Category: Teacher Education

INTERNATIONAL
Brookings Inst. A brief guide to the French presidential election On education, he [Macron] wants to hire 5,000 teachers and cut class size to 12 students in primary schools (in low-income zones).

IEN. Improving education in and out of school in South Africa (Part 2) Even the materials designed to support teachers show the inadequacies of current teacher preparation. 

UNESCO. #Education2030 69 million teachers are needed worldwide to meet goals.

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Call for Proposals [May 30 deadline], Reviewers [May 16 deadline] for 2018 AACTE Annual Meeting

Chronicle.
1) A Tenure Track for Teachers? An important new wrinkle has been the rise of the full-time, nontenure-track faculty member (FTNTT). The FTNTTs teach full courseloads and receive full-time salaries and benefits, but work on fixed-term contracts that are usually renewable, sometimes in perpetuity.
2) Colleges With the Highest Average Pay for Full Professors, 2015-16

EdWeek.
1) Can Teacher Residencies Help With Shortages?: Scholars at AERA take up the topic
2) Teacher-Prep for High School Science and Social Studies Found to Fall Short Included in NCTQ’s list of top-ranked education programs are Arizona State University in Phoenix, Hunter College in New York…
3) Indiana Teen Graduates College While Still in High School, Wants to Be a Teacher
4) Tennessee education group aims to interest youth in teaching
5) Virginia’s Largest School District Favors White Teachers in Hiring, Study Finds …while black applicants had, on average, more degrees and more time in

InsideHigherEd. Could Robots Handle Peer Review? Technologist argues that artificial intelligence could make publishing decisions in milliseconds.

NEA. How Many Public School Students Are Taught by Certified and Experienced Teachers? Roughly 94% of students were taught by a state-certified teacher in the 2011–12 school year – the most recent figures available from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)

NCTQ. Spring 2017 Landscape in Teacher Preparation, Undergraduate Secondary 

NYTimes.
1) How Successful Are Charter Schools? [letters to editor] Public schools, governed by elected school boards in communities that can afford to provide generous funding for small class sizes, a wide array of programs and teacher training, do a superb job of educating their students.
2) Why Yale Graduate Students Are on a Hunger Strike Tenured and tenured-track jobs have declined significantly, with only about 30 percent of faculty members in such positions in 2016, down from about 40 percent in 2013.
3) Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis Claims Another Casualty: Its Schools There are teacher shortages in some schools and surpluses in others.

U.S. Secretary of Education. Policy Regarding Mandatory Formatting Requirements for Grant Competitions Program offices may suggest page limits and formatting standards (such as font size, line spacing, and the like) but may not use ignoring these suggestions as a basis to reject grant applications.

NEW YORK STATE
cIcu. Degrees Awarded in New York State by Sector, 2015-16.

NYS Gov. Nominate a Teacher for the Empire State Excellence in Teaching Award

NYSED.
1) Proposed Amendments to Part 80 of the Commissioner’s Regulations Related to the Elimination of the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) for Teacher Certification and to Remove Unnecessary References to the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test The proposed amendment is being presented to the Full Board for adoption as a second emergency rule at its May 2017 meeting in order to ensure that the emergency rule adopted at the March 2017 meeting, which will expire on June 10, 2017, remains continuously in effect until it can be permanently adopted at the June 2017 meeting.
2) State Education Department Releases Draft Every Student Succeeds Act Plan for Public Comment … the Department will: leverage partnerships among institutions of higher education, other preparatory programs and public schools to create additional opportunities for candidates in teacher and school building leader preparation programs to have robust, field-based experiences…
3) State Education Department Announces 13 Public Meetings To Be Held To Receive Comment On Draft Every Student Succeeds Act Plan
NOTE: In addition to the May 20th public hearing: Comments can be submitted via email to [email protected] (link sends e-mail) with “ESSA Comments from (sender/organization name)” in the subject line. Comments submitted via mail should be sent to the attention of Dr. Lisa Long, New York State Education Department, Office of Accountability, 4th Floor, 55 Hanson Place, Brooklyn, New York 11217. Comments will be accepted through June 16.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Protesters denounce Paul Ryan’s visit to a Success Academy school in Harlem Ryan’s office released a statement as well. “The quality of teacher training and preparedness was extraordinary,” he said.

EdSurge. What Does It Mean to Work Like a Teaching Resident? A Look Into NYU’s Digital Pilot Program Professors from NYU (also called content mentors) view this transition via a video platform created by HotChalk and digitally mentor their 15 graduates (also known as interns)…

New York 1. Public Schools Struggling to Find Enough Teachers Certified to Serve Students Learning English

NYTimes.
1) Abigail M. O’Neill. [Obituary] A generous benefactor of Teachers College …Her most enduring legacy is her passionate commitment to supporting future New York City teachers through the Abby M. O’Neill Fellowship, which addresses the demand for training in key areas and the need for excellent teachers in underserved communities.
2) Is ‘3-K for All’ Good for All? De Blasio’s Preschool Plan Troubles Some Ana Aguirre, the executive director of United Community Centers …said that having such frequent vacancies inevitably took a toll on her program’s quality. “Your energy is constantly in replacing certified teachers”…

 

 

INTERNATIONAL
IEN. Improving education in and out of school in South Africa …widespread need for books, textbooks curricula, and other basic materials and about the need to rely on volunteers, parents, community members and students themselves because well-trained teachers were not available.

Latvijas Sabiedriskie Mediji. Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy will be shut down on October 1, 2017

New Internationalist. PISA-envy, Pearson and Starbucks-style schools. A scripted curriculum, providing instructions for and explanations of what teachers should do and say during any given moment of a class, is delivered through tablets synchronized with BIA [Bridge] headquarters

Royal Society of the encouragement of Arts. What would Benjamin Franklin say to Wendy Kopp? After leading Teach For America’s growth and development for 24 years, in 2013, Wendy transitioned out of the role of CEO. In Wendy’s acceptance of the medal she asked what Benjamin Franklin would make of today’s world.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Congress Reaches Deal on Omnibus Spending Bill The Teacher Quality Partnership grants and the Special Education Personnel Preparation program are flat-funded. Title II-A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the School Leader Recruitment and Support Grants, and the overall budget for the Institute of Education Sciences are reduced.
2) Final edTPA submission date for 2016-17 is August 17^th. The 2017-2018 edTPA handbooks include no across-the-board changes and only minor changes for six fields—see http://edtpa.aacte.org/ [login required]. See edTPA.com for 2017-18 submission and reporting dates.

AERA/CAEP. Call for Manuscripts. Linking Teacher Preparation Program Design and Implementation to Outcomes for Teachers and Students

EdWeek.
1) Budget Deal for 2017 Includes Increases for Title I, Special Education However, Title II grants for teacher development would be cut by $294 million, down to about $2.1 billion for the rest of fiscal 2017.
2) Planning a Demo Lesson: Critical Thinking Is Key
3) Preschool Teachers Get a Boost in Teaching Early Math But while math experts have agreed that young children should get high-quality math instruction, little has changed in the professional lives of early-childhood educators
4) Teacher Turnover in Alaska is Costing the State $20 Million Annually University of Alaska President Jim Johnsen has made preparing more educators for the state’s classrooms a top priority.
5) Tiny New Mexico District Looks to End Master’s Degree Requirement for Teachers  … four states—Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, and New York—require teachers to earn a master’s degree for license advancement. But NCTQ is against such requirements.

Hechinger Report. What’s wrong with white teachers?: Closing the performance gap between black and white teachers means talking about racism

National Council for the Advancement of Educator Ethics (NCAEE). Ethics Survey [May 15 deadline]

NYTimes. School Vouchers Aren’t Working, but Choice Is On one side of the caricature are defenders of traditional public schools, who believe in generous funding, small class sizes and teacher training. On the other are so-called reformers, who believe in vouchers, charter schools and standardized tests.

The Atlantic.
1) How Central Park Could Fix Public Education Higher salaries can help retain effective teachers and lure smart people with an aptitude for instruction away from other jobs, but research points to an even more effective strategy: enhancing the social status of public-school teachers. “What we need,” says Smith’s colleague, Rabin, “is for teachers to be considered scholars.”
2) How Does Race Affect a Student’s Math Education? According to Battey, there are ways in which math teachers, math educators, and math researchers “are perpetuating racism in schools”—which is shaping the expectations, interactions, and kinds of mathematics that students experience.

THE Journal. First-Year Teachers More Confident in Tech but Use It Less Than Experienced Teachers

TheStarPress. Partnerships improve education opportunities In 2009, Ball State’s Teachers College designed an experimental immersive learning program for future elementary educators.

WashingtonPost.
1) Congressional budget deal wards off Trump’s wish list of higher-education cuts
2) James Meredith: This is what Martin Luther King Jr. would tell school ‘reformers’ Today, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are attempting to improve our schools with “school choice,” vouchers, charter schools, cyber-charters, privatization, putting uncertified “temp teachers” with six weeks training into our highest-needs schools…
3) Under pressure to contain tuition, colleges scramble for other revenue Beacon College [FL]… also signed a contract with the United Arab Emirates under which it will be paid to train teachers there.

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED.
1) Notice of Proposed Rule Making was published in the New York State Register on March 29, 2017. NYSED will accept comments on the proposed teacher certification amendments until May 15. Send comments to [email protected] (link sends e-mail).
2) Proposed Amendment to Add a New Section 80-5.23 to the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education to Establish a Residency Certificate for Students Enrolled in a Classroom Academy Residency Pilot Program.
3) State Education Department Announces 13 Public Meetings To Be Held To Receive Comment On Draft Every Student Succeeds Act Plan

PoliticoNewYork. Excelsior Effect: Restrictions dramatically cut eligibility for free tuition

NEW YORK CITY
NYTimes.
1) Chancellor Praises de Blasio’s Education Gains as Debate to Control Schools Nears “He’s not in any way radical with his reforms,” Priscilla Wohlstetter, a distinguished research professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said of Mr. de Blasio. “It’s all been fairly incremental given the national scene.”
2) Sometimes the Birds and the Bees Get Short Shrift in School …of more than 15,000 instructors who taught health in the city last year, only 153 were licensed in health. (About 12,000 were elementary schoolteachers, who typically teach multiple subjects and are unlikely to be licensed in health.)

INTERNATIONAL
Darling-Hammond, Goodwin, et al. Empowered Educators: How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World, recently published by Jossey-Bass/Wiley …a landmark, international comparative study of teacher and teaching quality in the world’s top-performing education systems.

EdWeek. Here’s What the U.S. Can Learn About Teaching Quality From Top Countries …a three-year study into how seven high-performing jurisdictions recruit, develop, and support high-quality teachers. 

Inside Higher Ed. E.U. Responds to Hungary’s Higher Education Law

Washington Post. Why Americans should care that Hungary is trying to shut down a leading university

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE, Westat Piloting Surveys of EPP Graduates, Supervisors
2) Lynn Gangone Named Next President and CEO of AACTE
3) “Refreshed” 2017-18 edTPA handbooks and templates will be posted on edtpa.aacte.org by late May/early June 2017.

AERA. 2017 Annual Meeting Program

Brookings Institute.
1) Lessons from the end of free college in England
2) Understanding and addressing teacher shortages in the United States

Education Dive. North Carolina law would let K-12 fill vacancies with college professors … North Carolina’s state legislature has proposed a new bill that would allow profe1ssors in higher ed to teach in K-12 classes as adjunct faculty without first obtaining a teacher’s license.

Education Talk Radio. A Change To Clinical Practice In Teacher Preparation

Education Week.
1) ‘Do Not Underestimate’ the Power of High-Quality STEM Teachers, Bill Clinton Says The national nonprofit to recruit, prepare, and support 100,000 STEM teachers by 2021 is a “stunning success story,” Clinton said on Tuesday.
2) Illinois Lawmakers Look to Overhaul Teacher Licensure Testing Requirements
3) Interview Tip for Teachers: Be Prepared to Be Specific
4) Live from AERA: What Do We Mean When We Talk About Teacher Shortages?
5) Teaching Students to Dissect Questions for Deeper Learning

Educator Voice Fellowship. Teacher Preparation And Retention

Hope Street Group. Teaming Up: Educators Enhance Teacher Prep

Learning Policy Institute. State Policymakers Respond to Teacher Shortages States are also seeking to stem attrition by investing in high-quality preparation programs and improved support for new teachers…

Long Beach Press-Telegram. California eyes teacher pay boosts to keep them in state …up to $20,000 in grants to students who commit to working in a high-need field — bilingual education or special education, as well as science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) — for four years after receiving their teaching credential.

NCTQ. Unpacking Secondary Certification: State Certification Discontinuity

NYTimes.
1) Sowing Climate Doubt Among Schoolteachers [OpEd] Public school teachers are not the only ones on the institute’s mailing list. College educators are getting copies of the book, too.
2) Where Did All the Black Teachers Go? [Editorial by Brent Staples]

Project Tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Teachers Speak Up Survey [survey open until May 1, 2017]

TCRecord Commentary. Assessing and Resolving California’s Growing Teacher Shortage Crisis …lawmakers should reconsider plans about how to best allocate revenues earned through the legal recreational marijuana market to finance the aforementioned proposed programs.

The Atlantic. The Case for Contentious Curricula …this kind of instruction continues to occur, despite the paucity of professional training for the task…

US Federal Register. Applications for New Awards; Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) Program [intent to apply due May 5]

US White House. Presidential Executive Order on Enforcing Statutory Prohibitions on Federal Control of Education

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat.
1) Chancellor Betty Rosa hits back on criticism that New York is abandoning education reform …she cites the Board’s decision to jettison the controversial Academic Literacy Skills Test as part of teacher certification. While Pondiscio blasts the move, Rosa says New York’s certification process remains among the country’s most stringent.
2) CUNY students join chorus of protests against Cuomo’s ‘hypocritical’ college tuition plan
3) In meeting with Betsy DeVos, New York’s education commissioner pushes back on Trump budget

Hechinger Report. Sub shortage leaves schools scrambling when teachers call in sick Niagara Falls City School District Superintendent Mark Laurrie, …said the current shortage in substitute teachers is unprecedented. There once was a time when the district had long lists of qualified teachers

NYS Higher Education Services Corporation. Excelsior Scholarship and Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) [begins Fall 2017]

NYTimes. SUNY Is Set to Make Kristina Johnson, an Engineer, Its Chancellor

Politico. Five things to watch under the new SUNY chancellor A crucial factor will be whether Johnson is able to build up STEM while maintaining other programs and philosophies, such as teacher training initiatives… 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. High schoolers say they don’t want to be teachers. Inside one school that’s working to turn the tide …350 students in the [Staten Island] Future Teachers Academy, a hands-on program designed to give high school students a taste of what the job entails.

Diane Ravitch’s blog. When Anxiety Rules: Report from the edTPA front lines [blog post from Mercy College student]

Forbes. The Big Cities Where Teachers Are Paid The Most (And The Least) In third place we find the Big Apple—New York City.

Museum of the City of New York. 5th Annual Teaching Social Activism in the Classroom Conference [Sat. May 6, 9am, free admission]

NY Daily News.
1) Bring young brains to full potential with pre-K for 3-year-olds [by S. Polakow-Suransky, Pres. Bank Street College] The Department of Education has worked tirelessly to hire quality teachers and social workers, provide them with cutting-edge curricula and training, and offers them ongoing coaching and support.
2) Wanted: Many more teachers of color

NYTimes.
1) Never Mind the Students; Homework Divides Parents Tom Hatch, a professor of education at Columbia University’s Teachers College… said homework wars were really a proxy fight about what constitutes learning.
2) New York City Will Offer Free Preschool for All 3-Year-Olds Finding enough teachers for new programs will also be a challenge. The city said … that an additional 4,500 teachers would eventually need to be hired.

The Nation. New York City’s Mayor Proposes Free Universal Preschool for 3-Year-Olds The city will at the same time launch a survey to find space for the broader program, look to recruit nonprofit providers, and find and train teachers.

WCNY Radio. Teacher education and the proposed Trump budget; interview with TC Visiting Assoc. Prof. D. Roosevelt

 

 

NOTE: Teacher Ed News will resume the week of April 24

INTERNATIONAL

Huff Post. In Africa, For-Profit School Chain Plays Legal Hardball  In Bridge International Academies teachers are no longer teachers, but classroom managers who deliver scripted instruction. Many barely have high school educations themselves.

Unite for Quality Education. ‘May’ Days In March: Bridge Asked To Account By UK Parliament  …leads us to conclude that the teacher is just a cypher for learning and managing decisions made in the head office of a distant country thousands of miles away.

UNITED STATES

AACTE.

1) Educators Called to Disrupt Inequality at TeachingWorks Forum [Deborah Ball, Jason Kamras, Ernest Morrell, Na’ilah Suad Nasir]

2) Forum Promotes Systems Approach to Educator Preparation Policy

 

Chalkbeat.

1) Principals matter — and Tennessee wants to do a better job of equipping them  Before, Title II money could only be used to train teachers in four academic core subjects. Now, it can be used to support principals, too.

2) Tennessee overhauls approach to low-performing schools under plan sent to Secretary DeVos  Tennessee’s plan… details how the state will use federal funds for everything from guidance counselors to teacher preparation to arts education.

 

Clayton Christensen Institute. Will deregulation help teacher preparation?

 

EdWeek.

1) Educators Oppose Trump Plan to Scrap Teacher-Support Program  Pedro Rivera, the state chief in Pennsylvania, said his state considered both teacher preparation and educator effectiveness in writing its plan, which proposes moving to a full-year internship for beginning teachers…

2) Teacher-Prep Slow to Embrace Social-Emotional Learning

3) Video: Teachers Learn How to Use Popular Musical ‘Hamilton’ in the Classroom  Last month, 400 New York City public school teachers, half of whom were Teach for America corps members, saw the musical. (This was a fundraiser for Teach for America’s New York chapter and was sponsored by Barclays…)

 

Hope Street Group. The Future of Teacher Prep: A Conversation with Educators and Other Experts [April 11, 10-11:30 EDT]

 

Nashville Teacher Residency. Welcoming NTR’s Second Intern Cohort

 

NEA.

1) The Assimilation of a Student Teacher: A step-by-step plan for smoothly transitioning a future educator into your classroom.

2) When Physical Education Is Cut, Who Picks Up the Slack? …it should be common sense for all school districts to invest in PE as part of the academic day and not to expect classroom teachers — few of whom have training in exercise science — to try to fit it in when they can.

 

Nat’l Educ. Policy Cntr [NEPC]. Review of [NCTQ’s] Within Our Grasp: Achieving Higher Admissions Standards in Teacher Prep

 

NYTimes.

1) 2 Education Dept. Picks Raise Fears on Civil Rights Enforcement  …raising fears that the agency could pull back from enforcing civil rights in schools and on college campuses.

2) Learning to Think Like a Computer  …“computational thinking” is captivating educators, from kindergarten teachers to college professors, offering a new language and orientation to tackle problems in other areas of life.

3) Who Needs Charters When You Have Public Schools Like These?  …a Union teacher with two decades’ experience and a doctorate earns less than $50,000. Her counterpart in Scarsdale, N.Y., earns more than $120,000.

 

SeattleTimes. Innovative training program places more teachers of color in Seattle’s public schools

 

Picower, B. & Kohli, R. (Eds.). (2017.) Confronting Racism in Teacher Education: Counternarratives of Critical Practice. New York: Routledge.

 

Singularity University. 6 Tips on the Future of Learning from Actual Teenage Exponential Thinkers  The role of the educator, however, is shifting from an individual who delivers facts to that of a guide… Their favorite teachers were those who asked questions, not those who gave answers.

 

The Atlantic. The Alt-Right Curriculum: Teachers are facilitating conversations with students about white nationalism.

 

NEW YORK STATE

Buffalo News. Buffalo looks to own students to diversify teaching force  Students who finish the program will be given preference for jobs in the city schools – in exchange for a five-year commitment to teach in Buffalo once they graduate.

 

Chalkbeat. As state budget debate rages on, Board of Regents set to push back on Success Academy renewals  The Regents will hear a presentation about establishing a computer science teaching certificate.

 

NYSED Regents. Board of Regents Act To Amend State’s Teacher Certification Requirements Based On Recommendations Of Expert Panel And Public Input  NYSED will accept comments on the proposed amendments for 45 days. Please email comments to [email protected](link sends e-mail)

 

NEW YORK CITY

Chalkbeat. Students were allowed to enroll in troubled Renewal schools — even after they were slated for closure  Aaron Pallas, a professor at Teachers College, said that given the thousands of students who are assigned mid-year, sending 25 to closing schools did not seem like a large number.

 

TCRecord.

1) Teaching for Social Justice in the Early Childhood Classroom [commentary]

2) Mindful L2 Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective on Cultivating Teachers’ Professional Development [book review]

 

NOTE: Teacher Ed News will resume the week of April 24

INTERNATIONAL
7th International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) in Scotland. March 30-31, 2017 [US Secretary of Ed. declined invitation]

Education International. To Africa And Back: Low-Fee For-Profit Schools In England The school’s website proclaims ‘we believe teachers are born, not made’, which is often used as code to indicate that teacher education is unnecessary and that professional credentials are not required. 

IEN. The potential, promise and pitfalls of blended learning in India …a number of digital initiatives are underway aimed at improving education in areas that lack sufficient trained and experienced teachers. 

NEA Today. Despite Inclusive Policies, Refugee Children Face Major Obstacles to Education Many times teachers are not prepared for refugee needs and lack training, as well as teaching and learning materials.

NYTimes. Why Kids Shouldn’t Sit Still in Class

Wall Street Journal. Teachers Unions Support Good Schools for Africans [OpEd by R. Weingarten] In Kenya the “low-cost” Bridge model relies on poor families…. Students are fed a cookie-cutter curriculum in run-down buildings where more than 70% of teachers are unqualified.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) 2018 AACTE Annual Meeting Submission Site Now Open March 1-3, 2018; Baltimore, MD
2) Darling-Hammond: Time to Keep Our Hand on the Plow (Hold On!)
3) Harper: Prepare All Teachers to Discuss Race, Champion Equity
4) Teacher Prep Regulations Officially Rescinded Title II data reporting and the state report cards are still required by law… through the Higher Education Act. It is important that you engage with your PK-12 colleagues and your state …given that Title II of ESSA is filled with opportunities for educator preparation.

AERA. Amy Stuart Wells Voted AERA President-Elect

Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation. CAEP Answers Your Questions on Recognition Status, Moving Toward Uniform Accreditation Process

EdWeek.
1) Study: A Teacher’s Encouragement Gives Students a Lasting Boost
2) Teachers Skeptical About ESSA, Want More Voice in Policy Development Teachers ranked mentorship programs for new teachers as the most important way federal money for teacher-training could be used under ESSA.
3) Trump Signs Bill Scrapping Teacher-Prep Rules
4) What Would Trump’s Proposed Cut to Teacher Funding Mean for Schools? …mentoring and induction programs for principals and teacher-leaders and revising certification and preparation programs. 

Hope Street Group. The Future of Teacher Prep: A Conversation with Educators and Other Experts [April 11, Washington, DC]

National Council of Teachers of English. Resolution Opposing High-Stakes Teacher Candidate Performance Assessments High-stakes teacher candidate performance assessments do not meet NCTE’s characteristics of a fair, effective, and successful system of teacher evaluation

NYTimes.
1) Student Loan Forgiveness Program Approval Letters May Be Invalid, Education Dept. Says
2) Trump Signs Legislation Rolling Back Obama-Era Regulations Two of the regulations nullified Monday had to do with school performance and teacher preparation programs.

Shelby Star [NC]. Schooling future educators

Truth in American Education. How Dumb Do We Want Prospective Teachers To Be?

US News & World Report. Graduate Teacher Residency Programs Help Educators Make the Grade

USAToday. Mr. Trump, Don’t boost our budgets while cutting education: Charter school CEOs  AmeriCorps, and other teacher recruitment, training and preparation programs, should be invested in, not abandoned.

Washington Post.
1) The irony in Ivanka Trump’s and Betsy DeVos’s push for STEM education   There was also no mention of the 13.5 percent in cuts Trump has proposed to the Education Department, which include the reduction or elimination of grants for teacher training…
2) Trump budget cuts could hit research universities hard, Moody’s warns

NEW YORK STATE
Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (CICU). 45,000 Jobs, $224 Million in Tax Revenues Could Be Lost If “Free” Tuition Plan Goes Forward, Says New Report The analysis concluded that there would be significant enrollment reductions at private, not-for-profit colleges and universities with accompanying negative economic effects. 

Chalkbeat. ‘We need an opposite narrative’: Chancellor Betty Rosa on her year of trying to reshape New York’s education debate   at the last Board of Regents meeting, she defended the decision to drop one of four teacher certification requirements, an academic literacy skills test.

NYS Register; Rule Making Activities [March 29].
1) Eliminate Academic Literacy Skills Test for Teacher Certification, Remove Unnecessary References to Liberal Arts and Science (EP)
2) Multiple Measures Process for the edTPA (P)

New York Post.
1) New York’s lunatic way of running education This month, notably, they actually scrapped the literacy-test requirement for teaching-job applicants.
2) The latest snake-oil fix for minority education In front of a packed room at South by Southwest this month, Emdin, a professor at Columbia Teachers College…

SUNY. Faculty Participation in Focus Group Meetings on Principal Preparation

The74.
1) As NY Lawmakers Mull Budget to Expand Charter Schools, Fears of Federal Cuts May Shift Political Alliances   But this year may be very different, said Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
2) 3 Reasons New York Was Right to Drop Its Teacher Literacy Test

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College.
1) Early Career Award; Leticia Lyle | M.A. 2011, Elementary Inclusive Education Instituto Singularidades… in Brazil focused solely on Teaching and Learning, with the challenge of developing models for preparing teachers to teach in our complex world.
2) TC’s Brooks-Gunn Recommends Expansion of Federal Early Childhood Programs at House Committee Hearing To sustain Head Start’s positive effects into elementary school, coordination of curricula and teacher training between preschool and early elementary school are needed.

INTERNATIONAL
International Summit on the Teaching Profession. March 29-31, Edinburgh, Scotland

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Best Practices for Teacher Diversity Highlighted at AACTE Institute
2) Board of Directors Elects New Leaders, Adopts CAEP Action Steps
3) Preparing Teachers to ‘Reach and Teach’ All Students

American Educator, Spring 2017. The Teacher Residency: A Practical Path to Recruitment and Retention

EduVentures. Solving The STEM Shortage   …at least 38% of Future Teachers—those interested in becoming teachers but not planning to major in education—are interested in a STEM or health-related field

EdWeek.
1) Betsy DeVos to State Chiefs: Time for Ed. Dept. to ‘Let You Do Your Job’ One chief also made the case for some of the programs that would be cut under the proposed budget, especially Title II, the teacher quality grants.
2) How Many U.S. Students Are Taught by Qualified Teachers?   At least 90 percent of K-12 public school students in the United States were taught by teachers with state certification in the years studied…

Houston Chronicle. Nelson: All eyes should be on Texas teacher preparation Today, anyone who wants to teach in Texas has more than 200 choices of programs to become a certified teacher.

HuffPost. Trump’s “Skinny Budget” Would Put Educators’ Learning On A Starvation Diet [OpEd by LDH]

New America. Painting the ESSA Canvas: Four Ideas for States to Think Big on Educator Quality

NYTimes.
1) College Is the Goal. The Problem? Getting There. His home life is hard. His mother, Charla Shaner, has a degree in early childhood education but depends on disability and child support payments to pay the bills.
2) What Led to the Supreme Court’s Student Disabilities Ruling? …asking for extra time to complete a test, or additional instruction, better teacher training or additional recess during the school day.

Project Tomorrow. Webinars for Teacher Prep Programs

TeachPlus.org. Profiles in Educator Courage

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. What’s missing from the conversation about the state’s ditched literacy test for teachers?

EdWeek. New York awards $6M for My Brother’s Keeper school programs

NYSED Regents.
1) Regents Act to Amend State’s Teacher Certification Requirements
2) Statement from Chancellor Betty A. Rosa and Commissioner MaryEllen Elia on Board of Regents Appointments We congratulate Vice Chancellor T. Andrew Brown and Regent Nan Eileen Mead on their re-elections to the Board of Regents.

SILive. Could you pass the literacy test for prospective teachers?

SUNY TeachNY. A Candid Conversation with SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) Eva Moskowitz talks about Betsy DeVos, vouchers, discipline — and how the ‘tide is turning’ for charter schools I think teacher training is sort of forced to design its programs often for dysfunctional schools because we have so many.
2) New York City’s English learners often struggle to graduate, but here’s how some schools buck that trend State rules, enacted last year, require that teachers in integrated settings either be certified in language instruction, or work as a co-teacher with a colleague who has the credential.

NYTimes.
1) Dance in NYC This Week Ms. Eagly’s latest work is inspired by the disappearance of 43 students from an all-male teachers college in Mexico…
2) Where Halls of Ivy Meet Silicon Dreams, a New City Rises

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Harlem Capital Preparatory Schools. Seeking teachers. [Candidate must possess a current credential or be currently enrolled in a credentialing program]

TC Record Book Review. The Mindful Teacher

INTERNATIONAL
NPR. Somali Students Help Teachers Learn What It’s Like To Be A Refugee

Stanford Social Innovation Review. Redefining Teacher Development to Great Effect in Honduras

UNESCO. eAtlas of Teachers: Projected number of primary teachers needed by 2030 (new posts and attrition)

UNITED STATES
CAEP. Seeking Volunteers

EdWeek.
1) Should E-Learning Replace Substitute Teachers? Lexington High School in Massachusetts has replaced in-person substitutes with “electronic learning facilitators,” full-time licensed educators who are trained in online instruction.
2) Tapping High Schoolers to Become Teachers   …9th graders can get a taste of the teaching profession through Today’s Students-Tomorrow’s Teachers, a program that started in 1994 at a high school in Westchester, N.Y.,
3) Trump Sharpens Budget Knife for Education Department, Sources Say …eliminate or substantially cut the third-largest K-12 program in the department: Supporting Effective Instruction state grants program, better known as Title II…
4) Trump Budget Would Make Massive Cuts to Ed. Dept., But Boost School Choice …whacking popular programs that help districts offer after-school programs, and hire and train teachers.
5) When ‘Highly Qualified’ Teachers Aren’t: Are we watering down teacher certification? [OpEd]

HechingerReport. Highlights from SXSW’s education confab in Austin – and beyond The most talked-about speech during SXSWedu came from Christopher Emdin, an associate professor at Teachers College, Columbia University

NAAC. 27th Annual Conference of the National Association for Alternative Certification (NAAC) (2017)

NYTimes.
1) Agency-By-Agency Look at Trump’s Budget …eliminate two programs worth $3.6 billion that provide funding for teacher preparation and after-school programs
2) Navigating Our Shameful, Maddeningly Complex Student Aid System “Just at the moment when everything seemed like it was going in the right direction, the rug gets pulled out, and in the middle of the application season,” said Judith Scott-Clayton, associate professor of economics and education at Teachers College of Columbia University
3) When a Few Bucks Can Get Students to the Finish Line “It wasn’t important enough before that for the Department of Education to include it in their eligibility criteria,” said Thomas Bailey, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Project Tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Teachers Speak Up Survey

Seattle Education. An Interview with Kenneth Zeichner: Relay Graduate School of Education

US News & World Report. Best Education Schools [2017 rankings]

NEW YORK STATE
Breitbart. New York State Kills Literacy Test for Teachers: Minority Kids Hardest Hit

Chalkbeat. It’s official: New York’s prospective teachers will no longer have to pass controversial literacy exam

NY Daily News. Teach your teachers well: The state Board of Regents makes a big mistake on an educators’ literacy credential

NYSED Regents.
1) Board of Regents Act To Amend State’s Teacher Certification Requirements Based On Recommendations Of Expert Panel And Public Input
2) Report of Regents Higher Education Committee to The Board of Regents

FoxNews. NY dropping teacher literacy test amid claims of racism

NYPost. The Regents’ lame excuses for lowering teacher standards

NYTimes.
Regents Drop Teacher Literacy Test Seen as Discriminatory

INTERNATIONAL
Education International. Standardised tests and Global Citizenship: a flawed relationship? The deprofessionalisation of the teaching profession was also highlighted as a threat to education for sustainable development, global citizenship and human rights.

Unite for Quality Education. Not “Always Learning” (As Much As Desired): Rebranding Pearson As The “Efficacy Company” In Education …individuals accumulate huge amounts of debt paying for credentials, degrees, and training from educational providers and yet, may still end up un(der)employed…

Times Higher Ed. Global higher education might turn upside down as West turns inward

UNITED STATES
115^th US Congress.
1) H.J.Res.57 – Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to accountability and State plans under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
2) H.J.Res.58 – Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to teacher preparation issues.

AACTE.
1) Annual Meeting Highlights
2) Statement on the Rescindment of the Federal Regulations for Teacher Preparation Programs

C-SPAN. U.S. Senate Vote on Resolution to Rescind the Teacher Preparation Program Regulations The U.S. Senate voted 59-40 to rescind the U.S. Department of Education’s regulations for teacher preparation programs.

EdWeek.
1) Building Up the Teacher Workforce in Small-Town Iowa … teachers brand new to the profession, who are coming out of college. You’re not just coming into a classroom and maybe being supported—you’ll be supported on a weekly basis.
2) Congress May Turn Focus to Higher Ed. Law’s Renewal In February, the House of Representatives voted to block regulations governing teacher-preparation programs that were finalized late last year by the Obama administration.
3) Senate Votes to Block Obama Teacher-Preparation Rules
4) Updated Higher Education Law Could Impact Data, Access for K-12 Students Among those issues are what kind of information about colleges and universities prospective students will be able to see.
5) With New Administration, 100Kin10 Renews Call to Support STEM Teachers 100Kin10, a national nonprofit focused on recruiting, preparing, and supporting teachers in science, technology, engineering, and math … reiterated the importance of their mission in a new political climate.
6) With White House Backing, Senate Overturns ESSA Accountability Rules

Futurism. Your Next Teacher Could Be a Robot

NEAToday. Educators Told to Intern at Local Businesses To Renew Teacher Licenses

NYTimes. Obama Education Rules Are Swept Aside by Congress

The Atlantic. Training Students to Outpace Automation Schools near Detroit have reworked curriculum to include both technical and soft skills.

Washington Post.
1) Senate votes to repeal Obama rule on teacher training “By overturning these regulations, Congress would tell our nation’s teacher preparation programs that they will not be held accountable for how well they educate aspiring teachers,” Walsh said…
2) Teacher: Here’s the history lesson Betsy DeVos needed on black colleges and the Ku Klux Klan The colored schools employed teachers of a lower grade of qualifications and at smaller salaries than the whites. 

NEW YORK STATE
New York Post. Will New York open the door to teachers who can’t read? At its meeting Monday, the board will vote on eliminating the Academic Literacy Skills Test…

NYSED Regents. March 13 Meeting agenda

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Is New York City schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña on her way out? Aaron Pallas, an education professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, also recently hinted that her term is coming to an end.

Teachers College.
1) Gap Between Refugee Policy and Practice Hinders Urban Refugee Children’s Access to Education [by TC Profs. Mary Mendenhall, S. Garnett Russell, Elizabeth Buckner] …displaced children vulnerable to the same problems faced by native urban poor children in attending school: over-crowded local schools, inadequate resources and teacher training, far distances and lack of safe transportation to and from school.
2) Teacher Opportunity Corps application [March 15 deadline]

INTERNATIONAL
BBCNews. Teaching ‘weakest aspect’ of education in Wales – Estyn   …better access to professional development “from a lack of high quality training provision, a lack of financial resources…

Independent IE. Graduates getting jobs quickly – and more staying in Ireland A degree in education remains the quickest route to a job, and the data shows a big growth last year.

NYTimes. Still No Justice for Mexico’s Missing Students …the unsolved case of the September 2014 disappearance of 43 students at a teachers college in Ayotzinapa…

UNITED STATES
115th US Congress. S.J.Res.26 Introduced 3/2/17 by Senator Sasse (R-NE) A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to teacher preparation issues.

AACTE. Ongoing 69^th annual meeting

AAUP. Political Litmus Tests Have No Place in Higher Ed …require tenure-track and tenured faculty members to “reflect the ideological balance of the citizens of the state…”

CAEP. Seeking Volunteers; applications due April 1, 2017

Chalkbeat. #PublicSchoolProud has its Oscar moment as ‘La La Land’ songwriter shouts out his schools   “And I’m so grateful for all my teachers, who taught so much and gave so much to us.”

EdWeek.
1) Educators Join New Fight to Block Guns in Schools …groups like Moms Demand Action counter that teachers and school staff aren’t prepared to respond to armed intruders…
2) Louisiana and Arizona Look to Address Special Education Teacher Shortage
3) Measure to Overturn ESSA Accountability Rules Introduced in Senate
4) Miss Obama’s Education Department? There’s a Website for That
5) Teacher Programs Face Loss of Funding With Trump’s Proposed AmeriCorps Cut

Hechinger Report. Is teacher preparation failing students with disabilities?

RealClearEducation. Teacher Preparation Programs: Under Pressure and Making Progress

Southern Regional Education Board. DATA, DATA EVERYWHERE… But not a Byte to Use Teacher prep programs, for example, need access to comparable data on student achievement and teacher evaluation.

SmartBrief. Teacher prep responds to inclusive classrooms

Springfield News Leader. AACTE uses data sharing to evaluate teacher preparation

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. State pols push for eliminating controversial rule in Cuomo’s tuition plan and expanding help for low-income families

EdWeek. Buffalo and Rochester Work Together to Recruit Teachers of Color To find a more diverse applicant pool, the districts are leaving behind predominately white Upstate New York and  are headed south.

NY Assembly Education Committee. Interviews of Regent Candidates in Judicial Districts 6 and 7.

TimesUnion.
1) Cuomo and Trump: Education buddies?
2) NY education officials want your input on holding schools accountable …strategies for pre-service preparation and professional support for educators…

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. City to open 68 new bilingual programs, signaling support for immigrants in NYC public schools

EdWeek. The Education of Barron Trump and Other ‘First Kids’ In Manhattan, Barron Trump attends the private, co-educational Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School—where he will stay put until the end of the school year…

NYDailyNews. New $1M scholarship program offers low-income children a college education for free … a full ride at Queens College in the major of their choice.

 

INTERNATIONAL
BBCNews. Teacher shortage getting worse, say MPs …recruitment targets for teacher training have been consistently missed

Education International. UK: workloads spark a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention

IEN. Building Hope In South African Education …they have to find ways to attract students, recruit teachers, tutors…

The Hill. The Japanese education system may solve the problems of US public education Elizabeth Green, author of Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and how to Teach it to Everyone) found a similar pattern when she interviewed Akahiko Takashi, once one of Japan’s leading teachers…

UNITED STATES
115th US Congress.
1) H.R.610 Choices in Education Act of 2017 This bill repeals the No Hungry Kids Act and Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and limits the authority of the Department of Education (ED) such that ED …is authorized only to award block grants to qualified states.
2) H.R.899 – To terminate the Department of Education.

AACTE.
1) Ask Congress to Rescind the Teacher Preparation Regulations!
2) February Federal Update Webinar archive

Boston Univ. The Daily Free Press. Study finds statewide lack of diversity in teacher prep programs

The Chronicle. Betsy DeVos Criticizes Professors in Remarks to Conservative Conference. “The faculty, from adjunct professors to deans, tell you what to do, what to say, and more ominously, what to think. They say that if you voted for Donald Trump, you’re a threat to the university community” …

EdWeek.
1) ‘Education Establishment’ Has Blocked Efforts to Fix Schools Now let me ask you: How many of you are college students? The fight against the education establishment extends to you too … –USED Secretary DeVos
2) Colo. District Considers Building Tiny Homes for Teachers Eagle County School District in Colo. is considering tiny home construction as a strategy to recruit and retain teachers…
3) Drawing a Line Between Civics Education and Activism … there’s a connection between college students being educated for civic engagement but not being educated for civic literacy.
4) Eight Steps to Improve the Ed-Tech Industry: Education technology is worryingly disconnected from education research [by TC President Susan Fuhrman]
5) Home Visits With a STEM Twist …It’s unusual for a school of education to provide home-visit training for its candidates
6) More South Dakota teachers retiring, fewer recruited   “The bottom line is we can’t hire good, new teachers if there aren’t good, new people going into the profession,” …
7) Should Job Shadowing Be a Requirement for Teacher License Renewal?
8) Video: A Teacher Explains Formative Assessments

NYTimes.
1) Beyond ‘Hidden Figures’: Nurturing New Black and Latino Math Whizzes …four hours of math a day taught by 10 experienced math teachers, several of them Ph.D.’s.
2) For-Profit Schools, an Obama Target, See New Day Under Trump So it is in higher education that the new administration’s power is likely to be felt most keenly and quickly.
3) Rough First Week Gives Betsy DeVos a Glimpse of the Fight Ahead …accused some of the school’s teachers of passively awaiting instruction and said she would be pleased if the department she currently runs did not exist in the future.
4) Three Teaching Ideas for Making Presidents’ Day Great Again
5) Trump Rescinds Rules on Bathrooms for Transgender Students And Ms. DeVos, faced with the alternative of resigning or defying the president, agreed to go along.

Washington Post.
1) Ohio Gov. Kasich is trying to impose this misguided mandate on teachers   …all new teachers applying for a license … will be required to get some “on-site work experience with a local business or chamber of commerce.”
2) Senate Democrats seek answers about a Trump higher ed task force We are also very troubled that there has been no public explanation by the President or the Administration about what will be under the formal purview of this task force.

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat.
1) Gov. Cuomo is proposing free college tuition, but are his plan’s rules too strict?
2) New York state charges forward with its ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ initiative   the state has split the $20 million into grants that encourage the recruitment of a diverse pool of high-quality teachers, along with family and community engagement, and programs focused on college and career success.

Newsday. SUNY chancellor endorses gov’s tuition plan, addresses criticisms

NY Daily News. Cuomo’s very good college investment

NYSED.
1) ESSA Winter Regional meetings. Participants must RSVP to ensure that they will be able to participate in the meetings.
2) A.G. Schneiderman And State Education Commissioner Elia Issue Reminder That New York State Protects Transgender Students

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) New York City is touting grad rates at its lowest-performing high schools, but far fewer students are graduating from them   “In one sense, it can almost be framed as a marketing problem,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
2) Prayers, precision and push-ups: A special ed teacher puts his unusual background to work in the classroom Asomugha made his way to the classroom through New York City Teaching Fellows, an alternative certification pathway for new graduates and career-changers, and has been mentored through NYC Men Teach…

Teachers College.
1) Celebration of Teaching 2017: Scaffolding Content And Language In The Multilingual Classroom. Sat. March 4, Zankel 408
2) TC Mourns Shakespeare Teacher John Henry Browne, a “True Keeper of the Flame”