What Will it Take for National “TeachStrong” Campaign to Really Go National?

Last week in Washington D.C., the Center for American Progress (CAP) launched “TeachStrong,” a national campaign to elevate and modernize the teaching profession. The campaign brings together a diverse coalition of over 40 education organizations ranging from think tanks to teachers unions to education reform organizations like TNTP and Teach for America. All have agreed on nine key principles to modernize and elevate the teaching profession—and the principles are as varied as the coalition. Spanning the full human capital spectrum, the principles range from strengthening teacher preparation and recruitment to improving teachers’ compensation, learning, and advancement opportunities on the job.

Governors Branstad (R-IA) and Markell (D-DE) kicked off the event by highlighting their respective state’s efforts to improve the teaching profession. Then, Steve Wojcikiewicz, Vice President of Policy at Deans for Impact, a TeachStrong partner, asked the question that was the elephant in the room: how can we get these types of reform initiatives from individual state’s agendas to the national agenda?

Given the current political push to scale back the federal role in education policy and the diversity of perspectives represented by TeachStrong partners, it is a great question. What will it take for the TeachStrong campaign to really go national? Here are a few thoughts on the question.

While K-12 education issues have generally been overlooked in the 2016 presidential campaigns thus far, presidential candidates could help bring  teacher quality policies into the spotlight moving forward if candidates adopt some or all of the TeachStrong principles as part of their platforms.

However, news recently broke that Congress’ latest push to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) could come to fruition as soon as the end of the year. And, according to Education Week, the compromise bill that will be considered would significantly undercut the Secretary of Education’s power and scale back the federal role in K-12 education policy. While ESEA includes a variety of teacher quality efforts as an allowable use of state funds, it does not require that states “modernize” or “elevate” the teaching profession in any way. Thus, the next president and his or her administration may face an uphill battle in implementing their policy agenda for elementary and secondary schools.

One of the TeachStrong event's panelists, former U.S. Representative George Miller (D-CA), directly stated that taking on steps to modernize and elevate the teaching profession is “probably not a conversation well-suited for the [current] Congress of the United States.” While congressional elections happen every two to six years, Miller took the position that the greatest potential for scaling the TeachStrong principles nationally right now may be to get current state and local reforms—such as those discussed by Governors Markell and Branstad—to “go viral” using a more bottom-up than top-down approach.

What could a "bottom-up" national approach look like? State officials can collaborate and share information regarding their strategies to modernize the teaching profession, including what’s working well and what’s not, but they need mechanisms to do so. Governor Branstad referenced looking at other states—and even countries—that are doing innovative work as ways to find out about best practices, and mentioned the National Governors Association and the Education Commission of the States as potential forums for sharing these.

Another venue for states to undertake this work in a supported manner is through the Council for Chief State School Officers’ National and State Collaboration on Educator Effectiveness (NSCEE). Open to all states, NSCEE is working to improve educator quality policies in each of its current 29 member states in ways that align with several of the TeachStrong principles. Members of the collaboration may focus on one or more of three priority policy areas, including principal leadership, teacher evaluation, and teacher leadership. NSCEE’s goal is to help state leaders overcome legislative, political, and capacity hurdles to find a path forward in these areas within their respective states, and implement the resulting policies effectively. More states should consider signing on.

Of course, a bottom-up approach means that what these principles look like will likely vary in each locale where they’re implemented, to reflect their political and community contexts. Perhaps that is an easier approach than trying to find consensus at the national level. While the states and partner organizations in the room could agree on the why behind each of the nine principles, it is unclear whether they can and will agree on the how (as has been written about previously in the Washington Post and Education Week). And, as with all policymaking, the devil is in the details. Representative Miller advised the TeachStrong partners to “put their guns down on the table” and have a frank conversation about a shared path forward. But panel facilitator Amanda Ripley pointed to the difficulty of finding common ground among groups with divergent views around specific teacher policies. 

Having stakeholders who don’t normally talk to each other sit down at the same table is hugely important.

It remains unclear whether the coalition will leverage the campaign to find common ground around key issues that impact the quality of the teaching workforce or simply use it as a megaphone to amplify their own missions. However, both Governor Markell and Branstad made separate remarks at the launch event that, in moving this work forward in their respective states, having stakeholders who don’t normally talk to each other sit down at the same table is hugely important. And on that front, TeachStrong has already made huge strides. As one of TeachStrong’s partner organizations, New America endorses its nine campaign principles to modernize and elevate teaching, and we’re optimistic about the campaign’s potential. Looking forward, we hope to see discussions related to modernizing and elevating the teaching profession arise both in national presidential debates as well as among state and local education leaders.

And while it remains to be seen whether the coalition will further define its nine principles, we at New America will dig into not just the why behind these principles, but what we see as the how, too—stay tuned.