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 sessions – either in person or virtually – 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 Teaching Policy Fellows:
- In 2018, Governor Holcomb signed the Teacher Permits, Examinations, and Salaries bill into law with extensive feedback and recommendations from Teach Plus teachers.
- Ten Indianapolis Teaching Policy Fellows have been named Teacher of the Year in their districts and schools
- In 2017, alums Edward Rangel and Melissa Scherle stood beside Governor Eric Holcomb at the ceremonial signing for the new state assessment, which included their recommendations as participants of the ISTEP panel.
- In 2016, alum Emanuel Harper met with former US Secretary of Education John King on how to reduce time students spend on assessment.
- In 2015 and 2016 respectively, alums Melissa Scherle and LaMeca Perkins-Knight were named finalists for the Hubbard Life Changing Teacher Award
- In 2014, alumna Tina Ahlgren won the Hubbard Life Changing Teacher Award and was IPS Teacher of the Year
- Fellows have trained over 300 Indianapolis educators in advocacy storytelling, conducted a compensation simulation with 150 IPS teachers, and testified at IPS school board meetings. Fellows continue to publish policy briefs and author op-eds on key issues such as Indianapolis 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.
