We’re Always Negotiating: Getting in and Staying in to Facilitate Authentic, Inclusive Engagement Between Teachers and State-Level Leaders
Citation
Ramp, Madonna Nicole. 2018. We’re Always Negotiating: Getting in and Staying in to Facilitate Authentic, Inclusive Engagement Between Teachers and State-Level Leaders. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard Graduate School of Education.Abstract
This Capstone examines outcomes and insights generated from a Strategic Project that took place during the founding of Teach Plus Texas. It explores how an intermediary organization seeking to impact education policy from outside schools can facilitate authentic, inclusive engagement between diverse groups of excellent teachers and systems-level leaders in a new site. Teach Plus builds teacher leadership by operating policy fellowships and instructional leadership development programs in nine states across the country.This Strategic Project generated the first majority-minority cohort of Teaching Policy Fellows in the organization’s history, supported them in advocating for and impacting important policies that meet real student needs, established an ongoing policy advising relationship with the State Commissioner of Education, and built a belief in the wider organization that policy fellows should reflect the diverse life experiences of the student body.
The author drew upon principles of diversity and inclusion, adult development, and interest-based negotiation to: (1) develop a process and engage 19 volunteer teachers to lead focus groups with 148 of their peers from around the state and then write and publish a high-quality policy memo advising state leaders on how to best implement a federal law, (2) lead the cultivation, recruitment, and selection of 12 of those volunteers, along with 18 additional teachers, to form the 30-member inaugural cohort of the Texas Policy Fellowship, (3) coordinate preparation for both groups to advocate for equitable policies together with the State Education Commissioner.
This Strategic Project yielded three insights regarding diversity and inclusion, adult development, and negotiation, that can guide leaders seeking to involve teachers in education policy. First, to uncover and meet the real needs of the most vulnerable students, we must build a group of teachers that reflects their diverse life experiences. Second, increasing diversity is necessary but not sufficient. Diverse groups also need inclusive adult development to bring that experience to bear to negotiate and co-create policy changes that meet the interests of our nation’s students. Finally, it is helpful for leaders to adopt a mindset that they are always negotiating with a variety of parties on behalf of all students.
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