Teachers’ views on their profession have become markedly more positive over the past quarter century, at least partially validating the widespread school-improvement efforts of the period, concludes a retrospective survey report released this week by MetLife Inc.

“The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Past, Present, and Future” is the financial company’s 25th annual survey of educators. The series was begun in 1984, one year after the catalytic “A Nation at Risk” report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, as a way of capturing teachers’ unique and sometimes overlooked perspectives on the conditions in schools and the impact of reform initiatives.

The current report, based in part on a national survey of 1,000 teachers conducted by Harris Interactive, offers a composite look at how those perspectives have changed over the last two and a half decades.

For the most part, according to the report, the trend lines are encouraging.

• The percentage of teachers saying that they are "very satisfied" with their careers has increased from 40 in 1984 to 62 in 2008
• More teachers today (66 percent) feel respected by society than did their counterparts in 1984 (47 percent).
• The percentage of teachers agreeing that they can earn a “decent salary” has nearly doubled since 1984, to 66 percent.
• Far more teachers today (75 percent, compared with 45 percent in 1984) say they would recommend a career in teaching to a young person.
• Two thirds of today’s teachers affirm that they were well-prepared for the profession, compared with 46 percent in 1984.
• Teachers also feel better equipped today than in past years when it comes to addressing student-learning challenges such as poverty, limited English language proficiency, and lack of parental support, according to the report.

Despite the generally positive trajectory of teachers’ responses over the years, however, MetLife’s data does also underscore persistent disparities among schools and mounting challenges facing the country’s public education system.

• Teachers in urban and secondary schools, especially those with high concentrations of low-income students, are significantly less likely to rate the academic standards in their schools as excellent, according to the report.
• Urban teachers are also considerably less positive than their suburban counterparts on the availability of teaching materials in their schools and the degree of parental support their students receive.
• The percentage of teachers responding that limited English proficiency hinders learning for a quarter or more of their students has doubled since 1992, from 11 to 22 percent, with the level reaching 30 percent for urban teachers.
• Nearly half of today’s teachers (up from 41 percent in 1992) say that poverty limits the day-to-day capabilities of at least a quarter of their students.
• The number of teachers saying that students’ learning abilities in their classes are so varied that they can’t teach effectively has jumped from 39 percent in 1988 to 43 percent today.
• Fewer than half of teachers (48 percent), meanwhile, agree that the now-pervasive standardized tests are an effective way to monitor student performance, down from 61 percent in 1984.

Read the full report…

Source: Teacher Magazine, 2.25.09