Month: February 2021

GLOBAL
Business Post Ireland. ‘Continued school closures could affect supply of new teachers’ : Senior academic warns that if classrooms are empty in the next academic year then students will not be able to gain practical experience   Professor Damian Murchan, head of the School of Education at Trinity College Dublin, said that the closure of schools last year and again this year had caused significant challenges for in-school placements for student teachers.

The National. Centre recognised as prep, primary teacher training institute   The 107-year-old missionary training centre at Heldsbach in Finschhafen, Morobe, was officially recognised as a training institute for early childhood and primary school teachers on Thursday… The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea (ELCPNG) run institution will now be transformed into an early childhood and primary school teachers training institution.

The Standard. There’s need to radically change teacher training   Recently, the Ministry of Education launched the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) Taskforce report that provides the roadmap aligning education reform initiatives to the needs and expectations of the 21st century… We are looking to the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) to develop content or syllabus that meets the depth and breadth inherent in curricular that answers to the needs of educational excellence.

UNESCO. Global education monitoring report, 2021, Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia: inclusion and education: all means all   Countries must deploy a range of policies boosting inclusion. … Only one in two teachers in the region feels prepared to teach in mixed-ability settings and one in three in multicultural settings. The ageing of the teaching force makes this need more pressing…

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) 73rd Annual Meeting February 24 – 26, 2021 Program Book
2) 2021 National Award Winners
3) Robert Floden at Michigan State University Becomes AACTE Board Chair

BET. Living the Dream: Dr. Ian Smith   The Danbury, Conn. native earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, received a master’s in science education from Teachers College of Columbia University, and completed his medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine

Education Week.
1)  Building a Community for Black Male Teachers   In developing its recruitment and retention efforts, Richland Two is also relying on other organizations that are trying to rebuild the pipeline of Black male teachers. One is The Call Me MISTER initiative, founded at Clemson University in South Carolina. MISTER, which stands for Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models, recruits Black men to be teachers, particularly in the elementary grades.
2) Where Can We Find Lots of Tutors? Bill in Congress Would Deploy Teachers-in-Training   That’s the thrust behind a bipartisan bill introduced Thursday by Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and John Cornyn, R-Texas. The $500 million proposal would give grants to school districts and teacher preparation programs to use aspiring teachers who are finishing up their teaching program to tutor students at high-needs schools.

InsideHigherEd.
1) Biden Announces More Education Department Appointees  Jordan Matsudaira, an associate professor of economics and education policy at Teachers College, Columbia University, was named deputy under secretary. Matsudaira served as chief economist of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration.
2) U of Kansas Will Cut Humanities Department   The University of Kansas plans to eliminate its humanities program and undergraduate degrees in humanities and visual art education…

InsiderNJ. Booker, Cornyn, Murphy, Collins Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Expand Access to Tutoring for Underserved Students   The PATHS to Tutor Act establishes a $500 million competitive grant program for teacher-preparation programs to partner with K-12 schools to provide tutoring in underserved communities during the pandemic

Phi Delta Kappan. Who’s assessing the assessment? The cautionary tale of the edTPA    The edTPA technical reports released each year state that, “all analyses and results have been informed and reviewed by a technical advisory committee [TAC] of nationally recognized psychometricians” (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity, 2018, p. 1)… A majority of these experts responded that they were not aware of being listed as members of such a committee.

Washington Post. At William & Mary, a school for free and enslaved Black children is rediscovered   … it’s noteworthy that the discovery of the original building might never have happened had it not been for Terry L. Meyers, an English professor at William & Mary who was interested in history… he said. “I also think, being a teacher myself, that almost all teaching, all education is to some degree subversive. It makes people start to think; it gives them a kind of independence.”

NEW YORK STATE
InsideHigherEd.  Not Going Quietly: These four professors aren’t giving up their tenured positions at Canisius College without a fight — in court.   Astiz, who has been with Canisius since 2002, is a professor of teacher education.

New York State Assembly. A9750 was reintroduced in the 2021 legislative session under a new print number: A5711.  Relates to the cumulative grade point average admission requirement for graduate-level teacher and educational leader programs…

New York State Education Department. Office of Higher Education, Educator Preparation Newsletter, February 2021
*New Commissioner of Education
*Board of Regents February Items: Definition of University, Emergency Measures in Response to COVID-19, Individual Evaluation Pathway to Certification, Accreditation, Computer Science
* New York State Teacher Certification Examinations (NYSTCE) Test Development Activities
* edTPA Virtual Learning Environment Webinars
* Teaching in Remote/Hybrid Learning Environments

Times Union. New York Regents’ first Black chancellor has a vision for public education: In panel on teacher diversity, Lester Young Jr. stresses personal connection with students   To address the statewide shortage of teachers of color, Young proposes removing financial barriers and educating young people about the profession. “Lots of young people don’t see the school as a self-affirming, self-esteem-building place. So for many young people, the last place they want to be is in school, or to be a teacher … if we really want more young people to go into teaching, we need to give them good reasons,” he said.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) Growing up, I was ‘that kid.’ I became a teacher to help others like me.   … Mary Hebron, a professor in the “Art of Teaching” graduate program at Sarah Lawrence College…  taught us about the process of learning by doing as the heart of education. Hebron said that educators should teach children to be critical thinkers. She taught us that we were not only teachers but educational reformers. We resist the standardization and mechanization of public education, she said, and empower every one of our students to find their voices.
2) Stop calling this generation ‘lost.’ It’s hurtful — and it’s wrong: Despite what you’ve heard, my remote students are learning. [By Selena Carrión TC MA’12]   All this reminds me not to allow a deficit-oriented “lost generation” narrative to deny them their success. As educators, let’s think about their triumphs and how they are still finding joy and wonder amid chaos.

NBC New York. Who Is Meisha Porter, 1st Black Woman to Lead Nation’s Largest Public School System?   A product of the New York City public school system, Porter graduated from Queens Vocational and Technical High School and went on to receive her Bachelor of Arts in English concentrating in Cross Cultural Literature and Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College. She later received her Master’s Degree in Administration and Supervision from Mercy College… Porter has taught at CUNY as an adjunct professor and been a [Teachers College] Columbia University Cahn fellow…

New York Times. Richard Carranza Will Resign as Leader of N.Y.C. School System: His departure, planned for mid-March, comes after repeated clashes with Mayor Bill de Blasio over desegregating the city’s schools.

Teachers College.
1) Peace Corps Fellows Program. Peace Corps 60th Anniversary.  Join the New York City Peace Corps Association, National Peace Corps Association, and special guest Dr. Jeffrey Sachs for a 60th anniversary celebration honoring 60 years since President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps on March 1, 1961. [March 1st, 7pm]
2) TC’s Jordan Matsudaira Is Named Deputy Under Secretary of Education   The Biden-Harris administration has named Jordan Matsudaira, Associate Professor of Economics & Education at Teachers College, to the position of Deputy Under Secretary of Education, with responsibility for higher education policy.

GLOBAL
Cision. New certificate helps province address COVID-19-related teacher shortage.  The Council of the Ontario College of Teachers endorsed the creation of a Temporary Certificate to enable faculty of education students to begin teaching earlier as a partial solution to Ontario’s teaching shortage… Students who are enrolled in an accredited Ontario teacher education program and are expected to complete their program in 2021 can apply. Teachers certified in other Canadian provinces can also apply.

Forum for World Education (WFE). The Future of Teacher Education [Webinar Feb. 23 RSVP]

New Zealand Herald. New on-the-job teacher training scheme delayed as staff shortage ends   The latest Ministry of Education projections, released at 11am, show that the supply of primary teachers is expected to fully meet the demand this year and out to 2023, both nationally and in Auckland. The shortfall of secondary teachers, which was expected to be 1750 by 2023 when the ministry’s first projections were published in 2018, is now expected to be only 100, as New Zealanders come home from a Covid-ravaged world to retrain in teaching.

7th International Forum on Teacher Education (IFTE). “Teacher Education: New Challenges and Goals” [Kazan Federal University, Russian Academy of Education May 26-28, 2021]

UNITED STATES
AACTE/SCALE. February 2021 Newsletter – News From edTPA®

Boston Globe. Dr. Miriam A. Marecek, 1940 – 2020. People like her brother’s sixth grade teacher in Atlantic City, Ms. Florence McHale, and her high school home economics teacher, Mrs. Willis had a profound impact on her life and they influenced her creative pursuits and educational ambitions, to teach and to educate teachers. Miriam graduated from Earlham college in Richmond, IN, and received her PHD from Columbia University, Teacher’s College [1978]. 

Center for Innovation in Teacher Education & Development (CITED). CITED Conversations 2021  [Zoom meeting registration]

Education Week.
1) How Can White Teachers Teach Black History? Six Things You Need to Know: Black historical consciousness requires more than just a pedagogical shift    We can use this Black historical consciousness to analyze and refine our teaching of Black history, not just in February but across the whole school year.
2) How School Districts Are Keeping Diverse Teacher Recruitment at the Top of Their Agenda   Like countless other school systems across the nation, Florida’s Palm Beach County school district is facing multiple challenges this year: budget cuts, accelerated teacher retirements, a shortage of substitute teachers … support a variety of efforts… and strengthening existing alternative certification and “grow our own” programs.
3) Nurturing Talent at Home to Revive a Struggling Region   Bridges created a “grow-your-own” program designed to nurture teaching talent in Edgecombe…With support from philanthropies, the district’s scholar-teacher program pays for dual high school-college enrollment and up to $30,000 in college scholarships for students who pledge to return to the district to teach for at least three years. Students who don’t return must repay the money.

FacultiNet. Assessing the Assessment.  Drew Gitomer discusses the technical documentation of and edTPA and score design, the reliability of the assessments, and the consequential impact on decisions about edTPA candidates.

Hechinger Report. How much will it take to reopen, catch up kids, and save public schooling long term?: Billions of stimulus dollars are flowing to public schools, but experts say it may not be enough without big changes to how states allocate funds   For instance, Arizona passed Proposition 208 in November …which would raise hundreds of millions to support K-12 education. That money is designated for teachers and classroom support staff, mentoring and retention programs, and the Arizona Teachers Academy, which gives financial support to people earning their teaching certificates in exchange for a commitment to teach in the state. 

InsideHigherEd. Setting the Bar Higher  A new report from the National Council for Teacher Quality argues that raising admissions standards for teacher training programs can also increase diversity in the field.

National Council on Teacher Quality. Teacher Prep Review: Program Diversity and Admissions 2021   To assess whether teacher preparation programs are meeting the urgent need to diversify the profession, we compared the diversity of their enrollment to the diversity of the current state teacher workforce (reported by the Institute for Education Sciences) as well as the local community in which the programs reside (reported by the Census Bureau). Combining the two measures allows for enrollment to be viewed in the context of where each program operates.

New York Post. Adding wokeness: Oregon promotes teacher program to subtract ‘racism in mathematics’   Attorney M.E. Hart, who has conducted these types of training sessions, told The Washington Post that the training helped people live up to “this nation’s promise – ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”

New York Times.
1) A College Program for Disadvantaged Teens Could Shake Up Elite Admissions: An education program is immersing underprivileged students in Ivy League classes, and the students’ success has raised questions about how elite university gatekeepers determine co.   The early results, Ms. Cornfeld said, are clear: “Our nation’s talent is evenly distributed; opportunity is not.”… An analysis of the most recent federal civil rights data by the Community College Research Center, part of Columbia University’s Teachers College, shows white students enroll in traditional dual-enrollment courses at twice the rate of Black students. And Black and Native American students had the lowest participation rates in Advanced Placement courses, the most widely used proxy for college readiness.
2) Talking About Race and Racism in the Classroom Using The New York Times [Live Webinar Mar. 4]
3) The Influence of a Perfect Teacher: Perhaps because I had a teacher who made reading aloud into ceremony, ritual and compelling drama, I grew up to find my cause in pediatricians’ promoting reading aloud at checkups.  Actually, she became Dr. Miriam Marecek in the 1970s when she earned a doctorate in education [Teachers College PhD ‘78], but in my mind, she was always Miss Marecek… Miriam Marecek spent the rest of her life deeply engaged with children’s literature — teaching it to college students and graduate students in education, advising school districts on books and literacy..

New York Times Magazine. Amazon’s Great Labor Awakening: Covid-19 has cemented the e-commerce giant’s hold on the economy — but it has also spurred employees all around the country to organize.   Amazon Logistics and Business Management Pathway… Amazon partnered with the school as part of its five-year anniversary in the Inland Empire, donating $50,000 to start the pilot program… The plan, an Amazon spokeswoman told me, is to offer robotics-training mentorships, job-training externships, teacher-training programs and transferable college credits. 

InsideHigherEd. Vaccines for Educators — but Not All Educators   “The sooner that higher education employees are vaccinated, the sooner we can expand our students’ in-person learning experience,” Michelle Marks, the chancellor of the University of Colorado Denver, said… New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s office did not return a request for comment about the reason for prioritizing in-person college faculty and instructors over other college employees, a decision that has been criticized on equity grounds. 

VPM/NPR. Lawmakers Call for Volunteers to Fill Teacher Gap   …called on Gov. Ralph Northam to form a ‘Teachers Reserve Corps’ on Monday to address a statewide teacher shortage. Their proposal calls for largely unpaid volunteers to fill in for educators that can’t work in person during the COVID-19 pandemic… The corps would be made up of retired educators, military veterans, college students hoping to become teachers and people licensed to teach outside of Virginia’s K-12 public education system.

WAVY-TV. Black History Month: Hampton’s Little England Chapel stands as an inspiration for freedom   According to documents filed with the National Register of Historic Places, the chapel was first “built by students of Hampton Institute, the famous Black teacher-training college founded by Northern missionaries in 1868.” 

GLOBAL
New Indian Express. One teacher training institute for 1,057 schools in Odisha   Neighbouring Andhra Pradesh has one teacher training institute for around 156 educational institutes at elementary, secondary and higher secondary level.

Sydney Morning Herald. How to help kids prepare to return to school after a topsy-turvy year   Separation anxiety, particularly for younger kids, may be an issue initially, says Dr Daniela Acquaro, director of initial teacher education at the University of Melbourne. “Kids really have spent a lot of 2020 with parents and carers.”

The Guardian. What job opportunities are there for young people in the UK?   The government is offering bursaries and scholarships for teacher training in certain subjects, including chemistry and computing. For 2021-22, up to £26,000 of financial help is available to individuals.

Vanguard. USAID launches new early grade learning book in local languages   USAID-NEI Plus has improved reading skills for more than 952,565 pupils, trained 9600 teachers, and distributed more than 6 million teaching and learning materials to schools… The Federal Ministry of Education under the leadership of the Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu has recorded several strides in its efforts to improve the quality of education in Nigeria: school feeding program, teacher training, online learning…

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE Launches New Online Community   AACTE is excited to introduce AACTE Connect360, an engaging and interactive online community that will link individual educators from its 700 member institutions to bring educator preparation full circle.
2) Senator Elizabeth Warren To Headline AACTE Opening Keynote Series   U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren will address the AACTE community during its 2021 Annual Meeting Opening Keynote session on February 24. 

Capitol News Illinois. GOP members hope to block new teacher standards   The new standards would apply to teacher training programs at Illinois colleges and universities rather than K-12 school curricula. They are scheduled to come up for legislative review on Tuesday, Feb. 16, before the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, or JCAR, a legislative body that has oversight authority over state regulatory agencies. If approved, the standards would take effect in October 2025 in order to give state-approved educator preparation programs ample time to incorporate them, according to a statement from the Illinois State Board of Education.

Chalkbeat. Colorado joins multistate effort to improve how teacher prep programs cover reading.  The Mississippi-based Barksdale Reading Institute is spearheading the effort — called The Path Forward — with an inaugural group of six states. Besides Colorado, they include Arizona, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. Path Forward will allow state leaders to share strategies for embedding the science of reading into teacher training programs, holding those programs accountable for early literacy outcomes, and enlisting the help of philanthropic groups in such efforts.

Early Learning Nation. New Mexico On Verge of Securing State Constitutional Change to Ensure Stable Funding for Children Zero to Five   “I just believe education is important at every age, and I believe that educators need fair pay,” Natachua said. With more funding that enables better pay, she thinks that early childhood educators will be able to get more training and degrees, and that the industry will see less turnover. 

Forbes. The Puzzling Gap In Research On Writing Instruction   A hugely popular curriculum developed by literacy guru [& TC Professor] Lucy Calkins, often referred to as Writers’ Workshop, is the subject of a recently released rigorous evaluation—the first ever conducted of the approach, despite the fact that it’s been around for decades. Researchers found significant gains beginning in the second year of implementation, although they were smaller for students from lower-income families and other vulnerable groups.

Hechinger Report. Singing in the parking lot, and other pandemic strategies for music students   … next-generation music professionals are inventing — and reinventing — the music teaching tools and techniques we all will need to see our way through the pandemic.

New York Times. Schumer Pushes a $50,000 Student Debt Forgiveness Plan.

Showbiz Cheat Sheet. How Tony Bennett’s Wife Susan Benedetto’s Background As a Teacher is Helping Her Care for Her Ailing Husband   Benedetto worked for many years in arts education. A graduate of Fordham University and of Columbia University’s Teachers College, she eventually launched Creative Artists Management and assisted performers and artists in the navigation of their careers. She and her husband in 1999 opened in Queens, New York City the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, where Benedetto worked both as a social studies teacher and assistant principal. 

Washington Post.
1) How to start ending the school-to-prison pipeline — by an educator just elected to the U.S. House   First, we must teach BIPOC history and culture in our schools, so that children can learn the global contributions of BIPOC people and our BIPOC kids can feel empowered. The majority of public school teachers are White; we must recruit, train and retain more teachers of color, and train all teachers using an anti-racist curriculum.
2) Teachers to Biden: What we want from your administration   In order for democracy to continue to thrive, we need to rethink the way we educate our nation’s students. And we need to equip our teachers with the training and support they need to be changemakers in the classroom.   * Ensure teacher education programs require current, fact-based science coursework, for elementary school teachers as well as secondary science teachers.
* Support the development and spread of professional learning programs that show efficacy in anti-racist training for teachers.
*Require science-based training for all preservice teachers, and ongoing training for in-service teachers, in trauma-informed teaching, including spotting and understanding signs of mental illness.
3) What you need to know about standardized testing   It is time to relax the heavy hand of federal regulation and to recall the original purposes of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act: to distribute funding to the neediest students and schools; to support the professional training of teachers; and to assure the civil rights of students… At this critical time, as we look beyond the terrible consequences of the pandemic, American schools face a severe teacher shortage. The federal government can help states raise funding to pay professional salaries to professional teachers. It can help pay for high-quality prekindergarten programs. 

NEW YORK STATE
Governor Andrew Cuomo. FY 2022 Executive Budget Briefing Book.
* Eliminate Teacher Support Programs. In recent years, the State has provided $27.4 million annually for several recurring teacher support and training programs, including the Teachers of Tomorrow Program ($25 million), Teacher Mentor Intern Program ($2 million) and the Albert Shanker Grant Program ($0.4 million). The FY2022 Executive Budget eliminates these programs, starting in the 2021-22 school year, in order to achieve necessary State savings while preserving programs that provide direct services to sensitive student populations. These spending reductions may be restored if the State receives requested Federal COVID relief funds
*Streamline New Education Program Approval to Meet Workforce Needs. To ensure responsiveness to the rapidly evolving skills that New York’s employers require of their employees, the Budget will streamline the process to approve programs and degrees at New York’s colleges and universities. This change will help fuel New York’s economic recovery and enable New York to better compete in the Global Economy.

NY1. New York Senate Approves Education Diversity Measures   Lawmakers in the state Senate on Wednesday advanced measures meant to boost diversity in the state’s schools and education policy, including mesures meant to encourage school and college officials to attract underrepresented candidates for teaching positions… The bills include the “Grow Your Own” initiatives for school districts, cooperative education services and higher education institutions to attract diverse teaching candidates. 

NYSED. NYSED seeks educator input on how program activities can best support teaching students in remote/hybrid instructional settings. [Survey deadline: Feb 15]

NEW YORK CITY
NYTimes.
1) Missing in School Reopening Plans: Black Families’ Trust   Sonya D. Horsford, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said the moment presented an opportunity for public schools to rethink much of what was not working for Black children. “It’s a great time to have that conversation about the source of mistrust and what we want as part of this recovery,” …
2) Sylvia Lieber, Creative Kindergarten Teacher, Dies at 102    To Sylvia Lieber, there was no reason that the kindergartners and first graders she taught at P.S. 26 in Fresh Meadows, Queens… After graduating from New Utrecht High School, Sylvia received a bachelor’s degree in education from Hunter College and began teaching.

Patch. Chelsea Camin, Voice Teacher: Long Island’s Best Kept Secret   A graduate of Teachers College, Columbia University, Ms. Camin received her Master’s in Music & Music Education, she continues to uphold those ideals and formulates curriculum for her private studio. An asset that sets her apart from other voice teachers. 

Teachers College.
1) Imagining and Re-Imagining Teaching, Becoming and Being Teacher Educators: A colloquium series [12 Noon on Feb. 5 & 12]
2) Redefining Scholarship: With the new year under way, the Teachers College Record is amplifying a diverse new range of voices and topics   The articles in the year’s opening issue included: “Invisible Shifts in the Classroom: Dynamics of Teacher Salary and Teacher Supply in Urban China;” “White Supremacy and Teacher Education: Balancing Pedagogical Tensions when Teaching about Race”…
3) Two Teachers College Alumni Will Serve in the Biden-Harris Administration   Cardichon most recently directed the Washington D.C. office and federal policy arm of the Learning Policy Institute. Earlier in her career, she was a teacher in New York City for seven years and then worked at TC as a program manager for implementation of early career educator induction programs.