Tag: Teacher Residency

GLOBAL

CNA [Singapore]. More support for early childhood educators, outdoor learning to be enhanced: ECDA   … organising peer sharing session for educators to share experiences in conducting outdoor learning, as well as advanced training courses for educators and trainers who attended training sessions in outdoor learning in 2019.

Education Business (UK). DfE cuts and cancels some teacher training bursaries. The government has cut some teacher training bursaries as well as scrapping others altogether, it has been revealed in new guidance on initial teacher training funding for the 2021-22 academic year.

Florida State University News. USAID-Florida State University partnership set to boost teacher training systems in Zambia.  Over the five-year period, the “USAID Transforming Teacher Education Program” will give more than 60 Zambian teacher educators the skills to deliver effective instruction to 9,000 college and university students studying to become primary grade teachers.

GMA News Online. PRC exec: ‘Open enrollment’ behind low LET passing rate among teachers; CHED disagrees   The lack of strict admission rules for aspiring teachers is one of the reasons behind the low passing rate among education graduates who take the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) in the Philippines, an official from the Professional Regulation Commission on Monday. During a Senate committee on basic education hearing on quality of teacher education and training, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian asked why only an average of 30% and 48% of elementary and secondary education graduates who take the LET have passed in recent years.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Issue Brief Explores Financial Challenges Facing Future Teachers   The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) released today its latest issue brief, How Do Education Students Pay for College? The report provides colleges of education a closer look at the financial pressures impacting education students..
2) Registration open. 73^rd Annual meeting: Resisting Hate, Restoring Hope: Engaging in Courageous Action [Virtual Conf. Feb. 24-26, 2021]
3) Strengthening Teacher Preparation: Transforming Clinical Practice   Back in 2015, a group of department chairs, administrative leadership, program directors and faculty at Jackson State University formed a task force to write a plan for transforming our teacher preparation program. In that plan, we identified areas of strength and areas we needed to improve.

Chalkbeat. How do you create a more diverse teacher force? Hire your own graduates, Chicago says.   The district is partnering with City Colleges of Chicago and Illinois State University to offer scholarships, financial and career counseling, and eventually preferential hiring to district graduates… The program will also encourage more men to become teachers. My Brother’s Keeper, created by former President Barack Obama to address racial disparities facing young men of color, also will partner with the district.

Education Week.
1) To Root Out Racism in Schools, Start With Who You Hire.  Brooks-DeCosta’s [TC EdD ‘17] doctoral leadership program at Teachers College focused on anti-racist leadership, and part of it required her to write a racial autobiography identifying the first time she became racially aware or the first time she became aware of her race, who she is, and how she identified…
2) Yes, Teachers Are Still Being Evaluated. Many Say It’s Unfair   … the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers issued a joint statement along with state administrators’ associations warning that “teachers are not primarily trained to provide remote instruction and qualified evaluators are not trained to evaluate remote instruction.” Districts should focus on evaluations on “formative feedback and support” instead of summative ratings, the groups said. 

Hechinger Report.
1) Getting rid of gifted programs: Trying to teach students at all levels together in one class   “I have gone to a lot of conferences about educational diversity that were held during the weekday during the school year,” said Amy Stuart Wells, professor of education at Teachers College… “There were no teachers at these conferences. There was a lot of talk about moving kids around. There were a lot of recommendations thrown out there. But when it came to how they’d really work, the attitude was, ‘Let’s let the teachers worry about it.’ ”
2) Why decades of trying to end racial segregation in gifted education haven’t worked: Is it even possible to make a concept that has racist origins more equitable?   And testing only students whose teachers or parents are aware of the program and request it; few teachers get trained in gifted education, so their recommendations are often based on stereotypes… 
3) Why we need a new generation of special education teachers   To ameliorate shortages, districts and programs may depend on teachers who have been certified in alternative ways, via fast-tracked models, or rely on part-timers. This means that teachers step into the classroom with less preparation. 

InsideHigherEd. Graduate Enrollment Grew in 2019   Other fields with year-over-year increases in first-time graduate enrollment include engineering (+5 percent), health sciences (+3.5 percent)… and education (+0.4 percent).

Learning Policy Institute. Sharpening the Divide: How California’s Teacher Shortages Expand Inequality.  Analysis of statewide teacher supply and demand factors indicates that there are three main factors driving shortages in California: the decline in teacher preparation enrollments, increased demand for teachers, and teacher attrition and turnover. However, the relative weight of supply and demand factors can vary from district to district.

New York Times. School Is (Whisper It) a Form of Child Care: And child care, at its best, fosters children’s development. So how did we come to treat them so differently?   In the 1800s, school was transformed state by state from a few weeks of instruction by a teenage girl in a one-room house into a system of formal classrooms with grades and professional teachers.

University Business. Navigating the COVID-19 maze.  Teachers have needed to adapt their pedagogy for online instruction. States have been necessitated to implement flexible licensure requirements. And EPPs have been asked to provide innovative solutions that ensure teacher candidates are qualified to meet state licensure and certification requirements.

USNews. Amid Shortage, WVa College Students Can Substitute Teach   West Virginia education officials will let college seniors who are studying to become educators apply for immediate substitute teaching jobs in public schools due to a critical shortage.

Washington Post.
1) How ‘good’ parenting can make for ‘bad’ democracy   Resource availability for highly qualified teachers, engaging curriculums and suitable facilities are a function of the school-financing schemes states adopt… Administrators and teachers can be taught how to create school environments that minimize marginalizing student experiences on account of race.
2) In new memoir, the father of ‘multiple intelligences’ explains how he conceived his famous theory – and why he exhausted family and friends  The theory became highly popular with K-12 educators — though is now often misunderstood as wrongly equating “multiple intelligences” with the concept of different “learning styles.” Gardner never said that, though debunkers of his theory have claimed he did.
3) School reading classes still in a slump without more social studies   “Social studies has long been neglected in American primary school,” the authors say. “Elementary teachers are often taught that students should ‘first learn to read, so they can read to learn,’ even though youngsters can learn a lot about the world before they can decode.” 

 

NEW YORK STATE
LOHUD. For new teacher, 21, remote learning means connecting with students she hasn’t met   Zepeda, who grew up in New Rochelle and graduated from New Rochelle High School in 2016, was hired by the district last year for a one-year spot at Isaac Young Middle School… She stayed close to home for college, graduating from the College of New Rochelle in only three years… Maria Gomez, a guidance counselor at New Rochelle High School who was Zepeda’s counselor, said Zepeda was “laser focused” on math and later on becoming a teacher.

NYSATE/NYACTE. Discussion with NYSED Leaders. The New York State Association of Teacher Educators and the New York Association of Colleges for Teacher Education are pleased to host a discussion and question and answer session with New York State Education Department Leaders [Wed. Oct. 21 4pm]

 

NEW YORK CITY
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Clinically Rich Programs in New York: Urban Teacher Residency at the American Museum of Natural History   “We wanted to create a program that addressed the shortage of middle and high school Earth Science teachers and embodied AMNH’s mission of research, education, and the dissemination of knowledge about the natural world,” says Maritza MacDonald [TC EdD ‘95], senior director of education and policy emeritus… The result was the American Museum of Natural History Richard Gilder Graduate School’s Earth Science Residency Program—the only museum-based residency model for teacher preparation in the world.

Teachers College.
1) Beyond the Grid: The Untold Story of Harlem’s Fight for Quality Education   …the number of teachers of color in Harlem rose sharply from 1972 on — particularly in District 5 schools. White and Rogers attribute that increase to several factors, including the de facto segregating of black teachers to black neighborhoods, the emergence of alternate routes to teaching, the development of new models of school governance, and “curricular and pedagogical priorities tied to accountability and market-based competition charter schools.” There are positives and negatives to each of these trends, but, the authors conclude, “one outcome that has remained elusive through these years is the development of a stable, diverse, cadre of teachers who are well-prepared to teach District 5 students.”
2) Paul D. Coverdell Fellows 35th Anniversary Video  On January 20, 1985, the Peace Corps Director, Lorette Miller Ruppe signed an agreement establishing the first Paul D. Coverdell Fellows program at Teachers College, Columbia University. The TC Peace Corps Fellows Program was the first Fellows USA (now Coverdell Program).
3) The Roads Not Taken? There aren’t many for aspiring researcher, administrator and teacher Catherine Cheng Stahl   She volunteered as an aide teaching reading to third- and fourth-graders, and it felt so right that she stayed on at Wellesley for a fifth year, taking additional education classes before leaving to teach biology and chemistry at a rural Connecticut high school.

 

GLOBAL
All Africa. Africa: Teachers Shoulder the Burden – Improving Support in Crisis Contexts  [co-authored by TC Assoc. Prof. M. Mendenhall]  To respond to teachers’ needs, our organizations, Education Cannot Wait and the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) have forged a new partnership to build a toolkit that focuses on teacher well-being, particularly in emergency settings – a resource that will be developed in collaboration with teachers…Enable teachers to support all learners by continuously investing in and dramatically improving the nature and quality of teacher preparation, continuous professional development, and sustained support.

University of Hong Kong Faculty of Education. Academy for Leadership in Teacher Education (ALiTE) International Webinar Series for Exemplary Scholarship and Knowledge Exchange. Lecture by Prof. M. Cochran-Smith, Boston College: Global Trends and Challenges in Teacher Education and The Place of Teacher Inquiry [via Zoom, Oct. 15 6pm HK SAR]

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.  Pandemic May (Finally) Push Online Education Into Teacher Prep Programs   Even teacher prep programs that are offered via online courses don’t necessarily instruct teacher candidates how to educate students remotely, says Lynn Gangone, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Artesia Daily Press. New Mexico offers scholarships for advanced teacher training   New Mexico offers scholarships for advanced teacher training.  State officials say they’re making funds available to mid-level public school teachers to cover the cost of continuing education certifications that can lead to a significant salary increase.

Chalkbeat. Harper Lee’s love letter to teaching” Before ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Lee wrote about why people become educators.  She never taught, but her first job when she moved to New York City from a small town in Alabama involved editing an education trade magazine… Lee was writing up a survey of some 57 people who all answered the question: “Why did you enter the teaching profession?” … Some were inspired by memories of teachers who had changed their lives, others by a love of children and young people. Some felt a patriotic calling to help educate good citizens, including a young veteran of World War II. In another sign of the times, some had taken aptitude and interests tests that suggested they would be good at teaching.

Colorado Sun. Colorado’s substitute teacher shortage, worsened by coronavirus, could force some schools to close. Again.: Districts are finding creative ways to fill the gap, leaning on their own teachers, administrators and even parents to sub   Subs who have a bachelor’s degree and are licensed teachers or have a substitute teaching license receive $100 per day, and subs who have a high school diploma and their substitute teaching license are paid $90 per day.

Council on the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP).  Public Comment Page.   The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation is seeking public comment on proposed revisions to the CAEP Standards for Educator Preparation. The CAEP Board of Directors received recommendations from a task force charged with reviewing the standards and has approved a public comment period through November 2,2020.   

EdWeek.
1) Gates Foundation Unveils Grants to Make Algebra More Culturally Relevant   In Seattle last year, the school district created a new framework designed to “rehumanize” math… The move received acclaim from some educators and scholars of mathematics education, but also faced pushback from conservative commentators. 
2) How to Make Science Class Relevant During the Pandemic.  … fewer than half of all science teachers surveyed in Horizon Research’s “2018 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education” report responded that they feel “very well prepared” to encourage students’ interest in science and/or engineering. Among elementary teachers, that figure is just 26 percent.

National Education Association. How Did an NEA Member Get $103,000 in Student Debt Erased? With the help of NEA, music teacher Sean Ichiro Manes [TC MA, ’01 EdM ‘04] navigated federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that needs improving.

NYTimes.
1) Making Remote Schooling a Family Affair: Parents are more crucial then ever to their children’s education. Here are two programs, thousands of miles apart, that have helped get them involved. [OpEd by T. Rosenberg] When Covid-19 hit, Springboard ramped up. The group trained 3,000 incoming Teach for America members. Freed from geographical constraints, Springboard went from working in 62 schools to 667. 
2) Resources for Teachers.
3) What It’s Like to Be a Teacher in 2020 America.  In 2018, the starting salary for a public-school teacher averaged $38,000. In more than 1,000 districts, even the highest paid public-school teachers with advanced degrees and decades of experience earn less than $50,000. 

SFGate. Top teacher hopes more equitable system follows pandemic   John Arthur, Utah’s Teacher of the Year…credits his teachers for taking a personal interest in him and supporting him after his grandmother, who lived with his family, died…After earning a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Utah, Arthur worked as a substitute teacher and discovered his passion for working with children. He returned to college to earn a masters degrees in elementary education and special education from Westminster College.

Washington Post.
1) Former D.C. Public Schools chancellor: Black cultural education ‘could change the entire calculus’ for children   Q: much of your prior work—DCPS, New Teacher Project, Teach for America, Chan Zuckerberg—focused on improving schools, education systems A: Well I think this is a systemic play I’m making now… the content we’re developing is as important for non-African Americans to learn as it is for African Americans. 
2) It’s been a week for Trump conspiracy theories. Here’s how to teach students to identify them — and more news literacy lessons.
3) Pandemic teaching, in their words   As crazy as this sounds, I feel like I can relate to my students more than I ever have in my entire career. I’m learning with them. I’m growing with them.

 

NEW YORK STATE
AACTE. Clinically Rich Programs in New York: Early Childhood Urban Education Initiative at the Bank Street Graduate School of Education.  One of Bank Street’s newest programs—the Early Childhood Urban Education Initiative—helps uncredentialed early childhood educators in under-resourced New York City neighborhoods complete their certification and earn master’s degrees while remaining employed in their existing early childhood classrooms.

New York State Association of Teacher Educators (NYSATE). Sharing Educational Goals In These Challenging Times. [Oct. 7 4pm Via Zoom]

NYSED. Memo: Extension of Distance Education Flexibility for the Spring 2021 Semester NYS Education Department guidance for NYS Colleges and Universities related to distance education and the Spring 2021 semester.

Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching (PSPB). Meeting Minutes May 2020

 

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College.
1) A New Vision for American Education: A book co-authored by TC’s Sonya Douglass Horsford wins a Critics’ Choice Book Award. It analyzes policies long in the making and charts a new future for school leadership.  They trace how market-driven approaches to education reform have ensured that “teachers, administrators, and students will be more mobile, leading to less stability and a weakening of professional expertise and organizational capacity.” They demonstrate that “a new generation of teachers and administrators is being socialized into a very different workplace with a different conception of teaching and leading.” And they lament a diminished faith in public education and the government’s ability to administer it..
2) On World Teachers Day, A Call to Recognize and Support Those Working in Emergency Conditions.  Mendenhall has been one of the world’s driving forces in refugee education. During the past several years, as part of INEE’s Teachers in Crisis Contexts Collaborative, she has spearheaded Teachers for Teachers, a research-based teacher professional development initiative operating in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, that delivers teacher training, coaching, and mobile mentoring. 
3) Teaching Residents @ Teachers College. October 2020 I TR@TC Induction Newsletter
4) Walking the Curriculum Walk: For Jacqueline Simmons, Online Course Design is a Standing Invitation to Rewrite the Script   I’m always interested in helping students expand upon the ways they view curricula — whether that’s in education, pop culture or public spaces. This course is designed to do so in a digital format, yet prepare students to teach these concepts in the classroom.

GLOBAL
Daily News. Reinventing the concept of teacher education. What is the teacher development policy in Sri Lanka?… There is an ongoing debate in many parts of the world including European countries whether teacher education must be done by universities or professionals with the expertise in the field of education. Those who argue for the notion that it must be handled by the universities argue that teacher development is more academic and therefore it must be undertaken by the universities whereas others point out that it is the professional teachers in the field who can produce better teachers.

Phys,org. Research concludes that remote learning might not be a bad thing.  Remote and blended approaches to teacher education can be as effective as face-to-face approaches concludes a new study from the University of Birmingham. The new report by Dr. Thomas Perry from the University of Birmingham’s School of Education highlights how in March 2020 many teacher educators were forced to expand their remote learning provision and, in some cases, get to grips with remote teacher education for the first time.

UNESCO.
1) Survey of teachers in pre-primary education (STEPP): lessons from the implementation of the pilot study and field trial of international survey instruments.  Good teacher training and support, recognition and working conditions are proven to have positive impact on their capacity, motivation and practice with young children, and therefore constitute a critical policy issue (UNESCO, 2006; OECD, 2006). As a fundamental condition for guaranteeing quality education (UNESCO, 2016), increasing the supply of qualified teachers at all levels has been designated as one of ten global education targets (SDG target 4.c).
2) Towards inclusion in education: status, trends and challenges: the UNESCO Salamanca Statement 25 years on. Drawing on international research and on good practice related to equity and inclusion in education systems, the guide was developed with the advice and support of a group of international experts, including policy-makers, practitioners, researchers, teacher educators, curriculum developers and representatives of various international agencies.
3) Training manual on gender mainstreaming in teacher education in Myanmar.  The manual is designed for the education policy makers and  planners for their better understanding in gender issues and assess how they affects gender inequality in teacher education and trainers.

 

UNITED STATES
Education Next. The Rise of Dual Credit: More and more students take college classes while still in high school. That is boosting degree attainment but also raising doubts about rigor.    For dual credit to continue to grow, and thrive, states and schools will need to find ways to train more teachers… They’ll also need to tackle the persistent racial, socioeconomic and geographic gaps that undermine the programs’ goals. Simply expanding the programs, without confronting the causes of those gaps, “could actually exacerbate them,” warned John Fink, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center.

Education Week.
1) Before We Can Have Anti-Racist Classrooms, Teacher Preparation Needs an Overhaul.   I almost quit my teacher-preparation program midway through after observing a lesson in African American history taught by a young white educator in a Philadelphia high school…I was angry—and inspired to become what Bettina Love, a professor at the University of Georgia, calls an “abolitionist teacher.” Abolitionist teaching, Love says, is steeped in community organizing and informed by critical race theory—the understanding that race is a social construct used by white people for their own political and financial gain. 
2) How to Thwart ‘Zoombombing’ in the Remote Classroom: 10 Tips
3) Teachers Can Take on Anti-Racist Teaching. But Not Alone   “If [teachers] do not have a level of consciousness, they’re not going to talk about race because they don’t think it belongs” in the classroom, Sealey-Ruiz said. “Deciding we’re not talking about issues that impact millions of children . . . it’s unfair to the teachers and to the students who they’re teaching.”

NewsStar. Grambling State’s education department recruits Black men to teaching profession.  Grambling State University’s Black Male Teacher Initiative has joined forces with Clemson University’s nationally known Call Me MiSTER® program to aid in the recruiting and development of more Black men into the teaching profession.

WalletHub. 2020’s Best & Worst States for Teachers   Education jobs are among the lowest-paying occupations requiring a bachelor’s degree…

 

NEW YORK STATE
EdPrepMatters. Clinically Rich Programs in New York: Western New York Teacher Residency at Canisius College Rich.  In the fall of 2018, Canisius College developed the Western New York Teacher Residency Program (WNYTR).  The two-year, graduate level program is designed to prepare skilled teachers who are committed to teaching in Buffalo schools, especially schools with high poverty rates and few resources.

NYSATE/NYACTE.  Webinar: Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz of Teachers College, Columbia University will share anti-racist teaching and teacher education pedagogies [Thursday, October 1^st 4pm].

NYSED. Statement of Interim Commissioner of Education & President of the University of the State of New York, Betty A. Rosa Assembly Committee on Higher Education & Assembly Subcommittee on Tuition Assistance Program   …the Teacher Opportunity Corps or TOC II program aims to increase the pipeline of individuals from historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged populations who seek out teaching careers. This program also bolsters the retention of highly qualified individuals who value equity and reflect the diversity both inside and outside of our classrooms. TOC II serves approximately 550 undergraduate and graduate students through 16 colleges and universities who have partnered with more than 50 districts and/or schools.

NYSED Office of Curriculum and Instruction. Curriculum Bridge.  To help educators best prepare their students for the 2020-2021 school year, we have created documents listing all the Common Core Learning Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics.

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) How a staffing crunch months in the making threw NYC’s school reopening plans into chaos    De Blasio pledged Thursday to fill staffing gaps by deploying 4,500 educators — including education department staffers with teaching licenses, substitutes, adjunct professors, and aspiring teachers pursuing education degrees. That number will only get the city through its first phase of reopening, said Mark Cannizzaro, president of the CSA.
2) NYC’s next ‘gargantuan’ school reopening task: hire thousands of new teachers in little over a week.  Starting in August, Education Department officials touted a developing partnership with CUNY to recruit out-of-work adjuncts and graduating education students to fill vacant DOE positions… Mulgrew said only teachers with valid K-12 teaching licenses would be considered for city schools… One reliable teacher hiring pipeline, the New York City Teaching Fellows program — which trains and places nearly 500 new public school teachers each year — axed most of its 2020 class in May amid the city hiring freeze.

GLOBAL
Hindustan Times. A blueprint for teacher recruitment and training   The real impact on teacher training through the National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement/Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching could be carried on in these tough times as teachers were able to modify their lesson plans to conduct classes through digital means — such as Google Meet, Zoom, mobile phone, television, or radio broadcast.

ICET/MESH International Symposium. Teacher Experience and Practices in the time of Covid-19 [8th October 3pm London time; Thursday 15th October 2pm Tokyo time]

Tes [The Times Educational Supplement].
1) Ofsted: All initial teacher training ‘good’ or better  Figures for 2019-20 show all Ofsted teacher training inspections resulted in ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ judgements for the first time
2) Should Rosenshine really be teachers’ definitive guide?   The renowned researcher’s 10 principles have permeated education, from teacher training courses to SLT observations. But although they have come to be seen as the definitive framework for “good teaching”, their context and evidence base are poorly understood…

The Straits Times [Singapore]. More avenues for progression and training for teachers in special education schools.   To get more practical experience, new Sped teachers will also go through a contract teaching stint that will last from six to 12 months, before undergoing a diploma course in special education (DISE) at NIE. Currently, there is no such practice stint for Sped teachers.

 

UNITED STATES
Chronicle. Martin Smith, an assistant professor of practice and director of the Secondary Teacher Preparation Program at Duke University, has been named dean of academic affairs at the university’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.

EdPrepLab. Blog: Educator Preparation During COVID-19: Lessons Learned for Fall.  Depending on the context, candidates continue to work with cooperating teachers, supporting lesson planning and implementation. They’re also taking on new roles such as working with small groups of students through remote settings, bringing knowledge of technology to bear in supporting virtual instruction, and making unique contributions even as they are learning and adapting to the new environment.

EdPrepMatters. Online Teaching Curricula in Ed Prep.  If teacher candidates only experience one course with technology, and it is compartmentalized, then they are not being trained to use technology in context. With the recent challenges of online teaching during the pandemic, many educator preparation programs are now re-evaluating their curricula to integrate technology across the entire program, including courses on online teaching.

Hechinger Report. When schools reopen, we may not have enough teachers: Large numbers of teachers fear returning to the classroom, traditional solutions for filling vacancies are falling short and the pink slips on the horizon may lead to teacher shortages the likes of whi  …many protested that high barriers for entering teacher preparation programs made it harder for states to recruit and train new teachers — especially people of color who are more likely to have graduated from high schools that did not offer challenging opportunities like advanced placement courses, or even have enough certified teachers for the classroom. The lack of strong instruction can derail candidates later as they try to pass exams required for entry to certain teacher prep programs.

NYTimes.
1) A Teacher and Congresswoman Confronts School Reopenings: Representative Jahana Hayes, a former National Teacher of the Year, says that she has many concerns — and that parents need to make their voices heard.   …being an educator is a profession and people train a lifetime to do this, that you have to work hard and practice to get good at it and teaching remotely is a very different skill set.
2) Teaching Resources for Middle School Using The New York Times   Activities and lessons that can be employed by English, social studies, math and science educators, using Times photos, illustrations, graphs, videos, podcasts and articles.
3) The New York Times is available to high school students and teachers across the United States — free.  Free digital access continues through September 1, 2021.

 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Office of Higher Education. August Newsletter
*New USED Grant Program
*NYSTCE Tests Becoming Operational
*Fingerprinting for International Applicants
*edTPA Webinars
*Transitional B, Transitional C, And Internship Certificate Information

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. NYC’s reopening plans leave behind students who aren’t fluent in English, educators say.  In normal times, English learners receive extra support, depending on their needs, from co-teachers certified to teach English as a new language. These teachers also pull some children out of the classroom to give them extra language support individually or in small groups, but that seems to run counter to city health guidance, which says students should stay in their classrooms as much as possible… The department has offered no clear instructions on how schools without enough certified teachers will provide these services for the students who are fully remote.

New York Times. After 90 Years, Columbia Takes Slave Owner’s Name Off a Dorm: Samuel Bard was George Washington’s doctor and delivered Alexander Hamilton’s first son. He was also a “pretty significant slave owner.”   The move was the second one in recent weeks involving a Columbia-affiliated school shedding a name over racist or other offensive ideas and actions. Teachers College at Columbia University, which has its own board of trustees, voted in July to remove the name of Edward L. Thorndike, who promoted eugenics and sexist and anti-Semitic ideas, from a building there.

Teaching Residents @ Teachers College. Induction and Beyond September 2020 I Beginning of School Year Newsletter

GLOBAL
BBC News. Coronavirus: ‘Teacher training application rise’ during lockdown   In recent years numbers training to become secondary school teachers in Wales have fallen, with some schools struggling to fill posts. But figures from the higher education admissions service Ucas show numbers applying increased during the pandemic.

Content Duniya. NEP-2020: A needed change in 21st century Education System of India
*A new National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education, NCFTE 2021, will be formulated by the NCTE in consultation with NCERT.
*By 2030, the minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a 4-year integrated B.Ed. degree. Stringent action will be taken against substandard stand-alone Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs).

 

UNITED STATES
Chalkbeat.
1) Education department grants buoy remote instruction, even as Trump and DeVos push for campuses to reopen   The funds appear to be predominantly going to support remote instruction, including through virtual programs, teacher training, and technology access.
2) Indiana back-to-school teacher training: First, how are you?   Connor O’Day, who student taught in Wayne Township last spring during his final semester of college, will teach completely online this fall. He said he feels comfortable with the assignment now that he’s familiar with the district’s online system…. In addition to coordinating with his fellow sixth grade teachers, O’Day is seeking advice from people with experience teaching online.
3) I’m a teacher who survived COVID-19. I’m not ready to return to the classroom.   But it’s important to remember that our training as teachers focuses on providing students with an education, not all of the other roles we’ve taken on over the years. We are not child care workers or health care workers. The service we are trained to offer can and should be provided remotely until it is safe to enter school buildings.

EdWeek
1) Bitmoji Classrooms: Why Teachers Are Buzzing About Them
2) Map: Where Are Schools Open?

InsideHigherEd. New International Students Barred From All-Online Classes  New U.S. immigration guidance clarifies that new international students — unlike continuing international students — cannot come to American colleges to take a “100 percent” online course load this fall.

NYTimes.
1) $25,000 Pod Schools: How Well-to-Do Children Will Weather the Pandemic   But as part of its fee, the Hudson Lab School will help with the paperwork, mediate parent interaction with the teacher, and align pod curriculums to state standards.
2) More Than 6,300 Coronavirus Cases Have Been Linked to U.S. Colleges

Univ. of Washington, College of Ed. Geneva Gay: A legacy of elevating multicultural education to prominence   This July, Gay will retire following a 29-year career at the University of Washington College of Education in which her internationally-recognized scholarship has advanced the field in profound ways — while making clear the essential role of multicultural education in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world…“Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice,” [pub. TC Press]…now in its third edition, includes examples of culturally diverse curriculum content, programs and techniques that exemplify culturally responsive teaching, and an emphasis on positive, action-driven possibilities in student-teacher relationships.

 

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. State’s interim education commissioner resigns, latest in string of departures   But on Friday, after this was story published, department spokesperson Emily DeSantis said the Regents’ search will now continue through at least Oct. 1, citing “paramount tasks ahead.” …The board will hold an executive session — a closed-door meeting — on July 31 to discuss “personnel matters,” DeSantis said, but she did not immediately say whether Regents would discuss Tahoe’s temporary replacement or the search for a permanent commissioner.

NYSED.
New York Schools Awarded Nearly $20 Million In Critical Federal Funding To Address Covid-19 Crisis   This will provide more than 190,000 teachers and educational leaders across this State with a combined 450,000 hours of professional support to implement effective practices in remote/hybrid teaching and learning which, in turn, will reach an estimated two million students. 

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Most teaching will remain virtual this fall. Is NYC working fast enough to improve it?   To help handle students who will be learning remotely, city officials are planning to deploy teachers who are granted medical accommodations to work from home, as well as administrators across the system who have teaching licenses but are not currently working in schools.

Teachers College.
1) A Call for Reality Pedagogy: In The Atlantic, TC’s Christopher Emdin urges teachers to learn from students and embrace the chaos of the world beyond the classroom   …“the best teachers use their pedagogy as protest” to “disrupt teaching norms that harm vulnerable students.” They also view students as “co-teachers” who “can see what teachers have been trained to ignore.”
2) A Grant Getter Who Can Mentor Others: Carol Scheffner Hammer is TC’s first Vice Dean for Research   … boosting our track record of winning large, multimillion grants, not just among big centers like CCRC [Community College Research Center] and TR@TC [a federally funded residency program, now in its third five-year iteration, that prepares highly qualified teachers to teach in New York City public schools]

GLOBAL
Equitable Education Conference 2020. The International Conference on Equitable Education: All for Education  [10-11 July 2020]

Forum for Africa Women Educationists (FAWE). Call for Abstracts 2nd International Conference on Girls’ Education in Africa[deadline 24 July]

GhanaWeb. Flashback: We never took anybody’s allowance, we even fed trainee teachers for free – Opoku-Agyemang   Former Education Minister Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has denied withdrawing the allowances of trainee teachers and nurses during her tenure… She said apart from “replacing” the allowance with the student loan access so as to increase enrolment into the colleges of education, the government ensured that the trainee teachers were fed for free.

RNZ. Principals want foreign teachers exempted from border restrictions   Foreign-trained teachers have been a key part of official efforts to relieve the shortage and last year nearly 1000 overseas teachers gained visas to work in New Zealand… We’ve compiled much better data now about a number of qualified and registered teachers we have in New Zealand, the number we think we’re going to need in future years and the numbers coming out of training.”

Saskatoon Star Phoenix. Dene pilot project aims to spark language among young speakers   … the school hires eight graduates from the Dene Teacher Education Program… In 2016, Statistics Canada reported 13,005 people spoke Dene, about 70 per cent of whom lived in Saskatchewan.

 

UNITED STATES
EdSurge. SEL Skills Are More Vital Than Ever. Here’s How to Choose the Right Tools.   Most of today’s teachers are in a similar situation; SEL was not an explicit part of their school experience. The research backs this up: explicit teacher education is often crucial to the success of new SEL programs. 

Forbes. Here’s What The Next School Year Will Look Like At U.S. Colleges   Fall policy. Columbia University has not announced a university-wide learning plan, but individual colleges have recently begun publicizing their approaches. The school’s teacher-training institution, Teachers College, for instance, will operate primarily online.

InsideHigherEd. Central Carolina Community College is starting an associate of science and an associate of arts in teacher education.

New America. Mississippi’s Multifaceted Approach to Tackling Teacher Shortages.  Mississippi stands out for taking a creative approach to addressing critical shortages by piloting three initiatives: Grow Your Own programs to develop local teachers, a state-run teacher residency program, and a pilot program exploring the possibility for teachers to earn a license based on their performance.

NYTimes. Over 100 Lesson Plans Based on New York Times Articles

The Atlantic. Reopening Schools Was Just an Afterthought: Americans found out the hard way that education is essential infrastructure. …inviting idle recent college graduates to sign on as teaching assistants—might sound easy on paper; in reality, the regulations meant to ensure that adults in classrooms are appropriately trained and vetted to work with children are also impediments to making rapid personnel moves in a crisis.

University of Connecticut. Centering Justice and Anti-Racism in Teacher Education  Monday, July 13, 4-5 pm EST, a virtual panel discussion on anti-racist teacher education scholarship and practice [incl. TC Prof. M. Souto-Manning]

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). COVID-19 and Fall 2020   Students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States. The U.S. Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States. Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status or potentially face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.

Washington Post.
1) International students must take classes in person to stay in the country legally this fall, ICE announces   “Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status,” the announcement said. “If not, they may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings. ”
2) Just how little U.S. students learn about African American history — and five steps to start to change that [by L. T. Fenwick and C. Akua]    5. Work to revise teacher preparation programs to include coursework in African and African American history.
3) Why calls to ‘reinvent schooling’ in response to the pandemic are wrong [by D. Willingham & B. Riley]  … data suggests educators are unfamiliar with most principles of cognitive science. Recently, we tested more than 1,000 teachers-in-training and found that fewer than half could identify these principles, and when they knew them, they often couldn’t say how they applied in classrooms. 

 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Board of Regents. July 13 Meeting Agenda.  Please note: In response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, the July Meeting will be held by video conference, which will be live-streamed. 

 

NEW YORK CITY
ArtNet News. New York City’s 2021 Budget Slashes Already Modest Funding for Public-School Arts Education by 70 Percent   Just six years ago, the city comptroller issued a comprehensive report about the shortcomings of art education in New York City schools. New York State Education Law requires students in grades seven through 12 to receive core arts instruction from certified teachers, but the report found that many schools do not meet this requirement—especially in lower income neighborhoods.

Chalkbeat. NYC may overhaul how one-third of its high schools are supervised, upsetting some principals   The schools are supported by deep relationships with nonprofit or university partners, such as New Visions, Outward Bound, Urban Assembly and CUNY, giving the schools the ability to collaborate on curriculum, teacher training, and share best practices.

NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer. Strong Schools for All: A Plan Forward for New York City   Work with existing teacher training programs to expand in-classroom experience for teacher candidates. Many current graduate programs already place student teachers in classrooms to gain practical experience. These programs could be adjusted to extend the length of time student teachers are working in classrooms. Teaching residency programs – where aspiring teachers are placed in classrooms for a full year prior to being certified – should be immediately expanded.

NYTimes. New York City’s Biggest Decision: How to Safely Reopen Schools: The plan now emerging could have an enormous impact because the local economy may not fully recover until working parents can send children to school.   … any Department of Education employee with a teaching certificate, even members of the central office staff, should prepare to teach in-person or remotely come September.

Patch. Here’s How Reopened NYC Schools Could Look: Safely reopening New York City schools means requiring students and teachers to wear masks, smaller classes and staggered schedules.   Hiring more teachers and school staff to maintain quality of education. This could be accomplished by creating a hiring pipeline with CUNY, working with educational non-profits and reassigning DOE employees in central offices to schools.

 

GLOBAL
International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET). Call for Nominations to the ICET Board of Directors

Microsoft News. Iran’s Sa’adi Foundation runs virtual course on Persian language teacher training   Sa’adi Foundation said the virtual training course is aimed at promoting the Persian language, supporting the Persian language centers across the world, enhancing the quality of Persian language teaching and facilitating teachers and enthusiasts’ access to such course.

The Educator Australia. Teacher taskforce to tackle education challenges   New data released by UNESCO’s Teacher Task Force shows that 9.1 million teachers across the world who have been impacted by coronavirus school closures (out of 63 million affected teachers in total) are untrained.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE Survey Captures Members’ Coronavirus Experience and Response
Field Placements and Licensure 
*Most states have waived clinical requirements, but almost 40% of respondents report that their state has not adjusted its assessment policy.
*Numerous respondents cited access to tests required for licensure as a significant challenge.
*Nearly half of respondents indicated that field placements have been discontinued for at least some of their students.
*Uncertainties regarding field placements for the fall was a significant concern of respondents.
*Simulation is not yet a widespread option for students whose placements have been cancelled; one-third of respondents offer it….
2) Finding the Best Approximations of Practice in the Era of COVID-19: Video Analysis and FAVSTE  [authors incl. TC Sr. Lect. J. Riccio]  A group of science teacher educators from across the country has been using the ATLAS library as our main video case resource and the Framework for Analyzing Video in Science Teacher Education (FAVSTE) as our tool for maximizing the learning from these cases.
3) Moving Educator Preparation Forward During the Pandemic   To address clinical practice challenges, AACTE is collaborating with Mursion, a provider of experiential learning through simulations. The virtual reality technology offers access to field-tested classroom simulations, which provide evidence-based results for improving skills essential to working with human development. 

AACTE/SCALE. edTPA Assessment Materials for the 2020-21 Program Year Now Available   SCALE is pleased to announce that the edTPA assessment materials for the 2020-21 program year are now available in the edTPA Resource Library. The materials are available for faculty preview in advance of the upcoming program year. 

Atlanta Journal Constitution. Professor says Educators’ Teacher Performance Assessment hasn’t proven valuable or effective   One major hurdle in Georgia which prospective teachers face is the Georgia Professional Standards Commission’s requirement that all teacher candidates complete the edTPA… Now the coronavirus has prompted the PSC to consider removing the edTPA as a program completion and certification requirement effective July 1, 2020.

Chalkbeat.
1) Proposal to revamp Tennessee reading instruction halted amid economic crisis and legislative power struggle   It means the state won’t begin a systematic training this year of current and future teachers on reading instruction that is rooted in phonics.
2) Up next in Colorado’s bid to help struggling readers: New training for thousands of teachers   Officials have also cracked down on teacher preparation programs to ensure their literacy courses adhere to state standards. And starting next year, the state will require schools to use reading curriculum backed by science in kindergarten through third grade.

Chronicle. What Does Trauma-Informed Teaching Look Like?   While face-to-face teaching will heighten some stressors, learning remotely will also remain a challenge for many students, teaching experts note. So these same suggestions can apply to teaching online in the fall.

EdSource. Governor suspends California teacher testing requirements for candidates impacted by coronavirus closures   The order allows eligible teacher candidates to earn preliminary credentials without taking either the California Teaching Performance Assessment or the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment. It also allows students to enter teacher preparation programs without passing the California Basic Education Skills Test and teacher candidates to enter internship programs without passing required tests in the California Subject Examinations for Teachers because testing centers were closed. 

EdWeek. 15 Classroom Resources for Discussing Racism, Policing, and Protest

Hechinger Report.
1) Coronavirus is making it easier to become a teacher in a state with severe shortage of educators   Enrollment in the state’s teacher prep programs, Mississippi’s main pipeline for new teachers, could swell thanks to the new rule freezing gateway tests for teacher recruits.
2) Urgency of getting people back to work gives new momentum to “microcredentials”: Americans seek educations that take months, not years, to help them find new jobs fast     Teachers used to need to finish master’s degrees to get that bump in pay… By comparison, workers who finish a certificate make up to a comparatively modest $2,960 a year more, on average, than those with a high school diploma, according to the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. 

Mursion. TeachForward, Massachusetts Case Studies and Classroom Simulation on Introducing Content to Upper Elementary[recording of June 2nd webinar]

NYTimes.
1) Live Webinar: Teaching With Graphs From The New York Times   Join us on June 11 as The Learning Network explores how to teach and learn with the award-winning graphics from The New York Times.
2) Teaching Ideas and Resources to Help Students Make Sense of the George Floyd Protests

Teaching Tolerance. What White Colleagues Need to Understand: White supremacy doesn’t stop at the teachers’ lounge door.

U.S. Federal Register. Applications for New Awards; Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Program [Deadline for Notice of Intent June 17]

Washington Post.
1) ‘Teaching for Black Lives’ — a handbook to fight America’s ferocious racism in (virtual or face-to-face) classrooms
2) Trump stands with DeVos, vetoes measure to overturn her controversial student loan forgiveness rule   President Trump on Friday vetoed a bipartisan resolution to overturn a policy that makes it tougher for students who say they were defrauded by colleges to have their federal education loans canceled.

 

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. Who should lead the reopening of schools in New York? The governor’s office and the Board of Regents both want the job   Cuomo then doubled down on education. In his next move, he announced a special panel to “reimagine” education and virtual schooling for the future… it does not include students, parents or any educators from New York City, the state and nation’s largest district — again angering city teachers and even the mayor’s office.

New York State Education Department Board of Regents. Meeting Agenda for June 8, 2020   [Virtual Meeting Live-Stream 9:15 am – 12: 45 pm]

New York State Education Department Interim Commissioner. State Education Department Appoints Dr. William Johnson as Monitor for the Hempstead Union Free School District   Dr. Johnson holds a Ed. D. [TC ‘51] and an M. Ed. from Columbia University… [Ed.D. Dissertation: “Russia’s Educational Heritage; Teacher Education In The Russian Empire, 1600-1917”]

New York State Education Department Office of Higher Education. May 2020 Educator Preparation Newsletter
*Guidance for Educator Preparation Programs In Response To COVID-19
*Emergency Covid-19 Certificate Information for Candidates
*New York State Teacher Certification Examinations (NYSTCE) Tests Becoming Operational

New York State Education Department Office of Teaching Initiatives.  Full Refunds and Replacement Vouchers for Candidates Who are Eligible for the edTPA Safety Net   The following information is for candidates who are eligible for the edTPA safety net, now plan to take the ATS-W in lieu of the edTPA, and either 1) are seeking a full refund of their edTPA registration, or 2) hold or have used an edTPA voucher.

Times Union. SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson to resign   State University of New York Chancellor Kristina M. Johnson plans to leave her job for a role at Ohio State University… She is leaving in the wake of a global health crisis and during a period of financial uncertainty for SUNY’s 64 campuses. In March, the COVID-19 pandemic forced SUNY buildings to close and Johnson oversaw a system-wide transition to remote learning.

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Here’s how to help young readers, according to literacy experts from the new TV show ‘Let’s Learn NYC!’   Chalkbeat spoke with Fletcher and one of the show’s stars, Anna Scretching-Cole [TC EdM ‘11], a literacy coach at P.S. 11 in the Bronx, for tips on how to help emerging readers stay on track during a critical time for their learning… Given the array of approaches to reading instruction in each of New York City’s schools, Fletcher says the show takes an “agnostic” approach when it comes to curriculum, focusing on where kids should be and providing opportunities for review. 

Teaching Residents at Teachers College. June 2020 End of School Year Newsletter: Induction and Beyond
*Raising Consciousness
*Upcoming Events and Professional Learning
*Curriculum Resources
*Teacher Wellness

GLOBAL
Association for Teacher Education in Europe. ATEE Webinar 15 May, 4 PM CET – Online Teacher Education, Good Practices And Challenges [register by 13 May]

International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030. April Newsletter

Journal of Education for Teaching. CFP Special Issue Teacher Education in the Covid-19 Pandemic: a Global Snapshot [intention to submit by 15, May 2020]

UNESCO. How a young teacher is making gender equality a reality in Ethiopia   Tigist participated in a training about gender-responsive pedagogy (GRP) as part of a UNESCO project in Ethiopia. The training built teachers’ capacity to establish teaching and learning processes that encourage equal participation and involvement of boys and girls, and take into account boys’ and girls’ specific interests, learning styles and needs.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Beware the Solution That Is Not About the Problem: Reflections on Education and the COVID-19 Shock   Kline offers the post-Katrina charterization of New Orleans schools as a case in point… All of the teachers were fired. A teacher workforce that had been predominately black was replaced with one that was predominately white, young, and barely trained. 
2) Revolutionizing Education AACTE DEI Video: Promoting Equal Access to Quality Teachers   In celebration of National Teacher Appreciation Week, May 4-8, AACTE spotlights “Promoting Equal Access to Quality Teachers,” as the next segment in its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion video series

Education News. Correcting Carter’s Mistake: Removing Cabinet Status from the U.S. Department of Education   At the turn of the century, the nation’s largest teachers’ union began advocating for a federal agency in order to train teachers and improve literacy rates.

Education Week. Map: Coronavirus and School Closures

Hechinger Report. The overlooked power of Zuckerberg-backed learning program lies offline   Summit’s summer training is full of evangelists for the platform — teachers, like Villegas, who have become “fellows” to help train their colleagues around the country on the model, and administrators who are back for the second or third year with new teachers. They share impressive results.

Mursion. May 5^th webinar Recording: Let’s test drive classroom simulations: Introducing Content for Upper Elementary

NJ.com. Fewer people are studying to become teachers in N.J. Could higher pay, appreciation reverse the trend?   Researchers attribute those losses to an onslaught of issues. They include low pay in comparison to other college graduates, benefits changes, high costs to become a teacher and several statewide policy changes that both added barriers to receiving a certification and made the job more difficult.

U.S. News. Missouri Teachers Virtually Educate Students About Pandemic   Pat Friedrichsen, a professor of science education at MU, was awarded a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to help create a coronavirus curriculum aimed at informing Missouri high schoolers the science of the pandemic and its effects on everyday life.

Washington Post.
1) Navient reaches settlement in teachers’ loan forgiveness lawsuit   Ten educators, backed by the American Federation of Teachers union, accused Navient of misleading them about Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The program encourages people to work in the public sector with the promise of canceling the balance of their federal student debt after a decade of payments.
2) The profound civics lesson kids are getting from the U.S. government’s response to the covid-19 pandemic   The coronavirus pandemic lays bare two major weaknesses in traditional approaches to teaching civics and history — what students are expected to learn and how we measure that learning. 

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. Cuomo taps Gates Foundation to ‘reimagine’ what schooling looks like in NY   While praising educators for their work over the past seven weeks, he also said schools are still working to get computers and tablets to students, and that some teachers lacked the right training in the technology they would use to teach students at home.

NYS Board of Regents invites applications & nominations for Commissioner of Education & President of the University of the State of New York. The search is being assisted by ABG Search. Applications & nominations should be received by June 8, 2020.

New York State Education Department Office of Teaching Initiatives.
1) Emergency COVID-19 Certificate   Candidates who are seeking certain certificates and extensions that require exam(s) may be eligible for the Emergency COVID-19 certificate, allowing them to work in New York State public schools or districts for one year while taking and passing the required exam(s) for the certificate or extension sought.
2) Extension of Certain Certificates Expiring on August 31, 2020   …educators who hold an Initial certificate, Initial Reissuance, Provisional certificate, or Provisional Renewal with an expiration date of August 31, 2020 will have the expiration date extended to January 31, 2021 in order to provide them with the time needed to complete the requirements for the next level certificate.
3) edTPA Safety Net for Candidates Who Are Enrolled in a New York State Registered Educator Preparation Program During the COVID-19 Crisis in the Spring 2020 and/or Summer 2020 Terms   …take the ATS-W appropriate for the certificate title sought (Elementary or Secondary). Candidates seeking an “All Grades” certificate could take either the Elementary or Secondary ATS-W.
4) Acceptance of “Pass” Grades, or its Equivalent, in the Individual Evaluation Pathway to Certification During the Spring, Summer, or Fall 2020 Terms  …the Department will allow any undergraduate or graduate level content core or pedagogical core course, completed during the Spring, Summer, or Fall 2020 terms with a “pass” grade, or its equivalent, to count towards the content core or pedagogical core semester hour requirements for certification through the Individual Evaluation pathway.

New York State Education Department Office Of Higher Education.  Educator Preparation April Newsletter
Guidance For Educator Preparation Programs In Response To Covid-19
Board Of Regents Items
Graduation Measures Regional Meetings

NEW YORK CITY
Teaching Residents at Teachers College.
1) MAY 2020 Spring Edition Newsletter
2) Updated Production Report, 2012-2020  19 peer-reviewed publications, 57 global conference presentations and counting!

 

GLOBAL
Education International. COVID-19 tracker   As governments worldwide step up to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, educators and their unions are doing their part to support each other, their students and their communities.

The Guardian. Don’t ‘celebrate’ gay people, just accept us, says teacher at centre of schools row   Now Moffat is enjoying his new role at the Excelsior trust, and already this year has visited 12 schools to train them and delivered 16 conference speeches and workshops, plus teacher training at universities.

UNESCO. Teacher Task Force calls to support 63 million teachers touched by the COVID-19 crisis   Others are dealing with the stress of delivering quality learning with tools for which they have received little or no training or support… Such support is particularly urgent in some of the world’s poorest countries, which are already struggling to meet education needs because of critical shortages of trained teachers.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE Adjusts Events in Response to COVID-19   AACTE has made the decision to move its  June meetings to later in the year.
2) Third Federal Stimulus Package: Education Provisions   … the measure modifies the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program to permit that during a qualifying emergency the interrupted service is considered consecutive as long as the individual resumes teaching and completes the 5 year requirement. (This program requires 5 consecutive years of service to be eligible for loan forgiveness.)

Chalkbeat. Why do so many Colorado students struggle to read? Flawed curriculum is part of the problem.   While the state has recently cracked down on how teacher preparation programs cover reading and will soon require current teachers to prove they’ve completed training on reading instruction, it remains to be seen how vigorously the state will use its new authority over curriculum.

Education Week.
1) The K-12 Educator’s Guide to Safe and Effective Videoconferencing
2) What Happens to Student-Teachers Now? A Guide for Teachers   School closures have sidelined many promising student-teachers, leaving mentor teachers to figure out distance learning on their own. Although these policy decisions might be causing you some ambivalence about how to proceed with your student-teacher, you might be his only lifeline as the details of social isolation get sorted out.

Hechinger Report. Her daycare center was already on the brink — then coronavirus struck: The child care system is failing the very workers it relies on. And it’s about to get worse.   Even with at least a bachelor’s degree, wages for early childhood teachers are extremely low. The mean annual salary for an early childhood educator with a degree working with children from birth to age 3 is only $27,248. 

InsideHigherEd.
1) Education Department Releases Stimulus Distribution List  The department said the $6.28 billion for emergency aid is available today.
2) How Much Stimulus Will Your College Receive?: A searchable chart of how much each college can expect to receive.

OPEID	College or University	Total Allocation ($)	Minimum for Emergency Grants to Students ($)
00397900	Teachers College, Columbia	1,118,534	559,267.00

LPI. Preparing Educators for Deeper Learning and Equity During COVID-19  [Webinar 3pm April 23]

NYDaily News. Online learning: crisis and opportunity [By E. Feistritzer, founder and CEO of TEACH-NOW Graduate School of Education, D.C.]   No student graduates from my teacher education program without learning about virtual instruction and how to be a resource-rich problem-solver, regardless of the venue they are teaching in. I have found that when teachers start using the internet as a primary resource, it changes the way that they teach not just online, but in their classrooms. 

Pearson Education. Guidance for Candidates Impacted by School Closures  With many educator preparation programs (EPPs) and P–12 school districts impacted by COVID-19, the following guidance is provided to programs and teacher candidates in need of options for successfully preparing and submitting an edTPA portfolio.

Southern Regional Education Board. State Policy Flexibilities In Response To COVID-19: Avoid Failing the Next Cohort of New Teachers

NEW YORK STATE
NYSATE/NYACTE. Extended Call for Proposals for Fall 2020 Conference  The deadline for submitting proposals has been extended to May 1st, 2020. [Saratoga Springs, NY October 14-16, 2020]

NYSED. Board of Regents Acts on Series of Emergency Regulations to Ease the Burdens on Educators, Students and Professionals in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic  Higher Education: The Department amends the Commissioner’s regulations to:

• permit the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) training to be conducted entirely online during the time period of the State of emergency declared by the Governor pursuant to an Executive Order for the COVID-19 crisis;
• create an edTPA safety net for candidates in registered educator preparation programs whose student teaching or similar clinical experience in spring 2020 was impacted by COVID-19;
• extend the Statement of Continued Eligibility (SOCE) application deadline for special education teachers who teach a special class in grades 7-12 from June 30, 2020 to June 30, 2021; and
• extend the time period by which full-time, acceptable teaching experience must be completed for the SOCE or limited extension from June 30, 2020 to June 30, 2021.

Politico New York. State Ed Hires Search Firm for Next Commissioner   The State Education Department has enlisted headhunter firm AGB Search to help find its next permanent leader…

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. NYC forbids schools from using Zoom for remote learning due to privacy and security concerns   Department officials did not answer questions about whether Zoom could be used for purposes that don’t involve students, such as teacher training, or how much money is being spent to transition to Microsoft Teams.

QNS. NYC colleges offer competitive teaching programs in large job market   In addition to their coursework, student teaching and examination prep, education students must complete the certification program, where a recommendation from a university’s certification officer can make a difference. Most schools will not automatically recommend students, so students seeking an education degree may want to contact their university’s officer to ensure they get their recommendation

Teaching Residents at Teachers College. April 2020, Spring Edition Newsletter

GLOBAL
Association for Teacher Education in Europe.  2020 Spring Conference, 20-22 May, Florence, Italy. Postponed.

Parenting and Education in Ireland. UNESCO Mobilizes Education Ministers in COVID-19 Crisis   UNESCO’s expertise in open and distance learning spans teacher training platforms, the design of e-learning school models, online communities of practice and the development of national ICT in education policies…

Times Educational Supplement (tes).  Coronavirus: New teachers will qualify despite shutdown   Education secretary Gavin Williamson confirmed that trainee teachers who miss out on their full complement of school training hours because of school closures will still qualify as teachers.

UNITED STATES
AACTE. Education Funding and HEA Reauthorization in Play on Capitol Hill   Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chair of the Senate HELP Committee, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member on the HELP Committee, have issued somewhat dueling statements about the likelihood of a long-awaited bipartisan deal on a Higher Education Act reauthorization bill…

Chalkbeat. Literacy bill on the move in Tennessee Legislature, minus the phrase ‘science of reading’   Currently, the state has 44 teacher training programs, but no common requirements when it comes to literacy instruction. That’s going to stop, said Mike Krause, executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. 

CT Mirror. Would we evaluate a lawyer or doctor from a three-minute video clip?   On Friday, March 6, the Education Committee held a hearing on House Bill 5376, a bill that proposes the elimination of edTPA as a requirement for teacher certification.

Education Week.
1) National Education Policy Center, Deans’ Group Take Aim at the ‘Reading Wars’   “The overall body of high quality research in the teaching of early reading counsels us to make sure that our teachers have a complete toolbox, and are professionally prepared to use that full toolbox because different students have different needs,” said Kevin G. Welner, the director of NEPC, in an interview with Education Week. “The rejection of this idea of balanced literacy is potentially dangerous if we are removing tools from that toolbox.”
2) Teachers Share Resources for Teaching Online During Coronavirus School Closures

First STEP, Fulton County Schools (GA). On a Mission to Help Student-Teachers Thrive—and Stay in the Profession [new YouTube video]

Forbes. Learning In The Time Of COVID-19 [by L. Darling-Hammond]  Among these resources are many targeted to social and emotional learning as well as content learning, to English learners and to students with disabilities, to teachers who are learning new on-line pedagogies, and to parents who are learning to support their children’s education at home.

Hechinger Report. Ready or not, a new era of homeschooling has begun   In addition, most schools and teachers are unprepared to take their lessons online, and the education they can offer over the internet, on the fly, could be rough and wildly uneven.

National Education Policy Center and Education Deans for Justice and Equity. Policy Statement on the “Science of Reading” This “balanced literacy” approach, which stresses the importance of phonics and of authentic reading – and which stresses the importance of teachers who are professionally prepared to teach reading using a full toolbox of instructional approaches and understandings – is now strongly supported in the scholarly community and is grounded in a large research base.

NYTimes.
1) Coronavirus Resource Page for Students
2) Teachers Deserve More Respect [OpEd]  President Trump and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos… have also fought to eliminate civil rights protections in schools; to cut funding to reduce class size, teacher training and support; to make it easier for students to get away with sexual assault and harassment; and to put guns in schools…. 

NCEE. NCEE Statement on Passage of the Blueprint For Maryland’s Future by the Maryland Legislature  It raises the pay of teachers and requires them to meet higher standards to become educators. It establishes careers in teaching and makes advancement in those careers contingent on a teachers’ [sic] skills.

Washington Post.
1) Senate Democrats propose bailout for student loan borrowers   The Democrats are calling for at least $10,000 in tax-free debt cancellation for all federal student loan borrowers. They want the Education Department to assume loan payments for the duration of the national emergency and then institute a three-month grace period during which borrowers can forgo their payments without penalty. Payments made by the department would still count toward loan forgiveness for borrowers in public service jobs.
2) Trump suspends interest on all federal student loans to ease financial impact of coronavirus   Suspending payments, she said, could have been disruptive for people working toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a federal program that cancels the remaining balance of a borrower’s debt after 120 on-time monthly payments. 

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. Schools to close across New York state, governor says

NYSED.
1) NYSED Coronavirus Guidance Colleges and Universities Professional licensure or certification clinical experience courses must meet regulatory requirements. If present emergency circumstances create challenges associated with meeting clinical experience requirements, institutions should contact NYSED concerning appropriate alternatives to meet requirements, such as clinical simulation options.
2) The public comment period is open: proposed regulatory amendments to revise the composition of the Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching, including adding practicing, certified administrators to the Board & increasing membership to 30

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. NYC schools to close Monday for at least 4 weeks amid coronavirus pandemic