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In this year’s Metlife Survey of the American Teacher there’s good news and there’s bad news.

In the good news column, parent engagement has increased in the past 25 years, though it still remains a challenge for many schools.  The bad news exposed that teachers are less satisfied with their careers and that 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 survey measured job satisfaction two years ago.  It has now reached the lowest level of job satisfaction seen in the survey series in more than two decades.

This troubling news should be a wakeup call for all of us, especially since in addition to the low morale problem, the number of teachers who indicated they will be leaving their jobs for both retirement and other fields has markedly increased.  

To the extent the public at large and “education reformers” in particular continue to characterize the current teaching force as the cause of poor student achievement and low international rankings on test scores, our collective ability to strengthen and improve our public schools is seriously jeopardized.  Just as it’s inaccurate to characterize all teachers as “satisfactory”, i.e. the widget effect, it’s also unfair and inaccurate to say that most or all of our professional teaching force is inadequate.  We’re all responsible for student success in our public schools, which is why the other big finding from the survey gives us hope.

The good news from the survey is that most teachers, parents and students believe that their schools help engage parents in supporting student success.  Though all three groups indicate there is room for improvement, especially at the high school level, the fact that parents and teachers agree on the importance of what they need from each other and can do to support their respective roles in student learning gives us reason for optimism.  The flip side of this coin is that lower parent engagement is more prevalent in schools where need is greater, including urban areas and schools with high proportions of low-income or minority students.

Finally, overarching both these major findings is that the effects of the economic downturn are felt widely and deeply in education.  As significant budget cuts in districts result in staff layoffs that include teachers and community outreach staff, the impact is felt in both teacher satisfaction and parent engagement.  Coupled with that is an increase in the number of students and families requiring health and social support services, with economic fears weighing on the minds of students and parents.

The information provided by this important survey should give all of us in leadership positions the data we need to advocate for allocation of adequate public resources to support our public schools and the students and families they serve.  As a society we need to take a hard look at what we’re willing to pay for and at what level and understand that if we continue to short change our public schools and the professionals who work in them, we’ll all pay a much heavier price by bankrupting our future.