Ways to Advocate: Using your Voice to Create Change
Given current events, many of us feel pulled towards advocacy, but may not know where to start. To support AMTE members in making sense of which mode(s) of advocacy might be right for them, the Advocacy Committee assembled a panel of AMTE members who have varied experiences in advocacy for the 2026 Annual Conference. What follows is a short recap of the topics and ideas shared by panelists to help members consider ways they might also step into advocacy work in their spheres of influence.
Equitable Education
Shirley Burnett
During and after COVID, many schools dismantled developmental education programs but transitioned to open enrollment. Danger exists in eliminating these support programs without a replacement, which disproportionately impacts academically vulnerable students. If schools admit students, it is their responsibility to provide students with the tools and support needed to perform academically and successfully navigate the landscape of postsecondary education.
One solution I advocated for at my university is mandatory support services (e.g., tutoring). Since research shows that students often do not seek tutoring proactively, schools must ensure that these support services build the conceptual understanding necessary not only for exams but also for the rigor of current and subsequent courses. Another solution I have advocated for is the adoption of instructional practices that offer additional support to students. The corequisite model offers intentional, structured support embedded in students' courses. With the corequisite model, students are enrolled directly in the college-level math course while simultaneously receiving intentional embedded academic support. While some disagree with this approach, a research-based strategy is better than none. As with other effective strategies, schools should adapt a model to meet the specific needs of the students and the institution.
At the end of the day, admitting all students without holistic support is a disaster waiting to happen. Real change occurs when we not only adopt/embrace policies but also align them with best practices and ample resources suitable for the students we serve.
Funding Loss
Crystal Kalinec-Craig
Advocacy demands we ask hard questions: for whom, for what purpose, and whether we show up only when personally attacked. Math teacher educators have been late to this work as compared to our ethnic studies friends, but better late than never. The key is getting mobilized quickly: joining signal groups, writing to newspapers, helping colleagues navigate appeal processes for grant unjust terminations, showing up at advocacy events like Math and Science on the Hill, engaging with the Association of American University Professors’ (AAUP) Center for Defense of Academic Freedom, and using spaces like AMTE's Collective Action Supporting Teachers and Mathematics Teacher Educators (CAST MTE) to think collectively about mathematics education as a public good. The advice is simple: you are never too late, but you need to see beyond your own local world and influence. Oppression thrives in silence and convenient complicity, which means we must listen beyond our own networks, connect with historians, social studies, and ethnic studies educators, and center the voices of Black and Indigenous women who have long warned us and carried this struggle. When a new harmful policy emerges, remember it is not new; what is new is where, when, how, and for whom we organize, and how we sustain that organizing over time.
Unions and Faculty Organizing
Courtney Koestler
Faculty organizing requires a significant amount of time, intellectual effort, and emotional energy, especially for a not-yet-tenured faculty member (like myself) navigating concerns about safety and job security. However, advocating with and for my faculty colleagues has been deeply rewarding work. As someone passionately committed to equity, justice, and inclusion in my personal, political, and professional life, taking a leadership role in the unionization effort at my institution aligned with these commitments and the belief that we are stronger together. Whether your institution has a union or not, working collectively to advocate for meaningful faculty voice in governance issues, equitable compensation, and greater job security, particularly for those most vulnerable, is essential work for us as educators.
Check out AAUP.org for important resources.
Policy Changes
Aubrey Neihaus
In higher education, service is often considered the least fulfilling part of our jobs, comprising necessary tasks for our institutions and professional organizations. However, service is often a hidden opportunity for advocacy by effecting change to important policies that impact teachers and teacher educators.
Three examples where I have used my own service load for advocacy include serving as a program chair, on a state standards revision committee, and as a reviewer for the MET III policy document. My program chair role has a great deal of bureaucratic responsibilities but also comes with significant opportunity. I was able to expand our required coursework to include a sociology course on inequity in society. This course provides my students a chance to see powerful applications of mathematics in the social sciences while also gaining a foundational understanding of inequity that is both within and beyond education. As a member of my state’s Math Teacher Professional Standards Revision Committee, I brought AMTE’s Standards to the committee as a source document. From this, we created a standard aligned with Standard C.4 “Social Contexts of Mathematics Teaching and Learning,” thereby ensuring math teacher education programs in the state are required to support novice math teachers’ understanding of the socio-historical contexts of mathematics. Lastly, as a reviewer for MET III, I had the opportunity to make suggestions to strengthen the document for equity. Additionally, I was able to press the authors to consider how this document, by virtue of being sponsored by the Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences, might be outside of the censorship many of us are experiencing at the state or local level, thereby offering a unique and collective space for our profession to take a stand on issues of equity and justice.
In each of these service opportunities, I asked myself, “What power or influence do I hold here? How can I use it to effect change so that advocating for equitable and just experiences, opportunities, and outcomes for all mathematics students is not only expected, but normalized?”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Public Schools
Katie Rupe
Teaching is political. Recent ICE raids have required classroom teachers to reckon with how to prioritize students’ and families’ safety while working to provide high quality mathematics instruction. Teachers unions, community organizations, and families have come together rapidly to strengthen systems to keep kids and families safe. Across my city, teachers in their home and school communities have mobilized to start walking buses, expand free grocery delivery, and help families get to appointments, among other things.
I recently returned to the classroom after years as a university teacher educator. As teacher educators, whether at the school level, district level, or university level, how do you support and prepare teachers to engage with these complex realities? To only teach content and pedagogy is to ignore the reality that teachers and students face every day. Many current and future teachers are also facing uncertain futures because of ICE raids. One recommendation I offer is to find ways to be more closely connected to classrooms. Find ways to spend time with teachers and students that are not transactional (e.g. entering schools to collect data or interview teachers and then leave). Reflect. Could you go back to the classroom right now? If not, why not? Perhaps the physical, emotional, or schedule demands make it unlikely you would return. How can you advocate or help shape a future where teaching is more sustainable? How can you support teachers to be able to show up for their students and help keep them safe?
LGBTQ+ Teachers
Kyle Whipple
As more attacks are piled upon the LGBTQ+ community (e.g., Texas Tech Universities banning any type of writing related to LGBTQ+ topics for both students and faculty), our LGBTQ+ teachers become more vulnerable. This particular type of othering may lead to further isolation as LGBTQ+ people in general become more fearful of gathering or having any type of communications that may be used against them. The Trevor Project, Learning for Justice, and Glisten (previously GLSEN) provide resources for teachers and allies. As stated above, these types of attacks are not new. LGBTQ+ teachers and students have been attacked relentlessly in our public schools and they will only survive the current wave with allies standing up and demanding the entire LGBTQ+ community be treated equitably.