State Teacher Cabinet to enable Teacher Voice
USDOE Teaching Ambassador Fellow, Mike Humphreys, explains how Virginia’s governor is proposing a state teacher cabinet to enable teacher voice in his administration, and says other states are also considering this. (Click here to read his post.) We hope these come to pass. And we hope they don’t just become ineffective, like so many ad-hoc panels and commissions. Suggestion: they should take a page from the VIVA Project approach and gather teacher input on specific issues in their state and compile these into thoughtful, strategic reports. And perhaps this can help more teachers to speak out.
Steve, your reference to VIVA taps a deep structural problem with “representation” (and not just teacher representation): appointment to positions without any mechanism in place through which to authentically represent anyone but oneself. Teachers of the Year, for example, are often quoted as if they speak for teachers, but actually they might more accurately be termed representative teachers than teacher representatives. The difference is in the absence of any systematic means for gathering and representing the views of the many. (Of course, our state and federal legislators fall into the same trap, one they mask with “hearings” rather than truly dialogic engagements with constituents. I wonder how many state governors would accept a “cabinet” of teachers insulated from the favoritism of political appointment, i.e. determined, informed and guided by teachers; I wonder how many teachers and teacher organizations would genuinely take on such work! JSD
Jim–Thanks for your acute observations. What you point out is indeed a problem. I almost included a phrase in the post with a caveat about stuffing a cabinet with teachers who hold a particular view (say, on charters) — and then decided the sentence was just getting too long. VIVA does try to address this issue by gathering as many teacher responses on an issue as possible. Nevertheless, the ballot box can still be stuffed. Reminds me that I read recently that Abraham Lincoln only gained the presidential nomination because supporters filled the meeting hall with outsiders, so opposition people couldn’t get in. Anyway, this is yet another reason why Teachers Speak Up is focusing simply on telling our classroom success stories, rather than specific advocacy.