Met Life Survey of the American School Teacher, 2006: Expectations and Experiences

On Thursday, Met Life released their annual survey describing attitudes and experiences of American teachers. In many years, this annual study challenges widely-held perceptions of teachers and our work in the classroom. This year was no exception. It points out that professional respect is a critical component of teacher satisfaction, and is even more important to experienced teachers than early-career colleagues. A few highlights:

• Being treated as a professional by the community is a key driver of teacher satisfaction.
  Dissatisfied teachers are more than twice as likely as satisfied teachers to feel that they are not treated as a professional by the community (36% vs. 15%).
• One-quarter of teachers (27%) say it is likely they will leave the profession in the next five years.
• Teachers who plan to leave are more likely than others to report worse experiences than
  expected with the professional prestige of teaching (44% vs. 34%), salary and benefits (40% vs. 30%) and control over their own work (24% vs. 13%).

--BUT--our problems with teacher retention are more significant with long-term professionals than new teachers:

• Teachers with 21 or more years experience are nearly four times as likely as new teachers (less than five years experience) to plan to leave teaching to go into a different occupation (44% vs. 12%).

--AND--in some ways, new teachers are better prepared for meeting challenges posed by issues that have arisen in recent years than their more experienced counter-parts:

• New teachers (less than five years experience) are more likely than their peers with 21 or more years experience to feel prepared to engage families in supporting their children’s education (42% vs. 27%), work with children with varying abilities (42% vs. 30%) and maintain order and discipline (44% vs. 34%).
• New teachers are more likely than their veteran peers to have mentors (82% vs. 16%).
• New teachers’ expectations are more aligned with the realities of teaching. They are less likely to report that the number of special needs students they would work with (34% vs. 44%) and their professional prestige (21% vs. 41%) were worse than they expected upon entering the profession.

To me, this suggests that we cannot neglect the need to provide support, growth, and renewal experiences for experienced teachers. Through innovative teacher education and induction programs, there is evidence that we are making progress in equipping early-career teachers to succeed. Now, we must also take seriously the challenge of fighting burn-out, and nurturing the talents and capacity of veteran teachers who have so much to offer the next generation of students. What did you find interesting in the survey results?

NCTE Weighs In on the TEACH Act

Over the next few weeks, members of Congress will be hearing from NCTE about provisions of the Teacher Excellence for All Children Act (TEACH Act) of 2005. The bill was introduced in the House (H.R. 2835) by its author Representative George Miller (D-CA), and in the Senate (S. 1218) by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL). It’s an ambitious piece of legislation that seeks to amend the two most powerful laws influencing education today—the Higher Education Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind). And, in its current state, it has no chance to become law.

So, why bother? Why tie up NCTE resources to improve a bill that almost certainly won’t revolutionize NCLB, access to higher education, or regulation of teacher education programs?

I think it was that wise sage Woody Allen who once said that 80% of success is just showing up. When you look at some of the legislation enacted this decade, it’s easy to see how this old maxim applies in Washington DC. Just this week, an energy bill that had failed in two consecutive Congressional terms suddenly became law. Passage of a bill like No Child Left Behind would have been very unlikely in the mid-1990’s, but by 2001, it was the law of the land (as we know too well!). The policy pendulum will, inevitably, begin to swing the other way. So, we must not only be present, but influential, when opportunities for real reform emerge.

The TEACH Act could be a blueprint for substantive changes in how federal monies can be used to support student achievement, entry into the teaching profession, and lifelong learning across a teaching career. A group of NCTE leaders gathered at a summer meeting of the College Forum to discuss the merits of the TEACH Act, among other matters. They offered suggestions to Anne Gere, Director of the Squire Office for Policy Research in English Language Arts, and Anne backed their points with research culled from recent policy studies. Working with NCTE legislative consultants Ellin Nolan and Lyndsay Pinkus, with Federal Relations Program Officer Sandra Gibbs, and me, Anne pulled together this letter and research summary that will go to Congressional leaders next week.

In the past, this was as much as NCTE could do to "show up" in deliberations about federal policy. But since we opened our Program Office in Alexandria, Virginia in early July, we are now positioned to do much more. In August, program officers Sandra Gibbs (Federal Relations), Paul Bodmer (Higher Education), and Barbara Cambridge (PreK-12 Education) will be arranging meetings with congressional staff to help them understand our positions on the TEACH Act, the Higher Education Act, Striving Readers legislation, and other pending bills. We can all learn from their experiences by monitoring their blogs, and the blog maintained by the NCTE West Office Director, Dale Allender.

You’ll still be hearing from me, too. NCTE will only really begin to show up on the policy radar when we get active at the grassroots. So watch for calls to action, newsletter postings, and e-mailed invitations to join us in helping our professional community begin to steer literacy policy (rather than being run over by it!). Many thanks for doing all that you can to ensure that the knowledge and sensibilities of English language arts teachers shows up in federal policy on literacy education.