Month: March 2019

GLOBAL
ABC News. Teaching students are being employed in the classroom rather than heading to university   Some Australian schools have started using a new tertiary training model that allows prospective teachers to skip attending a university, instead giving them “hands-on” in-classroom experience as paid employees.

Association for Teacher Education in Europe. 2019 Annual Conference: Bath Spa University UK 14-16 August. Abstract submission deadline 31 Mar.

Education International. Iraq: Kurdistan’s education unionists take stock of obstacles to quality education system   The conference discussed several important topics, including: Teaching methods and ways to better prepare teachers professionally; Admission of students to universities, trying to balance their education wishes for university departments and colleges with their potential…

TES [UK]. Trainee teachers with more friends less likely to quit ‘Personal and professional relationships enhance resilience’, study finds

The East African. Kenya’s Peter Tabichi crowned world’s best teacher  …a teacher at Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School in Pwani Village in Nakuru, a town 160km southeast of Nairobi, won the $1m prize on Sunday….the 36-year-old Egerton University graduate … Mr Tabichi, who is also a Franciscan brother, has been a teacher for 12 years.

UNITED STATES
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
1) #AACTE19 Opening Keynote Speakers Discuss Accountability in Teacher Education   Cochran-Smith …co-authored, Reclaiming Accountability in Teacher Education, in which she and her colleagues analyze the major accountability initiatives: the Department of Education regulations, CAEP accreditation procedures, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) teacher preparation reviews, and edTPA.
2) Deeper Dive panel examined winning strategies to address teacher shortage in diverse communities

Belleville News-Democrat. Teacher licensing tests come under fire in Illinois   Scherer, however, focused much of her attention on the edTPA program, which she faulted for being too expensive for many… With an average of 5,000 prospective new Illinois teachers taking that test each year, at a cost of $300 per test, Scherer noted that equates to $1.5 million a year going to Pearson — a number she repeated with emphasis several times.

California Legislature. Assembly Bill-221 Teach for America teachers: assignment prohibition in low-income schools.  This bill would prohibit, commencing with the 2020–21 school year, Teach for America teachers from being assigned, pursuant to the Teach for America program, to teach at any California public school, including a charter school, that has at least 40% of its pupils being from low-income families…

Education Policy Institute. The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought: The first report in “The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series    The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought. When indicators of teacher quality (certification, relevant training, experience, etc.) are taken into account, the shortage is even more acute than currently estimated… 

Education Week.
1) Are Teacher Shortages Worse Than We Thought?  Alternative-certification programs bring in more teachers of color, male teachers, and teachers who attended selective colleges than traditional prep programs do, past reports have found. But research has also found that alternatively certified teachers quit at higher rates and report feeling less prepared than their traditionally certified colleagues.
2) Mock Auctions. Pretending to Flee Captors. Do Simulations Have a Place in Lessons on Slavery?   Many say educators need more guidance on how to teach slavery. At the elementary school level, especially, teachers are often reading or math specialists, and don’t have specialized training or content knowledge in social studies, said Costello of Teaching Tolerance.
3) States’ Standards for Teachers Don’t Define Culturally Responsive Teaching, Study Argues   New America’s report, and its call for more robust standards, aligns with work by the Council of Chief State School Officers and other organizations to diversify the nation’s teaching corps. The organizations argue that developing a diverse pool of educators trained to demonstrate culturally responsive teaching is crucial. Federal data indicate that 51 percent of public K-12 students in the United States are nonwhite, but only 20 percent of teachers are.
4) Three Things to Watch for When DeVos Defends Trump’s Budget to Congress   Some higher education issues Democrats could raise, like Trump’s proposal to eliminate Public Service Loan Forgiveness, would have links to K-12 education, since teachers are eligible for the program. Others, like an executive order about free speech on college campuses that the president unveiled Thursday, as well as Trump’s push to have higher education get “skin in the game” regarding college costs, wouldn’t directly involve K-12.  

Hechinger Report. The dark side of education research: widespread bias: Johns Hopkins study finds that insider research shows 70 percent more benefits to students than independent research

New York Times. [OpEd] Do You Speak My Language? You Should   Government spending on foreign-language education and the education of qualified foreign-language teachers needs to increase. More states need to enforce language-education requirements. Colleges need to recognize the importance of their foreign-language education programs. 

The Eagle. Texas A&M University System: Working to graduate more teachers   Texas A&M is the state’s largest producer of teachers in the high-need fields of math and science, as well as English language arts and reading. The college also ranks in the top 10 in the state for producing teachers in the areas of special education and bilingual education. In the 2017-2018 school year, we issued 929 certifications.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star. We need more teachers of color, so why do we use tests that keep them out of the classroom?   A recent report estimates that each year, the exam screens out approximately 8,600 of 16,900 aspiring teachers of color. This rate of exclusion surpasses that of white aspiring teachers by 27.5 percent. It’s not a new phenomenon, either. The trend goes back to the 1960s when states began to adopt these exams to improve the quality of teachers.

US New & World Report.
1) Lamont makes pitch for minority teacher legislation   Gov. Ned Lamont is making a pitch for legislation intended to help recruit more minority teachers for Connecticut’s classrooms… to urge support for his bill, which extends mortgage assistance and student loan forgiveness programs to graduates of historically black colleges and others.
2) Sisolak Names New York Educator as Nevada Superintendent

Washington Post.
1) A case for why both sides in the ‘reading wars’ debate are wrong — and a proposed solution   Here is our proposal: Teachers should know the rules of the English writing system when teaching children to read and write English. Children can be taught letter-sound correspondences AND the regular way that morphemes are spelled.
2) Kamala Harris: Our teacher pay gap is a national failure. Here’s how we can fix it.   The plan will also include a multibillion-dollar investment in evidence-based programs that elevate the teaching profession. Half of this funding would be dedicated to historically black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions, because more than 30 percent of all black teachers, and more than 40 percent of all Hispanic teachers, graduate from those schools.

WTXL. FL Board of Education votes to lower fees for examinees taking state teacher certification exam  Some fees to be reduced by up to 78% 

Yakima Herald. Editorial: State should end flawed system for entry into teacher programs   …the House recently unanimously passed HB1621, sponsored by 13th District Rep. Alex Ybarra, R-Quincy, that would still require teacher-program applicants to take the test but not have the results be the sole determinant for acceptance. The bill now is being heard in the Senate, where, barring unforeseen glitches, it also is expected to easily pass and await certain signing by Inslee.

NEW YORK STATE
New York State Association of Teacher Educators (NYSATE). Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 1

New York State Education Department Office of Higher Education. March Newsletter

The Saratogian. Regents member to visit local school   New York State Board of Regents member Beverly Ouderkirk will visit the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES region on Thursday…. focus attention on the Classroom Academy… the first two-year Master of Science for Teachers level residency model in the state.

Times Union. Reynolds seeks re-election to Saratoga Springs school board   Dr. Heather Reynolds … earned her master’s in education at Harvard University and completed a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan is an associate professor of teacher education at the State University of New York Empire State College.

NEW YORK CITY
Salon. The entrenched segregation of New York City’s public high schools   Amy Stuart Wells, a professor of sociology and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, explained…”In a post-racial era, we don’t have to say it’s about race or the color of the kids in the building… We can concentrate poverty and kids of color and then fail to provide the resources to support and sustain those schools, and then we can see a school full of black kids and then say, ‘Oh, look at their test scores.’ It’s all very tidy now, this whole system.”

GLOBAL
Columbia University Teachers College. Civic Education in the US and France Conference: Confronting Hatred and Threats to Democracy 28, March.   This conference will bring together educators from France and the U.S. to discuss how to improve civic education and better prepare our youth to be tolerant and engaged citizens, capable of safeguarding our democratic institutions against the dangers of hatred and racism. 

News Ghana. UNESCO, China to further enhance teachers’ capacity in Africa   The UNESCO-CFIT project on “Enhancing Teacher Education for Bridging the Education Quality Gap in Africa” was launched in 2012 with funding from the Chinese government. The project has so far benefited 10 African countries including Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.

UNESCO. The intersections between education, migration and displacement are not gender-neutral   In Dadaab, Kenya, the Borderless High Education for Refugees project trained 400 teachers through onsite and online courses at all levels and women were included through special affirmative action initiatives. 

World Education Blog. George teaches in a double-shift school in a refugee camp in Kenya to increase access to education  Only 8% of primary teachers had national certification, and 6 out of 10 refugee teachers were untrained. 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Board of Directors Elects New Leaders

American Institutes for Research. New Collaborations New, Approaches: Research for Improvement in Teacher Preparation

Education Week.
1) Bilingual Teachers Are in Short Supply. How Can Schools Cultivate Their Own?   Now, a Washington-based think tank has released a guide to help school districts and states that want to identify, develop, and hire bilingual educators in their own communities.
2) Dear White Teachers: You Can’t Love Your Black Students If You Don’t Know Them [OpEd]  Now my job is teaching future educators about what it takes to teach beautiful Black children. No matter where I go, when I ask future teachers why they want to teach–especially White women, who make up the vast majority of all teachers—their first or second answer is always: “I love children,” followed by, without taking a breath, “I love all children.” The word “all” is meant to signal, “I am not racist; I am fit to be in the classroom with children of color.”
3) Taking the Guesswork Out of Teacher Hiring  The central human resources office scores applicants based on recommendations and the experience and skills on their resumes. Then, principals look at the candidates who have met a particular cutoff score and do another round of evaluations before bringing prospective teachers in for interviews.
4) Who Should Improve the School Improvement Industry?  [by TC Prof. T. Hatch]  Our recent research brief and report documented more than 100 programs that work directly with students or teachers to improve reading outcomes in New York City public elementary schools.
5) Why Teacher-Student Relationships Matter: New findings shed light on best approaches   The study also found in an analysis of two of these programs that teachers trained in the instrumental focus were more likely to go on to teach in low-income, high-minority schools, while those trained in reciprocal relationships ended up in schools with more high-income and white students.

Chalkbeat. New teachers often get the students who are furthest behind — and that’s a problem for both   Improving teacher preparation could help, too. Research has found that pairing student teachers with effective mentors can boost novice teachers’ skills.

Inside Higher Ed.
1) Cornell, Harvard Drop GRE for English Ph.D.
2) White House Looks to Curb Student Lending  The proposed lending caps reflect a similar proposal in the PROSPER Act, a 2017 House Republican plan to overhaul the HEA. PROSPER called for annual limits of $28,500 for graduate students…

KGNS. TAMIU shaping tomorrow’s teachers    The program is called “We Teach Texas” and it’s a statewide campaign through the Texas A&M University system. The program focuses on encouraging students to consider careers in education.

Lowell Sun [MA]. Diversity in teaching workforce a “big deal” for state   …Lawrence managed to triple its number of Latino teachers, in part by looking within the school system… He said school officials looked to their paraprofessionals, many of whom were moms with kids in the district, and “got them trained up” to be teachers by providing test-taking support and financial help for needed coursework. Lawrence officials also reached out to graduates …and offered incentives like paying for master’s degrees or connecting them with a housing program to make homeownership affordable. 

NEAToday. 5 Key Trends in the Teacher Workforce  “Too often, researchers, school leaders, and policymakers are still operating under false assumptions about who goes into teaching and how teaching careers unfold,” Ingersoll said. “If we want to improve student performance, we must understand this new reality.”

NYTimes. Yes, You Can Play With Your Clothes: Fidget spinners are so 2017; in 2019, fidget fashion is on the rise   “My fidget jewelry helps with my own A.D.H.D. and anxiety, and people who compliment it are always surprised to hear it was designed to serve a purpose,” said Ms. Connell, 31, who has a master’s degree in disability studies from Columbia University Teachers College and lives in Denver. “Then they want to buy one for themselves, because who isn’t anxious these days? Society is moving toward understanding that fidgets can inspire concentration, focus and brainstorming — but you can’t pull out a fidget spinner in a board meeting.”

Post Register [Idaho Falls]. Many area teachers work multiple jobs to maintain, survive   “Most early career educators have to do something in order to supplement their (lives) and maintain and survive,” Overall said. “They’re students that are leaving with $80,000 in student debt, and that’s from Idaho universities, and they have to make ends meet with thirty-six, thirty-seven thousand dollars a year.”

Rapid City Journal.  Augustana University revives special ed master’s program   A university in Sioux Falls is reviving a teaching program after a 20-year hold to help put a dent in the nationwide special education teaching shortage. Augustana University will be launching an online-only master’s of arts and special education program this fall, in hopes of giving more teachers access to proper certifications, said Laurie Daily, chairwoman of the university’s education department.

The Herald Bulletin. Chris DeHart says he’s ‘an ordinary teacher in an extraordinary place’: Juvenile correctional educator will be teacher-in-residence at IU   His expert teaching has earned DeHart Indiana University’s Martha Lea and Bill Armstrong Teacher Educator Award. He will serve starting with a two-day retreat this summer as a teacher-in-residence at IU where he will help prepare future teachers for the classroom.

Washington Post. Why are teachers protesting in ‘blue’ cities?: Deep-pocketed national donors are changing local school politics.   …these donors have been, and continue to be, highly active national campaign contributors. Many serve on the boards of education nonprofits such as KIPP and Teach for America. [co-authored by TC Prof. J. Henig]

WPRI. Everything you should know about Rhode Island’s next education commissioner   [Infante-Green] graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo before earning master’s degrees in both education and school administration and supervision from Mercy College. Her career path has taken her from teaching in the South Bronx with Teach for America …has also held various leadership posts overseeing English language learner (ELL) programs in the New York City Department of Education and the NYSED.

NEW YORK STATE
NYS Legislature: Assembly Bill NY A06450, Senate Bill NY S04342. Relates to requiring the commissioner of education to establish and enforce rules and regulations to incorporate the structured multisensory approach into the already required literacy curriculum for all teachers.  The commissioner shall establish and enforce rules and regulations requiring every institution of higher education that offers a graduate or undergraduate degree or certification program in education or educational administration located within the state to incorporate evidence-based, effective methods of teaching reading, which shall include instruction in direct and explicit structured multisensory approaches, also known as structured literacy, within the current required literacy curriculum.

Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching. March Meetings Agenda

The Classroom Academy. The Classroom Academy is a 2 year residency program for graduate level students. Residents receive a $22,000 per year living stipend as they work alongside matched, lead expert teachers.

NEW YORK CITY

Center For Innovation In Teacher Education And Development (CITED). Teaching Teachers: Changing Paths and Enduring Debates March 26th. Russell Hall, Teachers College

Hechinger Report.When personalized learning also boosts special education students: A Brooklyn school’s commitment to personalized learning draws double the portion of special ed students as its local district  Thanks to a teacher residency and a fellowship program, it has enough instructors to have every class be co-taught. These programs have the added benefit of creating a pipeline of certified teachers who get trained in Brooklyn Lab’s philosophy.