Understanding the Path to Policy Spaces for Teachers Who “Pull the Policy Lever”

• In Event: Reflexive and Engaged Policy Studies: Critical Policy Research With K–12 Teachers and Teacher Educators

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes: This paper discusses a subset of findings from a larger study on understanding teacher perceptions of policy engagement before and after participation in State and National Teacher of the Year (TOY) programs. Primarily, I present evidence that a structure designed to provide teachers with explicit elevation, training, and opportunities can build their capacity and will for policy engagement and introduce an original conceptual framework for understanding the multifaceted path teachers must navigate to do so. I also explore the personal resilience to barriers along this path observed in those who identify as teachers of color in contrast to their peers.

Theoretical framework: While this paper largely presents data used to develop an original conceptual framework for understanding how teachers can bridge the gap between the classroom and policymaking spaces, I utilize Anderson & Cohen (2018)’s framework for teachers as a “democratic professionals” and expand on the findings of Good (2018) to examine the conditions necessary for teacher policy engagement.

Methods and Data Sources: In this qualitative study, twenty semi-structured interviews with STOYs were conducted and analyzed to understand teacher perceptions of policy and the impact of policy (dis)engagement across their careers. Follow-up inquiries were conducted to further explore the specific experiences of teachers of color.

Results: While participants note they may not see policy engagement as the most efficient route to change, they recognized it is sometimes the only way to effectively advocate for themselves, their students, and justice more broadly. One stated, “Sometimes policy is the lever that I need to pull… there's no way through [a problem] without just sticking Band-Aids on until you hit policy. [That’s] how I know when it's within my best interest for the cause to pull the policy lever…”
Participants who entered their TOY programs with a sense of apathy or disinterest in policy experienced a significant transition in how they viewed policy and their willingness to engage with it post-award. This paper explores findings related to the knowledge and skills needed, policy/political contexts that must be navigated, and relationships that must be forged for teachers to gain meaningful access to policy-influencing spaces—while also acknowledging programs like TOY as privileged and distinct from general classroom teachers—as conveyed in Figure 1.


Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

Finally, this study found that participants of color were more likely than their peers to describe a sense of resilience to social and political barriers to policy engagement, and this paper presents those reflections.

Significance: The growing student population, coupled with issues in teacher recruitment and retention, has resulted in an increasing gap in the demand over the supply of teachers (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond & Carver-Thomas, 2016). Further, more recent scholarship highlights the consequences of our dual pandemics—COVID-19 and the national reckoning with long-existing racial injustice (Yeh et al., 2022). Grappling with the current educational policy landscape requires addressing the differential impacts of both pandemics on students of color. With the increased politicization of school boards and state-level attempts to censor pedagogy, teachers need preparation for policy engagement more than ever before.

Author

• Nikki Lee Wright, University of Memphis