GLOBAL
Education International. Cameroon: teachers must get more support in developing their skills to help them deliver quality distance education Concerning the use of information and communication technologies in Cameroon to prepare teachers to give online classes, it is “marginal” according to Roger Kaffo, General Secretary of the Syndicat National Autonome de l’Enseignement Secondaire (SNAES) …
Google/UNESCO. Teach From Home. A temporary hub of information and tools to help teachers during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.
Thomas Reuters Foundation News. Don’t let girls’ education be another casualty of the coronavirus Educators should be trained about the threat of violence against girls and child marriage and refer at-risk girls to protective services.
UNESCO. Startling digital divides in distance learning emerge Teachers also require training to deliver distance and online education effectively, but such support is particularly scarce in low-income countries. Across sub-Saharan Africa, just 64% of primary and 50% of secondary teachers have received minimum training, and this frequently does not include ICT skills.
UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Call for Peer Reviewers: 2021 Annual Meeting Proposals
2) Helping Teacher Educators Take a Stand Against Hate …Deeper Dive presentation, “Combating Discrimination and Hatred Through Education,” at AACTE’s 72nd Annual Meeting in Atlanta
CBS Austin. Pandemic relaxes student teacher certification requirements in Texas. Shortly after many local governments issued some sort of ‘stay home, work safe’ order, the state issued a waiver changing student teacher certification requirements, in part to prevent a teacher shortage before the start of next school year.
Education Week. Here’s How Many Teaching Jobs Could Be Lost in Each State in a COVID-19 Recession If states slash education budgets, Griffith said, school districts would likely lay off early-career teachers first.
Learning Policy Institute.
1) The Impact of the COVID-19 Recession on Teaching Positions Recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers is essential for student learning. As a 2019 Learning Policy Institute analysis found, “Investments in instruction, especially high-quality teachers, appear to leverage the largest marginal gains in [student] performance.”
2) Webinar: How Educator Preparation Programs Are Adapting During COVID-19 [recording and slides of Apr. 23 webinar now available]
Mississippi Today. Suspension of teacher license test amid COVID-19 crisis likely to ‘open up some doors’ for potential educators In late March, the Mississippi State Board of Education suspended multiple requirements for teacher candidates surrounding licensure. For the time being, the Praxis is no longer necessary to obtain a license.
NYTimes. ‘It Was Just Too Much’: How Remote Learning Is Breaking Parents: For the adults in the house, trying to do their own jobs while helping children with class work has become one of the most trying aspects of the pandemic. Parental engagement has long been seen as critical to student achievement, as much as class size, curriculum and teacher quality… Ms. Landgreen, a teacher, said it can be easier to teach a room full of students than one’s own children.
The 74. Coronavirus Separates Student Teachers From Their K-12 and College Classrooms, Forcing Them to Scramble and States to Change License Rules Around the country, student teachers face a uniquely challenging situation, physically disconnected from both their colleges and the schools where they expected to be student teaching this semester. Many are unable to finish up final tests for teacher licensure and, like most children, teachers and parents, experienced an abrupt transition to remote learning at both institutions.
The Teacher Education Podcast. Navigating edTPA with Dr. Lisa Barron
Washington Post. Why history is hard — and dangerous — to teach and how to get kids to stop thinking it is ‘boring and useless’ This inquiry-based history has driven decades of research into the cognition of learning and shaped teacher education. Libraries, archives, and education companies have generated mountains of digitized primary sources for students to examine and analyze. The document-based model has shaped Advanced Placement courses, the Common Core, and policies supported by the National Council for Social Studies.
NEW YORK STATE
NYSED.
1) Acceptance of “Pass” Grades, or its Equivalent, in the Individual Evaluation Pathway to Certification During the Spring, Summer, or Fall 2020 Terms …the Department will allow any undergraduate or graduate level content core or pedagogical core course, completed during the Spring, Summer, or Fall 2020 terms with a “pass” grade, or its equivalent, to count towards the content core or pedagogical core semester hour requirements for certification through the Individual Evaluation pathway.
2) Statement From Chancellor Betty A. Rosa, the Board of Regents and Interim Commissioner Shannon Tahoe “In the coming weeks we will form a statewide task force made up of educational leaders, including superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, school board members and other stakeholders, to guide the reopening of our schools…”
3) Vacancy Notice: Commissioner of Education and President of the University of the State of New York The New York State Board of Regents invites applications and nominations for the position of Commissioner of Education and President of the University of the State of New York.
NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Many of NYC’s bilingual special education students don’t get the right services. Remote learning has made it even harder. People who want to become certified in both bilingual and special education must pursue about 18 to 24 more credit hours of coursework than a general education teacher according to the city teachers union… Through a program with New York City Teaching Fellows, the city subsidizes tuition for special education teachers to get their bilingual certification. The city also helps recruit teachers and covers extra tuition costs at certain colleges for a state program called the Intensive Teacher Institute in Bilingual Special Education. The first cohort started this year with Hunter College, according to the city.
New York Times. Tadashi Tsufura, Internment Survivor and New York Principal, Dies at 89: During World War II, he and his family were forcibly relocated to Arizona. He later became a beloved educator in New York City. Unhappy as a chemical engineer, he left for New York City, where one of his brothers lived. Learning of a teacher shortage in the public schools in the early 1960s, he took education courses at Brooklyn College and started a new career. He taught math in two Manhattan schools and was named the principal of P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village, where he stayed for eight years before becoming a deputy superintendent of District 3 on the Upper West Side.
Washington Post. How a politician with no medical background came to be hyped as ‘the Anthony Fauci of the New York City Council’ He knows schooling from his days as a bilingual math and science teacher in the South Bronx and his time as Teach For America’s New York City director. [Mark Levine is on the NYC City Council representing District 7, including Teachers College and Columbia University.]
