Sunday, March 18, 2012

A Million Teachers Prepare to March Out the Classroom Door - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

A Million Teachers Prepare to March Out the Classroom Door - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:


A Million Teachers Prepare to March Out the Classroom Door

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The Metlife survey of American teachers has been much discussed in recent weeks. The biggest red flag I see waving here is the more than 50% increase, over the past two years, in the number of teachers who are likely to leave the profession in the next five years (from 17% to 29%). Assuming this data is accurate, this amounts to more than a million teachers who are preparing to march out of our classrooms. I wonder if the teaching profession as it is now being redesigned and redefined is one that any of us would have chosen when we began teaching? And I especially wonder who would choose to teach in a school with a high level of poverty?
Here is what the Metlife report says:
Teachers are less satisfied with their careers; in the past two years there has been a significant decline in teachers' satisfaction with their profession. In one of the most dramatic findings of the report, teacher satisfaction has decreased by 15 points since the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher measured job satisfaction two years ago, now reaching the lowest level of job satisfaction