Valuing Teachers
How do we–the collective we–feel about teachers? The granddaddy of all surveys about public education is The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. It established the brand in 1984 and has, to this observer anyway, become better,deeper and more nuanced over time. [1]
There are other education surveys, of course.[2] The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic produce an important survey of 40,000 US teachers they call “Primary Sources.”
And every year Gallup and Phi Delta Kappa survey registered US voters on their attitudes toward public education.
Surveys can be misleading or wrong; much depends on the quality of the process, the reliability of the sample and the way the questions are phrased, but, that said, it’s worth surveying the surveys, especially now that there’s a new kid in town, an international (21 countries) survey of public attitudes toward teachers and teaching [.pdf].