There is a national call for teacher leadership, which has occurred after many education reforms have struggled due to a perceived lack of teacher involvement. The purpose of this study was to examine whether teachers felt that their involvement in education policy had impact and whether there is ample teacher expertise in education policy. The overarching research question was to appraise educator perceptions of teacher impact on state education policy. The study revealed a perceived lack of teacher impact and education expertise. The conceptual framework was based on theories of adult learning and the development of expertise and supported the necessity of teacher expertise in policy discussions' because teachers are the ones who have developed classroom expertise and the potential impact of policy on classrooms. A case study methodology was applied with 5 state teachers of the year participants. The participants were from 4 states, recognized from 2012-2015, and had local, state, and national policy experience. Interviews were conducted to collect data, with direct interpretation and categorical aggregation through coding applied to analyze data during collection. After identifying a perceived lack of teacher impact, themes were identified that could create more effective impact. Themes were grouped into skills, knowledge, and dispositions that could be taught in a series of learning experiences, serving as curriculum for teachers to build expertise in policy. This project has the potential to assist educators in developing the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed to become more effectively involved in policy. It also has the potential to create social change in the United States by assisting teachers in getting meaningfully involved in policy, thereby positively impacting public education for their students in their classrooms, schools, districts, and beyond.

Some school districts are exploring mentorship to help teachers enact more effective classroom practices that lead to higher student outcomes. The Good to Great study, by the National Network of State Teachers of the Year outlined the professional growth opportunities that state teachers of the year (STOYs) perceived as contributing to their success in the classroom. Although the STOYs noted that mentorship was a key factor, the original study did not examine how different generations of educators may respond differently to mentorship based on their generational cohort identity. The purpose of this nonexperimental, causal-comparative study using Good to Great data was to examine how STOY Baby Boomers and Gen Xers perceived specific attributes of official and unofficial mentorship. Strauss and Howe's generational cohort theory and Zachary's mentoring theory provided the theoretical foundation. The research questions examined whether there was a significant difference between STOY Baby Boomers' and STOY Generation Xers' perceptions of (a) official mentors' and unofficial mentors' levels of empathy, (b) the alignment of personality to the mentee, and (c) their ability to offer support. In a secondary analysis of the existing data, Hotelling's T2 tests indicated that Baby Boomers and Gen Xers did not show a significant difference in their overall perceptions of official nor unofficial mentoring factors. However, a post hoc analysis indicated that Baby Boomers had a significantly higher (p = .01) perception of official mentors' personality alignment to the mentee. The positive social change implication of this study is the potential to increase student learning by designing more effective mentorship programs to meet the needs of different generations of teachers.