GLOBAL
Association for Teacher Education in Europe. ATEE 2023 Annual Conference & Pre-conference workshop [27-30th August, Budapest]
Barron’s. Hungarian Teachers Rally Against ‘Revenge’ Education Law Several thousand Hungarian teachers and students rallied Friday in Budapest against a draft education reform bill they say punishes teachers for protesting for better pay and working conditions… Hungary is in the grip of a chronic teacher shortage, with few young people joining the profession and around half of teachers aged over 50.
The Witness (South Africa). Stop sex pest teachers: Teacher training should have courses against sexual misconduct. A cautionary course warning against the practice of sexual misconduct between teachers and pupils should be added to the university teaching course curriculum. This is the suggestion from the National Association of School Governing Bodies (NASGB), in response to the growing number of teachers who are being suspended for this behaviour in schools.
UNITED STATES
Chalkbeat.
1) Chicago parents, advocates call for transparency in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s school board picks …a state investigation found Chicago Public Schools did not fully train staff on use of restraint and seclusion, which put students with disabilities particularly at risk. An April letter from the Illinois State Board of Education outlined violations, including untrained staff using outlawed methods of restraint.
2) Indiana has new requirements for teaching reading. Will teachers be prepared to meet them? As part of a broader push to improve literacy rates in Indiana, the state is requiring teacher preparation programs to use curriculums based in the science of reading by 2024. If they don’t, they risk losing the right to describe themselves as “accredited” programs.
3) The ‘Tennessee 3’ created a historic teachable moment. Will schools be allowed to teach it? Educators have complained that the law and the state’s rules for enforcing the statute aren’t clear about exactly what teachings cross the line. But teachers found in violation could have their licenses suspended or revoked…
Daily Signal. CAUGHT: Top Education Publisher Deletes ‘Woke’ Evidence After Release of Heritage Foundation Report After Heritage Foundation scholar Jonathan Butcher began looking into the racially and sexually charged practices of publishing and education behemoth Pearson, links and videos started to disappear from the corporation’s website and YouTube channel… Teacher licensing also flows largely through Pearson. A teacher assessment program called edTPA, which determines whether an individual qualifies for a teaching license, is required by over 600 universities in over 40 states… Pearson’s commitment to “embed anti-racism” in everything its organization does affects far more than a few classroom students. These policies govern who gets hired in 40 different federal agencies and which teacher-education students get to graduate from their universities.
EducationWeek.
1) Juneteenth: How and Why It Should Be Taught in K-12 Schools And while it’s observed at a time when most K-12 schools are out on summer break, there is a value in teaching about the holiday and its legacy year-round, says Sonya Douglass, a professor of education leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Douglass is also the founding director of the university’s Black Education Research Collective, which is developing a Black studies curriculum for preK-12 schools in New York City.
2) Mississippi Students Surged in Reading Over the Last Decade. Here’s How Schools Got Them There The state now provides to all K-3 general ed teachers and K-8 special education teachers a yearlong, master’s level professional development course grounded in the science of reading, explained Wynn. “It’s very intense, but we needed it in order to move our students, in order to grow our teachers,” said Wynn. “They were not leaving their teacher-prep programs prepared.”
3) Sex Education’s Shortcomings Leave Students ‘in the Dark’ In general, teachers don’t have enough training on how to deliver comprehensive sex education, Gelperin said. But another, more immediate challenge is that sex education is caught up in political and cultural debates, she said.
4) Targeting Training to Just a Few Teachers Could Help Cut Racial Discipline Gap in Half Differences showed up by licensing, too. “Teachers who have credentials in special education and English learners are less likely to be top referrers, probably because they got more training about how to manage student behavior when they got credentials,” Liu said.
Hechinger Reports. The best way to teach might depend on the subject Researchers find that math students learn best through individual practice while English students thrive in groups
InsideHigherEd. DeSantis Cuts Higher Ed Funding; New College Gets a Boost Florida governor Ron DeSantis will cut $120 million of higher education funding from the state budget—nearly a quarter of the half-billion dollars in funding requests he rejected through line-item vetoes last week. Many of the projects and programs cut centered on workforce development in crucial areas of the state economy…
National Association for Music Education (NAfME). A Blueprint for Strengthening the Music Teacher Profession This document is a report of the Music Teacher Profession Initiative’s work concerning music teacher educators’ perceptions of barriers to and through the profession, as well as mitigations to those barriers. The project was undertaken with the perspective of widening the path to the profession by cultivating and strengthening more inclusive and equitable processes in recruiting, teaching, and nurturing a robust music teacher workforce.
NYTimes. Authors and Students Sue Over Florida Law Driving Book Bans The legislation originally applied to students in kindergarten through third grade, but a new law extending the restrictions from prekindergarten through 8th grade passed last month. The complaint described the law as “vague and overbroad,” and says its penalties are overly stringent: Educators who knowingly violate it could lose their teaching license.
Richmond Times-Dispatch. E-teacher training backed in Virginia Those pursuing a teaching career in Virginia will soon be able to bypass the high cost and years-long commitment of earning an education degree from a university, and instead earn their credentials through an online program. The Youngkin administration touts a new partnership with iteach, a for-profit company offering online teacher training, as a way to help curb Virginia’s sizable teacher shortage.
The74.
1) As Feds Invest in New Bilingual Teachers, State Licensing Hurdles Must Go The U.S. Department of Education recently announced over $18 million in Augustus F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence Program grants to support the training of more racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse teachers… Florida International University is using its $1.5 million grant to train, certify and place more than 100 bilingual teachers. Importantly, its program will include cohorts of Spanish-English bilingual teacher candidates and Haitian Creole-English bilingual teacher candidates. The University of Texas-El Paso is using its grant to recruit Latino teachers to work in bilingual settings.
2) Georgia Panel Votes to Cleanse Teacher Lesson Plans as School Culture Wars Rage Georgia Professional Standards Commission votes to rewrite Georgia’s teacher training rules to eliminate references to diversity, equity and inclusion
Virginia Commonwealth Univ. VCU School of Education earns $1.6M in federal funding to address teacher shortage U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia have announced $1,599,645 in federal funding through the Augustus F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence Program to address teacher shortages by supporting the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education’s RTR teacher residency program. The funding will help recruit and support more teacher candidates from diverse backgrounds and provide them with the skills to teach in high-need schools, including those in Richmond Public Schools.
Washington Post.
1) D.C. kids will get new menstrual health education next year, a first in the country Officials will need to make sure educators feel equipped to teach these standards and make the content interesting for all students regardless of whether they menstruate — including boys, nonbinary and trans students.
2) D.C. Schools adopts new social studies standards for first time since 2006 Officials will now spend the next two years training educators and developing the curriculum that will introduce these social studies standards to classrooms.
NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. New York wants to revamp how schools are evaluated. Here’s what could change for now. “They’re doing a decent job of balancing what’s of interest in the state and the federal ESSA requirements, and incorporating all the instability and uncertainty that came with the slowdown of testing during the pandemic,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Teachers College and an expert in testing.
City & State. The 2023 Power of Diversity: Pride 100 New York’s LGBTQ+ leaders #81. Adrian Hale Regent, State Board of Regents In March, Hale was elected by the state Legislature as a member of the state Board of Regents, overseeing education policy across the state.
NEW YORK CITY
NYTimes.
1) A Brooklyn School Pioneers New Ways to Teach Children With Disabilities: At P.S. 15 in Red Hook, a unique program for students with intellectual disabilities could serve as a model for other New York City schools. Srikala Naraian, a professor at Teachers College who studies special education, called the approach a “wonderfully unique” departure from the traditional view that “only some kids can be included.” “Instead, it starts with ‘Who’s been most overlooked in our school system?’” she said.
2) Everyone Likes Reading. Why Are We So Afraid of It? In the early 2000s, my children attended a lovely, diverse, progressive public elementary school in Brooklyn. The methods of reading instruction associated with Columbia University’s Teachers College were in full bloom there. Students were encouraged to think of themselves as writers and readers… There were parent-attended “publishing parties” when writing projects were completed… One of the main projects of American education over the past half-century and more has been to unwind the legacy of oppression that denied so many people full access to the benefits of learning. My children’s classrooms embodied a central ideal of this project: to institutionalize the sense of freedom that Douglass had gained through struggle and opposition.
SI Live. Coalition tasked with developing Black studies curriculum in NYC schools says program will launch this fall According to the coalition, the curriculum will serve as a national model, and it said it hopes that the innovative programming will be adopted by schools throughout New York State. The core partners charged with developing and launching the curriculum in collaboration with the DOE are: the United Way of New York City; the Black Education Research Collective; the Eagle Academy Foundation; the Association of Black Educators of New York; Black Edfluencers United; the City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus.
Teachers College.
1) Dance Education Program Graduates First Students: Dancing and blazing trails, the first doctoral grads from TC’s young program cross their latest stage Bashaw said other students in the TC program are taking leadership roles in far-flung states such as Arizona and California. “We see how fortunate these states are going to be to have these transformational leaders who know a lot about K-12 dance education and dance teacher preparation, and who are going to be movers and shakers.”
2) Reimagining Education: Teaching, Learning and Leading for a Racially Just Society earn Professional Development credits in CEUs, Clock Hours, or CTLEs for NY state [July 10 – 13, 2023]
