of $443 of their own money on their pupils during the year.

Seventy-three percent of teachers said they chose their profession because they wanted to work with young people. While 60 percent of teachers said they would choose teaching again as their career, that represents a slight decrease from previous years.

Of those who said they planned to leave teaching, 37 percent cited low salaries.

Weaver said low salaries relative to other professions had particularly undercut efforts to recruit men and minorities to be teachers. The average contract salary for teachers in 2001 was $43,262.

"Low salaries are driving people from the profession," Weaver said. "The very groups we need to recruit and retain the most are leaving the profession because of the poor compensation."

Education experts said there should be a concerted effort to attract male and minority teachers. According to the NEA study, 6 percent of teachers are African-American, while another 4 percent are other races.

"Students need to see role models. And teachers need to have a sense and understanding of where students are coming from," said University of Pittsburgh professor Charles Gorman, who heads the school's Tri-State Area School Study Council.

"If the pattern is overwhelmingly white and female, it's not just a color or sex issue. It's the values and attitudes that are dominant within those categories. Those are the things that are embedded in the policies and practices of the schools," added Gorman, a former Marine who said "people looked at me funny" when he decided years ago to become an elementary school teacher.

Bruce Hunter, chief lobbyist for the American Association of School Administrators, agreed that the decreasing number of male teachers, especially in elementary schools, may reflect a cultural norm in which women continue to be cast as the best "nurturers."

But Hunter, a veteran education analyst, said he was surprised by the fact that the NEA study showed that the percentage of male teachers was at an all-time-low. The percentage of male teachers peaked at 34 percent in 1971, when many men became teachers as an alternative to being drafted for Vietnam.

Hunter said he wasn't sure whether low pay or lack of respect for teachers, or both, had driven male teachers away in the past few years. "The profession has been beaten on pretty seriously for the last 10 years," he said.

But he said he expected to see the numbers of minority teachers rise in the next few years, although it would be a slow process. "Education has always been mostly white because most of the people who go to college are white. I think that is changing.

"This year, 36 percent or so of the kids who took the SATs were minority youngsters. I assume that schools, as one of the largest employers -- in the aggregate -- in the country, will get our fair share of those kids in four years," Hunter said.

Albert Fondy, president of the Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers, also expects the number of male and minority teachers to increase over the next few years because there will be more openings and more interest in the stability offered by a job in education.

"With a little bit of campaigning, there's no reason why we can't attract the very best college kids, both men and women," he said. "But we need to have a sense of urgency about it."

Kevin Carey, a senior policy analyst at the Education Trust, an independent nonprofit organization that lobbies for overall educational improvements in both schools and colleges, said some states, including Texas, already had had success in recruiting minority teachers by setting "institutional goals" for their education schools.

"I think it's an issue that can be addressed, but I don't think enough states have taken aggressive, creative actions to address it," Carey said.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.