Month: February 2020

GLOBAL
ABC Radio News and Current Affairs   Researchers propose overhaul of teacher training   Australia’s failing to make the most of its best teachers. That’s the finding of a new report from the Grattan Institute on the way experienced teachers are used to train their more junior colleagues. To fix the problem, the researchers are suggesting a professional training model more like that used in Singapore and China.

AhramOnline. Egypt, US discuss cooperation in student scholarships, teacher training   Egypt’s Minister of Education Tarek Shawky discussed on Thursday with US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce boosting cooperation in the various fields, especially in education and training.

Human Rights Watch. Vietnam: LGBT Youth Unprotected   Teachers are often untrained and ill-equipped to handle cases of anti-LGBT discrimination, and their lessons frequently uphold the widespread myth in Vietnam that same-sex attraction is a disease…

The Star. Why teacher training programme for UEC holders discontinued, asks MCA   The Education Ministry must explain why there are no UEC (Unified Examination Certificate) holders entering the Bachelor of Education teacher training programme (PISMP) this year, says Datuk Chong Sin Woon… “This is the first step towards having UEC recognised in Malaysia,” he said, adding MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong was instrumental in drawing the policy when he served as deputy education minister a decade ago. Chong said this in response to concerns raised by Chinese stakeholders following the Education Ministry’s “calculation” that there were sufficient Chinese language teachers, thus resulting in zero allocation of seats for UEC holders to undergo the teacher training programme this year.

Winrock International. Educating Girls, Changing Lives: Against fierce odds, a village bands together to protect a school for girls in rural Mali   A former university student, Camara says her education provided the opportunity to pursue a life of greater independence. “I’ve been to school, and it’s because of that I can be a teacher today,” she says. “If I hadn’t been to school, today I would be married and cooking for my husband.”

 

UNITED STATES
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.  The President Recommends Big Cuts for Education: Will the Congress Agree?
Higher Education

• Student loan programs take a $190.8 Billion cut over 10 years,
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is eliminated,
• Subsidized student loans are eliminated.
• Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need is eliminated.
• Teacher Quality Partnership Grants are eliminated and considered for inclusion in the “Elementary and Secondary Education for the Disadvantaged Block Grant” noted above.

Association of Teacher Educators. 2020 100th ATE Annual Meeting [Atlantic City, NJ February 15-19]

Chalkbeat. Well-meaning white teachers: it’s time to disrupt your language around Black History Month

Education Week.
1) An Unorthodox Strategy Closes Academic Gaps   In the last few years, Molloy faculty have worked closely with Baldwin to help develop their academies in new-media studies and teacher education. Bogner also singled out the teacher education academy for praise because part of the district’s goal is attracting a more diverse group of potential teachers at a younger age.
2) Principals Say They Need Help to Support Students With Disabilities  The report results parallel findings from a 2019 survey, from the National Center for Learning Disabilities and Understood.org, that found many teachers consider themselves unprepared to meet the needs of millions of children with disabilities in the nation’s public schools.

Forbes. This Entrepreneur Already Is Where Education Will Be   Elangovan has three Masters degrees – one each in public health (Boston University), business (University of Iowa) and elementary education (Teachers College at Columbia University). She taught science at a public school in the Bronx, was a teacher and instructional leader at a private school in Iowa and worked as a director for the National Center for Teacher Residencies…As a result, Elangovan started to think about what it meant to support and develop teachers, and how to do that at scale.

Hechinger Report.
1) Subscribing to college and other visions of higher education’s future: Academic labs test artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other innovations to boost learning, lower costs   …less sophisticated simulations are being used in schools of education, where trainee teachers practice coping with simulated schoolchildren in computer-generated classrooms. 
2) ‘You can’t help but to wonder’: Crumbling schools, less money, and dismal outcomes in the county that was supposed to change everything for black children in the South   In recent years, the state has pushed “grow your own” efforts to shore up the local teaching force in rural areas. In 2019, the state education department launched teacher residency programs in four districts… The approach has limitations, beyond the difficulty of convincing students to come back to communities devastated by poverty. Some aspiring teachers educated in under-resourced schools struggle to pass the tests required to enroll in the state’s teacher prep programs. In several Delta districts, the education department is piloting an alternative license program for teachers with temporary licenses who have difficulty passing certification exams, but show promising talent in the classroom.

InsideHigherEd.
1) 41% of Recent Grads Work in Jobs Not Requiring a Degree   Recent graduates of programs in education, engineering and nursing have among the lowest unemployment and underemployment rates…
2) Hardin-Simmons Cuts 22 Academic Programs   President Eric Bruntmyer said the Christian institution is cutting a doctor of ministry program, as well as several master’s programs in education… and two teacher certification programs.
3) Title IX Complicates Hill Negotiations on Higher Ed   Any deal to update the law governing federal student aid would have to overcome concerns about the highly charged new rule U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is about to release on what colleges are required do about allegations of sexual assault or harassment on campuses… a stumbling block toward reauthorizing the Higher Education Act.

LPI.
1) California’s Special Education Teacher Shortage   California’s worsening shortage of special education teachers is a “five-alarm fire,” with two of every three new recruits entering without having completed preparation programs.
2) Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers   Nationally, urban schools have the largest percentages of uncertified and inexperienced teachers, but CRDC data show that in all kinds of schools—rural, suburban, and urban—students in schools with high enrollment of students of color have less access to certified and experienced teachers than their white peers.

NYTimes.
1) Bringing a New Vibe to the Classroom: Some educators are experimenting with their approaches to teaching to make course materials more relevant to various cultures and communities.   At the forefront are teachers like Christopher Emdin, 40, a science educator and the author of “For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too.” He has been a leader in the #HipHopEd initiative, which integrates urban youth culture with learning. The Science Genius program, for example, uses hip-hop music and rhymes in teaching science.
2) An Old and Contested Solution to Boost Reading Scores: Phonics   … findings have pushed some states and school districts to make big changes in how teachers are trained and students are taught… Even some leading researchers in the science of reading, including Professor Seidenberg, acknowledge that studies do not yet point toward specific curriculum materials that will be most effective at teaching phonics.

University of St. Thomas. Key Partnerships Help School of Education Diversify Minnesota’s Teaching Workforce   In a partnership with St. Thomas through school residencies (including the St. Paul Public Schools Urban Teacher Residency Program and the Minneapolis Special Education Teacher Residency) and the Work and Learn program, districts “grow their own” educators by investing in people already working for them. 

 

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College.
1) TC Dance Educator Barbara Bashaw is Featured on the Cover of Dance Teacher Magazine   Bashaw (Ed.D. ’11, M.A. ’96) is the Arnhold Professor of Practice in Dance Education… “a pioneer” in dance education and “an inspiring force in teacher training” who uses her past experience as a public school teacher as “a touchstone”…
2) TC’s Felicia Mensah Teams with a Former Student to Write about Teaching Science and Technology to Girls   Mensah’s research addresses issues of diversity, equity and identity in science teacher preparation and teacher professional development.

 

 

GLOBAL
International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET). Keynote Speakers 64th Annual Conference [Bath Spa University
23-25 June, 2020]

Their World. 20 reasons why, in 2020, there are still 260m children out of school   Too many teachers don’t have the training or qualifications needed to deliver a quality education. Only 85% of primary school teachers globally have been properly trained – in sub-Saharan Africa it’s just 64% (and only 50% of secondary teachers). Many existing teachers, especially in the least developed countries, are untrained, underpaid and working with scarce resources.

UNITED STATES
AACTE. 2020 National Award Winners

Chalkbeat.
1) Colorado wants to ensure teachers know how to teach reading. But some say proposed rules lack teeth and transparency.   Asked how state education department staff will determine which classes at which teacher prep programs satisfy the requirements, a department spokesman said in an email that they’ll decide once teachers submit documents about the class they took, such as the course syllabi, their transcript, and proof they passed the final exam.
2) Is the future of teaching homegrown? Colorado lawmakers hope so.   In recent years, Colorado has invested in a host of “grow your own” teacher programs, offering fellowships and stipends to rural teachers and creating new opportunities for student teachers in districts across the state. But some programs have been sparsely utilized, even as others don’t have the resources to meet demand.
3) Step into this state-of-the-art Indiana classroom — and pretend the students are real   The Marian students are getting an early start on learning how to run a classroom, rather than waiting until their junior or senior year to student teach real-life children. The university’s new and unusual approach is part of a retooled program for training teachers…
4) The Trump administration wants to cut federal education spending — including money for charter schools   The individual programs on the chopping block include: •Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants, which is also known as Title II, Part A, which districts can use for teacher training and to reduce class sizes ($2.1 billion)

CPRE Knowledge Hub. Study Questions Reliability of edtpa Performance Assessment System [Podcast]

Education Commission of the States. 50-State Comparison: Teacher Recruitment and Retention   Most states rely heavily — and sometimes exclusively — on traditional teacher preparation programs to train teacher candidates. However, in 2017, three states and the District of Columbia reported that more than 50% of their educator preparation program graduates came from alternative preparation programs.

Education Week.
1) Q&A With Presidential Candidate Tom Steyer: ‘Trump Doesn’t Believe in Education’   And he wants to incentivize states to raise teacher pay using federal aid, as well as forgive teachers’ student loan debt after they’ve taught for a decade.
2) See the 29 Education Programs Trump Wants to Condense Into a Block Grant   •Teacher Quality Partnerships…
3) Trump Seeks to Slash Education Budget, Combine 29 Programs Into Block Grant … the proposed budget would eliminate Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which teachers can use to eliminate federal student loan debt under certain circumstances.

InsideHigherEd. New International Enrollments Climb at U.S. Grad Schools
Change in First-Time Graduate Enrollment by Field of Study

	Fall 2014-15	Fall 2015-16	Fall 2016-17	Fall 2017-18	Fall 2018-19
All Fields	+5%	+5%	-1%	+1%	+4%
Education	0%	+7%	-16%	-31%	+9%

The74. Interview: TN Ed Chief Penny Schwinn on Her Radical Plan Using Schools to Bring Social Services to Rural Areas — and Her Whole-Child Approach to Training Teachers   Schwinn talked to Beth Hawkins about the challenge of introducing social-emotional learning in Southern, red-state schools, her hope of training teachers free of charge … We are committed to not just get more teachers who are trained in the way that we’ve always trained teachers; we would like every teacher in the state to be dual certified in their area as well as special education.

The Teacher Education Podcast. New online resource exploring the stories and research of professionals in teacher preparation

US News & World Report. Officials announce initiative to attract more teachers Kentucky’s largest school system has teamed up with the University of Louisville to start a teacher residency program… would allow people who received a degree in a field other than education to get a master’s degree from U of L while shadowing an experienced teacher at Jefferson County Public Schools…

Washington Post. Trump education plan slashes student loan program in contrast to Democrats   The reductions would eliminate popular initiatives such as a loan forgiveness program for students who take public service jobs and subsidized lending for low-income students.

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Board of Regents February Meetings. Higher Education Committee:
1) Proposed Amendments to Section 3.14 of the Rules of the Board of Regents Relating to the Composition of the Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching
2) Amendment to 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

New York State Register. The public comment period is open on a proposed amendment to regulations to allow a time extension for the Initial Reissuance and Provisional Renewal.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. What NYC’s departing special education chief learned overseeing the nation’s largest school system   We recently opened up an inclusive ICT class with a focus on literacy that we’re piloting where the teachers are trained in Orton-Gillingham, and we have also opened up an intense program for students on the spectrum that are non-verbal… What we have learned since the publication of the first City Council report is that where there are shortage areas we need to work with the state in terms of the certification of teachers. 

GLOBAL
EducationInternational. Morocco: Report highlights inequities caused by increased privatisation of education   …as Abdous points out, the government has recently launched a partnership with Teach for Morocco, an organisation that places unqualified teachers with just a few weeks of training in public schools, undermining the status of the profession.

GovInsider. How Finland designed its schools around well-being   Teachers are trained in developmental psychology and how children learn, so they’re able to monitor their students’ learning progress on a daily basis. They can then give more attention to struggling students. This has allowed Finland to do away with mandatory standardised tests to track students’ progress. Teacher education also empowers teachers to “have their researcher glasses on” as they teach and to constantly analyse if their methods are effective. 

InsiderHigherEd. Open Society University Network Launched With $1 Billion Gift: Bard College and Central European University will lead new network focused on a range of education, social, civic, human rights and environmental issues.   It will also be involved in teacher education programs that focus on student-centered learning…

NLTimes. More Students Opting To Become Teachers, Nurses   This academic year the number of new students studying to become a teacher in primary education increased by 9.5 percent.

PressProgress. Doug Ford’s Government is Now Looking For Private Companies to Test Ontario Teachers’ Grade 3 Math Skills   In the Ontario Legislature, Ford claimed “one-third of teachers at teachers’ college have failed grade 6 and grade 7 math.” 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE Member Alumni are Finalist for Teacher of the Year   The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) have announced the four finalists for the 2020 National Teacher of the Year, all of whom are graduates of AACTE member institutions…
2) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Video Series: Building the Special Education Pipeline

Arkansas Democrat Gazette. More people taking Arkansas teacher prep courses   A recent three-year drop in the number of people enrolled in Arkansas teacher preparation programs appears to have bottomed out, and the number is on the upswing, preliminary data from the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education show.

Chalkbeat.
1) Teacher pay, literacy, and mental health are priorities in Tennessee governor’s proposed budget   To complement salary increases, Lee wants to set aside $8.5 million to launch the Governor’s Teaching Fellowship to provide college scholarships for 1,000 of “our best and brightest” students to train to become teachers.
2) What the Democratic presidential candidates have said about education: Teacher diversity   Biden has said he would support dual-enrollment classes for high school students who are aspiring teachers, help teachers aides get their teaching licenses, and invest in HBCUs…Sanders says he would establish a fund to create and expand teacher-training programs at HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions… Warren has said she would boost teacher diversity by investing in HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions. She’s also said she would increase funding for Grow Your Own Teacher programs and teacher residency programs…

Commonwealth. Unpacking Riley’s teacher licensing proposal: It’s a crack in the armor of high-stakes testing.  …would allow teachers who fail the MTEL state teacher licensing exam repeatedly to be vetted by experts who observe their actual work in the classroom… Massachusetts’ high-stakes licensing exam for teachers has resulted in a teaching force that does not resemble its students.

Education Week.
1) ‘Government Schools’ or Public Schools? Trump, DeVos, and the Language of School Choice   The phrase has a long history in both scholarship about school choice and in messaging policies like private school vouchers, said Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “It’s had this history that’s been tied to one sector that’s really animated by economic principles and ideas… then there’s the part of that community that’s been animated by religious autonomy and prayer in schools. Those folks aren’t necessarily the same …Trump’s more instinctually reacting to the elements of that that are tied to protecting religion and the rights of institutions and individuals to act based on their religious beliefs.”
2) Tennessee Seeks New Teacher, Principal Requirements in ‘Science of Reading’  Programs that prepare teachers and principals would be required to teach evidence-based reading instruction “exclusively,” Schwinn said. 
3) When Teachers Are Tough Graders, Students Learn More, Study Says    The study found that teachers who attended selective colleges, hold graduate degrees, and have more experience tend to have higher grading standards. Teachers with graduate degrees have grading standards that are about 19 percent of a standard deviation stricter than teachers without higher degrees—possibly because they experienced a more challenging academic environment. 
4) White Teachers Need Anti-Racist Therapy    I have also found the work of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, a professor at Teachers College, helpful. In a process she calls “Healing Through the Archaeology of Self,” Sealey-Ruiz asks teachers to dig, reflect, and discover their identities in relationship to their students, systems of oppression, and how teachers can be interrupters of the status quo.

InsideHigherEd.
1) Prepping for a Community College Career.  Doctoral education doesn’t necessarily prepare future faculty members for the jobs they’re likely to get at teaching-intensive institutions. A new grant program takes aim at that problem.
2) Simplifying Public Service Loan Forgiveness  The U.S. Department of Education signaled it will make it easier to apply for Public Service Loan Forgiveness after the application process has faced criticism for being too unwieldy.

NEA Today.
1) Black History Month Lessons & Resources
2) Hawaii Educators Tackle Teacher Shortage With Ambitious 5-Year Plan  … include partnerships to help fund college tuition for students who commit to teaching in public schools for 3-5 years; an expansion of “Grow Your Own” programs; and working with lawmakers and the private sector on ways to increase affordable housing for educators.

New York Times. The New York Times Learning Network now on YouTube

The 74. Q&A — Three Minutes With CZI’s Brooke Stafford-Brizard: What the Schools Best at Supporting the Whole Child Have in Common [interview with Greg Richmond]    I started my career as a middle school teacher in the Bronx. I was a Teach for America corps member. I wasn’t an education major. I went back to graduate school after I taught middle school, and the program I focused on was cognitive sciences in education, a doctoral program in human development that was part of Teachers College at Columbia, and I learned the science of learning and development. 

The Colorado Sun. Most Colorado public school teachers are white, but almost half of their students are not. Can the state close the gap? Through the legislation, aspiring teachers would be able to see more detailed data about Colorado’s educator preparation programs and understand what programs are best preparing candidates to test for their licensure

Washington Post. News Literacy Project   The News Literacy Project empowers educators to teach students the skills they need to become smart, active consumers of news and other information and engaged, informed participants in civic life.

WDRB. JCPS, U of L launch residency program to get more teachers in local classrooms   Hoping to address its teaching shortage and attract more minorities into the profession, Jefferson County Public Schools announced a new one-year residency program with the University of Louisville on Thursday.

WRAL. Kansas City using a fellowship program to train new teachers   Not only is the program helping KCK retain teachers, it’s also helping the district recruit more diverse educators. About half of the teaching fellows come from diverse backgrounds. The district’s students are about 50% Latino, 27% black and 13% white.

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. Your child’s birth month matters: NYC students born in November and December are classified with learning disabilities at higher rates   “New York’s Dec. 31 cutoff leads to unbalanced comparisons,” said Mariana Souto-Manning, professor at Columbia’s Teachers College and director of Early Childhood Education and Early Childhood Special Education Programs. “The misalignment of cut-offs across states and New York’s cut-off being Dec. 31 end up pressuring New York education leaders and teachers to push-down academic skills in ways that are inappropriate.” 

New York State Education Department (NYSED)
1) Letter of Intent Posting (LOI)– New York State Teacher Performance Assessment Seeking LOIs from vendors to administer and report a program of Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) for New York State (NYS) teacher candidates as part of the NYSTCE program. *For the NYSTCE’s TPA program, NYSED currently uses the edTPA, which is a subject-specific, summative assessment designed to measure the knowledge and skills that candidates need to effectively teach subject matter to students. In NYS, the edTPA is administered to approximately 10,000 NYS teacher candidates annually. The edTPA is a multi-state assessment that is administered to a large racially/ethnically and geographically diverse population of teacher candidates in 41 states and Washington D.C. Currently, 20 states have policies that require candidates to pass a teacher performance assessment in order to obtain teacher certification. The edTPA has been approved as a teacher performance assessment for certification purposes in all of these states. * Note: Pearson’s contract ends later this year.
2) Seeking Experts for Review of NYSTCE Bilingual Education Assessments
NYSED is seeking educators to participate in a review of the New York State Teacher Certification Examination (NYSTCE) Framework for the revised Bilingual Education Assessments. A Framework Review Conference is scheduled for March 13, 2020, at the Hilton Albany, 40 Lodge Street, Albany, NY 12207. The framework for the current assessment is available here. Nominate qualified educators* here: http://research.net/s/NYSTPNominate. NYSED would appreciate nominations by February 14, 2020. All nominees must complete the online application here. Participants receive an honorarium and, if needed, reimbursement for travel expenses and lodging.

NYSED Board of Regents.
1) Approved in January: Amendments to the Regulations Relating to the Addition of Subject Areas to the Limited Extension and Statement of Continued Eligibility (SOCE) for Certain Teachers of Students with Disabilities and Technical Amendments to the Limited Extension, SOCE, and Subject Area Extensions in Grades 7-12 for Certain Teachers of Students with Disabilities | Regents Memo HE (A) 1 *. More information is available about this requirement and the subject area certification options on NYSED’s Special Education Teacher Certification Options webpage.
2) Conditionally Approved in January: New York State K-12 Computer Science and Digital Literacy Learning Standards |Regents MemoP-12 (A) 4 and Supplemental Presentation: Standards are grouped into four grade bands: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 and students are expected to master the standards by the end of the last year of the grade band. SED plans to return to the Regents for final adoption by later this spring, kicking off a multi-year roll out with full implementation planned for September, 2024.
3) Meeting Agenda for February 2020

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. De Blasio adds little to his education agenda in ‘State of the City’ speech   Also expanding: a program designed to recruit more men of color into city schools, a group that makes up less than 9% of the city’s teachers, state data show. Officials said the city would put 1,000 more men of color “on the path to becoming teachers” by 2022. That’s identical to a promise the city made to add 1,000 men of color into the teaching pipeline by 2018, a goal officials said they accomplished. The education department hired some 1,700 men of color over three school years, running through the end of the 2018-2019 school year, officials said.

Teaching Residents at Teachers College (TR@TC) Winter Edition Newsletter