While in graduate school in the late 1990s, I was tipped off by one of my dissertation advisers that MetLife insurance company produced thick annual surveys of teachers and former teachers on all sorts of interesting questions. This was pre-World Wide Web, so to get copies I wrote a letter to MetLife to ask if they could sell me any copies.

To my delight, a few weeks later a box showed up at my Brooklyn apartment, and inside was a colection of reports covering many of the years between 1985 and 1990. I was astonished at this largesse, and generally amazed that Metropolitan Life thought it worthwhile to drop dollars every year to produce these surveys, which had no direct connection to their line of business. Three cheers for corporate responsibility and good citizenship!

These days, you can find PDF copies of these volume on ERIC at https://eric.ed.gov/?q=title%3A%22metropolitan+life+survey%22. After 20+ years, I am donating my paper copies to the education policy team at the American Enterprise Institute.