Title: The Role of Advocacy in Promoting STEM Education Presented at the Tennessee Science Teachers Associa
1The Role of Advocacy in Promoting STEM
EducationPresented at the Tennessee Science
Teachers Association Annual Meeting, Franklin TN
11/7/09
John K. Sanders Preston MacDougall Stan
Peppenhorst
2Outline
- Introduction Advocacy What is it?
- Tips for Advocating
- How Professional Organizations can help Advocacy
Efforts - Summary
3Introduction What is Advocacy?
- Advocacy is about educating politicians and other
policy makers about important issues that affect
you and your community. It is also a means to
build a relationship with them and their staff.
Advocates that contact or meet with elected
officials make an important contribution.
Elected officials count votes, and count
contributions to their campaign. They also count
telephone calls, letters and office visits. Even
if your official is generally supportive on a
particular issue, you should still call, visit or
write, since those opposed to your position will
make their voices heard as well. Legislators also
need to hear that an issue is important to the
community. - Being an advocate can simply include making a
telephone call, writing a letter, or arranging a
meeting with an official or their staff. You
provide them with background information and
materials on an issue in order to persuade that
individual to act or vote in a certain manner.
Often, other members of your community are
involved to let the official know their views.
You may also persuade the local newspaper to
write an editorial on an issue of concern to you.
4What Kind of Activities are Involved in Advocacy?
- Contacting legislators and policy-makers by
phone, letter or email - Arranging a meeting with an official or staff
- Responding to Action Alerts through
professional organizations - Writing editorials for newspapers or other media
- Host an event in your district to highlight the
issue (and invite a legislator)
5Types of Advocacy
6Tips for Effective Advocacy
- Know what you want
- Identify your bill or issue clearly, be specific
- Be sure of your motivations and personalize your
appeal - Be concise, honest and timely
- Do your homework
- Empower yourself
- Dont be intimidated by the thought of
approaching an elected official - Research your legislators
- Seek and cultivate allies such as legislative
staff - Plan your strategy
- Identify who you are and why you care whenever
possible, demonstrate you speak for other voters
in your district using petitions and letters for
support - Know where you fit in the Big Picture
- Emphasize the District/State
- Use all available resources
- During the legislative session, constantly check
on your bills status
7Tips for Effective Advocacy
- Build goodwill
- Avoid party politics
- Keep things friendly and open
- Present yourself and your views in a respectful,
dignified manner - Know when to compromise
- Be flexible
- Find common ground
- Prepare for the next session now
- Have a follow-up plan
- Express your gratitude
- Dont give up
8General Dos and Donts for Advocacy
9How Professional Organizations can help Advocacy
efforts
- Providing summaries of issues
- Talking points
- Elevator speeches
- Emails and newsletters of Federal or State
developments - Actively promoting advocacy efforts
- Calls to Action
- Communication tools
- Lobbying at the Federal or State Level
- NSTA
- ACS
10National Science Teachers Association Key Media
Messages and Talking Points
- General Messages
- 1. The National Science Teachers Association
(NSTA) is the largest organization in the world
dedicated to promoting excellence and innovation
in science teaching and learning for all. - 2. NSTA works to improve science education and
increase student learning by engaging all
teachers of science and help them by supporting
and enhancing their teaching. - 3. NSTA advocates for the importance of science
and science learning and works to enhance science
education through research-based policy and
practice. - 4. NSTAs current membership includes more than
57,000 science teachers, science supervisors,
administrators, scientists, business and industry
representatives, and others involved in science
education. - Key Points
- Science Literacy Science literacy is essential
for all students it is the key to tomorrows
skilled workforce, strong economy, national
security, and general well being. - Quality Teaching We must ensure that every
child has a quality teacher. A quality teacher is
both expert in what to teach and skilled at how
to teach it, and receives sustained professional
development for continued learning. - STEM Education (in general) There have been a
number of reports on STEM education in the past
few years, which have emphasized a sweeping need
for change (Glenn Commission, BRT, BHEF, Rising
above the Gathering Storm, National Science
Board, National Research Council). Most of these
reports have included a comprehensive approach on
what all stakeholders need to do to ensure that
our students succeed in the 21st century. We
need to stop calling for reports and get serious
as a nation about implementing some of the ideas
in these reports.
11National Science Teachers Association Key Media
Messages and Talking Points (contd)
- Professional Development Professional
development is the lifeblood of good teaching.
NSTA is committed to providing all teachers with
professional development that is high quality,
meaningful, and sustained. - Teacher Preparation The nation must attract,
prepare, and retain well-educated, effective
preK12 science teachers. Strong,
performance-based science teacher education
programs and science teacher licensure standards
are essential for all science teachers and will
provide a foundation upon which teachers may
build throughout their professional lives. - Science Standards Science standards are
outdated and they contain far too many elements.
Although states have similar standards for
science education, there are significant
differences in when, how, and what students are
expected to learn. Many state science standards
are often not clear and most standards are simply
not aligned with valid assessments. We must
identify a clearly defined set of national core
ideas in science that spell out to all
stakeholders exactly what students from New York
to California are expected to know and be able to
do in science. - Elementary School Science Less science is
being taught in the elementary classroom. No
Child Left Behind annual testing and
accountability provisions for reading and
mathematics has greatly squeezed science out of
many elementary schools. - Parents Parents have to be much more engaged
in their childs science education. While a
growing number of leaders recognize the
importance of strengthening science education,
the challenge has gone virtually unnoticed at the
grassroots level, especially in Americas homes.
Recent surveys have shown that even though
American students test below average against
leading countries, less than one-third of
Americans believe that math and science classes
are very relevant to life after graduation. Worse
yet, 70 of high school parents believe their
child already receives the right amount of
science and math.
12ACS Office of Public Affairs (OPA)-Government
Relations
- The ACS government affairs programs promote
public policies that advance the chemical
enterprises and its practitioners, as called for
in the ACS congressional charter. - The Society provides a voice, at the federal
and state levels, for chemists and chemical
engineers when laws and regulations are being
developed and when government programs are being
funded. - ACS members are important partners in these
government affairs efforts. The Society also
conducts educational activities aimed at
expanding policy makers' knowledge of scientific
and technical issues.
13ACS OPA Activities
- Educate Policymakers
- Legislative visits
- Informational Briefings
- Advance Sound Public Policy
- Advocating on Capitol Hill
- Congressional Testimony
- Working with coalitions
- Keep ACS Members Informed
- www.acs.org/policy
- Facilitate Member Involvement
- Legislative Action Network (LAN)
- Local Section Government Affairs Committees (GAC)
- State committees such as TN-GAC
14ACS Public Policy Priorities
- Foster innovation through research and technology
- The U.S. Bureau of Economic Affairs has estimated
that RD investment accounted for seven percent
of U.S. GDP growth between 1995 and 2004 - A recent study by the Council for Chemical
Research indicated that for every 1B invested in
Federal RD in Chemical Sciences ultimately
results in the creation of 0.6M jobs, 8B in
taxes and adds 40B GNP - Strong support of chemistry and other RD is
central to our nations productivity, defence,
public health, energy security, and environment
progress. - Advance science through openness
- Science and technology provide critical tools
that help us address our national and global
needs. Open exchange of information and ideas is
critical to scientific progress - Strengthen science education and the scientific
workforce - America needs scientific and engineering
professionals. - To equip todays students with the skills to fill
the technical jobs of tomorrow, we must improve
science and mathematics education at all levels - Promote science and sustainability in public
policy - Science can lead to better understand of new
solutions to many of societys problems - The best science should be available to, and used
by, government officials when making decisions
15The Legislative Action Network (LAN)
- What is the Legislative Action Network?
- The LAN is a free web-based advocacy program
- Notifies ACS LAN members of major issues
- facilitates communication with legislators before
key votes. - How does the program work?
- When important legislation is being passed, LAN
members receive calls to action via email. These
calls to action direct members to Web-based
Legislative Action Center to review ACS positions
and contact their legislators online - The network focuses on
- Science education
- RD funding
- Issues that pertain to the science community
- Total number of LAN members in TN 243
16Example LAN Alert
17LAN Continued
- Does it make a difference?
- YES!
- Legislators respond to their constitutions
- Most legislators do not have a good grasp of
science issues and respect nonpartisan input from
technical professionals - Few constituents contact their legislators on
science issues, a few timely letters from ACS
members have notable impact - What are the benefits?
- The opportunity to impact legislation integral to
the chemical enterprise and to chemists - Become more involved in your community
- Immediate notification of hot issues and access
to the Legislative Action Center - How do I sign up?
- ACS members must Opt In for LAN alerts.
- http//www.act4chemistry.org/register/ and fill
out the appropriate form
18How Tennessee ACS Members Can Make A Difference
ACS members, who live in Tennessee and are
citizens, are also constituents of
Representatives. By directly approaching our
Representatives and starting a dialogue about
proposed bills or initiatives, we begin to voice
the sentiments of the science community.
- Hosting/attending events
- Connect with other chemists and chemical
engineers in their area - Contribute to the publics understanding of
chemistry -
- Participating in the LAN
- Directly contacting their legislators
- Writing a letter
- Writing an E-mail
- Phone calls
- Personal visits
- Media outlets
- Letter to the Editor
- Talk radio contact
- Opinion/editorial section in newspapers
19What is TN-GAC?
- ACS has formed an independent committee of
Tennessee ACS members from across the state to
lead and advise our efforts, creating the
Tennessee Government Affairs Committee (TN-GAC).
TN-GAC is comprised of individual ACS members and
provides a unified voice and leadership to
effectively engage the ACS membership within the
state of Tennessee to drive support of Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
Education. - It works with ACS members across the state to
chart an agenda for science education reform and
to engage with other state education stakeholders
such as business and industry groups, science
teacher organizations, and other education
constituencies.
20TN-GAC Key Objectives
- The TN-GAC embodies and reflects the overall ACS
commitment to quality STEM education. - The TN-GAC is committed to improving STEM
education standards and the classroom experience
for students in Tennessee schools. - The TN-GAC will work to build broad coalitions
with professional education and STEM
organizations, scientific societies, and with
allies in the Tennessee government and in the
private sector. - The TN-GAC will work with the Governors
education initiatives that inform Tennessees
youth about STEM careers and what it takes to be
prepared for those careers in the future. - The TN-GAC will support public outreach efforts
that aim to increase the science and technology
literacy of all Tennesseans, broadening the scope
of economic development welcomed in the State
21TN-GAC Committee Members ? Ruth Woodall
(Nashville Section, CHAIR) ruth.woodall_at_tnchamber.
org ? Bill Seymour (Chattanooga Section,
SECRETARY) swafseymo_at_bellsouth.net ? Charles
Baldwin (KY Lake Section) cbaldwin_at_uu.edu ? Al
Hazari (E Tenn Section) ahazari_at_utk.edu ?
Preston MacDougall (Nashville Section)
pmacdougall_at_mtsu.edu
? Stan Peppenhorst (Memphis Section)
SP4ScienceEd_at_aol.com ? John Sanders (NE Tenn
Section) jsanders_at_eastman.com Associate ACS
Staff ? James Brown (National ACS)
j_brown_at_acs.org ex officio member ? Kathryn
Verona (National ACS) k_verona_at_acs.org ex
officio member
22TN-GAC Accomplishments
- Participated as a group in the 7th Annual
Legislative Summit in Washington, DC April 2008
meeting with Tennessee Legislators - Mid-2008, developed the Mission and Objectives
of the TN-GAC Organization - During SERMACS 2008, in Nashville, hosted a
well-attended Roundtable Discussion on STEM
Education which included Dick Zare and
Representative Bart Gordon as panelists, among
other distinguished guests - Tested a Tennessee LAN Alert (5 response from
TN LAN members) - Participated in the Tennessee Chamber of
Commerce Executives Legislative day in March 2009
in Nashville, meeting with many members of the
Tennessee Legislature to promote STEM education - May 2009 Letter of support for House Bill
0364/Senate Bill 0676 (Support of math and
science teacher service scholarships) - May 2009 Letter of support for use of Tennessee
Stimulus funding for improvement of laboratory
facilities in elementary and secondary schools
(cosigned by TSTA and Eastman Chemical Company,
among others) - May 2009 Participated in the STEM Leadership
Council Meeting held at ETSU - July Sept 2009 Participated in STEM Planning
Meetings with Commissioner Webb - Nov 2009 Hosting session at Annual TSTA meeting
with focus on STEM and political action
23Benefits of Advocacy perhaps a biotech class
at BioVentures
24Summary
- Personal and professional advocacy is important
in order that politicians and other policy makers
know and understand the importance of STEM
education issues. - Building a trusting relationship with elected
officials and their staffs by contacting or
meeting with them demonstrates the importance of
advancing STEM education progress in Tennessee. - Being an advocate can take many forms, such as
making a telephone call, writing a letter, or
arranging a meeting with an official or their
staff. - Professional and community organizations can
assist in advocacy efforts.