Month: February 2019

GLOBAL
Australian Teacher Education Association. Conference 2019 Call for Abstracts [deadline 8 March 2019]

Education HQ. Labor to offer bursaries for best teachers A Labor federal government would offer Australia’s “best and brightest” tax-free bursaries of $40,000 to become teachers.

EducationNext. Do Smarter Teachers Make Smarter Students? We consider data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an association of 36 largely developed countries…research conducted within the U.S. and in other settings has shown that common measures of teacher qualifications such as advanced degrees, experience levels, and professional preparation are not consistently related to classroom effectiveness.

South China Morning Post. Just 24 teachers in four years finish course and collect Education Bureau grant to improve their skills teaching Chinese as a second language in Hong Kong, watchdog finds   Cheung agreed that those qualified to teach non-Chinese students the language were few and far between and that there should be a mandated percentage of how many teachers should be trained in the specific area, similar to that of special education needs.

Teachers College. Talking Out of School: TESOL authority John Fanselow on how to disobey the rules   “Since I first was asked to supervise teachers practice teaching in a teacher training college in Nigeria 57 years ago, I have seen teacher preparation and ways to improve teaching and learning as a joint enterprise of exploration rather than a series of directives from ministries, school districts and politicians to implement,” writes Fanselow, who worked for the Peace Corps in Africa throughout the 1960s, in his introduction to Small Changes.  

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE 71^st Annual Meeting. Award and research presentations, keynote speeches by Marilyn Cochran Smith, Mary Dilworth, Leslie Fenwick… [Feb. 22-24, Louisville, KY]

EdSource. Support, strengthen education reforms in California, new report urges: Learning Policy Institute cites signs of progress, much work to be done   And to build a “strong stable” workforce of teachers, the state should consider forgivable loans and scholarships, teacher residencies and adequate mentoring for beginning teachers, the report urged.

EdWeek.
1) Are Teach For America Members Allowed to Go on Strike?
2) ‘Teach to One’ Personalized-Learning Model Has No Effect on Students’ Math Scores, Federal Evaluation Finds “There is no causal evidence that Teach to One has either positive or negative effects on student outcomes,” said Douglas D. Ready, the director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, in an interview.

Hechinger Report.
1) How grassroots efforts are trying to solve the teacher shortage crisis: One teacher at a time, nonprofit groups try to address the lack of teachers in the Mississippi Delta.   To become certified in Mississippi, teachers must meet three requirements: Earn a bachelor’s degree; complete a traditional or alternate teacher training program; and pass the Praxis.
2) Teacher shortages force districts to use online education programs   One basic marker of quality is certification, meaning teachers have been trained in the subjects or grade level they’re teaching. Generally, schools with a higher population of at-risk students — those who are low-income, English language learners, or students of color — tend to have more teachers who lack full state certification.

Learning Policy Institute. Why Our Education Funding Systems Are Derailing the American Dream   In New Jersey, for example, the state responded to a school finance lawsuit by funding high-quality, full-day pre-k programs for 3- and 4-year-olds in the state’s highest poverty districts and investing in certification and training for all preschool teachers.

National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education. Puerto Rico Charter Sector to Take Off   Teachers in Puerto Rico retained their jobs after María, and the presence of their union remained strong, constituting a significant obstacle to plans for a transformation of the island’s school system akin to the overhaul in New Orleans.

The Atlantic. The U.S. Teaching Population Is Getting Bigger, and More Female …research shows that fewer female college students are seeking teaching degrees: In the late 1970s, roughly a third of the women enrolled in U.S. colleges were majoring in education; today the share has dropped to 11 percent.

 

NEW YORK STATE
Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching
1) November 2018 meeting minutes
2) December 2018 meeting minutes

WKTV. Utica College Offers Program To Ease Teacher Shortage, Helping Local Districts In Need   “New York State is now an extremely high demand low supply so the Transition B Program is helping to fill that gap,” said Richard Moon, P-12 liasion and coordinator of student teaching at Utica College. The Teacher Certification Program allows aspiring teachers to secure full-time employment in local schools via an alternative pathway to certification…

 

NEW YORK CITY
Gotham Gazette. A Fairer New York City Requires Salary Parity for the Early Childhood Workforce   CBO early educators that hold a bachelor’s degree earn a starting salary of just over $42,000 and those with a master’s degree earn a starting salary of nearly $48,000; compared to starting salaries of nearly $58,000 and just over $65,000 for prekindergarten teachers with bachelor’s or master’s degrees, respectively, at DOE schools…

Teachers College Peace Corps Fellows Program. PeaceMakers Speakers Series: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams [March 1, 6pm]

GLOBAL
Skill Reporter. Punjab Government to appoint ‘Teacher Educators’ for imparting skill development to teachers

Teachers College. Broadening a Fruitful Partnership: A generous new gift from the Lemann Foundation brings TC researchers to Brazil   Professor of Early Childhood Education Mariana Souto-Manning is leading a three-year project titled Transforming Teacher Education Research in Brazil: An Equity Imperative…

Tes. [UK]
1) Need to know: Hinds’ teacher recruitment and retention strategy   And it adds that the initial teacher training (ITT) market is overly complex.
2) New teachers suffered from mental health cuts as pupils   The pupil-wellbeing crisis in UK schools is filtering through to teachers, as growing numbers of trainees turn up with “severe” mental health problems, it was revealed today.

Queens University Journal. Education production aims to Get Schooled   Musical brings student teacher experience on stage

 

UNITED STATES
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). Online Event Planner 71st Annual Meeting [Louisville, Feb. 22-24]

Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation(CAEP). 2019 Spring CAEP Conference[Denver, Mar. 19-20]

Ed-Fi Alliance. Ed-Fi Alliance Extends Technology Model to Bring Benefits of Data Interoperability to Higher Education: New Community-Led Effort Focuses on Bringing Comprehensive Data to Teacher Preparation Programs Across the Country

EdSource. Gov. Newsom names new head of State Board of Education in California   Darling-Hammond, who currently chairs the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, will succeed another Stanford professor emeritus, Michael Kirst…

EdWeek.
1) Denver Teacher Strike Continues as District and Union Inch Closer to a Resolution   The lawsuit is seeking a court order to ensure the district provide the necessary special education services to students with disabilities—by having properly trained staff members care for those students instead of substitutes…
2) Public School Strikes Revive Clash With Teach for America   …hundreds of Teach for America alumni criticized the educator placement program for suggesting corps members who strike in Oakland would lose thousands of dollars promised to them at the end of their two-year service commitment… losing their ties to AmeriCorps, which offers award money at the end of their service and bans striking.
3) What Kind of Programs Can Help Teacher Diversity?   Teachers of color are more likely to enter the classroom via alternative route programs as compared to white teachers. However, little is known about how and why these programs can produce diverse teacher candidates. 

InsideHigherEd. More Time to Comment on Title IX Rule   …because of technical issues on the regulations.gov site that may have prevented some from submitting comments on the day of the deadline, Jan. 30. This is the second time the department has extended the public comment process for the rule because of technical issues.

NEPC. Radical Eyes for Equity: Evidence v. Advocacy in Teaching Reading: “We Should Not Mistake Zeal for Warrant”   During the current media blitz once again hand-wringing that children are not being taught to read because teachers are not prepared properly in teacher education and students are not receiving intensive phonics instruction, Willingham held forth on his blog to answer: Just how polarized are we about reading instruction?

NYTimes. Denver Teachers Once Hailed Performance-Based Pay. Now They’re on Strike Over It.  … teachers say they are struggling to pay off student loans and cannot afford rent, much less buy a home.

Scientific American. Black Mathematical Excellence: A Q&A with Erica Walker  [TC Clifford Brewster Upton Professor of Mathematical Education] As a mathematics educator, I also really wanted to shed some light on the mathematics education of these amazing people—and how their rich and varied stories about doing math in and out of school could positively influence how we help young people engage in mathematics today.

Southern Regional Education Board. STATE POLICIES TO IMPROVE TEACHER PREPARATION: Report of the SREB Teacher Preparation Commission

The74.
1) Analysis — The Uncertain Future of Teaching: How Personalization, Specialization, Soft Skills, and a Talent Shortage Could Reshape the Profession   …advocates of teacher preparation reform have long called for new teachers to get more clinical practice and “learn by doing.” Building from that spirit, training institutions might develop new expertise and roles by partnering with innovative schools on residency-based training experiences.
2) Presidential Candidate Cory Booker Reflects on the School Reforms He Brought to Newark as Mayor and the Education Legacy He’s Left Behind   We’re going to get the charters to help with the districts [on teacher training], so create one melded system. 

USA Today. The internet is sowing mass confusion. We must rethink how we teach kids every subject.   We will need to develop new approaches to professional development for teachers, who sometimes are as confused as their students. And we’ll have to overhaul teacher education, so that new teachers feel prepared when they tell kids to open their Chromebooks.

US News & World Report. Report Shows 30,000 Oklahoma Teachers Have Left Profession   The report highlights several effects of the state’s ongoing teacher shortage, including teacher-student ratios and an increasing number of emergency-certified educators who are teaching subjects in which they lack expertise.

WDJT-Milwaukee. Wisconsin educators look to retain teachers amid shortage   Wisconsin’s teacher shortage led to the loosening of restrictions in 2016 to allow educators to teach subjects that they might not have credentials in, and to expand pathways to the classroom for applicants who went through an alternative certification program.

WHYY. What’s the best way to teach math?   Caroline Ebby teaches aspiring math teachers at the University of Pennsylvania. She said the issue is that, in the U.S. people learn math as a set of rules to follow.

 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Regents February Meeting. Consent Agenda.
1) Appointments to the State Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching (PSPB)
2) Proposed Amendments to Sections 52.21 and 80-4.3 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Creation of an Extension for Holders of the Career and Technical Education Certificate to Teach Grades 5 and 6
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
Chalkbeat. New raises continue to leave some New York City pre-K teachers behind   Over the four-year term of that agreement, salaries will increase from $40,000 to $50,000 for certified teachers with a master’s degree. Teachers with lower degrees will still earn far more under the new UFT contract…

CUNY. Queens College President Félix V. Matos Rodríguez Named Chancellor Of City University Of New York

Gothamist. NYC Student Activists Demand More Teachers Of Color, Fewer Police Officers In Schools   A DOE spokesperson said many of the improvements students want were underway. For example, the NYC Men Teach initiative is working to bring 1,000 teachers of color into city schools. 

NYTimes. Saturdays in the Bronx With Bach   Nearly every weekend for the past 28 years, local children have flocked to the Bronx Conservatory of Music for very low-cost instruction in classical music… The teachers at the conservatory are mostly young graduates or postgraduates from schools in and around New York: Juilliard, Mannes, the Manhattan School of Music. 

 

GLOBAL
Association of Teacher Educators (ATE). Annual Meeting 2019, Robert J. Stevenson Memorial Lecture to be delivered by Dean A. Lin Goodwin of Hong Kong Univ. [Atlanta Feb. 16-20]

Brisbane Times. Queensland minister calls for mature-age teachers amid nationwide shortage“Hence my urging to students and mature-aged people who want to enter an excellent profession: teaching is a great job.”

EdSurge. How Much Artificial Intelligence Should There Be in the Classroom?    China is also facing a shortage of qualified teachers in many rural areas, and there’s a huge demand for high-quality language teachers and tutors throughout the country… Li painted AI as not just some pale substitute, but as ultimately superior to humans when it comes to some aspects of teaching

NZHerald. Teacher shortage: One in six Auckland schools starting year with vacancies   Teaching Council data shows that 858 overseas-trained teachers were registered in New Zealand for the first time last year, a record in the period since 2011 for which the data were available.

TES. ‘The inherent flaw in testing 5-year-olds’   In 2016 the UK government Department for Education’s white paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, misrepresented the views of Ian Menter, an emeritus professor of teacher education at the University of Oxford. In a delicious irony, an aim of the paper was to “ensure discredited ideas unsupported by firm evidence are not promoted to new teachers”. 

 

UNITED STATES
Chalkbeat. Memphis board votes to close Gateway; embattled charter school will shutter in May, unless state board steps in  Several of those allegations, including that the school falsified a geometry class and relied on uncertified teachers, were substantiated in the district investigation.

Clarion-Ledger. Licensure requirements could change to combat teacher shortage   Five years ago, Mississippi enacted a law mandating entrants to the state’s teacher colleges make a 21 on the ACT … Under Senate Bill 2482, aspiring educators can gain admission to a teacher preparation program by making a 3.0 GPA on pre-major coursework. The state Department of Education estimates some 300 educators could be added to the state’s teacher workforce if the new measure becomes law.

EducationDive. Ed Dept. ‘not wedded’ to its proposed accreditation rules  Jones said the department is not committed to the definition it proposed but rather was exploring whether accreditors would be better defined by mission as opposed to geography, as they are currently. 

EdWeek.
1) TEACH Grant Recipients With Loan Debt May Soon Hear From the Ed. Department  The U.S. Department of Education announced on Thursday that it would be reaching out to some educators who saw their grant aid turned into loans under a federal financial aid program for teachers, beginning a reconsideration process that could result in these debts being forgiven.
2) What Is Social Justice Education Anyway?[by C. Belle, TC PhD ‘15]  As the director of a teacher-education program, one of my primary goals upon stepping into this role was building a vision that honors social justice teaching and learning practices. 

Getting Smart. Creating a More Inclusive School Community Starts With Intentional Support for Teachers  In our work preparing teachers through residencies, we find it most successful to partner with districts, like Passaic Public Schools where we have provided programs for veteran teachers to support their continued professional growth.

Hechinger Report.
1) Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out  In 2015, Jennifer Vetter decided to change careers and become a teacher… quit her well-paying management job… to go back to college full-time and become a special-education teacher. She received a scholarship to earn her master’s in education… Vetter did the math… Weekly, she made about $300.
2) Online prekindergarten access and funds for school counselors among bills proposed in Mississippi this year  House Bill 89 would establish a scholarship program to recruit and educate individuals to teach English language learners, with a specific focus on enlisting as teachers Hispanic or Latino students currently enrolled in higher education programs.

InsideHigherEd.
1) Alexander Wants New Higher Ed Law by End of Year A top staffer for Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Senate education committee, said Monday that the senator wants to pass a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act before Christmas.
2) Free College Idea Hinges on Merger With K-12 Davis Jenkins, a senior research associate with the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said he couldn’t imagine the benefits of such a merger.

Seattle Times.
1) Be a part of the solution to Washington state’s teacher shortage   Many people probably think that if they didn’t study education in undergrad or get certified to teach right after college that they’ve already missed the boat. But with a teacher shortage in Washington state, there are actually many degree and certification options that you can look into.
2) ‘Students need to see themselves’: What some teachers had to say about our teacher diversity project

WRAL. WRAL anchor Lena Tillett investigates diversity in NC’s colleges of education  In North Carolina, nearly 50 colleges – both public and private – offer teacher preparation programs. They serve as the major supplier of teachers for this state.

 

NEW YORK STATE
NY Daily News. NYS set to ban teachers from carrying guns in school under sweeping gun control measures   Tom King, an NRA board member from New York and president of the state Rifle and Pistol Association…said teachers should be allowed to carry guns as long as they are trained, though he prefers schools hire armed security “just like the legislators have in the Capitol and the Legislative Office Building.”

NYSED Commissioner Elia. 2019 Higher Education Budget Testimony  Increase Access to Higher Education – Teacher Opportunity Corps II

NYSED Office of Higher Education. January Newsletter
1) CST Safety Nets Expiring June 30, 2019
2) Director of Certification Position Posted.
3) Fingerprinting Feel Increase.
4) Initial Certification for Individuals Who Have At Least Two Years of Postsecondary Teaching.
5) Institutional Recommendations in TEACH
6) New Office of College and University Evaluation (OCUE) website

New York Times. New York Joins Movement to Abandon Use of Student Tests in Teacher Evaluations  “Most parents believe their local school and teachers are good. To have evaluations that contradict that creates some dissonance,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “The state tests seem so far removed from day-to-day classroom practice.”

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Amazon to offer computer science at 100-plus NYC schools, but most are already part of the mayor’s computer science program  None of the Edhesive courses listed on its website require teachers to have any previous computer science training, and much of the instruction is conducted digitally.

Dayone Amazon Blog. Amazon to fund computer science classes in more than 130 NYC high schoolsAmazon’s funding provides preparatory lessons, tutorials, and professional development for teachers; fully sequenced and paced digital curriculum for students; and live online support every day of the week for both teachers and students. 

Medium. I teach them Creative Tech; they teach me a whole new world [By M. Chan, TC EdD student]  At Teachers College, I was fortunate to be selected for the Arthur Zankel Urban Fellowship 2018–19, which provided me an opportunity to teach an after-school program in Creative Technologies at a public elementary school in Harlem.