GLOBAL
FENews UK. Initial teacher training providers have done everything within their gift to offer support and guidance through this difficult time The support providers have given to trainees has been recognised as going ‘above and beyond’, and something we have directly witnessed with our members over the past 14 months. We are equally delighted that our experiences of providers finding innovative ways to support trainees during an unprecedented period of time has been clearly identified by the research team.
Lancaster Guardian. Teacher training supports unique ‘place-based’ curriculum inspired by Eden Project North plans for Morecambe Environmental and Experiential Learning route to becoming a trained teacher has been designed in collaboration with school, college, university and education partners in the north west that are supporting the new Morecambe Bay Curriculum, created and developed by Prof Robert Barratt, of Lancaster University.
The Star. 600 to attend holiday teacher-training programme “The holiday teacher training programme is open not only to temporary teachers at Chinese vernacular schools but also those at national schools. We made the arrangements after considering the number of teachers and subjects they will be taking before announcing it, ” Dr Mah said on Tuesday.
UNESCO Policy Paper. Don’t look away: no place for exclusion of LGBTI students. Even when laws, policies and curricula are in place, governments have to invest in teacher preparation. Teachers and other school staff need awareness, information and classroom management skills to address violence and resolve exclusion problems constructively in classrooms (UNESCO et al., 2018). They may also need training to understand the different realities of LGBTI people, as well as time and space to develop a critical understanding of their own beliefs, assumptions, prejudices and behaviours, which can sustain division rather than promote inclusion.
UNITED STATES
AACTE. AACTE Releases Toolkit to Help the Nation’s Schools Reopen … encouraging them to use ESSER funds to staff classrooms with teacher candidates. These funds provide a unique opportunity for school districts and educator preparation programs to address the teacher pipeline. As the U.S. Department of Education’s noted in its COVID-19 Handbook, Volume 2: Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students’ Needs, ARP ESSER funds can be used to staff classrooms with teacher candidates, thereby providing them with practical experience while helping alleviate the challenges teachers are encountering with the transition back to in person teaching.
Century Foundation. The Post-Pandemic Pathway to Anti-Racist Education: Building a Coalition Across Progressive, Multicultural, Culturally Responsive, and Ethnic Studies Advocates [by TC Prof. A.S. Wells & doctoral candidate D. Cordova-Cobo] …districts need to focus on diversifying their teaching force through community-based “grow your own” programs that encourage students of color who attend their schools to go on to college, major in education, and return to their home school district to teach with their knowledge of, and high expectations for, the students who live there.
Chalkbeat.
1) Here’s how Tennessee plans to spend $491 million of federal stimulus funds on education The department also will prioritize classroom resources, teacher training, and programs to prepare more candidates for the teaching profession… $21 million to grow Tennessee’s educator ranks, including grow-your-own initiatives in which districts and teacher training programs partner to provide innovative, no-cost ways to enter the teaching profession.
2) Tennessee raises teacher base pay to $38,000 Tennessee teachers with a bachelor’s degree and no teaching experience will be paid an annual minimum of $38,000 beginning with the new school year, a $2,000 increase over the last two years…. minimum pay will also go up by $2,000 for teachers with advanced degrees and additional years of experience.
EdWeek. Critical Race Theory Puts Educators at Center of a Frustrating Cultural Fight Once Again In 2020, then-President Donald Trump made a foray into the dispute during his re-election campaign, when he disparaged the focus on racism and bias in social studies classes as “left-wing indoctrination.” And his push for “patriotic education” and against training in racism and bias has influenced lawmakers’ actions this year.
Future Ed. Why Can’t We Teach Students to Higher Standards in Public Education? Standards have failed to raise achievement because they haven’t been implemented. And why have standards not been implemented? First, we’re asking teachers to become experts in reading and interpreting standards, going out and identifying curriculum materials to align with those standards, and then implementing those materials in the classroom. And almost on its face, this isn’t a way that you could get standards to be implemented in any kind of consistent way.
Hechinger Report. Black teachers ground down by racial battle fatigue after a year like no other: Black teachers were already leaving the profession in high numbers before a pandemic and the nation’s upheaval over racism made their job harder Andrea Lewis, associate professor and chair of the education department at Spelman College in Atlanta, hasn’t seen evidence of racial battle fatigue deterring teacher candidates on her campus… But even if teacher preparation programs keep turning out new Black teachers, the greater challenge is keeping those teachers in the field, experts and teachers themselves say.
LPI. Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Access to Advanced Mathematics and Science Courses Key Policy Strategies for Increasing Student Access to Advanced Courses… *3. Support service scholarships, loan forgiveness programs, and teacher residency programs that cover the cost of tuition and living expenses for teacher candidates who prepare and commit to serving in high-need schools in high-need fields, such as advanced mathematics and science, and who gain full licensure in their assigned teaching area that permits the teaching of advanced courses.
NYTimes. I Left Teaching. Others May Too if They Aren’t Paid What’s Right. Research collected by the Center for American Progress found that “the teacher labor market is responsive to changes in pay just like other occupations and that “changes in pay can affect not only teacher attrition, but also the pool of candidates choosing to enroll in teacher preparation programs.”
Scalawag. To the other 98%: Lessons from the nation’s Black male educators: What the next generation of Black male educators is learning from Black men in education today. In contrast to many Southern school boards and predominantly white institutions, historically Black colleges and universities are addressing head-on the issues of pandemic safety and racial representation—and are training the next generation of Black educators in the process… Dr. Gilbert founded MCEE at Morehouse College, the nation’s only HBCU for men, in 2019. Her hope is to develop a talented pipeline of Black practitioners, innovators, policymakers, leaders, and researchers who are equipped to improve educational outcomes in underserved communities and increase the number of Black men in the field.
The Atlantic. What’s Missing From the Discourse About Anti-racist Teaching: Black educators have always known that their students are living in an anti-Black world and that their teaching must be set against the very order of that world. Black teaching, at its best and as I experienced it, included knowledge handed down from past generations. I was recently reminded of this by two news articles in the span of two days. One was an obituary for Irene West, the first Black teacher in California’s Elk Grove school system, a graduate of Fisk University, and the mother of the intellectual giant Cornel West. Her work always exceeded the classroom, carrying over to the many Black community institutions to which she belonged and that she helped sustain…
The74.
1) A Problem for Math Teachers: Solving the Dilemma of Learning Lost to a Year of Zoom Danilsa Fernandez [TC MA ’11 Math Ed] teaches middle- and high school algebra at City College Academy of the Arts in New York City. Dubbed a master teacher by the non-profit Math for America, a New York City-based group that supports educators and improves retention, she stayed on task for much of the school year until a pandemic-related closure in mid-March. But even after her students returned, she had reason to revisit concepts she’d taught before: The transition back to in-person learning allowed her to see more of her students’ work, which reflected their inability to master key concepts.
2) How One State Is Using Education College Students to Plug an Ongoing Teacher Shortage The pilot program, dubbed NextGen Educators, is a partnership between the Connecticut State Department of Education and Central Connecticut State University. It’s already active in Bristol, where 18 education students are working as apprentice teachers in elementary school classrooms. Three additional school districts are in line to participate if the program is expanded.
U.S. Dept. of Education. Frequently Asked Questions: Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Programs Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Programs D. Using ESSER and GEER Funds to Support Educators and Other School Staff * Supporting partnerships with educator preparation programs to expand opportunities for extensive clinical experience to teaching candidates, including leveraging candidates to provide additional support to students and address the impact of lost instructional time as students return to in- person instruction…
NEW YORK STATE
NYSATE/NYACTE. 2021 Annual Fall Conference: An ONLINE Progressive Conference. [CFP extended to June 15]
New York State Legislature. Senate Bill S5666: passed Senate, referred to Assembly Higher Education Committee. Increases the percentage of students from any incoming class who can be exempted from the admission requirements for graduate-level teacher and educational leader programs from no more than fifteen percent to fifty percent.
NEW YORK CITY
AAQEP. The Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation awards full accreditation to the Bank Street College of Education Teacher and Leadership Preparation Programs [April 2021 – June 2028]
Teachers College. An Rx for Post-Pandemic Schools: Test less, center students, promote an anti-racist education, urges a Century Foundation report written by TC’s Amy Stuart Wells and Diana Cordova-Cobo …a central argument that the authors make is that teachers cannot be student-centered and focused on the social and emotional needs of students if they are not taking into account issues of race and culture and how they affect students’ school experiences.
