“Teachers at the Table: Voice, Agency, and Advocacy in Educational Policymaking,” is based on the simple premise that policy matters in education — and teachers matter to policy.

Good is an evaluator and researcher at the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER). She is co-director of the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative, and director of the WCER Evaluation Clinic.

Good suggests that policy reflects and shapes beliefs about school, teachers, children, learning, and society, and influences power structures embedded in our communities. She adds, “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.”

The book draws on qualitative case study with practicing and pre-service teachers to illustrate norms and routines acting as barriers to teacher involvement in creating policy.

Good’s book follows teacher pushback against these norms, and details conditions under which teachers can interact in authentic ways with decision-making in schools and the policy arena.

Read more about Good’s book here.