Teacher Polls Look to Sway Policymakers

Perhaps at no other time in the history of American education has there been more publicly available information about what teachers think about their profession, their students, and the conditions under which they work.

As advocates pore over the results of teacher surveys being conducted nationally, at the state level, and even at individual schools, observers are beginning to ask questions about how the information can be used to inform policies to improve teachers’ working conditions and promote teacher and leadership effectiveness.

“Teachers make up the bulk of the staffing in districts and schools, and they are the anchor of the profession. It seems to us their voices ought to really count,” said Vicki L. Phillips, the director of education initiatives at the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which this month released the results of a survey of some 40,000 teachers, commissioned in...