Month: January 2017

INTERNATIONAL
JapanToday. Startups, venture capitalists, and teachers disrupt education

The Baltic Times. Academy: Education Ministry’s statement about reorganization of Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy is mendacious

UNITED STATES
Chalkbeat. President Trump appears to be backing off repealing protections for undocumented youth. But anxiety is still running high. …the president wants to work with congressional leaders to find a long-term solution for young undocumented immigrants — hundreds of them teachers…

EdWeek.
1) Holocaust Group Will Release Classroom Resources for Trump’s First 100 Days
2) Learning Forward Merges With the National Commission on Teaching … calling for education leaders and policymakers to revamp teacher-preparation programs…

Hechinger Report. Why teachers should help students inaugurate a discussion of politics in the classroom [OpEd by Italia Krahling, a masters student in the Teaching of Social Studies program at Teachers College]

HuffingtonPost. An Open Letter To Senator Lamar Alexander About Betsy DeVos

Los Altos Town Crier. Bullis Charter School prepares new teachers for long careers

Michigan State Univ. Teacher Education Professor Receives Presidential Science Award

NAESP. Practitioner’s Corner: What Principals Should Know About edTPA

NYTimes. Campuses Wary of Offering ‘Sanctuary’ to Undocumented Students

The Tennessean. Betsy DeVos is unqualified to lead Education Department by The Teacher Education Collective

NEW YORK STATE
NYS edTPA Task Force. Proposals; Regents may take action on the recommendations at their meeting Feb. 13-14

CNN. New Yorkers start debate on free tuition

EdWeek. New York Poised to Revamp Certification Exams

NYTimes. Private Colleges Suggest New York’s Free Tuition Plan Limits Choices Mary Beth Labate, the [new] president of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, has criticized …

Pace University. School of Education Public Forum: Shaping Public Education Policy in New York State March 10

NEW YORK CITY
Gotham Gazette Teacher Recruitment, Retention Will Be Focus of City Council Hearing

New York City Council: Education Committee. 1/24/17 Oversight – Teacher Recruitment and Retention

URGENT

TAKE ACTION on Proposed Certification Exam Changes

— Support the NYS edTPA Task Force Proposals —

This is the first real opportunity for New York teacher educators, K-12 teachers and students to provide input and press for changes in the flawed teacher certification exams and process mandated in 2014. The proposed changes reflect a commitment to high, equitable and reasonable standards for entry into the teaching profession.

After months of collaboration and compromise, the NYS edTPA Task Force issued a report and recommendations to the Board of Regents. The Regents may take action on the recommendations at their meeting Feb. 13-14. There is no guarantee that all task force recommendations will be acted on by the Regents.

They need to hear from YOU.

Contact Your District Regent, At-Large Regents, and the NYS Commissioner of Education NOW and urge them to take action.

Contact information for Commissioner and Regents:

PDF: http://uupinfo.org/committees/pdf/teached/2017Regentscontactinfo.pdf

SED website: https://www.regents.nysed.gov/members/findrep

edTPA Task Force recommendations to the Regents & State Education Department include:

• Convene a standards setting committee to review and potentially recalibrate edTPA score requirements;
• Establish a multiple measures review process so a teacher candidate who fails the edTPA within a narrow margin may be recommended for certification by program faculty based on other evidence of readiness to teach;
• Work with teacher educators to review edTPA handbooks of concern, with two possible outcomes:
• Handbook revision, or
• SED approval of an alternative performance assessment when a mismatch occurs between the edTPA and professional practices in a particular teacher education specalty area;
• Review certification exam costs and evaluate pass rate variations in different certification areas and across different student populations, as well as why they occur;
• Eliminate the Academic Literacy Skills Test, which duplicates other parts of the certification process;
• Examine the Educating All Students exam for possible content problems and  to assess variations in pass rates across certification areas; and
• Examine statewide discrepancies regarding the length and content of the student teaching experience.

SED’s summary of the edTPA Task Force recommendations is posted at the following link:
http://www.regents.nysed.gov/common/regents/files/117hed2.pdf

INTERNATIONAL
Business Mirror. France opens up full scholarships for teachers’ postgraduate studies

Education International. World Economic Forum: Teachers won’t be substituted by robots, panel agrees

Radio Poland. Polish president signs school reform into law, protests planned   Prime Minister Beata Szydło said on Monday that the reform could see some 5,000 new teaching jobs created.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Free online course beginning Jan. 30 Designing Assessments to Measure Student Outcomes
2) Receive AACTE Action Alerts and Advocate on Teacher Prep Regs
3) 2016 – The Year in State Policy

Carter, J. H. & Lochte, H. A. (Eds.) (2017). Teacher Performance Assessment and Accountability Reforms: The Impacts of edTPA on Teaching and Schools. Palgrave Macmillan  Pub.

Chalkbeat.
1) I’m an education reformer, and Betsy DeVos is going to kill our coalition. Here’s a game plan. …a political nightmare, since reformers and traditionalists disagree about how to elevate teaching.
2) What Trump’s inauguration means for one undocumented Nashville student-turned-teacher

EdWeek.
1) Ed. Deans to Trump Administration: Uphold the Role of Public Schools
2) Illinois schools boost recruitment for substitute teachers  Faced with a shortage of substitute teachers, school districts in Illinois are increasing their recruitment efforts…
3) Substitute-Teacher Shortages Put Schools to Test
4) Will Betsy DeVos Divide the School Choice Movement? [Commentary] Jeffrey R. Henig is a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Hechinger Report. Colleges are pushed to stand behind what they sell with money-back guarantees

LearnTechLib. Preservice Teacher Mobile Investigation and Interpretation of Everyday Mathematics Across Settings

NEPC. Declaration of Principles on Public Education, Democracy, and the Role of Federal Government

NYTimes. Nominee Betsy DeVos’s Knowledge of Education Basics Is Open to Criticism

Univ. of CA. UC launches new efforts to address California’s teacher shortage

Washington Post. Education deans to Trump: We’re ‘seriously concerned’ about your agenda

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Regents January Meeting.
1). Higher Ed Cmte:

• Proposed Amendment of Sections 80-1.8 and 80-5.18 of the Commissioner’s Regulations Related to the Requirements for the Reissuance of an Expired Initial Certificate and Requirements for a Supplementary Certificate
• Update on the Work of the edTPA Task Force and Changes to Teacher Certification Requirements

2)  Meeting Webcast archives now available

NEW YORK CITY
InternationalEdNews. NYC Outward Bound Schools and the ecology of New York City Schools

INTERNATIONAL. Citifmonline. Teacher trainees to picket at Education Ministry over salary arrears …Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana (TTAG) have threatened to picket at the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service

Education International. Royaume-Uni: Les syndicats d’enseignants s’unissent en faveur d’une hausse des salaires  … « nous ne recrutons pas suffisamment et trop d’enseignantes et enseignants quittent la profession,

TEACHERS TASK FORCE FOR EFA. International Task Force on Teachers for EFA

The Economist. South Africa has one of the world’s worst education systems … teachers paying union officials for plum jobs, and female teachers being told they would be given jobs only in exchange for sex.

 

UNITED STATES
Chalkbeat. After welcoming almost 150 undocumented teachers, Teach for America starts planning for a Trump reality

Deans For Impact.
1) A deliberate approach to making teachers truly expert at teaching
2) Values, vision and action at Texas Tech University

EdWeek.
1) Ed. Deans to Trump Administration: Uphold the Role of Public Schools
2) New law aimed at reducing Illinois’ teacher shortage  Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a measure Friday that will make it easier for teachers who move to Illinois to transfer a teaching license,
3) Why Ed. Scholarship Could Soon Be Sidelined [R. Hess blog]

Indivisible. Former congressional staffers reveal best practices for making Congress listen.

LATimes. Forget charter schools and vouchers — here are five business ideas school reformers should adopt Samuel E. Abrams is the director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College

NEAToday. Who Stands Between Fake News and Students? Educators Regardless of their age or socioeconomic status, students across-the-board demonstrated a troubling inability to weed out unreliable information.

NPE. DeVos hearing delayed: Call the HELP committee members today

The Atlantic. How Teachers Learn to Discuss Racism

Washington Post. How testing practices have to change in U.S. public schools Certified Teachers are an Endangered Species [photo: protest sign]

 

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat.
1) Cuomo’s college tuition plan would be a boon for many students, but does it go far enough?
2) Cuomo finishes State of the State tour, proposes funding for AP exams and computer science teachers …create a partnership with the tech sector to “help train educators across the state to teach computer science.”
3) Regents discuss revamping New York state teacher certification requirements …The task force recommendations strike the right balance.                                                                                                                                    

EdWeek. New York Proposes Increased Flexibility to Teacher Certification Process …more flexibility to teachers by allowing them to complete the year of professional development before or after applying for a reissuance.

HuffPost. How to Pass edTPA (1): Sample Middle School Activity-Based Lesson Plan with Video Link [A. Singer Blog]

NewYorkNews. Teacher licensing exam has too high failure rate: Regents

NYSED Regents. 1) Amendment to Section 80-1.5 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to Safety Nets for the Revised Content Specialty Tests 2) Proposed changes to teacher certification regulations [45-day comment period begins Jan. 25] …additional time to meet the requirements for reissuance of expired classroom certificates… 3) Update on the Work of the edTPA Task Force and Changes to Teacher Certification Requirements

NYSUT. NYSUT backs edTPA task force report, urges Regents’ adoption

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Three big questions as de Blasio’s school turnaround program approaches the three-year mark  “Once the city starts down the road of closing schools I think there will be more pressure to close more of them,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Teachers College.

DNA Info. City Schools Could Lose $500M in Funding Under Trump, Teachers Union Fears Sonya Douglass Horsford, a professor at Teachers College, believes that a voucher program is “ironic and hypocritical,”

NYTimes. City to Close or Merge 9 Schools That Were in Support Program  Aaron Pallas, a professor … at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said…“If these mergers and closures result in new schools that have a new kind of energy, perhaps different staff, perhaps a different culture…

Teachers College. Book Talk: Gurl, Caraballo, Grey, Gunn, Gerwin, & Bembenutty (2017). Policy, Professionalization, Privatization, and Performance Assessment. 5pm, Jan. 24.

TCRecord Book Review. Long, S.; Souto-Manning, M. & Vasquez, V. (2016). Courageous Leadership in Early Childhood Education: Taking a Stand for Social Justice

 

 

INTERNATIONAL
Aljazeera. Mexico: The Power of Early Education And because they’re highly trained, the school empowers the teachers and trusts them to know what’s best for their classes.

Gulf News People. Why Finland’s schools seem to be slipping early-childhood education, highly regarded teaching profession… and alternative models of accountability still continue to be useful

The Local. Denmark passes ‘education cap’ despite protests  The Danish parliament on Monday passed a bill that will bar students from taking a second university degree.

UNITED STATES
AERA Ed Change SIG. LEAD THE CHANGE SERIES Q&A with Marnie H. O’Neill  …as preservice teachers, the students should be aware that discourses, which may seem invisible or ‘normal’ can be offensive or hurtful

American Institutes for Research. How to Build a Better Teacher? Practice, Practice, Practice [InformEd Blog]

Daily Journal in Education. Teacher prep program gets funding boost [Jackson, MS]

DeanForImpact. Practice with Purpose

EdWeek.
1) Assessing Quality of Teaching Staff Still Complex Despite ESSA’s Leeway Daniel Weisberg, the CEO of the teacher-training and advocacy group TNTP …doesn’t see states backing away entirely from considering student growth measures
2) Record Number of Emergency Teachers Certified in Oklahoma
3) Teacher Prep Programs Should Focus on Tech Integration, Ed. Dept. Says

Long Beach Unified School District. Educator Pipeline Featured Nationally

NCTQ. Why the Quality of Teacher Prep Programs Matters

NPREd. Teachers Are Stressed, And That Should Stress Us All

UC Santa Barbara. UCSB professor of education receives a 2017 President’s Research Catalyst Award

Urban Crunch. Educational scam: EdTPA in New Jersey [T. Dell’Angelo Blog]

Vimeo. In the Classroom: Teaching English in Diverse Social & Cultural Contexts [Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz]

Wall Street Journal. Schools Test Medical Model With ‘Teacher Residencies’

Washington Post.
1) New York takes a stab at debt-free college, covering tuition for families earning less than $125,000
2) Trump’s education nominee and her family members are major donors to the senators who will vote on her confirmation

NEW YORK STATE
Capitol Tonight. Education Issues and Priorities in 2017 [NYSED Commissioner Elia’s commentary]

Chalkbeat. Cuomo proposes free college tuition at state schools for families making less than $125,000

NYSED. Regents Meetings. Jan 9-10, 2017
Higher Ed Cmte. Update on the Work of the edTPA Task Force and Changes to Teacher Certification Requirements

NEW YORK CITY
NewYorkPost. Cuomo’s free-tuition plan misses the real need

Teachers College. 4^th Annual Gordon Lecture, Feb. 16; Dr. Erica N. Walker. Hidden in Plain Sight: Lessons for Mathematics Education Seen Through a Storytelling Lens

TC Record
Book Reviews.
1) Emdin, C. (2016). For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood… and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education
2) Pagliaro, C. (2016). A Blueprint for Preparing Teachers: Producing the Best Educators for Our Children
3) Ray, A. (2015). Creating Professional Development that Works: What Every Teacher Educator Needs to Know
Commentary.
Jordan, A. Hawley, T. (2016). By the Elite, For the Vulnerable: The edTPA, Academic Oppression, and the Battle to Define Good Teaching