Everyone is a Policy Advocate: Seeding the Future of the Education Justice Ecosystem

• In Event: From Classroom to Capitol: Critical Pedagogy and Praxis Under State Repression

Abstract

Objectives or Purpose

Education policies are often shaped by people who do not reflect or even seek to understand the students and families impacted by them. State-level policy advocacy spaces can feel confusing and hostile to diverse advocates with critical experience and expertise, leading to impractical, unsustainable, and harmful education policies. This problem has worsened in the past five years, with increasingly antagonistic politics, policy, and rhetoric that seek to discourage and even ban engagement from diverse and justice-oriented policy advocates, including young people.

In this presentation, leaders from a K-12 education non-profit organization will discuss why intentional investment in a diverse policy advocacy ecosystem is crucial for the future of educational justice. Presenters will discuss findings from two advocacy training programs they created in Georgia and Texas. These programs (focused on early- to mid-career policy advocates from systemically-marginalized communities and high school students) prepare new advocates to engage in state-level education policy processes.

Theoretical Framework
The programs presented are rooted in research on family-focused advocacy preparation programs that center authentic community engagement and strategic family leadership in shaping school policy and practice (Montemayor et al., 2023). These advocacy programs were deeply influenced by Freire’s (1996) theories on critical pedagogy, humanization, and authentic dialogue, applied to all types of learners in contexts outside of the traditional classroom.

Methods, Techniques or Modes of Inquiry
After each student and fellow cohort, we conducted individual exit interviews with participants and trainers. We also conducted group debrief and reflection sessions, and fellows led their own reflection sessions, with consistent guiding questions across cohorts. An external evaluator interviewed fellows and staff and produced a report on the training program. Finally, trainers engaged in a series of reflection sessions that were used to refine and update programming.

Data Sources
The primary sources of data include written surveys, podcast reflection discussions, exit interviews, advocacy trainer interviews, curriculum developed and refined over five years, and information gathered from cohort virtual and in-person evaluation sessions.

Results & Conclusions
Findings indicate that applicable policy advocacy training and opportunities for real-world engagement on timely education issues produce interest in advocacy well beyond the program term, setting budding advocates on the path to potentially lifelong engagement in the ecosystem of policy advocacy. Students and fellows, including those who initially felt hesitant about their role in influencing policymaking, shared a desire to not only identify ways to continue their own advocacy, but to prepare others to engage, too.

Scholarly Significance
This research will contribute to our understanding of 1) how long-term civic engagement can be shaped outside of, and in partnership with public schools and other institutions; 2) the impact diverse, directly-impacted advocates can have on education policymaking; and 3) why continued investment in the policy advocacy ecosystem is necessary, especially in states with policies that are explicitly hostile to that ecosystem.

Authors

• Morgan Craven, Intercultural Development Research Association

• Celina Moreno, Intercultural Development Research Association

• Mikayla Arciaga, Intercultural Development Research Association