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Advocating for the Common Good
Our culture is at a critical cusp—a time that requires that we define what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. Within our nation we need to foster a greater sense of collective responsibility.
Robert Bellah
My doctoral students and I stood in the stunning Beaux-Arts foyer of the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, watching Senator Ted Kennedy make a speech on the floor of the Senate on a large monitor. My colleague, Dr. Jack McManus, who was co-chaperoning this policy trip with me for our students looked quite anxious as we waited for Senator Kennedy to finish his speech and join us for a meet-and-greet.
Jack was born in Massachusetts and had been a fan boy of Senator Kennedy for many years. Over the countless times he had visited DC, though, he had yet to meet Kennedy. I decided to change that and worked with the Senator’s office over a series of weeks to arrange the meeting.
Two, massive and rambunctious Portuguese Water Dogs heralded Senator Kennedy’s entry into the building, and the students murmured as they noted who strode behind the dogs. One of the dogs, on eyeing me, ran toward me and leapt up to greet me, placing his skilled-sized paws squarely on my shoulders.
Before I could even react to this spectacular greeting, the Senator approached me and disentangled his pooch from my person, apologizing while we all laughed and remarking how uncharacteristic it was for his dog to take to someone immediately. Surrounded by my students, I was a bit surprised to note they were all starstruck and simply stood there in awe while the Senator chatted with me.
In probably one of the best redirects in my life, I said to Senator Kennedy, “And speaking of friends, I would like you to meet one of my friends and colleagues, Dr. Jack McManus, who has voted for you several times over the years. From that point forward, my colleague and students engaged with the Senator, peppering him with policy questions about the speech he had just made on the Senate floor and many other issues.
Over the years, I have taken many groups of doctoral students to Sacramento and Washington, DC to advocate for important educational priorities with lawmakers. Prior to these visits, we would carefully research issues in support of education, write policy papers, and research the various state- and federal lawmakers in whose districts we lived. Our preparation included making a persuasive argument in support of our policy issue to ensure it aligned to the degree practicable with the lawmaker’s priorities.
As a Dean, I now lead from a different chair in advocating for the common good—and for education specifically. Educational leaders are able to leverage their positional power collectively to make the argument for certain policies and laws both statewide and nationally.
The common good may be described, in part, thus:
In ordinary political discourse, the “common good” refers to those facilities—whether material, cultural or institutional—that the members of a community provide to all members in order to fulfill a relational obligation they all have to care for certain interests that they have in common. Some canonical examples of the common good in a modern liberal democracy include: the road system; public parks; police protection and public safety; courts and the judicial system; public schools; museums and cultural institutions; public transportation; civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech and the freedom of association; the system of property; clean air and clean water; and national defense….
Members of a political community stand in a social relationship, and this relationship also requires them to think and act in ways that embody a certain form of mutual concern. The common good defines this form of concern. The common good incorporates certain basic requirements of social justice, as citizens must provide one another with basic rights and freedoms and they must not exploit each other. But the common good goes beyond the basic requirements of justice because it requires citizens to maintain certain patterns of conduct on the grounds that these patterns serve certain common interests. (Hussain, 2018)
In early June, during a policy and advocacy trip to Washington, DC, I joined nearly 200 higher education leaders and doctoral students who sought to advocate for several legislative priorities that directly address teacher education and shortage in America’s schools. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) hosts “Washington Week,” where we spend time with members of the House and Senate, along with their advisors, to seek their support for these critical priorities. The five issues we focused on can be read in greater detail on the AACTE Advocacy Handout, but are summarized here:
· Educators for America Act
· Diversify Act
· Pay Teachers Act
· Loan Forgiveness for Educators Act
· Supporting Teaching and Learning through Better Data Act
If we are, as Robert Bellah says, to foster a greater sense of collective accountability, it begins with our advocacy with those elected officials who represent us. One of the doctoral students who joined my team, Reyan Warren, found herself a bit nervous as she prepared her personal story to address her Representative, Pete Aguilar, who is from San Bernardino. As we waited for the lawmaker to join us in the Sam Rayburn Room in the Capitol, I whispered to her, “Just remember, he works for you.”
When it came time to deliver her compelling story about the impact of loan forgiveness on her work as an educational leader, Reyan was articulate, concise, and passionate in her delivery. That day, among countless members of the House of Representatives, the common good was on full display.
For the common good,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth C. Orozco Reilly
References
Bellah, R. N. (2020). The Robert Bellah reader. Duke University Press.
Hussain, W. (2018, Spring). The common good. The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, E. N. Zalta (Ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/common-good/
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