Special Report / MetLife Survey: Collaboration Improves Job Satisfaction

Increased teacher collaboration has the potential to improve school climate and teacher career satisfaction, according to the most recent MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Collaborating for Student Success. Two-thirds of teachers who responded to the annual survey (67 percent) believe that increased collaboration among teachers and school leaders would greatly improve student achievement. The survey, which polled 1,003 K–12 teachers in fall 2009, also found that

• Almost all teachers say that they engage in some type of collaborative activity with other educators at their school each week. On average, teachers spend 2.7 hours a week in structured collaboration with other teachers and school leaders; 24 percent of teachers spend more than three hours a week.
• The most frequent types of collaborative activities are teachers meeting in teams to learn what is necessary to help their students achieve at higher levels, school leaders sharing responsibility with teachers to achieve school goals, and beginning teachers working with more experienced teachers.
• The least frequent type of collaborative activity is teachers observing one another in the classroom and providing feedback. Fewer than one-third of teachers or principals report that this happens frequently at their school.
• Respondents who say they are very satisfied with teaching as a career are more likely than teachers who are less satisfied to be strong proponents of shared responsibility and collaboration in schools. These highly satisfied teachers are more likely to strongly agree that the teachers in a school are responsibile for the achievement of all students (86 percent vs. 72 percent); that the teachers, principals, and other professionals at their own school trust one another (59 percent vs. 40 percent); and that their school provides regular time for teachers to work together (40 percent vs. 26 percent).
• Teacher satisfaction may have reached a plateau. Fifty-nine percent of teachers in the current survey say that they are very satisfied with teaching as a career; this proportion has changed little since 2003. This leveling off follows a 20-year increase in satisfaction since the first MetLife Survey of the American Teacher in 1984, when only 40 percent said they were very satisfied.