GLOBAL
BBC News. Lack of teachers hampering Irish-medium secondary sector Mícheál Mac Giolla Gunna, head teacher of Coláiste Feirste in west Belfast – the largest Irish-medium school in Northern Ireland with about 650 pupils – said there was an urgent need to plan for the training of new teachers to meet the needs of a rapidly growing sector.
Education International. Iraq: Teacher union invests in facilities to improve education in Kurdistan KTU President Abdulwahed Mohamed reaffirmed that his education union should “… be able to provide teachers with the best possible services in terms of holding training courses, improving cultural and scientific levels, and generating interest in research focusing on persons with special needs as well as focusing on environmental protection”.
Inside Higher Ed. Iceland’s Missing Male Students: Sixty-four percent of students are women, the highest percentage of any European nation. Courses with scarcely any men, such as playschool teacher education and social service counseling, have started to award male-only scholarships to redress the balance, explained Heijstra.
Washington Post. Quebec ban on religious symbols would fall heavily on hijab-wearing teachers New teachers would be affected most by the bill… Chahira Battou is set to graduate this spring from teachers college. “The thing is that if I submit to the law, and I remove my scarf when I go to teach, that is when I become a submissive woman,” said Battou, 29.
UNITED STATES
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). 1) Call for Entries: 2020 AACTE Awards; 2) Call for Board and Standing Committee Nominations; 3) Call for Proposals, Reviewers for 2020 AACTE Annual Meeting “Disrupting Inequities: Educating for Change” [Login required]
AP. School safety at forefront of teacher rally after shooting RALEIGH, N.C…The nearly $24 billion spending package includes money to raise teacher pay on average by 4.6%, with increases weighted toward the most veteran educators. A 10% salary supplement for teachers with master’s degrees, phased out earlier this decade, would be restored.
Atlanta Journal Constitution. Researcher says we lose too many teachers and lack of autonomy is a big factor Since the late 1980s, the number of minority elementary and secondary teachers has increased by over 100%, outpacing growth in the number of nonminority teachers and outpacing growth in minority students.
Chalkbeat. With loan forgiveness and stipends, Colorado lawmakers hope to lure teachers to rural districts All told, state education officials say there are 800 more people in the “pipeline,” preparing for teaching careers, than there were two years ago. But Colorado will need a lot more people to enter teaching — and stay in the classroom — to fill vacancies and replace thousands of educators expected to retire in the coming decade.
Education Week.
1) 4 Things You Need to Know About ‘Free College’ Proposals
2) A RedForEd Wave: Teachers in North and South Carolina Leave Classrooms in Protest The protest was organized by the N.C. Association of Educators, with support from the grassroots group Red4EdNC. Teachers are asking for a 5 percent raise, extra compensation for advanced degrees…
3) Battle Over Reading: Parents of Children With Dyslexia Wage Curriculum War In Arkansas, lawmakers have passed at least eight laws in the past seven years. The state is changing everything, including dyslexia screening, reading instruction, and teacher training and licensing.
4) College of Education Now Prepares Teachers in the Science of Reading [YouTube video; Univ. of Central Arkansas]
5) Defying Trump, Democrats Propose $4.4 Billion Boost for Education Spending Trump wants to eliminate three prominent department programs: state grants for educator training, after-school activities, and block grants for student support and academic enrichment. Democrats want more money for all three…
Hechinger Report.
1) 7 in 10 students aren’t writing at grade level — we can do better In addition, a recent study from Teachers College, Columbia University, analyzed the implementation of WITsi in New York City’s most struggling Renewal High Schools between 2014 and 2016, and found that WITsi students were almost two and a half times more likely to be on track to graduate than students in schools without the approach.
2) Teachers go to school on racial bias “Teachers want and need a space to talk about this. It feels useful. You feel the practicality of it.” This kind of dialogue, she said, was largely absent from her graduate school teacher-training program, where issues of race and bias were rarely mentioned.
NEA Today. Rodney Robinson Named 2019 National Teacher of the Year Robinson… earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Virginia State University and a master’s degree in administration and supervision from Virginia Commonwealth University.
NPR. Teachers Begin To See Unfair Student Loans Disappear In exchange for agreeing to work in low-income schools, aspiring teachers could get federal Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grants from the department to help pay their way through college. But those grants were often unfairly turned into loans that teachers had to pay back… Now, that fix has been expanded, and thousands more teachers are likely to get help.
New York Magazine. Years of Low Pay Helped Spark the Teacher Strike Wave …NEA president Lily Eskelsen-Garcia said that when the union asks colleges of education why they’d experienced what she calls “a precipitous drop” in the number of prospective teachers, they cited low pay and student loans as deterrents.
New York Times.
1) Elizabeth Warren Wants to Cancel Student Loans. Critics Wonder if That’s the Right Solution. In a post on Medium announcing the plan on Monday, Ms. Warren talked about how she, as an aspiring young teacher, had paid just $50 in tuition a semester at the University of Houston. “I could afford it on a part-time waitressing salary,” she said.
2) Still Separate, Still Unequal: Teaching about School Segregation and Educational Inequality
Penn State News. New process of teaching literacy to future teachers gets rave reviews The PDS program is a collaboration between the College of Education and State College Area School District (SCASD) in which student teachers follow the schedule of a full academic year from August to June. The SCASD instructional coaches learned the collaborative learning experience at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City.
Phi Delta Kappan. Toward equality of educational opportunity: What’s most promising? In teaching, not all preparation institutions must meet rigorous standards. And not all candidates for teaching must meet rigorous standards before being allowed into the classroom. In other words, the teacher credentialing system is rife with loopholes, resulting in a teaching force of varied and uncertain quality.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Clarion University will relaunch a stand-alone School of Education “This is necessary to be able to address the existing teacher shortage in special education, math and sciences, and the looming teacher shortage in all areas,” said Pam Gent, provost. “It is also necessary as we begin to pilot new and innovative ways to educate future teachers…”
Univ. of Texas at San Antonio. UTSA Teacher Residency Program produces first graduates
U.S. Dept. of Education. Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) Grant Program CFDA Number 84.336S [Deadline for Transmittal of Applications: May 20, 2019]
U.S. News & World Report. Teacher Salaries Fell 4.5% Over the Last Decade “When we go into colleges of education and ask them why they’ve seen a drop in the number of people applying to teacher colleges, they keep saying that these are prospective teachers who have to look at the pay they are going to receive as new teachers. And they are saying, ‘We won’t be able to pay off our student loans for that,'” Eskelsen García said. “People who want to be teachers are going into other professions because of the pay gap.”
NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. New York State leaders want teachers to spend more time learning how to help English learners Right now, students studying to be teachers in New York are required to spend six semester hours learning about language acquisition and literacy. Last month, state education policymakers proposed requiring teacher preparation programs to dedicate three of those hours to how English language learners learn and acquire language.
NYSED Office of Higher Education. April Newsletter
1) New Director of Teacher Certification
2) Expiring CST Safety Nets
3) Regulatory Amendment: Student Teaching Requirement
4) Proposal: Language Acquisition and Literacy Development Coursework Requirement
5) Proposal: School Counselor Education Program Registration Requirements and Certification
6) Proposal: Professional Learning and CTLE for Teachers Who Work with Teacher Candidates
New York State Register.
1) The public comment period is now open on a proposed amendment to extend the edTPA safety net for candidates who receive a failing score on the Library Specialist edTPA.
2) The public comment period is now open on a proposed amendment to extend the Educational Technology Specialist Content Specialty Test (CST) safety net expiration date.
Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching. April meeting agenda
NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. In a last-minute reversal, union representing thousands of NYC pre-K teachers calls off strike — for now Teachers in community-run programs earn salaries starting around $42,000, while those in traditional public schools, who are represented by the United Federation of Teachers, start around $59,000. Regardless of the setting they work in, teachers are ultimately required to earn the same credentials and perform the same work.
NYCDOE. 2019-2020 Calendar [with corrected dates]
Washington Post. Teacher Appreciation Week is coming, and this educator is starting to cringe: ‘I’ll trade appreciation for respect any day’ In New York City, most teachers attain master’s degrees before they ever begin work or finish them within the first few years… We are not seen as the “experts” in the very area that we have not only studied fastidiously, but also proved ourselves to be successful.
