It would be hard to listen to This American Life's two part series on Harper High School, found here and here, and still feel that teachers and school administrators don't care, are all incompetant union sluggards, or don't make a difference. The story of the school who was turning things around, and about to lose the funding which made that possible is just painful to hear.
Just to marginalize a desperate situation, and make it about myself: one social worker's description of how she feels after a student drops out feels very simialr to how I feel about losing a customer. Some folks we see have sites that really are in bad shape, jobs are on the line, etc. Sometimes we fix the issue, but there are always cases where the client chooses another solution. My scenario is a million times less important in the whole scheme of things, to be sure. But the feeling of loss and failure are there, and do wear down a person.
Part of my job is to let my staff know where we succeed, in a bubble where we hear mostly complaints. More than just anecdotal, it is good to see how many successes there are. It's on my list of things to do.