Month: May 2017

INTERNATIONAL
Brookings Inst. A brief guide to the French presidential election On education, he [Macron] wants to hire 5,000 teachers and cut class size to 12 students in primary schools (in low-income zones).

IEN. Improving education in and out of school in South Africa (Part 2) Even the materials designed to support teachers show the inadequacies of current teacher preparation. 

UNESCO. #Education2030 69 million teachers are needed worldwide to meet goals.

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Call for Proposals [May 30 deadline], Reviewers [May 16 deadline] for 2018 AACTE Annual Meeting

Chronicle.
1) A Tenure Track for Teachers? An important new wrinkle has been the rise of the full-time, nontenure-track faculty member (FTNTT). The FTNTTs teach full courseloads and receive full-time salaries and benefits, but work on fixed-term contracts that are usually renewable, sometimes in perpetuity.
2) Colleges With the Highest Average Pay for Full Professors, 2015-16

EdWeek.
1) Can Teacher Residencies Help With Shortages?: Scholars at AERA take up the topic
2) Teacher-Prep for High School Science and Social Studies Found to Fall Short Included in NCTQ’s list of top-ranked education programs are Arizona State University in Phoenix, Hunter College in New York…
3) Indiana Teen Graduates College While Still in High School, Wants to Be a Teacher
4) Tennessee education group aims to interest youth in teaching
5) Virginia’s Largest School District Favors White Teachers in Hiring, Study Finds …while black applicants had, on average, more degrees and more time in

InsideHigherEd. Could Robots Handle Peer Review? Technologist argues that artificial intelligence could make publishing decisions in milliseconds.

NEA. How Many Public School Students Are Taught by Certified and Experienced Teachers? Roughly 94% of students were taught by a state-certified teacher in the 2011–12 school year – the most recent figures available from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)

NCTQ. Spring 2017 Landscape in Teacher Preparation, Undergraduate Secondary 

NYTimes.
1) How Successful Are Charter Schools? [letters to editor] Public schools, governed by elected school boards in communities that can afford to provide generous funding for small class sizes, a wide array of programs and teacher training, do a superb job of educating their students.
2) Why Yale Graduate Students Are on a Hunger Strike Tenured and tenured-track jobs have declined significantly, with only about 30 percent of faculty members in such positions in 2016, down from about 40 percent in 2013.
3) Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis Claims Another Casualty: Its Schools There are teacher shortages in some schools and surpluses in others.

U.S. Secretary of Education. Policy Regarding Mandatory Formatting Requirements for Grant Competitions Program offices may suggest page limits and formatting standards (such as font size, line spacing, and the like) but may not use ignoring these suggestions as a basis to reject grant applications.

NEW YORK STATE
cIcu. Degrees Awarded in New York State by Sector, 2015-16.

NYS Gov. Nominate a Teacher for the Empire State Excellence in Teaching Award

NYSED.
1) Proposed Amendments to Part 80 of the Commissioner’s Regulations Related to the Elimination of the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) for Teacher Certification and to Remove Unnecessary References to the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test The proposed amendment is being presented to the Full Board for adoption as a second emergency rule at its May 2017 meeting in order to ensure that the emergency rule adopted at the March 2017 meeting, which will expire on June 10, 2017, remains continuously in effect until it can be permanently adopted at the June 2017 meeting.
2) State Education Department Releases Draft Every Student Succeeds Act Plan for Public Comment … the Department will: leverage partnerships among institutions of higher education, other preparatory programs and public schools to create additional opportunities for candidates in teacher and school building leader preparation programs to have robust, field-based experiences…
3) State Education Department Announces 13 Public Meetings To Be Held To Receive Comment On Draft Every Student Succeeds Act Plan
NOTE: In addition to the May 20th public hearing: Comments can be submitted via email to [email protected] (link sends e-mail) with “ESSA Comments from (sender/organization name)” in the subject line. Comments submitted via mail should be sent to the attention of Dr. Lisa Long, New York State Education Department, Office of Accountability, 4th Floor, 55 Hanson Place, Brooklyn, New York 11217. Comments will be accepted through June 16.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Protesters denounce Paul Ryan’s visit to a Success Academy school in Harlem Ryan’s office released a statement as well. “The quality of teacher training and preparedness was extraordinary,” he said.

EdSurge. What Does It Mean to Work Like a Teaching Resident? A Look Into NYU’s Digital Pilot Program Professors from NYU (also called content mentors) view this transition via a video platform created by HotChalk and digitally mentor their 15 graduates (also known as interns)…

New York 1. Public Schools Struggling to Find Enough Teachers Certified to Serve Students Learning English

NYTimes.
1) Abigail M. O’Neill. [Obituary] A generous benefactor of Teachers College …Her most enduring legacy is her passionate commitment to supporting future New York City teachers through the Abby M. O’Neill Fellowship, which addresses the demand for training in key areas and the need for excellent teachers in underserved communities.
2) Is ‘3-K for All’ Good for All? De Blasio’s Preschool Plan Troubles Some Ana Aguirre, the executive director of United Community Centers …said that having such frequent vacancies inevitably took a toll on her program’s quality. “Your energy is constantly in replacing certified teachers”…

INTERNATIONAL
IEN. Improving education in and out of school in South Africa …widespread need for books, textbooks curricula, and other basic materials and about the need to rely on volunteers, parents, community members and students themselves because well-trained teachers were not available.

Latvijas Sabiedriskie Mediji. Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy will be shut down on October 1, 2017

New Internationalist. PISA-envy, Pearson and Starbucks-style schools. A scripted curriculum, providing instructions for and explanations of what teachers should do and say during any given moment of a class, is delivered through tablets synchronized with BIA [Bridge] headquarters

Royal Society of the encouragement of Arts. What would Benjamin Franklin say to Wendy Kopp? After leading Teach For America’s growth and development for 24 years, in 2013, Wendy transitioned out of the role of CEO. In Wendy’s acceptance of the medal she asked what Benjamin Franklin would make of today’s world.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Congress Reaches Deal on Omnibus Spending Bill The Teacher Quality Partnership grants and the Special Education Personnel Preparation program are flat-funded. Title II-A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the School Leader Recruitment and Support Grants, and the overall budget for the Institute of Education Sciences are reduced.
2) Final edTPA submission date for 2016-17 is August 17^th. The 2017-2018 edTPA handbooks include no across-the-board changes and only minor changes for six fields—see http://edtpa.aacte.org/ [login required]. See edTPA.com for 2017-18 submission and reporting dates.

AERA/CAEP. Call for Manuscripts. Linking Teacher Preparation Program Design and Implementation to Outcomes for Teachers and Students

EdWeek.
1) Budget Deal for 2017 Includes Increases for Title I, Special Education However, Title II grants for teacher development would be cut by $294 million, down to about $2.1 billion for the rest of fiscal 2017.
2) Planning a Demo Lesson: Critical Thinking Is Key
3) Preschool Teachers Get a Boost in Teaching Early Math But while math experts have agreed that young children should get high-quality math instruction, little has changed in the professional lives of early-childhood educators
4) Teacher Turnover in Alaska is Costing the State $20 Million Annually University of Alaska President Jim Johnsen has made preparing more educators for the state’s classrooms a top priority.
5) Tiny New Mexico District Looks to End Master’s Degree Requirement for Teachers  … four states—Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, and New York—require teachers to earn a master’s degree for license advancement. But NCTQ is against such requirements.

Hechinger Report. What’s wrong with white teachers?: Closing the performance gap between black and white teachers means talking about racism

National Council for the Advancement of Educator Ethics (NCAEE). Ethics Survey [May 15 deadline]

NYTimes. School Vouchers Aren’t Working, but Choice Is On one side of the caricature are defenders of traditional public schools, who believe in generous funding, small class sizes and teacher training. On the other are so-called reformers, who believe in vouchers, charter schools and standardized tests.

The Atlantic.
1) How Central Park Could Fix Public Education Higher salaries can help retain effective teachers and lure smart people with an aptitude for instruction away from other jobs, but research points to an even more effective strategy: enhancing the social status of public-school teachers. “What we need,” says Smith’s colleague, Rabin, “is for teachers to be considered scholars.”
2) How Does Race Affect a Student’s Math Education? According to Battey, there are ways in which math teachers, math educators, and math researchers “are perpetuating racism in schools”—which is shaping the expectations, interactions, and kinds of mathematics that students experience.

THE Journal. First-Year Teachers More Confident in Tech but Use It Less Than Experienced Teachers

TheStarPress. Partnerships improve education opportunities In 2009, Ball State’s Teachers College designed an experimental immersive learning program for future elementary educators.

WashingtonPost.
1) Congressional budget deal wards off Trump’s wish list of higher-education cuts
2) James Meredith: This is what Martin Luther King Jr. would tell school ‘reformers’ Today, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are attempting to improve our schools with “school choice,” vouchers, charter schools, cyber-charters, privatization, putting uncertified “temp teachers” with six weeks training into our highest-needs schools…
3) Under pressure to contain tuition, colleges scramble for other revenue Beacon College [FL]… also signed a contract with the United Arab Emirates under which it will be paid to train teachers there.

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED.
1) Notice of Proposed Rule Making was published in the New York State Register on March 29, 2017. NYSED will accept comments on the proposed teacher certification amendments until May 15. Send comments to [email protected] (link sends e-mail).
2) Proposed Amendment to Add a New Section 80-5.23 to the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education to Establish a Residency Certificate for Students Enrolled in a Classroom Academy Residency Pilot Program.
3) State Education Department Announces 13 Public Meetings To Be Held To Receive Comment On Draft Every Student Succeeds Act Plan

PoliticoNewYork. Excelsior Effect: Restrictions dramatically cut eligibility for free tuition

NEW YORK CITY
NYTimes.
1) Chancellor Praises de Blasio’s Education Gains as Debate to Control Schools Nears “He’s not in any way radical with his reforms,” Priscilla Wohlstetter, a distinguished research professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said of Mr. de Blasio. “It’s all been fairly incremental given the national scene.”
2) Sometimes the Birds and the Bees Get Short Shrift in School …of more than 15,000 instructors who taught health in the city last year, only 153 were licensed in health. (About 12,000 were elementary schoolteachers, who typically teach multiple subjects and are unlikely to be licensed in health.)