Month: December 2019

GLOBAL
All Africa. Nigeria: ‘A National Campaign Will Boost Image of Teaching Profession’   Teach for Nigeria recruits promising leaders from varied disciplines to teach in Nigeria’s underserved schools, in low-income communities.

Association for Teacher Education in Europe. Spring Conference 2020 [Florence, 20-22 May]

Kings College London. CFP: Pedagogy, politics and teacher education: an international conference. This conference has been organised by the Centre for Innovation in Teacher Education and Development (CITED). [13-15, May]

National Center on Education and the Economy. Global Ed Talks: podcasts now available

Unite for Quality Education. Public Private Partnerships in Liberia Have Failed! The Education Minister Must Act Now to Save The Liberian Education System   Many of our members, qualified teachers at public schools across the country, have not been paid for months…  We urgently need increased investment in education, quality teacher training, robust education management systems, and better accountability mechanisms. 

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Bipartisan Christmas Miracles Come to Washington   New Proposed Regulations for TEACH Grants Released… According to DeVos, “This proposed rule ensures educators who received TEACH Grants and who are meeting their service requirements do not have their grants converted to loans improperly or as a result of confusing bureaucratic paperwork.”
2) New Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Educator Preparation video series. For nearly 30 years, the AACTE Holmes Program has supported students who self-identify as racially and ethnically diverse and are obtaining graduate degrees in education at AACTE member institutions.

AACTE/SCALE. Keynotes Announced for 2020 TPA Implementation Conference [March 26-28, Autin, TX]

Chalkbeat. ‘It’s killing children and no one is talking about it’: Asthma is taking a steep toll on Newark’s students and their schools   A decade ago, all of Newark’s public schools earned the group’s “asthma-friendly” designation, meaning that their teachers and nurses were trained to deal with asthma and there was a nebulizer at each school. 

Education Week.
1) Congress Mostly Snubs DeVos Agenda in Deal Increasing Education Spending   Title II for teacher and principal training: $76 million more
2) How Do Kids Learn to Read? What the Science Says 
3) What Should Teachers Need to Do to Transfer Their License to a New State?   Nineteen states make it harder for an out-of-state applicant to qualify for a teaching license if they were prepared to teach through an alternative route. Teachers who did not go through a traditional teacher-preparation program might have to take additional coursework or satisfy additional student-teaching or internship requirements. 

Hechinger Report. Low-income districts find ways to help students make music   A partial list of what any district would need to offer a robust music program includes teachers with advanced degrees in their subject area, class schedules that allow as many kids as possible to participate in music, high-quality curricular resources, professional development opportunities for teachers, and partnerships with local musicians and music organizations.

KQED. ‘I Feel That I’m Needed’: An Effort to Keep Male Teachers of Color in the Classroom  That’s why any effort to increase teacher diversity has to focus as much on what happens after teachers reach the classroom as before, says Travis Bristol [TC PhD ’14], a professor at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education.

NYTimes.
1) Teaching Impeachment: 7 Ideas From Our Readers
2) The Machines Are Learning, and So Are the Students: Artificial intelligence is starting to take over repetitive tasks in classrooms, like grading, and is optimizing coursework and revolutionizing the preparation for college entrance exams.   The world will still need schools, classrooms and teachers to motivate students and to teach social skills, teamwork and soft subjects like art, music and sports. 
3) What Students Are Saying About How to Improve American Education   Give teachers more money and support. I have always been told “Don’t be a teacher, they don’t get paid hardly anything.” or “How do you expect to live off of a teachers salary, don’t go into that profession.” As a young teen I am being told these things, the future generation of potential teachers are being constantly discouraged because of the money they would be getting paid.

Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) and Pearson. Affirming the Validity and Reliability of edTPA  Response to “Assessing the Assessment: Evidence of Reliability and Validity in the edTPA,” published in the American Education Research Journal (AERJ).  

Washington Post. American University to offer full scholarships to 10 D.C. students   In 2018, the university launched a program for high school seniors who want to take college-level courses in its School of Education. And officials are designing a program that will offer full scholarships to students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in education and promise to return to D.C. Public Schools to teach for at least five years.

NEW YORK STATE

NYSED Office of Higher Education. December Newsletter
*New Deputy Commissioner for Higher Education
*Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) and Teachers Who Mentor Teacher Candidates. The Board of Regents adopted a regulatory amendment that a teacher acting as a mentor to a teacher candidate (e.g., student teacher) may, at the discretion of the school district or BOCES, credit up to 25 clock hours toward his/her CTLE requirement in each five-year registration period.
*Recruiting Educators for Test Development Committees

Office of the Governor. S.5410 Sanders/ A.4538 Glick: Relates to the cumulative grade point average admission requirement for graduate-level teacher and educational leader programs.   Governor Cuomo vetoed legislation that would have provided higher education institutions with alternative criteria in determining admissibility into graduate-level teacher and education leadership programs He stated that the bill was not approved because he believes the current GPA requirement is a reasonable condition of admission to graduate-level teacher and education leadership programs.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. My teachers mispronounced my name. Decades later, it still stings — and influences the way I coach educators.  Those moments speak to cultural insensitivity. And when white teachers are dismissive or derisive regarding students’ names, there is an overlay of racist implications. Educators don’t need to understand why a student has a certain name; they simply need to know why it’s important for them to say a student’s name properly.

EdSurge. How an Unplugged Approach to Computational Thinking Can Move Schools to Computer Science   Yet even though almost all K-12 classrooms have computers or tablets, most teachers aren’t trained to leverage computing education for rigorous learning. Teacher training programs aren’t yet making a dent: Very few, if any, training programs in the U.S. currently offer computing education as part of their teacher training, per one report.

QNS. DOE report finds that a record number of NYC students are receiving computer science education   Since the initiative launched, 1,900 teachers in 800 schools across the city have been trained in computer science through Computer Science for All. The number of students receiving CS education in the 2018-19 school year was 163,734…

SILive. Pilot program to help Staten Island teachers get free arts certification   These teachers receive free tuition and testing fees to support them in gaining their Supplemental Arts Certification from the College of Staten Island (CSI), Willowbrook, on an expedited timeline. The pilot comes as the administration continues to invest in arts teachers and focuses on increasing the number of full-time certified arts teachers in New York City schools.

Teaching Residents at Teachers College. Updated production list 2012-19: 17 peer-reviewed publications, 47 global conference presentations

The American Reporter. Teaching as an Act of Love [OpEd by J. Cowin TC MA ’89, EdD ‘92]  Investing in and providing encouragement to teacher candidates really models what effective teachers do in their own classrooms.

GLOBAL
The Guardian. New teachers caught in an ideological trap   The Conservatives’ framework for teacher training ignores recent theories of learning and offers inadequate preparation, write education experts. The next government must hit rewind

International Literacy Association. Advocating for Children’s Rights to Read: A manual for enacting the rights in classrooms, communities, and the world  3. ENSURE teacher preparation and professional development (PD) program requirements meet rigorous literacy standards.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. New Board Members for 2020

AACTE/SCALE. October-December 2019 edTPA Community Newsletter

American Educational Research Journal. Assessing the Assessment: Evidence of Reliability and Validity in the edTPA   We examined the technical documentation of edTPA and raise serious concerns about scoring design, the reliability of the assessments, and the consequential impact on decisions about edTPA candidates. In light of these findings, we argue that the proposed and actual uses of the edTPA are currently unwarranted on technical grounds.

Atlanta Journal Constitution. Low pay, underfunded schools and unrealistic expectations make teaching a tough sell: Education professor says teachers held accountable for factors out of their control   During student teaching, which I personally recall as one of the most challenging periods of my long academic career, today’s students must pass the EdTPA, which is a highly challenging performance-based test. All of these tests are evaluated by third parties, not schools of education. The state periodically raises the cut score for passing (which is an odd assessment practice, usually determining proficiency means identifying a performance level and sticking with it).

Chalkbeat. 7 questions asked and answered about Chicago’s new teacher diversity committee   A major and important shift is talking about the pipeline. Instead of thinking about recruitment and how we siphon off more folks in an existing pool of applicants, how can we target people who want to be teachers? How can we think about our students as future teachers, and what would that do to reimagine a pipeline? 

Education Week.
1) 10 Ways the Teaching Profession Has Changed Over the Past 10 Years   7. Fewer people are enrolling in teacher-preparation programs. Across the country, enrollment in teacher-preparation programs has dropped by one-third over the past decade. Program completion has declined as well.
2) Will the Science of Reading Catch On in Teacher Prep?   Teachers often leave preservice without clarity on cognitive science

InsideHigherEd. Required Pedagogy: Online conversation shines a spotlight on graduate programs that teach students how to teach — and those programs that don’t.   Davidson, distinguished professor of English at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, recently asked her Twitter followers to share names of doctoral programs that actually require students to learn how to teach… The document includes dozens of programs thus far, and the ongoing Twitter conservation names scores more. Davidson says the next big step is to all ask programs that aren’t on the list why not. 

Learning Policy Institute. Promising Models for Preparing a Diverse, High-Quality Early Childhood Workforce   …many of the programs in which educators enroll do not focus specifically on preparing students for teaching, and many do not require supervised student teaching, despite broad acceptance of clinical practice as an element of high-quality teacher preparation. This report is designed for practitioners and policymakers and shares the practices of promising programs that recruit and prepare diverse cohorts of educators to teach in programs serving children birth to age 5…

Missoulian. Montana’s teacher shortage starting to affect bigger districts   Democrat Rep. Tyson Runningwolf from Browning introduced a proposal for a state-funded grow-your-own program — a research-based strategy that focuses on training people who already have roots in a community as teachers. But it carried a $500,000 price tag, and didn’t advance out of committee. 

NCTE. The Act of Reading: Instructional Foundations and Policy Guidelines   NCTE and its constituent groups have developed position statements on a variety of education issues vital to the teaching and learning of English language arts.

NYTimes.
1)  After 10 Years of Hopes and Setbacks, What Happened to the Common Core?   Jack Schneider, a professor of education at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, said the idea of shared, national standards made sense, but that it was “naïve” to expect them to make a big impact on student achievement without broader investments in early childhood education, teacher training and school integration. Ultimately, he added, “I would say that poverty alleviation programs are a better investment than standardized tests.”
2) Screens in the Classroom: Tool or Temptation?   Joseph Bavazzano, the director of Montclair State University’s ADP Center for Learning Technologies, works with college students who will become teachers. His classes use smartphones for video projects and for FaceTime interviews with students from partner universities overseas.

Phi Delta Kappan. Children left behind: Turning education research into film [by TC Prof. A. Stuart Wells, et al]   Over and over, we’ve seen policy makers design and implement school reform models that contradict the professional knowledge of our field. And at the same time, even as they ignore the research literature, they freely lend their ears to publishers, political advocacy groups, and other special interests who urge them to adopt teacher-proof curricula, create fast-track teacher-preparation programs, and disregard the empirical knowledge base about child development in favor of shiny new “data-driven” approaches to classroom management.

Reading Recovery Council of North America. Responding to the Reading Wars: Everyone’s Job   …Reading Recovery teachers are taught how to document students’ knowledge of phonemic awareness and phonics so they can explicitly teach an awareness of the sounds of English and the relationship to letters. Every lesson clearly attends to phonics instruction.

The74. New Education Doctorate Focused on Social-Emotional Learning Is One of the First of Its Kind as Experts Call for Better Teacher Training on the Whole Child   The program also fills a need in the social-emotional learning space: teacher training. A recent Aspen Institute report from researchers, educators, parents and students called for redesigned teacher preparation programs that focus on understanding trauma and teaching social, emotional and cognitive development skills.

Washington Post.
1) How good is your city’s pre-K program? Here’s a new report that grades 40 of them.   The benchmarks … are:
*Comprehensive, aligned and supported early learning and development standards  *Lead teacher has a bachelor’s degree  *Lead teacher has specialized training in pre-K  *Assistant teacher has a child development associate degree or equivalent…
2) Pete Buttigieg releases $1 trillion-plus plan for early-childhood and K-12 education   Double the proportion of new teachers and school leaders who are people of color in the next 10 years by, in part, establishing new guidelines for the use of federal funds aimed at recruiting, training and supporting teachers.
3) When exciting education results are in the news, be skeptical    If we could train teachers to be more effective at increasing student heights, we’d erase a lot of other inequities too… The paper is critiquing the idea that teacher quality can be measured by looking at their students’ test scores.

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. New York policymakers request $2 billion boost in education funding. But don’t hold your breath that the money will come through.   The Regents laid out other legislative requests including spending additional $8.1 million to improve early learning programs — mostly focused on better preparing teachers — and $15 million for school districts to “enhance” their curriculum and teaching supports for students learning English as a new language. 

NYSED Board of Regents
Board of Regents Advances 2020 Budget and Legislative Priorities and State Aid Request for the 2020-21 School Year
Expand the Provision of Certification Examination Fee Waiver Vouchers to assist economically disadvantaged educator candidates in paying for the examinations required for certification ($1.2M);
Expand the Teacher Opportunity Corps II program to increase the number of certified educators of color and to enhance teacher diversity In New York State ($3M);…

Board of Regents Appoints Shannon Tahoe as Interim Commissioner   William Murphy will serve as Deputy Commissioner for Higher Education. Dr. Murphy has served in various roles at the State Education Department over the past 15 years, most recently as the Director of Professional Education where he led teams responsible for evaluating higher education programs for professional licensure at public and private colleges and universities in New York State and internationally. In this role, Dr. Murphy has maintained relationships with academic accrediting bodies, federal and state education agencies and all sectors of higher education. Prior to joining the Department, Dr. Murphy held positions at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and the Workforce Development Institute. He earned a Ph.D. from the University at Albany, a master’s degree from Baruch College and a Bachelor of Arts degree from LeMoyne College. Dr. Murphy starts his position Dec. 10.

December Meeting; Higher Education Committee.
Amendment of Subparts 30-2 and 30-3 of the Rules of the Board of Regents Relating to Annual Professional Performance Reviews (APPR) of Classroom Teachers and Building Principals to Implement Chapter 59 of the Laws of 2019
Proposed Amendments to Sections 52.21…Relating to Professional Development Plans and Other Related Requirements for School Districts and BOCES
Appointments to the State Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching

Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching. September Meeting Minutes

 

NEW YORK CITY
Bklyner. For the Love of Calculus: Brooklyn Tech Teacher Raises the Bar   Bodner went on to Barnard College, graduating in 2004 with a Bachelor’s in Mathematics. She briefly worked in vector marketing, before signing up as a fellow for Math for America— an organization committed to improving teacher retention nationally by building and supporting communities of outstanding STEM teachers. She received her Masters’ in Math Education at Columbia Teachers’ College and taught at Pace High School for four years.

Chalkbeat. NYC education officials exploring dual language programs for 3-year-olds   While the biggest challenge is finding enough qualified teachers — a common roadblock for bilingual education— it’s still worthwhile, she said. 

NYTimes. A School Empowers a Single Mother of a Girl With Autism   Earlier this year, she spotted a flier for a free program at the education center that provided training to become a teaching assistant… These days, Ms. Terrero is studying for an exam to become a certified teaching assistant. After she takes it, she hopes to enroll in college and eventually become a special-education teacher.

Teachers College. Teaching Residents at Teachers College Induction | December-January I Holiday Edition Newsletter