The topic of teacher morale can be a bit of a bummer. Many different indicators point to a long-term, historic trend of declines in educator well-being that got worse during the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That is partly why the EdWeek Research Center created the Teacher Morale Index, a year-over-year gauge of how teachers feel about the profession. In the 2024-25 school year, the index showed some promising signs by climbing from -13 to +18 on a scale of -100 to +100—suggesting teachers, overall, now feel more positively than negatively about the profession, although what precisely the gain means for the field is a matter of debate.
The teachers on the advisory panel for this year’s edition of Education Week’s annual State of Teaching project told us they didn’t just want to hear about problems with their profession—they were ready to learn more about solutions, too. Based on that feedback, the EdWeek Research Center focused this year’s State of Teaching survey on changes that might be expected to improve teachers’ well-being at work.
The EdWeek Research Center’s past surveys suggests that a pay raise is the change that teachers are most likely to say would improve their morale. In fact, 10 percent of respondents to this year’s survey said that a pay raise is the only thing that would improve their morale. This rate was even higher for Asian (18 percent), Black (17 percent), and Hispanic teachers (19 percent) than for their white counterparts (8 percent).
Asked in November 2023 what would be a fair but realistic wage for the work they do, the typical teacher earning a median wage of $65,000 requested a 31 percent pay raise, leading to an annual salary of $85,000. Given financial realities that most school districts face, raises large enough to meet these needs appear unlikely to occur in the near future, or on a large scale.
For this reason, this year’s report acknowledges the relevance of pay to teacher morale while also focusing in on additional steps districts and schools might take to improve the well-being of their staff. Early in the survey, teachers were asked which category of change—short of a pay raise—would be most likely to improve their morale.
Subsequent questions delved more deeply into shifts associated with these categories, which included changes to staffing, scheduling, leadership, and other broad areas of concern. Here are five highlights of those findings.
1. Hire more staff
No. 1 on teachers’ list is adding is additional staff. The employees that teachers most want their schools to hire more of are … other teachers.
In a related finding, a full 89 percent of teachers say that capping class sizes would improve their morale.
“As a tech teacher, I will often have 25 students in the woodshop with just me supervising,” a New York middle school teacher wrote in response to an open-ended survey question. “I find that class sizes, especially in a shop setting with dangerous equipment, needs to be capped for safety reasons. I know districts were shorted funding, which is contributing to this, but it would be nice to have smaller, more manageable class sizes.”
In addition to more teachers, teachers also want more paraprofessionals, substitute teachers, and mental health counselors for students. Staffing increases are most popular in Utah, where more than half of teachers, 53 percent, said they would boost their morale. (Results for this data point were available for 47 states.) They are also especially popular with Gen Z teachers born after 1997 (30 percent versus 18 percent of Baby Boomers), and with elementary school educators (30 percent as compared to 12 percent of their high school counterparts).
2. Lead with leadership
Early in this year’s survey, we asked teachers to choose which one of 12 broad types of solutions would be most likely to improve their morale. Shifts in school leadership approaches and styles was the No. 3 solution as well as the category selected by the subset of teachers with the lowest morale (-14 on a score of -100 to +100, as compared to this year’s average of +18). More support for student discipline is teachers’ top leadership need, followed by stronger advocacy for teachers’ needs and better communication.
“I have a kid, he talks all the time, to the point that he isn’t getting his work done,” a high school English teacher in Delaware wrote in response to an open-ended survey question. “I’ve talked to parents, conferenced, tried to build bridges, involved discipline; however, mom says I’m picking on him and wants him moved. Where is the parental support? Why is my principal even asking me when I have documented everything in our database? Support is lacking ... .”
What do teachers mean when they ask for more support for student discipline? Nearly half say their morale would improve if their schools suspended and expelled more students.
“I struggle with the emphasis on ‘restorative justice’ as a discipline model because it seems to be implemented in such a way that consequences for serious student behavior (fighting, selling drugs, repeated skipping/disrespect/violent language) are reduced to ‘conferences’ and students return to class with no impact except on the teacher,” a North Carolina high school English teacher wrote in response to an open-ended survey question. “There has to be a balance between helping students learn better ways of coping and seeming to be permissive as a school culture because the central office wants better suspension rates.”
There has to be a balance between helping students learn better ways of coping and seeming to be permissive as a school culture because the central office wants better suspension rates.
Increases in suspensions and expulsions are especially popular ideas among teachers in Alabama, Mississippi, and Maryland, where more than two out of three teachers say it would improve their morale. As for leadership changes, they grow progressively more popular as teachers gain experience: 17 percent of teachers with 15 or more years on the job say leadership changes would increase their morale, compared to 8 percent of those with fewer than three years’ experience. Leadership changes are also more popular with high school teachers (17 percent) than with their middle (14 percent) or elementary (12 percent) school peers.
3. Limit cellphones and increase discipline
Student cellphone use has become a major morale issue for secondary educators. Eighty-two percent of high school teachers and 73 percent of their middle school counterparts say that stricter rules around student cellphone use would improve their morale. (At the elementary level, where student cellphone use is less of an issue, the share is 44 percent).
“The past few years, with the strange detachment of students coming out of the pandemic and then the obsession— no addiction, fixation, completely pathological attachment to their cellphones as their truest sense of identity and social affirmation—created a huge divide between my expectations and their own preferences and attitudes about class,” wrote a high school teacher in Utah. The teacher added that a recent rule change around school cellphone use had improved classroom conditions.
Student cellphone use is such a major concern right now for high school teachers that they are nearly as likely to say that stricter rules would boost their morale as they are to say they would be more satisfied if their schools adopted the most popular change identified by the survey—class size caps (83 percent).
4. Embrace diversity
Forty-three percent of teachers say that their morale would improve if their schools increased or added to curriculum and pedagogy embracing diversity, equity, and/or inclusion. By contrast, 16 percent say this change would decrease their morale, and 41 percent report that it would have no impact.
Although Southern states have been more likely to take steps to limit the teaching of related concepts in public schools, the share of teachers who say that adding to or increasing the amount of DEI incorporated into the curriculum would increase their morale varies little by region, ranging from 45 percent in the South to 40 percent in the West.
State-level data about this indicator is available for 38 states.
In two of these states (Mississippi and Iowa), the majority of teachers say that their morale would decrease if DEI was incorporated into or added to their curricula. In seven (Oregon, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Maryland, and Missouri), the majority of teachers say that more DEI could improve their morale.
“The low population of Black and brown students and the statistics related to discipline are a cause for serious concern and a morale deflator,” wrote survey respondent who coordinates DEI at a Virginia high school. “Other concerns include many among this population who don’t feel a sense of community in a predominantly white school.”
By contrast, a science teacher in Iowa worried that DEI was “killing the perception of public schools to the point where we aren’t going to have many kids in them.”
5. Improve health care and allow mental wellness days
When teachers are asked to pick the type of change that would be most likely to improve their morale, wellness initiatives and employee benefits rank relatively low on their lists. However, most teachers say their morale would improve if districts adopted two specific initiatives drawn from these categories: improvements to health care and opportunities to take mental wellness days.
Fifty-six percent of teachers say they would have better morale if permitted or encouraged to take mental-wellness days.
Wellness days are especially popular with younger teachers. Sixty-four percent of Gen Z and Millennial teachers say their morale would improve if they were permitted or encouraged to take them. That’s compared to 42 percent of Baby Boomers and 53 percent of Gen Xers.
Fifty-three percent of teachers say their morale would rise if they had better, more affordable health care. “Health care costs me more than $2,000 monthly,” a California elementary school teacher wrote in response to an open-ended question. “I do not understand why it is so much for teacher. I rarely go to the doctor. Also, being able to use my sick leave to care for my elderly family members would relieve some stress.”
Among the 38 states for which this data point is available, better, more affordable health care is most popular in Texas, where 82 percent of teachers say this would improve their morale.
