Teachers are dissatisfied, students are struggling, and the future of education looks grim. Those are some of the findings of the Pew Research Center’s annual look at the state of the teaching profession.
The report is based on an online survey of 2,531 public school teachers. Here are some of the results.
Teacher Satisfaction
Only 33% of teachers reported being extremely/very satisfied with their jobs, with 48% answering “somewhat.” That compares to a Pew survey which found 51% of all U.S. workers were very satisfied (plus 37% somewhat satisfied).
Yet within that are bright spots. Only 4% reported lack of satisfaction with their relationships with other teachers. And despite all the noise we hear these days about parent-teacher conflict, only 13% of teachers said they were not satisfied with their relationship with parents.
Still, teachers feel far more trusted by their teaching peers, their administrators, and their students, then by their students’ parents.
51% were not satisfied with their pay. 3 in 10 teachers say they may look for a new job this year, with 69% looking to get out of the classroom, either into a non-teaching education job or a job outside the profession entirely.
Yet while 77% find the job stressful and 68% called it overwhelming, at the same more than half also called the job fulfilling and enjoyable.
The stress may come primarily from having too few hours in the day. 84% of teachers says there’s not enough time in the day to get all their work done. By far, the primary reason given is that they have too much work to do, but they also point to understaffing.