WCER evaluator/researcher Annalee Good and Framingham State University Associate Professor May Hara will host an in-person discussion of their book, Teachers as Policy Advocates: Strategies for Collaboration and Change, with representatives from teacher advocacy group Educators for Excellence during next week’s AERA conference in Chicago.

The book event, which is free and open to the public, will be held 6−7 p.m. Thursday, April 13, 2023 at Seminary Co-op Bookstores, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave., Chicago. 

Published by Teachers College Press, the book argues that teachers’ active participation in policy advocacy is crucial to creating a K−12 educational system that honors the needs of students, families, and communities. The book is envisioned as a resource for teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and administrators for purposes of reflection, discussion, and action, with the goal of creating more effective and responsive educational policy.

The co-authors, who are both former teachers, also:

• examine obstacles to teacher involvement in policy.
• analyze pre-service and practicing teachers’ experiences.
• present a model for collaborative professional development for teacher policy advocacy.

The text offers pragmatic strategies for increasing teacher policy capacity and advocacy agency while simultaneously calling for systemic change at school, district, state, and national levels of policymaking. Case studies explore four contemporary policy areas—school safety, student assessment, public health, and digital learning—to identify what teachers know about policy, how they view their relationships to advocacy, and the impact of collaborative professional development on their beliefs and practices.

Good’s co-author Hara has taught middle school English and English as a second language in the New York City public school system.

Good is co-director of the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative and director of the WCER Clinical Program. She taught social studies to eighth graders.