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Report: Teachers See Progress Over Past 25 Years

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 MetLife Foundation also provides funding to teachermagazine.org.)

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...