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Are teachers feeling more optimistic in the face of continued uncertainty? Are they feeling trusted? What keeps them up at night? TPT conducted a national survey of nearly 8,000 teachers to uncover insights that help answer these questions — and more — ahead of the 2025-2026 school year. These findings offer insights into teachers’ perspectives on issues at the forefront of education today, from students’ social-emotional needs to artificial intelligence.
Key takeaways
- A majority of educators (61%) feel optimistic heading into the 2025-2026 school year.
- A majority of teachers (74%) don’t feel like they have the trust needed to do their best work.
- Teachers are more concerned about meeting students’ social-emotional needs (53%) than their academic needs (41%).
Teachers are feeling optimistic
The majority of educators are feeling optimistic as they head into the 2025-2026 school year, despite facing an ever-changing and uncertain landscape.
When digging a little deeper into the data, this optimism is particularly strong among newer teachers. Sixty-five percent of new teachers (who have been teaching for five years or less) report feeling optimistic, while only 59% of seasoned teachers (those who have been teaching for 25+ years) report feeling the same.
This optimism is guided by teachers’ convictions about the profession. Universally — across grade levels and states — 83% of educators said “making a difference for kids” is what first inspired them to become a teacher. And 93% of teachers agreed that they are guided by a strong sense of purpose, which keeps them motivated even when teaching is hard.
This positive outlook varies across the country, as teachers from different states expressed differing levels of optimism.
Teachers feel empowered, but not always trusted
Trust and empowerment are key drivers of teachers’ overall optimism. And while 95% of teachers say that trust from administrators helps them do their best work, only 74% feel they actually do have that trust.
Even so, teachers are powering through to do great work. Despite the trust gap, 87% of teachers feel empowered to teach at their best.
Teachers worry the most about social-emotional needs
Teachers’ biggest concern heading into the new school year is students’ social-emotional needs. In fact, more teachers are concerned about meeting students’ social-emotional needs (53%) than with meeting their academic needs (41%).
This is significant, given the rise in classroom disruptions. Over half (55%) of teachers reported that student behavior has gotten worse over the past two years.
While teachers may be worried about their students’ social-emotional well-being, they still see the impact that they are having on their students: 92% of educators feel they’re making a difference for kids overall.
TPT Survey Methodology
TPT sent an 18-question survey of multiple-choice and open-ended questions to active teacher users on the TPT platform to gather educators’ opinions in advance of the 2025-26 school year. The survey was sent via email on July 23, 2025, and was completed by 7,964 teachers. The margin of error is +/-3 percentage points. Characteristics for the schools where the respondents teach are displayed below.
| Years of Teaching Experience | |
| Less than 5 years | 20% |
| 5-10 years | 15% |
| 10-15 years | 12% |
| 15-20 years | 13% |
| 20-25 years | 15% |
| 25+ years | 25% |
| Region | |
| West | 19% |
| Midwest | 22% |
| Northeast | 13% |
| South | 34% |
| Other | 12% |
| Student Grades (Respondents chose all that apply, percentages may not add to 100%) |
|
| PreK-K | 16% |
| K-5 | 52% |
| 6-8 | 25% |
| 9-12 | 20% |
| Adult Learners | 35% |
| Other | 5% |
Empowering educators to teach at their best
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