Teacher morale improved in 2024-25, but discerning the reasons why isn’t easy. according to Education Week research.
New data suggest some testing challenges for teachers – post-pandemic problems, increasing student absenteeism and decline academic scores, and threatened federal cuts to funding and resources if teaching race and gender doesn’t follow current political ideology — seem to be in the rearview mirror or at least impacting teachers less. Education Week’s Teacher Morale Index registered a score of +18 for the 2024-25 school year.
That’s a significant improvement from the -13 score registered in 2023, the index’s debut year. State scores ranged from -14 in New Hampshire to +47 in Georgia. The index’s scale runs from -100 to +100, with negative scores indicating a less positive attitude towards the profession.
Three survey questions are the focus of the Teacher Morale Index. They gauge teachers’ confidence and satisfaction in their jobs at present, how they felt a year before, and how they will feel a year from when the survey is conducted.
On all three questions, this year’s index shows a higher score than last year.
Survey results, broken down into regions, showed no surprises. The Northeast region had the lowest morale overall in both 2023 and 2024. In 2024, its scores never dipped below the regional average of -15 from the previous year. This supports the notion of real improvements in morale.
Teacher morale is complex because it fluctuates. It’s usually higher at the beginning of the school year in August or September but starts to dip towards October or November.
Morale also fluctuates across stages of a teacher’s career. It’s higher between the first and third year of teaching, dips between years 3 and 9, and starts to tick up again as teachers reach retirement age. It also depends on the subject: elementary and social science teachers tend to have lower morale than English/language arts teachers.
All this makes it hard to interpret the apparent upswing in teachers’ feelings about the profession.
The survey was fielded from August to November 2024, coinciding not only with Trump’s campaign pledge to limit the powers of the U.S. Education Department, but also with now-former Vice President Kamala Harris becoming the Democrats’ nominee for president.
Teachers, as a group, tend to favor Democrats, though their political beliefs are complex. (Many consider themselves moderates.) Neither Harris nor Trump emphasized education much on the campaign trail.
The new survey could also reflect more stability and less policy churn.
At a state policy level, an increase in teacher compensation could have also tipped the morale scales. Teachers’ salaries increased by an average of $2,055 in 2024, though that was still well below their average desired raise of $16,000, according to the RAND Corp.’s State of the American Teacher survey.
Other factors affecting morale:
- Teachers could be happy with their compensation but frustrated by a rigid teaching environment
- A teacher’s job satisfaction in part depends on how much positive impact they can make in their students’ lives.
- The level of respect given to teachers
- Given the personal nature of the job, a teacher’s response to a question about their morale could depend on what they’re dealing with at that moment—they might have dealt with a difficult parent that morning or, conversely, had a productive meeting with their peers.
- Teacher morale also shifts as they spend more time in class. A teacher from Delaware says he’s established clear boundaries in his classroom about respectful behavior and cellphone usage. For newer teachers, though, setting up these boundaries could be challenging, he adds.
- When teachers feel appreciated, heard and are fairly compensated, it changes everything. The higher morale levels in the index could also reflect changes that schools have made after the pandemic.
An assistant principal in Newington, Conn. believes teacher morale is high in his 600-student middle school. The school has invested in mental health support not just for students, but for teachers too. His school has built in more informal ways to check on teachers’ morale through their professional development sessions or grade-level meetings.
Educators want to keep teachers on the path of resilience. Working together to find ways to make it successful for students and for each other will determine teacher morale, says one educator.
Education Week
