Month: August 2020

GLOBAL
Global Partnership for Education. A new toolkit for gender equality in Asia-Pacific      There is a wide range of tools in the kit, covering all levels of the education system and key thematic areas including education in emergencies, gender-based violence, teacher education and strategic planning.

New York Times. CANADA LETTER: Will It Be Safe to Return to School?   Jason Ellis, a professor of education at the University of British Columbia, said everyone in education has been focused on the return since March… “You can’t space out the kids dramatically in schools because you would need to hire thousands of teachers, and they don’t exist,”…

Washington Post. At least 463 million students around the world have no access to digital or broadcast lessons, UNICEF report says   Among the recommendations in the report to ensure that students can continue to learn during and after the pandemic: *Support and train teachers and parents to effectively manage remote “virtual” classrooms and help children learn at home, at all levels of education including preprimary. 

 

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Virtual 2020 Washington Week [events Sept. 2-23]

AACTE/SCALE. August 2020 Newsletter Correction edTPA   Webinar Series: Completing edTPA in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

Chalkbeat. Virtual charter schools see spike in interest as families grapple with the pandemic’s disruption   “Schools have hired new teachers and are providing rigorous start-of-school training and ongoing professional development in online teaching. Pearson has invested in providing schools with benchmark assessment tools that will allow them to identify learning gaps and put appropriate supports in place right away,”…

EdWeek.
1) Education a Key Issue in 2020 Race Even Before the Pandemic, Poll Finds   “For many decades, teacher educators were divided into two camps: those who favored whole language, characterized by the idea that reading is a natural process gained through exposure to authentic texts, and those who believed in systematic phonics instruction, which is the explicit teaching of sound-letter relationships,”
2) There Is Nothing Fragile About Racism   I called my mentor, Cynthia Dillard, a professor of teacher education and a colleague at the University of Georgia, to discuss her perspective on the idea of white fragility. She pointedly asked me: “Tina, what’s fragile about racism?” She was right. I have never known racism to be fragile… our current education system does not provide white students with anti-racist curriculum, language to call out racism, or teachers of color to learn from. After 13 years of schooling, many white students end their K-12 experience without ever having a teacher of color or being challenged to disrupt their learned racism.

Evolllution. Teacher Preparation and Licensure Requirements During COVID-19: Short-term Solutions with Long-term Effects.  Teacher licensure executive orders and emergency regulations are reactions to a global pandemic. They highlight the need to examine teacher preparation across all states so that teacher licensure can move from a reactionary approach to one of preparedness. 

Hechinger Report. How do you teach antiracism to the youngest students?: Educators are finding tools to teach young kids about America’s racist past and present in age-appropriate ways.   Colleges are holding professional development online events for educators on how to reimagine education with racial justice in mind. And school districts are working to expand their curricula on race.

Learning Policy Institute. Restarting and Reinventing School: Learning in the Time of COVID and Beyond   Priority 9: Prepare Educators for Reinventing School Everything described here requires knowledgeable, skilled, dedicated educators; there is no other way to get the kind of teaching we need…

NJInsider. Ruiz Introduces Bill Package to Increase Teacher Diversity  The bills are:
*2825 would establish a loan redemption program for certain bilingual education teachers.
*2829 would establish the “Male Teachers of Color Mentorship Pilot Program” and appropriate $50,000 to fund the program.
*2830 would require educator preparation programs to report passing rates of students who complete certain tests and to disseminate information on test fee waiver programs. The bill would also permit the collection of a student fee for certain testing costs.
*2832 would allow students enrolled in an institution of higher education who have completed 30 semester-hour credits to serve as a substitute teacher.
*2833 would establish the teacher apprenticeship program.
*2834 would mandate training on culturally responsive teaching for all candidates for a teaching certification.
*2793 would require public institutions of higher education to take various actions to improve campus diversity. The bill also directs the Secretary of Higher Education to develop guidance regarding diversity in the faculty search and selection process.

NPR/WNYC. More Than 6,500 Teachers Have Had Unfair Student Debts Erased. … teachers have gotten a second chance to shed millions of dollars in unfair student debts, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education. The educators had enrolled in the department’s troubled TEACH Grant program, which provides grants to help aspiring teachers pay for college. In exchange, they agreed to teach a high-need subject for four years in a school that serves low-income families.

Observer-Reporter. Few Black teachers in county, but they make a difference in the classroom.  Having a Black teacher is also an important way to battle systemic racism, said Dr. Kenith Britt, a Trinity High School graduate who attended Washington School District and now serves as vice president of Marian University’s Klipsch Educators College in Indianapolis, which aims to help talented students of color to become teachers. “Systemic racism in our country can and should end. One way that can have a dramatic long-term impact is ensuring that white students have Black teachers, counselors and school leaders. 

NYTimes.
1) 80 Tips for Remote Learning From Seasoned Educators: Twenty-eight middle and high school teachers from The New York Times Teaching Project tell us how they’re navigating remote instruction this fall.
2) How White Progressives Undermine School Integration: A robust body of research shows the benefits of integration. Why, then, is it so hard to achieve?   But there are all sorts of barriers, including regulatory barriers such as teacher licensing exams in many states that disproportionately exclude people of color, even though there is little or no evidence that your score on those exams impacts the quality of instruction.
3) Pearson Splashes Out to Secure Former Disney Exec Bird as CEO  Although Bird does not have direct experience in education, he has been on Pearson’s board since May … He will be tasked with returning Pearson to growth after students in the United States stopped buying expensive text books…
4) Tracking Coronavirus Cases at U.S. Colleges and Universities

Teacher Education Podcast. Podcast #14.  Dr. Marquita Grenot-Scheyer, the Assistant Vice Chancellor of Educator Preparation and Public School Programs for Calif. State Univ.

Washington Post. A lesson on QAnon for teachers to use in class   The following lesson on QAnon can be used by teachers and anybody else who wants to have a conversation with young people about this conspiracy and how it has entered U.S. politics.

 

 

NEW YORK STATE
InsideHigherEd. Cuomo Adviser Malatras Voted In as SUNY Chancellor   Jim Malatras, president of SUNY Empire State College and longtime advisor to Governor Andrew Cuomo, will take up the chancellorship Aug. 31. His appointment prompted the SUNY Faculty Senate to vote no confidence in the system’s board.

 

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) Can ‘podding’ be made equitable? Yes, if parents work together: At our Brooklyn public school, parents are trying to create pandemic-safe child care options that everyone can access, but we need help.   We also called after-school programs, tutoring companies and summer camps to see if any could step in and provide trained staff to watch over our kids. They have been enthusiastic about jumping in to help, but the process for getting approval to run these programs outside of schools and licensed child care facilities is opaque. 
2) NYC says classroom teachers shouldn’t also have to teach remotely. Principals fear a staffing crunch.  Linda Chen, the education department’s chief academic officer, said the city is “concerned” about staffing issues but noted that anyone with a teaching license but who doesn’t typically work in a classroom could be pressed into service. 

Teachers College.
1) Amid COVID and Racial Injustice, Teachers Matter More than Ever: They anchor young people and create safe spaces in times of crisis  [by A. Sabic-El-Rayess TC Assoc. Prof. of Practice]   We need to invest more in our teachers to do this kind of work — in what we pay them, in their professional development, in how we mentor them to counter the racial, religious and ethnic stereotypes in our schools, in the resources we give them, and in how we esteem them for the courageous work they do. This also includes investing in and diversifying the teachers who teach teachers — meaning us — because we have the privilege of influencing teaching and education around the world through our own work…
2) The Public Good. COMING TOGETHER THROUGH STORIES   The Public Good developed this unit in order to support teachers as they work to make their curriculum more culturally responsive and sustaining while engaging their students in timely discussions.

GLOBAL
EcoFin Agency. The future of education in Africa: aligning education to Africa’s development goals   The school curricula in many African countries is outdated and does not reflect the major changes that have occurred during the past few decades in Africa and the rest of the world. The most visible consequence of this the poor quality of teachers on the continent. It also creates a cycle of poor learning which is not nearly helpful in the labor market. Students study outdated materials and eventually become teachers who educate young students using an outdated knowledge base.

NYTimes.
1) Una escuela temporal para los niños en busca de asilo: Los esfuerzos por educar a los niños en la frontera entre México y Estados Unidos se han visto frustrados por la pandemia. Fundó su propia organización sin fines de lucro, llamada International Activist Youth, y reclutó a otros estudiantes universitarios para ayudar a enseñar. 
2) Struggling With Lockdown, Schools Relearn Value of Older Tech: TV   Salvador Herencia, the technical secretary of Investment in Childhood, a civil society group, remembers listening to lessons on the radio as a child. He later worked for the national tele-education system, becoming part of a generation of educators and writers who contributed content as a way of extending schooling to poor Peruvians.

The Guardian. Australian tradies and teachers to be able to work across borders under new licence rules   Under the federal government’s latest red-tape reduction reforms, teachers, real estate agents, electricians and plumbers will be among the workers to have their occupational licences recognised Australia-wide. The move comes as unemployment is estimated to peak at 10% by the end of 2020. 

World Economic Forum. Resetting the way we teach science is vital for all our futures  …Our educational systems around the world were failing before COVID-19 and will continue to fall behind unless we change the way we teach and learn science.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Moving Educator Preparation Forward During the Pandemic   …virtual reality technology offers access to field-tested classroom simulations, which provide evidence-based results for improving skills essential to working with human development. The collaboration provides teacher candidates an opportunity to complete clinical field experiences remotely without compromising their health and safety.

AACTE/SCALE.
1) edTPA®: June – July 2020 Newsletter
2) Webinars For edTPA Community [sign-in required]
Completing edTPA in Virtual Learning Environments webinars
edTPA Overview for Mentor and Cooperating Teachers webinar series
edTPA 101 and Task-by-Task Deep Dives webinar series

ATLAS/FAVSTE: A Tool and a Framework for Using Video in Teacher Preparation. A group of [science] teacher educators, working under the leadership of NBPTS, has been using the ATLAS (Accomplished Teaching, Learning and Schools) library as a tool and the FAVSTE (framework for Analyzing Video in Science Teacher Education) as a framework for maximizing the efficacy of video tasks. [incl. TC Sr. Lecturer J. Riccio]  Webinar Recording Day 1  Webinar Recording Day 2  ATLAS Resources

Chalkbeat. As families seek help with remote learning, some Newark schools offer an alternative to ‘learning pods’   Unlike private pods, the public versions are free and held in communal spaces such as libraries, recreation centers, and schools where students can take their online classes under the watchful eye of trained adults. 

Education Week.
1) An Open Letter to Well-Meaning White Teachers: Three ways to center Black progress in the classroom   1. Talk about systemic racism, not individual stories.  2. Talk about history in today’s context. 3. Talk about navigating and disrupting racism.
2) COVID-19’s Harm to Learning Is Inevitable. How Schools Can Start to Address It   For districts, the primary challenge to ensuring grade-level access for all students before turning to remediation is the cultural belief among some educators that they should “meet students where they are” in part by introducing some lower-level content. It’s an idea that permeates some reading programs (“just-right books”) and is implicitly a theme in the work of frequently taught theorists in teaching programs (“the zone of proximal development”).

Edutopia. Educators Turn to Bitmoji to Build Community and Engagement   Available through the Bitmoji app, these customizable, mini-me avatars have become stand-in teachers running virtual classrooms, enforcing rules and expectations, collecting assignments…

NYTimes. Pods, Microschools and Tutors: Can Parents Solve the Education Crisis on Their Own?  Instead of hiring teachers, some families are hoping to share the teaching among the parents… One of the dads, who owns a tech company, might teach coding, while Phillips, who is an editor, will teach reading and writing. The parents will ideally teach “whatever they’re good at, or know about or care about,” … If parents are hiring a teacher, they should make sure their credentials include a bachelor’s degree in education and that they meet state requirements said Meg Flanagan, an educational consultant… Consider also hiring a teacher who is Black, Indigenous or a person of color (B.I.P.O.C.), and asking them to implement a social justice-themed curriculum, said Nikolai Pizarro, an educator, author and mother in Atlanta..

Washington Post.
1) ‘A national crisis’: As coronavirus forces many schools online this fall, millions of disconnected students are being left behind   “My teachers can teach virtually, but my students can’t access it virtually,” Akins said. Instead, staffers in the high-poverty district delivered homework along with weekly grocery packages. “Now you’re relying on the parent to help teach, or the student to teach themselves.”
2) High school students are demanding schools teach more Black history, include more Black authors   What American children learn depends almost entirely on where they live, because every state has different requirements. Many teachers say they feel ill-prepared to teach about the subject, and textbooks often provide scant — or skewed — information… Unlike with subjects such as math and science, there is no nationally agreed upon set of standards for teaching social studies and history — each state is allowed to craft its own requirements

 

NEW YORK STATE
Albany Times-Union. Malatras named SUNY chancellor as faculty votes no confidence in board   Only once before — in 1999, when faculty felt that political appointees were meddling with teaching plans — have the faculty held no confidence votes against the board.

Inside Higher Ed. Governor’s Adviser Lined Up to Lead SUNY: The State University of New York Board of Trustees will likely forgo a national search for a new chancellor despite faculty opposition.   The State University of New York Board of Trustees is expected to appoint Jim Malatras as the system’s chancellor today, forgoing a national search to fill the open position with a key confidant of New York governor Andrew Cuomo.

New York Post.  SUNY Board set to appoint Cuomo right-hand Jim Malatras next chancellor: source. The 42-year-old, a key official on Cuomo’s COVID-19 task force who sat beside the governor during his daily press conferences, is set to be appointed chancellor of the State University of New York after the board of the state college system decided to scrap a national search to fill the post…Malatras earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the State University at Albany. He also served a stint as chief of staff to former SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher.

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. De Blasio tells educators to step up and serve. They say the mayor is making that hard.   “Educators chose the profession because they love kids and they care about kids, and they know kids are suffering right now,” de Blasio said. “It’s time to say, public servants rise to the occasion and answer the call… With class sizes of roughly 10 students, the Manhattan principals said they need double or triple the number of teachers. Despite asking on a “near-daily basis for months” how to fill those gaps, they’ve received no guidance…

GLOBAL
Chalkbeat. England is launching a national tutoring program. Could the U.S. follow suit?   The English government has set aside “catch-up” funds for schools, including 350 million pounds — or about $450 million — for a national tutoring program targeted at students from low-income families. That money would fund recent college graduates employed by public schools and also existing tutoring organizations. 

Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE). Six Insights on Teacher Training   All four of the teacher training programmes that our panellists had studied are vast improvements over the typical in-service training model.

UKFIET. Remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 disruption: experiences of ministries of education, teachers and teacher educators   …information derived from 52 school systems and over 9,600 English language teachers and teacher educators in more than 150 different countries.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Back to School Series with ATLAS, ISTE and LPI   This August, join us for a “Back to School” webinar series … we will discuss how to apply what was learned this past spring to the upcoming academic year within higher educator preparation programs.

AACTE/LPI. Preparing educators during COVID-19: Lessons learned and new challenges for Fall 2020 Educator Preparation Laboratory (EdPrepLab) third in a series of four webinars on effective teacher and leader preparation. [Webinar Aug. 26]

Chalkbeat. Pods for all? Some districts and nonprofits are reimagining the remote learning trend    “People are hiring nannies and private tutors and college students to help care and guide their students during this period.”

Education Commission of the United States. Building a Diverse Teacher Workforce.  Efforts to recruit teachers from local communities — efforts known as grow-your-own programs— come in a variety of forms and can be geared toward recruiting both high school and college students…Supporting teacher residency programs is a somewhat less common approach states have taken to increasing the diversity of their pool of teacher candidates… Teacher candidates of color often face disproportionate barriers to entering the teaching profession.

Education Week.
1) Students in Special Education, English-Learners May Go Back to Class First. Here’s Why   Well before the coronavirus closed schools, studies determined that states struggled to develop remote learning policies for students with disabilities and that teachers were often not trained—and sometimes not willing—to use digital resources for English-learners, many of whom lack access to high-speed internet access and computers, laptops, or tablets.
2) Low Pay and High Risk: Being a Substitute Teacher During COVID-19   The national average unemployment rate is just over 10 percent, and some of those workers might be interested in subbing. For instance, she said, someone who was laid off from a STEM career would be a “wonderful candidate” to teach a science or math class.

Hechinger Report. The simple intervention that could lift kids out of ‘Covid slide’: Tutoring is more effective than other measures. But can it be expanded to support the kids who need it most?   A soon-to-be-published study by Slavin shows that teachers-in-training — along with trained, stipend-funded volunteers such as those working through AmeriCorps — are just as good at tutoring as certified educators.

InsideHigherEd. Kamala Harris Has Battled For-Profit Colleges  She also included in a plan on raising teachers’ salaries this spring additional money for HBCUs to address the underrepresentation of teachers of color.

NBC News. Amid a racial reckoning, teachers are reconsidering how history is taught  “There’s a decided push for us to really begin to re-examine our own biases and how we approach things in our classroom,” one educator said.

NYTimes. 60 Talented Educators Join The New York Times Teaching Project [incl. Nicholas Stone, Teachers College MA’14 Teaching of Social Studies]

 

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. NY Board of Regents taps its own chancellor to become interim education department commissioner

New York State Education Department. Board of Regents Appoints Dr. Betty A. Rosa as Interim Commissioner of Education   Dr. Rosa, who will resign her position as Chancellor of the Board of Regents, will assume this position with the Department on August 14… the search for the next permanent Commissioner of Education and President of the University of the State of New York has been extended. AGB Search has reposted the position and applications should be received by October 1, 2020.

Washington Post. Frances Allen, first woman to win Turing Award for contributions to computing, dies at 88   All this was heady stuff for a woman who seemed destined for a career as a high school math teacher in her hometown of Peru, N.Y… A high school teacher piqued her interest in math, and she decided to follow a similar career path. She received a teaching degree in 1954 from the New York State Teachers’ College in Albany (today SUNY at Albany). She took a job teaching math at her high school in Peru and felt she had found her calling.

 

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College. Speaking Up: She lived in a country silenced by oppression. Now Erika Levy helps kids with speech disorders use “a big mouth and strong voice” — an approach that shapes her online teaching.   The speech comparison project, which helps students understand the speech acoustics and articulation that come into play in different languages and dialects, grew out of the period when Levy’s family lived in Vienna and Levy attended the American International School there.

GLOBAL
DutchNews.NL. Career switch: more people sign up for part-time teacher training   The number of people applying for part-time teacher training courses has gone up 20% this academic year…‘We need thousands more teachers and we have worked hard in the past year to make teacher training more flexible, so people can both study and work”…

International Council on Education for Teaching. Virtual Symposium; Call for Contributions
*Thursday, October 8, 2020 New York Time:  10 am-1 pm
*Thursday October 15, 2020 Tokyo Time:  2 pm-5 pm  

International Forum for Teacher Educator Development (InFo-TED).  ATEE webinar – registration form [8 Sept.]

NYTimes. A Visit to 5 of Patagonia’s Most Remote Schoolhouses. “Teachers who are in rural schools must enjoy living in extreme areas,” Ms. Almonacid said, adding that the management of multigrade classrooms — with students at a variety of levels and abilities — is a constant struggle.

 

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Day on the Hill: September 9-10 and September 15-16 [deadline Aug. 14]

Forbes. The Real Test We Need For Our Pandemics Of COVID-19 And Racial Injustice: Assessing Standardized Tests, Teacher Diversity, And Antiracist Education With José Luis Vilson   Diversifying the teacher profession is a key goal of EduColor, which you co-founded… I’d say that the problem with hiring and retaining teachers of color is also the problem with hiring and retaining teachers in general, but it becomes more acute with teachers of color because it’s interwoven with racism and other identity markers.

Hechinger Report.
1) Jobless college students are hired for summer jobs to mentor younger peers: Expanded coaching aims to keep incoming freshmen on track for college and prevent “Covid-19 slide” among elementary kids   Several programs aimed at keeping incoming freshmen on track for college and others that provide tutoring to elementary students are scooping up jobless undergraduates as mentors in relationships that benefit everyone.
2) Martin Luther King Jr.’s sister had it right when she ensured countless teachers of color got the training they need to give students the support they deserve   Farris is the older sister of Dr. King, a former professor of education, and someone who made her share of civil rights contributions as well. As my professor at Spelman College, Farris taught a class on the fundamentals of teaching reading, and she made sure that each of her students showed mastery of the constructs of the English language.

Medium. We Need Meaningful Training For Teachers, And We Need It Now A Reality-Based Teacher Training Model   Reality pedagogy is an approach to teaching and learning that focuses on teachers gaining an understanding of student realities and then using this information as the starting point for instruction

National Public Radio (NPR). Most Teachers Concerned About In-Person School; 2 In 3 Want To Start The Year Online   Despite all the difficulties, 70% of respondents tell NPR/Ipsos that if they could pick a career all over again, they would still choose to be teachers. 

Post and Courier. Winthrop University launches probe after professor’s anti-racism Facebook post angers critics   …social media post containing threats to out teachers who express anti-Black, pro-police sentiments. April Mustian, who focuses on special education, was scheduled this month to start at Winthrop, a public Rock Hill liberal arts college, when a Facebook post she wrote in June caught the eye of online conservative groups.

 

 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Board of Regents. Virtual Meeting of August 11, 2020

NYSED Office of Higher Education.
1) GUIDANCE FOR NEW YORK STATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ON REOPENING FOR THE 2020-21 ACADEMIC YEAR
*Academics, Student Support Services, And Financial Aid
*Clinical Experiences And Examinations For Educator Certification
*Clinical Experiences And Examinations For Professional Licensing
*Opportunity Programs
*Postsecondary Students With Disabilities
*Data Reporting.
2) July Newsletter
*Guidance For New York State Colleges and Universities On Reopening
*Board of Regents July Items
*New York State Physical Education Learning Standards

 

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. This NYC teacher is determined to diversify computer science — and to help his school navigate a monumental loss   How and when did you decide to become a teacher? Most of my life I wanted to go into medicine. In my senior year of high school, I took a Future Educators of America elective course (mainly to get out of AP Calculus B), and I got to be a teacher assistant in a sophomore World History class with a teacher I really respected…. I think it was that experience that sowed the seeds that would blossom into my current career. 

New Yorker. What Will the First Day of School Look Like? Terrified teachers. Obstinate officials. Exhausted parents. Inside the city’s messy reopening battle.   Shouldn’t teachers, who signed up for a career in public service, be prepared to fulfill their obligations like other essential workers — the workers, in fact, who make virtually all other work possible?

Teachers College. Suspect Performance: Interest in vouchers and Education Savings Accounts appears to be waning, says TC’s Luis Huerta   … private schools are not subject to public regulation and thus not required to meet government standards on measures that range from testing performance to teacher accreditation to instruction for special education students.