This 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 authors examine obstacles to teacher involvement in policy, analyze preservice and practicing teachers' experiences, and present a model for collaborative professional development for teacher policy advocacy. Case studies are used to 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. This 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. Teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and administrators can use this resource for reflection, discussion, and action with the goal of creating more effective and responsive educational policy. Book Features: Offers recommendations for how to engage and empower teachers based on original research conducted with student teachers and practicing teachers in two states. Explores how policy affects teachers and students in areas such as school safety, standardized assessments, the COVID crisis, and using digital tools in schools. Helps school administrators identify supports and challenges for incoming teachers.

In the current rush to adopt and expand digital learning, many important considerations are being overlooked that will have major consequences for the future of American public education. As private education technology contractors and vendors move deeper into the work of public education, questions concerning the quality of the services, who is served, and who benefits need to be answered. Based on participatory research and other studies of three types of digital education - digital courses, blended learning, and online tutoring - Equal Scrutiny offers readers an inside view of what is really going on in the world of digital education and the uneven experiences of students, their parents, and teachers. The authors also offer critical questions that need to be asked in order to - in the authors words - ""ensure that technology adds value to the learning and lives of students and staff in public school communities"".

This 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 authors examine obstacles to teacher involvement in policy, analyze preservice and practicing teachers' experiences, and present a model for collaborative professional development for teacher policy advocacy. Case studies are used to 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. This 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. Teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and administrators can use this resource for reflection, discussion, and action with the goal of creating more effective and responsive educational policy. Book Features: Offers recommendations for how to engage and empower teachers based on original research conducted with student teachers and practicing teachers in two states. Explores how policy affects teachers and students in areas such as school safety, standardized assessments, the COVID crisis, and using digital tools in schools. Helps school administrators identify supports and challenges for incoming teachers.

Teachers at the Table is based on the simple premise that policy matters in education and teachers matter to policy. Policy reflects and shapes society's beliefs about schools, teachers, children, learning, and society, as well as the power structures embedded in our communities and decision-making processes. If policy is a public response to perceived social problems, it matters who is at the table when the problems are defined, the agendas set, and the policy itself designed. Although teachers may be central to the implementation of education policy, they are marginal to the design of it, especially around issues of teaching and learning. In short, teachers are not at the table. This is important because the lack of teacher voice in educational policymaking disconnects the goals and design of education policy from the actual lived challenges of implementing it. This book draws on a qualitative case study with both practicing and pre-service teachers involved in a policy advocacy professional development program. Findings from the study illustrate norms and routines (the nature of teachers' work, hierarchy of authority and professional status) that act as barriers to teacher involvement in policy creation. The book then follows with clear examples of teacher "pushback" against these same norms and details the conditions under which teachers can interact in authentic ways with decision making structures in schools and policy. Teachers at the Table is a unique examination into these dynamics, informing the critical efforts of teacher leaders to participate in educational policy creation, and helps us to understand, and more importantly, act upon the structures around teachers to better support their involvement in policymaking - with the ultimate goal of producing better educational policy that is more relevant and responsive to the youth, educators, families, and communities it serves.

Teachers at the Table is based on the simple premise that policy matters in education and teachers matter to policy. Policy reflects and shapes society's beliefs about schools, teachers, children, learning, and society, as well as the power structures embedded in our communities and decision-making processes. If policy is a public response to perceived social problems, it matters who is at the table when the problems are defined, the agendas set, and the policy itself designed. Although teachers may be central to the implementation of education policy, they are marginal to the design of it, especially around issues of teaching and learning. In short, teachers are not at the table. This is important because the lack of teacher voice in educational policymaking disconnects the goals and design of education policy from the actual lived challenges of implementing it. This book draws on a qualitative case study with both practicing and pre-service teachers involved in a policy advocacy professional development program. Findings from the study illustrate norms and routines (the nature of teachers' work, hierarchy of authority and professional status) that act as barriers to teacher involvement in policy creation. The book then follows with clear examples of teacher "pushback" against these same norms and details the conditions under which teachers can interact in authentic ways with decision making structures in schools and policy. Teachers at the Table is a unique examination into these dynamics, informing the critical efforts of teacher leaders to participate in educational policy creation, and helps us to understand, and more importantly, act upon the structures around teachers to better support their involvement in policymaking - with the ultimate goal of producing better educational policy that is more relevant and responsive to the youth, educators, families, and communities it serves.

In the current rush to adopt and expand digital learning, many important considerations are being overlooked that will have major consequences for the future of American public education. As private education technology contractors and vendors move deeper into the work of public education, questions concerning the quality of the services, who is served, and who benefits need to be answered. Based on participatory research and other studies of three types of digital education - digital courses, blended learning, and online tutoring - Equal Scrutiny offers readers an inside view of what is really going on in the world of digital education and the uneven experiences of students, their parents, and teachers. The authors also offer critical questions that need to be asked in order to - in the authors words - ""ensure that technology adds value to the learning and lives of students and staff in public school communities"".

Equity and Quality in Digital Learning identifies and presents specific strategies and practices for using digital tools to reduce inequities in educational opportunities and improve student outcomes. Based on the authors' ten-year research-practice partnership with both the Dallas and Milwaukee public school districts, the book highlights the factors that can support or impede the effective implementation of digital learning in K-12 schools at all levels: district, school, classroom, and student. Digital initiatives can boost higher levels of learning, the authors advocate, but require planning, monitoring and assessment, and revamping and refinement. As public schools in the United States continue to make major investments in digital learning, the variability in how it's rolled out, accessed, and supported, both during and outside of the regular school day, threatens to exacerbate rather than reduce inequities in learning opportunities, the authors argue. It is critical to ensure that the chosen digital tools are effectively leveraged to enhance learning and reduce achievement gaps, especially for those students historically underserved in K-12 schools. The authors offer concrete ways to use evidence from the book to increase the effectiveness of digital learning. Equity and Quality in Digital Learning contributes critical insights and tools needed for educators and policy makers to deliver on the promise of digital learning in American schools.