Have You Read the Latest?

Posted on | February 27, 2013 | 3 Comments

I may be the last education blogger to write about the 2012 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. But perhaps you haven’t read the latest results from MetLife’s yearly survey. You may be glad you haven’t. The survey results aren’t exactly a fountain of fabulous news. Here are a few tasty tidbits:

Just 39% of teachers surveyed are very satisfied with their jobs, which is a decrease of five percentage points since last year. This is the lowest job satisfaction level in 25 years.

Not surprisingly, teachers who are less satisfied with their jobs are more likely to be in schools where education budgets have been cut in the last 12 months.

However, there is an interesting nugget in the report. Ninety percent (90%) of school principals and 93% of teachers believe that teachers in their schools possess the academic skills and abilities necessary to implement Common Core State Standards.

There is plenty worth reading in the MetLife survey. It’s a wonderful bit of insight every year and I would love to know what you think about it. Are you satisfied with your job? What do you do to keep yourself professionally satisfied every day?

Comments

3 Responses to “Have You Read the Latest?”

1. 3
   Kelly Says:
   February 27th, 2013 at 8:24 pm

   I absolutely love my job. On most days I’m satisfied with the job I’m doing but I’m also reflective and can be very critical of myself. I had a couple of years where I really struggled finding my self-worth as an educator. Then I heard a great piece of advice…”Remember who you work for.” This statement is so powerful for educators because when you get right down to it, we don’t actually work for our principals, our schools or our districts. Our students are our focus. When you make this a life application, the bad days become much fewer. Try it! It works!

2. 2
   Mary Says:
   February 27th, 2013 at 11:57 am

   It’s the new Marzano and Danielson teacher evaluations that are extinguishing the light….the amount of time spent on clerical work and analyzing data leaves zero time for lesson planning that is relevant to those 30 faces in front of you…..

3. 1
   cheryl best Says:
   February 27th, 2013 at 7:22 am

   I am truely satisfied with my job. I am not completely satisfied though. I love my students, I love teaching but I like many, do not like the way we have RTI, Common Core, and every other buzz word the politicians can come up with, become another focus! I believe we need to decide ONE focus, and spend TIME perfecting it. I love everything about Common Core, but I am afraid we will abandon it after such a short time that we never really learn it. Isn’t it funny that we do this to our students each day because of this test driven curriculum? I keep satisfied each day by learning and perfecting what I have learned with my students.

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