Month: October 2018

GLOBAL
Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Dearth of Black Male Teachers Discussed at Colloquium   Colleges and universities should be much more aggressive in recruiting and preparing Black males to become school teachers. That was one of the many sentiments expressed on Thursday among scholars and practitioners who gathered at the International Colloquium on Black Males in Education in Dublin.

Tes. Does personality count when it comes to teaching?   If schools could screen recruits to ensure they have the right character for the job, it could improve retention and boost pupils’ attainment. But, says Marc Smith … in the grip of a recruitment crisis, would we want to limit the pool of applicants based on perceived personality traits?

Unite for Quality Education. Argentina, profit now guides education policy making   The team have mapped the various actors in the sector – some of them very recognisable – like the Varkey Foundation and the franchise ‘Teach for America’ – as these are global education players and brands.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Radio Interview Highlights Emerging Technologies in Educator Preparation   Every pre-service teacher at NSU is required to take an emerging technologies course that includes the robotics unit where the candidates build and program their own robot. The course prepares teacher candidates of every subject to enter the classroom ready to use robotics as part of their curriculum if they choose to do so.

AACTE/SCALE. 2018 Teacher Performance Assessment Conference [Oct. 19-20] Incl. edTPA’s Focus on Academic Language and its Influence on the Feedback Teacher Candidates Provide on Student Assessments, Brandie Waid (TC PhD ’18), Drew University & Benjamin Bailey, Teachers College, Columbia University

Casper Star Tribune. Fewer educators graduating from UW is warning sign of teaching crisis to come, dean warns   Enrollment at the University of Wyoming’s College of Education has fallen by a quarter in recent years, its top administrator warned lawmakers recently as he sought to ring the bell about a looming teacher shortage that some districts are already feeling.

Education Week.
1) 5 Things to Know About Today’s Teaching Force  There has been a huge increase in new hires of teachers, and while many of those are recent college graduates, others are leaving another career to join teaching.
2) How History Class Divides Us  Keffrelyn Brown, a professor of cultural studies in education at the University of Texas, Austin, who helps prepare teachers there, said the incoming candidates she works with often hold simplistic, myopic perspectives on race—the idea, for example, that racism is something that only occurred in the past or is limited only to certain individuals.
3) Teachers Criticize Their Colleges of Ed. for Not Preparing Them to Teach Reading   Reading, James said, should not be a guessing game, and it becomes one with the balanced literacy approach. She concluded: “I find it disheartening and sad that teachers in the field are more knowledgeable about current research and practices than your professors.”

Forbes. Want To Keep Students Engaged? Ask, Don’t Tell   For teachers who themselves were schooled in traditional classrooms, with rows of desks and a teacher lecturing, transforming a classroom into a bastion of active learning is no small feat… Fortunately, programs and initiatives across the country are working to help teachers incorporate more hands-on learning across the curriculum.

Hechinger Report.
1) Mississippi lags in computer science grads, teachers— but it has a plan to fix that   In 2016, the state failed to graduate any teachers certified in computer science
2) OPINION: The Opt Out movement is gaining ground, quietly  [by TC Asst. Prof. O. Pizmony-Levy]

Learning Policy Institute. The Tapestry of American Public Education: How Can We Create a System of Schools Worth Choosing for All?   States also vary in accountability requirements for charter schools. In all states, charter schools administer state assessments…Twenty-eight states require teachers to be certified; three states and the District of Columbia do not.

New York Times. Google Is Teaching Children How to Act Online. Is It the Best Role Model?  It has taken the lead partly by developing useful products specifically for teachers and students, rather than simply repurposing its consumer or business tools for school use. Millions of students now use Google Classroom, a classroom-management system that allows teachers to assign and correct lessons online.

Post Crescent. Across Wisconsin, ’emergency license’ teachers are running classrooms   Districts across Wisconsin fill positions with “emergency license” teachers. Here’s a look into what it’s like to teach while learning to teach.

Teaching Tolerance. Checking Yourself for Bias in the Classroom  Unconscious bias can shape the responses of even the most well-intentioned educators. But you can check yourself—one teacher shares how.

The Atlantic. What I Learned About Life at My 30th College Reunion: “Every classmate who became a teacher or doctor seemed happy,” and 29 other lessons from seeing my Harvard class of 1988 all grown up.

U.S. Education Dept. Education Secretary DeVos Announces Recipients of 2018 Terrel H. Bell Awards for Outstanding School Leadership  [Incl: Dr. Reginald Landeau, alumnus of The Columbia Coaching Certification Program at Teachers College]

Washington Post. Education professor: My students asked who I would vote for. Here’s what I told them.   And if I wanted to know how individual students were doing, I would simply ask a teacher. They really are quite good at describing the skills possessed by each of their students!

 

NEW YORK STATE
My Brothers Keeper. Teacher Opportunity Corps (TOC) II   The purpose of TOC II is to increase the rate of historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged individuals in teaching careers.

NYSUT. TOC support program helps aspiring teachers every step of the way   “The purpose of TOC is to increase the number of historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged individuals in teaching careers,” said Nancy Brown, dean of Old Westbury’s School of Education.

Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching.  Meeting Minutes – July 2018

WCNY Capital Press Room [15 min. radio interview] Teacher Recruitment Efforts   New York is on the verge of a massive teacher shortage. An upcoming conference will feature an initiative by education groups across the state to attract new teachers to New York’s schools.

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Teaching high schools get a boost as New York City works to diversify its educator corps   The city is set to go from five teaching-themed high schools two years ago to 25 schools with courses or clubs meant to set students on a path to heading their own classrooms. And Chancellor Richard Carranza is making a personal pledge to students who participate: Fulfill their goal of becoming teachers, and he’ll assure them a job.

City and State New York. The 2018 New York City 40 Under 40   [Incl: Matthew J. Camp Director of Government Relations, Teachers College] “It’s really important to know that Teachers College is a big place that does a lot of things.” Besides educating the next generation of educators, the school also focuses on health, psychology and advocacy.

City Limits. NYC’s Special Education System Feels the Impact of Teacher Shortages   According to state data, in the 2016-2017 school year, 49 percent of District 75 teachers had a Master’s or Doctorate, compared to 37 percent of total teachers in the state. But the data also indicated that 19 percent of D75 educators were teaching “out of certification,” compared to an average of 15.9 percent in New York City’s 32 other school districts.

GLOBAL
Daily Kos [OpEd] When the World Bank Endorses “Education Reform” We Need to Worry …in Kenya, Bridge continues to receive support from Pearson and the World Bank. Poor families and local governments pay fees to Bridge, whose “schools” employ unqualified teachers that follow the company’s scripted curriculum.

Daily Nation. Uncertainty as row on teachers entry grades rages   A number of private teachers training colleges are already admitting students with grade D as advised by Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) while public teacher’s colleges have only admitted those with grade C as they await further directive from the Ministry of Education.

Middle East Monitor. UK grants Egypt $16m to support education  According to the paper, the British fund will focus on “training teachers and supporting child education in various provinces”.

U.S. News and World Report. Fixing Mexico’s Education System  Meanwhile, the 2017 budget for teacher training was cut by nearly 40 percent.

 

UNITED STATES
100Kin10. 100Kin10’s “Teachers at Work” Report Illustrates how to Address Work Environment for Teachers in Schools  [100Kin10 is a national network committed to … adding 100,000 more, excellent STEM teachers to America’s classrooms by 2021.]

AACTE.
1) Marilyn Cochran-Smith to Open AACTE Annual Meeting [Feb. 22-24, Louisville, KY]
2) Share Your Feedback on Draft Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators

Chalkbeat.
1) In Colorado’s high-poverty schools, many teachers are just starting their careers   Colorado has experienced rapid population growth, increasing the demand for teachers, at the same time that experienced teachers are retiring or changing careers. That means more new teachers in Colorado classrooms, even as fewer students are entering teacher preparation programs.
2) Teachers getting better under Tennessee’s controversial evaluation system, says new analysis   Despite the upbeat assessments in the NCTQ, Brown, and FutureEd reports, the future of Tennessee’s teacher evaluation system — which is now fully integrated into other systems for teacher preparation, licensure, support, and dismissal — is uncertain due to testing headaches that call into question the evaluation’s accuracy and fairness.
3) Tennessee has a lot of early-career teachers, especially at schools with more students of color. Here’s why it matters. “We realize there are specific needs that teacher candidates need support and preparation for if they are going to be successful, particularly in urban school environments,” Hall said. “Many of our teacher graduates are of a different race, cultural background, or economic status than the students they are serving. They have to be prepared to address issues of equity and social justice if they are going to be successful in their classrooms.”

Education Week. ‘They Didn’t Have My Back’: Teachers Sue Student-Loan Servicer Navient   Student debt is an “epidemic” among educators and other public service workers, said AFT President Randi Weingarten, in a statement… “But we cannot attract the best and brightest to these careers if promises of debt relief are deliberately broken.”

Hechinger Report.
1) Students analyze rap lyrics with code in digital humanities class   … commitments from 13 universities across 10 states to create or expand teacher prep courses in computer science.
2) To boost preschool quality, Massachusetts invests in college degrees for teachers  To ensure that all children have access to preschool teachers who have deep and practical knowledge, state officials are building multiple pathways to a bachelor’s degree in early education.

Inside Higher Ed.
1) A Higher Ed Report Card   Graduate teacher education is uneven in quality. Perhaps most significantly, the Ph.D system seems broken, or at least in serious jeopardy, with time to degree, graduate student teaching compensation, and over-production of graduates all of deep concern.
2) Prices Level Off — for Now

USA Today. We followed 15 of America’s teachers on a day of frustrations, pressures and hard-earned victories   “She flat out just could not make ends meet. … It’s aggravating to go to college to be a teacher, take the classes, undergo staff development and then give it all up. We’re highly trained. When one of us quits, that’s man hours, money and experience out the door.”

Washington Post. The American tradition of caging children   Here’s a look at the American tradition of caging children by Lalitha Vasudevan, a professor of technology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she is also director of the Media and Social Change Lab.

 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Regents: October Meetings, Higher Education Committee.
1) Appointments to the State Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching
2) Proposed Amendments Would Expand List of Eligible Certificate Titles for Certain Teachers of SWD, Extend Certain CTE Certificates to Grades 5 and 6  [60-Day Public Comment Periods Begin October 31]
3) Proposed Amendments to Sections 80-3.15 and 80-4.3 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Addition of Certificate Titles Eligible for Grade Level Extensions, Limited Extensions, and a Statement of Continued Eligibility for Cer

 

NEW YORK CITY
City Limits. Will the City’s New Schools Contract Reduce the Unequal Impact of Teacher Turnover?   Ostensibly, alternative certification pathways help nascent teachers get certified while working, particularly those who could not afford to go without an income during teacher training. The Learning Policy Institute controlled for characteristics like age and experience, and found that alternative certification educators left the classroom (whether for another school or out of teaching altogether) at higher rates.

The 74. 12 Surprising Quotes From New York City Schools Chief Richard Carranza, From Gifted & Talented to His Union Boss Best Buddy  12. On educator preparation programs: “We’re training teachers for a generation that’s passed.”

GLOBAL
Chalkbeat. Time to change how we think about early education, international study finds   The project, published in September as a book called “The Early Advantage: Early Childhood Systems that Lead by Example,” takes a deep look at services for young children in Australia, England, Finland, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore. The work was led by Sharon Lynn Kagan, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and Yale University.

TES [UK]. ‘We need to talk about alternative provision’  … address a problem identified by many new teachers: that they don’t get enough training or practice in effective behaviour management or special educational needs. 

The Guardian. Teacher crisis hits London as nearly half quit within five years   The PAC accused the government of spending too much on training new teachers (£555m) and not enough (36m) on retaining and developing existing ones.

 

UNITED STATES

Atlanta Journal Constitution. This Life: Clayton charter school an academic role model  …Artesius Miller… Teachers College at Columbia was the best place to prepare him for a career in school leadership… The academy is now able to invest in its teachers, helping them gain certification. Its arts curriculum has won praise from Richard Woods, Georgia’s school superintendent.

Bloomberg. When ‘School Choice’ Means the Opposite”   However, the solutions offered by proponents of market-based reforms include rolling back charter-school regulations, such as teacher-licensing requirements, and allowing more groups to approve new charter schools.

Chalkbeat. Three big differences on Tennessee education heading into Dean and Lee’s final debate   …Lee told Chalkbeat earlier this year. “That begins by working with our state universities and colleges of education to ensure they are driving quality training for early childhood educators, while at the same time working with local education agencies to set goals for improvement and identify best practices across the state.”

EdSource. Amidst teacher shortage new funds help districts train more bilingual teachers   As some districts in California struggle to expand their bilingual programs under a new state law, more than a dozen school districts and county offices of education have received state funding to increase the number of bilingual teachers — an effort that has been hindered by an ongoing teacher shortage.

Forbes. Ready To Retire, But Not Done? It’s Time For An Education Corps [OpEd by M. Krislov, Pace Univ. Pres.]   Colleges and universities can support the effort, by embracing nontraditional students and helping eager seniors get the training they’ll need to perform best in classrooms.

Hechinger Report. Five elements of a good preschool: How parents and educators can gauge preschool quality  What you can ask: What’s your training and how long have you been teaching?

Teaching Channel. Un-Columbus Day. Here are some tips on how to reframe how we teach Columbus Day:…

U.S. Education Dept. 2018 Teacher Quality Partnership Grants, 17 new awardees

U.S. News and World Report. Unaccompanied and Uneducated: The Billions Spent at the Border   He says most of the teachers, which Southwest Key hires itself, are either retired or recent college graduates.

 

NEW YORK STATE
Democrat and Chronicle. Let’s get the word out: Teaching is a noble profession   About one-third of the state’s 210,000 classroom teachers are at — or approaching — retirement age.  The SUNY chancellor predicted in 2017 our state would need 180,000 new teachers in the next decade just to make up for retirements and resignations.  Yet, despite this growing demand for educators, enrollment in state college and university teacher preparation programs has fallen by nearly 50 percent since 2009. 

NYSATE/NYACTE. 2018 Fall Conference Program [Saratoga Springs, Oct. 10-12]

New York State United Teachers. Take a Look at Teaching

Rochester First. NYSUT launches campaign focused on combating teacher shortages   New York State United Teachers will focus their new campaign on adding more teachers. It’s aimed at younger students interested in the profession, helping them navigate their way to becoming an educator.

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) After fanfare, inside the Bronx classroom of New York’s Teacher of the Year   Susso followed this advice and fulfilled part of his student-teaching requirement at International Community High School in the Bronx. The principal was so impressed, she promised him a job once he got his master’s degree.
2) New York City teachers will be screened for ‘suitability’ under new union contract   Is there a way to have pre-service screening that gives us an indication that, ‘Yup, you’re suitable for this profession,’ or ‘Perhaps you should do something else,’” Carranza said at a press conference.

GLOBAL
Independent. New [UK] government funding for schools and colleges is ‘drop in the ocean’, headteachers say   New government funding for a series of initiatives to boost technical education and teacher training opportunities has been criticised by headteachers as being a mere “drop in the ocean”.

New York Times. Mexican Students Massacred by Army in 1968, by Gangs Today  …nobody has ever found the bodies of 43 students at a rural teachers’ college who were kidnapped by police and turned over to a drug gang in September 2014 

Sydney Morning Herald. New Zealand to recruit hundreds of overseas teachers   …New Zealand teachers working overseas and overseas-trained teachers willing to teach in areas and subjects under pressure were being sought.

UNESCO. 5 questions on the right to a qualified teacher   A qualified teacher is commonly defined as a teacher who has at least the minimum academic qualifications required for teaching subjects at the relevant level in a given country. However, this definition does not include the notion of trained teachers, which refers to teachers who have received at least the minimum organized pedagogical training (pre-service and in-service) required for teaching at the relevant level.

 

UNITED STATES
Associated Press.
1) Teachers union sues student loan servicer Navient   At the center of the lawsuit, brought by nine teachers financially backed by the country’s biggest teachers union, is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
2) Oklahoma emergency teacher certificates surpass 2,500   The certificates allow people without a state teaching license to teach in a classroom for two years while they complete training.

Chalkbeat.
1) How Indiana’s largest school district is revamping student teaching   More than 100 teachers chosen through an application process will participate in a new, organized teacher training program. As clinical prep teacher leaders, they are paid at least $1,000 per semester to take on student teachers.
2) McCormick asks Indiana lawmakers for charter school oversight and preschool support in 2019   Her agenda also includes plans to create a single school rating system, increase teacher license flexibility within the state and reciprocity between Indiana and other states, and restore the state’s emergency permits for speech language pathologists.

CPRE Knowledge Hub. The Future of Brazil’s “Common Core” [by TC Prof. D. Ready]   With limited financial resources, how will Brazil’s two million teachers be trained to implement the BNCC?

Education Week.
1) A Recording Studio for Every Student: Teaching Music Class in the Digital Era   But new music teachers often don’t have experience using digital production software, or even composing in a classroom setting, said Brian Meyers, an assistant professor in the department of music at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who works with preservice music educators…
2) How to Teach Boys to Be Better Men [commentary]
3) In Lawsuit, Teachers Claim Loan Provider Misinformed Them on Debt Forgiveness   A 2014 report from the think tank Third Way found that only 32 percent of current and incoming teachers knew about the federal loan-forgiveness program, even though about two-thirds of teachers borrow to pay for their education.
4) See the New Federal Education Budget Signed Into Law by Donald Trump   The spending package largely ignores the push from Trump and DeVos to create new school choice programs, as well as their proposals to cut the Education Department’s overall budget.
5) There Are Many More Female STEM Teachers Now Than 20 Years Ago   STEM teachers today are also more likely to have attended a selective college, have a graduate degree, and have majored or been certified in a STEM field. 

Hechinger Report. TEACHER VOICE: ‘I was quickly overwhelmed’ — The case for mentoring new instructors

Macarthur Fellows Program, Class of 2018. Vijay Gupta, Violinist and Social Justice Advocate, faculty member of the Longy School of Music of the Bard College Masters of Arts in Teaching Program

National Center on Education and the Economy. The Early Advantage 1 Book Release  [Oct. 9 1:00 pm]  …first of two books that together will form the centerpiece of the multi-year Early Advantage international comparative study led by world-renowned early childhood researcher Sharon Lynn Kagan, with funding and support from NCEE.

NEAToday. Study Upends Conventional Wisdom About Private School Advantages   “Instead of just looking at whether a school is private or public, [parents] may want to look at the type of preparation and pedagogy the teachers have had or the type of curriculum a school offers. Are the teachers certified or not?”

New York Times.
1) Are You a Visual or an Auditory Learner? It Doesn’t Matter [Opinion]  These theories are influential enough that many states (including New York) require future teachers to know them and to know how they might be used in the classroom. But there’s no good scientific evidence that learning styles actually exist.
2) Wasted Ballots? A Lesson Exploring Why More Young People Don’t Vote, and What Students Can Do About It

U.S. Department of Education. Teacher Shortage Areas Data for years 1990-1991 through the 2017-2018 school years is [sic] available…

 

NEW YORK STATE
New 10. NY facing teacher shortage   The state’s council of superintendents and the teacher’s union have been teaming up to figure out new ways to motivate future teachers. There are programs such as grow your own, which encourages students in high school to return to their hometown to be a teacher.

New York State Education Department.
1) Office of Higher Education September Newsletter
a) Professional Learning and CTLE for Teachers Who Work with Teacher Candidate
b) Initial Certification for Individuals Who Have At Least Two Years of Postsecondary Teaching Experience.
c) ADDITIONAL ELEMENTARY EDUCATION EDTPA HANDBOOK

2) Open Public Comment Period
a) Proposed amendment to regulations related to initial certificate requirements for individuals who have a graduate degree & 2 years of post-secondary teaching experience in the area of the certificate sought.
b) Proposed amendments to educator preparation program requirements to permit the establishment of innovative principal preparation pilot programs

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Six unintended consequences that could result from the District 15 middle school admissions plan   “It’s a bit of a myth that any school has any one type of student,” said Lenore DiLeo Berner, the principal of M.S. 51… teachers “have been trained to teach all kinds of students, all kinds of learners.”