Category: Teacher Education

GLOBAL
Association for Teacher Education in Europe. Winter Conference 2018 [Feb. 15,16; Utrecht]

Brock University. [CA] Brock prof to lead International Society for Teacher Education  Susan Tilley, a professor in Brock’s Faculty of Education, has been elected the new Secretary-General of the International Society for Teacher Education (ISfTE).

The Australian. Teacher training must focus on school requirements  The 2014 Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group review established stricter quality assurance of teacher education programs and selection of entrants. The new literacy and numeracy test for teacher candidates puts pressure on universities to ensure their trainees have a basic level of knowledge.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) House HEA Bill Would Repeal Title II, End TEACH Grants
2) TQP Grantees Discuss Program Transformation on Radio Show

Center for American Progress. What You Need to Know About the House Higher Education Act Bill  The largest text change in the bill is the wholesale elimination of Title II, which currently addresses teacher preparation programs. In its place, the PROSPER Act inserts a new section on apprenticeships.

Chalkbeat. A ‘portfolio’ of schools? How a nationwide effort to disrupt urban school districts is gaining traction  … dramatic changes to schools; recruited outside advocacy, teacher training, and charter groups; and spent millions to help launch new charter and district schools… pushing for policies like common enrollment, and recruiting national education groups like Teach for America, Relay Graduate School of Education, TNTP, and Stand For Children.

Education Week.
1) Can We Better Define and Identify ‘STEM Deserts’? This Nonprofit Is Going to Try   NMSI also helps establish math and science teacher-preparation programs on the model of UTeach, developed at the University of Texas at Austin…
2) Higher Ed. Overhaul Would Change FAFSA, Along With Teacher-Prep Oversight  The PROSPER Act would end Title II of the current higher education law that deals with teacher preparation… educator-preparation programs would no longer have to submit data to the federal government… The Teacher Quality Partnership grants would also lose their authorization if Title II in the current law is repealed.
3) Making Teacher Recertification Meaningful [featured series of nine articles]
4) Teachers Would Lose Loan Forgiveness Programs in Higher Education Bill  The PROSPER Act would eliminate the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that currently allows for the cancellation of higher education debt —under certain conditions—for teachers … In addition, the bill would end loan forgiveness for teachers under the Perkins Loan Program…

Inside Higher Education.
1) Senate Passes Tax Bill With Major Implications for Higher Ed
2) Who Changes Majors? (Not Who You Think)  … percent of bachelor’s degree pursuers who entered college in 2011-12… 37 percent in education…

National Skills Coalition. House Higher Education Act reauthorization bill introduced  The PROSPER Act repeals Title II of the HEA, which is the only federal initiative focused on strengthening higher education-based teacher preparation, and replaces it with a new apprenticeship grant program. This program authorizes the Secretary to issue grants on a competitive basis for a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 4 years, to partnerships between businesses and educational institutions that are working to provide work-based learning opportunities for students. These grants, authorized at a funding level of $183,204,000, will require a 50% match from the grantee. 

New America. Holding the PROSPER Act Accountable  Title II of the PROSPER Act is certainly one of the greatest departures from the Higher Education Act, as postsecondary programs aimed at enhancing teacher quality are eliminated and replaced by a grant program to expand access to “in-demand apprenticeships.”

U. S. Committee on Education and the Workforce. PROSPER Act [Reauthorization of HEA, Introduced Dec. 1]. (a) REPEAL.—Title II (20 U.S.C. 1021 et seq.) is repealed… PART A TRANSITION.—Part A of title II (20 19 U.S.C. 1022 et seq.), as in effect on the day before the date of the enactment of this Act, may be carried out using funds that have been appropriated for such part until June 30, 2018.

Washington Post. GOP higher ed plan would end student loan forgiveness in repayment program, overhaul federal financial aid  It would also wind down the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education Grant, a federal program that provides money to students willing to work in high-needs schools or teach subjects in desperate need of educators for four years. The bill calls for no new grants after June 20, 2018.

 

NEW YORK STATE
City and State New York. Bullying, the DREAM Act and ‘money money money’  And the battle over the charter school cap may end up on the back burner in lieu of a dispute about training requirements for charter school teachers.

Teacher Education and Special Education. I Failed the edTPA. [by A. Kuranishi, TC alumnus; C. Oyler, TC Prof.] …the authors examine possible explanations for why Adam (first author), a New York City public school special educator, failed the edTPA, a teacher performance assessment required by all candidates for state certification.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. How Eva Moskowitz is remaking public education as we know it, for better and — if we aren’t careful — much worse  While those who pursue the profession in other countries are provided with the infrastructure crucial to educating kids effectively — a clear sense of what students need to learn, the basic materials necessary to help them learn it (such as a curriculum), and a decent training system — teachers in the U.S. are left stranded.

New York Times. She Breaks Rules While Expecting Students to Follow Them  Every teacher is required to follow Success’s pedagogical formula and “not create chaos by marching to the beat of her own drum.” And yet this double standard — in which Moskowitz celebrates her own feisty disobedience while attributing the success of the students in her schools to their dutiful compliance — is never explored…

The New Yorker. Success Academy’s Radical Educational Experiment: Inside Eva Moskowitz’s quest to combine rigid discipline with a progressive curriculum.  Teachers do not develop their own lesson plans; rather, they teach precisely what the network demands… Success’s teachers operate within tightly defined boundaries, with high expectations and frequent assessment.

GLOBAL
Hechinger Report. What France can teach us about how to educate the most vulnerable 2-year-olds  “In preschool, there’s a pedagogy; the (teachers) have master’s degrees; there’s a language focus,” he adds. “It’s much better for low-income children.” (The teachers of 2-year-olds face the same requirements as all public school teachers in France

International Forum for Teaching Educator Development [InFoTED]. InFoTED blogs

New York Times. Beijing Kindergarten Is Accused of Abuse, and Internet Erupts in Fury  “Our professional and high-quality teachers and principals and, more important, our established system to effectively train, grow and retain teaching staff and management talents underpin our high-quality education services,” the company said in its prospectus.

UK Parliament House of Lords [Tuesday 28 November 2017]. Oral Question 1 Improving initial teacher education in order to ensure a high standard of teaching of art, craft and design subjects

The Open University, Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa [TESSA]. Impact of TESSA

 

UNITED STATES
Chalkbeat. McCormick’s wishlist for the Indiana legislature: diploma fixes and mandatory kindergarten  Seek more flexibility in teacher licensing to allow current teachers to teach more subjects and prospective teachers to skirt red tape. Provide more training for teachers on the new ILEARN test and potential graduation pathways plans.

Education Week. TFA, Alternative Programs Marginally Better Than Traditional Teacher Prep, Study Finds. The new analysis, published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies, looked at a dozen studies of teacher-preparation programs conducted between 1998 and 2015. (The researchers screened more than 700 studies on preparation programs from peer-reviewed journals and the federal What Works Clearinghouse for inclusion in the analysis…

Hechinger Report.
1) Could we improve America by treating 2-year-olds better?  Twenty-seven states allow fewer than five unrelated children to be watched in a home by a care provider with no license or training, according to Child Care Aware. Only 11 states require a license for anyone receiving compensation to watch even one child who is not their own.
2) That day you thought you had it all together, then everything fell apart? You weren’t wasting your time: A look at the learning process of teaching

Inside Higher Ed. A Call to Reform Undergraduate Education  University systems and individual campuses, academic departments and disciplinary associations all have roles to play in advancing teaching, according to the academy. Master’s and doctoral programs should integrate “meaningful and explicit” teacher training opportunities…

Louisiana Dept. of Education. Nearly 500 Louisiana Educators Train To Become Mentors To Future Teachers  Starting this week, nearly 500 expert educators across the state will begin training to become mentors to aspiring teachers completing their preparation in Louisiana. 

University Business. College teachers-in-training prep with virtual students  The University of Wyoming now uses an augmented reality platform with a simulated class as part of its teacher education program.

UW College of Education. Grant to build Washington’s bilingual educator capacity  A new $2.4 million grant to the University of Washington College of Education from the U.S. Department of Education will target that gap by recruiting approximately 60 elementary teacher candidates to earn their bilingual endorsement.

Washington Post. Why it’s a big problem that so many teachers quit — and what to do about it  If we did this with high-retention pathways into teaching — like teacher residencies that train teachers well and provide them mentoring — the demand would drop further each year as these teachers stay at high rates rather than cycling through teaching jobs.

 

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. Is the Board of Regents hostile to charter schools? Depends upon whom you ask.  …[Chancellor Rosa’s] opposition to the teacher certification proposal had nothing to do with the source of the proposal — a charter authorizer — but because, she said, she believes the idea is an affront to the teaching profession and will allow unqualified teachers to enter classrooms.

NYS Assembly. Notice of Public Hearing: The Excelsior Scholarship and the Enhanced Tuition Awards Programs [Dec. 12, 10am, Albany]

 

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College.
1) Community Schools Policy Symposium [Dec. 14, 8-10am; incl. TC Pres. Fuhrman, Prof. C. Riehl] Join Teachers College and Children’s Aid to learn about the late‌st research on community schools and the implications of this research for education policy in New York City and New York State.
2) Teacher Diversity: Policy & Practice. [Friday Dec. 8, 4-6pm; incl. TC profs. Y. Sealey-Ruiz, D. Price-Dennis] Two panels bring together diverse voices from teachers, academics, advocacy organizations, and the government to discuss teacher diversity policies and thier implementation.

WNYC. Local Teen Sex Educators Lose Federal Support  …88 percent of middle and high schools do not have a teacher licensed to teach health education, and only about 65 percent of teens surveyed in 2016 said they knew where to go for reproductive health resources.

GLOBAL
Education International. Cease funding Bridge International Academies, says British parliamentary committee Bridge teachers use a tablet pre-loaded with lesson plans to teach classes aligned with the national curriculum of each country, ensuring consistency of learning across classrooms.

The Open University. Teacher Education in sub-Saharan Africa: Reach and teach thousands of teachers and children

Transforming Teacher Education and Learning. [Ghana] 1st Challenge Fund End of Project Learning Event: Told in tweets!

 

UNITED STATES
Education Post. It’s Not Enough to Know the Content, Teachers Also Need to Know the Context of Their Students’ Lives …we, as teacher educators, become students and members of the context, ourselves. We teach within communities, not just classrooms, and give teacher candidates opportunities to learn alongside community members, inside community-based organizations.

Education Week.
1) Here Are Six Strategies for States to Build Stronger Teacher Pipelines 4. Bring more diversity to the teaching workforce… CCSSO points to grow-your-own programs to prepare community members or those already working in the school, like paraprofessionals, to become teachers. And some states and universities have created residencies that better support prospective teachers—those have been shown to increase diversity and lead to better retention rates.
2) Virginia Becomes First State to Require Computer Science Instruction It’s notoriously hard to tell what, specifically, candidates are learning in their preparation programs, but this data does suggest that the teaching force will need some ongoing training in order to turn the SOLs into good teaching.

edTPA/AACTE. State Policy Currently there are 764 Educator Preparation Programs in 40 states and the District of Columbia participating in edTPA. 17 states now have policies in place requiring a state-approved performance assessment as part of program completion or for state licensure and/or state program accreditation/review. 

Network for Public Education. Charters and Consequences: An investigative Series …we support all legislation and regulation that will make charters better learning environments for students and more accountable to the taxpayers who fund them… A rejection of all ALEC legislation regarding charter schools that advocates for less transparency, less accountability, and the removal of requirements for teacher certification.

NYTimes.
1) Most Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving Is Wrong High school textbooks are particularly bad about stating absolutes because these materials “teach history” by giving students facts to memorize even when the details may be unclear…
2) Questioning Evolution: The Push to Change Science Class A new generation, he said, is being taught that “the scientific method and the scientific community is not to be trusted.”

Public History Weekly. Focusing on Democracy: A Teacher Educator’s View

 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED. New York State My Brother’s Keeper Community Network Reaches Significant Milestone with More Than 20 Member Communities Across New York State NYSED awarded $3 million in Teacher Opportunity Corps II (TOC) grants to increase the participation rate of historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged individuals in teaching careers.

 

NEW YORK CITY
Inside HigherEd. CUNY Chancellor Will Step Down

NYTimes. Head of City University Will Step Down

U.S. News and World Report. Innovating Education: Eva Moskowitz, the founder of Success Academy Charter Schools, is a polarizing figure but she says her way works. But if you compare our writing to the writing of the most affluent kids, there is a difference and it’s a struggle for us. It also has to do with a teacher shortage. If you look at who works at elite private schools or those at affluent urban schools, those teachers tend to be very educated themselves.

 

 

GLOBAL
Center for Education Innovations. Luminos Fund’s Speed School [Ethiopia] We hire our teachers from the community as well and train them in the Speed School pedagogy.

EdWeek. New Data Detail Effect of Inclusion on Teaching Time  Data from a survey of educators in more than three dozen countries and regions, … the pace of inclusion has outpaced the number of teachers trained to teach students with special education needs.

Helsinki Times. Researcher: Finland’s basic education in state of confusion after reforms  Teachers have not been offered enough training opportunities to help them adapt to the emphasis placed on digital learning in the new core curriculum…

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. How Community Partnerships Can Combat the Teacher Shortages The new video educates viewers on how university, school, and community partnerships aid in creating a robust pipeline and conditions critical to recruiting and retaining teachers.

Deans for Impact. Learning about the wondrous American experiment  And we hope those of you in the field of teacher preparation will consider working alongside us so that we can strengthen teaching, strengthen the opportunities for the next generation of students, and in so doing strengthen the wondrous experiment that is the United States of America.

EdWeek.
1) Educating for a Digital Future: Thoughts on Curriculum [M. Tucker blog]  Seeing this emerging picture, educators could prepare to sort our young people into two bins,  a small one big enough for the super rich, their professional retainers and their children, who would need or would be in a position to demand a fine education, and all the rest, who, as ‘surplus labor’ live on the dole, who would need and could afford, very little education.
2) Give Teachers a Voice in Education Reform: Four principles for a more robust public education system
3) Groups Share Resources to Help Teachers Fight Fake News in Class
4) Holcomb’s 2018 education goals skip some of Pence’s most controversial priorities  Holcomb’s 2018 agenda includes: Requiring every Indiana school to offer at least one computer science class by 2021, as well as training for teachers in computer science… Broadening teacher licensure requirements for people interested in teaching career and technical education classes.
5) Learning About Training Needs of Online Teachers  …only a handful of states required training or professional development for online teachers in 2012, even though a large body of research demonstrates the importance of high-quality teaching for student learning…

National Education Policy Center. Education Interview of the Month: Greg Smith Interviews Ken Zeichner on Independent Teacher Prep Programs

New York Times. House G.O.P. Tax Writers Take Aim at College Tuition Benefits  … many doctoral students would see huge tax increases, since the tuition that universities waive for them in exchange for working on campus as researchers and teaching assistants would be deemed taxable income. At expensive research universities like Stanford and Harvard, the new tax bills could swamp graduate-student stipends.

nprEd. Here’s How The New Tax Plan Could Hurt Graduate Students

 

NEW YORK STATE
City and State New York. The charter school standoff, explained The charter schools committee of the SUNY board of trustees recently approved a controversial new plan to revise teacher certification requirements for charter schools that it oversees.

Legislature.
1) A.3676 (Glick)/S.2487 (LaVall) Passed Senate and Assembly, Delivered to Governor Relates to admission requirements for graduate-level teacher and educational leader programs for certified teachers already holding a graduate degree
2) Senate Bill S6791 Introduced June 18, In Senate Rules Committee  An act to amend the education law, in relation to requiring persons applying for a certificate or license to be a teacher to receive a passing score on the academic literacy skills test and the teacher performance assessment

New York State Education Department.
DASA Task Force  The New York State Education Department received a recommendation from the Legislature that the Dignity for All Students Act (Dignity Act) regulation be amended and syllabus changed so that the training becomes a three-credit course that places the social patterns of harassment, bullying, and discrimination in an appropriate context of multicultural education. In response, the Commissioner reconvened the DASA Task Force to examine the amount of training and content of the DASA curriculum.

NYSED Regents Meeting  November 2017 agenda
1) State Education Department Proposes Regulation Changes to Expand Opportunities To Obtain A Transitional G Teaching Certification Beyond STEM Areas
2)  Update on the edTPA Standard Setting Committee and Amendment to §80-1.5 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education to Extend the edTPA Safety Net and Revise the Eligibility Criteria for the Multiple Measures Review Process

NYS Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching. November 2017 meeting [agenda]

UPDATE: Public Debate on SUNY Charter Institute Certification Policy
NYT Editorial – The Best Charter Schools Deserve More Leeway on Hiring, Nov. 3, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/opinion/charter-schools-hiring.html

Responses to NYT Nov. 3^rd editorial
a) From Susan H. Fuhrman, President, Teachers College, Columbia University
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/opinion/charter-school-teachers.html

b) From Betty Rosa, Chancellor of the NYS Board of Regents
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/opinion/new-york-state-regents-teaching.html

http://cityandstateny.com/articles/policy/education/charter-school-teacher-certification-controversy-regents-chancellor-betty-rosa.html#.Wg78rLQ-fBK

c) From Jason Zwara, policy manager for Northeast Charter Schools Network
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/opinion/guest-column/2017/11/11/stop-fighting-charter-schools-learn/107524150/

d) From Alan Singer, Hofstra Univ. teacher educator
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5a043a3ce4b0c7511e1b3a27

e) NY Post OpEd in support of charter schools
http://nypost.com/2017/11/10/two-telling-ways-to-address-a-teacher-shortage/

 

NEW YORK CITY
ABC Eyewitness News. NYC program inspires youth to pursue careers in education  “I am actually on a mission not just in this school, I have asked all high schools in the city to have future teachers’ clubs in their high schools,” Chancellor Carmen Farina said.

EdTech. VR Gives Student-Teachers a Taste of the Classroom  A University at Buffalo virtual reality training program lets educators deepen their pre-service experiences.

Spectrum News. Nicola Clarke: Math teacher divides her time to help multiply success of others  In addition to teaching full-time in the program, she is a mother to four girls and a full-time student, a double major in math and education at Hunter College. 

WNYC. As City Recruits Male Teachers of Color, Retention Challenges Persist  …new male teachers of color in the NYC Men Teach program. Since 2015, the initiative added 900 men of color into the teacher “pipeline,” which includes college students who have expressed a commitment to becoming teachers, according to a spokeswoman at the Department of Education. 

GLOBAL
Education International. Yemen’s education crisis deepens as unpaid teachers continue to strike  Making matters worse, the government is now asking for unqualified volunteers to fill in for the striking teachers. At least two million children are not in school.

Hechinger Report. OPINION: Known for its intense testing pressure, top-performing South Korea dials it back [by TC Prof. T. Hatch] …professional development providers and teacher education institutions are focusing on helping teachers develop new instructional methods and career-related activities…

LGiU Scotland. Training about mental health for teachers is one part of the puzzle  The Scottish Association for Mental Health recently surveyed over 3,000 school staff and found that two thirds of teachers (66%) felt they lacked training in mental health to carry out their job properly, with only 12 per cent saying they had received enough training in issues such as self-harming and eating disorders.

TC Record Book Review. Enhancing Teacher Professionalism: Global Lessons From High-Performing Education Systems by L. Darling-Hammond; A. L. Goodwin, K. Hammerness, K. Zeichner, et al., 2017

Washington Post. Early childhood education expert: I saw a brilliant way to teach kids. Unfortunately it wasn’t in the United States.  The Nova Scotia Framework (similar to those of other Canadian provinces) was written by a broad network of early childhood professionals. These educators know how young children develop and learn, and they share common principles and values about child development.

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Urge Congress to Pass a Budget Deal and Increase Education Funding

Better Life Lab. There’s a Stigma Around Men Teaching Young Kids. Here’s How We Change It.  … this could be a crucial opportunity to encourage more men to enter the important field of early childhood education, particularly since the United States lags behind most other industrialized countries in access to early education.

Education Week.
1) This Group Wants to Be the Match.com of Teacher Shortages in California  The center will also guide interested people—whether high school students, college students, or people looking to switch careers—through the process of training and certification via a “vortal” (vertical digital portal).
2) Want to Protect Money for Teachers in Trump’s Washington? Good Luck.  The House spending proposal for education for the next budget year eliminates about $2 billion in Title II funding that goes towards teacher training and a reduction in class sizes. 

Edutopia. What Can We Do About Teacher Turnover? Controlling for other factors, three major things emerged as predictors of turnover: teacher preparation, school leadership, and compensation.

Hechinger Report.
1) Almost all students with disabilities are capable of graduating on time. Here’s why they’re not: U.S. education system is failing students with special needs.  Yet general education teachers rarely have much training in special education. Few teacher education programs require more than one class on students with disabilities. Meanwhile, special education teachers have to balance completing extensive federal paperwork with planning lessons and teaching classes.
2) How preschool teachers feel about science matters, new research finds  Most Head Start teachers hold a bachelors degree and that held true for Gerde’s sample but she and her team found previous education had no effect on the amount of science instruction teachers offered.

HuffPost. Transforming Teacher Preparation: How States are Leading the Way

Teaching Tolerance. Presenting Teaching Tolerance’s Digital Literacy Framework The need for digital literacy is acute and vital in today’s world. Our new initiative can help prepare students to navigate this world.

U.S. News and World Report. Best Graduate Schools of Education 2018

Washington Post.
1) A quarter of the schools Betsy DeVos has visited are private  DeVos proposed drastic cuts in money for after-school programs, career and technical education, and teacher preparation in favor of dedicating $400 million to expand charter schools and private school vouchers and more than $1 billion to push states to adopt policies friendly to school choice.
2) The real reasons so many young people can’t write well today — by an English teacher  The overall decline in student writing ability cannot be attributed to one cause. Recent studies have shown that many teachers are ill-prepared to teach writing when they enter the classroom.

NEW YORK STATE
HuffPost. Times Editorial Hypes Charter Schools  [Rebuttal to NYTimes editorial below] But the real reason charter networks can’t fill positions is because of high teacher turnover. I know that, because I read it in the New York Times. Charter networks treat teachers as interchangeable parts that can be plugged into classrooms where they follow scripts and can be repeatedly replaced by other untrained personnel.

NYSED. Regents Meeting for November 2017 [agenda]  Update on the edTPA Standard Setting Committee and Amendment to §80-1.5 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education to Extend the edTPA Safety Net and Revise the Eligibility Criteria for the Multiple Measures Review Process

NYTimes.
1) The Best Charter Schools Deserve More Leeway on Hiring [Times Editorial Board] The national scope of this problem was documented a decade ago in a devastating report by Arthur Levine, a former president of Teachers College, Columbia University, who criticized universities for using teacher-training programs with low or no standards as cash cows…But what’s beyond doubt is that the state certification process is failing to provide strong teachers in sufficient numbers to fill the demand.
2) New York State Regents on Teaching [Rebuttal to Times Editorial Board]  Relying on a decade-old study and research by an organization with a clear political agenda, you buy into the flawed notion that rigorous teacher training programs, including those offered by SUNY and CUNY colleges, don’t result in better qualified teachers.

Poughkeepsie Journal. Dutchess teaching workforce lacks diversity: Report  The state should “improve the educator preparation pipeline, strengthen supports for educators of color, and make schools more inclusive environments in order to better serve our students and educators.”

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) What I learned about the limits of school choice in New York City from a mother whose child uses a wheelchair  Teachers should learn to include children with different abilities in their classrooms. Such a commitment means recognizing the value of inclusivity — not viewing accessibility as something ADA says you must do.
2) Why do some New York City schools get to choose their students? Here’s the case for and against ‘screening.’  …there’s a more practical reason to advocate for screening, said Samuel Abrams, a researcher at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Selective schools are a way to keep middle-class families worried about the quality of the average public school from opting into private school or decamping to the suburbs.

Teachers College.
1) CRACKING THE CODE: Teaching STEM for Citizenship in the 21st Century [Nov. 18, 9am-5pm]
2) Making a Federal Case: Michael Rebell and his students hope to convince the Supreme Court that education is a Constitutional right  Teachers no longer receive preparation in leading discussions of controversial topics and are often expressly barred from doing so.
3) Mitigating the Misreading of Boys of Color in Schools  This event is intended to ignite discussion on how educators can work with Black and Brown males in high schools to reimagine the educational landscape.  [Dec. 9, 10am-1pm]
4) State of the College 2017  Felicia Moore Mensah received the 2017 Outstanding Science Teacher Educator of the Year Award from the Association of Science Teacher Education… Susan Recchia’s article on “Preparing Early Childhood Professionals for Relationship-Based Work with Infants” received the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education Distinguished Article award.

GLOBAL
The Guardian. Your child’s teacher could soon be an undergraduate on £3.50 an hour  Fifteen years ago when Teach First began, the training programme that carefully selected graduates to train on the job, the teaching unions went ballistic because children were to be taught by teachers who had degrees but had not yet completed their teacher training. Now parents in England could find their child’s teacher is a first-year undergraduate on terrifyingly low wages.

International Society for Music Education. The Music Educator and Policy: Bystander or Participant?  Literature on collaborative practice, teacher leaders, school/community-level activism, induction and teacher education are pointing out how ineffectual and disempowering traditional models of policy action have been… Places as distinct as Finland, Brazil or the United States are seeing the pendulum shift back, away from high centralisation and enforcement of draconian accountability models.

TES. Every teacher must be trained in mental health first aid, academy chain says

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Federal Updates Webinars for October & November
2) One Size Does Not Fit All: What It Means to Serve All Learners  We cannot assume that teacher candidates are aware of this need for flexibility, nor can we expect it to resonate after one course or one quarter or semester. Instead, schools of education must infuse these concepts throughout curricular and cocurricular experiences and course content.

Center for American Progress (CAP). The Progressive Case for Charter Schools  Several high-quality networks, such as High Tech High, KIPP, and Uncommon Schools, are pioneering an effort to recruit and train alumni interested in becoming teachers. [rebuttal below from Truthout]

Chalkbeat. Hey, we heard you. You had a lot of questions about TNReady. We found answers.  The model itself is sophisticated and complex to be as fair and nuanced as possible for each teacher’s situation, and we are working with our educator preparation providers as well as district leaders to provide more training on specifically how the model calculates scores.

Deans for Impact. Building Blocks [Modeling, Practice, Feedback, Alignment; digital public. based on 18 teacher prep programs in 13 states]

edTPA/AACTE. Educative Assessment and Meaningful Support: 2016 edTPA Administrative Report The disproportionate representation of White candidates and the relative small sample sizes of other groups must be considered when making comparisons or generalizations to other samples or to the general population of teacher candidates. [p. 30]

EdWeek. Rival Teacher-Prep Accreditation Group to Emphasize ‘Multiple Approaches’  The approach would differ significantly from the process used by CAEP, which is more prescriptive and requires programs to collect data on teachers after they graduate and enter the field, among meeting other standards.

Equity Mathematics Education. The Attack on Equity Mathematics Education Scholars and the #IStandWithRochelle Movement, So Far

Hechinger Report. Mississippi schools use online resources, technology to expand course offerings  The Global Teaching Project, an initiative aimed at providing high-quality content to promising students, and the Mississippi Public School Consortium for Educational Access have launched a three-year pilot program to bring college-level AP courses to schools that lack certified teachers and course offerings.

Inside Higher Ed.
1) Free Community College Picks Up Steam  “The best part of free college is that it has the potential to have this big marketing impact,” said Judy Scott Clayton, an associate professor of economics and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
2) Green Light for Competency-Based Teacher Ed  Advocates for competency-based learning, and for new approaches to teacher education, can chalk up another victory: the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education approved the Woodrow Wilson Academy of Teaching and Learning’s application to become a degree-granting graduate institution.

Inside Philanthropy. Millions In Grants Have Gone to Teacher Preparation. What’s Needed Now?

Mother Jones. Inside Silicon Valley’s Big-Money Push to Remake American Education  “Learning is such a social activity, but tech-driven classrooms are really quiet,” says Riley, who now runs Deans for Impact, a nonprofit he founded to improve teacher training. 

NYTimes.
1) A Reporter Returns to Ohio to Discuss the Challenges of Teaching Climate Change  Ohio University in Athens has invited me to join Mr. Sutter, some of his current and former students, and professors from the science education, environmental studies and journalism schools to join a panel discussion on this sometimes-fraught topic.
2) Improving Your ‘News Diet’: A Three-Step Lesson Plan for Teenagers and Teachers

The Atlantic. The Crisis Facing America’s Preschool Teachers  Efforts to fill centers with better qualified early-childhood workers are threatening the jobs of those who can’t afford to get their college degree, and some states are turning to apprenticeships to solve both problems at once.  

Truthout. There Is No “Progressive Case” for Charter Schools  That CAP authors choose to spotlight Teach for America as an “exemplary” practitioner of teacher recruitment is laughable. While the organization has of late gotten some notoriety for recruiting higher percentages of black and Latino teachers, a national study of TFA found more than half of TFA recruits placed in low-income schools leave after two years, and by their fifth year, only 14.8 percent continue to teach in the same low-income schools they were originally assigned to. [rebuttal to CAP piece]

UW College of Ed. Doctoral student’s mission: Training the great teachers of tomorrow  After connecting with her adviser, Boeing Professor of Teacher Education Ken Zeichner, Wang started to explore various topics for her research…“The problem is that policymakers create policies that are not aligned with educational research,”…

NEW YORK STATE
Hechinger Report. VIDEO: Using the Black Lives Matter movement to train white teachers  In Rochester, educators are trying to close the achievement gap with anti-racist education

NEW YORK CITY
Politico New York. A charter school models how the city can educate autistic children  KIPP NYC has added new supports for special education students, including hiring more special education certified teachers and more training for teachers to work with students with special needs.

Teachers College.
1) CRACKING THE CODE SYMPOSIUM: Teaching STEM for Citizenship in the 21st Century  [9a-5p Nov. 18]
2) Reimagining Education, Online: Support from the Rauch Foundation  The Rauch Foundation has given Teachers College a $25,000 grant to develop curriculum for a new on-line advanced certificate program in racially inclusive education…unique connection between topics such as racial literacy, culturally relevant pedagogy, and the larger context of policy, history, race and segregation,” says Amy Stuart Wells, Professor of Sociology & Education, co-recipient with Detra Price-Dennis, Assistant Professor of Elementary & Inclusive Education, of the Rauch Foundation grant.  

GLOBAL
ATEE. Winter Conference 2018 February 15th and 16th, University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht.

FreshEd. Decolonizing Teacher Training in Pakistan [Podcast]

Hechinger Report. On the ground in Singapore, with a sharp perspective  Shortly before I completed my teacher training 15 years ago, my vice principal gave me some advice…

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE InTouch: ‘What Makes a Good Teacher?’  These brief videos inform the public about educator preparation and ways to advocate for, get involved in, and support the education profession.
2) Diane Ravitch to Deliver Closing Keynote at #AACTE18
3) Federal Update Webinars: September 2017, October 2017 [AACTE login required]
4) UNC Greensboro Celebrates Continued Funding for Tech-Focused TQP Work  The partnership among UNCG, Guilford County Schools, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools aims to prepare 300 teacher candidates per year with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to incorporate technology to promote academic learning for all students.

American Educational Studies Association. 2017 AESA Critic’s Choice Book Award. Teacher Performance Assessment and Accountability Reforms: The Impacts of edTPA on Teaching and Schools  The adoption of nationalized teacher performance exams has raised concerns about the influence of corporate interests in teacher education, the objectivity of nationalized teaching standards, and ultimately the overarching political and economic interests shaping the process, format, and nature of assessment itself.

Blog Talk Radio. Colleges Of Education’s Innovative Approach To Produce Special Ed Teachers  [radio interview]

EdWeek.
1) Do State ESSA Plans Have Strong Connections to Higher Education?  In particular, states have committed to strengthen K–12 and higher education alignment through their ESSA plans in the following ways:… Supporting teacher preparation and professional development activities to expand the number and reach of effective teachers in advanced coursework.
2) Five Steps to Launching a Schoolwide Social Justice Movement
3) How Should We Reform Teacher Education?  Virtual reality classrooms should be used in teacher education programs.
4) What We’ve Learned Teaching Teacher Candidates About Equity  Future educators are frustrated that they have not been adequately prepared for discussing issues related to justice, but they are excited to begin learning about it. Without significant opportunity to explore issues of equity and justice, future educators miss opportunities for growth and development.
5) With Latest Education Investments, Gates Pivots Again  … and $1.7 million to the Relay Graduate School of Education to develop a data system for tracking the teachers it prepares.

InsideHigherEd. Expectations, Race and College Success: Study suggests high school teachers’ attitudes are not colorblind and influence who succeeds in higher education  … findings show the importance both of increasing the number of nonwhite schoolteachers and also of educating all teachers about bias and the importance of high expectations.

NYTimes. The ‘Problem Child’ Is a Child, Not a Problem  Matt’s behavior started to turn around in fifth grade, after his parents began using Collaborative Problem Solving (C.P.S.)… Now an eighth grader, Matt has adjusted well to his new school …. He wants to go to college and become a special-education teacher like the ones who have helped him. 

Southern Regional Education Board. Are Teachers Really Prepared To Teach Reading?  The National Council on Teacher Quality finds additional evidence that preservice training for reading instruction is not adequate in many teacher preparation programs.

U. S. Congress. Educator Preparation Reform Act: A bill to improve quality and accountability for educator preparation programs. Introduced in Senate as S1694 by Jack Reed (D-RI) and in the House of Representatives as HR3636 by Ruben Kihuen (D-NV)

U. S. Federal Register. Secretary’s Proposed Supplemental Priorities and Definitions for Discretionary Grant Programs [Public comment period open until Nov. 17]

The74. How Arkansas Is Teaming Up With Teachers, Facebook & Other Tech Titans to Rethink Computer Science Education  Local universities are working to help train the aspiring computer science teachers… Arkansas Tech became the first college in the state to offer a computer science education major, which blends existing computer science courses with education classes.

WashingtonPost. As DACA winds down, 20,000 educators are in limbo  Regardless of what Congress does, Rodriguez plans to apply to a master’s program that will help him earn his teaching certificate. He plans to apply to the University of the Redlands in January.

NEW YORK STATE
North Country Public Radio. SUNY Chancellor defends changes to charter school teacher certification standards  Dr. Kristina Johnson, who began her job as Chancellor in September, says SUNY will continue to hold the 185 charter schools that it regulates to high standards. But she does not disagree with a Board of Trustee committee’s decision to allow charter schools to develop their own certification plans for teachers.

NYSED. 2017-18 Professional Standards and Practices Board Members

NEW YORK CITY
Wall Street Journal. Nonprofit Aims to Inspire Teachers and Honor Their Vocation  “We want to treat teachers like professional intellectuals…”

GLOBAL
EdSurge. Why the World’s Youngest Continent Got an Edtech Accelerator  Here are the eight companies in Injini’s inaugural cohort: Accelerated (Ethiopia): teacher training services that helps educators use technology effectively…

Hechinger Report. In Finland, it’s easier to become a doctor or lawyer than a teacher — Here’s why  With such selective admissions — it was harder to gain entry to the University of Helsinki’s teacher education program (6.8 percent acceptance rate) than the law program (8.3 percent acceptance rate) or the medical school (7.3 percent acceptance rate) in 2016 — and rigorous preparation, one might expect Finland to suffer teacher shortages not unlike those seen in the U.S. 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Teaching Bullying Prevention, School Climate, and SEL: Seven Research-Informed Principles for Schools of Education  If universities and colleges could teach these principles to future teachers, administrators, and other school personnel, many students who might have become victims of bullies will never have to live through those experiences…

AMLE2017. Symposium on Middle Level Teacher Education [Nov. 7, Philadelphia]

Chalkbeat. Gates Foundation to move away from teacher evals, shifting attention to ‘networks’ of public schools  The final quarter of that $1.7 billion will go toward research into how kinds of technology could improve student learning and ways to improve math instruction and career preparation.

EdSource. Cal State receives federal grant to prepare more Latinos to become teachers  A new $8.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to the California State University will… allow for more recruitment of teacher candidates at high schools and community colleges.

Education First. Who Teaches the Teachers?  [Client: Gates Foundation]

Education Week.
1) Do Schools Need Certified Teachers? Do Children?  [OpEd] So, we wonder…is relaxing teacher certification requirements, the answer to the shortage or to the problems and challenges we have as educators?
2) High-Achieving Students Don’t Want to Be Teachers. What Can Change Their Minds?
3) Substitute teacher shortages create challenges for districts  Iowa created an alternative licensing program for substitute teachers several years ago in an effort to increase their ranks, but rural parts of the state continue to struggle with a shortage…

Teacher Education Transformation Centers. If We Want Excellent Teachers, We Need Excellent Teacher Educators [Client: Gates Foundation]

Truth for America. Should Teach For America be kicked out?  TFA tax returns over the last four years show revenues over a billion dollars…

NEW YORK STATE
Albany News 10. Lawsuit filed over NY teacher certifications  Currently, state law requires that teachers have a master’s degree, yet the committee’s plan requires neither a master’s nor a bachelor’s degree.

Education Trust-New York. One-third of all New York schools have no Latino or Black teachers, new report from Ed Trust–NY reveals  There are immediate steps that state leaders can take to improve teacher and school leader diversity and strengthen public education in New York, including: Strengthening the educator preparation pipeline for future teachers and school leaders of color

Lohud Journal News. REPORT: Westchester schools lack teacher diversity  “We need to promote the teaching profession as a viable career for our young people of color,” [Yonkers Superintendent Quezada] said. “They need to see themselves as future teachers and administrators.”

NY Daily News. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie questions rule allowing charter schools to certify teachers  “Our position is the same as it was when the legislation was passed: We believe the legislation’s intent did not allow for SUNY to adopt regulations that are inconsistent with current laws governing charter schools, including laws related to teacher certification requirements.”

NYSATE/NYACTE. 2017 Annual Conference Program, Saratoga Springs, NY Oct. 18-20

NYSED. 8 Things every educator should know about New York State’s plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act  Working with districts and higher education, the state will create tools and other resources that will increase communication between preparation programs and the districts that employ their graduates.

NYSED Regents. Board Of Regents Acts To Help Teachers Displaced By Hurricane Maria Get Temporary Certification To Work In NY

Politico New York. Charter certification rules overhauled  Dirck Roosevelt, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, who is more critical of charters than Suransky, said the updated proposal was still “teacher education lite.”

Syracuse.com There’s a big teacher-student diversity gap in Syracuse schools, report finds  That program, the Syracuse Urban Teacher Program, recruits high school students to shadow teachers, take college courses two days a week in their junior year and teach portions of class by their senior year.

The Buffalo News. Diversity lags in teaching ranks in Buffalo area schools  In Niagara Falls, Laurrie said, the district has started several initiatives in recent years, including a “grow your own” program, offering scholarship dollars and partnering with Niagara County Community College to provide a teacher’s academy.

 

GLOBAL
Education International. International Day of the Girl Child  As education unions, it is part of our core mission and mandate to ensure gender perspectives are integrated at every level: within teachers initial training and continuous development programmes, as well as in the curricula and in all education-related policies.

The Hill. [Darling-Hammond, Tucker OpEd] If you want a world-class education system, then empower our teachers  First, the recruitment of prospective teachers must be intentional and systematic. Leaders in high-performing systems recruit academically capable students into teacher education who also possess a passion for teaching and an ability to connect with young people.

Times Higher Education. Video: what does good university teaching look like? Top UK university lecturers give us their top teaching tips

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Deadline Extended! Apply by Oct. 20 for AACTE Awards
2) edTPA Conference Registration Deadline Extended to Oct. 20
3) New Task Force to Study Clinical Preparation of Special Education Teachers

Chalkbeat.
1) Meet first Tennesseans in a new education leadership program for people of color  About 14 percent of new teachers in Tennessee training programs identify as non-white, compared to 36 percent of the state’s student population.
2) Read these 4 great education stories by new ‘Genius’ grant winner Nikole Hannah-Jones  2014: “Segregation Now” As a school’s black population increases, the odds that any given teacher there will have significant experience, full licensure, or a master’s degree all decline.

Education Week.
1) Growing Number of States Embrace Career Education  Virginia now allows school boards to waive some licensure requirements for the teachers they want to hire for career and technical education classes.
2) Helping Preschool Teachers Shake Off Fear of Science Education  Teacher training programs and professional development for teachers who are already in the field could benefit from an infusion of science education…
3) Should Teachers Make as Much as Lawmakers? Calif. Voters Could Decide  …”unlike legislators, being a teacher requires a college education, an advanced degree, and ongoing professional training,” he said “and, unlike legislators, teachers often work in dangerous, challenging, and substandard conditions in schools that can be poorly maintained and woefully underfunded.”
4) Yet Another Group Sets Out to Accredit Teacher-Prep Programs  …the emergence of a new accreditation group, the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation, or AAQEP, seeking to give teacher-preparation programs its stamp of approval.

Congress.GOV. H.R.899 – To terminate the Department of Education. Two Republican Reps. [R. Norman (SC), T. Rokita (IN)] sponsored bill 9/26/2017.

Inside Higher Ed.
1) Innovative Teachers for Tomorrow’s Careers  Our nation needs strong teachers in every math and science classroom, writes E. Gordon Gee, but too few STEM experts choose to apply their talents to this important career path.
2) Leadership Matters for Transfer Success  …researchers from the …Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College visited six high-performing transfer partnerships — including six two-year and eight four-year schools — to understand how higher education can better serve undergraduate transfer students.
3) Teaching Teachers to Teach Online  Colleges use a variety of strategies to train subject-matter experts in effective online instruction. One surprise: in-person training is huge.

The New & Observer. Many rural NC counties don’t have enough teachers. Can pay bonuses help change that?  A new program is offering education majors at N.C. State University a big bonus if they commit after graduation to working in some rural school districts that struggle to attract enough teachers.

Washington Post. Why the school ‘accountability movement’ based on standardized tests is nothing more than ‘a charade’  The movement led to classrooms dominated by test prep and a severe narrowing of the curriculum to a primary focus on subjects being tested…

NEW YORK STATE
Adirondack Daily Enterprise. Teacher testing revised  “The edTPA is still under development; that’s part of the problem,” said Jamie Dangler, co-chair of the edTPA task force and vice president for academics for United University Professions, the state’s main union for college faculty.

Chalkbeat.
1) New York unions sue, accusing charter schools of lowering standards for teachers
2) SUNY faces legal threat against proposal to let charter schools certify their teachers Critics of a controversial proposal to allow certain charter schools to certify their own teachers threatened legal action on Tuesday if officials vote to approve the plan at their meeting Wednesday morning.
3) SUNY revises controversial proposal to let some New York charter schools certify their own teachers  In the revised proposal, prospective teachers will be required to sit for 160 hours of classroom instruction, which amounts to about a month of full-time work. However, the time required for teaching practice will drop from 100 to 40 hours…SUNY’s plan does require aspiring teachers to be enrolled in a college’s teacher education program.
4) The votes are in: Some New York charter schools can now certify their own teachers  In charter schools overseen by SUNY that apply to train their own teachers, prospective teachers now will only have to sit for the equivalent of a month of classroom instruction and practice teaching for 40 hours before becoming certified.

Education Week. Committee OKs alternative requirements for charter teachers  Opponents include Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa, New York State United Teachers and United University Professions. 

New York Daily News. Teachers unions sue over charter school’s move to certify own educators  “They should stick to organizing and leave the legal analysis to us lawyers,” said Belluck, an attorney who serves on the SUNY charter committee as an unpaid volunteer.

NYSED Regents. October 16-17 meeting agenda

New York State United Teachers. Amended charter certification requirements still unacceptable

NYTimes.
1) Some Charter Schools Can Certify Their Own Teachers, Board Says  In 2016, in exchange for granting Mayor Bill de Blasio an extension of mayoral control over schools, the Republicans in the State Senate, to whom Ms. Moskowitz has close ties, inserted broad language in the legislation giving SUNY the power to promulgate regulations for the schools it oversees.
2) Unions Sue to Block ‘Watered Down’ Rules for Charter Teacher Training

Politico. Merryl Tisch is back, will have say in how charter schools certify teachers  “As chancellor, Merryl Tisch presided over the Common Core debacle; the arrival of Pearson testing and [former state education commissioner] John King Jr., and the troubled edTPA teacher certification process,” NYSUT spokesman Carl Korn said, referring to several other controversies during her tenure. “As she moves to the SUNY Charter Schools Committee, we ask, ‘What can go wrong?’”

SUNY Charter Schools Institute. Regulations of the SUNY Board of Trustees’ Charter Schools Committee  [updated proposal]

Times Union. SUNY OKs charter teacher certification plan  The SUNY charter schools committee, voting in New York City, approved the plan by a vote of 4-1 on Wednesday, with the stated goal of making it easier to become a teacher at New York charter schools in light of a national and statewide teacher shortage.

United University Professions. SUNY’s charter school teacher training plan skirts standards, accountability

Wall Street Journal. New York Charter Schools Win Plan to Certify Teachers  Former Chancellor Merryl Tisch, a charter supporter appointed to the SUNY board of trustees last summer by the governor, joined the charter committee last month, just in time to vote yes.

NEW YORK CITY
New York Post. Protesters demand ‘accurate’ Columbus school curriculum­  Bed-Stuy parent Felicia Alexander… “These teachers view our students as menacing, as dangerous, as threatening. They view our kids as less likely to succeed.” Alexander said instructors need to be trained to “understand the backgrounds and the diverse cultures of our kids” in order to effectively teach them.

 

GLOBAL
Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE). Conference 2017 [Oct. 23-25, Dubrovnik, Croatia]

Center on International Education Benchmarking. Respect for Teachers Highest in China, South Korea and Singapore  Countries that have high levels of respect for teachers are more likely to encourage strong students to enter teaching and to offer strong teacher training.

Chalkbeat. Want more young people to aspire to become teachers? Try paying teachers more  “In countries where teacher salaries are higher, 15-year-old students are more likely to expect to work as teachers,” the researchers Seong Won Han, Francesca Borgonovi, and Sonia Guerriero conclude, using data from the OECD

Education Week. The [U.S.] Teacher of the Year Went to Ethiopia to Train Educators—and Learned a Lot

UNESCO. World Teachers’ Day – 5 October 2017  …bring together teachers, trainers, policy-makers, as well as researchers and other education stakeholders to celebrate teaching, academic freedom, and what we need to do to ensure quality higher education and a sustainable future for the teaching profession.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Creating High Teacher Quality in Teacher Prep Programs- Radio Talk With AACTE Members An online Education Talk Radio program last month featured AACTE members in a discussion of how their educator preparation programs contribute to high teacher quality.
2) Nominate Leaders for AACTE Awards by Oct. 12
3) New Report Rings Alarm Bell on Teacher Shortages  Teachers who enter the profession through alternate routes are 25% more likely to leave the profession than those who have had full preparation… Teacher preparation programs have experienced a whopping 35% decline in enrollment in the last 5 years.
4) Podcast Interview Explores Implications of New Science Standards for Preparing Teachers

AAQEP. AAQEP Board Adopts Policy to Recognize Accreditation from Other Accreditors

Chronicle. The Crisis of Civic Education [OpEd by Derek Bok] Professors are also much freer from outside pressures than public-school teachers in determining the content of their courses and the materials they assign their students. Colleges, then, have a vital part to play.

EdWeek.
1) Accreditation for Teacher Prep Needs a Makeover, Say Former Ed. Officials  “Because the current teacher education accreditor has shown it cannot and will not reform itself, a new type of accreditor, not dependent on schools of education and their personnel, but instead on the employers of graduates from schools of education and teacher preparation programs, should be created.”
2) A Guide to State ESSA Plans: Goals, Teacher Quality, and More  In their plans, states generally outlined ongoing reforms to certification, teacher preparation, and professional development rather than proposing brand-new initiatives.
3) Here’s How Teachers’ Racial Attitudes Compare to Those of Average Americans
4) Illinois Eliminates Some Requirements for Teacher Licenses  Some administrators say those changes have helped fill jobs in areas with teacher shortages. But advocates for tough licensing standards say eliminating coursework and testing requirements may not guarantee educators have the credentials needed to work in public schools.
5) Is The Cat in the Hat Racist?  Martin, who has also been a teacher-educator, also believes that programs preparing teachers need to engage with similar questions …“If the teachers don’t have training in cultural sensitivity and diverse children’s books, they have a disconnect going into the classroom—and they have a disadvantage. And they don’t know it,”
6) Louisiana education report: Rural teachers get less training  The report says 13 percent of classes are taught by uncertified or out-of-field teachers in urban and suburban school districts, while that number grows to 21 percent in rural districts.
7) More emergency teaching certifications approved in Oklahoma  Under the certificates, individuals can be employed prior to completing education or training requirements. Most of those individuals are newcomers to education, but some are certified teachers who lack certification in the subject matter or grade level they’re needed for.
8) New tech to prepare Wyoming students for teaching careers  The University of Wyoming is planning to use an “augmented reality” program to prepare the teachers of tomorrow for their future work in the classroom.

NEA Today
1) “All I Want to Do is Teach And Help My Kids,” says DACA Teacher  …teachers originally hired through Teach for America (TFA), which has actively recruited DACA recipients.
2) What Would Thomas Jefferson Say to Betsy DeVos?  The reformers, who came on the scene in the 1830s, take these schools and aim to improve them. They started to establish teacher training schools.

New York Post. Why We Need to Start Teaching Tech in Kindergarten [OpEd by Ivanka Trump] …starting with K-12 curricula, but also continuing through vocational, skill-based training and apprenticeship programs…

NCTQ. Best Books for New Teachers (Part I)

North Carolina State Univ. TIP, NC State Education Establish $10K TIP Teaching Scholars Award Program  “This partnership with The Innovation Project enables us to create a pipeline of highly qualified pre-service teachers who will work in some of the districts facing the greatest teaching shortages…”

Stanford Univ. SCALE.
1) 2017 National edTPA Implementation Conference [San Jose, CA, Nov. 3 – 5; Registration Deadline Oct. 12]
2) edTPA Connections to CAEP
3) New to edTPA? edTPA 101 [YouTube promo]

Urban Institute. Diversifying the Classroom: Examining the Teacher Pipeline  Even if all black college graduates became teachers, the number of black teachers would only barely exceed the number of white teachers. Teacher diversity gaps are constrained by a limited number of diverse college graduates.

Washington Post. Here’s a great way to get kids to learn. Unfortunately, too many schools don’t do it.  Today’s “reformers” believe direct instruction can be made to work if teachers will teach to subject-matter standards and kids will try harder to remember what they’ve been taught.

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. 22,000 New Yorkers will get new college scholarship from the state after 94,000 applied

NPREd. ‘Biggest-Ever Free College’ Program Reaches 6 Percent Of New York Students

Politico. Students at private colleges still awaiting word on Enhanced Tuition Award  Because of the restrictions and timing of the program, most of the state’s more than 100 nonprofit colleges and universities decided not to opt into the program.

NEW YORK CITY
NYCDOE.
1) Alternative Routes to Certification
2) Teach NYC! Conference 2017  Hosted by the NYC Department of Education, Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality, the second annual Teach NYC! Conference invites you to join us and find your pathway to becoming a teacher in New York City.  [Nov. 15]

Teachers College.
1) Getting Started with Digital Literacy. A webinar for K-8 educators with special guest Detra Price-Dennis…
2) Teacher as Activist: Supporting Immigrant Students in Urban Classrooms

The74. Exclusive: Documents Show NYC’s Education Department Failed to Answer 526 Public Records Requests Over Past 3 Years  Aaron Pallas, an education and sociology professor at Teachers College… filed a request in July 2011 for documents…he had never received a response from the DOE, just monthly extension letters.