GLOBAL
European Conference on Educational Research (ECER). CFP Education in a Changing World: The impact of global realities on the prospects and experiences of educational research [deadline 31 Jan.]
MTL Blog. Quebec Has New Scholarships Ranging From $9K To $20K For Students In 6 Fields The government has identified six in-demand sectors. These are health and social services, education, early childhood education and care, engineering, information technology and construction.
The Guardian. Staff absences having ‘massive impact’ on pupils in England say head teachers: More than half of 1,000 senior teachers surveyed say they have insufficient staff due to absences caused by Covid and illnesses Last year, there was a welcome spike in applications for initial teacher training, amid fears over the impact of the pandemic on jobs. Just 82% of the DfE’s target for secondary trainees was reached this year, well short of last year’s peak of 103% and below even the 83% achieved in 2019.
UNESCO. 2021/2 Global Education Monitoring Report on non-state actors in education, Who chooses? Who loses? Chapter 7 unpacks the special case of tertiary education, where expansion of private provision has been rapid in several countries, posing particular challenges for governments that wish to promote equity and assure quality. Post-secondary teacher training institutions are another area in which non-state provision has emerged.
UNITED STATES
AACTE. AACTE Endorses Educators for America Act The legislation, introduced by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.), addresses crises in educator preparation, including the growing teacher shortage, fewer students completing bachelor’s degrees in education, and the lack of diversity in the profession.
Boston Globe. An Andover preschool hired an unusual teacher’s aide: a robot The district first connected with Bolat, a father to an adult son with autism and a Navy veteran, this summer. He introduced Stetson to a slate of MOVIA robots, each built to aid people with intellectual disabilities… “We worked extensively with teachers and therapists to create their personalities and the lesson plans,” Bolat said…MOVIA needs teachers to keep the robots attuned to educational advances and children’s responses.
Chalkbeat.
1) Child care staffing shortages across Pennsylvania persist, but solutions taking shape … the state’s Teacher Education and Compensation Helps Early Childhood, or TEACH, program…a public-private partnership including businesses, foundations and government that offers scholarships to help child care workers improve their education and their compensation. Through TEACH, the college courses are free, and she gets paid release time during the work day to attend them. It is a powerful incentive.
2) Michigan dyslexia bills launch debate over supporting struggling readers The bills require school districts to screen students for dyslexia characteristics and increase teacher training requirements so teachers are better able to identify and address reading problems… Several of the state’s largest teacher preparation programs previously told Chalkbeat that they already cover dyslexia and the science of reading.
Education Week. 4 Changes Schools Can Make to Recruit Teachers of Color and Keep Them Around 1. Establish teacher residency programs 2. Advocate for states to rethink the use of teacher certification exams or establish alternative certification requirements 3. Establish ‘grow your own’ programs 4. Provide targeted specific training and support for teachers of color
New York Times.
1) In Texas, a Battle Over What Can Be Taught, and What Books Can Be Read As for the state’s attempt to ban critical race theory, for all the Republicans’ talk, the Texas law makes no mention of the term. Aspects of critical race theory are influential in some teacher colleges, and shape how some administrators and teachers approach race and ideas of white privilege. Yet no one has identified a Texas high school class that teaches the theory.
2) How Public Preschool Can Help, and How to Make Sure It Doesn’t Hurt: Congress is considering universal pre-K and subsidies for child care The bill in Congress includes quality thresholds. It says that within six years, all children should be able to secure a spot in a center of the highest quality. It also has grants that include teacher training and building improvements.
U.S. Congress. S.879 – Civics Secures Democracy Act. SEC. 105. GRANTS TO INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION. (a) Program Authorized.—The Secretary of Education is authorized to make grants to institutions of higher education, on a competitive basis, to assist such institutions in developing and implementing programs to train elementary and secondary school teachers in methods for instructing and engaging students in civics and history.
Washington Post.
1) D.C.’s struggle to hire more diverse teachers — and keep them: Latino educators remain sparse, even in the city’s largely Latino schools Nineteen percent of the city’s students, meanwhile, were Latino or Hispanic, compared with 7 percent of teachers. The latter gap was even wider in Wards 1 and 4, where “15 percent and 10 percent of teachers are Hispanic/Latino, respectively, but 58 percent and 40 percent of students are Hispanic/Latino,” the report said… “What message does that send to [students]? That Latinx people don’t or can’t become teachers,” Sanchez, who has since moved to Garrison Elementary, said of those disparities in an interview. “There’s so much messaging that happens on kind of a subconscious level.”
2) GOP resistance to preschool plan could imperil key Biden proposal in many states The president’s plan would also require states to implement new standards for what children learn in the classroom, upgrade credentials for hiring new preschool instructors and mandate higher teacher pay than most states do currently…
NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Board of Regents. December meeting agenda
New York State Register. Rule Making Activities Education Department: Definition of the Term “Year of Experience” for Permanent or Professional Certification. Candidates in the classroom teaching, educational leadership, and pupil personnel service must complete … at least three years of experience for the Professional certificate… To allow for additional types of experiences, the Department is proposing to revise the definition to provide a single definition of a year of experience for Permanent or Professional certification, which would be defined as: * a minimum of 180 days in a 12-month period of full-time satisfactory experience, or its equivalent, in an educational setting acceptable to the Department. Data, views or arguments may be submitted before Jan. 28, 2022 to: Petra Maxwell, NYS Education Department, Office of Higher Education, 89 Washington Avenue, Room 975 EBA, Albany, NY 12234, (518) 474-2238, email: [email protected]
NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. It’s official: David Banks will be NYC’s next schools chancellor Banks, 59, has a long track record as an educator stretching back to 1986 when he began as a teacher at P.S. 167 in Crown Heights, a post he held for five years before becoming the school’s dean of students for a year…
Gothamist. Teachers Union, Parents Push For Class Size Bill As Legislative Session Winds Down According to the city’s Independent Budget Office, under the bill originally proposed, nearly half the city’s 1,600 schools would not be able to comply with the class size legislation. Schools would also have to hire additional teachers to accommodate smaller classes.
NY Daily News. NYC teachers union pressures City Council to vote on class size bill before end of the year. The union projects that the amended bill would require the city to hire an additional 11,000 teachers over the next five years — outlays he said could be funded by the recent influx of state and federal funding.
NYTimes. David Banks, Educator and Adams Ally, Is Next N.Y.C. Schools Chancellor Mr. Banks earned his law degree from St. John’s in Queens and worked for the city’s law department and the state attorney general before becoming a public school teacher in Crown Heights… Mr. Banks has already begun to build out his cabinet. Daniel Weisberg, who served as the lead labor strategist for schools under former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and now runs an organization focused on teacher training and quality, will serve as Mr. Banks’s first deputy.
Teachers College. Advocacy at Teachers College. Join Tuesday, December 14 at 12pm ET for an Advocacy Academy workshop to learn about the federal, bipartisan Civics Secures Democracy bill (see U.S. Congress above) that would improve civics education; we’ll also write letters to Congress in support of the bill [hosted by Dr. Matt Camp]
The Action Network. Please bring the class size bill to a vote! Please send a letter today to NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson, urging him to bring the bill that would require smaller classes, Intro 2374, to a vote. We only have one week before nearly the entire NYC Council turns over.
The Nation. To Reduce Inequality in Our Education System, Reduce Class Sizes New York City has a rare opportunity to pass a hugely popular bill to shrink class sizes. So why are the mayor and the City Council speaker standing in its way? The legislation currently has 41 cosponsors out of 50 members—a supermajority that could overturn the mayor’s likely veto. Yet the vote on this bill has been delayed by Speaker Corey Johnson… time is running out. If the City Council doesn’t vote on the bill by December 16, it will have to be reintroduced and reconsidered by a largely new council under a different speaker.
