Equipping teachers to be advocates for teachers and students across Indiana.
Teach Plus Indiana offers Teaching Policy Fellowship to highly-effective teachers in the state. This statewide Fellowship is a highly selective leadership opportunity for outstanding teachers looking to deepen their knowledge of education policy and gain a voice in decisions that affect Indiana’s students and the teaching profession.
What is the Teach Plus Policy Fellowship?
The Fellowship offers teachers the opportunity to expand their influence without leaving the classroom. The Fellows receive training through expert-led modules and through direct engagement with key stakeholders in monthly virtual sessions that focus on:
- Education policy as a lever for student success
- Advocacy, including op-ed writing, testifying, and speaking with elected officials in Indiana and members of the media
- Current and relevant issues in education policy
- Teachers as political leaders
What does Teach Plus do?
Teach Plus trains teachers in understanding education policy as a lever for student success, community organizing and outreach, promoting teacher voice through writing op-eds and speaking to the media, providing public testimony, and more. We work to create and connect teachers to opportunities to lead in real ways at the policy level.
How does it work?
Teach Plus recruits and selects Teaching Policy Fellows from across the state to participate in a selective cohort experience and works to bridge the gap between teachers and key stakeholders and policymakers in Indiana. Teachers become part of a larger movement of teacher leadership while learning how to mobilize their peers around critical issues in education.
Teach Plus Indiana Teaching Policy Fellows:
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Teachers helped successfully advance legislation that will require teacher preparation programs to incorporate trauma informed teaching into their curriculum for pre-service teachers
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Fellows successfully advocated for increased data reporting requirements around teacher supply and demand reporting across the state.
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In partnership with ISTA and Stand for Children, Fellows helped secure $1 million for the creation of teacher residencies across the state and $3.5 million to expand career ladders and distributed leadership in Indiana schools
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Teachers informed and advocated for the passage of legislation that would provide incentives to teachers working in shortage areas like STEM, Special Education, etc.
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Fellows participated in the ISTEP panel and helped craft recommendations for the new assessment
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Fellows publish policy briefs and author op-eds on key issues such as teacher retention, evaluation, compensation, teacher preparation programs, and student social justice. The op-ed have been published in Chalkbeat, the Huffington Post, the Indianapolis Business Journal, the Indianapolis Recorder, the Indianapolis Star, and Nuvo.
