Educator Voice Opportunities: Educator Advisory Council, Educator Leadership Institute

Advance Illinois’ outreach work is grounded in the idea that the experience and input of Illinois’ educators is crucial to creating strong education policy. Created in 2009, the Advance Illinois Educator Advisory Council (EAC) provides an opportunity for teachers and principals to share their perspectives and feedback on education policy implementation in Illinois.

The 15-member council gathers on a regular basis to share perspectives and feedback on education policy implementation across Illinois. The EAC’s vision is an Illinois education system that is student learning centered and teacher led. Council members are teachers and school leaders from across the state, including several Teacher of the Year award winners and finalists. During the EAC’s annual Educator Leadership Institute, hosted with thestate’s teachers’ unions and the Illinois State Board of Education, attendees reflect on education initiatives and draft recommendations for the state. The most recent Institute focused on avenues for teacher advocacy.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

Advance Illinois aims to create a collaborative and inclusive environment for teacher voice by grounding policy in teacher voice and experience. The most historic victory on Illinois’ new school funding formula proved to be an effective way of including and elevating teacher voice so that students were at the forefront of decision making.Teacher on our EAC developed advocacy skills by publishing letters to the editor, meeting with their legislators, developing a social media presence, holding community town halls on the issue, and organizing their colleagues to do the same. Because of their robust representation across Illinois, EAC members were given the opportunity to advocate for students in their district as well as student across the state, which allowed for a strong and unified message. Through these advocacy activities EAC members were seen as leaders in their communities and experts on the issue across the state.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Whether teachers have been in the profession for two years or 20, teacher voice is essential for organizations when building an advocacy agenda. Our advice to other advocacy organizations is to just do it! Be intentional about bringing educators into the advocacy work and create the structure by doing the work together. In order to do so however, organizations must create opportunities for teachers to have a seat at the table or, in more practical advocacy terms, train teachers on skills of community organizing and make it ease for them to take action. Through our own EAC, we have learned that by engaging members on all fronts of our work at Advance Illinois. Rather than creating specific initiatives for the expression of teacher voice, teachers are included throughout the entire iterative process in order to best inform the work for students in Illinois.

Resources:

• Educator Advisory Council ​
• EAC Transforming Teacher Work paper
• 2016 Educator Leadership Institute

Educator Voice Opportunities: CLASS Project

The Chalkboard Project was an early leader in making sure educators are included at the decisionmaking table. Through several key initiatives, the organization works alongside educators to create a real sense of ownership while designing and implementing transformational change. With an emphasis on teacher career ladders and professional development opportunities, Chalkboard’s teacher­-led pilots drive cultural shifts in schools and districts by building trust and improving communication and transparency. Chalkboard also builds its policy priorities based on its pilots’ efforts, emerging best practices, hard data, and lessons learned.

Launched in 2008, the CLASS Project offers opportunities for educators to weigh in on four key areas for teacher effectiveness:  new career paths, meaningful performance evaluations, relevant professional development, and expanded compensation models. In districts that participate in the CLASS Project, educators can join design teams and, with the support of coaches, develop blueprints for change related to the four teacher effectiveness components.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

The accomplishments are two-fold. First, this work has shifted the culture in schools and districts, from a top-down approach to one that is collaborative and supportive. Empowering teachers and creating teacher leadership opportunities has changed the conversation in schools, broken down barriers and silos, and created a shared vision for improving better learning and teaching environments for students and teachers. Second, this work shifted the conversation in our state from never-ending funding battles to evidence-based discussions about educator quality, accountability, and student achievement. It has led to many advocacy and policy reforms, and to a commitment at the state level for ongoing and expanded support for our educator workforce to ensure transformation and innovation in teaching practices and the teaching profession.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Educators must be authentic partners in any effort and they must drive the process.

Resources:

• The CLASS Project: Empowering Educators, Raising Student Achievement
• TeachOregon: Lessons Learned, Promising Practices, and Recommendations for the Future

Educator Voice Opportunities: EdVoices, EdFellows

In order to foster a new conversation about what’s possible for Minnesota students and schools, EdAllies seeks out and amplifies the voices of those who experience our education system on a daily basis. The EdVoices program provides a platform for students, parents, and educators to share their perspectives on education challenges and solutions. The first class of EdVoices includes educators from both urban and rural Minnesota, in addition to parents and students.

EdAllies also aims to partner with educators who have a passion for policy and want to get more directly involved in advocating for change. Through EdFellows, EdAllies engages educators to get more deeply involved in moving the needle on specific policy issues. Fellows develop work plans that involve research, advocacy, and more—for example, researching implementation of the state’s teacher evaluation system and how districts are addressing equity in professional development.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

Our educator voice programs keep our work grounded, and ensure that the authentic experiences of those working in schools drive our priorities and communications. This approach is important not just because of specific outcomes, but because of how it drives us to think about our work. Tangibly, however, we also find that we are simply most effective when we elevate the voices of others—including educators—as messengers. Our most popular blog post to date shared an educator’s raw personal experience with the school choice debate. We also helped bring nuance to the local discussion about teacher preparation by elevating a rural educator’s perspective, in both a blog post and written legislative testimony. Finally, to make the case for teacher licensure reform, we connected out-of-state educators with opportunities testify at the Capitol and speak with media.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

We have learned many lessons about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to engaging educators. Lesson one: Set reasonable expectations, and be willing to adapt. We’ve found the teachers with whom we work are deeply passionate, but also busy! Be as clear as possible on the front end about what’s required, how you’ll communicate, and what a successful partnership will look like, both in terms of interim milestones and final deliverables.

Lesson two: Make sure you’re clear not just about what you hope to get out of the partnership, but what the educator’s expectations are. And be realistic about whether you can meet them! It takes staff time, mental space, and resources (especially if you’re considering offering a stipend) to be a good steward of an educator voice program. It’s important to empower educators to be decision-makers, but it’s also critical to set parameters to ensure your team has the knowledge and capacity to support them. We have restructured our EdFellows program to better strike this balance.

Lesson three: If you want educators to deeply engage in your work, and to be good spokespeople for your efforts, don’t wait until the media calls to build relationships. Bring educators in as partners early in the decision-making process, helping identify both the problem and the solution. Not only will you have more eager advocates; you’ll likely also have a better policy solution. We’ve invited educator partners to be part of coalitions and join committees on our behalf. We also invite engaged stakeholders to regular advisory meetings where they have the opportunity to learn about and provide real-time feedback on our work.

Resources:

• EdVoices
• Meet Our 2018-19 EdFellows

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Champions, Aim High Fellowship

States with Educator Voice Opportunities: Arizona, Kentucky, Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, Delaware, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming

Educators for High Standards amplifies teacher voice about how to improve public education through a commitment to high standards for teaching and learning. In 2016, the initiative provided communications and advocacy training to Teacher Champions across 20 states. To deepen Teacher Champions’ knowledge and dedication to speaking out in support of high quality standards, assessments and teaching, teachers were prepared to design and implement their own state­-based communications projects in conjunction with other state­-based efforts. In state teams, teachers developed a state network of education advocates and received resources to implement their projects. Additionally, Educators for High Standards supported teachers in writing about their profession through multiple media outlets.

In order to encourage sustained teacher involvement in the ESSA process, Educators for High Standards gathered perspectives from more than 800 teachers and teacher advocacy leaders for a recent report, Teacher Engagement and Perspectives on ESSA: An Eagerness to Engage and Be Heard.

Through the Aim High Fellowship, Educators for High Standards partners with successful teachers who will amplify their voices through partnerships with athletes, and share a product that will benefit other educators and their students.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

Our teachers are equipped to write and share about high quality learning and assessments. Many of our teachers have presented at in state conferences as well as national conferences such as NNSTOY and ASCD Empower.

Many Teacher Champions create relationships with local and state policy makers to share the impact of high quality standards in the classroom. Teachers in Wyoming, Michigan and Kentucky have projects aligned to bringing teachers and legislators to the policy making table through bringing legislators to school and building relationships with legislators that are student-centered.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

The stories teachers share from the classroom regarding high quality teaching and learning are invaluable. It is important to help teachers share narratives from the classroom; take the time to listen and learn from high quality educators.

Resources:

• Lifelong Learners: How Redefining Professional Learning Leads to Stronger Teachers and Improved Student Outcomes
• Teacher Engagement and Perspectives on ESSA: An Eagerness to Engage and Be Heard
• ESSA for Educators
• Learn More About Your State’s Standards

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Policy Fellowship

GO Public Schools strives to build coalitions of parents, educators, and community leaders to advocate for system-­wide change. In addition to cultivating educator voice and leadership in broader coalitions, GO Public Schools facilitates their Teacher Policy Fellowship program. Since 2013, the Fellowship has provided year-long opportunities for educators to lead, learn, and think about the future of education in their city. GO Fellows are able to build their policy chops via research and discussion, develop strategies for challenging policy issues, and directly contribute to Oakland education policy.

Beginning in 2017, the Fellowship expanded to a two-year opportunity. Year 1 focuses on understanding the history and context of education policy in Oakland, while Year 2 offers the opportunity to create a policy advocacy project and use community organizing techniques to reach a common goal. During the Oakland Unified School District’s contract negotiations in 2017, GO Fellows released recommendations for strengthening new teacher support and career leadership opportunities in the district.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

GO’s biggest accomplishments in the realm of teacher voice have come in the last year.  The Fellows of Cohort 4 were able to get private meetings with both the district and teacher’s union bargaining teams where they pitched their ideas for new teacher support and teacher leadership. Later on, we saw their recommendations included in initial proposals for bargaining the next teacher’s contract– a big win! Aside from their policy recommendations being taken seriously, just meeting with these groups is an experience that very few teachers get during their career. We were also able to expand to recruit the largest cohort we’ve ever had, with 18 Fellows from 8 district and 5 charter schools. These teachers have signed on for two years of learning and advocacy and I’m excited to see what other new experiences I can help connect them to.

Another recent milestone in GO’s educator voice work was launching a new Principal Budget Group in September 2017. The Principal Budget Group is a collective of OUSD Principals coming together to learn about the current financial challenges facing OUSD and determine the best ways to support the district to adopt budgeting best practices. This group is focusing on systems level changes that will support the long term financial stability of OUSD.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Educators have a high bar for what they want their learning experiences to look like (as they should!). Make sure you’re utilizing multiple modalities for learning and creating structures that give teachers time and space to process and discuss new topics.

Resources:

• Teacher Policy Fellowship
• GO Teacher Policy Fellows Release Recommendations

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Fellowships, Teacher Fellow Alumni Network roles including the national Teacher Advisory Council

States with Educator Voice Opportunities: Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah

Through close partnerships with state education agencies and other critical stakeholders, Hope Street Group (HSG) trains and engages practitioners to present teacher-generated ideas and solutions to decision-makers at multiple levels. Each year, Hope Street Group’s Teacher Fellows programs produce education policy and practice recommendations shaped by quantitative and qualitative data gathered by our Teacher Fellows (TFs) from their teachers peers across respective states. Professional learning for TFs includes in-person and virtual modules designed to empower them to lead their peers, build relationships with policymakers, tell their own stories and conduct data-driven conversations.

State Teacher Fellows (STF) programs operate in Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, boasting more than 150 teacher leaders who engage thousands of their peers each year to influence timely education policies and provide practitioner expertise in local and state decision-making. Teacher Fellow data collection topics have included teacher evaluation, the Common Core State Standards, career readiness, professional development, school climate and educator preparation. Fellows programs will launch in Virginia and the District of Columbia in 2018.

The National Teacher Fellows (NTF) program is currently paused, as Hope Street Group deepens its state, local and alumni educator engagement. But the NTF program previously engaged teachers from across the country to support personal policy projects. In 2015, NTFs elicited peer feedback on the topic of teacher preparation for the U.S. Department of Education (USED) and the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE), shared through their 2016 report On Deck: Preparing the Next Generation of Teachers. In 2017, the cohort focused on localized implementation of these national recommendations, publishing results and tips in the impact report Teaming Up: Educators Enhance Teacher Prep.

For educators who wish to remain engaged in this work after the terms of their Fellowship, HSG’s Teacher Fellow Alumni Network (TFAN) offers multiple opportunities for enhancing the mission of the organization. The first Teacher Advisory Council (TAC) features outstanding alumni from the National, Hawaii, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee Teacher Fellows programs. The TAC will lead HSG’s program assessment and alumni outreach efforts through the next two school years, and new TFAN leaders will be recruited annually.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

Our active and alumni Teacher Fellows, and their Professional Learning Networks (PLNs), include more than 50,000 teachers across the country, a reach we consider a significant accomplishment in and of itself! But more specifically, we’ve seen movement in the states in which we operate — Teacher Fellows programs providing states and districts with the tools, data and infrastructure to foster deep and wide teacher networks, formulate innovative ideas and directly solve education challenges. A few highlights of impact:

• Increasing resources to implement the core components of the statewide teacher evaluation system in Kentucky.
• Informing the implementation and sustainability of the Next Generation Science Standards in Hawaii.
• Teachers serving as advisors to state legislators and district superintendents in Hawaii, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
• Collaborating to inform the development of a framework for formalizing teacher leadership roles in Tennessee (see https://tnteacherleader.org/).
• Influencing SEA decisions to improve communication to educators, to clarify guidelines for testing, and to create a Proof of Concept assessment pilot in North Carolina.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Practitioners must be among the first to weigh in on policies that affect their classrooms and communities, not an afterthought or sought for “final review” of decisions already made. Advocacy organizations like those in the PIE Network are poised to empower high-quality teachers across the country in applying their expertise (and their enthusiasm) by identifying them as leaders, helping them to sharpen the tools in their kits (i.e. strategic communication, policy knowledge and data literacy), and facilitating valuable, supported collaboration among them for the betterment of their peers and their students. When teachers’ efforts to elevate their profession are not just recognized but amplified and expanded, this spirit is contagious. Organizing and bolstering these efforts, while also encouraging the organic connectivity among educators, proves very fruitful for organizations aiming for teacher-led solutions.

Resources:

• 2017 State Teacher Fellowship Evaluation: Building Sustainable Impact
• Teaming Up: Educators Enhance Teacher Prep
• On Deck: Preparing the Next Generation of Teachers
• Impact Points: State Teacher Fellows Program Newsletter

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Candidate Fellowship, Outstanding Black Male Educators Fellowship

States with Educator Voice Opportunities: Connecticut, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah

NNSTOY is a network of outstanding and recognized teachers who use their teacher leadership to improve learning for all students. NNSTOY focuses its voice in three areas: policy, professional practice, and advocacy. Serving as a professional home to State Teachers of the Year (STOYs) and State Teacher of the Year Finalists, NNSTOY provides active and meaningful roles for educators to advance student learning and support the teaching profession.  

NNSTOY is committed to a strong research agenda in which teacher researchers collaborate with scientists and partners to design, carry out, and publish the findings of models and effective practices of teacher leadership and career advancement opportunities. Recent topics of publications have included social justice resources, perspectives on teacher evaluation and support systems, and social and emotional development.

As part of its commitment to help recruit and retain outstanding teacher leaders, NNSTOY offers a series of seven courses in teacher leadership. These professional learning courses, developed and facilitated by State Teachers of the Year and Finalists, help other educators expand their teacher leadership and improve their professional practice.

NNSTOY also offers multiple fellowship opportunities. The one-year Teacher Candidate Fellowship provides strong teacher candidates with access to the tools, training, and opportunities they need to become educational leaders. The Outstanding Black Male Educators Fellowship provides a forum for Black male educators to discuss their challenges and triumphs and build their professional practice. The ultimate aim for the fellowship is to model what a recruiting and retention effort could look like for African American males in the educational system. NNSTOY also has fellowships for STEM educators and educators interested in advancing social and emotional skills.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

We have been pleased with our extensive and growing body of work on social justice and educational equity, a challenge that has become increasingly important to our members and the organization as a whole. We have held a series of webinars, conducted research, produced videos, written extensively on the topic, published a Social Justice Book List, and devoted a strand of our national teacher leadership conference to improving educational equity.

We are especially proud that our equity work and our work in teacher leadership have spread well beyond the boundaries of our members. Our webinars, professional learning and conferences engage educators from all over the world. In this way we both learn from other educators and contribute to strengthening the profession.

NNSTOY works with research partners to create reports and recommendations that help policymakers make good education decisions, such as our latest (with ETS), Teacher Evaluation and Support Systems. We have also worked directly with members of Congress to develop and comment on proposed legislation, including the Teacher Health and Wellness Act, the Teachers and Parents at the Table Act, and the Teachers as Leaders Act. In July we organized and prepared members for a Day on the Hill in Washington, DC, during which educators from states met with Congressional Representatives and Senators. Currently, we are preparing state chapters to replicate this work at the state level.

We publish surveys of our membership’s views about important policy topics, such as ESSA implementation and federal policy priorities. We also release statements about policies affecting our students, such as when we issued a statement recently on DACA.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Work to involve as many different voices as possible and to ensure that under-represented voices are included. Be intentional about moving beyond your organization’s most heard voices and resolve to engage those with disparate views.

Resources:

• Rebuilding the Ladder of Economic Opportunity
• Learning Opportunities
• Social Justice Book List
• State of the States’ Teacher Evaluation and Support Systems: A Perspective from Exemplary Teachers
• Student Social and Emotional Development and Accountability: Perspective of Teachers
• Publications archive

Educator Voice Opportunities: Rodel Teacher Council

The teacher leaders of Rodel’s Teacher Council are dedicated to finding solutions, improving their craft, and leveraging their voices for the benefit of their students. The Council was first convened in 2013 to elevate the voices of teachers, represent the diversity of the teaching force in Delaware schools, provide a venue for teachers to weigh in on important issues affecting their work, and help set the course for education improvement in Delaware.

In 2014, the Council published one of the country’s first examples of educator-developed personalized learning recommendations, the Blueprint for Personalized Learning in Delaware. The Council followed up on this work in 2016 with the publication of four policy briefs related to personalized learning issues. More recently, members of the Council have developed ESSA recommendations for both educators and policymakers, and Educators Speak Up: Social and Emotional Learning in Delaware.

In 2017-2018, the Council included 22 members, both new and returning, representing a diverse mix of educators from districts and public charters throughout the state.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

Rodel has been proud of the work of the teacher council over the course of the past 4 years. Some of the highlights have included:

• Regulatory change to allow LEAs to award high school credit based on mastery
• RTC members have been selected to sit on statewide leadership teams, working groups, advisory boards, and steering committees due to the voice/perspective they developed as council members
• Annual personalized learning workshops for hundreds of Delaware teachers, planned and executed by RTC members
• Written pieces published on national blogs (EdSurge, ISTE, EdWeek), and local news outlets
• An existing charter school with an RTC member on staff adjusting its model to support personalized, student-centered learning based on the RTC member’s experience with personalized learning

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

A couple pieces of advice:

• There are many flavors of teacher voice work, but we found it helpful to focus our council on a specific topic, and it was even more helpful to focus on something future-oriented (in our case, personalized, student-centered learning). This helped people think about and engage with what is possible, which completely changed the tone of the conversation to keep the group student-centered and visionary.
• We were surprised by how time/staff intensive the teacher council quickly became. Don’t underestimate it, but doing teacher voice well is completely worth it and has yielded tremendous benefits to us as an organization.
• One of the best design decisions we made was to allow teachers to continue on with their council experience for as many “terms” as they would like. It meant that we could continue to build relationships over a longer period of time without having to start fresh each year with a completely new group.
• Be thoughtful about how you can capture the impact (much of which is indirect/intangible in our experience) of your program from the outset.

Resources:

• Educators Speak Up: Social and Emotional Learning in Delaware
• A Critical Opportunity for Teachers to Inform Education Policy: Guiding Principles for Educators on ESSA
• A Critical Opportunity for Teachers to Inform ESSA: Policy Recommendations for State and Local Leaders
• Blueprint for Personalized Learning in Delaware

Educator Voice Opportunities: Tennessee Educator Fellowship

Since 2014, the Tennessee Educator Fellowship has equipped and empowered educators as advocates for their students’ success. During a one-year program, fellows learn about, reflect upon, and inform the educational policies, practices, and systems that affect student achievement and educator effectiveness.  Fellows learn to be effective advocates through a series of in-person and online convenings with state and local leaders, as well as experts in communications and advocacy.

In the past four years, Fellowship participants have appeared at public speaking engagements, invited policymakers into their classrooms, written for state and national publications, created regional professional networks, and served on state-level policy committees. Previous education initiatives led by fellows include Reach them to Teach Them, Project LIT Community, and the Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance. The 49 fellows chosen for the 2017-18 class include teachers, school counselors, and librarians, and represent schools across Tennessee.

SCORE also helps coordinate the Tennessee Teacher Leadership Collaborative (TTLC), which serves to build an overarching network structure for teacher leadership and collaboration in Tennessee.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

Figuring out how to balance supporting the learning of our fellowship with taking action has been a big accomplishment. While there is always urgency for building support for academic expectations, high quality assessments, and strong accountability systems, we also know that our fellows need time to understand the system they are operating in. One of the most important things we do for the fellows is developing their systems-level thinking by giving them the opportunity to grapple with the same decisions that state and local leaders face, with an eye towards developing them as self-sustained advocates after the fellowship. This builds the capacity of the educators to be advocates for the work in Tennessee over the long-term and builds trust with our educators. We know that our educators are better able to be leaders in their communities by being able to bring their interests to the table, too.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Don’t be afraid to build relationships with educators by challenging their assumptions. We’ve found that frank conversations with student-focused educators can be very beneficial to the work as a whole. Part of this comes from educators not having always had opportunities to unpack what they believe about student learning, and part of this comes from limited opportunities to debate the full range of issues. These honest conversations help build trust over time and encourage long-term engagement.

Resources:

• Tennessee is Providing a Clearer Blueprint for Teacher Preparation
• Technical Education Programs Can Close Wage Gap
• Tennessee Science is on the Map: Fastest Improving State on the Nation’s Report Card
• Assessment Tests’ Data Can Be a Tool to Engage Students
• Here’s What One Tennessee Teacher will be Listening for in Haslam’s State of the State Address

Educator Voice Opportunities: LEAD Fellowship, Education Leadership Institute

During the past five years, Stand Louisiana has provided educators with support and opportunities to influence policy related to teacher evaluations, teacher prep providers, early childhood education, and accountability. In the most recent legislative session, Stand Louisiana’s educator members held one-on-one meetings with their representatives, submitted virtual testimony to help successfully defeat attacks on accountability and high standards, and worked on op-eds in support of positive reforms.

Stand Louisiana’s LEAD (Louisiana Educator Advocacy Development) Fellowship offers educators a structured eight-month program that empowers participants to elevate their voices as advocates for all students. Fellowship participants study five areas of education policy, engage with local and state policy makers, and also earn professional development credits.

Stand Louisiana’s Education Leadership Institute (ELI) offers another opportunity for educators to engage with policy issues. Community and education leaders can apply to this program to expand their leadership and advocacy skills while learning more about school governance issues, school finance, community engagement, contemporary policy issues, and school supports. ELI currently offers cohorts in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

Our biggest accomplishments have been key policy victories around both our teacher preparation policies and our state ESSA plan. We worked with educators to both inform these policies as well as see them adopted by our Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. We advocated for a full-year teacher residency as the standard practice for pre-service teachers, giving them a full academic year of training with a highly-effective mentor teacher.

As part of the state ESSA plan, we advocated for raising the achievement expectation on annual assessments from “basic” to “mastery,” a balance of emphasis on both growth and achievement, a comprehensive inclusion of all special populations in the rating system, and an end to the current practice of curving school letter grades and the hold-harmless policies that kept many of our historically struggling schools at the bottom. We are currently working with our educators to monitor and influence the implementation of these policies.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Training and development are key components of any educator voice programming. We were very deliberate in the way we engaged educators around our different bodies of work, first providing high-quality professional development and then providing meaningful advocacy opportunities that ensured our educators felt that their contributions were authentic and impactful.

Resources:

• LEAD Fellowship
• Education Leadership Institute

Previous Educator Voice Opportunity: Ambassador Program

The TeachStrong initiative was launched based on a shared understanding among its more than 60 partner organizations that the expectations on students, teachers, and schools have never been higher, but the systems to prepare, support, and compensate teachers have not been elevated commensurately. TeachStrong aims to elevate the prominence of this issue among thought leaders, the public, and especially parents and teachers to offer concrete policy solutions about how to modernize and elevate the teaching profession.

In 2016, TeachStrong launched the Ambassador Program, which engaged exceptional educators in shaping TeachStrong’s policy positions, promoting TeachStrong in the media, and encouraging political leaders to take up this agenda. The ambassador program was a one-time, year-long program consisting of nearly 100 educators from 28 states and Washington, D.C.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

The TeachStrong ambassadors supported the campaign’s efforts by providing input and feedback on the drafts of eight substantive policy papers, moderating and participating in monthly Twitter chats that coincided with the publication of each policy paper, and lending their voices to this effort through the Story Project and through written word. In fact, by September of 2016, TeachStrong ambassadors and partners had helped change the conversation at the state and national level by writing 100 blogs and op-eds, placed in publications across the country, such as the Denver Post, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel, The Hill, and the Huffington Post.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Our nation’s educators know firsthand what changes are needed in order to improve the systems designed to support teachers. From the beginning of the TeachStrong Ambassador Program, the ambassadors were provided examples of actionable steps for advancing the TeachStrong agenda, such as sharing the policy proposals with elected and appointed officials, participating in Twitter chats on substantive policy issues, and writing blogs and op-eds that simultaneously elevated their voices and our key messages. By cultivating and maintaining support from current classroom educators from across the United States, TeachStrong was able to grow its grassroots base and spread its message across the country. Advocacy organizations should be thinking about how to meaningfully engage educators in their work early and often, providing a wide range of options for engagement and a clear roadmap for how to advocate for the issues about which they are most passionate.

Resources:

• ESSA Guidance for State Actors
• Policy Proposal: Recruitment and Diversity
• Policy Proposal: Teacher Preparation
• Policy Proposal: Licensure
• Policy Proposal: Residency and Induction

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Policy Teams, LEAP Fellowship

Educators for Excellence works to ensure that the voices of classroom teachers are included in the decisions that affect their profession and students. E4E teachers take action in three main ways: advocating for teacher leadership and collaboration at their schools, pushing for policies at the district and state level that include E4E teacher-­created recommendations, and getting involved with their unions to ensure their opinions are represented.

Educators for Excellence-Minnesota works with about 2,000 educators in the metro Twin Cities area. In 2016, E4E-MN released Ending Racial Discipline Disparities: An Educator’s Guide to School-Based Change, a policy paper that examines school discipline practices and outlines action steps for educators to better serve students of color. During the 2016-17 school year, teams of Minnesota educators implemented these actions steps and reflected on their experiences. Putting Plans into Action shares their obstacles and levers for success.

In past years, E4E-MN teacher teams have produced policy papers focusing on teacher preparation, teacher diversity, and teacher compensation. The final version of Minnesota’s 2017 education omnibus bill included several recommendations from these papers.

During Minnesota’s ESSA planning process, E4E-MN teachers provided feedback on early versions of the plan and held meetings with the state commissioner of education to share their suggestions.

The Leadership for Equity in Action Pipeline (LEAP) Program is a free, selective leadership development program aimed at equipping educators with the knowledge, skills, and mindsets to serve in elected or appointed office. The program is designed for current educators (teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators) who are interested in exploring the possibility of running for elected or appointed leadership positions in the future.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

I’m proud that not only have many of our educator members’ policy recommendations been passed into law, we have also seen the impact teachers can have at every level of decision-making when they uplift their voices. A number of our members have been elected or appointed into leadership roles in their unions, state-level committees, school leadership roles, and more. As they build their knowledge, skill, and comfort in advocating for their students and their profession, we have seen narratives and policy change for the better.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

​Educators often speak of the “pendulum swing” that takes place in schools where policies, initiatives, even leaders come and go. When engaging educators, it is important to acknowledge how and why these shifts have taken place. More importantly, my advice is to be committed to the more long-lasting, often more difficult work of culture change within our schools. ​

Resources:

• LEAP Fellowship
• Our Students Can’t Wait: Ensuring Equitable Access To Funding and Resources
• Ending Racial Discipline Disparities: An Educator’s Guide to School-Based Change
• Closing Gaps: Diversifying Minnesota’s Teacher Workforce
• Policy Papers archive

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Policy Teams

Educators for Excellence (E4E) works to ensure that the voices of classroom teachers are included in the decisions that affect their profession and students. E4E teachers take action in three main ways: advocating for teacher leadership and collaboration at their schools, pushing for policies at the district and state level that include E4E teacher-­created recommendations, and getting involved with their unions to ensure their opinions are represented.

In Chicago, E4E teachers recently released Sounding the Alarm, a call to action to support students experiencing trauma, which disproportionately affects students growing up in low-income neighborhoods plagued by violence. The policy paper includes teacher-created recommendations aimed to help the school system better serve these students.

Since 2015, E4E-Chicago teachers have advocated for school funding reform at the state level, which recently resulted in a historic formula overhaul. Members hosted panel discussions with education stakeholders and elected officials, met with state legislators, published op-eds, and canvassed in neighboring districts in support of an evidence-based, more equitable school funding formula.

In past years, E4E-Chicago teachers also authored policy papers on teacher evaluation and professional development.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

E4E-Chicago is proud to be building an ecosystem that supports and values authentic educator voice in the education policy landscape, both at the district and state levels.

In Chicago, E4E-Chicago’s policy paper on professional development was a critical lever in establishing the Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) Teacher Advisory Council. This Council, made up of teachers from across the district, meets monthly to engage in direct dialogue with CPS officials. Similarly, a group of E4E-Chicago educators working to improve teacher diversity and create more inclusive schools collaborated with the district to add training and professional development on these topics for CPS principals, which launched in the spring of 2017.

In Illinois, E4E-Chicago teachers wrote letters and participated in public listening sessions to provide feedback on Illinois’ ESSA plan. Educators specifically responded to the parts of the ESSA plan that intersected with previous E4E policy issues: professional development, teacher diversity, and teacher evaluation. E4E-Chicago teachers were likewise active participants in the statewide fight for equitable funding, lending their experiences and voices to the advocacy campaign that resulted in a reformed, evidence-based school funding formula.

In each of these instances, E4E-Chicago has worked hard to ensure that educators are empowered to identify problems, set the vision, and lead advocacy efforts so that E4E-Chicago educators feel ownership over the recommendations, policies, and advocacy campaigns that E4E adopts. As a result, E4E-Chicago educators are invested, engaged, and understand the value of raising their own voices as a part of the broader education ecosystem in our city and state.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

It’s incredibly important to be intentional about building spaces and opportunities that support authentic educator engagement. In order to truly bring educator voice and experience into policy, we make strategic decisions about how to communicate with educators, when and where to host meetings and events, and how to celebrate and honor the work educators put in each and every day.

E4E-Chicago believes the experiences of educators are vital to making smart, impactful decisions in education policy. In order to truly leverage those experiences, it can be helpful to share additional knowledge and support the development of new skills. By doing this, E4E-Chicago is simply helping educators translate their experiences – and the experiences of their students – into recommendations that can drive policy change.

Resources:

• Ask an Educator: Priority Issues for Chicago’s Classrooms
• Sounding the Alarm: Building the Climate and Culture Our Students Need
• The Evolution of Evaluation: A Way Forward for Teachers, By Teachers
• Policy Papers archive

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Policy Teams

Educators for Excellence (E4E) works to ensure that the voices of classroom teachers are included in the decisions that affect their profession and students. E4E teachers take action in three main ways: advocating for teacher leadership and collaboration at their schools, pushing for policies at the district and state level that include E4E teacher-­created recommendations, and getting involved with their unions to ensure their opinions are represented.

In the city where Educators for Excellence started, educators are working through E4E to increase equity for students in the nation’s largest school system. Their most recent campaign involved advocating for the Board of Regents to include school climate as a school quality indicator in the state’s ESSA plan.

Other recent policy papers produced by E4E-New York teacher teams have covered the Community Schools model, due process and tenure, Common Core implementation for unique student populations, and many more topics.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

Our members have really moved the ball forward over the past few years to ensure school climate is a priority in our city and state. Thanks in part to the advocacy of E4E members around recommendations put forth in our chapter’s 2015 policy paper, Climate Change: Creating Safe, Supportive Schools for All Students, the Mayor’s team and the New York City Department of Education proposed actions to significantly reduce suspensions for students in grades K-2, start a process for school communities to remove metal detectors, and regularly release data relating to suspensions, expulsions, and arrests, broken down by school. At the state level, E4E-New York ensured the voices of members were incorporated in the state’s ESSA plan, collecting more than 1,000 surveys from educators and encouraging them to comment publicly on the state’s draft plan, as well as sign on to an E4E letter to the Regents. This campaign ultimately contributed to school climate measures, such as chronic absenteeism and school suspension and expulsion data, being included as accountability measures in the state’s ESSA plan.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

First, know your people. Similar to any organizing work, it’s essential to understand the motivations and skills of your constituents in order to provide them with exciting opportunities that align with their strengths or preferred areas of growth. Teachers want their voices heard and to play a role in the decisions that affect their classrooms. It is our job to make this advocacy as accessible as possible by presenting opportunities aligned with their interests and building their competencies to advocate effectively.

And second, educators see it all. They work with students with diverse needs and from an ever-wider range of backgrounds, so they see firsthand the very real ways in which policies impact students and their families–even those not exclusively focused on education.

Resources:

• Ready for Day One and Beyond
• New York Educators Call On Regents to Include School Climate in ESSA
• All In: Creating a Culture of Support
• Climate Change: Creating Safe, Supportive Schools for All Students
• Policy Papers archive

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Policy Teams

Educators for Excellence (E4E) works to ensure that the voices of classroom teachers are included in the decisions that affect their profession and students. E4E teachers take action in three main ways: advocating for teacher leadership and collaboration at their schools, pushing for policies at the district and state level that include E4E teacher-­created recommendations, and getting involved with their unions to ensure their opinions are represented.

In the country’s first public school system, E4E-Boston teachers are collaborating on student-centered ideas to improve student outcomes and educational equity. Their most recent campaign aims to increase counselor-to-student ratios as part of creating trauma-informed school environments. In Schools that Heal, E4E-Boston Teacher Policy Team shared related recommendations for more effectively supporting students who have experienced trauma.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

Within a year of our founding, E4E-Boston released its teacher-written policy paper, Schools that Heal, which encompasses district and city-level policy recommendations to create trauma-informed schools. While a team of 8 teachers led the process of authoring the paper, the ideas were cultivated by organizing nearly 500 teachers through focus groups, surveys, and one-on-one conversations. Once the paper was released, another 500 teachers were engaged in the process of identifying the priority advocacy issues. In one calendar year, one thousand teachers were engaged in issue selection, policy formulation and advocacy prioritization. And, our teachers have further grown their policy and advocacy leadership by writing op-eds, testifying at state legislative hearings, and testifying at city council hearings to advocate for the changes they want to see for their students and for their own professional growth.  

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Educators have more advocacy skills than they often realize. Unlocking their potential, empowering them with tools to advocate, and seeing how educators can transform the conversation in policy to one that is more student-focused is incredible to witness. When working to engage educators, it’s essential to be mindful of their busy schedules and find creative solutions to keep them engaged.

Anything else that advocates should know?

Teachers have traditionally been left out of policy conversations. Shifting that dynamic by engaging them in the policy-making process is truly transformational, both for the policies that are created through this collaborative approach and for the educators, themselves, who grow their leadership in a variety of ways. When educators are at the table, they bring expertise and a student-focus crucial to strengthening policy solutions. At the same time, educators emerge from this process with a new confidence about what is possible and the roles they can play – as teachers, policymakers, and advocates – in making our school communities stronger to better serve students.

Resources:

• Thriving, Not Just Surviving
• Schools that Heal
• Read the Teacher Action Team’s op-ed

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Policy Teams

Educators for Excellence (E4E) works to ensure that the voices of classroom teachers are included in the decisions that affect their profession and students. E4E teachers take action in three main ways: advocating for teacher leadership and collaboration at their schools, pushing for policies at the district and state level that include E4E teacher-­created recommendations, and getting involved with their unions to ensure their opinions are represented.

E4E-Connecticut’s One State, One Future campaign seeks to shift how our state funds public schools in order to better serve the needs of all students. E4E-Connecticut teachers authored a policy paper by the same name, in which they advocated for the consolidating of the state’s 11 funding formulas into one comprehensive, evidence-based, and equitable formula.  This year, our members will continue to advocate for action on the school funding formula in a variety of ways, including launching a new team of educators who will begin drafting a brief using teachers stories from the classroom to illustrate the urgent need for more equitable funding. In addition, E4E-Connecticut teachers will identify another issue impacting their students and their careers and begin the work of researching that topic and crafting solutions.

Other recent E4E-Connecticut policy papers have tackled issues that include serving unique student populations, school climate, and professional development.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

We believe that our greatest accomplishment has been elevating teacher voice to key decision-makers. As Connecticut seeks to design a more equitable and transparent school funding formula, our teachers have been instrumental in shaping the debate. E4E-Connecticut members have met with state legislators, organized a postcard-writing campaign, and started a dialogue with the state education commissioner. This year, a teacher member sat on a panel with former U.S. Secretary of Education John King to discuss equity in education. Not only are teachers empowered to advocate for their students and themselves, but they provide decision-makers with a window into the realities of the classroom to create better policy solutions.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

One of the biggest challenges is that educators are already busy with full-time, demanding jobs. When not teaching, planning, grading, or spending time with their families, they have a limited  time to dedicate towards advocacy work. Organizations looking to engage educators need to create opportunities of varying time commitment and topics to match the different schedules and interests of teachers. In addition, we need to be flexible in order to meet teachers where they are. This may mean coming to their schools, meeting outside of the nine-to-five work hours, and offering remote opportunities.

Resources:

• Students Today, Educators Tomorrow
• One State, One Future campaign
• Success for All: Ensuring Academic Outcomes for Unique Student Populations in Hartford Public Schools
• It Takes a Village: Improving School Climate and Student Discipline in New Haven Public Schools
• Policy Papers archive

Educator Voice Opportunities: Teacher Policy Teams

Educators for Excellence works to ensure that the voices of classroom teachers are included in the decisions that affect their profession and students. E4E teachers take action in three main ways: advocating for teacher leadership and collaboration at their schools, pushing for policies at the district and state level that include E4E teacher-­created recommendations, and getting involved with their unions to ensure their opinions are represented.

E4E-Los Angeles teachers work in Los Angeles and throughout southern California to elevate the teaching profession and improve student outcomes. Their most recent campaign centered on increasing the time early-career teachers have to hone their craft and demonstrate effectiveness before being granted or denied tenure, with additional targeted support prioritizing teachers who have promise but struggle to get their footing in the teaching profession.

In past years, E4E-Los Angeles teacher teams released policy papers on teacher evaluations, teacher retention, school climate, teacher leadership pathways, teacher compensation, the Common Core State Standards, and teacher tenure.

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

E4E-LA teachers have advocated for changes to staffing, funding, professional development and other policy and implementation plans. Since launching, their policy recommendations on teacher evaluation have been incorporated into changes that make teacher evaluation more rooted in observations of practice, goal setting, student progress and aligned to teaching and learning standards; their recommendations on improving school climate and discipline approaches have resulted in the passage of union policy motions focused on improving professional development and endorsing restorative approaches to discipline; and their efforts to create career pathways to leverage and retain our most impactful teachers has resulted in the creation of leadership pathways and positions in a portfolio of high-needs district schools.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Teachers are often told how to think or not to think, but to just pipe down and implement the policy flavor of the day. Teachers are not often given the opportunity to transform concerns or frustrations into policy solutions. Bring teachers to the table, ask them to diagnose problems, conduct and explore research to see an issue from several vantage points and then enable teachers to broadcast their solutions. What teachers propose will be innovative, refreshing and rooted in teacher practice.

Resources:

• Stand with Teachers to Take Action on Tenure
• One School For All: Common Core for Unique Student Populations
• One School of Thought: Moving Toward the Common Core
• Policy Papers archive

What have been your organization’s biggest accomplishments while exploring educator voice work?

In 2019, Stand for Children Indiana partnered with TeachPlus and ISTA to push a legislative package to elevate the teaching profession. The first step was to send out a statewide survey to teachers to get their voice on what keeps them in or forces them out of the teaching profession. The survey received over 500 responses from across traditional public, charter and private schools. This data was used to write a report with Public Impact on the needs of the teaching profession in Indiana.

Advocates then authored three bills that focused on district spending, teacher residency, and career ladders for teachers. Teachers from Indiana provided critical testimony at the House Education, Senate Education, and Appropriations Committees. All three bills were priority bills for the House GOP caucus and advocates were able to get two new line items in the budget: $3.5 million for a career ladders for teachers pilot and $1 million for a teacher residency pilot.

What advice do you have for other advocacy organizations thinking about engaging educators?

Building relationships is a key first step. Educators need to be able to trust you and feel invested in your policy goals. It is a big ask to have teachers take a day off of work and come and speak in front of legislators, so you want them to feel comfortable with the policies and feel prepared.

Resources:

• Addressing Indiana’s Quiet Teaching Crisis: A Sensible Blueprint for Progress