The Wisconsin Policy, Outreach, and Practice (WiPOP) is dedicated to teacher-driven conversation about public policy. Our goals include:
- to build PK-12 teachers’ capacity around federal, state, and local policy initiatives
- to provide an inclusive, low-stakes space for teachers to collaboratively engage with policy issues
- to foster on-going, teacher-directed policy discussions with advocates, policymakers, and researchers
Contact
Please contact wipop@education.wisc.edu for more information, or take our survey to collaborate with us!
Meet Our Directors
SADIE FOX CAROCAS, MED
PhD Candidate at UW-Madison, Curriculum and Instruction, Science Education Co-founder and co-director of WiPOP
Sadie has over ten years of experience facilitating communication and collaboration among parents, students, and other key players in education. She has worked as a middle school science and literacy teacher, an elementary school gifted and talented teacher, a Response to Intervention coordinator and teacher, and an instructor of graduate and undergraduate courses. Sadie’s research interests focus on using a socio-cultural approach to understanding the identity work teachers engage in, particularly their participation and sense-making evident across school based activities. She hopes to better understand the relationships between identity work and science teaching practice. To these ends, Sadie is interested in researching the voice and presence of teacher candidates and classroom teachers in educational policy.
RACHEL FELDMAN
PhD Candidate, UW-Madison, Educational Policy Studies Co-director of WiPOP
Rachel is a doctoral candidate in Educational Policy Studies. Her research broadly explores schools’ organizational responses to federal and local policy initiatives, and how these organizational structures influence teachers’ work. Specifically she is interested in how schools create collaborative spaces for teachers and how schools as organizations shape teachers’ practice and job satisfaction. Her dissertation research focuses on understanding the impact teacher labor policies have on teachers’ levels of satisfaction, exit decisions, and perceptions of school working conditions.
MATTHEW PARISH
Masters Student, UW-Madison, Education Leadership and Policy Analysis
Matt is new to the state of Wisconsin after spending the last 5 years teaching middle school social studies in rural Colorado. While there he specialized in menu and blended learning, as well as designing a rigorous project based social studies curriculum. He graduated from the University of Wyoming in secondary education and political science and is now seeking his Master’s degree here in Madison. He strives to analyze policy implementation and effectiveness in K-12 schools particularly in the areas of technology, charter school, and curriculum. Ultimately it is teachers and administrators who implement school policy and Matt wants teachers to feel empowered by that opportunity.
LAURA C. CHÁVEZ MORENO
PhD Candidate, UW-Madison, Curriculum and Instruction Co-founder and co-director of WiPOP
Laura is a co-founder and co-director of Wisconsin Policy, Outreach, and Practice (WiPOP). Laura’s roots in social justice grow from the struggles of her familia and community in the borderlands of Sonora/Arizona. This, along with her experiences as a former public school teacher, curriculum designer, and current teacher educator, undergirds her work with WiPOP. For her dissertation research, Laura examines how teachers of historically marginalized youth work toward emancipatory education practices. Laura believes in the work of amplifying critical teacher voice in educational policymaking and of preparing teachers to see themselves as policy actors, especially given our contemporary educational climate.
ANNALEE GOOD, PH.D.
Researcher, Wisconsin Center for Education Research Co-founder and co-director of WiPOP
Annalee is a researcher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and co-director of the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative. Her current projects include working with K12 teachers around policy dialogue, digital tools in K-12 supplemental education, academic tutoring partnerships, and the challenges of instruction and assessment for advanced learners. She has published and presented numerous papers on topics including public contracting for digital instructional tools, the nature of the instructional landscape in out-of-school time tutoring, the role of tutoring in school reform, and the role of K-12 teachers in the creation of public policy. She was a classroom teacher before earning her master’s and doctoral degrees in Educational Policy Studies from UW-Madison.
MEET OUR WIPOP TEACHER FELLOWS
MATTHEW BELZ
Middle School Math Teacher, Madison Metropolitan School District
WiPOP Teacher Fellow
Matt has taught elementary and middle school, but has focused on teaching 6th-8th grade the last few years. In the middle school setting he has taught Math, Reading, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and AVID. Matt graduated from UW-Madison with a degrees in Elementary Education, Environmental Studies, and a certificate in Educational Policy Studies. Within schools, Matt is also involved with restorative justice practices, and project based learning.
MINDY MULRYAN
High School Special Education Coordinator, Verona Area School District
WiPOP Teacher Fellow
Mindy has been in education for twelve years in various capacities. She obtained her Bachelor’s in History and Political Science from UW La Crosse, Broad Field Social Studies License from Edgewood College, and Special Education License and Master’s from UW Whitewater. She has a range of experiences from work with At-Risk students, to virtual and online education to her current role as special education coordinator for the Verona Area High School. Her involvement in WiPOP started out of personal interest but has evolved to teacher empowerment.
CARLOS JOSE CANELA
High School Teacher, Madison Metropolitan School District
WiPOP Teacher Fellow and co-founder
Carlos is a first year high school teacher who began his career in education as a PhD student at UW-Madison researching policies directed toward lowering the achievement gap and their impact on marginalized populations. Eventually he fell in love with the classroom and shifted his gears to attain his teaching certification. With two Masters and a teaching license in tow he hopes to continue to work towards giving teachers a greater voice in the policy process while working to empower all of the students in his own classroom.
PHONEKEO SIHARATH
High English School Teacher, Madison Metropolitan School District
PhD Candidate, Cardinal Stritch University, Department of Leadership, Learning, and Service
WiPOP Teacher Fellow
Phonekeo is a 17 year veteran teacher who has been teaching in the MMSD since graduating from the University of Wisconsin- Madison with a BS in English Education. He received his master’s from UW – LaCrosse and is nearly finished with his PhD with a dissertation focusing on the predictors of online student success. Education degrees aside, Phonekeo’s proudest professional accomplishments include the following: teaching Honors English 2 for the past twelve years; creating the Summer Media Institute, a summer internship program for students of color and the local media; being an Aristo’s Scholar, a think-tank of people devoted to ideas concerning the MMSD; starting the AVID program at his high school; being a department chair and a member of the School Based Leadership Team; and being a teacher that continually tries to grow and engage his students.
CARMEN MONTOPOLI
Elementary Teacher, Madison Metropolitan School District
WiPOP Teacher Fellow
Carmen has taught fourth and eighth grades, and is currently a fourth-grade classroom teacher in Madison, Wisconsin. She holds a Master of Arts in Educational Policy Studies from the UW-Madison, where she studied and wrote about educator understandings of and expectations for the Common Core State Standards. She received her teaching license through Edgewood College, whose Dean of Education and faculty encouraged teacher engagement in advocacy on behalf of students and the profession. In her current role with WiPOP, Carmen serves as a school-based teacher fellow and an outreach coordinator.