Tag: teacher educator

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Teacher Education

Week of February 24 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
Centre for Innovation in Teacher Education and Development. The Power of Assessment for Learning: Twenty Years On [18 March; King’s College, London]

Education. Week. Bernie Sanders Praised Cuba’s Literacy Program. What EdWeek Saw There in 2003   Cuba’s national literacy campaign, which trained more than 200,000 volunteer reading teachers to work across the country, did dramatically raise the literacy rate: Adult illiteracy rates fell from about 20 percent to around 4 percent in just one year. 

International Council on Education for Teaching.  63rd Yearbook of Teacher Education [in 2 versions]

Sydney Morning Herald. ‘Your country needs you!’ It’s high time for a drive to recruit better teachers   … new report, The Profession at Risk – Trends in Standards for Admission to Teaching Degrees, makes it clear that many students are entering teacher education ill-prepared and with little prospect of completing their degree. 

UNITED STATES
CantonRep.com. Science of reading changing how it is taught in Stark County   Walsh University also has restructured its teacher preparation curriculum to train prospective teachers on using the science of reading principles in their future classrooms. It became the first in Northeast Ohio to become a science of reading institution in January.

Education Dive. Is edTPA standing in the way of getting more teachers into classrooms?   “A portion of Connecticut’s teacher candidates continue to not fully understand what edTPA is, why it is relevant to their teaching practice and how to complete it in a timely, less stressful and efficient manner,” according to the working group’s final report, which also notes with edTPA, Connecticut is “now positioned as the most expensive state in the region to become a licensed professional educator.”

Education Week.
1) 2020 Leaders to Learn From: Gonzalo La Cava Recognized for Leadership in Human Resources  La Cava is also working with a teacher-residency program this year based at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development to recruit and prepare teachers from diverse backgrounds for the district’s high-needs schools. Seven teacher-interns are working in the district this school year and are receiving $10,000 from the district to pay for their master’s degrees. In return, they have signed a contract to stay with the district for two more years.
2) The Nation’s Top Teachers on Self-Care, Student Voice, and What They Would Say to Trump

  1. a) Kubesch: We experience secondary trauma just like secondhand smoke. When I started out, I would go home every single day in tears. How do I handle this? … There’s no way for universities to prepare us for these challenges. … I became certified as a yoga-for-trauma [instructor], and all of a sudden, I felt like there’s clarity in my world.
  2. b) What advice would you give to a high school or college student who is considering becoming a teacher? Dier: Never forget the why… So never stop caring and always feel connected. The more connected you are with your students, the better they can reciprocate that connection, and the better you become at being an educator, and the better you can be an ally to students.

3) States to Schools: Teach Reading the Right Way   Worried that far too many students have weak reading skills, states are passing new laws that require aspiring teachers—and, increasingly, teachers who are already in the classroom—to master reading instruction that’s solidly grounded in research. In the past three years alone, at least 11 states have enacted laws designed to expand evidence-based reading instruction in grades K-3. 
4) Tough Childhood for Early Ed. Teachers Linked to Classroom Culture Difficulties   Mindfulness training might help teachers modulate their responses to stress in the moment, said Hubel. The method encourages being aware of stressors and resulting emotions, without responding or reacting to those thoughts. Previous research has shown that mindfulness training helps early childhood teachers deal with stress more generally…

Forbes. Trump Budget: Slashing Public Education Is Not The Way To Remain Globally Competitive  …programs that would either be eliminated or lose funds under this proposal include: Teacher Quality Partnership grants that support the development of model teacher preparation programs to grow the pool of well-prepared and diverse new teachers for high-need communities—an important strategy for ensuring all students have access to effective teachers…

Fowler Tribune. Buentello’s bills on teacher diversity, veterans’ tuition advance in Colorado Legislature   Furthermore, only 46% of elementary school teachers pass the certification exams the first time despite graduating from accredited teacher preparation programs. Additionally, only 38% of black teaching candidates, 45% of Hispanic candidates and 75% of white candidates pass the licensing test.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Annual Meeting: Celebrating 100 Years, Looking Back And Moving Forward [April 1-4; Chicago]

NYTimes. These Students Are Learning About Fake News and How to Spot It: News literacy instruction is flourishing in the wake of the 2016 election as worries about fake news grow.   In 2016, the News Literacy Project started offering a virtual classroom, Checkology, aimed at grades six through 12. The program offers 13 online interactive lessons that teachers can use.

US Dept. of Education. Secretary DeVos Expands Earn and Learn Opportunities for Students at 190 Schools through Federal Work-Study Reform Initiative   …allow them to pay low-income students for work experiences required by their academic programs, such as student teaching and clinical rotations.

Washington Post. In a city dominated by private universities, UDC makes a pitch to District residents: ‘We are affordable and high quality.’   UDC offers dozens of degrees — from associates to doctorates — and university leaders are refining sought-after health-care, technology and teacher-training programs to respond to the city’s economic needs.

NEW YORK STATE
Gotham Gazette. After Cuomo Veto, Uncertain Future for Civic Education Fund While State Task Force Moves Ahead   Currently, to graduate, students in New York State are required to get credit for a “participation in government” course. This requirement includes teaching students about current events, and a component of it has to be experiential in nature… “The reality is teachers aren’t being taught how to teach students that. So what ended up happening in most participation in government classes is the teachers bring in the news and then maybe they invite in a speaker or two and that’s it…” 

NY Daily News. What our students need to learn: The state Teacher of the Year says education should be about inspiring young people to improve the world   I graduated from the University of Vermont set to go to law school, but my adviser said, “If you want to empower immigrant families, law school is not the place for you. By the time you defend those kids in the courtroom, they will either be headed to jail or in the process of being deported. You should be preparing young people to avoid those outcomes.” So I became a teacher.

NYSED Office of Higher Education. February newsletter
1) Regional Educational Laboratory-Northeast & Islands (REL-NEI) second webinar in the two-part series to prepare culturally responsive, data-literate teachers [Wednesday, April 1]
2) TEACH online system can now generate reports on the certification status of their program completers
3) NYSTCE Test Development Activities: Recruiting Educators for Test Development Committees.

NEW YORK CITY
NY1. Program Recruits More Black Men to Teach in NYC Public Schools   The city is doubling down on its efforts to recruit men of color to teach, with Mayor de Blasio announcing in his State of the City address a new goal of adding another 1,000 men of color to the pathway to become teachers by 2022.

Categories
Teacher Education

Week of Feb. 17 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
ABC Radio News and Current Affairs   Researchers propose overhaul of teacher training   Australia’s failing to make the most of its best teachers. That’s the finding of a new report from the Grattan Institute on the way experienced teachers are used to train their more junior colleagues. To fix the problem, the researchers are suggesting a professional training model more like that used in Singapore and China.

AhramOnline. Egypt, US discuss cooperation in student scholarships, teacher training   Egypt’s Minister of Education Tarek Shawky discussed on Thursday with US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce boosting cooperation in the various fields, especially in education and training.

Human Rights Watch. Vietnam: LGBT Youth Unprotected   Teachers are often untrained and ill-equipped to handle cases of anti-LGBT discrimination, and their lessons frequently uphold the widespread myth in Vietnam that same-sex attraction is a disease…

The Star. Why teacher training programme for UEC holders discontinued, asks MCA   The Education Ministry must explain why there are no UEC (Unified Examination Certificate) holders entering the Bachelor of Education teacher training programme (PISMP) this year, says Datuk Chong Sin Woon… “This is the first step towards having UEC recognised in Malaysia,” he said, adding MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong was instrumental in drawing the policy when he served as deputy education minister a decade ago. Chong said this in response to concerns raised by Chinese stakeholders following the Education Ministry’s “calculation” that there were sufficient Chinese language teachers, thus resulting in zero allocation of seats for UEC holders to undergo the teacher training programme this year.

Winrock International. Educating Girls, Changing Lives: Against fierce odds, a village bands together to protect a school for girls in rural Mali   A former university student, Camara says her education provided the opportunity to pursue a life of greater independence. “I’ve been to school, and it’s because of that I can be a teacher today,” she says. “If I hadn’t been to school, today I would be married and cooking for my husband.”

 

UNITED STATES
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.  The President Recommends Big Cuts for Education: Will the Congress Agree?
Higher Education

  • Student loan programs take a $190.8 Billion cut over 10 years,
  • Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is eliminated,
  • Subsidized student loans are eliminated.
  • Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need is eliminated.
  • Teacher Quality Partnership Grants are eliminated and considered for inclusion in the “Elementary and Secondary Education for the Disadvantaged Block Grant” noted above.

Association of Teacher Educators. 2020 100th ATE Annual Meeting [Atlantic City, NJ February 15-19]

Chalkbeat. Well-meaning white teachers: it’s time to disrupt your language around Black History Month

Education Week.
1) An Unorthodox Strategy Closes Academic Gaps   In the last few years, Molloy faculty have worked closely with Baldwin to help develop their academies in new-media studies and teacher education. Bogner also singled out the teacher education academy for praise because part of the district’s goal is attracting a more diverse group of potential teachers at a younger age.
2) Principals Say They Need Help to Support Students With Disabilities  The report results parallel findings from a 2019 survey, from the National Center for Learning Disabilities and Understood.org, that found many teachers consider themselves unprepared to meet the needs of millions of children with disabilities in the nation’s public schools.

Forbes. This Entrepreneur Already Is Where Education Will Be   Elangovan has three Masters degrees – one each in public health (Boston University), business (University of Iowa) and elementary education (Teachers College at Columbia University). She taught science at a public school in the Bronx, was a teacher and instructional leader at a private school in Iowa and worked as a director for the National Center for Teacher Residencies…As a result, Elangovan started to think about what it meant to support and develop teachers, and how to do that at scale.

Hechinger Report.
1) Subscribing to college and other visions of higher education’s future: Academic labs test artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other innovations to boost learning, lower costs   …less sophisticated simulations are being used in schools of education, where trainee teachers practice coping with simulated schoolchildren in computer-generated classrooms. 
2) ‘You can’t help but to wonder’: Crumbling schools, less money, and dismal outcomes in the county that was supposed to change everything for black children in the South   In recent years, the state has pushed “grow your own” efforts to shore up the local teaching force in rural areas. In 2019, the state education department launched teacher residency programs in four districts… The approach has limitations, beyond the difficulty of convincing students to come back to communities devastated by poverty. Some aspiring teachers educated in under-resourced schools struggle to pass the tests required to enroll in the state’s teacher prep programs. In several Delta districts, the education department is piloting an alternative license program for teachers with temporary licenses who have difficulty passing certification exams, but show promising talent in the classroom.

InsideHigherEd.
1) 41% of Recent Grads Work in Jobs Not Requiring a Degree   Recent graduates of programs in education, engineering and nursing have among the lowest unemployment and underemployment rates…
2) Hardin-Simmons Cuts 22 Academic Programs   President Eric Bruntmyer said the Christian institution is cutting a doctor of ministry program, as well as several master’s programs in education… and two teacher certification programs.
3) Title IX Complicates Hill Negotiations on Higher Ed   Any deal to update the law governing federal student aid would have to overcome concerns about the highly charged new rule U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is about to release on what colleges are required do about allegations of sexual assault or harassment on campuses… a stumbling block toward reauthorizing the Higher Education Act.

LPI.
1) California’s Special Education Teacher Shortage   California’s worsening shortage of special education teachers is a “five-alarm fire,” with two of every three new recruits entering without having completed preparation programs.
2) Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers   Nationally, urban schools have the largest percentages of uncertified and inexperienced teachers, but CRDC data show that in all kinds of schools—rural, suburban, and urban—students in schools with high enrollment of students of color have less access to certified and experienced teachers than their white peers.

NYTimes.
1) Bringing a New Vibe to the Classroom: Some educators are experimenting with their approaches to teaching to make course materials more relevant to various cultures and communities.   At the forefront are teachers like Christopher Emdin, 40, a science educator and the author of “For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too.” He has been a leader in the #HipHopEd initiative, which integrates urban youth culture with learning. The Science Genius program, for example, uses hip-hop music and rhymes in teaching science.
2) An Old and Contested Solution to Boost Reading Scores: Phonics   … findings have pushed some states and school districts to make big changes in how teachers are trained and students are taught… Even some leading researchers in the science of reading, including Professor Seidenberg, acknowledge that studies do not yet point toward specific curriculum materials that will be most effective at teaching phonics.

University of St. Thomas. Key Partnerships Help School of Education Diversify Minnesota’s Teaching Workforce   In a partnership with St. Thomas through school residencies (including the St. Paul Public Schools Urban Teacher Residency Program and the Minneapolis Special Education Teacher Residency) and the Work and Learn program, districts “grow their own” educators by investing in people already working for them. 

 

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College.
1) TC Dance Educator Barbara Bashaw is Featured on the Cover of Dance Teacher Magazine   Bashaw (Ed.D. ’11, M.A. ’96) is the Arnhold Professor of Practice in Dance Education… “a pioneer” in dance education and “an inspiring force in teacher training” who uses her past experience as a public school teacher as “a touchstone”…
2) TC’s Felicia Mensah Teams with a Former Student to Write about Teaching Science and Technology to Girls   Mensah’s research addresses issues of diversity, equity and identity in science teacher preparation and teacher professional development.

 

 

Categories
Teacher Education

Week of February 10 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET). Keynote Speakers 64th Annual Conference [Bath Spa University
23-25 June, 2020]

Their World. 20 reasons why, in 2020, there are still 260m children out of school   Too many teachers don’t have the training or qualifications needed to deliver a quality education. Only 85% of primary school teachers globally have been properly trained – in sub-Saharan Africa it’s just 64% (and only 50% of secondary teachers). Many existing teachers, especially in the least developed countries, are untrained, underpaid and working with scarce resources.

UNITED STATES
AACTE. 2020 National Award Winners

Chalkbeat.
1) Colorado wants to ensure teachers know how to teach reading. But some say proposed rules lack teeth and transparency.   Asked how state education department staff will determine which classes at which teacher prep programs satisfy the requirements, a department spokesman said in an email that they’ll decide once teachers submit documents about the class they took, such as the course syllabi, their transcript, and proof they passed the final exam.
2) Is the future of teaching homegrown? Colorado lawmakers hope so.   In recent years, Colorado has invested in a host of “grow your own” teacher programs, offering fellowships and stipends to rural teachers and creating new opportunities for student teachers in districts across the state. But some programs have been sparsely utilized, even as others don’t have the resources to meet demand.
3) Step into this state-of-the-art Indiana classroom — and pretend the students are real   The Marian students are getting an early start on learning how to run a classroom, rather than waiting until their junior or senior year to student teach real-life children. The university’s new and unusual approach is part of a retooled program for training teachers…
4) The Trump administration wants to cut federal education spending — including money for charter schools   The individual programs on the chopping block include: •Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants, which is also known as Title II, Part A, which districts can use for teacher training and to reduce class sizes ($2.1 billion)

CPRE Knowledge Hub. Study Questions Reliability of edtpa Performance Assessment System [Podcast]

Education Commission of the States. 50-State Comparison: Teacher Recruitment and Retention   Most states rely heavily — and sometimes exclusively — on traditional teacher preparation programs to train teacher candidates. However, in 2017, three states and the District of Columbia reported that more than 50% of their educator preparation program graduates came from alternative preparation programs.

Education Week.
1) Q&A With Presidential Candidate Tom Steyer: ‘Trump Doesn’t Believe in Education’   And he wants to incentivize states to raise teacher pay using federal aid, as well as forgive teachers’ student loan debt after they’ve taught for a decade.
2) See the 29 Education Programs Trump Wants to Condense Into a Block Grant   •Teacher Quality Partnerships…
3) Trump Seeks to Slash Education Budget, Combine 29 Programs Into Block Grant … the proposed budget would eliminate Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which teachers can use to eliminate federal student loan debt under certain circumstances.

InsideHigherEd. New International Enrollments Climb at U.S. Grad Schools
Change in First-Time Graduate Enrollment by Field of Study

  Fall 2014-15 Fall 2015-16 Fall 2016-17 Fall 2017-18 Fall 2018-19
All Fields +5% +5% -1% +1% +4%
Education 0% +7% -16% -31% +9%

The74. Interview: TN Ed Chief Penny Schwinn on Her Radical Plan Using Schools to Bring Social Services to Rural Areas — and Her Whole-Child Approach to Training Teachers   Schwinn talked to Beth Hawkins about the challenge of introducing social-emotional learning in Southern, red-state schools, her hope of training teachers free of charge … We are committed to not just get more teachers who are trained in the way that we’ve always trained teachers; we would like every teacher in the state to be dual certified in their area as well as special education.

The Teacher Education Podcast. New online resource exploring the stories and research of professionals in teacher preparation

US News & World Report. Officials announce initiative to attract more teachers Kentucky’s largest school system has teamed up with the University of Louisville to start a teacher residency program… would allow people who received a degree in a field other than education to get a master’s degree from U of L while shadowing an experienced teacher at Jefferson County Public Schools…

Washington Post. Trump education plan slashes student loan program in contrast to Democrats   The reductions would eliminate popular initiatives such as a loan forgiveness program for students who take public service jobs and subsidized lending for low-income students.

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Board of Regents February Meetings. Higher Education Committee:
1) Proposed Amendments to Section 3.14 of the Rules of the Board of Regents Relating to the Composition of the Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching
2) Amendment to Subparts 30-2 and 30-3 of the Rules of the Board of Regents Relating to Annual Professional Performance Reviews (APPR) of Classroom Teachers and Building Principals to Implement Chapter 59 of the Laws of 2019

New York State Register. The public comment period is open on a proposed amendment to regulations to allow a time extension for the Initial Reissuance and Provisional Renewal.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. What NYC’s departing special education chief learned overseeing the nation’s largest school system   We recently opened up an inclusive ICT class with a focus on literacy that we’re piloting where the teachers are trained in Orton-Gillingham, and we have also opened up an intense program for students on the spectrum that are non-verbal… What we have learned since the publication of the first City Council report is that where there are shortage areas we need to work with the state in terms of the certification of teachers. 

Categories
Teacher Education

Week of February 3 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
EducationInternational. Morocco: Report highlights inequities caused by increased privatisation of education   …as Abdous points out, the government has recently launched a partnership with Teach for Morocco, an organisation that places unqualified teachers with just a few weeks of training in public schools, undermining the status of the profession.

GovInsider. How Finland designed its schools around well-being   Teachers are trained in developmental psychology and how children learn, so they’re able to monitor their students’ learning progress on a daily basis. They can then give more attention to struggling students. This has allowed Finland to do away with mandatory standardised tests to track students’ progress. Teacher education also empowers teachers to “have their researcher glasses on” as they teach and to constantly analyse if their methods are effective. 

InsiderHigherEd. Open Society University Network Launched With $1 Billion Gift: Bard College and Central European University will lead new network focused on a range of education, social, civic, human rights and environmental issues.   It will also be involved in teacher education programs that focus on student-centered learning…

NLTimes. More Students Opting To Become Teachers, Nurses   This academic year the number of new students studying to become a teacher in primary education increased by 9.5 percent.

PressProgress. Doug Ford’s Government is Now Looking For Private Companies to Test Ontario Teachers’ Grade 3 Math Skills   In the Ontario Legislature, Ford claimed “one-third of teachers at teachers’ college have failed grade 6 and grade 7 math.” 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE Member Alumni are Finalist for Teacher of the Year   The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) have announced the four finalists for the 2020 National Teacher of the Year, all of whom are graduates of AACTE member institutions…
2) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Video Series: Building the Special Education Pipeline

Arkansas Democrat Gazette. More people taking Arkansas teacher prep courses   A recent three-year drop in the number of people enrolled in Arkansas teacher preparation programs appears to have bottomed out, and the number is on the upswing, preliminary data from the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education show.

Chalkbeat.
1) Teacher pay, literacy, and mental health are priorities in Tennessee governor’s proposed budget   To complement salary increases, Lee wants to set aside $8.5 million to launch the Governor’s Teaching Fellowship to provide college scholarships for 1,000 of “our best and brightest” students to train to become teachers.
2) What the Democratic presidential candidates have said about education: Teacher diversity   Biden has said he would support dual-enrollment classes for high school students who are aspiring teachers, help teachers aides get their teaching licenses, and invest in HBCUs…Sanders says he would establish a fund to create and expand teacher-training programs at HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions… Warren has said she would boost teacher diversity by investing in HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions. She’s also said she would increase funding for Grow Your Own Teacher programs and teacher residency programs…

Commonwealth. Unpacking Riley’s teacher licensing proposal: It’s a crack in the armor of high-stakes testing.  …would allow teachers who fail the MTEL state teacher licensing exam repeatedly to be vetted by experts who observe their actual work in the classroom… Massachusetts’ high-stakes licensing exam for teachers has resulted in a teaching force that does not resemble its students.

Education Week.
1) ‘Government Schools’ or Public Schools? Trump, DeVos, and the Language of School Choice   The phrase has a long history in both scholarship about school choice and in messaging policies like private school vouchers, said Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “It’s had this history that’s been tied to one sector that’s really animated by economic principles and ideas… then there’s the part of that community that’s been animated by religious autonomy and prayer in schools. Those folks aren’t necessarily the same …Trump’s more instinctually reacting to the elements of that that are tied to protecting religion and the rights of institutions and individuals to act based on their religious beliefs.”
2) Tennessee Seeks New Teacher, Principal Requirements in ‘Science of Reading’  Programs that prepare teachers and principals would be required to teach evidence-based reading instruction “exclusively,” Schwinn said. 
3) When Teachers Are Tough Graders, Students Learn More, Study Says    The study found that teachers who attended selective colleges, hold graduate degrees, and have more experience tend to have higher grading standards. Teachers with graduate degrees have grading standards that are about 19 percent of a standard deviation stricter than teachers without higher degrees—possibly because they experienced a more challenging academic environment. 
4) White Teachers Need Anti-Racist Therapy    I have also found the work of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, a professor at Teachers College, helpful. In a process she calls “Healing Through the Archaeology of Self,” Sealey-Ruiz asks teachers to dig, reflect, and discover their identities in relationship to their students, systems of oppression, and how teachers can be interrupters of the status quo.

InsideHigherEd.
1) Prepping for a Community College Career.  Doctoral education doesn’t necessarily prepare future faculty members for the jobs they’re likely to get at teaching-intensive institutions. A new grant program takes aim at that problem.
2) Simplifying Public Service Loan Forgiveness  The U.S. Department of Education signaled it will make it easier to apply for Public Service Loan Forgiveness after the application process has faced criticism for being too unwieldy.

NEA Today.
1) Black History Month Lessons & Resources
2) Hawaii Educators Tackle Teacher Shortage With Ambitious 5-Year Plan  … include partnerships to help fund college tuition for students who commit to teaching in public schools for 3-5 years; an expansion of “Grow Your Own” programs; and working with lawmakers and the private sector on ways to increase affordable housing for educators.

New York Times. The New York Times Learning Network now on YouTube

The 74. Q&A — Three Minutes With CZI’s Brooke Stafford-Brizard: What the Schools Best at Supporting the Whole Child Have in Common [interview with Greg Richmond]    I started my career as a middle school teacher in the Bronx. I was a Teach for America corps member. I wasn’t an education major. I went back to graduate school after I taught middle school, and the program I focused on was cognitive sciences in education, a doctoral program in human development that was part of Teachers College at Columbia, and I learned the science of learning and development. 

The Colorado Sun. Most Colorado public school teachers are white, but almost half of their students are not. Can the state close the gap? Through the legislation, aspiring teachers would be able to see more detailed data about Colorado’s educator preparation programs and understand what programs are best preparing candidates to test for their licensure

Washington Post. News Literacy Project   The News Literacy Project empowers educators to teach students the skills they need to become smart, active consumers of news and other information and engaged, informed participants in civic life.

WDRB. JCPS, U of L launch residency program to get more teachers in local classrooms   Hoping to address its teaching shortage and attract more minorities into the profession, Jefferson County Public Schools announced a new one-year residency program with the University of Louisville on Thursday.

WRAL. Kansas City using a fellowship program to train new teachers   Not only is the program helping KCK retain teachers, it’s also helping the district recruit more diverse educators. About half of the teaching fellows come from diverse backgrounds. The district’s students are about 50% Latino, 27% black and 13% white.

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. Your child’s birth month matters: NYC students born in November and December are classified with learning disabilities at higher rates   “New York’s Dec. 31 cutoff leads to unbalanced comparisons,” said Mariana Souto-Manning, professor at Columbia’s Teachers College and director of Early Childhood Education and Early Childhood Special Education Programs. “The misalignment of cut-offs across states and New York’s cut-off being Dec. 31 end up pressuring New York education leaders and teachers to push-down academic skills in ways that are inappropriate.” 

New York State Education Department (NYSED)
1) Letter of Intent Posting (LOI)– New York State Teacher Performance Assessment Seeking LOIs from vendors to administer and report a program of Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) for New York State (NYS) teacher candidates as part of the NYSTCE program. *For the NYSTCE’s TPA program, NYSED currently uses the edTPA, which is a subject-specific, summative assessment designed to measure the knowledge and skills that candidates need to effectively teach subject matter to students. In NYS, the edTPA is administered to approximately 10,000 NYS teacher candidates annually. The edTPA is a multi-state assessment that is administered to a large racially/ethnically and geographically diverse population of teacher candidates in 41 states and Washington D.C. Currently, 20 states have policies that require candidates to pass a teacher performance assessment in order to obtain teacher certification. The edTPA has been approved as a teacher performance assessment for certification purposes in all of these states. * Note: Pearson’s contract ends later this year.
2) Seeking Experts for Review of NYSTCE Bilingual Education Assessments
NYSED is seeking educators to participate in a review of the New York State Teacher Certification Examination (NYSTCE) Framework for the revised Bilingual Education Assessments. A Framework Review Conference is scheduled for March 13, 2020, at the Hilton Albany, 40 Lodge Street, Albany, NY 12207. The framework for the current assessment is available here. Nominate qualified educators* here: http://research.net/s/NYSTPNominate. NYSED would appreciate nominations by February 14, 2020. All nominees must complete the online application here. Participants receive an honorarium and, if needed, reimbursement for travel expenses and lodging.

NYSED Board of Regents.
1) Approved in January: Amendments to the Regulations Relating to the Addition of Subject Areas to the Limited Extension and Statement of Continued Eligibility (SOCE) for Certain Teachers of Students with Disabilities and Technical Amendments to the Limited Extension, SOCE, and Subject Area Extensions in Grades 7-12 for Certain Teachers of Students with Disabilities | Regents Memo HE (A) 1 *. More information is available about this requirement and the subject area certification options on NYSED’s Special Education Teacher Certification Options webpage.
2) Conditionally Approved in January: New York State K-12 Computer Science and Digital Literacy Learning Standards |Regents MemoP-12 (A) 4 and Supplemental Presentation: Standards are grouped into four grade bands: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 and students are expected to master the standards by the end of the last year of the grade band. SED plans to return to the Regents for final adoption by later this spring, kicking off a multi-year roll out with full implementation planned for September, 2024.
3) Meeting Agenda for February 2020

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. De Blasio adds little to his education agenda in ‘State of the City’ speech   Also expanding: a program designed to recruit more men of color into city schools, a group that makes up less than 9% of the city’s teachers, state data show. Officials said the city would put 1,000 more men of color “on the path to becoming teachers” by 2022. That’s identical to a promise the city made to add 1,000 men of color into the teaching pipeline by 2018, a goal officials said they accomplished. The education department hired some 1,700 men of color over three school years, running through the end of the 2018-2019 school year, officials said.

Teaching Residents at Teachers College (TR@TC) Winter Edition Newsletter

Categories
Teacher Education

Week of January 27 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
Center for Teacher Education Research. The Fourth Global Teacher Education Summit. [Beijing Normal University 23-26 October]

DutchNews.nl.  Teachers strike, but there is no more money, education minister says   Slob told the Telegraaf that the cabinet has pumped lots of extra money into education, and has improved the salaries of primary school teachers. Efforts are also being made to encourage people to switch careers, and more people are signing up to teacher training colleges, he said.

NL Times. Over 4,000 Schools Close As Teachers Start Their 2-Day Strike   And the number of applications for teaching training programs, both from new students and from professionals looking to switch careers, are on the rise, he said in NPO talk show Op1. 

Teachers Union of Ireland. TUI members to take strike action on Tuesday, 4th February over failure to eliminate pay discrimination
The following measures are required to end pay discrimination:  •Elimination of the remaining differences in the early points of scale for ‘new entrant’ grades …  •Commencement on point 3 of scale in recognition of the six-year (primary degree and PME) unpaid training period 

UNESCO. CFP: World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development, deadline 10 Feb. [2-4 June, Berlin].

UNITED STATES
100Kin10. 2019 TRENDS REPORT: Trends and Predictions that will define STEM in 2020   …Public Education & Business Coalition with three other partners is contributing to an ongoing body of work focused on digital literacy as a component of teacher preparation…

AACTE.
1) Developing Trauma-Informed Teachers: The Story Of One Teacher Preparation Program   … enables preservice teachers to then identify classroom practices, inviting growth and learning while eliminating practices that retraumatize or inhibit school success. This critique allows them to now create a trauma-informed education plan, then implement and evaluate its efficacy in order to determine best practices for students in their classrooms.
2) Discounted Hotel Rates for AACTE Annual Meeting Extended until February 10! [Feb. 28 – Mar. 1, Atlanta]
3) Recruiting Special Education Teachers Takes New Form at UNC Charlotte   … department of special education and child development received a grant to produce a video to recruit future special educators to the university. Led by Christopher O’Brien, associate professor and special education undergraduate program director, the production features faculty, students, and alumni of the special education teacher preparation program.

AACTE/StanfordSCALE. 2020 Teacher Performance Assessment Conference Preliminary Program [March 26-28, Austin, TX]

Atascadero News. Cunningham Introduces Legislation to Address Teacher Shortage   … AB 1982 would no longer require a prospective teacher to take the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) if the individual earned a B or better in college-level courses that correspond with the three major areas covered in the test (reading, writing and math).

Bipartisan Policy Center. Report: A New Course for Higher Education. …comprehensive package of recommendations that Congress should consider as part of reauthorization of the Higher Education Act… Turning the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program into a flat monthly benefit would also advance simplicity and better support public servants at the beginning of their careers, when wages tend to be lowest

Boston Globe. State eyes plan to improve diversity among teachers   …seeking to allow teachers who repeatedly fail their exams to receive a license based on their actual work experience — vetted by an expert — instead of their test scores. His proposal would also allow educators in some instances to take another licensing test offered in 26 other states.

California State University. Making a Difference: Men of Color as Teachers   Across the CSU, more initiatives have cropped up aimed specifically at preparing male teachers of color. For example, the Future Minority Male Teachers of California (F2MTC) project recruits high schoolers for CSU teacher education programs

Chalkbeat. Most Colorado teacher prep programs don’t teach reading well, report says. University leaders don’t buy it.   Kathy Schultz, the dean of the school of education at the University of Colorado Boulder, said her university, like several others in Colorado, doesn’t volunteer information on course syllabi and reading material to the National Council on Teacher Quality because university leaders don’t consider the council’s methodology valid.

Education Week.
1) Advocates for Science-Based Reading Instruction Worry California Plan Sends the Wrong Message   The legislature passed a series of bills that required schools to use materials that taught phonics, created new English/language arts standards, and provided funding to train teachers in phonics instruction.
2) Rural schools court `homegrown’ teachers amid shortage   Across the country, a movement to train homegrown educators is gaining momentum, according to Professor Angela Valenzuela, director of the University of Texas Center for Education Policy, who has studied the phenomenon.
3) State Chiefs Champion ‘Science of Reading’ at Literacy Summit   At a roundtable discussion in Washington, D.C., leaders advocated for states to play a stronger role in championing science-backed instruction and translating research into practice, focusing on levers like teacher training, certification, and system-wide professional learning.  
4) Teacher-Preparation Programs Make Gains in the ‘Science of Reading,’ Review Finds   The NCTQ experts found that comprehension was the component most covered by traditional teacher-preparation programs, and phonemic awareness was the least—just over half of traditional programs cover this skill, which is the ability to identify individual sounds in spoken words. 

InsideHigherEd. Teacher Prep Programs Embrace Science of Reading   A report out this week from the National Council on Teacher Quality says that teacher preparation programs are increasingly embracing what it calls the “science of reading instruction”… Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in a statement regarding the findings, “We know how to teach kids how to read. We just need to equip teachers with the fact-based, proven science to do it.” 

School Library Journal. Games Can Teach About Climate Change and Motivate Ecofriendly Actions  [by J. Lee, Teachers College]  We have lesson plans for teachers, free printable editions and classroom kits available, as we look to partner with educators to continue development of this game.

The74.
1) At National Literacy Summit, State Education Chiefs Warn of Reading Stagnation   A few, calling early literacy the “civil rights issue of our time,” complained of the difficulty of mandating better practices, such as rigorous curricula and tighter teacher certification requirements, in states where most control over education is devolved to local school districts.
2) How Well Are Teachers Being Taught? New Report Finds Majority of Teacher Prep Programs Thoroughly Instructing Future Educators on the Science of Reading   The National Council on Teacher Quality, which has in the past butted heads with teacher groups, reviewed the reading coursework and practice opportunities of 1,000 elementary school teaching programs across a wide range of programs. Based on curriculum spanning from the undergraduate level to alternative providers, NCTQ developed an assessment of where the nation’s teacher preparation sector stands on educating future classroom leaders on how children learn to read.

Time. How Black Lives Matter Is Changing What Students Learn During Black History Month   Many people in the mostly-white U.S. teacher population haven’t taken a dedicated course in black history and are learning as they go…it’s crucial that educators become better equipped to teach the subject… to give students more perspective on black experiences worldwide, an Advanced Placement seminar on the African Diaspora, developed by Columbia University’s Teachers College, the University of Notre Dame and Tuskegee University, is being piloted in 11 schools in the 2019-2020 year

Washington Post. Read all about it: The ‘reading wars’ are back in America’s education salons   Lucy M. Calkins, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and a much-revered expert on how to teach reading…told me she agrees that children should be taught decoding until they master it. She said in her essay: “There is merit to much of what the phonics people are saying,” but it would be a mistake to teach phonics “at the expense of reading and writing.” All the combatants appear to concur with her on that.

WKRN [TN]. School district works to cut teacher shortage through ‘Grow Your Own’ program.  The program provides 20 recent high school graduates and 20 teachers aides the opportunity to become full-time teachers in just three years for free.  You read that right. The program comes at no cost to the participant. Books, tuition, and tutoring are all free… Residents work in schools during the day as educational assistance and by night they are full-time college students at Austin Peay State University​.

 

 

NEW YORK STATE
LoHud. New York’s teacher diversity problem: 80% are white, when most students aren’tThey’ve often run into the same problem: Minority students who dealt with entrenched racism while attending school themselves aren’t willing to entertain a career in education, education officials said.

My Brother’s Keeper. TOC II Spotlight: Clarkson University’s KaiChe’ Roxborough

NYSED Office of Higher Education. January Newsletter
New York State Learning Standards for Computer Science and Digital Fluency.
Update on the Implementation of the edTPA.
Subject Area Certification Requirement For Special Education Teachers Who Teach A Special Class In Grades 7-12
Educator Diversity Report

NYSED Rule-Making Activities.
1) Languages Other Than English (LOTE) Standards Review  Public Comment Period Survey (open from Monday, December 16th through Saturday, February 1st).  
2) Time Extension of Initial, Transitional and Provisional Certificates  Public comment period opens Jan. 29. The Department is proposing to allow educators who hold an Initial certificate, Initial Reissuance, Provisional certificate, or Provisional Renewal to receive one Time Extension after the issuance of their first Initial or Provisional certificate. 
3) Addition of Subject Areas to the Limited Extension and SOCE for Certain Teachers of Students with Disabilities  Public comment period opens Jan. 29  Purpose: To enable more qualified teachers of students with disabilities to seek the limited extension and Statement Of Continued Eligibility.

NEW YORK CITY
Bank Street College of Education. Investing in the Birth-to-Three Work Force.  The Path Forward: Strengthening Systems. Building A System Of Residency Models

NY Daily News. How Can We Get More Men in Early Childhood Education?  Achieving gender balance in the early childhood workforce offers children the experience of having their growth and learning supported by women and men alike — and validates a healthy world view in which they can thrive.  

PIX11. Nearly 2K special needs children in NYC could be without preschool seats: report   While many preschoolers with disabilities receive services within general education classes, students with significant special needs have the right to be placed in a smaller class with a certified special education teacher… Compounding the issue is a teacher shortage as community-based providers struggle to compete with higher salaries offered in pre-K classrooms run by the city’s education department.

Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. In Defense of Balanced Literacy: Understanding and Responding to Student Achievement Partners’ Critique of Units of Study

Wall Street Journal. Some Dog Walkers Earn More Than Caregivers for Babies. Educators Want to Change That.  A new Bank Street College report calls for more public and private investment in training and pay for teachers serving children from birth to age 3

Washington Post. NYC Community Schools, focused on child poverty, succeed in key metrics, study finds   Unlike other reform ideas, the program does not directly address teacher quality, curriculum or other core aspects of education.

Categories
Teacher Education

Week of January 20 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
Center For Innovation In Teacher Education And Development (CITED).   Performativity, Presentism and Practice: New Teacher Survival and Development, with Dr. Adam Unwin, UCL, Institute of Education, London, UK. [29 January, Teachers College, New York City]

Federation University. Teaching our next teachers – educator awarded Fulbright Scholarship.  Associate Professor Robyn Brandenburg, the Associate Dean of Research in the School of Education, will spend three months at Montclair State University in the United States to research the effectiveness of teacher education programs designed to meet Teacher Performance Assessment Standards (TPAs). She will look at the impact TPAs have on teacher educators, pre-service teachers and mentors in schools.

Rising Sun Overport. KZN teachers jet off to study in Columbia University   A group of 20 top academics (mostly teacher educators) from three South African universities, the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Durban University of Technology and the University of Zululand are participants of an intensive four-year programme, Accelerated Academic Leadership Development Programme (AALDP)… Now, in their third year of study, the educators will be flying to the Teachers College, Columbia University for a five-month residency.

The Hindu. Playing with learning: On status of early childhood education   …surveys such as ASER call for a deeper look at how governments approach funding of institutions and teacher training for better outcomes. It is as important to let teachers feel invested in anganwadis as play-and-learn centres aiding children in acquiring cognitive skills, as it is to provide physical infrastructure. Building human resource capabilities would depend on teachers being recruited on the basis of aptitude, their training in credentialed colleges and assurance of tenure of service. 

The National UAE. Thousands of UAE teachers sit licence test   By the end of this year, any teacher wishing to work in the country will be required to have taken and passed the exam… To be awarded the licence, teachers need to two pass two examinations: one on ‘pedagogy’ or approaches to teaching and another specialist exam on the subject they teach.

UNESCO. International Day of Education  [24 January]

UNITED STATES
Education Dive. Teacher prep, equity top list of ‘hot’ literacy topics   According to the survey, teachers were slightly more likely to say they were trained to teach reading using a “literature-based” approach rather than a phonics approach — 69% compared to 63%. Fifty-nine percent said their program emphasized phonemic awareness. But regardless of the method, only about a third or fewer of the respondents said their pre-service programs did an “excellent” or “very good” job teaching them that method.

Education Week
1) An Exit Interview With John White, the Nation’s Longest-Serving State Schools Chief   White… distanced himself from the education reform activity of the last 10 to 15 years at the national level… That movement, he said, intentionally focused on policies concerning curriculum and teacher training and how to make sure schools could succeed in those areas at a large scale.
2) New Mexico switches to new licensing test for teachers   New Mexico has opted for a new teacher candidate exam system that will mean a higher price tag for those taking the test for the first time… But officials tell the Albuquerque Journal that the new system will provide more support to test takers and retakes will be free.
3) Preservice Teachers Are Getting Mixed Messages on How to Teach Reading   Yet an Education Week analysis of nationally representative survey results found that professors who teach early-reading courses are introducing the work of researchers and authors whose findings and theories often conflict with one another, including some that may not be aligned with the greater body of scientific research.
4) Teachers Are Divided on Whether Phonics Is Getting Too Much Attention, Survey Says   Sixty percent of all respondents think that teacher-preparation programs aren’t preparing teachers to deliver effective reading instruction. These concerns have also been reflected in Education Week’s reporting, which has found that teachers often leave their preservice programs without much clarity on evidence-based practices.
5) This Teacher Spent a Day as a 4th Grader. Now She’s Rethinking Her Career   It was a required assignment for a school leadership program I’m completing at Teachers College, Columbia University… Mindfulness and self-awareness training have been a big part of my principal-preparation program, and I believe these techniques could help teachers.

LPI/AACTE. Preparing Educators for Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Classrooms  [Webinar 3pm Jan. 30]

NCB Chicago. Pritzker Announces Continued Expansion of Early Childhood Programs   “Our teachers are properly trained,” said Karen Ross-Williams of the Christopher House, a group of schools in Chicago that helps children in low-income families get access to quality educational resources. “That’s the other key piece. We don’t just throw them in and say ‘swim.’” 

Regional Educational Laboratory Program. Study Provides a Clear Picture of Alaska’s Educator Turnover Challenge   … findings suggest policymakers may want to focus on increasing the supply of homegrown educators, as those who were prepared in Alaska were more likely to stay at their school.

UNC School of Education. School to develop ‘deeper learning’ pedagogies in two EdPrepLab-backed projects   School of Education faculty will collaborate with researchers at three other campuses to develop “deeper learning” pedagogies in educator-preparation programs in two projects backed by the Educator Preparation Laboratory, or EdPrepLab… The projects will build upon and extend efforts at the School of Education to incorporate experiential learning practices in the Master of Arts in Teaching program…

San Francisco Chronicle. Diversifying the teaching profession requires confronting history   … following the 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville teacher strikes in New York City when white teachers clashed with black and Puerto Rican communities over control of the schools, city leaders identified the hiring of teachers of color as a salve, funding recruitment initiatives and easing certification rules. In this moment, a temporary pathway opened: Thousands of black and Latino adults entered New York City’s schools as paraprofessionals and teachers on temporary licenses. 

NEW YORK STATE
Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Hiring teachers of color is an investment in student success, group says   Educators for Excellence has since asked the State Education Department to double the funding for My Brother’s Keeper Teacher Opportunity Corps — a state grant program that partners with teacher preparation programs to recruit, train and support new teachers of color entering the profession – to $7 million.

North Country Now. SUNY Canton Early Childhood program lands SUNY TeachNY grant funding   SUNY Canton faculty members in the Early Childhood program are integrating video capture into student teaching experiences and internships, and have received a grant to aid the program… The video capture technology will allow students and a college supervisor to record, observe, critique and assess the student teaching experience virtually.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) NYC educators: With budget cuts looming, tell us what you think about teacher training   Mayor Bill de Blasio hopes to save money next fiscal year by slashing teacher training costs by $31 million.
2) Teaching the teachers: $13M grant to help NYC students learning English  While teacher preparation programs in the state require some credit hours in language acquisition, it’s not nearly as extensive as earning a certification in Teaching English to Students of Other Languages. Last year the state moved to require more credit

Teachers College. 37th Annual Winter Roundtable! Teaching To Transform [February 28th-29th]

Categories
Teacher Education

Week of Jan. 13 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
Courier Mail. Focusing on teacher OP requirements misses big picture   Almost every year, questions are raised about the quality of graduate teachers in Queensland as universities reveal their Overall Position cut-offs for teacher education courses.

Tes [UK]. Ofsted: Teachers taught to rate grades over knowledge  Some teacher training providers are encouraging trainees to plan the curriculum ‘backwards’ from Year 11, warns Ofsted

The Times of India. Bharathiar University’s physical education programme derecognized.   The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE)… has withdrawn recognition to the Bharathiar University’s department of Physical Education for conducting Bachelor of Physical Education (B.P.Ed) course from the next academic session.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE 72nd Annual Meeting Atlanta Feb. 28-Mar. 1 (registration deadline Jan. 24)
2) FY2020 Appropriations Bills Released

Key Programs Important to Educator Preparation:

Teaching Quality Partnership Grant program $50.1m  (Increase of $7m)
Special Education Personnel Preparation $89.5m (Increase of $2.5m)

3) WMU enrollment is up in teacher preparation programs   Despite a national trend toward declining enrollment in teacher preparation programs, Western Michigan University’s enrollment is up this year by about 9% in these majors…

AACTE/EdPrepLab. AACTE and partner, Educator Preparation Laboratory (EdPrepLab), an initiative of the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) and Bank Street College of Education, will host the second of a series of four webinars, Preparing educators for diverse, equitable, and inclusive classrooms, on January 30.

AACTE/SCALE. 2020 National TPA Implementation Conference: Keynotes and Presenters

Center for American Progress. Graduate School Debt: Ideas for Reducing the $37 Billion in Annual Student Loans That No One Is Talking About   Regarding teacher training, states must step up to the plate and ensure that programs at public colleges are both of high quality and affordable. The former should entail ensuring that teacher credentials impart the skills and knowledge that make teachers more effective in the classroom. This can include extended clinical practice, particularly for alternative certification master’s degrees, and increased emphasis on coaching or mentoring, content, and pedagogical knowledge.

Chalkbeat. In Illinois state board’s $9.64 billion budget ask: more money for teacher recruitment, testing   To address a dire teacher shortage, the board seeks $44 million for recruiting bilingual educators, mentoring new teachers and principals, offering a path for career and technical education teachers, and other investments into teachers. 

Education Week.
1) Here’s What Gen Z Teachers Around the World Want in Their Jobs  Early-career and preservice teachers also said they wanted to increase the focus on social and emotional learning and devote more teaching time to global issues like climate change. 
2) Louisiana Needs Literacy Coaches in Every School, Commission Urges   Teacher-preparation programs are a target of change in the report, too. It notes that at Louisiana colleges and universities, there are no common instructional materials for literacy methods. (This isn’t unusual in teacher-prep programs nationwide.) The commission urges the state to “invite” the faculty of its teacher- and administrator-preparation programs to literacy trainings. It also proposes reevaluating its K-5 teacher licensure procedures, presumably for possible revision that includes demonstrating mastery of research-based literacy instruction.

InsideHigherEd. Jury Awards Ex-Professor $800K   Newman University in Kansas discriminated against a former professor of elementary education because she is a woman and now owes her $800,000, a federal jury decided Monday.

Montclair Local. New Jersey Gets Low Grade On Sex Education, Group Says   Teachers needd better training and support to teach sex education with a comprehensive approach, Goldfarb said. Those topics need more emphasis in teacher training courses at colleges and universities, she said.

New York Times. The New York Times Teaching Project, 2020-21   Apply now for a new program that will bring together a select group of educators who teach with The Times. This opportunity begins with a three-day summer institute in New York City, travel and lodging included.

Trine University. Trine to launch state’s first Montessori teacher education program   Building on the strength and growth of its Franks School of Education, Trine University will launch Indiana’s first Montessori teacher education degree program to help meet the growing need for teachers with Montessori credentials.

Washington Monthly. Master’s of None   Teachers across the country earn grad degrees to get raises. Turns out those degrees don’t improve student learning—they just fatten universities’ bottom lines.

Washington Post. This is the student loan problem that no one talks about: Graduate school debt  Many social workers and teachers, for instance, must complete graduate coursework to keep their jobs or increase their pay, but their compensation falls short of what’s needed to pay off debt.

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Board of Regents January meetings
Higher Education Committee

NEW YORK CITY
New York University. NYU Teacher Residency Launches Part-Time Option, Continues to Expand   Now in its fourth year, New York University’s year-long teacher residency program is adding a part-time or “half-day” residency option to support more nontraditional students. The master’s program, which traditionally includes a full-time teaching requirement in concert with online coursework, will allow graduate students to choose the kind of program that best fits into their lives.

Categories
Teacher Education

Week of Dec. 2 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
BusinessWorld [Philippines]. On Education: Lessons from Finland and now, from Estonia   If we are to glean any nuggets of wisdom from the experience of Finland and Estonia, we must elevate the quality of our education colleges and the training of our teachers. Our schools must offer the same high quality of education regardless of student economic status or background. Otherwise, Filipinos will remain sorry onlookers as other countries prosper and perform well in the international educational arena.

Global Education Monitoring Report. Arab States 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report | Migration, displacement, and education: Building bridges, not walls   In Sudan… Teacher availability and qualifications constitute a major challenge in these states. Many teachers are volunteers, and around half are not trained as teachers. Training for the other half typically consists of a two week course at most. The Ministry of Education does not supervise, train or pay volunteer teachers. Schools and alternative learning centres recruit volunteer teachers, usually from the local community.

Hechinger Report.
1) The teacher’s role in “phenomenon-based learning”: Finland’s version of PBL requires teachers to strike a new balance in the classroom   Teachers have to make sure students know the foundational knowledge they need on a given topic to even consider developing a research question within it. They need to teach students how to craft appropriate research questions that can lead to interesting and engaging, and hopefully even original, research opportunities. 
2) U.K. to test ‘ed tech testbeds’ in real classrooms   After all, change happens slowly in education. It can take months or years to train teachers to teach something differently and years more to see if those pedagogical changes lead to better outcomes for students.

Ottawa Citizen  About to graduate, education students question fairness of new mandatory math test   Education students across the province are campaigning against the math test for new teachers introduced by the Conservative government even while they cram to prepare for it.

Washington Post. International alliance unveils recommendations on teaching about the Holocaust — but only 12 U.S. states require it   Experts and political leaders from more than 30 countries gathered in Luxembourg on Wednesday to declare their commitment to adopt an updated set of recommendations for teaching and learning about the Holocaust.

UNITED STATES
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE).
1) ‘Grow-Your-Own’ Efforts Continue at University of Central Florida   District leaders, lead teachers, high school students, and university faculty who partner with them came together to share knowledge and best practices as it relates to the creation, growth, and results of High School Teaching Academies and “grow-your-own” pathways.
2) Identifying Barriers to Workforce Diversity in Education [Video]
3) The Reality of Segregation in Public Schools There needs to be a preemptive strike by those who prepare teachers. We need to teach candidates about race, class, gender, age, and other identifiers that foster discrimination within our teacher prep curricula. In order to be classroom ready, young teachers need to understand the differences that exist among the students they will be tasked to teach. 

Associated Press (AP). Court hears suit arguing youth aren’t prepped for civic life   Rhode Island, in particular, stands out because there is no requirement for students to take a civics course and no indication that teachers receive specialized training to teach the topic, among other issues, Michael Rebell, lead counsel and a professor at Teachers College, said last year. 

Center for American Progress. What To Make of Declining Enrollment in Teacher Preparation Programs   … reveals divergent state policies and regulations for how to address teacher shortages and exemplifies a worrying trend in the rapid growth of for-profit, non-IHE alternative certification programs. Policymakers should consider greater state and federal regulation of this sector, along with additional data collection, to help better understand not only the decline in enrollment in teacher preparation programs but also the characteristics of U.S. teacher labor markets more broadly.

Education Week.
1) Improving Reading Isn’t Just a Teaching Shift. It’s a Culture Shift   She had learned a lot in her preparation about reading theories, but no specific protocols for teaching the subject. So she did what many teachers new to a grade do. She used the methods more seasoned colleagues told her to use…
2) Lucy Calkins, Creator of Reading Workshop, Responds to ‘Phonics-Centric People‘   Calkins’ program, the Units of Study for Teaching Reading, uses a workshop model. Teachers demonstrate the skills and habits that good readers have, and then students practice them on their own, with teachers acting as guides. The program takes a constructivist approach to education, minimizing direct instruction. 

Edutopia. Lacking Training, Teachers Develop Their Own SEL Solutions   Even if the necessary support exists, teachers don’t feel they have received enough training—either through teacher preparation programs or professional development opportunities—to address student needs.

Hechinger Report. What is it like to be a male teacher in early ed?   One early childhood educator said he wanted to be a male role model for children. Others were drawn to teaching after becoming fathers. Several said they like teaching young children because it allows them to make a difference in their communities. These are just a few of the responses researchers received from a survey of male early childhood educators, the results of which were released recently by a team from the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Inside Higher Ed. High Debt, Low Earnings: The Education Department for the first time has released earnings data for thousands of college programs at all degree levels. What do they show?   At the associate level, Kelchen’s analysis found that the lowest-earning fields included criminal justice, health administration and teacher education.

Learning Policy Institute (LPI). Interactive Map: Understanding Teacher Shortages in California: A district- and county-level analysis of the factors influencing teacher supply and demand

New York Times.
1) Cory Booker Bets $100 Billion on Historically Black Colleges and Universities   Mr. Sanders, who also proposed universal free public college and canceling all student loan debt, pledged to make similar investments in H.B.C.U.s with a focus on educating teachers and those in the medical field. 
2) ‘It Just Isn’t Working’: PISA Test Scores Cast Doubt on U.S. Education Efforts   Because the United States lacks a centralized system for teacher training or distributing quality instructional materials to schools, Professor Koretz said, states and districts did not always effectively carry out the Common Core or other initiatives.
3) There Is a Right Way to Teach Reading, and Mississippi Knows It: The state’s reliance on cognitive science explains why. [OpEd by E. Hanford] But a study in Mississippi several years ago showed that teachers were not being trained to use this model and that many professors and deans in colleges of education had never even heard of it. 

NPREducation. A Dreaded Part Of Teachers’ Jobs: Restraining And Secluding Students   She says she wishes more staff in her school had been trained so they knew how to de-escalate situations, and when, exactly, restraint or seclusion was really warranted.

Politico. Booker wants to invest $9B to help students studying early childhood education   The legislation, called the Preparing and Resourcing Our Student Parents and Early Childhood Teachers Act, or PROSPECT Act, would establish federal grants aimed at providing free child care to student-parents attending qualifying institutions, as well as increasing and improving the infant-toddler educator workforce through mentorship and training.

The74.
1) A Decade of Decline at America’s Teacher Preparation Programs: New Numbers Show Enrollment of Aspiring Educators Has Fallen By More Than a Third Since 2010   The report also recommends collecting data in such a way so that the public can know how many teacher-prep programs are run by for-profit colleges or are chiefly online.
2) How Is the Education Workforce Structured? What Are the Pathways to an Ed Career? New Report Has Some Answers   … we were struck by the sheer range of pathways that individuals can take within the field. Among our respondents, no two stories were the same. Recent graduates hoping to move into an education career and advance along a steady trajectory will find no clear signposts along the way: no external indicators that a given job will move them closer to their ultimate goals

Wall Street Journal.  Students Press Unusual Argument in Court: a Constitutional Right to Civics: Lawyers for Rhode Island students argue the Constitution guarantees an education that prepares them to be capable citizens   ‘‘We want the federal courts, and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court, to declare there is a right to a basic quantity of education to prepare kids for capable citizenship,” said Michael Rebell, lead counsel for the plaintiffs and professor at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Washington Post.
1) Education Department puts hold on 5-day suspension of employee who provided The Post with budget information   The proposal included cutting in half funding for college work-study programs, ending public-service loan forgiveness and cutting hundreds of millions of dollars that public schools could use for mental health, advanced coursework and other services.
2) Impeachment is difficult to teach. The case of President Trump provides real-time lessons   … Kevin C. Walsh, president of the John Marshall Foundation, which trains teachers to deliver lessons on the U.S. Constitution. “When we look out and we see the battling forces that are trying to enlist the Constitution on their side, it wakes us up to the need for people to be educated.”
3) The best and worst education news of 2019 — and one item hard to categorize   Most teachers polled in the respected annual PDK International survey said they would not want their children to become teachers. 
4) ‘To embrace charter schools in 2020 is to embrace Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump,’ says black scholar who once led charters   Black people need systemic change. We can’t allow the cry for charters to drown out the demands for school financing reform, better work conditions, higher teacher pay, universal pre-K, free college, teachers’ training and recruitment programs, stronger labor protections and workforce housing initiatives.

NEW YORK STATE
My Brother’s Keeper. Teacher Opportunity Corps II Spotlight: SUNY Old Westbury Interns 

NYSED Board of Regents. Regents Meeting for December 2019

NYSED Office of Higher Education. November Newsletter

  • Educator Diversity Report
  • Assessment Vouchers for Certification Exams
  • NYSTCE Field Testing and Test Development Opportunities
  • edTPA Passing score increase for candidates who submit edTPA after Dec. 5

NEW YORK CITY
City Limits. Teacher Quality is a Key Ingredient of Racial Equity in NYC Schools   To begin the process of desegregating NYC’s public schools, we need to first equip teachers for long-term efficacy in high-needs districts. 

City University of New York. Statement By Chancellor Matos Rodriguez On Ratification Of CUNY’s Five-Year Contract With Professional Staff Congress   The historic five-year deal benefits students at the nation’s premier urban public university and provides wage gains for the 30,000 full-time faculty, adjuncts and professional staff of CUNY’s largest union.

Teachers College.
Reading and Writing Project/L. Calkins. No One Gets to Own the Term “The Science of Reading”   That is, just as many teachers are not prepared for the demands of teaching phonics, many are also not prepared to support the equally important skills of comprehension. They are also not well prepared to teach writing. They also are not well prepared to support English language learners. They also are not well prepared to teach culturally relevant curriculum. Clearly, teachers don’t enter the profession with all the knowledge they will need to rise to the challenges of their enormously complex field. We all need to be engaged in continuous learning.

Categories
Teacher Education

Week of Oct. 7 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). Teaching is learning twice  Solutions to these challenges are easily identified: Training of teachers can improve such that every student is able to speak fluently in a foreign languages (i.e. English or French). Performance in schools and consequently education standards as a whole, would improve.

Education International (EI). World Teachers’ Day: EI takes the stage at UNESCO Conference and proposes five measures to make teaching a more attractive profession   The official celebration of World Teachers’ Day was held on 7 October at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The conference revolved around two panel discussions: “How to attract young people to the teaching profession” and “How to retain young and novice teachers to the profession”. 

New Times Rwanda. Unqualified teachers in dilemma   Teachers without the required qualifications will be relieved of their duties in two months except those who still have lessons…Teachers for years have been offered a grace period to acquire the required qualifications for their posts – either a two-year diploma or bachelor’s degree and some did others not.

The Guardian. Science and language teachers to get £9,000 ‘staying on’ bonus   …those with degrees in geography will see their incentives cut sharply, with those training this year receiving a bursary of £26,000 that will fall to £15,000 for those training in 2020. Bursaries for those with degrees in English or history will also fall by £3,000, after improved recruitment in those subjects.

 

UNITED STATES
100Kin10. Doing The Math: Building a foundation of joyful and authentic math learning for all students  Two of the catalysts connect directly to foundational math: teacher preparation faculty who have expertise specifically in elementary STEM education and faculty modeling instructional strategies teachers will need to use in their classroom.

American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
1) 2019 Teacher of the Year Rodney Robinson Will Headline AACTE Annual Meeting [Atlanta, Feb. 28 – Mar. 1]
2) New Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Recipients Announced   TQP is the only federal initiative dedicated to strengthening and transforming educator preparation at institutions of higher education.  Of the 31 grantees, 20 are AACTE members.

AACTE/SCALE. News from edTPA  2018 edTPA Annual Administrative Report; Call for Proposals; Handbooks and Templates for 2019-2020…

Cable News Network (CNN). Desperate to fill teacher shortages, US schools are hiring teachers from overseas   “And they look into the Philippines, because many of our teachers are actually qualified on the subjects that they are teaching. … We are not just certified, we are very qualified.”

Education Next. How Teach for America Affects Beliefs about Education   We find that TFA teachers, who all have the social and economic advantages of being high-achieving college-educated adults, are more able to see through the lens of the disadvantaged as a result of their TFA experience. They take on attitudes that are closer to those of the economic “have-nots” in the United States regarding a perceived lack of fairness of the social and political status quo, and tend to maintain these attitudes over time.

Education Post.
1) Here’s How You Should Be Talking About Christopher Columbus in Your Classroom
2) The ELL Population Is Growing, But Where Are the Teachers To Help Them Excel?   Undoubtedly, we can work to achieve those goals by recruiting more bilingual and ESL educators into high-need areas and by restructuring teacher preparation programs to better meet the needs of ELL students

Education Week.
1) Here’s What Teach For America Alumni Believe About Charters, Vouchers, and Societal Inequities   “The idea is that since candidates on either side of the admissions cutoff are likely to hold similar incoming beliefs, this approach allows for a rigorous, non-biased estimation of the impact of TFA participation itself,” said the study, which was published in the journal Education Next. And the differences between the two groups were significant…2) How Warren’s Year as a Young Teacher Could Factor in the 2020 Campaign   If she wins both her party’s nomination and the general election, Warren would be the first president since Lyndon B. Johnson to have K-12 classroom teaching experience. After studying speech pathology in college, Warren worked as a speech pathologist under an “emergency certificate” at an elementary school in Riverdale, N.J., fulfilling a childhood dream of becoming an educator, she has said.
3) Stop Punting Dyslexia to Teachers. It’s Everyone’s Responsibility   …children with dyslexia need peripheral support from visionary professionals, including school leaders who prioritize meeting the needs of all children, teacher-preparation programs that effectively train teachers, professional organizations who advocate for them, insurance companies that reimburse families for the high costs associated with advocating for their child, employers who support time off for parents to attend school-based meetings, and translators to communicate with parents from diverse language backgrounds.
4) Teaching Impeachment? Here’s Your One-Stop Shop for Resources
5) Who’s Doing the Teaching After School Lets Out?   As more after-school programs provide academic enrichment for students, providers are turning to specialized training to help staff members demonstrate that they’re qualified to guide lessons.

Hechinger Report. Four ways that educators can help young black students thrive: Affirming, protecting and cultivating the humanity of black children

Inside Higher Ed.
1) Grad School Without the GRE
2) Grad Enrollment: Gains at Home, Losses Abroad  Enrollments in education also increased 3.2 percent year over year… Business, education and health sciences — the biggest broad fields of study — had the biggest share of part-time students.

National Education Policy Center (NEPC). A Call to Retreat from Trendy Teacher Education Reform  Hundreds of leaders in colleges of education across the country present a vision for teacher-education reform, providing an alternative to trendy notions for changing teacher preparation.

NPREd. Study Finds Students Of All Races Prefer Teachers Of Color   Cherng is a sociologist at New York University…His working theory is that teachers of color score more highly because of their ability to draw on their own experiences to address issues of race and gender…He’s currently working on a series of studies that look at preservice teachers and teacher training, to provide more evidence about the relationship between teachers’ multicultural beliefs and awareness and their effectiveness in the classroom.

Orange County Breeze. Reps. Rouda, Davis, and Sablan introduce Teacher Leader Quality Partnership Grants Act   Representatives Harley Rouda (CA-48), Susan Davis (CA-53), and Gregorio Sablan (NMI) introduced H.R. 4423, the Teacher and School Leader Quality Partnership Grants Act, along with Reps. David Trone (MD-06) and Brad Schneider (IL-10). The Teacher and School Leader Quality Partnership Grants Act improves teacher preparedness and increases development opportunities for educators…

Teaching Tolerance. Black Minds Matter: Interrupting school practices that disregard the mental health of black youth.  Teacher educator Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz uses the phrase “Archeology of the Self” to describe how teachers should dig deep, peel back layers of themselves and think about how issues of race, class, religion and sexual identity live within. 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSATE/NYACTE. 2019 Annual Conference. Coalitions of Care in Teacher Education: Educating the Whole Student, Supporting the Whole Teacher  [Oct. 17-18 Saratoga Springs]

NYSED Board of Regents October Meetings.
State Education Department September 2019 Fiscal Report Office of Teacher Certification 7,231,395 (Available 4/1/19)…
Consent Agenda:
Proposed Amendment to Sections 80-3.15 and 80-4.3 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Extension of the Application Deadline for the Statement of Continued Eligibility (SOCE) for Certain Teachers of Students with Disabilitie
Proposed Amendments to Sections 80-5.8 and 80-5.20 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Eligibility Requirements for the Endorsement Pathway for Certification as an Educator in the Classroom Teaching Service or in the Educat

The74. A Decade After It Promised to Reinvent Teacher Prep, Relay Is Producing a Much-Needed, More Diverse Teaching Corps   The groundwork for Relay was laid in 2007 by founding president Norman Atkins, who also started the Uncommon Schools network of charter schools. The program incubated at Hunter College as Teacher U, and then, in 2011, it became the first stand-alone graduate school of education in New York state to open in more than 80 years. 

 

NEW YORK CITY
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. New Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Recipients Announced   TQP is the only federal initiative dedicated to strengthening and transforming educator preparation at institutions of higher education.  Of the 31 grantees, 3 are in New York City…American Museum on Natural History; Lehman College, CUNY; Teachers College, Columbia University

Chalkbeat. To boost literacy, this Queens school is training support staff to teach reading   Deploying paraprofessionals to help teach reading is a core element of the school’s strategy to boost literacy, aided by the nonprofit Literacy Trust, which has helped train teaching assistants and other staff in nearly 120 schools citywide.

Teachers College.
1) Math, Science, Technology Dept. STEAMnasium [Nov.5, Smith Learning Theater]
2) Teaching Residents at Teachers College Fall Newsletter

Categories
Teacher Education

Week of Oct. 14 in Teacher Ed News

GLOBAL
EducationInternational. Statement | EI calls on World Bank to change tack in education   EI and over 170 civil society organisations from across the world call on the Bank to take a clear and principled position in support of free, publicly funded and provided education … it should advocate for teachers to be professionally trained and highly qualified, actively supported and well-resourced. 

EdWeek. Students Learn More From Inquiry-Based Teaching, International Study Finds   “What we saw with respect to gender was the teachers appear to have implicit gender biases and tend to focus more on the boys in the classroom,” … Näslund-Hadley said the countries have since been working to provide more training before and during implementation to encourage teachers to involve students more equitably.

NCEE. Building the Nation Builders: How Singapore Supports Its World-Class Teaching Profession   Recently, NCEE spoke with educators and leaders throughout the system—from an aspiring teacher in the nation’s only teacher preparation program, the National Institute of Education (“NIE”), to the Director-General of Education.

TES (UK). Ofsted to focus on teacher training curriculum  Amanda Spielman says Ofsted’s teacher training checks have been too driven by data, which could have masked weaknesses

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) 20 AACTE Member Institutions Receive 2019 Teacher Quality Partnership Grants   Eligibility for the 2019 TQP grants required applicants to have programs designed to prepare computer science teachers as well as the STEM fields overall, and to take place in a Qualified Opportunity Zone as designated by the Internal Revenue Service.
2) Team Wins 5-year, $1.98 Million NSF Grant to Improve Teacher Preparation   A team of Penn State College of Education faculty led by P. Karen Murphy has won a five-year, $1.98 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve the preparation of undergraduate preservice elementary teachers.

AAQEP.  2020 Quality Assurance Symposium [Feb. 27, Atlanta]

BridgeMichigan, Fewer Michigan college students want to be teachers. That’s a problem.   Fewer college students are making that choice. Low salaries and negative perceptions of teaching are driving Michigan college students away from teacher preparation programs, hobbling efforts to improve the state’s struggling schools. Fewer teachers with four-year education degrees has also meant more Michigan classrooms led by long-term substitutes, who generally have far less training.

Chronicle. ‘Students Learn Best in Their Preferred Learning Style,’ and Other Neuromyths   There is no evidence, the report says, to support the idea that people learn best when taught in their preferred learning style. In fact, it says, research suggests that “teaching to learning styles may actually hinder learning or affect a student’s self-perception,” 

InsideHigherEd.
1) The Incredible Shrinking Higher Ed Industry: Number of U.S. colleges and universities that award federal financial aid fell by 5.6 percent in 2018-19, to lowest mark in two decades.
2) Warren to DeVos: Drop Navient’s Contract  A judge’s decision in another recent case brought against four borrowers over alleged mishandling of Public Service Loan Forgiveness applications largely went in Navient’s favor.

NCEE. Reviewing OECD’s Annual Report Education Outlook 2019 from a U.S. Perspective [Webinar Video]

Washington Post. Yes, teacher-preparation programs need to be fixed — but more than 350 education leaders say reforms are ‘making things worse’   An alliance of more than 350 deans and other leaders in the field of teacher education issued a major new statement saying many teacher-preparation programs in this country are not working well but that some key efforts to reform them are only “making things worse.”

NEW YORK STATE
NYSATE/NYACTE. 2019 Annual Conference Coalitions of Care in Teacher Education: Educating the Whole Student, Supporting the Whole Teacher [Sept. 16-18] Presentation by S. Reid, K. Ledwell of Teachers College “A Culturally Relevant Approach to Professional Development for Preservice Teachers of Color”

Pearson. New York State Teacher Certification Examinations (NYSTCE).   The New York State Education Department (NYSED) and the Evaluation Systems group of Pearson are seeking candidates … to participate in a field test of items that may appear on future NYSTCE test forms. Field test participants will receive incentives upon verification of participation.

TimesUnion. NY could mandate dyslexia screening in preschool   “Schools of education all too frequently do a disservice by not providing teachers with the skills and knowledge they need to teach reading … it’s frustrating for the teachers as well as the children,” said Dr. John J. Russell, executive director of The Windward Institute, who was head of the school for 13 years.

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College.
1) Celebrating TC’s Innovative Residency Program: A new federal grant funds TR@TC3   TR@TC prepares TESOL, special education, math, and science teachers to work in high-need New York City public schools through an intensive residency and mentorship program grounded in the Teachers College philosophy of inclusive education. Apply by November 8th and prepare to transform lives in New York City schools.
2) CFP The 37th Annual Teachers College Winter Roundtable: Teaching to Transform; Feb. 28-29 [proposal deadline Oct. 28]
3) EdLab Learning Theater Spotlight: Citizen Scientists Showcase  The Teaching Residents at Teachers College program, known as TR@TC, prepares highly qualified teachers to teach in New York City public schools.
4) Michelle Knight-Manuel is Named Executive Editor of the Teachers College Record   Knight-Manuel is a former middle school ESL/French teacher … her work focuses on college readiness and access, immigrant youth’s civic strengths, and culturally relevant teacher preparation and professional development.