Tag: Teacher Prep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FreshEd. Decolonizing Teacher Training in Pakistan [Podcast]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NYSED. 2017-18 Professional Standards and Practices Board Members

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NYSED Regents. October 16-17 meeting agenda

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NCTQ. Best Books for New Teachers (Part I)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEA. Resources for Educators supporting DREAMers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NYSED Board of Regents, Sept. Meeting.
1) Proposed Amendment to Section 80-5.17 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education to Permanently Extend the Option for Certain Out-of-State Candidates to be Eligible for a Conditional Initial Certificate
2) Update on the edTPA Standard Setting Committee and Amendment to Section 80-1.5 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education to Extend the edTPA Safety Net and Revise the Eligibility Criteria for the Multiple Measures Review Process  Under the recommended phase-in period beginning January 1, 2018, the new passing score for the edTPA would be 38.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

Uni Reviews. Best Teacher Education Universities in Australia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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