Category: Teacher Education

GLOBAL
EduInternational. EI’s Initial Reaction to the release of the Bank’s World Development Report on Education  “The use of contract teachers is presented as a rational, cost-effective choice for governments with teacher shortages. Paradoxically, such promotion of precarious work is not only counterproductive for developing the teaching profession – it directly contradicts the Bank’s recommendation that better candidates need to be attracted into the profession to improve quality in the long term.

Hechinger Report. How Australia built a better career path for teachers  The professional standards are applied to a broad range of every day practices from the start of a teacher’s career. Teacher accreditation is aligned to the standards, and they are also used in the construction of annual performance and development plans. 

GOV.UK. Initial teacher education: inspections and outcomes as at 30 June 2017

Inside Higher Ed. Tertiary Education Is Indispensable  After new regulations required all teachers to have both a university degree and a relevant professional teaching qualification, three West Bank universities worked together, with support from a renowned British teacher training institution, to radically overhaul their pre-service teacher training program

Teachers College.
1) Providing Hope Through Better Teaching [Kenya]  …the TC program has introduced three components to address the “significant gaps” in support provided to teachers:  A training regimen focused on, among other things, child protection, well-being, pedagogy, curriculum and instruction…
2) Teacher as Activist. [Sept. 28] Dr. Kevin Kumashiro and Dr. A. Lin Goodwin discussed what it means for educators to work to support students who are immigrants.

World Bank. The World Development Report 2018 (WDR 2018)—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise Most teacher training is ineffective, but some approaches work.

UNITED STATES
Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation [AAQEP] new accreditor website. The Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP) is a quality assurance association founded in 2017 by professionals in the field of educator preparation. AAQEP is dedicated to strengthening P-20 education through excellent, innovative preparation of educators. 

Associated Press. Concord High School English teacher named Teacher of Year  Heidi Crumrine is an English teacher at Concord High School. … Heidi holds a Master of Arts degree in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University

EdWeek.
1) How Can Teaching Be More Selective and More Diverse at the Same Time?  The crux of the panel discussion was how policymakers and teacher-preparation programs can bolster the diversity of the teaching corps, while still raising the bar on entry into the profession.
2) How ‘Intelligent’ Tutors Could Transform Teaching  …experts argue that teachers need new training not only to use intelligent systems in the classroom but also to prepare students for careers in increasingly technology-integrated fields.
3) More States Are Making It Easier to Transfer Your Teaching License  As we’ve written, the idea that there’s a national teacher shortage appears to be a myth. Shortages do certainly exist, however, in certain geographic regions and subject areas.
4) Prospective Teachers in Arizona to Get Free Tuition. But Will It Help Shortages?
5) Straight Up Conversation: Teach to One CEO Joel Rose [R. Hess blog] Academically, we’re seeing some promising data on the impact of Teach to One. A third-party evaluation conducted by Douglas Ready at Teachers College found that students made annual academic gains equivalent to a half year of additional learning compared to national averages.
6) Teachers Report Weaker Relationships with Students of Color, Immigrants  …research with white teachers who are new to the profession. “They say very strongly, we’re not trained adequately to teach a classroom with all different kinds of kids,” he said. “If we don’t train them to, they’re not going to work to right these biases.”

Hechinger Report.
1) Sending parents useful information about attendance, course progress has big effects, social scientists find  Peter Bergman, an assistant professor of economics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University … has done similar experiments texting parents information about their children’s missed assignments, class attendance and grades.
2) Three lessons from rigorous research on education technology  …whether teachers can be trained online to use the system across the country, especially in more urban settings.

Inside Higher Ed. The Bermuda Triangle of Credit Transfer  “The confluence of these studies confirms that this is a problem, and that transfer students are one of most abused [groups of] students,” said Davis Jenkins, a senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

NYTimes. Study: Florida Private School Choice Program Sees Gains  Samuel Abrams, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University … said the American education system must be improved by addressing income inequality, accessible childcare and health care and teacher pay in public schools and not by putting more students in private schools.

NEW YORK STATE
Lohud. Schools, communities get back to ‘Basics’ with early childhood learning  …the committee will be organizing workshops to teach parents about Basics principles, ways to practice Basics with their children, and provide worksheets to use at home.

WalletHub. 2017’s Best & Worst States for Teachers  [New York ranked #1]

NEW YORK CITY
Bank Street College. Two new reports on funding residencies, Sustainable Funding Project

Chalkbeat. With a new school year underway, hundreds of teaching positions remain unfilled in New York City  …schools may list the same job more than once in order to advertise the position to teachers with different certifications, officials said. For example, a posting for a computer science teacher could also appear as openings for math and science teachers.

NYTimes. De Blasio Pledged Progress for Schools. For $582 Million, Change Is Slow.  But researchers, including Aaron Pallas, chairman of the department of education policy at Columbia University’s Teachers College, who have looked at the program’s results so far say they range from mixed to disappointing.

GLOBAL
Chalkbeat. Does England’s rapid expansion of charter-like ‘academies’ hold a lesson for the U.S.? According to an analysis by the British government, about half of primary schools changed their curriculum, how they evaluated teachers, and who was in school leadership. Relatively few lengthened the school day or hired uncertified teachers.

EENET. Teacher Education for Inclusion: EENET Seminar and Video Launch [Univ. of Manchester]

EducationInternational. EI promotes quality open educational resources This includes an increased domestic budget mobilisation for education, well-resourced education institutions, as well as support and incentives for qualified and trained teachers and higher education personnel. 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) 2018 Awards Nominations [Due Oct. 12]
2) Study: Secondary Math Teacher Candidates Need More Preparation in Statistics

AFT. We need more black male educators   I attended a program that encourages minority male high school students interested in engineering to pursue careers in education…

BustEd Pencils. No Student Teaching? No Problem: Wisconsin Wants You. The American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence will be granting teaching licenses in Wisconsin.

Chronicle. Technology? It’s Just Another Knitting Needle “I was cutting and pasting from one document to another, and they said, Wait, what did you just do?” recalls Ms. Baynum, 54, an associate professor of teacher education.

Education Commission of the States. Teacher License Reciprocity: 50-State Review This policy report defines and provides a 50-state review of teacher license reciprocity, explores how state-specific licensing requirements impact the teacher labor market, and includes examples of national and state efforts to facilitate reciprocity.

University of Washington. Elementary Teacher Preparation at the University of Washington

EdWeek.
1) Can Minority-Serving Colleges Help Create a More-Diverse Teaching Force? …BranchED has already helped … including intern and student-teacher ratings, and assessments that students take, to make sure everyone is on track to become a qualified, certified teacher.
2) Most of the U.S. Still Uses Common Core, Despite Blowback …common core provides instructors with the necessary structure and guidance, which is especially important for new teachers.
3) Q&A: One-on-One with U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos DeVos said that Title II, the main program for teacher quality, is “much too prescriptive and was really shown to not have any real effect or impact.” States, she said, can use other federal funding for teacher development.
4) State School Chiefs Offer ‘Playbook’ on Improving Teacher Preparation
5) Teachers Are Quitting Because They’re Dissatisfied. That’s a Crisis, Scholars Say Meanwhile, LPI researchers advocated for three main policy fixes: better compensation, including service scholarships and loan forgiveness programs; high-quality teacher preparation and support, including teacher residency programs, grow-your-own models, and induction programs for novice teachers…

Hechinger Report. In-demand graduate programs become a cash cow for colleges in financial distress Graduate debt has been spiraling… That includes for such degrees as a master’s in education (up from $33,910 to $50,879)…

NEA. Resources for Educators supporting DREAMers

NPR Ed. How One Group Is Working To Build A More Diverse Teaching Force …The Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity or BranchED. They are aiming programming at the 253 educator-preparation programs at federally-designated colleges and universities that serve African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans.

NEW YORK STATE
Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP) [alternative accreditation pathway]
1) AAQEP vision mission expectations
2) AAQEP update September 2017 for NY

National Review. Let SUNY’s Charter Schools Act Like Charter Schools [F. Hess OpEd] New York should embrace this measured attempt to see whether a high-performing, university-based charter authorizer can helps its schools do a better job of securing talented teachers.

New York Post. The right way to open up the teaching field The SUNY process requires a would-be teacher to get 30 hours of formal instruction, spend 100 hours in a working classroom… Teachers colleges, teacher unions and other established interests hate this kind of alternate certification because it threatens their control, and their cash flow.

New York State Education Department (NYSED)
1) edTPA Handbook Review Survey [deadline Oct. 1]
2) Eight Things Every Educator Should know about New York’s ESSA Plan. The state will examine changes to field experiences and placement requirements for prospective teachers…

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) Here’s what Carmen Fariña’s top deputies have on their plates this school year Dorita Gibson, Senior Deputy Chancellor, Division of School Support …oversees the city’s network of field centers designed to provide teacher training and other support services to schools.
2) In Harlem, these elders devote their golden years to improving local schools Mantell said the city has recruited 45 teachers in the last few years to pursue certification to become librarians.
3) In new memoir, Eva Moskowitz offers a look behind the curtain at Success Academy — and tries to reshape her reputation She also outlines the many topics the training covers beyond what she says teachers colleges tend to offer — a program that she solidified through a partnership with Touro College starting in 2012.
4) In year three of New York City’s massive school turnaround program, the big question is: What’s next? “Enough time has elapsed that there is an appetite for looking at results,” said Aaron Pallas, a Teachers College professor who has studied the program.

City and State New York. Teach for America New York Executive Director Charissa Fernández on this year’s corps, DACA and teacher training

DNA Info. 43% of City Students Not Getting Required Sex Ed Courses, Comptroller Says Meanwhile, 92 percent of middle schools and 53 percent of high schools have no teacher licensed by the city for health education.

EdWeek. Former Teacher Inspires Students to Follow in Her Footsteps When Mayme Hostetter started teaching English at a charter middle school in the Bronx neighborhood of New York, she had no idea how much of an impact she would make on her students. Now, more than a decade later, 11 of Hostetter’s former students have begun teaching careers of their own at the Relay Graduate School of Education—a residency-based program where Hostetter has served as a national dean since 2008.

The Atlantic. The Most Polarizing Education Reformer in New York City And the reason I got into academia was to be a teacher at the college level—at UVA [the University of Virginia] and Vanderbilt.

 

GLOBAL
Education International. Africa’s education leadership works towards union unity  Sossion went on to underline the seven signals of teacher deprofessionalisation, which is another major challenge for African teacher unions, i.e. the influx of untrained teachers, the casualisation of teaching…

Deutsche Welle. OECD education study reveals gender gap and strong disparity  Among young people studying to become teachers, the reverse is true: 78 percent of them are female.

NYTimes. Mexican Students Hijack Tanker Truck, Buses and Kidnap Cops  The events marked the latest chapter of violence at a rural teachers college where 43 students were kidnapped in 2014 and remain missing.

UNITED STATES
Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity. An Overview of MSI Educator Preparation Programs

Center for American Progress. America Needs More Teachers of Color and a More Selective Teaching Profession  States, teacher preparation programs, and alternative certification programs are taking steps to build a more diverse and selective pool of educators.

Chalkbeat.
1) Certification rules and tests are keeping would-be teachers of color out of America’s classrooms. Here’s how.  A Chalkbeat analysis has found that virtually every step in the common teacher certification process risks disproportionately excluding prospective teachers of color.
2) Efforts to ‘raise the bar’ for becoming a teacher are running headlong into efforts to diversify the profession. Now what?  But there has been only limited discussion of the fact that these two objectives — diversifying the profession and making it harder to enter — are often at cross purposes,
3) This top-rated black teacher may lose her job over one test. Are ‘high standards’ working? David Steiner, a professor at Johns Hopkins and a member of the Maryland State Board of Education… “What’s racist is the way we put the least well prepared teachers in the classrooms of our most disadvantaged students,” he said.

Council of Chief State School Officers. Transforming Educator Preparation: Lessons Learned from Leading States

Deans for Impact. The elusive evidence of educator-prep program effectiveness…exists!  If we do not gather more actionable data, policymakers will either craft accountability policies based on questionable statistics, or follow the lead of states such as Utah and Arizona that are de-professionalizing teaching entirely.

Education Reform Now. Teacher Education Reform Now  Recent history validates that the current teacher preparation program accreditor, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), is no better than other accreditors… 

EdWeek.
1) Could an App Help Teachers Recognize Their Own Biases?  The app will be available for free by the end of the year, according to Shah. Once completed, he hopes teacher-prep programs and school districts will use EQUIP to train preservice and even veteran teachers.
2) Kansas education board struggles with teacher shortage  A teacher vacancy committee has recommended an elementary licensing process that would require a district to identify people with “great potential” to be a teacher… The process to become a licensed elementary school teacher would take two years.
3) Parents Prefer Good Neighborhood Schools Over More Choice, Poll Finds  When asked how to improve teaching, 73 percent of parents said to treat teachers like professionals, raise hiring standards, and give new and struggling teachers more support and training.
4) State school board proposes lowering teacher requirements  The Charleston [WV] Gazette-Mail reported Saturday that among the proposed changes are exempting education bachelor’s degree holders who meet minimum grade point averages from having to pass a basic knowledge test.
5) State School Chiefs Offer ‘Playbook’ on Improving Teacher Preparation
6) Teachers’ Pay Lags Farthest Behind Other Professionals in U.S., Study Finds  “While the rest of the world has prioritized teaching and learning, and is investing heavily in equity and teacher preparation, 36 U.S. states are spending less on education than before the Great Recession,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers…

NEPC. Our Children Deserve Better: A Call to Resist Washington’s Dangerous Vision for U.S. Education   The rhetoric  and  reforms  that  attack  and  undermine teachers serve to lower the standards for teaching, hinder effective teaching  practices,  create  revolving  doors  of  employment,  de-professionalize  teaching,  and  deregulate  teacher  preparation.

New York Post [OpEd]. The outrageously mythical ‘teacher shortage’  Mike Antonucci, director of the Education Intelligence Agency, adds that, between 2008 and 2016, student enrollment was flat but the teaching force expanded from 3.4 million to more than 3.8 million, a rise of 12.4 percent.

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. New York’s most controversial teacher certification exam is now a little easier to pass  The Board of Regents voted Tuesday to drop the passing score on the edTPA … from 41 to 38 starting in January 2018.

Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities.
1) CICU Member Campus CEO Sign-on Letter: Masters-in-Education
2) CICU opposes SUNY Charter School Institute’s proposed teacher certification regulation

Education Reform Now. On Teacher Prep, Give SUNY Charter Schools A Chance to Succeed Where Others Have Failed  …in general the research indicates a weak relationship between specific teacher certification standards and student outcomes.

Education Week.
1) How Virtual Reality Is Helping Train New Teachers  David Cantaffa, an assistant provost for educator preparation for the State University of New York, the project funder, was surprised by the extent to which the VR made him feel transported to the classroom.
2) New York Lowers Required Score on Teacher Certification Exam  A task force of more than 30 representatives from higher education and K-12 has been working on amending the edTPA requirements over the last nearly two years. 

NYSED.
1) edTPA Handbook Review Survey – Deadline Oct. 1:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/edtpahandbook2017
2) Board Of Regents Approves NY’S Every Student Succeeds Act Plan
3) Board Of Regents Revises Teacher Certification Requirements  The Standard Setting Panel recommended a passing score of 40 (the current passing score is 41) that would be implemented after a four-year phase-in period [passing score of 38 during 2018 and 2019].
4) Board of Regents Approves Learning Standards for the Arts

NYSED Board of Regents, Sept. Meeting.
1) Proposed Amendment to Section 80-5.17 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education to Permanently Extend the Option for Certain Out-of-State Candidates to be Eligible for a Conditional Initial Certificate
2) Update on the edTPA Standard Setting Committee and Amendment to Section 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  Under the recommended phase-in period beginning January 1, 2018, the new passing score for the edTPA would be 38.

NYTimes [OpEd]. A Way to Get Great Teachers Into the Classroom  So as a teacher who recently had to jump through the New York certification hoops, I was pleased to learn that the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute, which authorizes charter operators, is considering allowing charter schools to certify their teachers themselves. 

TimesUnion. New York just made it easier for teachers to get certified

NEW YORK CITY
CBS New York. New York City Schools Are Inadequate On Sex Education, Stringer Says  Stringer’s audit also found that 88 percent of middle schools and high schools in the city do not have a licensed health education teacher – with most of them being middle schools. Also, in middle and high schools, 97 percent of health instructors are not licensed, the audit said.

Chalkbeat.
1) Diverse charter schools in New York City to get boost from Walton money  The Century Foundation and researchers at Teachers College at Columbia University and Temple University will receive additional funding from Walton to study diverse charter schools…
2) New York City wants to know: How effective is its training for pre-K teachers?  The NYU study will use measures of student behavior such as self-regulation, third-grade test scores, and how often students are held back to track the impact of the city’s different teacher training programs.

National Review. How a Democratic New York City Councilwoman Became a Crusader for School Choice  In this book, I’ve recounted some of what I saw: textbooks that arrived halfway through the school year; … forcing prospective teachers to waste half a day getting fingerprinted.

Teachers College.
1) Ensuring that Every Student Succeeds: TC’s Goodwin and Parkes offer advice to New York State on implementing ESSA  New York … must do more to afford aspiring teachers substantial time in the field to gain deep and detailed classroom knowledge; to ensure that its teaching force mirrors students’ diversity; and to remove certification requirements that discourage both teacher diversity and excellence.
2) New TR@TC website

GLOBAL
Education International. Mexico: global campaign demands justice for 43 missing Mexican students  On September 26th, 2014, students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College gathered to head to Mexico City  to attend the commemoration of the anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre

Education Week.
1) Cellphones, Apps Power Learning for Syrian Refugees  …there’s limited information about how tech access will affect educational outcomes, if at all, said Mary Mendenhall, an assistant professor of practice in the International and Comparative Education Program at Teachers College.
2) Mexico offers teaching jobs to ‘dreamers’ returning from US

NCEE. Empowered Educators Aug. 24th Webinar. Featuring: L. Darling-Hammond, A. Lin Goodwin, Pasi Sahlberg, Marc Tucker, etc.

Unite for Quality Education. Evaluating the Liberian School Privatisation Program  Considering that PSL schools receive enormous increases in spending and inspection, and, as the midline report notes, had “first pick of better trained” recently graduated teachers, this situation has the potential to create a two-tiered education system in Liberia.

UNITED STATES
AACTE. How Teacher Education Can Elevate Teacher Quality: Highlights From Sept./Oct. JTE

Business Insider. America’s teacher shortage is leading some states to lower their requirements to become one  A teacher shortage has led legislators in several states to lower requirements to become a public school educator.

Chalkbeat.
1) Teachers protected by DACA launch a new school year under a threatening cloud  Teach For America is joining many other education organizations in continuing to lobby Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which would create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.
2) XQ is taking over TV to make the case that high school hasn’t changed in 100 years. But is that true?  …Ansley Erickson, an assistant professor of history and education at Columbia University Teachers College. But, she said, there has been a massive transformation of high school…  Schneider elaborated on what has changed: “A century ago, teachers were largely untrained and oversaw very large classes in which rote memorization was the rule.

Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). CFP

Education Week.
1) Could an Apprenticeship Be a Viable Way to Prepare Special Educators?  An Ohio teacher-educator has an idea that she thinks will fill persistant teacher shortages in special education fields—and potentially revolutionize teacher preparation.
2) Differences in Performance WITHIN Schools: Why So Much Greater Than in Other Countries?  New teachers, fresh out of teachers college, get very little support from the veteran teachers and often leave the occupation early feeling they have failed at teaching.
3) Senate Panel Rejects Trump Teacher-Funding Cut, School Choice Proposals  The legislation would leave intact the main federal programs aimed at teacher training and after-school funding.
4) Trump School Choice Proposals, K-12 Cuts Again Rebuffed by Senators But the teacher training program isn’t out of the woods just yet. The House of Representatives spending bill, which will have to be conferenced with the Senate measure, would seek to scrap that program entirely

NYTimes.
1) Football Favoritism at F.S.U.: The Price One Teacher Paid  Ms. Suggs decided to leave Florida State, after five years, with an education specialist degree — one step short of her doctorate.
2) More Protests of Trump’s Plan to End DACA Expected  “It’s like my life is crumbling on top of me,” said Salgado, who graduated from Murray State University in Kentucky last year and in is her second year as a high school Spanish teacher just outside Nashville, Tennessee.
3) Silicon Valley Courts Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues  “Teachers can’t help but be seduced to make greater use of the technology, given these efforts by tech companies,” said Samuel E. Abrams, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Wall Street Journal. Teacher Shortage Prompts Some States to Lower the Bar  In the face of a worsening teacher shortage, several states around the country are loosening requirements for credentials that will make it easier to teach in public school classrooms.

Washington Post.
1) Most teachers believe that kids have different ‘learning styles.’ Here’s why they are wrong.  I frequently hear from teachers that they learned about the theory in teacher education classes. I’ve looked at all of the well-known educational psychology textbooks, and none of them present the idea as correct. But neither do they debunk it.
2) The false narrative behind a glitzy live television show about school reform  But a century ago, almost everything else was different. Teachers were largely untrained. Rote memorization was the rule. Students brought a hodgepodge of books from home and were instructed in an unpredictable range of content. 

WCVS [Virginia]. Superintendents fear teacher shortage is near ‘crisis situation’  We checked the numbers at UVA-Wise. In 2011, the teacher education program had 60 students enrolled. This year, that number is down to just 29.

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. After blasting Success’s board chair, Chancellor Rosa to visit Success Academy on first day of school  At a recent conference, Rosa strongly condemned a policy shift that would benefit Success Academy — a SUNY proposal to allow charter schools to certify their own teachers.

Education Week. Some New York Charter Schools May Soon Certify Their Own Teachers  …training for charter school teachers working toward the special license (30 hours of instruction and 100 hours of classroom training) wouldn’t even equal that of a cosmetologist (1,000 hours of instruction), or a real estate broker (120 hours of instruction and two years of on-the-job experience.)

Hechinger Report. OPINION: As New York City pubic schools open, here are three strategies to help every student succeed under the new education law [OpEd by A. L. Goodwin & K. Parkes]

HuffPost. Opposition Rallies Against Plan To Put Unqualified People In Classrooms  Comments can be submitted online or mailed to Charter Schools Institute, State University of New York, 41 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207 by September 10.

Lohud. NY teachers wanted: Here’s why  New York has nearly 8,600 fewer active educators than it did five years ago, and the number of SUNY students majoring in education has dropped 50 percent since 2007, fueling fears of a looming teacher shortage across the state.

NY DailyNews. Let charter schools certify teachers  Charter schools wouldn’t be starting from scratch, because many already run their own teacher training programs.

NYSED. Comments on the Governance, Structure and Operations of SUNY Authorized Charter Schools Pertaining to Teacher Compliance

TimesUnion.
1) New York education leaders: Scrap charter school teacher proposal: Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa speak out
2) There’s more than one way to train a great teacher  The most vocal critics of this approach are entrenched in traditional university schools of education. With some notable exceptions, universities fail to train the teaching force that kids need.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. With Trump moving to end DACA, New York City leaders pledge support for students and teachers  Teach for America has actively recruited almost 200 “DACA-mented” teachers to its corps. New York State officials in 2016 authorized DACA recipients to earn certain teacher certifications and professional licenses. It is unclear how those teachers will be impacted.

New York Times. For Teachers Working Through DACA, a Bittersweet Start to the School Year  In May 2016, New York State allowed DACA recipients to get licenses for teaching…The city’s Department of Education, whose schools reopened for the year on Thursday, does not keep track of how many teachers have DACA. But Teach for America, the national program that places young teachers in low-income neighborhoods, does. Twelve of the organization’s 180 teachers with DACA are in New York classrooms…

Teachers College.
1) Digital Learning for the K-8 Classroom  …Detra Price-Dennis and top professional development platform Teach Away, with the aim of delivering online digital literacy training that helps K-8 educators maximize student learning outcomes in the classroom.
2) Heeding Her Call: Urban Education responds to Mariana Souto-Manning’s framework for re-centering minoritized communities in social justice research

ThinkProgress. Meet Gabe, a DACA recipient and aspiring South Bronx science teacher who’s helping low-income kids

 

 

GLOBAL
Association For Teacher Education In Europe. Annual Conf. Dubrovnik, Croatia from 23 to 25 October 2017.

LiveMint. Govt plans to build content depository for improving teaching standards  [India] “Beyond content, it will allow education authorities and regulators to assess what kind of training is required for teachers,”

MyanmarTimes. Students protest against unfair appointing system  In this academic year, there are only a little over 7,000 teachers who graduated from 24 University of Educations and Education Colleges around the country …

Uni Reviews. Best Teacher Education Universities in Australia

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Advancing High-Quality Learning Through Clinical Teacher Preparation  Teacher candidates, like everyone else, learn best when they take an active rather than passive role in their education, and clinical preparation empowers them to engage actively.

Chronicle. A Profile of Freshmen at 4-Year Colleges, Fall 2016  Intended major … professional-school aspirations: Education-4.6%

CNN. Schools throughout the country are grappling with teacher shortage, data show  Goldhaber cites some solutions… Make teacher certification national instead of state by state.

EducationNC. UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State collaborating to help lateral entry teachers  As traditional teacher preparation enrollments drop nationwide, local school districts are increasingly hiring lateral entry teachers who meet content requirements but lack teacher preparation.

EdWeek.
1) Districts Turn to Emergency Measures for Hard-to-Staff Teaching Posts In May, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed a law that allows districts to hire people without formal teacher training—similar to recent changes in Oklahoma and Utah.
2) Here’s What States Are Doing With Their ESSA Block Grant Money  Hawaii…is planning to roll the money into Title II, the main federal program dealing with teacher quality.
3) Some combat veterans finding new lives as Texas teachers  The U.S. Department of Defense program helps recent veterans navigate teacher certification processes
4) Survey shows more than 530 teacher vacancies in Oklahoma   … about 1,400 emergency certificates are expected to be issued for the upcoming year for teachers teaching outside their area of expertise.

Hechinger Report. Rural schools turn to high-tech teacher training solutions  A collective of schools in Kentucky decided to make its own training model for teachers

NYTimes.
1) Even With Affirmative Action, Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago  Elementary and secondary schools with large numbers of black and Hispanic students are less likely to have experienced teachers, …
2) Reader Idea | Using Times Education Articles With Aspiring Teachers in China  The idea below explains how Lindsey Russo and Sarah Elia use New York Times articles with their students as they prepare to travel from China to New York to complete their studies in early childhood education.
3) Student Loan Company Accused of Mismanaging Debt Forgiveness Program  The company, based in Harrisburg, Pa., holds an exclusive contract with the Education Department to service all loans enrolled in the public service loan forgiveness program and the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education Grant program, or TEACH, which offers assistance to those who teach in high-need areas.

Policy Innovators in Education. The Power of Data Makes Educators “Learner Ready”  The report examines the challenges of lack of access to information—felt by educators, preparation programs, policymakers, and families as they try to navigate important decisions without a complete picture.

Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning & Equity. Deadline for proposals extended until August 26 [edTPA Conf. Nov. 3-7; San Jose]

NEW YORK STATE
City and State New York. [OnEducation Event 8/16/2017]
1) Elia, Fariña and Milliken address equity and ESSA at On Education
2) Fireside Chat with Betty Rosa & MaryEllen Elia

SUNY Charter Schools Institute. Public Comment Period Now Open: Alternative Teacher Certification Compliance Pathways for SUNY

United University Professions. Public comment period on SUNY charter school proposal

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. NYC announces it will subsidize hiring from Absent Teacher Reserve — and sheds light on who is in the pool  The largest share of teachers in the ATR — 27 percent — are licensed to teach in early childhood or elementary school grades. Another 11 percent are licensed social studies teachers, 9 percent are math teachers and 8 percent are English teachers.

NY1. Early Head Start offers full-time school for two-year-olds by training parents to teach  …so the city started a second new program, a partnership between Children’s Services and CUNY paying for the parents of Head Start students to go back to school and become accredited teachers.

NYPost. Making kids suffer for teachers no one wants  Then again, many aren’t too valuable: A 2010 report by Chalkbeat found that nearly a quarter of ATRs were only licensed to teach specialized classes like swimming, jewelry-making and accounting.

NYTimes. City Will Move Sidelined Teachers From Limbo to Classrooms  …better for students to have a permanent teacher with the appropriate license than to have a rotation of substitutes.

Teachers College. First, Peace – Now, Music: A new program funded by the Jaffe family brings music to city schools  Through the program, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers earn master’s degrees at TC while teaching in high-needs New York City public schools. More than 850 of these Jaffe Fellows have become teachers during the program’s 32 years of teacher support and preparation.

 NOTE: Teacher Ed News will resume the week of September 4

GLOBAL
NCEE. Empowered Educators Webinar Series: Recruitment and Preparation [Aug. 24, 3-4pm]

International Ed News. Promoting Social Justice in Physical Education Around the World

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Collaboration and Compromise: The Key to Good Policy Making  Fortunately for teacher preparation in North Carolina, NCACTE was involved in the development of this and many other bills proposed.  We’re grateful to Senator Barefoot for seeing past the negative rhetoric around teacher preparation and seeing us as a viable partner.
2) JTE Author on Helping Candidates Address Academic Language

Argus Leader. Can Sioux Falls Schools close its teacher diversity gap?  More than 50 high school students are enrolled in high school classes that feed into a college program that’s helped 15 students so far pursue teaching degrees.

Chalkbeat.
1) 5 key anti-racism resources for teachers, courtesy of #CharlottesvilleCurriculum
2) A Queens teacher on Charlottesville: ‘It can’t just be teachers of color’ offering lessons on race  Hilton Kelly, a professor of education at Davidson College in North Carolina told the site, the coursework isn’t giving future teachers the training they need to talk about race.

Dothan Eagle [AL]. From retail to ‘rithmetic: Second-career teachers bring new perspective to classroom  Purvee, a former Wal-Mart manager, went back to school a few years ago to earn a teaching degree.

EdSource. Undergraduate education major, banned for 56 years, returns  …Gov. Jerry Brown has reversed a half-century-old law that prevented aspiring teachers in California from majoring in education and required them to pursue a teaching credential only after earning a bachelor’s degree.

EdWeek.
1) 4 Tips for Awesome Eclipse Teaching
2) Have You Experienced or Witnessed a Hate Crime or Bias Incident? If you’ve got an incident or experience to share, please use this form…
3) Immigrant Influxes Put U.S. Schools to the Test  Finding and attracting Somali-speaking teaching candidates has proved challenging.
4) Teaching Force Growing Faster Than Student Enrollment Once Again  Are teacher education programs rebounding, and is that easing hiring?
5) The Nation’s Teaching Force Is Still Mostly White and Female  … the new survey, which includes the same questions as well as some new sections on teachers’ preparation and their influence over school policies, will operate on a two-year cycle.

Hechinger Report. DEBT WITHOUT DEGREE: The human cost of college debt that becomes “purgatory”  Nonetheless, he made it through the rest of high school, and kept his GPA high enough to be accepted at Georgia State University, where he wanted to study to be a history teacher.

NEA Today. Keeping the Promise of Public Service Loan Forgiveness for Educators  PSLF is an important incentive to attracting teachers to the profession, and keeping them there…

Washington Post.
1) The first thing teachers should do when school starts is talk about hatred in America. Here’s help.
2) U-Va. professor: ‘What good is education in the face of someone who closes their mind to facts?’  So if you’re an educator, don’t lose heart. If you think your curriculum needs to do a better job on the history of the KKK, or Nazism, or the Constitution, or whatever, then work for that change.

WUNC. Enrollment At NC Teaching Programs Inches Back Up  The University of North Carolina system saw a 16 percent uptick in education degree-seekers last year. 

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. State ed officials rip into ‘insulting’ SUNY charter proposal and ‘outrageous’ Success Academy chair  “I could go into a fast food restaurant and get more training than that,” Elia said about the proposal, which would require 30 hours of classroom instruction for prospective teachers.

City and State New York
1) “Instant” teacher licensing is a threat to charter students and the teaching profession
2) Trump, racism controversies on the syllabus at On Education event There were other signs of tension involving charter schools. Last month, the State University of New York introduced a proposal that would let some charter schools hire uncertified teachers and instead develop their own in-house certification that was less arduous.

DNA info. Charter Schools Could Get to Hire Teachers With Only 30 Hours of Training  Under a plan now open for public comment, charter school teachers will be able to get a license to teach without a master’s degree after finishing a mere 30 hours of instruction and working 100 hours in a classroom.

NY Daily News. New York education leaders blast charter school teacher certification plan  The state’s top education officials ripped a controversial plan Wednesday to allow charter schools to certify their own teachers.

SUNY Charter Schools Institute. Public Comment Period Now Open – Alternative Teacher Certification Compliance Pathways for SUNY

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Bank Street heads to East New York to help child care providers play to their strengths  Site evaluations and teacher training have been a centerpiece of the city’s free pre-K program, which now serves 70,000 4-year-olds and is expanding to enroll 3-year-olds, too.

Hechinger Report. A school where you can’t fail — it just takes you longer to learn  A third of the school’s students require special education assistance; …. Even with two teachers (one trained for special education), it was difficult to engage everyone.

Village Voice.
1) How Medgar Evers College Is Raising Up Brooklyn and the Caribbean  Brooklyn’s Medgar Evers College is trying a novel approach: a teaching program that will train educators both at their Crown Heights campus and at colleges in the Caribbean, where they’re hoping to incubate a new generation of K–12 teachers for the borough and those countries.
2)  To Fight Institutional Racism, Teachers Are Going Back to School  The workshop was part of Teachers College’s four-day Reimagining Education Summer Institute, a conference organized in response to what Amy Stuart Wells, the conference’s lead organizer, calls the “systematic way our educational system has tried to ignore the central role of race and culture” in solving the ills of American schools.

GLOBAL
BBC. How Canada became an education superpower  Another distinguishing feature is that Canada’s teachers are well paid by international standards – and entry into teaching is highly selective.

Chalkbeat. Some Top U.S. Educators Went to Finland. Their Big Takeaway: Empower Teachers  Teacher preparation programs are rigorous and selective, and there’s only about a 10 percent acceptance rate, Nelson said. Because of that, teachers are not evaluated through standardized test scores. 

Commonwealth of Learning. A call to empower teachers to lead the next wave of the OER movement  We will need to rethink learning resources completely and empower teachers, through their initial training and through ongoing professional development, to contribute to curriculum and resource improvement as members of a learning community. 

European Conference on Educational Research, August 22-25, 2017; Copenhagen, Denmark. Online programme.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Dissertation Award Entries Due Aug. 18
2) Louisiana Tech Leads Transformation of Student Teaching With TEAM Model

Bridge Magazine. Fewer college students want to be teachers, and why it matters (searchable database)

Chalkbeat. A new study shows why it’s so hard to improve teacher preparation  It’s a difficult task, since there are two degrees of separation between a teacher training program and students taking state tests, and researchers use complex value-added models to control for a number of factors.

Chronicle. Award-Winning Teachers Reflect on Their Training

Data Quality Campaign. Using Data to Ensure That Teachers Are Learner Ready on Day One [calls attention to current data challenges faced by educator preparation providers (EPPs) and offers suggestions and examples for states to improve the situation.]

Detroit Free Press. Badly wanted in Detroit: Teachers for the upcoming school year  The vacancies are a symptom of a larger problem. Across the country, the number of people entering teacher preparation programs is down significantly. So is the number of people receiving teaching certificates.

EducationWeek.
1) Idaho schools try new tactics to combat teacher shortage  In Shoshone, there’s a relatively new partnership with Eastern Oregon University’s teaching preparation satellite program in Ontario, Ore., just across the state border.
2) Trump Ed. Dept. to Michigan: Your ESSA Plan Is Missing Major Details  It’s seeking a more complete explanation of how the state will train teachers to work with gifted students.

Educators Rising. Smyrna High School Seniors Train with Micro-credentials for Careers in Teaching

Hechinger Report. Will a one-year residency better prepare aspiring educators for a new style of teaching?  Summit charter school network in California will certify its own teachers so they’re steeped in the school’s culture

KQED. For Teachers Who Dread Math, Finding a Better Way  These words aligned with what Zager had observed in her job mentoring student teachers who expressed similar reservations about math. Teachers’ sentiment toward math is noteworthy because research has shown that adults can transfer anxiety to kids.

NYTimes.
1) Professors as Targets of Internet Outrage  The Professor Watch List, for one, created last year by the conservative group Turning Point USA, is helping drive a new level of scrutiny of professors who, it says, “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” [Education faculty incl. Jenn Adair, Univ. of Texas; Bill Ayers, Univ. of Ill-Chicago; Sara Goldrick-Rab, Temple Univ.]
2) Seeing Hope for Flagging Economy, West Virginia Revamps Vocational Track  … the four-course sequence for which teachers were training at Marshall University, require math and physics instruction as rigorous as in the College Board’s Advanced Placement track. 

Washington Post. Why immigration proposal would have barred best teacher in America   It took him 10 years of study to learn the language and acquire California versions of the teaching credentials he had already earned in Bolivia.

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. Amid concerns about plan to let charter schools certify their own teachers, changes could be on the way

HuffPost [Blog]. How Charter Schools Buy Political Support  Cuomo’s political appointees who serve as trustees of the State University of New York (SUNY) are considering a proposal to exempt charter schools from the public school teacher certification requirements they approved less than two months ago.

Politico New York. How New York stopped being the nation’s education reform capital  After the evaluation deal collapsed, other dominoes fell: earlier this year, the Board of Regents, led by opt-out ally Betty Rosa, did away with a rule requiring potential New York teachers pass a literacy test. [Academic Literacy Skills Test: ALST]

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) New York City to bring high-profile Teaching Fellows program in-house, ending role for nonprofit TNTP  …the fellowship program was conceived to quickly place professionals from other fields into the city’s classrooms, skirting the traditional certification process.
2) Teach for America is sending more teachers into NYC this year — and it might have Donald Trump to thank  The summer institute also now counts as credit toward a master’s degree, offered through the Relay Graduate School of Education, which for the first time helped run its summer training program.
3) What New York City students learned about Christopher Columbus when their own classroom was ‘discovered’  In order to truly integrate, advocates say educators need to take a close look at the lessons they teach. In other words, schools need to be adept in culturally relevant teaching — making sure students of all identities are reflected in what is taught and how it’s taught.

Kings County Politics. Uncommon Schools Creating Pipeline of Teachers of Color in Brooklyn  …155 rising college seniors who are trying out their teaching skills at Uncommon Schools this summer in various locations, including Brooklyn.

NYPost. DOE fails to provide Harlem schools with librarians: activists  The DOE suggested Friday that there’s a shortage of certified librarians to staff city schools.

 

 

GLOBAL
BizCommunity [South Africa]. R3.5m bursaries for teacher education in 2018  The bursaries apply to students wanting to study full-time towards a Bachelor of Education in Foundation Phase Teaching or a Bachelor of Education in Intermediate Phase Teaching from 2018 to 2021. 

British Educational Research Assoc. How do we support beginner teachers to develop awareness and understanding of issues of social justice?  …our work is concerned with the complex intersectionality in England between poverty, social class, disadvantage and educational attainment and in particular thinking about how we, as teacher educators, can develop student-teachers’ awareness and understanding…

Int’l Society for Music Education. My Music Education Life: Milca de Paula  It is necessary to have discussions to face the difficulties in the conditions of the teaching work at schools and face the challenges in the formation of the licensed teacher in music, so the reality of the schools of Basic Education can really change. [cf. IJME, Vol. 35/1, New legislation in Brazilian music education: Studying the law and its implementation]

LiveMint. The sordid tale of teacher education in India

NYTimes.
1) Clooneys to Help 3,000 Syrian Refugees Go to School in Lebanon  A $3.25 million donation from the Clooney Foundation for Justice, Google and HP will pay for transportation, school supplies, computers, content, curriculum and teacher training.
2) High-Profile Lawyers Targeted in Mexico Spyware Scandal … the government’s probe into the 2014 disappearance of 43 students from a rural teachers college.

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Multimodal Explorations in Language, Identity, Culture Inform Development of Bilingual Teachers  This interview features insights from the article “Preparing Bilingual Teachers: Mediating Belonging With Multimodal Explorations in Language, Identity, and Culture” written by Patricia Martinez-Álvarez, Isabel Cuevas, and María Torres-Guzmán.

A.I.R. Fostering a New Approach to Research on Teacher Preparation: Results of the First Convening of Researchers, Practitioners, and K–12 Educators

Atlanta Journal Constitution. Teaching method wins Ron Clark Academy math instructor hero status  Jones figured there had to be something to mixing the arts and math. She decided to find out and in 2007 applied to a doctoral program at Columbia University Teachers College, where in addition to being taught the facts, candidates were taught how to teach them.

Chronicle.  Training Graduate Students to Be Effective Teachers  More colleges are making it a priority to teach future faculty members how to teach

CBSDenver. Not Enough Teachers To Go Around In Colorado Since 2010, there has been a nearly 25 percent drop in graduates from teacher preparation programs, according to the CDHE.

Deans for Impact. Seventeen deans awarded Impact Academy fellowship  Together, the fellows’ programs enrolled about 7,400 teacher-candidates in 2013-2014.

EdWeek.
1) Can a High School Course Help to Solve a State’s Teacher Shortage?  This fall, two high schools in Provo, Utah will offer students in grades 10 through 12 an introductory course called Careers in Education I, with the aim of enticing young people into the teaching profession.
2) The Next Generation Science Standards’ Next Big Challenge: Finding Curricula  It’s tempting to assume that teachers can just develop curricula on their own and learn to teach it—after all, lesson planning is a huge part of preservice teacher-preparation programs.
3) Nearly Two-Thirds of New Science Educators Lack Training in Their Subjects  …almost two-thirds of new science teachers (64 percent) taught at least one course outside of their field in their first five years in the classroom, while 40 percent taught mostly or entirely out of field during that period.
4) Performance Pay Law Not Paying Off for Top-Rated Teachers, According to Report  …the report argues that the discrepancy between salary awards for advanced degrees and “highly effective” ratings flies in the face of decades of research that has concluded that teachers with master’s degrees are no more effective than teachers without one.
5) Skip Coding, Teach Data Science  They find the certification processes deeply flawed and (not surprisingly) want a lot more certified CS teachers with multiple roots to the classroom.

Hechinger Report. Rising popularity of dual-language education could leave Latinos behind  … DCPS is competing with the rest of the nation to hire highly qualified teachers who are not only trained in specific subjects, but also capable of running a classroom in Spanish.

NYTimes. A Wakeup Call on Writing Instruction (Now, What’s an Adverb?)  The Common Core has provided a much-needed “wakeup call” on the importance of rigorous writing, said Lucy M. Calkins, founding director of the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College, Columbia University… But policy makers “blew it in the implementation,” she said. “We need massive teacher education.”

Tulsa World.
1) Oklahoma approves nearly 900 emergency teacher certificates
2) State of education in Tulsa draws Teach for America members and alums passionate about fixing schools

WNYC. Tens Of Thousands More Women And Minorities Are Taking Computer Science  The College Board, Code.org and other authorized providers are also training teachers to facilitate the course… “We are by far the largest player in creating new computer science teachers…

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. Among NY students seeking new Excelsior scholarship, potentially many who aren’t qualified or could pay a price later  …TEACH, a federal grant program aimed at encouraging aspiring teachers to enter high-needs subject areas and schools. But, like Excelsior, it places restrictions on the jobs that prospective teachers can take once they leave school…

Education and Teacher Education Today. Letter from the SUNY Deans of Education to the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York  We, the Deans and Directors of Education Programs in the State University of New York (SUNY) system, write to strenuously object to the SUNY Charter Schools Institute’s recent action to virtually eliminate teacher certification requirements for charter school teachers. 

InsideSources. New York Has Nation’s Highest Per Pupil Expenditure; But Is it Enough?  Michael Rebell, …a professor at the Teacher’s College at Columbia University…at the time of the 2006 lawsuit, Rebell said that about 17 percent of teachers in the state were uncertified—now that number is down to under one percent, which he considers to be a major victory.

NYSED. Office of Higher Education Newsletter. The Office of Higher Education (OHE) is pleased to launch a monthly newsletter to inform the education community of current and upcoming activities related to higher education. To subscribe to our monthly newsletter, please sign up on the OHE website at https://listserv.nysed.gov/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=ohenewsletter&A=1%20.

NYSED Regents
1) July meeting. Higher Education Committee Consent Agenda
Selected items from the July 2017 Higher Education Committee Consent Agenda are below. To view the entire list and the items’ supporting materials, go to: http://www.regents.nysed.gov/node/8712

• RE: Establishment of a Residency Certificate for Students Enrolled in a Classroom Academy Residency Pilot Program
• RE: Pathways for Candidates to Pursue Transitional A, Initial, and/or Professional Career and Technical Education Certificates
• RE: Permanent Extension of the Option for Certain Out-of-State Candidates to be Eligible for a Conditional Initial Certificate

2) Arts Content Specialty Tests (CSTs) Test Development Experts Needed
Seeking educators to participate in test development activities for the New York State Teacher Certification Examinations (NYSTCE) Content Specialty Tests (CSTs) in the Arts. These certification exams are for teacher candidates seeking certification in Dance, Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts. Certified educators, including those from higher education, who have extensive content expertise in the area of one or more of the four arts are encouraged to apply to participate in the test development process.

SUNY Charter School Institute. Proposal that SUNY charter schools be able to establish their own teacher preparation programs and “certification” system. The public comment period ends on September 9. Submit comments to: Ralph A. Rossi II, SUNY Charter Schools Institute, 41 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, New York 12207, (518) 455-4250. E-mail: [email protected]

TimesUnion. SUNY deans speak out against teacher hiring plan  The deans of education programs at 18 State University of New York schools are condemning a proposal they say would lead to unqualified teachers in New York classrooms.

 Washington Post. What’s the link between charter schools, political donations and teacher certification in New York?  SUNY’s requirements call for clinical experiences that are “diverse and immersive, ideally over a full school year.” The SUNY-proposed regulation for charter schools, in contrast, is less than three weeks (100 hours) of field experience under the supervision of an experienced teacher who may even be uncertified herself.

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College. NY Daily News. Manhattan principal builds successful high school with diverse students  [Kate Burch holds a master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University in International Educational Development, with a focus on Peace Education]

GLOBAL
AACTE. JTE Authors Propose Inquiry-Oriented Standards to Capture Complexity of Teaching  This research was prompted by recommendations from a New Zealand Government Education Workforce Advisory Group. The group recommended, in 2010, a number of structural changes to improve the quality of initial teacher education and induction into the profession.

Blog on Learning Development. “Differential education is a competitive factor”  Finnish educator and author Pasi Sahlberg predicts a backlash against global standardization and says teachers need different training and skills to succeed. It’s not enough to have a “reform”. We need to change several things simultaneously and it starts with teacher training.

PRNewswire. Collaborative Effort Between Educators From Singapore and India to Build Capacity in Early Childhood Education in Mumbai  …through the following initiatives: A teacher resource guide which will be produced by both the SIVs and master trainers and used in teacher training programmes to teach pedagogy skills

UNESCO. Investigating Teacher Agency in Implementing the Early Primary Curriculum of Ugandan Schools  This study shows the potential of ICTs in supporting sustainable teacher training programmes whose potential is immense though not yet tapped fully in Uganda. 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE Chapter Develops Statewide Student Teacher Observation Tool
2) Applying for Federal Research Funding? View On-Demand Webinars From IES for FY18

CAEP. Family Engagement: Practice that Empowers & Motivates  …family engagement is important – both conceptually and technically – for teacher candidates and inservice teachers alike.

Chalkbeat.
1) 6 problems the NAACP has with charter schools — and 5 of its ideas for how to reshape the sector  “Charter schools should not be permitted to waive any licensing requirements for teacher and leaders working in their schools,” the NAACP report says…
2) Schools near state lines perform worse — and rules discouraging teachers from moving may be to blame  …states that require prospective teachers to clear a high bar to become certified may worry that making it too easy for an out-of-state teacher to receive a license could reduce teacher quality.

Early Childhood Education Degrees. America’s Typical Teacher  42.5 years old, female, holds Masters degree or higher, underpaid, teaches 21-27 students per class, not allowed enough time to collaborate with other teachers…

Education Week.
1) Are Charter Schools Bad for Black Children? The NAACP Asked, Here’s What It Found  The group lays out a formula for improving charters that includes: Requiring all teachers be certified.
2) Betsy DeVos Is a K-12 Advocate. So Why All the Action in Higher Ed?   The feds have far more authority over colleges…than they do over K-12 schools…  And the Higher Education Act has been due for a facelift for several years now. DeVos, in fact, has said she’d like to scrap the HEA and start from zero.
3) Computer Science Teachers Needed. But Who Will Pay to Train Them?
4) Don’t Mourn or Applaud the End of $2 Billion in Teacher-Training Money Just Yet
5) To Attract Teachers, More Cities Eye Discounts on Housing  Memphis has a teacher residency program that provides teachers in training with free housing in the former Sears, Roebuck & Co. building, which is now a mixed-use high-rise.
6) The Many Ways We Are De-Professionalizing Teaching [Blog] …the professional preparation and advancement of teaching looked very different 25 years ago … The talk then was about full-year field experiences and paid internships for prospective teachers.
7) Two Years Is the Worst Amount of Time to Teach  Teach for America turned 25 last year and continues to treat teaching as more stepping stone than career. 

EdTech. As Connectivity Improves, The Digital Divide Persists in Teacher Tech Preparation

Education First. Transforming How We Prepare Our Teachers …new brief on how teacher preparation programs are innovating.

Marzano. Marzano Research to Support U of W’s Future Educator Development

NPR Ed. Teachers With Student Debt: These Are Their Stories  You need a bachelor’s degree …increasing pressure to get a master’s degree and the many ways to repay loans or apply for loan forgiveness.

Penn GSE. HBCU Schools of Education: at the Forefront of Teacher Education for a Diverse Teacher Workforce

Teaching/Math/Culture [Blog] Teacher Education In The New Economy

The Atlantic. Why the Myth of Meritocracy Hurts Kids of Color.  …the onus is also on teacher-prep programs to ensure aspiring educators know how to address these controversial topics.

Washington Post. NAACP report: Charter schools ‘not a substitute’ for traditional public schools and many need reform  The task force recommended … the following procedures: Require charter schools to hire certified teachers. Many states allow charters to hire the uncertified at far higher rates than traditional public schools.

NEW YORK STATE
The Atlantic. How Teachers Are Taught. But Dirck Roosevelt, a visiting associate professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, says … “To know mathematics sufficiently to design a bridge or to supervise the construction of a bridge is not remotely the same thing as to know it in such a way that you will know what your sophomore algebra student is going to find difficult,”

New York State Register. Governance, Structure and Operations of SUNY Authorized Charter Schools Pertaining to Teacher Compliance [p. 23 ff]
Public comment will be received until Sept. 9.
Ralph A. Rossi II, SUNY Charter Schools Institute, 41
State Street, Suite 700, Albany, New York 12207, (518) 455-4250, email: [email protected]
Current SUNY Charter Schools. 165 total, over 140 in NYC.

NYTimes. Proposal Would Let Charter Schools Certify Their Own Teachers  Kate Walsh, …said that charter schools are not set up to focus on the difficult work of training teachers, nor are they in a position to offer the kind of coursework even very talented teaching candidates need to receive.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. New York City has sent its first offer letters for 3-K for All. Here’s a look at the new pre-K initiative by the numbers  …the education department is also providing teacher training, social workers and other support for existing centers run by ACS.

NYCDOE. Application & Hiring Process  Our schools have high hiring needs for teachers in specific subject areas: Bilingual Education; Early Childhood Education; English as a New Language; Mathematics; Physical Education; Science (all subjects); Special Education

Teachers College.Some New York charter schools could soon be allowed to certify their own teachers. What could that look like?  Teachers College Visiting Associate Professor Dirck Roosevelt was quoted in the… story on regulations recently proposed by SUNY that would enable some charter schools to design alternative certification programs.

GLOBAL
Buriram Times. Thailand Still Lagging Behind Other Countries In Education  Large classes were commonplace and students who were not accepted into university were encouraged to apply for teacher training colleges.

NYTimes. A Solution When a Nation’s Schools Fail  “The status quo has failed,” George Werner, Liberia’s education minister, told me. “Teachers don’t show up, even though they’re paid by the government. There are no books. Training is very weak.

Times Higher Education. Netherlands and Singapore among leaders on education research

The Star Online. ‘Chinese education is for all’  …Dr Wee said there was a need to provide teachers with training to better teach the language.

UNITED STATES
Brainerd Dispatch. Franken introduces bill to fight teacher shortage  …encourage an earlier start to pathways for becoming a teacher and allow schools access to a broader range of funding to support dual-enrollment programs in education.

EdWeek.
1) Bill With More Than $2 Billion in Teacher-Training Cuts Advances in House
2) Here Are 10 Policy Lessons Teachers Should Know
3) If We Fix Student Teaching, Will We Fix Teacher Shortages?  The president of the National Council on Teacher Quality presented what she sarcastically called a “radical” solution for both improving the pipeline of new teachers and filling specific teacher shortages: “Fix student teaching.”
4) Tennessee education coalition focuses on teacher diversity  A new report released by a group of Tennessee educator preparation programs focuses on eliminating the barriers preventing diverse candidates from choosing teaching as a career.
5) Unable to Solve Teacher Pay Issue, Oklahoma Will Promote Recruitment, Retention  … outline what programs exist to help teachers, namely state-funded loan forgiveness and tuition assistance…
6) What Should Special Education Teachers Know and Be Able to Do?  Teacher-education programs have already started to shift their training to embrace the high-leverage practices…

Hechinger Report. Advocating for rural students and teachers – in frozen, fly-in-only territory  I think we need to look at how we train teachers, [and] the general public, about our history and what has happened with our indigenous community, because most people don’t really know the history.

NCTR. Recommendations for State Support for Effective Teacher Residencies

NPR Ed. Teachers With Student Debt: The Struggle, The Causes And What Comes Next  Public school teachers traditionally have had undergraduate degrees in education. But over the past decade, K-12 teachers have had a growing economic incentive to earn master’s degrees. In some cases, they’re actually required to do so.

The74. House Committee Rejects Democrats’ Bid to Restore Education Funding, Protect Teacher Training

USNews. Democrats Protest Cuts to Teacher Prep and Pell Grants

Vanderbilt Univ. Teach for America service leads to empathy  TFA is a national service program that puts college graduates into low-income communities as volunteers for two years to help disadvantaged students. It was founded in 1989, based on founder Wendy Kopp’s Princeton University undergraduate thesis.

WashingtonPost. A teacher’s anti-solution to a big problem  So if colleges aren’t preparing students for the jobs that students really want and for the employers who need to hire them, then K-12 schools must. 

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. State education officials question another batch of Success Academy charter renewals  The board is not scheduled to discuss SUNY’s recent proposal to allow some of its charter schools to certify their own teachers, though that announcement drew criticism from State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa earlier this month.

Network for Public Education. Action Alert: Every Child Deserves a Well-Prepared Teacher

NYSED. ESSA July Draft  [Preparation, Recruitment, and Placement:  p. 140 ff.]

Politico. Excelsior effect: Application period for scholarship ends

NEW YORK CITY
EdWeek.A Fine Line on ‘Forced Placement’ of Teachers in New York City  Daniel Weisberg, the CEO of TNTP, a teacher training and advocacy group, and former NYC education department official, recently wrote in Time magazine, “Breaking that promise now would have only one possible result: Schools across the city would face an influx of teachers with records of poor performance.

Teachers College. Preparing and Supporting Teachers of Color: The relaunch of a program aimed at recruiting more teachers from underrepresented groups  The Office of Teacher Education at Teachers College has been awarded a five year TOC II grant by the New York State Education Department.