Taking Back Teaching: The Professionalization Work of Teacher Activist Organizations

Abstract

We contribute to the teacher activism literature an understanding of how activist organizations support professionalization processes. We examine how teachers’ involvement in a local activist organization counteracts the de-professionalizing reforms of the standards and accountability movement and fosters the professionalization of teaching. Our findings suggest that the structures of the activist organization provide opportunities for teachers to create and maintain collective knowledge for curricula and practice, sustain their professional commitments to social justice, and build confidence that promotes voice in educational decision-making. We discuss implications for teacher professionalization and identify the need for future studies on the role of teacher activist organizations on teachers, teaching, and the profession.

Keywords

teacher professionalization teacher activist organizations teacher voice social justice standards and accountability

A key turning point in the modern standards and accountability movement was the 1983 release of A Nation at Risk. The report, commissioned by the Reagan Administration, warned that the United States was in danger of losing its global dominance due to its poor education system. Reformers used the report to argue that a system based on inputs rather than outputs, namely, one in which teachers were principally required to adhere to policies and procedures rather than produce results, allowed underperforming schools to persist because no one was held accountable for low student achievement.

The standards and accountability movement is rooted in neoliberal ideology that contends that competition and market-based solutions will solve social problems (Giroux, 2004). Under neoliberalism, “private interests trump social needs, and economic growth becomes more important than social justice” (Giroux, 2004, p. 106). As neoliberalism gained acceptance in U.S. politics, individual responsibility, common standards, and high-stakes accountability entered policy conversations across sectors of society. Public education was a logical sector for neoliberalism to take hold. By the 1990s, political conditions evolved to enable the implementation of outcomes-based education accountability systems (DeBray-Pelot & McGuinn, 2009). The No Child Left Behind Act reflected the ideas underlying A Nation at Risk and paved the way for Race to the Top, the Common Core State Standards Initiative, and the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Some argue that the standards and accountability movement and its increased emphasis on external control and test-based outcomes erodes teacher discretion. From this perspective, the movement de-professionalizes teaching by emphasizing instrumental goals and promoting a technocratic approach that separates conceptualization, planning, and design from implementation and execution, casting teachers in the role of technician rather than that of professional (Giroux, 2011; Ingersoll & Collins, 2017; Milner, 2013). Among those who have responded to the de-professionalizing elements of standards and accountability have been teacher activist organizations—groups that bring teachers and their supporters together in collaborative pursuit of institutional change.

Prior scholarship has examined the role of teacher activist organizations in the development of teacher professional agency (Quinn & Carl, 2015). This work describes how participation in teacher activist organizations may influence members’ individual and collective practices and beliefs. Although related, teacher professionalization is distinct from professional agency. Professionalization refers to efforts to elevate the status of the profession by improving the working conditions of teachers (Ingersoll & Merrill, 2011). Professional agency can play a role in professionalization, but it can also occur within the very structures that de-professionalize teaching. For example, teachers exercise professional agency by adapting scripted curricula for the specific students in their classroom (Carl, 2014). Although this is agentic, and even beneficial for students, it does not change the working conditions of teachers (the mandate for scripted curricula remains).

In this article, we discuss the processes by which teacher activist organizations contribute to re-professionalizing efforts—work that operates as a countermovement to standards and accountability. We conducted a qualitative case study to address the following research question:

Research Question 1: How does participation in a teacher activist organization influence teacher professionalization?

To incorporate and account for local contextual factors, we focused on one teacher activist organization, Teacher Action Group–Philadelphia (TAG). We selected TAG because it is a racially diverse organization committed to positive school transformation that granted an opportunity for an extended research engagement. Our findings suggest that the structures of the activist organization provide opportunities for teachers to create and maintain collective knowledge for curricula and practice, sustain their professional commitments to social justice, and build confidence that promotes voice in educational decision-making. Our article concludes with a discussion of the study’s implications for teacher education.

Teacher Activism and Professionalization Processes

We define teacher activism as the politically motivated activities of teachers to change existing educational policies, routines, and arrangements in pursuit of a perceived vision of justice, fairness, and equity. Teacher activism can be supported by informal networks of relationships among like-minded teachers in a school, a district, and online. Teacher activism can also occur through more formal organizations—inquiry groups, professional development groups, and of course teachers unions, which have always been important sites for advocacy, activism, and protest (Uetricht, 2014; Weiner, 2013).

A rich body of scholarship assesses the qualities and dynamics of teacher activism in the current era of standards and accountability (e.g., Maton, 2018; Quinn & Carl, 2015; Riley & Solic, 2017; White, 2020). Much of this work supports the need for teacher education to embrace social justice and its commitment to equal educational opportunities (e.g., Dyches & Boyd, 2017; Mayorga & Picower, 2018; Quan et al., 2019). Social Justice Teacher Education (SJTE) programs prepare teachers to “attend to societal structures that perpetuate injustice, and they attempt to prepare teachers to take both individual and collective action toward mitigating oppression” (McDonald & Zeichner, 2008, p. 597). Social justice networks can also channel individuals into the teaching profession and sustain their work as critical educators once in the classroom (Ritchie, 2012). Such “radicalizing” networks alleviate isolation and facilitate opportunities for learning and sharing practices (Ritchie, 2012, p. 127).

Even for teachers with a social justice stance or trained in an SJTE program, externally imposed requirements on their teaching can limit their ability and inclination to pursue their activist commitments. At the extreme, these constraints can take the form of scripted curricula, while, at minimum, accountability focuses teachers’ attention on narrowly prescribed educational goals related to academic achievement. By creating or finding collective space—through, for example, critical inquiry projects (Picower, 2011) or union caucuses (Maton, 2018)—activist teachers can buffer these institutional forces.

Teachers have established activist organizations in districts across the nation that operate alongside of or within their unions (Maton, 2018; Picower, 2011; Quinn & Carl, 2015; Weiner, 2013; White, 2020). There are teacher activist organizations whose missions and work focus on social justice in schools and society (New York Collective of Radical Educators), educational freedom through the utilization of abolitionist frameworks (Abolitionist Teaching Network), challenging settler colonialism (Teachers for Social Justice), and racial justice in education (Association of Raza Educators, Racial Justice Organizing Committee). Union members have also formed caucuses to push union leadership toward more progressive and justice-oriented platforms (Caucus of Working Educators). Although teacher activist groups occupy a small part of the overall public education landscape, they are forceful advocates for equity and justice in schools.

Teacher activism is not just about change efforts oriented toward justice in education; it can also serve to elevate the professional status of teaching. Scholars have long understood professions to be those occupations in which workers create, transmit, and apply a body of specialized knowledge and techniques in their work (Abbott, 1988; Freidson, 2001; Larson, 1979). This scholarship notes that the professions enjoy comparatively high levels of autonomy, prestige, and social status. Professionals—lawyers and physicians are classic examples—have a greater degree of control over their work, relative to members of other occupations. Professional schools impart requisite training, and professional associations and related bodies determine licensure requirements, control who can practice, set standards, and provide codes of ethics. Professionalization has traditionally been understood as a process in which workers of an occupation leverage their “scarce resources—special knowledge and skills,” to gain autonomy and power (Larson, 1979, p. xvii).¹

Although teachers in the United States have long worked to convince policy makers and the general public that their occupation is complex and deserving of status as a full profession, it remains for some (outsiders especially) a “semi-profession” (D’Amico Pawlewicz, 2020; Ingersoll & Merrill, 2011; Lortie, 1969; Mehta, 2013; Tichenor & Tichenor, 2004). There are a variety of explanations for why and how teaching is viewed this way. From the Progressive Era onward, schooling was integrated in a system of bureaucratic administration where teachers had minimal discretion over their work (Mehta, 2013). Historically, and to this day, most teachers are women (Ingersoll et al., 2018). The gendered nature of teaching is associated with other conditions related to the status of the profession: There is a widespread perception that “anyone can teach.” Teachers’ work is a “relational” practice that involves young students who are compelled to attend school, distinguishing it even from other relational professions in which adult clients are often willing participants (Grossman et al., 2009). Teaching is also influenced by laypersons to a greater extent relative to other professions. The governance arrangements of schools allow non-educator school board members influence over the profession, including decisions about what gets taught.

Teachers unions have long fought to improve the professional status of its workforce by addressing compensation and working conditions (D’Amico Pawlewicz, 2020). Teachers unions, particularly those centered on social justice and civil rights, have also been important challengers to neoliberal discourse and policy in the public sphere (White, 2020). However, some argue that teachers unions may simultaneously diminish the prestige of the profession, noting that unions are often associated with blue-collar and industrial work and that labor action focused on wages and benefits may diminish teachers’ ability to address issues of authority and control over the work of teaching (Mehta, 2013; Robertson-Kraft, 2013).

Recent policies emerging from the standards and accountability movement have further constrained the professional status of teaching. Forms of accountability include top-down policies that assess schools based on high-stakes testing, employ value-added teacher evaluations, or require scripted and narrowed curricula. Imposed from outside the profession, these policies limit teacher autonomy (Ball, 2003; Day & Sachs, 2004) and contribute to the de-professionalization of teaching (Milner, 2013). Fast-track certification and teacher preparation programs and policies increase the number of teachers with limited professional preparation (Milner, 2013). Although a scripted curriculum can be a helpful tool for teachers with limited preparation, it can also seriously constrain experienced teachers (Milner, 2013). These kinds of reforms influence both the perception of teaching (anyone can teach if they have a script) and the work of teaching (teaching to a test using prescribed materials). Thus, in both perception and function, such measures de-professionalize teaching. While these policies shape teachers’ work, teachers tend not to propose or have influence over them (Collay, 2006). By limiting the ability of teachers to control the standards of their practice, these reforms can ultimately serve to further de-professionalize the occupation (Frowe, 2005; Hargreaves, 2000; Mehta, 2013).

The differences between teaching and other occupations with greater professional status are not trivial. Part of the professionalization of teaching requires that teachers gain more influence over curriculum and instruction. It also involves strengthening the training of teachers, upgrading working conditions, and improving the occupation’s compensation and prestige. An important aspect of the professionalization process is the creation of opportunities for teacher collaboration and mentorship (Collay, 2006; Firestone, 1993; Hargreaves, 2000; Sachs, 2003; U.S. Department of Education, 1997). Approaches such as “collaborative autonomy” propose teachers work together and are given the ability to make professional decisions (Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, 2012). Such working collaborations combat isolation, help teachers collectively address problems of practice, and create opportunities to adapt and respond to standards and accountability reform (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Robinson, 2012).

Networks that offer opportunities for teachers to “learn from each other, develop shared conceptions of high-quality practice, and work collectively toward the improvement of classroom practice,” can help to increase control over the profession from within (Grossman, 2020, p. 10). The Black Teacher Project, a leadership and professional development organization, uses a critical framework to support teachers as “politically-aware individuals who have a stake in teaching and transforming society” (Mosely, 2018, p. 271). Edcamps and other “unconferences” are explicitly teacher-organized and teacher-led professional development events. These types of opportunities respect teachers’ “motivations, autonomy, experiences, and ultimately their professionalism and capacity to engage in complex intellectual work” (Carpenter & Linton, 2018, p. 64). Applying abstract knowledge to particular cases is a key aspect of professions (Abbott, 1988) and these networks and experiences support professionalization by fostering such work.

Among teacher educators, there are different views on how to professionalize teaching. One view identifies the idea of teachers as individual “artisans” as a challenge to professionalization and argues for a common language of teaching practice as crucial to making the complex work of teaching visible (Grossman, 2020). To elevate the profession, whether through advocacy or activism, teachers must be more explicit in defining the specialized body of knowledge of teaching and learning. Another view contends that the teacher professionalization “imperative” requires physical and sociopolitical work environments of teachers to be “humanizing spaces” (Carter Andrews et al., 2016, p. 170) and for a humanizing pedagogy for teacher educators and preservice teachers (Carter Andrews et al., 2019). Standards and accountability reform policies, and associated institutional pressures, are challenges to teacher professionalization. In particular, scholars note how the demands on teachers inhibit them from teaching the whole child, stifle agency and innovation, perpetuate de-professionalizing narratives, and negatively affect the professional self-concept of teachers (Carter Andrews et al., 2016).

Taken together, this scholarship suggests that teacher activist organizations can play a distinct role in the processes of teacher professionalization. While focused on increasing teacher collaboration and access to specialized knowledge that leads to practice-oriented improvement, teacher activist organizations reinforce teachers’ pursuit of social justice as part of their professional identity. Teacher activist organizations, in creating space for teachers to work together, can counter institutional constraints, such as isolation, and provide opportunities for mentoring. Fostering collaboration can also combat issues such as teacher retention and negative working conditions as connecting preservice and inservice teachers to networks of like-minded educators has been shown to alleviate isolation and promote opportunities for learning and sharing practices. Finally, teacher activist organizations can target improvement of the broader system of education through advocacy and, in turn, improve the working conditions of teachers.

Method

The research team included a director of a university-based teacher education program (first author), a doctoral candidate in education (second author), and an education professor (third author). The first and second authors are former teachers and preservice teacher supervisors; the third author is a former community organizer and policy advocate. We were guided by the following research question: How does participation in a teacher activist organization influence teacher professionalization? As a qualitative research study, local context and relationships with participants were central to our method (Ravitch & Carl, 2021). We selected a teacher activist organization in Philadelphia because of the city’s strong union presence and robust advocacy and activist networks. Through its structure and goals, TAG served as a representative case of the teacher activist organization. It had a racially diverse membership that overlapped with but was distinct from the teachers union, and the organization was “committed to fostering positive school transformation, environments where students and teachers can thrive, and community ownership and influence within education” (TAG, n.d.). In addition, TAG was an appropriate case because it afforded an opportunity for the prolonged engagement required for rigorous qualitative research.

In 2013 and 2014, the first and third authors conducted 29 open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 17 educators actively involved with TAG (10 members were interviewed twice, one particularly reflective member of the core leadership team was interviewed 3 times). The participant sample was purposefully selected (Ravitch & Carl, 2021) to include a majority of the leadership of TAG and to seek out members with varying levels of organizational involvement and roles. Our racially diverse sample represented TAG educators working in different parts of the city and different kinds of schools. Eleven participants agreed to follow-up interviews, which we conducted to help refine our interpretations as we engaged in preliminary data analysis. These follow-up interviews also served as ongoing member checks (Carl & Ravitch, 2018).

Initial interview protocols included questions about educators’ perceptions of education and the role of TAG in relationship to their classroom, school, district, and profession. Participants were asked about their involvement in TAG, the structure and decision-making of the organization, and their assessments of its campaigns. Protocols for the follow-up interviews, which were informed by our first round of interviews, asked participants to reflect on and give examples of the ways that their involvement with TAG affected their pedagogical practices and collegial experiences, their overall approach to and understanding of education, and the importance of TAG to their practice and to the profession more broadly. We drew from both initial and follow-up interviews to develop the argument we present in this article.

Interviewees had varying years of involvement in TAG and experience in the profession (see Table 1). We triangulated interview data with a review of documents, including local news articles and information found on TAG’s website and social media accounts, as well as organizational documents such as meeting minutes and event handouts. During our analysis, we compared the organization’s portrayal in mainstream media with self-presentations on the website and social media.

Table 1.

Interview Participants.

Pseudonym	Years with TAG	Years teaching	Teaching position
Arthur Ziegler	2	16	Social studies (secondary)
Betty Webster	4	2	Math and science (elementary)
Cate Taylor	5	3	History (secondary)
Daphne Solis	3	6	Multiple disabilities support (secondary)
Elaine Rhodes	5	8	Social studies, English, and drama (secondary)
Felicia Nguyen	3	15	Reading and social studies (elementary)
Joseph Muñoz	3	3	History (secondary)
Kevin Lo	2	5	English (secondary)
Larry Jackson	4	15	Literacy (elementary)
Martha Hopkins	3	8	Bilingual education (elementary)
Nick Greenberg	2	7	History (secondary)
Olivia Frank	1	14	School counselor (secondary)
Paula Edmonds	5	6	English (secondary)
Rose DeLeón	2	6	Literacy (elementary)
Sophia Cook	5	6	Literacy (elementary)
Teresa Brown	1	1	Social studies and English (elementary)
Yvette Anderson	4	5	Director, curriculum and instruction (secondary)

Note. TAG = Teacher Action Group–Philadelphia.

We employed a thematic approach to qualitative data analysis (Gibson & Brown, 2009). Data analysis occurred formatively and summatively. As initial interviews were conducted, the first and third authors read through transcripts and listened to recordings to develop familiarity with the data and to create preliminary, inductive codes. Examples of preliminary codes, which were then refined, included motivations for joining TAG, building confidence, sustaining passions, empowering teachers, elevating the teaching profession, professionalization of teaching, networking, isolation, and promoting vocalization and awareness. During formative analysis, we composed individual memos that documented emerging learnings in the data (Ravitch & Carl, 2021). Summative analysis consisted of thematic coding in which we grouped and refined codes into themes and then initial findings by paying careful attention to patterns and relationships as well as looking for alternate explanations (Miles et al., 2020). Throughout this process, we created concept diagrams to map our data onto our findings and composed data analysis memos that examined the relationships between the codes and themes (Ravitch & Carl, 2021). The analysis of follow-up interviews followed similar processes, as we assessed the codes and frameworks developed from initial interviews with the emerging data in subsequent interviews.

Late in the analytical process, the second author joined the research team and reviewed the transcripts anew, generating additional inductive codes, including notions of accountability, communicating outside the profession, improvement in practice, specialized knowledge, change in own school, and change outside of own school. From this last analytical round, the ideas of opportunity structures and voice were further developed. During the early phases of our analysis, we implemented validation strategies by maintaining contact with participants to clarify features of the organization and present aspects of our analysis, so as to help minimize misinterpretation and researcher bias.

The Professionalization Work of Teacher Activist Organizations

We identify three ways in which involvement in a teacher activist organization influences teacher professionalization. In describing our findings, we use the phrase “opportunity structures” to characterize aspects of the teacher activist organization that invited and enabled collaboration, sharing, and reflection, and contributed to the professionalization process. Members understood TAG activities as accessible opportunities, while they were also durable structures maintained by the collective. While members of TAG were dedicated, given the constraints on teachers’ time, the flexible quality of these structures enabled their participation.

First, opportunity structures in TAG including curriculum fairs, summits, and teacher-led inquiry-to-action groups (ItAGS), buffered teachers from isolation and opened spaces for teachers to collectively maintain knowledge of social justice in education. As TAG members both cocreated and enacted knowledge in their classrooms through curricula and practices, they exercised control over their work. Second, these structures provided opportunities for the ongoing process of developing and sustaining teachers’ professional commitments to social justice, thereby expanding more narrowly focused conceptions of accountability imposed from outside the profession. Third, these structures promoted teacher voice, both in efforts to be a part of decision-making to improve their own schools and to speak out on behalf of and elevate their profession. The knowledge teachers gained from participating in TAG and the connection to teachers with shared commitments fostered teachers’ confidence and energy to exercise voice. These activities responded to the de-professionalizing aspects of the standards and accountability context and ameliorated aspects of teaching that have historically constrained professionalization efforts. Prior to discussing our findings, we provide context about Philadelphia and the teacher activist organization we examined.

TAG

During our period of study, TAG was a racially diverse organization of approximately 100 members guided by a core of about 15 leaders. Members described TAG as a democratic and consensus-based organization that avoided hierarchy and bureaucracy in favor of a nimble and flexible structure; members described themselves as activists, radicals, and engaged individuals with shared goals. Members expressed a conviction in the capacity of school communities to improve education. For example, Joseph Muñoz (all first and last names are pseudonyms), a high school history teacher, stated, “Pretty much everybody I’ve talked to in TAG believes that students, teachers, parents, community members, and people working in the trenches of education have something to offer to improve the education system that we have.”

TAG members consistently referenced the state of public education in Philadelphia during interviews. As Kevin Lo, a high school English teacher, described it, “Most of these students are getting a lackluster education in concentrated communities of systemic violence and poverty.” Several TAG members also voiced deep concern about the financial situation of the district. For example, Joseph Muñoz argued, “Schools are not adequately funded to provide enough teachers, to provide enough resources, to provide enough nonteaching staff—librarians, nurses, everything—that schools need to function as adequate educational facilities.”

Exacerbating these challenges was the perception that the district, according to TAG members, was “top-heavy,” had a “one-size-fits-all model” for all of its schools, and stood apart from “what teachers see as being necessary and relevant” (Felicia Nguyen, Olivia Frank, and Arthur Ziegler). These could be viewed as common refrains about large city school districts in general, but many TAG members also stated that the situation of the School District of Philadelphia was worsened by its governance. In 2001, the state assumed control of the district from the local school board. During our period of study, the School Reform Commission (SRC), a governing body in which a majority of commissioners were appointed by the governor, oversaw the district.

TAG members we interviewed described how contextual factors—the district’s governance and lack of resources, plus the broader standards and accountability environment we identified above—contributed to their decision to join TAG. In the following sections, we discuss the ways teacher activist organizations such as TAG provide opportunities for teachers to combat the de-professionalization of teaching, particularly in relationship to these contextual factors.

Creating Space for Collective Knowledge

TAG provides opportunities for teachers to collectively develop curricula and professional development for and by teachers. These efforts are direct attempts to maintain control over a body of specialized knowledge and techniques, which have often been aspects of professionalization that teachers have been unable to fully secure (Mehta, 2013). In addition, attempts to professionalize the occupation are complicated by the isolation teachers endure (Johnson et al., 2018). Isolation, a result of the compartmentalized, “egg-crate structure” of classrooms, and long a prominent feature of schooling in the United States, has important implications for teacher retention and morale (Hargreaves, 1989; Ingersoll, 2004; Lortie, 1975). Isolation is more than physical separation; it reflects teachers’ feelings of fit within their school communities or lack of affinity with their community’s values, beliefs, and norms of behavior (Brooks et al., 2008). Furthermore, aspects of teachers’ work that have intensified under standards and accountability, such as increased administrative burdens, new demands on their time, and a focus on teaching discrete tasks associated with standardized testing at the expense of more ambitious projects, further drives teachers’ retreat to their individual classrooms (Brooks et al., 2008; Stone-Johnson, 2016). Participation in TAG allowed members to feel connected to and to collaborate with like-minded teachers to engage in the intellectual work of teaching.

Structural isolation, intensified by the standards and accountability movement, impedes teacher control over the “work” of teaching and undermines teachers’ efforts to collectively define a specialized body of knowledge for teaching. “I’m in a bubble in my classroom,” stated Rose DeLeón, an elementary literacy teacher with 6 years of experience. “And then within the school, you’re in a bubble because you don’t know what’s going on in other schools.” Betty Webster, a new math and science teacher, believed that in districts similar to Philadelphia, isolation was a consequence of an environment where teachers feel monitored, which itself was understood as a product of standards and accountability: “There’s this energy in a lot of schools where if your door is open, someone is going to come in and tell you that you’re not doing it ‘right.’” This sort of hesitation toward inspection, exacerbating isolation, was a consistent theme.

Structural isolation also heightens teachers’ feelings that their work is primarily directed by externally created policies imposed on them. Cate Taylor told us how this pressure impacted her work and increased her desire to be involved outside her own classroom:

But if the pressures are continuing to come down, and education is continuing to be attacked from the outside and from the state level and city level, then it gets harder and harder for me to do my job. I think that feeling good about what’s happening in my classroom is one thing, but I also want to feel good about what’s happening on the school-wide and citywide and statewide level, in terms of education.

When teachers feel their work is controlled by outsiders, autonomy within the walls of their own classrooms is not enough to counteract the de-professionalizing nature of these reforms.

Isolation also makes teaching a private endeavor, which limits teachers’ ability to develop collectively held expertise as professionals. “Common planning time isn’t [often] built into a school’s structure,” observed Paula Edmonds, an English teacher and a member of the leadership core of TAG. “Teachers aren’t invited to be collaborative. You’re really out there. There are too many people that just feel alone.” In these examples, isolation was a feature of the working conditions of many schools; there was no dedicated space for collaboration to occur. The instability and “crisis-like” state of the school district further exacerbated isolation. For example, Martha Hopkins referenced a recent round of layoffs in explaining to us that teachers were “less likely to collaborate with people if the people around you are constantly changing.” Isolation grows with the sense that teachers cannot develop affinity within a school community undergoing considerable churn.

TAG activities, including an annual curriculum fair, teacher-led ItAGS, and social events were opportunity structures that combated the isolation teachers experienced and increased teachers’ capacity to act as professionals who create and maintain a specialized body of knowledge for teaching. Because of TAG’s explicit commitment to professional development, members—who may otherwise be isolated in their classrooms and schools—acquired and developed pedagogical techniques and curricular innovations through TAG. “Connecting with an organization like TAG is a way to keep myself focused on that goal [i.e., improvement] in my teaching,” shared elementary school literacy teacher Arthur Ziegler. “It helps improve teaching and creativity and just the feeling that you’re not isolated in your classroom and [that you have] other people to bounce ideas off of.” Importantly, ItAG topics were proposed by teacher facilitators and “co-constructed” by teacher participants, rather than externally imposed. Teachers’ control over the format and content of TAG’s professional development opportunities contributed to professionalization.

Much of the content of the professional development opportunities that TAG provided was centered on creating and maintaining a specialized body of knowledge for teaching and social justice. The curricula and practices developed through TAG helped teachers retake control over this central aspect of their work. Topics included “a social justice math [unit]” and “linguistic bias in the classroom for ESL” (Paula Edmonds). Felicia Nguyen contrasted these experiences to professional development provided by the school district that felt standardized: “It’s not just boilerplate stuff, you know, ‘Let’s all watch the same PowerPoint.’” Rose DeLeón described how teachers in TAG developed materials that examined existing curricula and practice with a social justice lens: “We created a toolkit of lesson plans, activities, checklists for multicultural literature and resources online and document articles for teachers to use in order to evaluate the curriculum and evaluate the way they teach, their practice, for language bias.” Joseph Muñoz, the high school history teacher, believed TAG gave teachers who teach in “non-traditional ways”—including “not the way the textbook tells you to teach”—the opportunity to “meet others, share ideas, and just develop their teaching together.” Through TAG, Betty Webster developed lessons in an “activist kind of revisioning of history” that she described as “the social justice way of teaching. It’s teaching outside of what’s given to you.” The type of teaching that Webster described counters reforms that de-professionalize teaching such as scripted curricula (Milner, 2013).

Teachers in TAG collectively built specialized knowledge for their teaching. The space to collaborate with and hear about the experiences of other teachers was important to TAG members. Betty Webster believed that the isolation she felt in her school was partly due to her self-described social justice orientation. Yvette Anderson similarly elaborated,

A lot of times, teachers who have real strong social justice values, their visions can feel isolated in their schools, and [TAG] is a chance to come together with people who are also trying to enact those visions and values.

Connecting with other social justice–oriented teachers in a district or even within a school may be difficult; TAG provided opportunity structures that built “a community of people who can then work together and support each other and strengthen each other’s work,” as members considered themselves “activists as well as educators” (Yvette Anderson). Betty Webster found in TAG like-minded teachers “who are very politically involved and who are really engaged.” Felicia Nguyen regarded the members of TAG as a group of teachers with a “strong social justice ethos” in their teaching. Opportunity structures in TAG supported members’ efforts to retake control over curricula and practices and to collectively create and maintain a body of specialized knowledge for their work around social justice. Next, we describe how opportunity structures in TAG sustained this shared commitment.

Sustaining Shared Commitments to Social Justice

Structures in TAG provided opportunities that helped teachers maintain collective knowledge and space for collaboration with other social justice–oriented teachers. They also sustained teachers’ social justice commitments by expanding notions of professional responsibility beyond the scope of reforms narrowly focused on student academic achievement. Yvette Anderson described how TAG reinforced her commitment to social justice and created an alternative kind of accountability. For her, involvement in TAG

holds me accountable to thinking about my social justice values in my position and trying to encourage the teachers I work with to be also thinking about them and aligning with them. So, there’s an accountability part there that’s helpful to me in my work with teachers here.

Teachers’ accountability to these commitments extended beyond prevalent notions of accountability to test scores and academic achievement.

Other teachers told us how TAG fostered a sense of responsibility to parents and other education stakeholders. For instance, Betty Webster described that “through TAG and through being at rallies and through going to SRC meetings, I’ve interacted frequently with parents and with families and with their students about stuff that’s really hard to talk about.” Webster continued,

TAG has taught me that there are so many stakeholders in the [area] of education and in teaching and learning, and if we’re not operating as teachers in connecting with those stakeholders in the same way that we need to be connecting with them—at the policy level and the activist level and the rallying level—then we’re not really doing our job.

Webster described something that many other interviewees referenced. TAG encouraged and fostered the examination of education through a social justice lens, through which teachers saw their work as occurring both inside and outside their classrooms. These opportunities for collaboration with other stakeholders alleviated isolation and broadened teachers’ sense of professional responsibility beyond academic achievement in the standards and accountability context. Instilling a belief in social justice education is one way to maintain teachers’ commitment to the profession (Ritchie, 2012). TAG members included these commitments in a more expansive notion of what their profession entailed.

TAG fostered teachers’ connections with peers beyond their own schools, which also sustained these commitments. Yvette Anderson remarked that TAG has “definitely kept me connected to issues of education across our city. So, I feel totally committed to seeing education improve city-wide.” She went on to describe how she attended a charter school board meeting as a show of support for TAG teachers working at other schools toward a unionization effort. She admitted,

I never would have gone to that meeting or even known that meeting was happening without them [i.e., TAG members]. And, you know, I was definitely there in solidarity with them; it wasn’t anything to do with my own school.

In this way, TAG facilitated teachers’ support of other teachers’ attempts to gain control over their working conditions, thereby advancing professionalization. Connection with other teachers helped TAG members associate their passion for teaching with a commitment to being recognized as a professional:

I think it’s meaningful to connect with other teachers who are so passionate about teaching and so passionate about the profession. I mean, if there’s anything that concerns me about the profession of being an educator and a teacher it’s the de-professionalization that occurs. And there are school models that very clearly seem to want teachers on a five-year rotation, you know? It seems. They don’t say that explicitly, but I’ve heard anecdotally and just through my observations that there are school models that promote a de-professionalization of the teacher. And it’s really nice. TAG’s not the only group, but TAG is definitely inspiring in that sense, that it advocates for teachers as real intellectuals. Teaching has a right to be a very valid profession and an important profession, or a career, not just like an interesting urban experience. (Kevin Lo)

The opportunities in TAG offered an alternative response to reform ideas such as fast-track teacher preparation programs that place novice teachers in schools with high turnover. Instead, as Lo described in the quote above, TAG “advocates for teachers as real intellectuals” who make a long-term commitment to the profession. Teresa Brown shared,

It’s part of my lifeline of just remembering that what I’m doing is connected to other people who are also fighting this fight of few resources and unprepared students. And a big part of it is psychological, it’s knowing that there are other people who are thinking analytically about what’s going on.

Being a member of TAG helped teachers sustain these shared commitments.

Beyond Philadelphia, TAG networked with teacher activist groups across the country, which reinforced a sense of connection to a broader profession and professional identity. Members identified teacher activist organizations in other cities as peer groups and noted their shared commitment to an 8-point platform.² TAG members attended national convenings and conferences with peer groups and visited their cities to learn from them. As Yvette Anderson told us, “We’re part of this network and this is happening all over the country, and we want to draw the connection between our work here and other cities.” For example, TAG disseminated information both on their website and in communications to their members “in solidarity” with other teachers’ efforts to counter standards and accountability reforms, such as opt-out movements around high-stakes testing. Interaction with peer groups helped teachers in TAG see challenges to education as extending beyond their own city:

I went up to New York and that was my first time to be introduced to the national network, and so the folks from New York and Chicago and Milwaukee and San Francisco. And, listening to their stories, this issue that we have in Philly, it’s not just an isolated thing. (Larry Jackson)

TAG members also benefited from these other groups sharing their ideas and experiences, in what Elaine Rhoades referred to as “immediate PD” (professional development).

One consequence of standards and accountability is that it focuses teachers’ attention on academic achievement and may crowd out other important professional commitments to social justice, to parents and other stakeholders, and to teachers across sectors, cities, and states. The opportunity structures in TAG connected teachers, reminded them of these commitments, and helped to expand their own notions of professional responsibility. Individual teachers exercising agency in their own classrooms fall short of teacher professionalization because these efforts do not build collectively held expertise about teaching nor provide opportunities for teachers to define their notions of professional responsibility. The collaborative nature of TAG advanced teacher professionalization by providing opportunities that help teachers take control over their work in their own classroom and connect with others beyond it. Building on these findings, we next explain how TAG fostered teacher voice.

Building Confidence That Promotes Voice

TAG events such as conferences, professional development, curriculum fairs, and membership meetings provided teachers with a shared professional space for mentorship, collaboration, and support.³ These aspects of TAG also encouraged the development of teacher voice. Voice refers to “proactive behavior that involves speaking up with suggestions for improvement” (Grant, 2013, p. 1703). For members of TAG, having a voice was more than just speaking up, although they did use the word “voice” explicitly in this way. Teacher voice was also connected to efficacy, decision-making, and control over their work. As Teresa Brown described,

[TAG] is all about self-advocacy and about making sure that teachers have a voice in their own lives in the classroom. And that takes many forms, like teacher voice in school district politics, teacher voices in curricular decisions, teacher voices in knowing who to call if there’s not a nurse in the building.

Voice occurs in classrooms and schools when teachers exercise judgment and apply expertise to improve curriculum and instruction (Kirk & MacDonald, 2001). Voice also occurs when teachers speak out in public as advocates for change to school policy on behalf of their students (Levenson, 2014). Teacher voice results in professionalization to the extent that actions resulting from the exercise of voice lead to increased authority and self-governance (Freidson, 2001).

The opportunity structures in TAG promoted teacher voice in two ways. First, building on the earlier findings that collaborative spaces in TAG helped teachers create and maintain a body of specialized knowledge about their work and social justice commitments, participating in these opportunities bolstered teacher competence and confidence, which in turn encouraged voice. Second, TAG provided a platform for teachers to communicate with outside audiences about their profession, increasing teacher voice in decision-making beyond their own classroom, which also contributes to professionalization.

TAG supported teacher voice by reinforcing the belief that the profession involves a body of knowledge and that teachers can leverage this knowledge to improve their schools. As we described in the previous sections, this knowledge included curricula and practices for teaching. TAG also served as a resource for teachers to “bring in other social justice people to speak at professional development,” an exercise of voice in the content of these sessions (Arthur Ziegler). TAG also helped teachers explain their pedagogical choices to school leaders. For example, Felicia Nguyen remarked, “I think it also gives teachers a way to talk to principals and administrators and say: ‘Hey, I’m doing this. This is how I’m doing it and this is why I’m doing it that way.’” By helping teachers articulate their curricular decision-making to others, TAG supported the exercise of teacher voice in their own schools.

Many teachers in TAG expressed fear and hostility as conditions of their working environment under standards and accountability reforms. Arthur Ziegler described the fear in his school of the consequences of not meeting adequate yearly progress, “There was that fear all the time. And the problem was to voice [that fear] was dangerous because those that did voice it basically got on the bad list.” As Cate Taylor described, certain teaching environments can be hostile and disrespectful: “I feel like I need to be respected as an educator, and I feel like within my own school, I often don’t feel respected and don’t feel like my voice even matters.”

Teachers found that collaboration in TAG gave them confidence to exercise voice, which is particularly important for professionalization and control over their work in an accountability context that makes teachers fearful of exercising agency. Daphne Solis shared that teachers “want to feel like they have some control over what they’re teaching their students, what’s going on in their classrooms, what they are learning as teachers.” She believed that “TAG is very instrumental in doing that.” Teresa Brown acknowledged that TAG “gives me some confidence in taking risks in my classroom, taking risks specifically around teaching creatively through the curriculum.” Cate Taylor described how the competence she gained through TAG helped her exercise voice in her school:

When you have more of a political analysis and you have more of an understanding of a situation, you feel more competent to speak up about those things, you know? So, I feel like I am someone at my school who has pushed for things. We pushed for a professional development in August. During our two weeks of PD that was about institutional oppression, [we] used the words like “white supremacy,” and our entire 9th grade staff got that professional development. And that’s partially because of my work with TAG.

As teachers gained confidence through TAG, they exercised voice to take control over their work not just in their classrooms, but also through professional development in their schools and district.

TAG also fostered professionalization by providing a platform for teachers to communicate about the profession and to speak out in public as activists and advocates on local education issues. Teachers we spoke with believed that TAG brought together teachers to challenge “the status quo in some way” (Arthur Ziegler). “I think that there’s a lot of teachers out there who are craving empowerment,” stated Daphne Solis. Reflecting on what membership in TAG has meant to her, Sophia Cook shared,

I think it’s made me feel more like I actually have a voice and have some ability to change something. Just thinking about the way I feel within the school district and within my union, I feel like I really don’t matter and I don’t really have a voice. And when I come to TAG meetings and we’re raising our concerns and people are talking about some of the change they’re trying to influence then I feel like I have more of a voice, even, and my opinion matters.

Participation in TAG helped members understand that their voice mattered, which in turn helped them have more confidence to express their opinions. Members believed that their defense of the teaching profession inspired other teachers. By being vocal and “outspoken” teachers, (Daphne Solis and Betty Webster), TAG members made space for other teachers to voice their opinions. For example, Felicia Nguyen stated that TAG members “speak out a lot” and this gave other teachers the idea that “speaking up for your profession is something that you can do and that you should do.”

TAG played an “essential” role as “a central activist organization that is willing to raise awareness and communicate with people” (Betty Webster). Elaine Rhodes echoed similar sentiments as she described TAG as “an organization of educators who’ve come together to build up our own power so that” they can “influence decisions that most affect us.” TAG fostered teacher professionalization by building competence and confidence in teachers, which in turn helped them exercise voice to influence decision-making and improve the conditions that impact their work and education more broadly.

Discussion and Significance

Teacher activist organizations work to alter education policies, routines, and arrangements, such that they better align with visions of justice, fairness, and equity. Similar to many forms of teacher education, teacher activist organizations prepare educators to work with and on behalf of marginalized students, families, and communities, and to have a voice in discussions about education and educational change. Teacher activist organizations serve as a countermovement to standards and accountability efforts that limit teachers’ educational decision-making by imposing reforms from outside the classroom at the local and national levels. Although accountability in education has been aimed at “those at the bottom of the educational hierarchy—such as students and teachers” (Rosen & Conner, 2019, p. 3028), recent activism by teachers to hold those at the top accountable have seen success. In West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Arizona, teachers have won increases in funding for education through direct action in response to slashed taxes and years of underfunded budgets (Ferman, 2020). In 2020, amid the sharpened focus on racial justice, some cities took initial steps toward heeding teacher activists’ long-standing calls for police-free schools. The school board in Minneapolis, for example, voted to end a contract with the Minneapolis Police Department for school resource officers (Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education, 2020). When students there returned to in-person learning following coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) shutdowns, police officers had been replaced with “public safety support specialists” (Crann, 2021). Yet there are ongoing challenges; the empathy and appreciation for teachers by the public early in the COVID-19 pandemic gave way to contentious debates about the safety of reopening school buildings (Hartney & Finger, 2020). As we write, lawmakers in a number of states have set their sights on critical race theory, introducing measures to regulate and censor teaching about racism in the classroom (Kearse, 2021). This has brought new urgency and attention to the professional discretion, autonomy, and status afforded to teachers.

We show that participation in a teacher activist organization influences members’ individual and collective practices both inside and outside of the classroom and contributes to teachers’ belief in their collective power. By fostering collaboration toward the development of a specialized body of knowledge for teaching, sustaining teachers’ commitments and sense of professional responsibility, and supporting and giving teachers confidence to exercise voice to influence educational decision-making, teacher activist organizations can contribute to efforts to professionalize teaching. We take a broad view of teacher education; the opportunity structures of teacher activist organizations are enabling for novice and veteran teachers alike, and preservice teachers can benefit from the collaborative spaces of activist organizations as they develop their sense of professionalism through interaction with working teachers (Riley & Solic, 2017). In addition, teacher activist organizations carry forward what preservice teachers learn in SJTE programs by reinforcing the importance of individual and collective action (McDonald & Zeichner, 2008).

Because of their vision, mission, and goals, teacher activist organizations may be primed to transform teaching by making spaces for collaboration that are driven by relationships with parents, students, and community members (Hargreaves, 2000; Lipman, 2009; Quinn & Carl, 2015; Sachs, 2003; Whitty, 2008). This transformation becomes increasingly important as reform policies change what it means to be a teacher (Ball, 2003). Bringing committed and passionate educators together is an important way that participation in activist organizations directly and indirectly re-professionalizes teaching. In addition to bringing teachers together, teacher activist organizations can help teachers develop professional voice to speak out in support of teaching and public education.

In the context of standards and accountability, teachers working in urban public schools and schools with higher percentages of students of color and students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch are more likely to perceive both de-professionalization and demoralization (Wronowski, 2020). Teacher activist organizations provide a counterbalancing force. Because activist organizations may appeal primarily to like-minded educators committed to similar principles of social justice, the number of teachers involved may be small, and thus the broader impact may be limited. However, the open and voluntary structure of teacher activist organizations may allow for teachers to participate in different ways that respect the demands on teachers’ time and that inspire teachers to demonstrate solidarity with other teachers despite varying levels of participation in activities.

TAG encouraged the voices of multiple stakeholders (students, parents, and teachers) in educational decisions. Some conceptualizations of professionalization state that laypersons (e.g., parents, non-teacher members of boards of education) should not have authority in instructional matters (Labaree, 1992; Lortie, 1969). David Labaree (1992) argues that such attempts at professionalization would distance teachers from parents and have other important consequences for democratic control of schools. Whereas teachers, parents, and students find multiple pathways into education activism, current teacher activism—particularly within unions—includes coalition building that goes beyond more narrowly focused “bread and butter” issues that teachers unions pursued in the past (Cohen et al., 2018; Ferman, 2020). High-stakes testing, school closures, and charter expansion have motivated action from these constituencies in a way that has shifted traditional union practices toward social justice issues (Ferman, 2020). The teachers we interviewed consistently described how a goal of TAG was to deepen and broaden multiple stakeholders’ influence in education. Although this may not conform to traditional notions of professionalization, members of TAG were making efforts to improve education and make it more social justice–orientated and equitable. They did this through improving their personal and collective teaching by fostering collaboration and collegiality, which also impacts the profession by improving working conditions and morale (Hargreaves, 2000; Ingersoll, 2004). Involvement in TAG also promoted more authority and autonomy over teaching decisions, which are considered hallmark aspects of a profession (Freidson, 2001).

The mission of TAG, and the attitudes and actions of its members, fostered advocacy in education broadly. In this regard, teacher activist organizations help to create new kinds of professionals—activist professionals (Sachs, 2000)—who acknowledge that limiting stakeholder influence in education does not promote the type of teaching profession they envision. TAG members sought a profession that works continuously for the “betterment of public education” (Nick Greenberg). To combat reforms that de-professionalize teaching, such as scripted curricula, fast-track teacher preparation programs, and value-added teacher evaluations, the opportunity structures in teacher activist organizations such as TAG can influence both the work and perception of teaching by promoting collaboration and increased teacher voice, involving multiple stakeholders, prioritizing social justice–oriented education, and supporting activism. We highlight these opportunity structures as enabling aspects that transcend any one organization.⁴

We encourage further studies that examine the role teacher activist organizations can have on professionalization and suggest that other educational fields, including teacher education, can learn from activist organizations as well. For example, teacher educators might consider the role of the teacher activist organization in relationship to how they work to sustain teachers’ commitment to social justice, racial justice, and criticality through education models, partnerships, and networks that bring together like-minded teachers and create spaces for sharing and learning (Dyches & Boyd, 2017; Mayorga & Picower, 2018; Quan et al., 2019; Ritchie, 2012). As neoliberal accountability measures and externally mandated policies continue to impose limits on the influence of teachers and other stakeholders over educational decisions, teacher activist organizations have an important role to play in countering de-professionalization.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the members of Teacher Action Group–Philadelphia (TAG) for their participation in this study. Richard Liuzzi and Frances Starn provided excellent research assistance. The article was strengthened by critical comments from Laura Ogburn and members of the Penn Graduate School of Education (GSE) Educational Leadership Workshop. The authors thank the Journal of Teacher Education editors and anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and detailed feedback.

Authors’ Note

Amanda Jones-Layman is now affiliated to Neumann University, Aston, PA, USA.

Author Contributions

This was a collaborative effort; the authors contributed equally to the article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Rand Quinn acknowledges funding from the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation.

ORCID iDs

Amanda Jones-Layman

Rand Quinn

Notes

Author Biographies

Nicole Mittenfelner Carl is the director of the Urban Teaching Residency program at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She is an experienced teacher educator and former middle school teacher and leader in the School District of Philadelphia. She received her doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Pennsylvania and studies teacher education and educational inequity.

Amanda Jones-Layman is an assistant professor of education at Neumann University where she specializes in qualitative methodology. Her research focuses on framing and cultural discourses in policy and organizational practices.

Rand Quinn is an associate professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies the origins and consequences of education organizing and activism, the politics of race and class in urban school reform, and the impact of private and voluntary sector engagement in public education.

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