GLOBAL
CBC News. Northern Quebec schools suffer shortage of qualified teachers Leigh-Ann Gates, chairperson of the parent’s committee in the Cree community of Chisasibi, says she has noticed the increasing difficulty in hiring teachers over her past three terms. She criticizes the move to use unqualified teachers, because they lack training on how to manage students, which can make classroom dynamics chaotic.
Deutche Welle. Germany: Primary school teacher shortage worse than expected Bertelsmann suggested that tackling the teacher shortage will require a comprehensive strategy. One solution would be to mentor and certify people who have relevant skills in school subjects and wish to be teachers, but have not gone to university for teaching.
International Society for Music Education. Call for Submissions, 34thAnnual Conference [Helsinki 2-7 August 2020]
UNITED STATES
AACTE. 72ndAnnual Meeting Early-Bird Registration [Feb. 29-Mar 1, Atlanta]
Bridge. Michigan teachers: Flunking won’t help kids read. We have better ideas. Kariainen, the Houghton teacher, said teacher preparation programs could better prepare teachers by spending more time on literacy education. She noted that Michigan only requires six college credits of reading instruction for certified teachers.
Chronicle of Higher Education.
1) What Elizabeth Warren Can Teach Us About Teaching As instructors, we must choose to be committed to all students, to put their development first, to be led by them, rather than the other way around. This is a political choice — not because we’re trying to get our students to vote a certain way, but because our job is to help students believe in their own possibilities, in their own agency, within a system that far too frequently denies them any.
2) Want to Improve Your Teaching? Start With the Basics: Learn Their Names
EducationWeek.
1) A Perennial Challenge in Rural Alaska: Getting and Keeping Teachers The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, one of two national bodies that accredit teacher training programs, revoked accreditation for all seven of the teacher-preparation programs at UAA, due to the school’s failure to meet four out of five standards set by the group.
2) ‘I Am Pro Good Schools.’ Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate Charter Schools, Equity Harris also outlined her plan to boost federal funding for historically black colleges and universities in part to build the pipeline of black teachers to public schools, which have a largely white educator workforce.
3) Nearly All Teachers (and Other Public Servants) Who Applied for Loan Forgiveness Were Denied Last year, Congress expanded a program to forgive the student loans of more public servants, such as teachers. But a new government watchdog report found that 99 percent of people who applied were rejected by the U.S. Department of Education.
4) The Push to Get More Teachers of Color in Special Education Classrooms …a networked improvement community with 10 teacher-preparation programs that have pledged to find ways to enroll more aspiring special educators and reduce the shortage of special education teachers by fall 2022. A priority is bringing people of color and people with disabilities into the special education teaching ranks.
Hechinger Report.
1) A new teacher vows to help in a classroom full of need: “Under the right conditions, they’d be stars” The Francis residency was launched in 2016 to recruit teachers who can relate to the struggles of New Orleans students and who ultimately want to create “a more just and humane society.”
2) With a teacher like me, ‘Would I have turned out better?’ … the Brothers Empowered to Teach (BE2T) Initiative. The program recruits college-age people of color, particularly African American men, and pays them stipends to work in schools in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Learning Policy Institute. Closing the Opportunity Gap: How Positive Outlier Districts in California Are Pursuing Equitable Access to Deeper Learning …controlling for student and district characteristics, the most important in-school factors were the qualifications of teachers—in particular having fewer teachers on emergency permits and substandard credentials and more with greater years of experience.
NEAToday.
1) 3 Teachers Tell How They Took On the Civics Gap But Flores has continued to push for change in how schools understand and implement civics. He served on a state commission on environmental literacy, and is now working with the state university teacher prep program to show how cross-curricular lessons are essential for preparing students to tackle the climate crisis.
2) Educators Need the Loan Forgiveness Program Fixed … Now An investigation has found that Congress’ recent efforts to forgive the federal student debt of teachers and other public-service workers aren’t working… The stakes also are high for the education profession in general—and the students who need highly qualified teachers to succeed.
Tennessee State Board of Education. State Board Releases Educator Preparation Providers Progress Report On Monday, the State Board of Education released the 2019 Educator Preparation Providers Progress Report: A Review of Improvements Over Time, a companion report to the annual Educator Preparation Report Card. This report highlights several educator preparation programs (EPPs) that made significant strides on the annual Report Card in the past several years.
Washington Post. What Nashville can teach New York about school desegregation[by TC prof. A. Erickson]
NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Board of Regents.September meetings
1) Appointment of Interim Commissioner of Education and President of the University of the State of New York
2) Appointments to the State Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching
3) Proposed Amendment to Section 80-5.17 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Conditional Initial Certificate Requirements
4) Proposed Amendments to Section 80-6.1 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to Continuing Teacher and Leader Education for Educators in Nonpublic Schools
5) Proposed Amendment to Section 80-1.5 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Creation of Safety Nets for the Science Content Specialty Tests (CSTs)
6) Relating to the Requirements for Transitional D Programs that Lead to School District Leader Certification
Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching[new documents posted under resources]
1) Guidance on Establishing and Strengthening Teacher Leadership in New York State
2) Professional Learning Plan – Guidance Document 2019-2020
NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) NYC preschools are training teachers what to do if immigration authorities come knocking
2) Success Academy does ‘screen’ its students. It’s not in the way you might think. Success Academy issues cell phones to every teacher and requires them to respond to any phone call or text from a parent within 24 hours, but it’s a two-way street. “If we call you, we expect you to return that call within 24 hours,”
Crain’s Keeping New York’s teachers in school: Turnover among the city’s educators is shockingly high A New York City Teaching Residency would phase in over five years and grow to train 1,000 teachers annually. Rather than being immediately placed in charge of a classroom, residents would be placed alongside an experienced mentor-teacher for a full school year. They would receive a stipend, while mentor-teachers would receive a pay increase.
NYPost. New book tells secrets and surprises of Success Academy’s winning academics The teachers, he found, are “mostly very young,” twenty-somethings, but Moskowitz has “figured out a way to get new teachers good, quickly,” he says. Success Academy uses the exact same curriculum for each grade, so teachers don’t have to spend hours devising lessons — like city teachers do, Pondiscio said. “They spend all their time preparing how to best teach the lesson and going over students’ work.”
