Teacher Voice in Policy: Bringing Educators to the Table on the Issues That Matter

• In Event: 31.024 - Institutional Efforts to Induce Collaboration and Standardization of Practice

Abstract

In July 2014, President Obama and Secretary Duncan made news headlines for lunching with four teachers to listen their ideas for strengthening the teaching profession. The same week, they announced the Excellent Educators for All initiative, with requires that educators be consulted by state education agencies in the development of educator equity plans to ensure that all students have access to effective teachers and principals. This builds on several years of emerging teacher voice organizations aimed at giving teachers greater opportunities for leadership and input on policy outside of their schools (Pennington, 2014).
Although teachers possess firsthand knowledge of the likely intended and unintended consequences of new policies, to-date most teachers believe they have been left out of conversations on improving schools and enhancing learning (Johnson, 2012). Yet fully 75 percent of teachers cited “a greater decision-making role for teachers in regards to school policies and practices” as “absolutely essential” or “very important” for improving teacher retention (Scholastic & Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2012). This paper examines this teacher voice movement and discusses how teacher voice, particularly through the Everyone at the Table initiative of American Institutes for Research and Public Agenda, has influenced efforts to reform teacher evaluation, equitable access, and other teacher effectiveness policies.
The Everyone at the Table initiative is an applied research, development, and dissemination effort that aims to confront communication and consensus-building challenges in teacher effectiveness policymaking, drawing on principals of sound and authentic engagement and dialogue (Yankelovich, 1999). The Everyone at the Table approach was developed through focus groups and interviews with teachers and administrators in nine school districts across the country and has since been field-tested and used in the inner-city charter, suburban district, and state-level contexts. This paper will describe the approach, its use, wider efforts to meaningfully engage teachers, and the outcomes to-date of involving (or not) teachers in education policy development.
The outcomes of these teacher engagement efforts have been wholly positive. Nevertheless, the results of two focus groups with district administrators revealed a number of reasons why teachers are typically not invited to the table on policy (Behrstock-Sherratt & Rizzolo, 2014). To overcome barriers to positive teacher policy engagement, and build institutional trust, collaboration, and the meaningful exchange of ideas for strengthening teaching and learning, it is important that educational leaders in research, policy, and practice share innovations in the field and discuss the evidence about the impact of such innovations.

Authors

• Angela Minnici, American Institutes for Research

• Ellen J. Behrstock-Sherratt, American Institutes for Research