Tag: Teacher Residency

GLOBAL
Daily Mail. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson says investing in teacher training is ‘crucial’ to Covid recovery plans and closing attainment gap between children   ‘After all the disruption to our schools, including to teacher training, over the past year, investing in our next generation of teachers, and enabling them to deliver high-quality teaching to inspire and motivate a new generation, is more important than ever and crucial to our long-term recovery plans.’

International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 [Teacher Task Force-TTF].
1) First KIX LAC International Conference – Teaching professional development in times of COVID: opportunities from innovation [21 April]
2) Futures of Teaching – Conversation between teachers and experts from the Arab States and the International Commission on the Futures of Education [20 April]
3) Global Teaching Insights during Covid-19 – A joint OECD – UNESCO – TTF initiative:  Conversations on Teaching during COVID-19 Webinar Series [8, 15, 22 & 28 April 2021]

The Hindu. DIETs face manpower crunch following new G.O. on transfer   District Institutes of Education and Traininng (DIET) are facing manpower shortage in the wake of the State government issuing an order to shift senior faculty members to Government Colleges of Education.

The Standard. Proof that pupils are only coached to pass exams and no actual learning goes on in schools   It has emerged that in Uganda, the (college) teachers who teach the (school) teachers who teach the children don’t teach the teachers to teach the children well! Quite a tongue twister… Oh yes, the tongue twister is official! It was unveiled officially to the nation, complete with appalling statistics, by the Executive Director of the national exams body last week. 

UNITED STATES
AACTE/SCALE. February – March 2020-21 Newsletter, edTPA® Announcements 

American Educational Research Association (AERA).
1) 2021 AERA Virtual Annual Meeting | April 8 – 12, 2021 [member sign-in required]
2) Rich Milner Voted AERA President-Elect; Key Members Elected to AERA Council   Four education researchers were voted as division vice presidents-elect and will join AERA’s 2022–2023 Council after the 2022 Annual Meeting. They will serve three-year terms…. Division K: Teaching and Teacher Education Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University

Chalkbeat.
1) Despite pandemic, there’s little evidence of rising teacher turnover — yet.  Some people have also raised concerns about fewer students training to become teachers, but there’s little clear data on this either way. But if the economic downturn helped keep teachers in the classroom, an improved economy could lure some of them out or deter others from entering.
2) Q&A with MSU’s Katharine Strunk: Teacher retention starts with compensation, school leadership    A third piece that I think is critically important that we don’t think about enough is the teacher preparation pipeline. We know from the literature that teachers tend to stay close to home — where they grew up — or where they trained to be a teacher. In rural areas, and in some of the urban centers, we don’t have enough of a teacher prep pipeline to bring teachers in to stay in those districts. 

Education Week.
1) A Pro-Trump Student Group Will Launch a History Curriculum. It Could Get a COVID-19 Boost   Turning Point USA says its new “Turning Point Academy” initiative will “train thousands of educators nationwide” to use its upcoming curriculum and “help transform the way our young people perceive freedom, government, and free enterprise.”
2) Far Too Many Educators Aren’t Prepared to Teach Black and Brown Students: Teacher-prep programs can help change that   The solution is threefold for our teacher-preparation programs: 1. Engender cultural fluency and understanding; 2. Equip teachers with the skills and knowledge to help Black and brown students actually learn, not just “speak woke;” 3. Commit to diversifying faculty, student bodies, and syllabi. 
3) ‘Keep It Simple’ & Other ‘Best’ Teaching Advice From Educators   Sarah Brown has been teaching 6th grade language arts and social studies at The Windward School for four years… graduate school at Columbia University, Teachers College… Tomorrow is a new day, a blank slate for you and for them. Show up, try again, and know that what you do is unbelievably hard but undeniably meaningful.

Forbes. Accelerating Learning As We Build Back Better   If we really want to support learning, the return to school should not include these staple features of an outdated approach to learning that research has found actually undermine achievement:… Placing the neediest students in remedial classes with the least trained and experienced teachers who are least likely to know how to create productive learning environments.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Tutoring corps could help kids with COVID learning slide — and train new teachers, too   Rep. James Talarico, D-Round Rock, and Sen. Beverly Powell, D-Burleson, have introduced a measure to create the program, which would incentivize educator-preparation programs, school districts and community partners to recruit and train teacher candidates (among others) to deliver tutoring to students in high-need schools. It would disburse federal stimulus funds to local decision makers.

New York Times. As Pandemic Upends Teaching, Fewer Students Want to Pursue It: Disruptions to education during the pandemic are turning people away from a profession that was already struggling to attract new recruits.   Not all teacher preparation programs are experiencing a decrease in interest. California State University in Long Beach saw enrollment climb 15 percent this year… Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City also saw an increase in applications this year, according to a spokesman, who noted that teaching has historically been a “recession-proof profession” that sometimes attracts more young people in times of crisis.

NEW YORK STATE
Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE). New York State Profile.   New York early educators with a bachelor’s degree are paid 32.6 percent less than their colleagues in the K-8 system. The poverty rate for early educators in New York is 19.3 percent, much higher than for New York workers in general (8.6 percent) and 7.8 times as high as for K-8 teachers (2.5 percent)

New York State Education Department.
1) Office of Higher Education, March Educator Preparation Newsletter
*Board of Regents March Items
*Extension 0f Distance Education Flexibility
*NYSTCE Test Development Activities
*Teaching in Remote/Hybrid Learning Environments
2) Statement from Board of Regents Chancellor Young and State Education Department Commissioner Rosa on the Enacted State Budget   It has long been a priority of the Board to help recruit and retain a statewide corps of teachers who reflect our diverse and vibrant student population. We are happy to see critical support in the Budget for future and current educators, including through an increase to the Albert Shanker Grant program.

Spectrum News. CFE Attorney Rebell Feels Vindicated, But Show Him a Court Order.  After 28 years of fighting for a sound, basic education for every student in New York, activists like attorney Michael Rebell of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, are celebrating a victory that has been delayed multiple times: a commitment by the state legislature to fully fund the state’s primary education formula, Foundation Aid.

NEW YORK CITY
New York Times. My Son’s Yeshiva Is Breaking the Law: Ultra-Orthodox schools must provide a proper education, but politicians aren’t holding them accountable.  The teachers are coming from the same system. And then they go and teach. These are the teachers they’re looking for.

Teachers College.
1) Show Him the Money: Michael Rebell is glad the state will begin paying New York City long-owed school funding, but he’s not celebrating yet   But looking beyond this year, when the state will deliver a first installment of roughly $1.4 billion, Rebell, Professor of Law & Educational Practice and Executive Director of Teachers College’s Center for Educational Equity, simply says, “I’ll believe it when I see it… After all, it took Rebell, then serving as lead attorney for the plaintiffs in CFE vs. State of New York, 13 years to win a ruling that — as vouchsafed in the state’s constitution — all children are entitled to a sound, basic education. 
2) Teaching Residents @ Teachers College. Induction and Beyond: April 2021 Monthly Educator Resources

GLOBAL
NLTimes. Tuition fees halved in €9.2 billion education support package   Higher education students including those in a higher vocational program will only pay half of their tuition fees for the coming academic year, the caretaker Dutch Cabinet announced… A portion of the support package is also meant to be invested in specialist subject teaching, teaching assistants, and more education support staff.

Sydney Morning Herald. State’s $330 million tutoring program has begun in four out of five schools   Schools can either hire tutors themselves, if students already have relationships with casual teachers, or choose from a pool of educators – including teachers or university students – who have been registered in their area.

The Star. Dong Zhong concludes its teacher training course held exclusively online for first time   The United Chinese School Committees’ Association (Dong Zong) recently concluded its annual teacher training course, which had been moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic… A total of 130 new teachers participated in the course that took place over three days in February.

World Education Blog. Latin America: Countries should prioritise training teachers in the language of the community in which they teach   Despite numerous national efforts, indigenous peoples still have higher illiteracy rates, lower participation in education and higher dropout rates than their non-indigenous peers. This is the result of curricula that do not reflect their language, their way of living and their knowledge. 

UNITED STATES
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. AACTE Partners with National Science Foundation to Advance Science Educator Preparation   “AACTE is eager to partner with NSF to increase the pipeline of highly qualified science educators entering the nation’s secondary classrooms. Through this grant, AACTE and its members will help reduce the national shortage of teachers in this specialty”…

Atlanta Journal Constitution. Student loan forgiveness to become tax-free under COVID relief bill.   The president also said he would support making community college free and for allowing families who earn $125,000 or less to send their children to state schools for free. He also said he supports eliminating interest payments and expanding debt forgiveness programs for Americans who take public service jobs, such as teaching.

Chalkbeat. Just 1 in 6 Indiana college students who study education become teachers, report finds   Only 1 in 6 students who pursued bachelor’s degrees in education at state colleges and universities ended up working as teachers, according to a new report on Indiana’s teacher pipeline that followed students who entered college from 2010 to 2012. The outcomes were even starker among students of color: Just 5% of Black students who entered education programs went into teaching in Indiana classrooms…

Education Week. Top U.S. Companies: These Are the Skills Students Need in a Post-Pandemic World   Teachers that offer nurturing environments and flexibility so that students feel comfortable bringing their whole self to school will be the most effective teachers in the future—producing the most engaged students.

Hechinger Report. Tears, sleepless nights and small victories: How first-year teachers are weathering the crisis   The nonprofit Teach Kentucky has tried to fill this gap by recruiting recent college graduates to work in the district’s schools for two years while earning a master’s degree in education. Many of the program’s participants have no teaching experience, so the organization tries to prepare them quickly with a two-month boot camp during the summer.  

InsideHigherEd. House Joins Senate in Approving $40B in Aid for Higher Education.  The bill also includes a victory for advocates of canceling student debt. Democrats added a provision that says if debt were to be canceled, the value of the amount forgiven would not be taxed by the federal government.

LPI.
1) California Teachers and COVID-19: How the Pandemic Is Impacting the Teacher Workforce   The report describes five findings based on common themes that arose in the interviews: *Teacher pipeline problems are exacerbated by state testing policies for teacher licensure and inadequate financial aid for completing preparation. *Teacher residencies and preparation partnerships have proved important to recruitment.
2) An Unparalleled Investment in U.S. Public Education: Analysis of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021   States and districts can use these funds to make high-leverage investments to:… Stabilize and diversify the educator workforce and rebuild the educator pipeline.

NEA News.
1) Higher Ed Faculty and Staff Lagging in Vaccinations: While states roll out COVID-19 vaccinations, many college and university employees still lack access to this critical safety measure.   Young adults on college campuses have been shown to spread the virus at increased rates, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have included college and university employees as “people who work in educational settings” with “increased risk of acquiring or transmitting” the virus.
2) Project 18: The Aspiring Ed Members Who Won Our Right to Vote: Fifty years ago, they successfully campaigned to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, allowing millions of young people to participate in democracy.   The 26th Amendment passed faster than any constitutional amendment in history, but it wasn’t an easy process. It took a group of young activists—including members of Student NEA (now NEA’s Aspiring Educators)—to launch Project 18, a national campaign to change the voting age.

The 74. Study: Chicago Tutoring Program Delivered Huge Math Gains; Personalization May Be the Key   Two students were assigned to each tutor for hour-long sessions during the school day; the tutors themselves were recent college graduates without teaching credentials who worked at the program over the course of nine months.

USC Rossier School of Education. USC Rossier and LAUSD announce teacher-preparation residency.  The Teacher Preparation Residency is available to eligible students from USC Rossier’s Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) master’s program who…aspire to teach in STEM fields or Education Specialist positions. Selected candidates will receive a $30,000 scholarship from USC Rossier, and a $15,000 living stipend from LAUSD. 

Washington Post. I was a well-meaning White teacher. But my harsh discipline harmed Black kids.   In my training program, I’d been told to create a “culturally responsive” classroom, where a teacher tries to consider outside social factors that shape a child’s progress in school. Is this student acting out because he is hungry? Is she sleeping in class because — and this wasn’t uncommon — gunshots in her neighborhood kept her up all night?… But, days into my first-ever full-time job, my training clashed with reality. My administration told me to make a strong, strict first impression. New teachers want to be loved, but they need to be respected. (Many are told: “Don’t smile until November.”) So I rapidly became a disciplinarian. 

NEW YORK STATE
Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP). Syracuse University- Accreditation Action Report: An official record of actions taken by the AAQEP Accreditation Commission;

NYSED Board of Regents. March 15 meeting agenda

NYSED. Extension of Distance Education Flexibility for the 2021-2022 Academic Year  Due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, the NYS Education Department is extending the current distance education flexibility until the end of the 2021-2022 academic year. This extension permits institutions to continue to offer distance education courses in programs, during the 2021-2022 academic year, without triggering the need to register the programs in the distance education format, even if the 50% threshold for registration in the distance education format will be reached.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat/Lexia. Reaching Emergent Bilingual Students: Supporting Multilingual Learners During and After Remote Learning …learn how educators can support New York City’s emergent bilingual students accelerate their English language and literacy acquisition no matter where learning takes place. [Webinar March 16 3:30 ET]

City Limits. NYC Schools Can Help Close the COVID Achievement Gap With Tutoring.  These tutoring services could be provided by experienced teachers, nonprofit educational workers and service corps members… Tutoring programs led by teacher or paraprofessional tutors are generally more effective than programs that use volunteer or parent tutors. 

Gotham Gazette.  Democratic Mayoral Candidates Stake Out Education Policy Positions   On reading proficiency, Adams emphasized the importance of ensuring that children’s reading material is diverse, on top of ensuring teachers are properly trained…. Donovan said he would “open 450 new bilingual programs over four years in elementary, middle, and high schools” and create a pipeline for multilingual New Yorkers to become teachers, noting this would require partnership with CUNY. He also committed to improving educator diversity, saying, “I’m the only candidate that’s made a specific commitment to getting to two-thirds of our teachers of color within the first term.”… Stringer called for a “teacher residency program,” citing the fact that 40% of teachers leave after five years, and hiring “1,000 teachers of all different backgrounds [per year].”

Teaching Residents @ Teachers College. Induction and Beyond: March 2021 Monthly Educator Resources

GLOBAL
NPR Goats and Soda. Village Teacher Wins $1 Million Prize For World’s Most ‘Exceptional’ Educator   Disale hadn’t always planned to be a teacher. He was studying to be an engineer but dropped out because of bullying by his peers. He enrolled in a teacher training course on his father’s suggestion and was posted to Paritewadi in 2009 for his first assignment. “Day 1 was shocking,” says Disale. His classroom was overrun by cows and buffaloes. A farmer had turned it into a cattle shed and refused to leave.

New York Post. French government seeks to set age for sexual consent at 15.  Activists say improving laws is part of the battle, but they also are pushing for more child-centered public policies to train teachers and others to spot and report abuse.

Shropshire Star. Government pledges £65m fund for new teacher training hubs across England  A multimillion-pound Government fund will be used to ensure every school in England has access to a “local centre of excellence for teacher training”.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE Response to 2021 NCTQ Report    In anticipation of the National Center on Teacher Quality’s (NCTQ) release of yet another round of flawed ratings for educator preparation programs, AACTE re-asserts its long-standing belief that the NCTQ model of program evaluation lacks the multiple-accountability, science-based measures necessary to assess teacher preparation program quality legitimately and accurately.
2) Friday, February 19, is the last the day to register for the virtual AACTE 2021 Annual Meeting, February 24-26.

CITED (Centre for Innovation in Teacher Education and Development)
1) 2021-2024 Faculty Fellows
2) CITED Conversations 2021 [via Zoom]
3) Inaugural CITED Teacher Fellows

Chalkbeat. We need books that center Black joy : It’s important that Black children feel seen, valued, and loved in their reading lives.  As Director of Diversity and Equity at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University, my work in advancing antiracism in education begins by centering and honoring the lived experiences of students of color. 

Daily Herald. GOP lawmakers: Culturally responsive standards for teachers would put politics in classrooms  Suburban lawmakers are split in opinion over a rule change proposed by the Illinois State Board of Education called “culturally responsive teaching and leading standards.” The standards would “apply to both candidates for licensure and to the programs that prepare them” beginning in October 2021 for new teacher training programs and in October 2025 for existing programs.

EdWeek.
1) Cybersecurity Training for Educators Lagging Behind Rising Risk of Cyberattacks   But 44 percent of K-12 and college educators say they haven’t received basic cybersecurity training, and another 8 percent were unsure if they had been trained at all. 
2) Learning Means Changing Your Mind   Most adults and educators understand that the process of learning matters more enduringly than the product it produces. Psychologists Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth have popularized this idea; it’s become so deeply ingrained in teacher-training programs that lessons on growth mindsets and grit appear in elementary school curricula. 

InsideHigherEd.
1) Cardona Takes Step Toward Confirmation   Miguel Cardona, President Biden’s nominee for education secretary, took a major step Thursday toward his likely confirmation by the Senate. Six Republicans joined 11 Democrats in supporting Cardona, as the Senate education committee voted to back the nomination, 17 to 5.
2) Former Miami Head Start Teacher to Lead House Higher Education Panel   Representative Frederica Wilson… said in a statement she’d work to increase access to higher education. “I will seek to help make attaining a quality degree more accessible for all, which includes robust investment in historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions,” said Wilson, who earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Fisk University and a master of science in elementary education from the University of Miami.

KQED. Strategies for Retaining Teachers of Color and Making Schools More Equitable   Bristol says there are different levers to engage in order to retain Black and Latinx educators. One of those levers is teacher preparation programs. Teachers of color in predominantly white teacher certification programs often struggle with feeling like their identity is not reflected in their coursework with curriculums that overlook their experiences and privilege the preparation of white middle-class educators… Another element of teacher prep programs relates to how they perceive students of color. Students are better supported when teacher prep programs prepare all teachers to engage with Black and Latinx learners… 

Lawton Constitution. Oklahoma bill to increase teacher preparation passes committee   Included in the legislation is data-driven, evidence-based strategies that include training on literacy — including phonics; an evidence-based approach to mathematics instruction; the application of behavioral sciences to classroom management; and the identification and impact of trauma on student learning and trauma-informed responsive instruction.

Learning Policy Institute. Eroding Opportunity: COVID-19’s Toll on Student Access to Well-Prepared and Diverse Teachers   Data on teacher preparation program enrollment is not yet available, but early signs are worrisome. Undergraduate enrollment is down by nearly 4% (a concerning statistic, given that 80% of educators begin teaching with a bachelor’s degree). Enrollment declines are steepest among Native American and Black students.

The 19th News. Republican state lawmakers want to punish schools that teach the 1619 Project   …proposed legislation that would penalize schools for teaching curriculums based on the 1619 Project signals a new era of policy debate over civics education that may increasingly play out in state legislatures.

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. Betty Rosa, former NY State education chancellor, appointed to commissioner job   Rosa said. “Economic recovery through smart investments in schools, in teachers, in curricula and the ways we deliver instruction — that is how we will tackle so many of the challenges we face”… Before receiving a prominent role in Albany, Rosa spent years in the Bronx as a bilingual teacher, principal and superintendent.

NYSED Board of Regents, Feb. 8th Meeting
1) Board of Regents Unanimously Appoints Dr. Betty A. Rosa as Permanent Commissioner of Education: Commissioner Rosa is First Latina Woman to Serve as Commissioner   Dr. Rosa is a nationally recognized education leader and received an Ed. M. and Ed. D. in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from Harvard University. She also holds two other Master of Science in Education degrees, one in Administration and Supervision and the other in Bilingual Education from the City College of New York and Lehman College respectively and a B.A. in psychology from the City College of New York… Dr. Rosa began her career in the NYC Department of Education as a bilingual paraprofessional, teacher and reading coordinator…
2)Proposed Amendments to Sections 52.21, 80-3.14, and 80-3.7 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education and Section 30-1.2 of the Rules of the Board of Regents Relating to Providing Flexibility Relating to Student Teaching, Individual Evaluation Pa…
3) Proposed Amendment to Section 50.1(l) of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Definition of “University” 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) NYC’s middle school students to head back to buildings this month
2) What I saw when I spent a month watching middle school on Zoom   It seems that the teachers had been given very little training in how to transfer instruction to a virtual setting, particularly for kids with learning disabilities. As a result, students in my niece’s middle school were essentially expected to teach themselves the material. 

Teaching Residents @ Teachers College. TR@TC Induction and Beyond | Monthly Newsletter | February 2021

GLOBAL
ERR News. Coalition agreement: Center-Reform government 2021-2023   Valuing the next generation of teachers and the profession of teaching is a pillar for the sustainability of the state of Estonia. In teacher education, our objective is to make sure that Estonian teachers and headmasters are competent and motivated.

NZ Herald. Phonics revolution: War of words over how to teach kids to read   Ministry of Education researchers say other English-speaking countries- many with better literacy ratings than New Zealand – place a greater emphasis on, or in some cases new approaches to, teaching phonics.

Premium Times. International Education Day: ActionAid canvasses increased allocation to education sector   The group said against the backdrop of these factors, it joined the rest of the world to commemorate this year’s International Education Day and is calling on the federal government to improve the quality of teaching through adequate recruitment, remuneration, and continued teacher training and re-training.

The Sun. Headteacher tells parents to ‘do a teacher training course’ in scathing letter after they moaned about home lessons   Colin Dowland, head of Woodridge Primary school in North London, sent the tongue-in-cheek letter earlier this week, as teachers grappled with home schooling in the lockdown. 

UNITED STATES
Associated Press. Indian education funding at stake in New Mexico legislature.  In January, Lujan Grisham’s budget recommendation included $15 million in funding for Native American-focused funding that could be used for teacher training, recruitment, and curriculum development each year for the next two years.

Coalition for Teaching Quality.
1) Strengthening Educator Recruitment, Development, and Support through ESSA Implementation   “We’re excited that today the Coalition released three consensus policy papers to help inform state and district implementation of ESSA.  The more than 100 member organizations of the Coalition – which represent the collective voice of the profession – are ready to partner with Congressional, state, and local policy leaders to move this work forward and use these recommendations as blueprints for action,”…
2) Student Access to Well-Prepared and Diverse Educators During and Through COVID-19   This briefing, hosted by the Coalition for Teaching Quality, will illuminate the impact of COVID-19 on the educator pipeline and the stabilization of the educator workforce, provide evidenced-based solutions, and detail the resources needed over the long term to support student access to well-prepared and diverse educators. [Webinar Feb. 4]

Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Seminar Focuses on Recruiting Black Males to the Teaching Profession   “Building Black Male Educator Pipelines Through Effective Recruitment,”…The three-part series aims to highlight the low representation of Black males within the teaching profession and provide recruitment strategies to strengthen the pipeline.

Education Week.
1) Keeping Students and Teachers Motivated and Engaged [Free Online Summit, Feb. 18]
2) Reopening Schools in 100 Days: How Staff Shortages Could Hobble Biden’s Plan   As teachers fall ill with COVID-19 or have to quarantine because of exposure, schools are increasingly dependent on substitute teachers. And sub pools are under growing pressure. Kelly Education, which helps districts in 35 states staff their schools, reports that demand for long-term substitute teachers has risen 34 percent since last school year. That’s strained an already-short staffing situation…
3) Same Old Civics Ed. Won’t Save Us: We must fight white supremacy in the classroom, not dodge it   School administrators need to follow their lead in supporting discussions about pressing civic topics, and teachers need training to facilitate those discussions in ways that promote safety, equity, and empathy for the students of color who make up the majority of public school enrollment.

Hechinger Report. Can we teach our way out of political polarization?: Research and experts say it’s complicated, but schools should still do much more to teach civics, history and media literacy   Martha Bouyer developed and directs Stony the Road, a training program for teachers about the history of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, Alabama. “Education is key,” she said. We can’t teach “young people this myth that there are people in this nation who don’t deserve certain things.”

National Education Association. 7 changes to expect from Biden’s Department of Education led by Miguel Cardona   Dr. Cardona will help fulfill President Biden’s promises to make community college free, tackle the student debt crisis, and enable college graduates to pursue careers in education and public service by expanding and simplifying the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Teacher Loan Forgiveness programs

NCTE. National Council of Teachers of English Now Accepting 2021 Early Career Educator of Color Applications

Washington Post.
1) Advice from two experts on how Biden and Harris can tackle America’s child-care crisis.  …by Sharon Lynn Kagan, a professor of early-childhood and family policy at Columbia University’s Teachers College and co-director of the college’s National Center for Children and Families, and Caitlin Dermody, research assistant at the National Center for Children and Families… To be effective, funded programs must be buttressed by an infrastructure that supports a well-trained workforce.
2) Is there really a ‘science of reading’ that tells us exactly how to teach kids to read?   Unfortunately, some have naively suggested that science has unequivocally resolved how reading must be taught to every child and that those who disagree are science deniers. Not only is that conclusion unwarranted, it is quintessentially unscientific. 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Office Of Higher Education. January Educator Preparation Newsletter
* New Chancellor
* New School Counselor Program Application Deadline
* Participating in The Teaching in Remote/Hybrid Learning Environments Program
* edTPA Webinars

NEW YORK CITY
Bank Street College. Prepared to Teach January Newsletter

Teachers College. New Research and Applications for Teaching Reading Workshop. TC Sr. Lecturer S. Masullo: facilitator [Feb. 27-Mar. 6]

GLOBAL
Global Partnership for Education. How teacher training can support a truly gender transformative approach to education   Plan International Canada is pleased to share the Gender Responsive Pedagogy Teacher Training (GRPTT) pack. The GRPTT provides a practical approach to integrating gender equality into child-centered pedagogical training.

Jerusalem Post. Herzog College: Leading the renaissance at Hechal Shlomo   …in 2013, Herzog College, one of Israel’s leading teacher training and pedagogic colleges – named after Yaakov Herzog, diplomat, scholar, and son of the late Chief Rabbi Herzog – moved its master’s degree programs to Hechal Shlomo, and in doing so, signaled its desire to revitalize Hechal Shlomo and restore it to its original mission of becoming a center of Jewish heritage and learning for Jews around the world… Herzog is providing international teacher training for teachers in South America, North America and France.

MalayMail. Japanese government invites qualified Malaysians to apply for Japanese Studies and Teacher Training scholarships   The Japan Embassy in a statement said the scholarship entails monthly allowances of ¥117,000 (RM4,400) for Japanese Studies, and ¥143,000 (RM5,400) to Teacher Training (amount is subject to change). Fees for entrance examination, matriculation and tuition at universities will be exempted while a round-trip airplane ticket is also provided.

ZDNet. To make AI a success, every child needs to understand the risk and potential of algorithms   There are about half a million full-time teachers in the UK. Given the amount of teacher training required, and although programs such as NCCE are an encouraging start, Mitchell maintains that he would be “surprised” to see every child coming out of school with an understanding of AI by 2030.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.  AACTE Receives Grant to Reduce Barriers to a Diversified Teaching Workforce   The initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will enable AACTE to develop national guidelines and recommendations for state education leaders in establishing criteria for equitable evaluations for teacher candidates seeking state licensure.

Chalkbeat.
1) Colorado’s emphasis on phonics in reading could hurt English language learners, advocates say   Most of the members of HELDE are leaders in higher education, including those who train teachers, and some in institutions that have been ordered by the state to revamp their teacher training programs… “We’re concerned that this overreliance on phonetic instruction really doesn’t prepare our new teachers adequately to work with emerging bilinguals,” Vigil said.
2) Could addressing dyslexia boost literacy in Michigan? Some lawmakers want to find out.   The bills would attempt to improve literacy instruction by 2024, by requiring teacher preparation programs to offer instruction on dyslexia and how to support dyslexic students and by requiring teachers to have a minimum level of training about dyslexia to be certified… Some teacher preparation programs in Michigan don’t give educators the skills they need to teach early readers, including students with dyslexia, Moje said, though she said her university does give future teachers those tools.
3) Tennessee unveils $100 million plan to help its youngest students read better   Spokeswoman Elizabeth Tullos said the state board had input in the plan and will work alongside the department on its rollout. “Over time, the board anticipates it will assist through crafting policies for educator preparation providers, examining instructional materials, and providing oversight,” she said.

EdWeek. The 2021 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings   [Among the 200 scholars on the list were 10 Teachers College faculty members: Henry Levin, Amy Stuart Wells, Chris Emdin, Jeffrey Henig, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Aaron Pallas, Judith Scott-Clayton, Thomas Bailey, Michael Rebell, Sonya Douglass Horsford, and Sarah Cohodes]

Hechinger Report. Who is the new U.S. Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona?   He went on to Central Connecticut State University and initially considered majoring in art education — influenced by an excellent art teacher he had. “But I gravitated toward elementary education and once I started doing internship experiences in New Britain, it was sealed for me,” he said… Cardona, who spoke only Spanish until entering school, said he considered going into bilingual education but “I felt it was important non-Latino students saw a Latino in a position as a teacher. So I chose to stay in the regular education setting.”

Inside Higher Ed. Biden’s Pick for Education Secretary: Miguel Cardona, education commissioner in Connecticut, is a strong defender of public schools. …attended Central Connecticut State University for his bachelor’s degree and the University of Connecticut, where he completed his master’s degree in bilingual/bicultural education and his doctorate in education.

LPI. A Second Round of Federal Relief: An Important Next Step   While this funding provides much-needed relief, it is over $100 billion short of what our public school systems would need to support students through the pandemic and address the ongoing impact of their disrupted learning. These funds are insufficient to stabilize the educator workforce and the educator pipeline…

University Business. The financial crossroad of teacher education   Leaders at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education share how financing and support can encourage more students to enroll in teacher preparation programs.

Washington Post. Joe Clark, New Jersey principal who inspired ‘Lean on Me,’ dies at 83   …he began his career in New Jersey’s Passaic County, where he worked first as an elementary school teacher… he received a bachelor’s degree from what is now William Paterson University and a master’s degree from Seton Hall University.

 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSATE/NYACTE. Recording of Educator Diversity Report Webinar

NYSED Office of Higher Education December Newsletter
Board Of Regents December Items
*K-12 Computer Science and Digital Fluency Learning Standards
*Computer Science Teacher Preparation Program Content Core Requirement.

 

NEW YORK CITY
Bank Street College. C0-designing Teacher Residencies: Sharing leadership, finding new opportunities   From fall 2018 through summer 2020, Prepared To Teach worked with teacher preparation/P-12/higher education partnerships to design and pilot more sustainably funded residencies. This report shares lessons learned from the Western Washington University/Ferndale School district partnership.

Chalkbeat. Online tutors are helping NYC students catch up. But expanding these programs remains costly.   “Now we have more college students, writers, people who want to be teachers or are thinking about switching careers, retirees who worked in education or not,” Kirven said, but the organization still has staff-related bottlenecks when it comes to supporting volunteers… All tutors must take training sessions from professional educators. About two thirds of the volunteers have teaching or tutoring experience..

Hechinger Report. New York City’s new middle school admissions will test white parents [by TC Prof. A. S. Wells]

Patch. Meet The Queens Music Teacher Who Helped Shape Pixar’s ‘Soul’   Archer, a Brooklyn native, received a bachelor’s degree in trumpet performance and a master’s degree music education from Queens College. He earned his doctorate from Boston University, with his dissertation focusing on the Aaron Copeland School of Music. He inadvertently launched his teaching career thanks to a music education internship at M.S. 158 Marie Curie in Bayside during his time at Queens College. 

GLOBAL
Ethical Schools. Podcast: Dodging responsibility for our children: Reducing learning to test scores [ interview with S. E. Abrams of Teachers College]  …they pay their teachers better. They prepare them better. It’s a five-year master’s program. All right. So three years in content, two years in pedagogical theory and practice. And this has been since 1979 in Finland. They started phasing it in in 1972, but that’s not true in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, or the United States. 

MOFET Institute. 5 Things You Can Do with the International Portal of Teacher Education: The online resource of academic content on teacher training and teacher education

UNESCO.
1) 2020 Global Education Meeting highlights   …co-hosted by the Governments of Ghana, Norway and the United Kingdom. The 2020 GEM provided a unique platform for exchange among high-level political leaders, policy makers and global education actors to protect and rethink education in the current and post-COVID-19 world
2) Ensuring effective distance learning during COVID-19 disruption: guidance for teachers
3) Strengthening pre-service teacher education in Myanmar (STEM): phase II, final narrative report
4) Policy Paper Inclusive Teaching: Preparing All Teachers To Teach All Students

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE. 2020 Technology Implementation Grant Recipients.  Twenty AACTE member institutions were named recipients of the 2020 AACTE Video Observation Technology Implementation Grant, offered in partnership with Edthena. Institutions will implement the Edthena platform for the spring 2021 semester to enhance training for future teachers in methods courses, field observations, skill building, and group learning via advanced technology. 

Chalkbeat.
1) Illinois will start grading its teacher prep programs   The Illinois State Board of Education gave a preliminary look at its new Educator Preparation Profile on Monday. The report has data from 52 colleges and universities in the state that offer more than 700 approved teacher preparation programs. On average, the programs produce 5,000 teachers every year. However, local school districts need more educators in the classroom.
2) Newark schools are ramping up virtual tutoring. Will it be enough to combat pandemic learning loss?   The city school district plans to train students to tutor their peers, and it recently launched a “homework hotline” where teachers work one-on-one with students over video chat. Some Newark charter schools are also bringing in tutors, including corporate volunteers at one school and AmeriCorps members at another.

Education Week.
1) Author Interview: ‘No More Culturally Irrelevant Teaching’   In this first post of a two-part interview, Mariana Souto-Manning answers questions about the book she co-authored, No More Culturally Irrelevant Teaching. Mariana Souto-Manning is a professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City…. Ethically, culturally relevant teaching demands that teachers have high expectations for their students and work to ensure that their brilliance is able to shine. Morally, culturally relevant teachers know that Black, Indigenous, and children of color are geniuses.
2) Eight Strategies for Engaging in Culturally Relevant Teaching   In this second post of a two-part interview, Mariana Souto-Manning answers questions about the book she co-authored, No More Culturally Irrelevant Teaching...it is incumbent upon us to engage in unlearning some of the myths we learned during our own schooling journeys–including our teacher-preparation programs..
3) How Betsy DeVos Bent the Nation’s Education Debate in Four Tense Years   … the education community’s backlash to Trump highlights how non-educators (DeVos never worked as a teacher or in education administration before becoming secretary) have dominated education policymaking and in many ways failed to support a frail K-12 system, said Sonya Douglas Horford, an associate professor of education leadership at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
4) Is This the End of ‘Three Cueing’?   …addressing the persistence of cueing is a challenge that goes beyond curricula, said Emily Solari, a professor of reading education at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and Human Development. “We have generations of teachers who haven’t been provided adequate training on how to teach reading, through no fault of their own,” she said. 

Inside Higher Education. Essay on Dr. Jill Biden Prompts Uproar   The university released a statement that said, “Joseph Epstein has not been a lecturer at Northwestern since 2003. While we firmly support academic freedom and freedom of expression, we do not agree with Mr. Epstein’s opinion and believe the designation of doctor is well deserved by anyone who has earned a Ph.D., an Ed.D. or an M.D. Northwestern is firmly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, and strongly disagrees with Mr. Epstein’s misogynistic views.”

Latino Rebels. Call Me Doctora: Why It Matters [by B. E Vega TC EdD ‘05]   Take the work of teachers, for example. The preconceived and misdirected notions that “everyone can be a teacher” is one of the most problematic ideologies that has persisted in capitalist societies such as the U.S. This is evident in the ways we treat and pay teachers. 

NEPC. Education Policy Satire is What We Need to End This Bear of a Year: New Onion-like humor book follows ridiculous education policies to their ridiculous extremes.

New York Times.
1) An Opinion Writer Argued Jill Biden Should Drop the ‘Dr.’ (Few Were Swayed.)   Dr. Biden, who holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware, is clearly proud of her job as a community college professor. When her husband, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., takes office next month and she becomes first lady, Dr. Biden plans to continue teaching at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has been an English professor since 2009.
2) Wall Street Journal Opinion Editor Defends Item on Dr. Jill Biden.  After earning two master’s degrees, Dr. Biden received her doctorate in 2007 from the University of Delaware. She also taught English at a community college in Virginia, and has said she hopes to continue doing so while serving as first lady.

TNTP. A Broken Pipeline: Teacher Preparation’s Diversity Problem   In this report, we use data from the U.S. Department of Education to compare the demographics of each state’s teacher preparation program enrollees to that of public school students to calculate a “teacher prep diversity gap.” We also highlight individual teacher preparation programs that are–and are not–recruiting enough teahers of color to match student demographics in their states.

Wall Street Journal. Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.  Any chance you might drop the “Dr.” before your name? “Dr. Jill Biden” sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic. Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation with the unpromising title “Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs.”

Washington Post.
1) The Wall Street Journal column about Jill Biden is worse than you thought.   In her 50s, she acquired an EdD from the University of Delaware; she now works as a community college professor, and plans to continue through her husband’s presidential term.… as Merriam-Webster dictionary pointed out on Twitter, “doctor” comes from the Latin word for “teacher”; it was scholars and theologians who, back in the 14th century, used the title well before medical practitioners.
2) Two outsiders emerge as top contenders for Biden’s education secretary.  Fenwick has criticized education programs such as Teach For America — a nonprofit that for years recruited only new college graduates, gave them five weeks of summer training and placed them in high-need schools — and the move to inject competition and corporate-inspired management techniques into schools.

 

NEW YORK STATE
Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities. Announcing Dr. Drew Bogner as Interim President

Daily Gazette. Student-teacher experience also bends to pandemic’s will   Some districts and teachers have passed on student-teacher placements this year, complicating the work of teacher preparation programs working to ensure prospective teachers have the opportunity to meet teacher certification requirements during the pandemic. State officials eased the rules of the placements to enable student teachers to work in an all-remote environment, but interim state Education Commissioner Betty Rosa still had to send a letter to districts earlier this month encouraging them to maintain student-teacher programs this school year.

NYSATE/NYACTE. Dec. 4 Webinar: NYSED Educator Diversity Report

NYSED Board of Regents. December Meeting Higher Education Committee:
Matters Requiring Board Action:
*Proposed Amendment to the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Content Core Requirement in Computer Science Teacher Preparation Programs. Your Committee hears a proposal to amend Section 52.21 of the Commissioner’s regulations to revise the content core requirement in computer science teacher preparation programs from at least 12 semester hours of coursework that addresses five specified computer science concepts to at least 12 semester hours of coursework that provides a knowledge base for assisting students in meeting the new NYS K-12 Computer Science and Digital Fluency Learning Standards.
Matters Not Requiring Board Action:
*Principal Talent Management System. Your Committee heard Department staff provide an update and present a video on the field’s response to the new software system that enables district leaders to tap into a larger pool of School Building Leader certified individuals who have the experience and credentials that meet the needs of their schools.
Consent Agenda Items:
*The Board voted to amend Part 49 of the Commissioner’s Regulations relating to the authorization of New York Higher Education Institutions to participate in the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) and the approval of out-of-state institutions to provide distance education to New York residents.
*The Board voted to approve the reappointment of Theresa Reynolds, administrator member and PSPB P-12 co-chair, to the State Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching, for a four-year term beginning December 31, 2020 and ending December 30, 2024.

NYSED Office of Curriculum and Instruction. Subscribe to email notification service that directly provides educators important information relevant to their area of certification and assignment.

Spectrum News. Calls for Cuomo to Sign Legislation Loosening GPA Requirements for Teachers   Under current state law, if a student wants to be accepted into a graduate-level teacher and educational program, they must achieve at least a 3.0 minimum grade point average. Patty Pion [TC EdD in progress], who has been a teacher now for 19 years, says when originally she tried to apply for the master’s teaching program she did not have the grades and this almost kept her from being a teacher.

The College of Saint Rose. Saint Rose to discontinue academic programs as part of proactive plan to address financial challenges  …a plan to reduce academic expenses by $5.97 million, including the closure of 16 unique bachelor’s degrees, six unique master’s degrees, and three certificate programs: Music Education K-12 (BS), Mathematics: Adolescence Education (BS and BS/MSED in Special Education),  Biology: Adolescence Education (BS and BS/MSED in Special Education),  Higher Ed Leadership and Administration (MSED), Literacy grade 5-12 (MSED), Literacy birth-12 grade (MSED)…

 

NEW YORK CITY
New York Daily News. NYC teaching force has grown less white — but still doesn’t match student body, city data shows    The percentage of white teachers dipped from 59% when de Blasio took office in 2014 to 56% last school year, according to a first-of-its kind report on teacher demographics mandated by legislation from the City Council… Officials credit the uptick to the NYC Men Teach initiative and alternative certification programs like New York City Teaching Fellows, which have higher shares of teachers of color.

Teachers College.
1) Imagining and Re-Imagining Teaching, Becoming and Being Teacher Educators: A colloquium series.  A colloquium about what the doctoral teacher education specialization is about and what are the graduates and students in the program doing. [Noon EST Feb 5 & Feb. 12]
2) It All Goes Back to Relationships: The Peace Corps Fellows Program’s success reflects three longstanding associations   …relationship at the heart of the Peace Corps Fellows Program is the one between TC and the Peace Corps itself. The two organizations have been intertwined since the early 1960s, when TC launched a teacher training program in East Africa that was an inspiration and model for President Kennedy’s Peace Corps. TC and the Peace Corps rekindled their relationship in 1985 when TC offered Returned Peace Corps volunteers tuition scholarships to fulfill their commitment to service at home in local communities, thus creating the inaugural program for Fellows USA, later known as the Coverdell Fellows Program.
3) Setting the Record Straight on Culturally Responsive Teaching   In the first of two interviews in Education Week, Teachers College’s Mariana Souto-Manning, Professor of Early Childhood Education and co-author of No More Culturally Irrelevant Teaching: Not This But That (Heinemann 2018), addresses misconceptions about the nature of several related teaching strategies for honoring the knowledge of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC).
4) To Educate or Legislate?: For master’s degree student Katie TerBush, that is the question   For TerBush, TC’s program in Elementary Inclusive Education has offered a unique opportunity to combine her interests in policy and teaching… She also did volunteer work this past fall with TC Director of Governmental Relations Matthew Camp and the ad hoc group Advocacy Academy, assisting TC students in writing to members of Congress to ask them to protect graduate student aid. 
5) Teaching Residents @ Teachers College. Professional Learning and Events of Interest: Mid-December 2020
*Come Celebrate With Us!
* Student-Centered Events
*Professional Learning
* Wellness

GLOBAL
European Conference on Educational Research (ECER). Call for Proposals. “Education and Society: expectations, prescriptions, reconciliations” 6-10 September 2021 [deadline 31 Jan.]

Korea Herald. AI education to begin in high schools next year   In order to strengthen teachers’ AI-related competencies, the government will ensure that AI-related content is included in basic and information and computer teaching courses. In a relevant move, it will push to have graduate schools of education offer AI reeducation programs to about 5,000 incumbent teachers by 2025. 

The Sector. Teacher training programs to be fast tracked in Victoria to combat workforce shortages   While the measure is primarily focused on supporting schools to employ local teachers to work in hard-to-staff roles in outer-metropolitan, rural and regional locations, in areas such as STEM, languages, applied learning and specialist education, it will also help early childhood educators become teachers as part of the roll-out of Three-Year-Old Kindergarten.

UNESCO. Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report, 2020. Latin America and the Caribbean: inclusion and education: all means all   70% of countries in the region provide for teacher training on inclusion in laws or policies, in general or for at least one group, and 59% provide teacher training for special education needs in laws, policies or programmes…

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) AACTE Announces 2021 Annual Meeting Keynote Speakers  Bettina L. Love: Speaker Spotlight Session Presenter; Michael Beschloss: Closing Keynote Speaker 
2) Leading and Engaging Faculty in Teacher Preparation Reform: The Role of Deans [Webinar: Dec. 16, 12:00pm EST]
3) Leveraging Teacher Candidates as Assets During the Pandemic: A Win-Win for All   Last month, AACTE partnered with CCSSO, the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders at the American Institutes for Research, and the CEEDAR Center to discuss how teacher candidates can be leveraged as assets for PK-12 districts navigating online learning and uncertainty during the pandemic.

Barron’s. America’s Students Are Struggling. Biden Needs to Unite Us Behind Them.   Millions of highly skilled Americans with real skills honed in a range of related professions can be recruited to become second-career teachers provided with the education content and skills. And far more teachers and principals need to be people of color. Students can’t learn unless we focus on improving teacher quality, which is essential especially given the enhanced demands on the profession.

EdSource. Less siloed, more inclusive: Changes to special education teacher preparation expected to have big impact on schools   Last month, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing approved the latest in more than a dozen changes to the requirements for credentialing aspiring special education teachers.

EDWeek. How to Bring ‘Surprise and Delight’ to Virtual Teacher Training During COVID-19   No matter the content, connections to careers and real world applications exist. Museums, national parks, zoos, and more that rely on field trip events are looking for ways to connect with classrooms virtually. Teachers simply need to find the education contact at these locations and learn more about what opportunities exist or be willing to brainstorm with the organization to design a personalized event for their students.

InsideHigherEd. Biden’s Pick to Head Economic Advisors Seen as Sympathetic to Loan Borrowers   Cecilia Rouse… found that holding student debt made it more likely for students to choose high-paying careers and eschew lower-paying ones like teaching.

NEA News. How Student Debt Cancellation Would Help Educators Breathe: NEA and other advocacy organizations are urging President-elect Joe Biden to immediately cancel federal student loan debt as an act of racial justice and economic advocacy.   For teachers, who are paid less than similarly educated professionals, it’s a particular burden, and it’s especially severe for teachers of color who often borrow more to pay for college. Debt cancellation would honor the decades of financial sacrifice that educators make to serve students, and also help to recruit and retain future teachers into the profession, educators say.

NYTimes. Pantyhose and Trash Bags: How Music Programs Are Surviving in the Pandemic   at New Mexico State University …Mr. Vigil’s first student teaching position, critical for the degree in music education he is seeking, was canceled….In Missouri, Nevaeh Diaz, who graduated from North Kansas City High School in May, is now studying music education at Missouri State University.

 

NEW YORK STATE
EdWeek. Biden Might Please the K-12 World by Picking an Education Secretary From Outside It   It’s also possible that Biden’s pick could have experience in both K-12 and higher education. Betty Rosa, New York’s interim state education commissioner, has been on a few wish lists, including that of incoming Democratic congressman and former public school principal Jamaal Bowman, of New York. Rosa, who started her career teaching English-language learners, has also taught graduate-level courses and serves as the president of the University of the State of New York.

InsideHigherEd.  Jim Malatras, president of Empire State College, part of the State University of New York system, has been named chancellor of the SUNY system.

NYSATE/NYACTE.  Open and Joint Board Meetings, Award Presentations [4pm Dec. 10]

NYSED Office of Higher Education November Newsletter.
*Board of Regents November Items Definition Of University
*New York State Teacher Certification Examinations (Nystce) Test Development Activities  The revised Content Specialty Tests (CSTs) in Dance, Music, Theater, and Visual Arts became operational on November 9, 2020.

New York State Legislature. On Dec. 3rd, the Cumulative Grade Point Average Legislation, S.7117 (Sanders)/A.9750 (Glick), was delivered to the Governor’s desk. This legislation would lift the requirement that prospective students in masters in teaching programs have a 3.0 undergraduate GPA to be considered for admission.  It would allow higher education institutions to consider alternative criteria in determining admissibility into graduate-level teacher and education leadership programs. The Governor will have until December 15, 2020 to either sign or veto the bill.  Comments: Dan Fuller, Deputy Secretary for Education, <[email protected]>; Michael Mastroianni, Assistant Secretary for Education <[email protected]>; Terry Pratt, assistant counsel to the Governor <[email protected]>

                                   Each institution registered by the department
     5  with graduate-level teacher and leader education  programs  shall  adopt
     6  rigorous  selection criteria geared to predicting a candidate's academic
     7  success in its program, including but not limited to, a minimum score on
     8  the graduate record examination or a substantially equivalent  admission
     9  examination,  as  determined  by  the  institution, and achievement of a
    10  minimum cumulative grade point average [of 3.0 or higher] in the  candi-
    11  date's  undergraduate  program;  provided, however, such graduate record
    12  examination or substantially equivalent admission  examination  require-
    13  ment  shall in no case apply to certified teachers or school administra-
    14  tors who already hold a graduate degree.

NEW YORK CITY
Queens Daily Eagle. AOC taps huge team of volunteers to tutor kids in Queens   U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has rallied a massive team of volunteers from across the country to provide free tutoring for kids in Queens and the Bronx… Last week, over 1,500 volunteers signed up… “So we are calling on retired teachers, college students or anyone interested in helping kids keep up with their studies to sign up and volunteer their time.”

Teachers College.
1) A Teaching Model for Trying Times: TC’s Peace Corps Fellows Program has much to teach an education system in crisis.  “The Peace Corps Fellows Program attracts teachers with a dedication to serving students’ needs, a devotion to social justice, a commitment to the pursuit of peace, and a passion for education,” says the Peace Corps Fellows Program’s Director, Elaine Perlman (M.A. ’92).… upon completing a three-month Intensive Summer Institute, the Jaffe Peace Corps Fellows work as full-time, certified teachers earning $58,300 annually, plus benefits, while earning their TC master’s degrees. Since 2019, thanks to the support of the Jaffe family and Teachers College, the Program has offered 100 percent tuition scholarships to up to a dozen Jaffe Peace Corps Fellows.
2) Teaching Residents @ Teachers College. Induction and Beyond. Holiday 2020 I TR@TC Induction Newsletter

GLOBAL
Global Partnership for Education. Teacher Leadership in the time of COVID-19: At the Global Education Meeting, ministers and experts renewed calls for the international community to support teachers as they lead responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.   … teacher education institutions and district offices can support female teachers so they advance into leadership positions by targeting them during pre-service and in-service training, and, in so doing, building their leadership competencies and skills.

International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030. Teachers of today on teaching in the future.  The Forum recommended that models of teaching, teacher training, and professional support for teachers must evolve as the meaning of a ‘foundational education’ shifts… It also called for teachers’ education to be adapted to brace for coming crises, which could result in more large, linguistically diverse, and virtual classrooms.

Mail & Guardian [South Africa]. Pre-service teachers adapt in a pandemic.  This year the University of Johannesburg piloted a course with final-year Bachelor of Education students at the Soweto campus… The course was planned prior to Covid-19, so the pandemic complicated the execution of the course, but it also presented an opportunity for us to glean our own lessons about facilitating pre-service teachers’ learning in the context of emergency remote teaching. 

Microsoft News. Language learning in Canada needs to change to reflect ‘superdiverse’ communities   Language teacher education and teacher professional development must include anti-bias training that extends beyond equity issues of race, gender, class, religion and ethnicity to address the suppression of other languages in the language learning classroom. In this way, we can ensure teachers understand that affirming students’ linguistic identities is integral to their engagement and to their future success.

NZHerald. Education Ministry: End to primary teacher shortage, but problems in secondary schools.  It said the pandemic had affected the supply of teachers. “We anticipate even higher teaching retention rates, more Initial Teacher Education (ITE) graduates, more qualified teachers interested in returning to the workforce (including those returning from overseas), and fewer international students resulting in reduced demand.

 

UNITED STATES
American Assoc. of College for Teacher Education.
1) AACTE and Edthena to Offer $500,000 in Grants for Teacher Preparation Video Observations.  AACTE member institutions may apply by December 7, 2020, to receive up to $25,000 for implementing video observation technology to support their teacher candidates during COVID-19 and beyond.
2) John Henning Counters Opposition to Critical Race Theory in Teacher Preparation  It is appropriate for teacher preparation programs to discuss this theory as part of their coursework because of the increasing racial diversity in schools. Most teachers are White females (around 80%) and critical race theory provides teachers, whether they are White or another race, with perspectives that allow them to gain insights into their students.
3) Town Hall on Critical Race Theory [Webinar Nov. 19 3pm EST]

Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation. 2021 Quality Assurance Symposium [All Virtual Feb. 23-25, 2021]

Atlanta Daily World. Amoy Walker of the Atlanta Girls’ School Named Teacher of the Year by GISA   Walker joined AGS in 2019 where she teaches sixth grade English and seventh grade humanities and serves as Middle School Curriculum Coordinator.  She received a B.A. from Stony Brook University and went on to earn her M.A. from the Teachers College at Columbia University [MA ’06 Social Studies Education].

Education Week.
1) How Biden Could Steer Education Spending Without Waiting on Congress   Here are a few other grant programs the Biden administration could use to push its policy preferences when awarding grants, along with their current funding:… Teacher Quality Partnership ($50.1 million): These grants focus on teacher training and recruitment as well as increasing diversity in the teaching workforce.
2) N.C. watchdog agency critiques teacher diversity efforts.  The Program Evaluation Division’s review of activities by state officials, local school boards, charter schools and educator preparation programs describes initiatives to attract and retain Black and Hispanic candidates for K-12 classrooms… But the report’s authors conclude recent state initiatives — such as those originating from the Department of Public Instruction or Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper — either don’t explicitly target people of color or are too new or preliminary to be evaluated. 

Learning Policy Institute. Sustainable Strategies for Funding Teacher Residencies: Lessons From California   … in 2018-19, California appropriated $75 million dollars to establish the Teacher Residency Grant Program. Under this program, teacher residencies can receive a competitive grant of up to $20,000 per resident to launch or expand programs to recruit and prepare teachers in high-need areas.

National Review. To Tackle Critical Theory in the K–12 Classroom, Start with Colleges of Education   Colleges of education have cornered the market on teacher training, even though they’ve seen enrollment declines in recent years. But it is in the colleges of education that prospective elementary and secondary teachers are steeped in the philosophy of Critical Theory, which manifests itself in K–12 schools through lessons on “Confronting Whiteness in Our Classrooms” and the 1619 Project.

NEA Today. The Teacher Shortage Can Be Addressed — With Key Changes.  Teachers often have master’s degrees, even doctorate degrees, and yet they earn far less than other college graduates. This problem, commonly called the “teacher pay penalty,” has grown far worse over the past three decades, EPI has found. Currently, teachers earn about 20 percent less, on average, than their non-teacher college graduates. With this kind of pay — coupled with the student debt that many teachers must take on to pay for their advanced degrees — a career in teaching doesn’t pay the bills for a middle-class life. As a result, 59 percent of teachers took on second or third jobs in 2016…

Washington Post.
1) ‘Telepresence’ robots are making virtual school feel a little more like real school.  There are several telepresence robots on the market. Pre-pandemic, they were most commonly used in higher education and for teacher training. But manufacturers of these devices say that starting in June, sales to K-12 schools skyrocketed.
2) With DeVos out, Biden plans series of reversals on education  For the Education Department, the transition committee is being led by Linda Darling-Hammond  [TC faculty 1989-1998]…several people said. Darling-Hammond, who was considered for education secretary by President Barack Obama in 2008, is under consideration again… Other names mentioned by people familiar with the process include … Betty A. Rosa, interim commissioner of education in New York state…

 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED. Regents Meeting for November 16, 2020
* Definition of “University” in New York State- Department staff will present an overview of the current definition of “university.”
* Proposed Amendments to Sections 52.3, 52.21, 57-4.5, 70.4, 74.6, 75.2, 75.5, 76.2, 79-9.3, 79-10.3, 79-11.3, 79-12.3, 80-1.13, 80-1.5, 80-3.15, 80-4.3, 83.5, 87.2, 87.5, 100.2, 100.4, 100.5, 100.6, 100.10, 100.21, 119.1, 119.5, 125.1, 151-1.4, 154-2.3, 17

 

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. NYC public schools have lost 31,000 students this fall, preliminary data show.  “Unstable staffing patterns, unstable dollars, often lead to worse outcomes for kids,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College… Bay Ridge dad Simeon Stolzberg decided to formally home-school his third grade son… Stolzberg spent his career working in public education, including as a charter school principal, so he felt prepared to teach his son.

NY1. She Failed a Teaching Test and Lost Her Career. A Federal Judge Says It Was Discrimination.   DeZonie didn’t get to see her teaching career grow because she failed a state certification exam used by the city, the Liberal Arts and Science Test.  She wasn’t alone: Black and Hispanic teachers failed it at a significantly higher rate than their white counterparts. A lawsuit filed 24 years ago said the test, intended to measure knowledge of liberal arts and science, was discriminatory. In 2012, a federal judge agreed…The city has been ordered to pay more than $450 million to about 1,700 teachers so far. Thousands more claims still must be heard. The case has dragged on so long, the original judge died.  

Teachers College.
1) A Veteran’s Journey to Teaching: For Peter Kim (Ed.D., Applied Linguistics), leadership in both the military and the classroom are about ‘instructing, teaching, counseling and guiding’   For Kim, who earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan and his master’s at Farleigh Dickinson University, the shift from teaching to earning his doctorate at Teachers College was connected to the College’s role as an “epicenter of pedagogical research and practice” — and its place in New York City, “where millions of non-native speakers come to learn English.”
2) Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring: COVID’s Psychological Fallout in Schools   Mary Mendenhall, Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of International & Transcultural Studies, who is a leading authority on preparing teachers to work with refugee and displaced populations, argues that everyone has a stake in better supporting teachers.

GLOBAL
GhanaWeb. Quality teacher education holds the key to national development – Minister.  The Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Prof. Kwesi Yankah, says the Ghanaian Child will be competitive globally by acquiring well-researched knowledge and skills for national development on the foundation of quality teacher education.

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)  Online Teacher Preparation Clinical Experiences Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.  Teacher candidates’ clinical experiences and methods of instruction and student engagement are shaped by the PK–12 schools and districts where new graduates teach. Yet, many schools and districts around the country will not place student teachers during the 2020-21 academic school year.

UNESCO.  Policy Paper: Inclusive Teaching: Preparing All Teachers To Teach All Students   Despite their differences in teacher standards and qualifications, education systems are increasingly moving away from identifying problems with learners and towards identifying barriers to learning. To complete this shift, education systems must design teacher education and professional learning opportunities that dispel entrenched views that some students are deficient, unable to learn or incapable.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) Issue Briefs Examine Education Degrees Trends and Future Implications for Teacher Workforce. The reports examine education trends through an analysis of the number of institutions awarding degrees in education and the imminent threat of increased teacher shortages, particularly in high-demand areas. The findings raise significant concerns about the nation’s future capacity to produce new teachers and other education professionals to meet the diverse needs of students, families, and communities. 
2) Addressing the Teacher Shortage: Capacity and Degree Trends in Educator Preparation [Webinar 3pm Nov. 4]

AACTE/SCALE. August – October 2020 Newsletter: News From edTPA®

Business Insider. 10 popular online STEM, coding and gaming courses — all are taught by women   This class is specifically designed for teachers and educators to learn how to incorporate STEM and STEAM learning in K-12 classrooms… Ellen B. Meier is the Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Technology and School Change and a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Technology at [Teachers College] Columbia University. 

Chalkbeat. Pandemic won’t silence the music in this Nashville teacher.  I grew up in Tuskegee, Alabama, where we only had one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school… My teachers were amazing, and they’re the reason I decided to pursue a career in education.

Chicago Tribune. Is a 96% attendance rate a bright spot in a pandemic stricken school year? Not exactly, as remote learning skews annual report card.   In order to diversify the teaching force across the state, Roxanne F. Owens, chair of the teacher education department at DePaul University’s College of Education, said universities must support students studying to be educators. “We have to help high school students and career changers see the benefits of becoming teachers. Right now, teaching is a tough sell for anyone,” she said.

InsideHigherEd. ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’: Teacher education programs were facing major problems even before the pandemic, but are they dying of natural causes or being killed off? Either way, what’s lost when they go away for good?  Nationally, enrollment in bachelor’s degree programs in education is declining, but not as precipitously. Some 82,621 students graduated with four-year degrees in education in 2018, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, compared to 102,849 in 2008.

Lexington Herald Leader. The best teacher in Kentucky and the top high school teacher are from Lexington   In addition to being named the state’s overall best teacher, Donnie Piercey, a Stonewall fifth grade teacher was also Kentucky’s elementary teacher of the year… He graduated from Asbury College and earned his master’s from Auburn University. He has taught in Kentucky since 2007. 

New York Times: Those We’ve Lost
1) Choua Yang, Hmong Refugee and Educator, Dies at 53   The family landed in New York City and settled in Syracuse, N.Y… Ms. Yang graduated from Henninger High School in Syracuse in 1985, earned her bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in 1995, and in 1998 obtained her first of three master’s degrees, in K-12 curriculum. Her other master’s degrees were in bilingual education and educational administration.
2) Sharon Hunt, Teacher for a Quarter-Century, Dies at 65.  Sharon Hunt always knew she wanted to be a teacher. She solidified that notion while attending high school and, once she graduated, was totally smitten after substitute teaching in Georgia, where she was able to do so without a college degree. Finally, once her children were old enough that she didn’t need to care for them full-time, Ms. Hunt resumed her schooling. She earned two degrees in education, a bachelor’s at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights and a master’s at Wright State University in Ohio.

The Chronicle of Higher Education. Can These Degree Programs, Under Assault for a Decade, Survive a Pandemic?   Physical-education teaching programs, business-teacher education programs, and mathematics-teacher education programs saw the largest declines across the decade within the discipline. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education identified similar shifts in its own research, finding that the number of degrees conferred in science and math education — including bachelor’s, master’s, and post-baccalaureate certificates — declined by 27 percent from the 2009-10 to the 2018-19 academic years.

Washington Post. Two key questions teachers should ask students after the election   …teachers aren’t trained as social workers or therapists, and emotional processing shouldn’t be their ultimate goal. Emotionally charged moments can be at the foundation of powerful learning experiences. Teachers can use these moments to help their students develop their voices and direct them toward possible action, regardless of the students’ political views.

 

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Office of Teaching Initiatives.
1) edTPA Safety Net for Certain Candidates Who Are Impacted by the COVID-19 Crisis During the Spring 2020 through Summer 2021 Terms [updated Oct. 23]
2) October Newsletter
* Board of Regents October Items
* State Personnel Development Grant In Special Education
* Distance Education Guidance Update
* Coaching Course Internship Flexibility

 

NEW YORK CITY
NY Daily News. Budget cuts smaller than expected for NYC school support programs — they’ll lose $15 million, down from $50 million originally planned.  The Community Schools counseling program, Learning to Work initiative, and Affinity Schools teacher training network will lose a combined $15 million this year — less than the $50 million originally planned, Education Department officials said.

Teachers College. Teaching Residents at Teachers College. Induction and Beyond. November 2020: TR@TC Induction Newsletter

GLOBAL
CBC. Ford government revokes seniority rule for Ontario teacher hiring   Some school boards have suggested the rule makes it harder for younger applicants straight out of their education degree to break into the system and constrains boards from diversifying the teaching workforce. 

Marino Institute of Education (Trinity College Dublin). Virtual International Winter School: Building your Professional Identity for the Classroom [2-13 November]

Teachers College. ‘A Crisis Within a Crisis’: TC’s Mary Mendenhall and Lena Verdeli address the pandemic’s impact on efforts to support refugee education and mental health   Mendenhall, Associate Professor of Practice in TC’s Department of International & Transcultural Studies, has spent years shaping new methods to prepare teachers who work with displaced populations. She lamented the pandemic’s impact on such efforts.

Voice of America News. Schools in Northern Cameroon Close as Boko Haram Steps Up Attacks  …some troops have also been deployed to teach displaced students in safer areas less susceptible to Boko Haram attacks.

 

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1)  2020 Teacher Quality Partnership Grantees Announced   The Department of Education has awarded 23 grants administered as a of part of a pool of funding created to benefit programs including the Teaching Quality Partnership Program (TQP).  Of the 10 grants awarded under Teacher Quality Partnerships program—totaling $7.3 million—six of the grantees are AACTE members.
2) Issue Brief: How Do Education Students Pay for College?  There is a growing body of research suggesting that concerns about compensation generally—and about being able to repay student loans in particular—are dissuading college students from entering teaching. 

Education Week. Are Aspiring Teachers Learning Classroom Management? It Varies   …the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington-based group that advocates for more rigorous teacher preparation, has found that just 14 percent of traditional teacher-preparation programs require candidates to demonstrate their ability in five research-based classroom management strategies… NCTQ scored 979 traditional teacher-prep programs and 40 alternative programs on their approaches to classroom management. The analysis found that a third of non-traditional programs required candidates to demonstrate their ability in all five strategies.

InsideHigherEd. Is It Time for All Students to Take Ethnic Studies?  With funding from the National Science Foundation, Goffney developed a rubric for assessing whether teachers are employing equitable teaching practices in their classrooms. She also developed a curriculum entitled Mathematical Knowledge for Equitable Teaching (MKET) that is used as the elementary mathematics methods course in the elementary teacher certification program focused on equity and justice.

Learning Policy Institute. Webinar—Closing California’s Opportunity Gap: Ensuring All Students Have Access to Fully-Prepared Teachers [10:30 am PT, Nov. 12]

NEA Today.
1) Local Union Steps Up Effort to Diversify Teaching Force: A grant from NEA’s EdSummer program supported a team of Connecticut educators working to recruit and retain more educators of color.  CEA has a number of initiatives to help diversify the teaching profession, including awarding scholarships to students of color pursuing teaching careers and building upon the Future Educators of Diversity Clubs across the state that encourage high school students to examine teaching as a profession.
2) ‘Why is Our Expertise Not Treated the Same?’: Depending on the state, educators make between 2% and 33% less than other comparable college-educated workers.   The erosion of educator pay over the years coupled with the marginalization of the profession has led to an alarming teacher shortage, Pringle said. “Overall, fewer people are entering the profession and more are leaving”.

New York Times. After the Pandemic, a Revolution in Education and Work Awaits.  …the Industrial Revolution produced a world in which there were sharp distinctions between employers and employees, between educators and employers and between governments and employers and educators, “but now you’re going to see a blurring of all these lines.”.. The most critical role for K-12 educators, therefore, will be to equip young people with the curiosity and passion to be lifelong learners who feel ownership over their education.

U.S. Dept. of Education. 2020 Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Recipients.  To improve student achievement; improve the quality of new and prospective teachers by improving the preparation of prospective teachers and enhancing professional development activities for new teachers; hold teacher preparation programs at institutions of higher education (IHEs) accountable for preparing highly qualified teachers; and recruit highly qualified individuals, including minorities and individuals from other occupations, into the teaching force.

Washington Post.
1) D.C. middle and high school employees asked to staff elementary classrooms in reopening plans   Seven thousand of these students would receive in-person instruction from teachers. The remaining 14,000 students would participate in virtual learning from their classrooms under the supervision of an adult who is not a teacher. The school system is calling these “CARE classrooms.”
2) Is it time to stop segregating kids by ability in middle school math?  In a report published in May, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics recommended districts eliminate tracking in middle school math.

 

NEW YORK STATE
AACTE. Clinically Rich Programs in New York: Teacher Residency Pilot at the College of Staten Island   In Summer 2019, CSI welcomed the first cohort of residents into a pilot Teacher Residency program hosted at PS 45 in Staten Island. The pilot program was the outgrowth of longstanding conversations between CSI and its P-12 partners about how to create deeper, more meaningful clinical experiences for aspiring teachers that could also serve real needs inside public schools…

NYSED Board of Regents. October meeting.
Board of Regents Acts on Sixth Series of Emergency Regulations to Ease Burdens on Educators, Students and Professionals in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 Emergency Regulations Part VI and Further Regulatory Flexibility for the Reopening of Schools

 

NEW YORK CITY
Education Week. Lucy Calkins Says Balanced Literacy Needs ‘Rebalancing’   Early reading teachers and researchers are reacting with surprise, frustration, and optimism after the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, the organization that designs one of the most popular reading programs in the country, outlined a new approach to teaching children how to read. 

Teachers College. Education for the Times: Alumnus Nick Stone Is Part of a Corps of Teachers Creating Nationwide Curricula   “The New York Times and Washington Post are basically my textbooks,” says Stone, a Social Studies teacher at Millennium High School in Lower Manhattan… Stone, who earned his TC degree in Social Studies Education, acknowledges that young people for the most part do not use the sources that sustained their parents and grandparents: newspapers, magazines and network news broadcasts.