GLOBAL
DutchNews.nl. Primary schools are lowering the arithmetic bar: report The inspectorate said every school should have an arithmetic coordinator to boost the number of pupils who leave school with better arithmetic skills. Teacher training colleges should also do more to make sure teachers are capable of teaching arithmetic properly.
Times Education Supplement (tes). Teacher training applicants soar by 17% in 2020 There were 52,485 teacher training applicants last year, compared with 44,965 in 2019, new Ucas data shows
Sudbury.com. ‘Catastrophic’: Students, faculty react after Laurentian chops 69 programs The programs that have been cut vary widely, and include such subjects as midwifery, political science, physics, Spanish, Italian, certain teacher’s education courses and labour studies, to name just a few.
The Sydney Morning Herald. Teacher training review key to arresting declining academic results: Tudge The review, which Mr Tudge will launch on Thursday, will be chaired by former Department of Education secretary Lisa Paul. It will look at how to attract talented people into the profession and best prepare them to become effective teachers.
UNITED STATES
CNN. Teachers are choosing to quit rather than go back to school while pandemic lingers President Biden’s Covid-19 rescue plan allocates $129 billion for K-12 funding, which includes hiring more teachers. But that may prove to be difficult, with fewer college students pursuing careers in education. A survey by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education had nearly 20% of respondents reporting a significant drop in new undergraduate enrollment in teaching programs for fall 2020.
Education Week. Science Teaching and Learning Found to Fall Off in Pandemic “The current emphasis on content dimensions of the current standards that we have, along with how we’re thinking about teacher education, teacher preparation, in-service education, makes it really challenging to pivot when we get to moments like this when we as a field really do need to pivot and adjust to this international crisis,”Sadler said. “I don’t think that we’re well-suited to that.”
U.S. Dept. of Education. U.S. Department of Education Announces More Biden-Harris Appointees Levi Bohanan, Special Assistant, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education… Most recently, he served as a policy entrepreneur at Next100, a progressive public policy think tank created by the next generation of policy leaders, where he focused on early childhood education policy and P-12 education policy. He holds degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University and Texas A&M University.
Washington Post. Is Congress falling for scheme to ruin civics and history classes? Mark Bauerlein, an education scholar and emeritus professor at Emory University, fears that money will go to university education schools and departments “dedicated to filling the heads of aspiring teachers with identity politics and progressive dogma.”… But his attack on this latest congressional effort to improve our schools does not convince other scholars. They think Bauerlein is worrying too much because they, like me, think American teachers are unlikely to become left-wing ideologues, no matter what their ed school professors tell them.
NEW YORK STATE
Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (CICU). Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities Announces Lola Brabham as New President: President Brabham Takes Helm Following a Twenty-Year Career in Public Service
NYSED.
Board of Regents April Meeting.
1) NYSED Review of the 2021-2022 Enacted Budget The enacted budget restores funding proposed for elimination in the Executive Budget: • $25 million for the Teachers of Tomorrow program •$2 million for Teacher Mentor Intern program…
The enacted budget does not include: Executive Budget’s proposal to remove the Department’s Office of College and University Evaluation’s (OCUE’s) review and approval of most new curriculum or program of study offered by any NYS not-for-profit college or university.
2) Proposed Amendment to Section 80-1.5 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to Extending the edTPA Safety Net in Response to the COVID-19 Crisis …the Department is proposing to extend the edTPA safety net to candidates who complete a student teaching or similar clinical experience during the 2021-2022 academic year while enrolled in a New York State registered teacher preparation program or a comparable out-of-state teacher preparation program, or complete the teaching experience requirement for certification through the Individual Evaluation pathway during the 2021-2022 academic year. If adopted as an emergency measure at the April 2021 Regents meeting, the proposed amendment will become effective as an emergency rule on April 13, 2021.
3) Proposed Amendment of Section 52.21 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Content Core Requirement in Computer Science Teacher Preparation Programs If adopted at the April 2021 meeting, the proposed amendment will become effective on April 28, 2021.
4) Proposed Amendment to Sections 52.21, 80-3.14, and 80-3.7 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education and Section 30-1.2 of the Rules of the Board of Regents Relating to Providing Flexibility Relating to Student Teaching, Individual Evaluation Pat.. If adopted as an emergency measure at the April 2021 Regents meeting, the proposed amendments will become effective as an emergency rule on May 10, 2021.
New York Daily News. N.Y.’s school equity grade: Incomplete [by TC Prof. M. Rebell] These funds also should position New York City and other high-need school districts to allocate sufficient resources to offer the hundreds of thousands of students with special needs the counseling, bilingual education, special education, tutoring and other supports they are entitled to under state law but have been denied because of funding shortfalls. Moreover, these funds should allow the state to close resource gaps so students in lower-wealth school districts can benefit from class sizes, educator expertise, curricular offerings, enrichment activities and technology that approach what their peers in affluent districts receive.
Spectrum News 1. Civil Service commissioner departs for independent colleges group Civil Service Commissioner Lola Brabham is departing to lead the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities in New York… Brabham said. “New York’s independent colleges and universities and their students are essential to our state’s higher education landscape and play a vital role in our state’s communities and economy. I am eager to continue the organization’s vital work and to further CICU’s mission of advancing quality education for all students.”
NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) COVID hit this Brooklyn high school hard. Paying students to tutor their peers is helping them get through it. The small-scale program has helped seniors fight off the fatigue of their last year in high school, much of which has been spent on screens. It’s provided a way for freshmen to forge social connections despite, for some of them, never stepping foot on campus. Crucially, it has put money in the pockets of tutors, some of whose families found themselves struggling to buy groceries as the virus raged.
2) Learning pods are now helping vulnerable students. Will the trend survive the pandemic? Some teachers volunteered to be pod leaders. Others were led by furloughed school food service workers, as well as paraprofessionals, who were hired and trained by an outside agency. Roughly 380 of the network’s 5,000 students had enrolled in 15 learning pods across its Brooklyn campuses, as of March.
3) Racial, economic gaps are widening among NYC’s free pre-K programs, researchers say Jeanne L. Reid, of Teachers College …Her own research on the city’s universal pre-K program has shown that teachers in classrooms run by community organizations do not have the same access to planning and break time as their counterparts in pre-K programs in public schools. Also teachers in publicly funded but privately run programs — which make up the majority of pre-K seats — have historically been significantly underpaid. Only recently has the city been making progress in addressing those salary disparities.
Gothamist. Maya Wiley Releases Education Plan, Calling For 1,000 More Teachers To Create Smaller Classes. Maya Wiley is promising to hire 1,000 additional teachers as part of an effort to create smaller classes in New York City public schools, becoming the first of the leading mayoral candidates to put forth a plan that addresses the system’s historically overcrowded classrooms.
