GLOBAL
Inter Press Service. Finland’s Education System Leads Globally. In terms of what other countries, such as the United States should learn from Finland, Dr. Samuel E. Abrams, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University had this to say… Second, we should follow Finland in preparing teachers with high-quality master’s programs in pedagogical theory and practice”…
OECD.
1) TALIS Initial Teacher Preparation study Australia, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway and the United States, with Wales (United Kingdom), are participating in the study.
2) Teaching, collaboration and the future of education: insights from teachers in the Slovak Republic …organised by Slovakia’s premier teacher training institute, Metodicko-Pedagogické Centrum (MPC), in collaboration with the OECD, and supported by Teach For All. The forum aimed to encourage greater collaboration among Slovakian teachers, but there was considerable debate around exactly how to create a culture of collaboration in schools.
UNITED STATES
AACTE. Testifying Before Congress, VCU Education Dean Urges ‘Immediate and Innovative Action’ Andrew Daire, dean of the School of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University, testified at the U.S. House Wednesday about how VCU is working to prepare high-quality, dedicated classroom teachers and encouraged Congress to support similar initiatives across the country.
AAQEP. CFP Quality Assurance Symposium, Feb. 27, Atlanta [deadline July 31]
Chalkbeat. How one Illinois program aims to train more resilient, longer-lasting teachers Students teach in the morning, then attend trainings in the afternoons. They receive a $2,000 stipend — a modest amount, but better than unpaid student teaching positions. Golden Apple requires that participants commit to teaching for five years in a high-poverty or academically low-ranking school.
EdSource. Plan to expose all students to physics missing one element — teachers Sixty physics majors graduated from Long Beach State this past school year, according to Galen Pickett, a physics professor at the university. Of those, 10 are expected to go on to become credentialed physics teachers…
EdWeek.
1) Beto O’Rourke’s Education Plan: A Surge in Federal Funds, With Equity Strings Attached He also proposed providing teachers with student debt relief, working with minority serving insitutions to diversify the teacher workforce, reforming school discipline to decrease racial disparities, boosting school infrastructure funding, fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and providing incentives for teachers to seek additional training and graduate degrees.
2) K-12 Dealmaking: Age of Learning Partners With HMH, Pearson Lands Egyptian Testing Contract; ETS and Khan Academy Partner on Teacher Prep Teacher candidates can use this product to create a personalized learning plan to prepare for the Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators (Core) test, an exam required by many teacher preparation programs.
3) Teacher-Preparation Programs Again Have a Choice of Accreditors. But Should They? In one notable example, Teachers College, Columbia University—the first and largest graduate school of education in the country—switched from CAEP to AAQEP and is in the early stages of the accreditation process. “The issue for us fundamentally is that CAEP is a very top-down compliance approach, whereas AAQEP is much more about peer-review—there is really a much more holistic approach to meeting standards,” said Kelly Parkes, an associate professor and the chair of the teacher education policy committee at Teachers College. “We need an accreditation process that would allow us to be flexible and sensitive to our context and our needs. … As a leader in teacher preparation, … you need to have room to have innovation and try [it] out for a year or two, … rather than being cookie-cutter.”
4) To Recruit More Teachers of Color, This District Posted a Unique Job Ad “We are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job, and that candidate may be one who comes from a less traditional background. We would encourage you to apply, even if you don’t believe you meet every one of our qualifications described.”
Education Writers Association. School Discipline Reform: Easier Said Than Done? Ask your local colleges’ teacher education programs if they are educating aspiring teachers about techniques to avoid student suspensions. Classroom management is always the toughest part of a new teacher’s job, and recent college graduates may face a particularly hard time if they are unaware of restorative justice or other new strategies many public schools are now embracing.
New York Times. It’s Easy to Forget, but a Program to Forgive Student Loans Already Exists: Democrats are campaigning to fix an issue that is already starting to resolve itself for many teachers and other public servants. Since undergraduates legally can’t borrow that much federal money, the forgiveness program is surely dominated by graduate students. A sizable number are most likely public schoolteachers, half of whom have graduate degrees.
Washington Post.
1) Amid teacher shortages, Virginia takes steps to lure students into the profession The 188,000-student school system has issued teaching offers to graduating high school students who participate in the Virginia Teachers for Tomorrow Program, which aims to attract students to the field of education and help bolster the state’s supply of teachers. The high school students are invited to return to Fairfax as teachers once they have graduated college and become licensed, said Fairfax Superintendent Scott Brabrand.
2) The Mueller report: An educational tool for teachers — and a surprising hit with book clubs
NEW YORK STATE
New York Post. Regents get set to guarantee even more bad New York schools This follows a sustained drive by the Regents to reduce teacher-training standards, water down state tests, abandon efforts to hold teachers accountable and on and on.
NYSED Board of Regents. Appointment of Deputy Commissioner for P12 Instructional Support VOTED, that the Board of Regents approve the appointment of Dr. Kimberly Young Wilkins to the position of Deputy Commissioner for P12 Instructional Support.
NEW YORK CITY
Chankbeat. NYC ditched its school turnaround program months ago. Principals are still wondering what comes next. Teachers at the same school received training from Teachers College to improve writing instruction, which the principal linked to gains in student performance. But it’s unlikely, the principal said, that the school will continue the training for new teachers without the financial support of Renewal given other competing demands on the school’s budget.
City Journal. Classrooms of the Absurd: New York’s public school system embraces social-justice education theories—even as the city’s successful charter schools show what really works. It’s complete nonsense, as is so much of the effluvia now leaking from America’s graduate schools of education, such as “implicit classroom bias”—the notion that white teachers can’t instruct black students without first having subconscious racism washed from their brains.
NYDailyNews. Non-unionized Pre-K teachers say new pay raise leaves them in the cold At least for now, the pay raise City Council Speaker Corey Johnson heralded as “historic” only applies to about 300 certified, unionized teachers. Another 1500 non-unionized educators with identical credentials, according to city estimates, are still waiting to hear if and when they’ll be included.
Philanthropy News Digest. Columbia’s Teachers College Receives $6 Million for Dance Institute “As a result of Jody’s foresight, commitment, and generosity, there are now generations of new certified dance teachers teaching in K–12 schools and a growing corps of faculty at universities and colleges,” said Barbara Bashaw, TC’s Arnhold Professor of Practice, director of the Dance Education Program…
Teachers College. Making Dance Education an Institution: Jody and John Arnhold Give TC $10.45 Million to Advance Dance Education Nationwide These relationships will inspire new thinking and scholarship and foster professional networks and standardized practices to further formalize pre-K-12 dance education and teacher preparation as a field of academic study and inquiry.
