Tag: teacher

GLOBAL
National Council on Education and the Economy. Solving the Teacher Shortage Crisis: How Some Countries are Working to It   While some American states and districts have responded to shortages by bringing unqualified and unprepared individuals into the profession, some of the world’s top-performing education systems are taking a different tack to combat teacher shortages – and a few others have figured out how to prevent them entirely.

The National. Dubai’s education regulator to step up background checks on teachers   Dr Al Mahdi said… “We want to know if they were okay in the country of origin or the country where they were working before they came here…If you want to be a teacher, you must have a good conduct.”

Voice of America. Incoming Mexican President to Accept Truth Commission   … Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday his administration will accept a truth commission to investigate the case of 43 teachers-college students missing since Sept. 26, 2014, drawing rare praise and expressions of hope from the long-suffering parents of the victims.

UNITED STATES
AACTE/SCALE.
1) 2017 edTPA Administrative Report. While the average scores of African American/Black and American Indian or Alaskan Native candidates was lower than those of other subgroups (p < .01), the fact that African American/Black candidates made up a very small portion of the candidate pool (6%) and the N for American Indian or Alaskan Native is less than 100 should be noted.
2) 2018 TPA Conference preliminary program [Oct. 19-20 San Jose]

Chalkbeat. Where Bruce Rauner and J.B. Pritzker stand on key education issues, from charters to Chicago’s school board    Rauner…recently signed legislation that aims to ease the teacher shortage by relaxing requirements on certifying retirees, substitutes, and out-of-state candidates.

Data Quality Campaign. What Parents and Teachers Think About Education Data   Teachers face barriers to using data in the classroom, including a lack of time and training to put data to work for students.

Education Week.
1) Are Too Many Students Working Below Grade Level?  Indeed, the [TNTP] report surmises that few teachers have been taught to master differentiation effectively, and in reality this means giving students work below what they’re capable of.
2) Barricade or Flee? Simulator Trains Educators and Police for School Shootings
3) The ‘Montessori Mafia’: Why Tech Titans Like Jeff Bezos Support the Model   One big question, however, is whether it is Montessori that makes the difference, or whether the type of educators drawn to the philosophy are primed to be excellent teachers no matter what.
4) We Learn by Doing: What Educators Get Wrong About Bloom’s Taxonomy [commentary]   Unfortunately, in my experience, Bloom’s Taxonomy has also done a lot of damage. For the past 40 years that I have been working with teachers, I have observed the primary effect of Bloom’s Taxonomy to be this: It creates a hierarchy in teachers’ minds about how we learn.

Inside Higher Ed.
1) Academic Minute: Gaps in Clinical Teaching Practice [5 min. audio file]
2) Academic Minute: Skilled Practice in Teacher Education [5 min. audio file]
3) Department of Ed Told to Offer Guidance on Loan Program  The Education Department has not provided enough guidance on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to borrowers or loan servicers, a Government Accountability Office report found.
4) House Passes Bill With 2019 Education, NIH Funding   The bill includes the second consecutive annual increase in funding for the Education Department despite two White House budgets that called for shrinking the department.  The bill will now go to the White House for President Trump’s signature.

Lincoln Star Journal. With rule change rejected by governor, some Nebraska teachers-in-training left in limbo   The rule change in question — which requires a governor’s signature — would have adjusted the passing requirements on a proficiency exam required to be admitted into any of the state’s teachers colleges. 

MPR News. There’s a science to teaching children to read   “[We need] to try to create a more seamless system for teacher preparation and to bring in the pre-service programs to recognize that their product is not just a graduate with a certificate. Their product is how well their own students will perform when out in the classroom in k-12 achievement,” said Kelly Butler of the Barksdale Reading Institute.

New York Times. Jeff Bezos Cites a Big Number, but Few Details, in Plan for Low-Income Montessori Preschools   She warned against online-only teacher-training programs, which have proliferated, but may not offer hands-on student teaching experience in Montessori classrooms.

PBS Education. 9 Tips For Teaching Kindness in the Classroom

NEW YORK STATE
NYSATE/NYACTE. 2018 Annual Fall Conference [Oct. 10-12, Saratoga Springs] Columbia Univ. presenters: L. Edstrom, M. Maulucci, D. Manning

NY Times. Why New York Isn’t Celebrating Higher Test Scores   “It does undermine the credibility of an assessment system when things change so much in a short number of years,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “It’s very confusing even to people who are paying attention.”

The Buffalo News. Teacher shortages in New York State? Depends where you look   The percentage of people who enrolled in teacher preparation programs in New York dropped 40 percent between 2010 and 2016. The percentage who completed the program dropped 38 percent.

NEW YORK CITY
Bank Street College of Education. Practice Makes Preparation: Teacher Stories   Teachers should succeed because of their preparation, not in spite of it. The United States has a fractured teacher preparation system. As a result, many teachers arrive in the classroom with limited coursework, little real-world experience, and no practice in front of a full class.

Chalkbeat. With a bold school integration plan in place, Brooklyn parents begin to sweat the details  “Teachers not only in our district but all over our city are truly amazing,” said Lenore DiLeo Berner, the principal of M.S. 51… “It’s a bit of a myth that any school has any one type of student. Our teachers have been trained to teach all kinds of students, all kinds of learners.”

Teachers College. Student Essay: Why teachers must look beneath the surface  [Wenimo Okoya] Teachers are not trained to look for health issues or students’ underlying trauma – even though those issues powerfully affect their learning and achievement. Lakeisha’s death five years later pushed me to look still further beneath the surface.

GLOBAL
Education International. Caribbean education unions’ young teacher training for a bright future for teachers and education   … they articulated a long-term plan of visits to the Teachers’ Training College in Guyana, to encourage newly trained teachers to become members of the GTU and enlighten them on their rights and responsibilities.

UNICEF. Education at risk for more than 3.5 million school-aged children in the Lake Chad Basin   Communities were engaged to participate in the continuous protection of schools, and in Nigeria this knowledge is being integrated in the training of pre-service teachers.

The Age [Australia]. ‘I don’t want people with ATARs of 35 going into teaching’: Labor’s schools plan   Raising the ATAR required for teaching degrees and rethinking NAPLAN tests will be key areas of focus for Labor if it is elected at the next federal election.

Transforming Teacher Education and Learning [Ghana]. Teacher-Trainee adopts innovative skills for teaching   A Teacher-Trainee at Accra College of Education has developed Improved Practical Classroom teaching aid skills to assist slow pupils at the lower primary level to catch-up gradually with the rest of the class.

UNITED STATES
60 Minutes/CBS News. Why Bill and Melinda Gates put 20,000 students through college   Now it’s Kaira Kelly who’s doing the teaching after earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education with her Gates Scholarship.

Economic Policy Institute. The teacher pay penalty has hit a new high   Even if teachers may be more motivated by altruism than some other workers, teaching must compete with other occupations for talented college and university graduates.…

Education Week.
1) edTPA Encourages Reflection, But Disrupts ‘Natural Learning Process,’ Teachers Say   14 percent said it helped them learn to prepare assessments and analyze student data. But many students surveyed said they didn’t think the assessment would help them become better teachers.
2) How Can We Support More Empowering Teacher-Student Relationships?   …many teacher training programs have yet to integrate coursework that explicitly tackles the relational side of teaching
3) Teachers Are Paid Almost 20 Percent Less Than Similar Professionals, Analysis Finds   Overall, teachers’ weekly wages lag by more than 25 percent compared to similarly educated professionals in 16 states. There are no states where teacher pay is equal to or better than that of other college graduates. 

Chalkbeat. Lifting the veil on education’s newest big donor: Inside Chan Zuckerberg’s $300 million push to reshape schools   CZI has backed efforts to infuse the concept into teacher training, including through the Woodrow Wilson Teaching and Learning Academy ($3 million), the New Teacher Center ($1.7 million), and the Harvard Graduate School of Education ($1.1 million).

Hechinger Report. OPINION: Confessions of a white teacher in an urban school   My first year of teaching was in 1999-2000. This was 17 years before Christopher Emdin wrote For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, and before professional learning communities were possible on Twitter… The secret to being a good teacher is, I think, to be just a little bit subversive. Never forget that you are teaching children, not a curriculum.

NCEE. The Early Advantage: Rapid Change in Early Childhood Education and Care Around the World   In the new book, The Early Advantage 1: Early Childhood Systems That Lead By Example, world-renowned early childhood researcher Sharon Lynn Kagan and her team of international experts examined the innovative approaches to early childhood policy, practice, and service delivery in these leading systems.

NCTQ. What school districts can do to tackle teacher shortages   Only half the people who graduate from teacher prep programs actually take teaching jobs as new teachers in any given year. One reason is that teacher prep programs generally produce about twice as many education graduates as schools are hiring—they’re just not producing the types of teachers that most schools need.

NEA Today. Back to School Without a Qualified Teacher   The LPI report also notes that short-term strategies, like hasty certification programs, likely worsen the problem. Under-prepared teachers leave at two to three times the rate of well-prepared teachers.

NYTimes. Can Good Teaching Be Taught?  

The Guardian. Teacher shortages worsening in majority of US states, study reveals   Short-term licensure, which is labelled and categorized in different ways across all 50 states, represents a quick fix to the teaching crisis. Empty positions are filled by teachers who may have a bachelor’s degree, or certification in another topic, but still have further education requirements to complete.

NEW YORK STATE
NYSATE/NYACTE. Program Draft, 2018 Annual Fall Conference  [Oct. 10-12, Saratoga Springs]

NYSED. Office of Higher Education August Newsletter

Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching.
1) April Meeting Notes
2) May Meeting Notes

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) Mayor de Blasio says fate of 50 turnaround schools will be decided this year  “The goal posts have never been very clear — either in terms of specific outcomes that would guide hard decisions or timelines,” said Aaron Pallas a professor at Teachers College who has studied the Renewal program.
2) New York City’s new chief academic officer has a plan: to give teachers resources that work for every single student   Starting in 1997, Chen taught in New York City for about three years before joining the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, founded by the influential Columbia professor Lucy Calkins. [Teachers College MA ’99, EdM ’09, EdD ’16]

GLOBAL
Deutsche Welle. Germany is desperate for teachers   The problem is the result of many factors: an increase in births, a large influx of refugees, a generation of teachers retiring, a lack of investment in education and high hurdles to get into teacher training programs at universities.

Inside Education. Southern Africa has low levels of trained teachers   According to the report, sub-Saharan Africa will need to train an additional four million primary school teachers and 11 million secondary school teachers over the next 12 years.

Le Monde Diplomatique. Privatisation de l’école, le fiasco suédois   …réplique Samuel E. Abrams, directeur du Centre national d’étude de la privatisation de l’éducation à l’université Columbia, aux États-Unis : « Ceux qui dégagent des profits dans ce secteur ont la motivation implicite de contrevenir aux intérêts des citoyens. Les parents, les contribuables, les législateurs ne peuvent pas savoir si les élèves apprennent ce qu’ils doivent apprendre. La probabilité qu’il se produise des malversations augmente quand il y a la possibilité de faire des profits. »

NCEE. Singapore’s Educator Career Ladder: A First-Person Account   NIE is Singapore’s teacher training and research institution and AST is the nation’s teacher-led professional development organization. [by Qidong ‘Alan’ Yang, alum of MALEC, NIE/TC joint degree program]

NYTimes. Mexico President Defends Missing Students Investigation   In a short video released via Twitter, Pena Nieto said he remained convinced that the students from the teachers college at Ayotzinapa were killed by a drug gang and incinerated in a massive fire.

UNITED STATES
AACTE.
1) 2019 Annual Meeting Registration Now Open Feb. 22-24, Louisville, KY
2) Colleges of Education: A National Portrait (2018) …a comprehensive picture of colleges of education: the work that they do, the people who do that work, and the students they serve… the full spectrum of undergraduate and graduate programs, research, and service that occur within schools, colleges, and departments of education.

Chalkbeat. A cutting edge teacher training program is coming to Detroit’s main district and Marygrove College  Teacher training at the school would be modeled after doctor training. After student teaching alongside veteran educators, new teachers will remain at the school for three more years to continue their training while helping other, newer teachers learn the profession. The concept comes out of the school of education at the University of Michigan, which is partnering with the district to create the new school.

Chronicle of Higher Education. Universities That Granted the Most Research Doctorates, Over All and by Field, FY 2016

Education

EducationWeek.
1) Arne Duncan’s Take on School Reform: Read It!  …the top-performing nations don’t focus on getting rid of bad teachers.  They concentrate instead on creating an over-supply of great teachers.  Duncan did very little on that front.
2) After Five Years, a Bold Set of Teacher-Prep Standards Still Face Challenges  “CAEP set out to improve K-12 learning through improving teacher preparation, and the question is still out—is CAEP achieving that goal?” said Brabeck, the board member. “I would like to see some progress made in answering that complicated question.”
3) Enrollment Is Down at Teacher Colleges. So They’re Trying to Change   Between the 2007-08 and 2015-16 academic years, there was a 23 percent decline in the number of people completing teacher-preparation programs. The largest decline—32 percent—has been at alternative programs (for people who already have a bachelor’s degree) that are housed in colleges or universities.
4) More Than a Dream: How to Teach King’s Famous, and Often Simplified, Speech
5) Most People Wouldn’t Want Their Child to Become a Teacher, Poll Finds   The PDK International poll on education, released today, surveyed a random national sample of 1,042 adults, which included an oversample of 515 parents of school-aged children.
6) Renewing a Teaching License Doesn’t Help With Professional Growth, Report Finds
7) Teachers in Kentucky No Longer Have to Earn a Master’s Degree

Inside Higher Ed. Report Shows Drop in Students in Teacher Ed  In the 1970s, the number of education degrees awarded annually peaked at 200,000. Today, it is less than 100,000.

Learning Policy Institute. Taking the Long View: State Efforts to Solve Teacher Shortages by Strengthening the Profession   Most states have been struggling to address teacher shortages for several years now, often filling the vacuum with underprepared teachers who aren’t able to give children the high-quality learning they need and who leave at two to three times the rate of well-prepared teachers.

Oklahoma Watch. As Teacher Shortage Nears Crisis, Other States May Offer Remedies   In just three months, state officials have already given emergency certification to 2,153 teachers who haven’t obtained certificates in the subject they will teach –surpassing the record from all of last school year. Some are certified to teach another subject area, but many have no classroom experience or training at all.

PDK Poll. Teaching: Respect but dwindling appeal  The survey is based on a random representative sample of 1,042 adults with an oversample to 515 parents of school-age children in May 2018.

SCALE/AACTE. 11th annual Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) Conference, October 19th-20th, 2018 in San Jose, CA

NEW YORK STATE
Chalkbeat. New York State sent 275 charter schools too much federal Title II funding and district schools too little, officials say   The state overpaid 275 charter schools and three school districts with federal Title II funds, which are used for teacher training.

NYSED.
1) Office of Higher Education; July Newsletter
2) State Education Department Awards My Brother’s Keeper Grants for Exemplary School Models and Practices  Also since 2016, NYSED awarded $6 million in Teacher Opportunity Corps II (TOC) grants to increase the participation rate of historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged individuals in teaching careers.

Politico New York. State education department mistakenly distributed $12M in federal funds toward charters   The $12 million misallocation is about 7.8 percent of the $153 million the state distributed to its Local Educational Agencies in 2017-18 for Title IIA, which supports professional development initiatives such as teacher training, recruitment and retention.

WKYT. Teachers still pursuing advanced degrees thanks to quality of online options   As you may have seen in recent news, teachers in Kentucky are no longer required to obtain an advanced degree under a decision made in August 2018 by Kentucky’s Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB)… But that doesn’t mean they won’t (and shouldn’t) continue to earn them.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat.
1) A college student is teaching economics at Success Academy — founder Eva Moskowitz’s son   Charter schools operate with fewer rules around hiring than district schools, which have specific anti-nepotism policies that prohibit city employees from hiring close relatives as well as certification requirements. A share of each charter school’s teachers can be uncertified.
2) New York City released its study of the SHSAT. Here’s why it won’t end the admissions debate.   “It tells us something we already knew: Kids who do well on the SHSAT do well in high school,” said Aaron Pallas, a researcher at Columbia who reviewed the study at Chalkbeat’s request. “But it doesn’t tell us what is the best combination of factors that predict who might do well in an exam school.”

NOTE: Teacher Ed News will resume the week of August 27.

GLOBAL
Al-Fanar Media. Canadian Teachers Offer a Refugee-Education Handbook   At the heart of the book is a collection of 30 lesson plans to prepare teachers for working with refugee children, and 11 lesson plans for teachers to use with refugee children.

DevDiscourse. New Zealand to strengthen education system with help of Maori experts   Te Ahu o te reo Māori will support teachers to deliver te reo in the classroom and is the start of our plan to better integrate te reo across the education system.

DutchNews.nl. Post summer shortage of 1,300 primary school teachers looms   Tens of thousands of pupils will be affected by the teacher shortage and school heads are being forced to take emergency measures to soften the impact, the council said. This will involve using more part-time and trainee teachers and taking on more classroom assistants.

News India Times. United Sikhs collaborates with NYC’s Department of Education on school curriculum   The advocacy organization, United Sikhs, is collaborating with New York City’s Department of Education to create lessons on Sikhism for fifth and sixth graders.

UNITED STATES
AACTE. FY19 Appropriations Move Forward as Election Season Kicks Into High Gear
Here are the results for selected federal programs important to the education profession:

Congress.Gov. H. R. 1772 Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education Act or the AIM HIGH Act

Deans for Impact. Working in common to build the Common Indicators System Network   Over this past academic year, the CIS Network has collected data on more than 3,500 teacher candidates, 500 program graduates, and 100 employers across four common indicators. To our knowledge, it’s one of the largest cross-institutional research efforts ever undertaken in educator preparation.

EdWeek.
1) 3 Things to Know About the New Bill Promising ‘Debt-Free’ Higher Education   The Aim Higher Act preserves the TEACH grant program, which provides student aid to those who agree to teach certain subjects in high-needs schools… The legislation also preserves the current section of the Higher Education Act that deals with teacher-preparation programs under Title II, as well as Public Service Loan Forgiveness that allows teachers to cancel out their higher education debt under certain circumstances.
2) Anti-Test Movement Slows to a Crawl   “The folks who were unhappy and leading the opt-out movement have other things on their plate,” said Jeff Henig, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. When it comes to testing, “maybe everyone is just taking a breath.”
3) Does ESSA Require Teachers to Be Highly Qualified?   ESSA got rid of the requirement in the law it replaced, the No Child Left Behind Act, that teachers must be highly qualified, which typically meant they needed to have a bachelor’s degree in the subject they are teaching and state certification. Instead, states must come up with their own definition of an “effective teacher.”
4) Generalizing ‘For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too‘  The key idea is that if you teach students who come from a very different culture than you do, you have to make a serious effort to understand the students’ culture and leverage this understanding to engage students as you teach.
5) How Many Seats Do Teachers Get on the State Board of Ed.? In Most Places, None   State boards of education are often tasked with establishing high school graduation requirements, implementing federal education laws, establishing standards for accreditation of school districts and teacher-preparation programs, and setting statewide curriculum standards…
6) Make Teacher-Prep Programs Accountable for Graduates’ Performance, Teachers Say   Teach Plus, a nonprofit group that supports teacher leadership, released a report on a survey that asked 755 teachers from 26 states and the District of Columbia about their views on teacher-prep accountability. They found that teachers want more transparency on how well teacher-prep programs are preparing educators to teach.
7) Woodrow Wilson Foundation President Arthur Levine To Step Down Next Year   Well-known for his critiques of teacher-education programs, Levine has spent his tenure at the foundation advocating for attracting nontraditional candidates to the profession and improving the quality of teacher preparation.

Encoura.
1) ACT® Acquires NRCCUA®  ACT® , Inc., the nonprofit developer of the ACT® test and other assessments taken by millions of individuals annually worldwide, announced today that it has acquired The National Research Center for College and University Admissions™ (NRCCUA®), an educational data science and research organization.
2) Is The PROSPER Act what students want?   As summer heats up and colleges and universities combat summer melt, it’s time to face the reality that chances of reauthorizing the Higher Education Act (HEA) in 2018, and possibly even 2019, have also melted away.

Hechinger Report. Disrupting education, the NFL way: Hiring more black public school teachers helps students get to the goal line  And if a vast proportion of the hiring managers are white, it’s likely that their social networks are predominantly white, too… This has a profound professional impact when principals and school district leaders recruit from within their social circles, be it from a university or non-profit teacher prep program. This kind of hiring needs to be called out for what it really is — discrimination.

InsideHigherEd.
1) Can a $49 English Test Pass Muster?   …the Duolingo English Test costs just $49 — as little as one-fifth the price of the widely used Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and its closest competitor, the International English Language Testing System (IELTS)…
2) FAFSA for Your Phone   Education Department this week will take another step toward mobile access to the federal student aid application.
3) The Democratic Alternative   The minority party offers its take on the Higher Education Act, including free community college, larger Pell Grants and tougher accountability …The Democrats’ bill is almost a point-by-point rejection of PROSPER…

Teach+Plus. TAKING STOCK: A Teacher Perspective on Informing and Improving Teacher Preparation Programs   Teach Plus used a mixed-methods research approach that included holding focus groups in several states and conducting a national survey of current public school teachers.

NEW YORK CITY
Chalkbeat. Some teachers are spending their summer creating culturally relevant content  …more than 400 other educators came together at the Reimagining Education summer institute at Teachers College of Columbia University to learn how to provide students with academic experiences that reflect the diversity of their schools… Many of the people who lead the presentations and workshops are people of color, notes Detra Price-Dennis, an assistant professor of Elementary and Inclusive Education at the Teachers College of Columbia

Diverse Issues in Higher Education. MAYME HOSTETTER was named president of Relay Graduate School of Education. She is a former middle school English teacher with nearly a decade of experience in higher education. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a master’s degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and an Ed.D. from Teachers College of Columbia University.

The Atlantic. Can Richard Carranza Integrate the Most Segregated School System in the Country?   He asked a friend about transferring to the School of Education… he switched his major… It was time for him to be a student teacher, and he was nervous… But as soon as he stepped into the classroom, all of that went away.

Wall Street Journal. Success Academy High School Sees Wave of Teacher Departures   Success Academy founder Eva Moskowitz said in an interview that her well-trained teachers often get poached…“What really makes me sad is the number of first-year teachers who quit and decided never to teach again,” said Natasha Venner

NOTE: Teacher Ed News will resume the week of August 27.

GLOBAL
DevDiscourse. UNESCO report says millions of children deprived of education in South Sudan   …Minister Deng Deng Hoc Yai, Minister of General Education and Instruction.  “We must build schools; work to encourage girls to go to school, and train more teachers to retain and attract students.”

Education International. Indonesia: governmental promise to hire 100,000 teachers and bridge the teacher gap   “We need to replace retired teachers every year, as people should not be worried over a shortage of teachers. However, all appointed teachers must be prepared to serve in disadvantaged and border regions,” Vice-President Jusuf Kalla stressed…

ScooNews. [India] After seeking International schools, students will now seek internationally trained Teachers   This international course is incredibly flexible in terms of delivery and is structured across three diverse learning experiences – Online, Hybrid, and face- to- face interaction… Applicants who opt for the on-campus component at the D’Youville College campus in Buffalo, New York will have the added advantage of participating in the graduation ceremony, getting insights into the local culture and visiting the mighty Niagara Falls…

UNITED STATES
Association of Teacher Educators. Summer Induction Symposium For New Education Professors [Aug. 4, Albuquerque, NM]

Chalkbeat. Mentors matter: Good teaching really can be passed down to student teachers, new research finds  “Taken together, the point is that teachers who are … effective appear to be very promising mentors,” said Matt Ronfeldt, a University of Michigan professor who co-authored all three papers.

EdWeek.
1) After Outcry, College Board Restores 250 Years to Proposed AP History Course
2) ‘Juuling’ and Teenagers: 3 Things Principals and Teachers Need to Know   ‘Juuling’ can be really difficult for teachers and principals to detect.
3) One-Third of Parents Fear for Their Child’s Safety at School   That increased to 49 percent when respondents were asked if they would favor arming teachers and staff who met some conditions, including “80 hours of training on the use of force, weapons proficiency, legal issues and first aid; and approval by the school board and local law enforcement.”
4) Which Preservice Programs Are Enrolling and Graduating Teachers of Color?   The Urban Institute has created a publicly available data tool that allows users to look at school enrollment and graduation rates by race, comparing colleges and universities to their undergraduate preservice teaching programs.

InsideHigherEd. Americans Still Believe in Higher Ed’s ‘Public Good’   Noah D. Drezner, an associate professor of higher education at Teachers College and the study’s lead author, said he sought to design a survey that examined “Americans’ understanding of the various ways that colleges and universities contribute to society, beyond the return to individuals.”

Learning Policy Institute. How Money Matters for Schools   Investments in teacher quality (teacher ability, teacher education, and teacher experience) have been found to be particularly effective in raising achievement.

NYTimes. A Better Way to Run Schools: The New Orleans turnaround shows the power of giving more freedom to teachers and principals — and then holding them accountable for their performance.  This spring, he graduated from Xavier University, a historically black Catholic college here, and he recently started his first job — as a middle-school social studies teacher in New Orleans. [cf. rebuttals in readers’ comments]

The Inquirer. A former drug dealer made good and became a Philly teacher. So why is he thinking of leaving the profession?

Urban Institute. Which Colleges Are Helping Create a Diverse Teacher Workforce?   We examined which programs are contributing to a representative teacher workforce by comparing the share of students of a given race in the college’s teaching degree programs to the share of students of that race in the university as a whole. [incl. interactive graphics, enrollments and completions]

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED Program Updates. Creating a Pipeline for Educators [see p. 15/16] Ongoing programs include Teachers of Tomorrow, which provides more than $20 million annually to school districts to aid in recruiting and retaining teachers, and Teacher Opportunity Corps, which provides financial support to individuals from diverse backgrounds to enable them to complete a teacher preparation program.

NYSED Board of Regents. July Meetings
Consent Agenda:
1) Proposed Amendment to Sections 80-3.3 and 80-3.7 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education to Allow Individual Evaluation for Certain Certificate Titles in the Classroom Teaching Service
2) Amendment to Subpart 80-3 and Section 80-4.3 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to the Creation of Limited Extensions for Teachers Holding a Students with Disabilities Generalist Certificate Who Teach a Special Class in Grades 7-…

PBS Learning Media/NY. Understanding LGBTQ+ Identity: A Toolkit for Educators

NEW YORK CITY
NY Daily News.  City should offer sex ed to elementary students, Mayor de Blasio’s task force says   The task force report also calls for health lessons in all city schools to be delivered by teachers who have received high-quality training in sexual health education and urges the Education Department officials to explore the feasibility adding a required certification for all teachers “on inclusivity and consent.”

GLOBAL
NYTimes. Mao 101: Inside a Chinese Classroom Training the Communists of Tomorrow   Students must now complete up to five courses to graduate — including a class on Marxism, one on morality, a modern Chinese history course, and “situation and policy education,”

TES [UK]. Teachers ‘should model risky behaviour for pupils’

UNITED STATES
American Institutes for Research (AIR). Better Data May Equal Better Prepared Teachers   The lack of easy data sharing between K–12 systems and teacher preparation may be costly, in terms of the quality of instruction by new teachers. Without knowing how graduates perform in the first years in the profession, preparation providers are hard-pressed to know how to improve their programs.

Chalkbeat. To reinvent career education, these Indiana districts are making up their own rules   The coalition is also requesting the ability to create its own district teacher licenses. The licenses don’t have to meet the usual accreditation requirements from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation. Teachers would still have to follow rules for criminal background checks, but the coalition members hope the licenses would have fewer requirements and let more people teach classes in subjects affiliated with career and technical education.

EdWeek.
1) Is There a Link Between Civics Requirements and Teacher Working Conditions?   Social studies teachers … tend to enter the classroom through traditional teacher-preparation programs rather than through alternative programs like Teach For America.
2) No More SAT for Teachers Who Want Certification in Michigan   Sen. Marty Knollenberg, a Republican from Troy, says the SAT doesn’t measure enthusiasm, passion or competency in a certain subject. He says it can be another hurdle to getting people into the teaching profession. The new law kicks in on Sept. 25.
3) Parkland Survivor David Hogg: Nothing More Powerful Than a ‘Pissed-Off Teacher’   “We want our educators like you to be armed—armed with books, papers, pencils, computers, and the supplies and resources you need to help us soar and thrive in this world,” he said.
4) Reading Is Fundamental. But It’s Not a Fundamental Right, Court Rules   And here’s a take from Camika Royal, a teacher-educator: Apparently, the state of Michigan is required to have schools, and schooling is compulsory, but the state is not required to actually teach students to read.

InsideHigherEd. Ed Department Says It Didn’t Botch State Authorization Delay   A notice confirming the two-year delay in putting the new rule in place “was on public inspection Friday (6/29),” the department said. Though the document was “published on paper July 3, the effective date was still Friday (6/29).”

NPREd.
1) Senators to DeVos On TEACH Grant Debacle: ‘Urgent That These Mistakes Are Fixed’   The Education Department confirms that just 15 percent — 1,671 recipients — had their loans changed back to grants.
2) The Ongoing Battle Between Science Teachers And Fake News   A recent study out of Penn State showed that one-third of science teachers are open to the idea that climate change could be naturally occurring, instead of human caused. This poses a particular challenge to people like Susan Yoon, who are training the next generation of science teachers. She’s a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

NYTimes.
1) Cynthia Nixon. Parent. Activist. Governor?  We should be focusing on how to eliminate high stakes consequences associated with tests for students, teachers and schools and to reduce testing.
2) Migrant Shelters Are Becoming Makeshift Schools for Thousands of Children  Teachers at the schools are sometimes not state-certified as teachers, according to these accounts… ICE standards say children held at family detention centers should have a curriculum and state-certified teachers essentially identical to those at a regular public school.
3) Trump Administration Reverses Obama on Affirmative Action   In a pair of policy guidance documents, the Education and Justice departments told elementary and secondary schools and college campuses to use “the compelling interests” established by the court to achieve diversity. 

ProvidenceJournal. SAT requirement waning in R.I., and nationally | Poll   Salve Regina adopted a test-optional admission policy in 2011, with two exceptions, nursing and education, because licensing in those professions requires graduates to pass standardized exams.

NEW YORK STATE
CICU Schools of Education survey. CICU is collecting feedback for NYSED on the Independent Sector Schools of Education’s awareness of the Next Generation Learning Standards, inclusion of the standards in your programs, and involvement in or help with implementation of the standards in your program

NYSED.
1) Notice of Adoption

• Grade-Level Extensions for Certain Candidates Who Hold a Students with Disabilities Generalist CertificateSubject: Grade-level extensions for certain candidates who hold a Students with Disabilities Generalist certificate. Purpose: To expand the pool of qualified teachers of students with disabilities is to extend the grade levels in which they can teach

2) Office of Higher Education. June Newsletter

• Grade-Level Extensions for Certain Candidates Who Hold a Students with Disabilities Generalist Certificate
• Reinstatement of the Educational Technology Specialist CST Safety Net
• Educator preparation providers (EPPs) may now choose to pursue accreditation through CAEP or AAQEP.
• Multi-Subject: teachers of Childhood (grade 1–Grade 6) part two: mathematics Practice quiz

3) Open Comment Period.

• Reinstatement of the Educational Technology Specialist Content Specialty Test Safety Net for Candidates Seeking Certification Purpose: To allow candidates to take either the redeveloped CST or the predecessor CST. Public comment will be received until: 60 days after publication of this notice – by AUGUST 26, 2018. Data, views or arguments may be submitted to: Rebecca Coyle, NYS Education Department, Office of Higher Education, 89 Washington Avenue, Room 975 EBA, Albany, NY 12234, (518) 473-9763, email: [email protected]

4) Statement from Chancellor Betty A. Rosa and Commissioner MaryEllen Elia on Trump Administration’s Repeal of Obama-Era Guidance for Schools

New York State Teacher Certification Exams (NYSTCE). Ongoing Recruitment for Content Experts for Teacher Certification Examination Test Development

Professional Standards and Practices Board (PSPB). March meeting minutes,  April meeting minutes

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College. Unshaken: Scholarships have helped Ayesha Rabadi-Raol overcome the unthinkable to achieve her dreams   Ayesha is interested in the experiences of “transnational” immigrant student teachers, and – in the current political climate — in helping them “take advantage of TC as a place of activism and change to provide a platform for socially and historically marginalized populations.” She hopes to become a teacher educator herself after completing her dissertation.

GLOBAL
BBC News. Teacher numbers at lowest since 2013, official figures show   …qualified teachers leaving the profession outnumbered new recruits… A spokesman for the Department for Education pointed out that an additional 32,000 trainee teachers had been recruited last year.

Education Week. British Columbia’s Curriculum: A Glimpse of the Future?   In both cases, all teachers are required to have five years of college and university preparation, in Finland at that country’s research universities, in British Columbia to a standard comparable to the Finnish standard. 

Inter-American Dialogue. The Future of Education In Latin America And The Caribbean: Possibilities For United States Investment And Engagement  … potential future collaboration, including supporting teacher education and preparation, institutional reform and strengthening, pre-primary education and early childhood development, English instruction and expansion and the use of technology as a tool for learning.

International Education News. PISA Treatment? Exploring the Side Effects of Education Reform   …teachers with high academic performances in secondary schools have been found to benefit high performing students but hurt low performing students, contradicting the policy recommendation derived from PISA data that school systems should recruit high performing graduates into teaching.

UNITED STATES
Chalkbeat. KIPP charter network launching biliteracy program at new Denver elementary school   KIPP plans to train teachers for five weeks this summer. Dobie-Geffen said teachers who already have the state’s credential for teaching students who aren’t fluent in English are “a bonus.”

Chronicle. Universities Are Hotbeds of Scholarship on Mass Incarceration. But Are They Doing Enough to Fix the Problem?   National surveys show that 60 to 80 percent of private institutions and 55 percent of public ones compel undergraduate applicants to answer criminal-history questions, according to a report by Judith Scott-Clayton of Columbia’s Teachers College.

EdWeek.
1) Gifted Students ‘Make the Most’ of School in Alaska  Strunk said there are no teachers at his school who are trained to work with gifted children.
2) Teachers View Immigrant Parents as Less Involved. That Mindset May Be Hurting Students  Teacher-preparation programs are partially to blame for these paradigms of “good” and “bad” parents that fail to take into account cultural differences… characterize having immigrant parents as a deficit, and professors shy away from critical conversations about race, ethnicity, and culture.
3) Will 3,000 Teachers in South Carolina Soon Retire Because of a Policy Change?   South Carolina estimates that it will need more than 5,000 new teachers each year, but teacher-preparation programs graduate about 2,000 candidates a year. 

Forbes. Over A Year Ago, A Federal Court Struck Down VAM: Why Are We Still Using It To Evaluate Teachers?

Hechinger Report.
1) Five things you should know about the people watching your children   Child care workers who earn a bachelor’s degree make more than their colleagues with just an associate’s degree or with no degree, but early childhood majors still make less than any other college-educated workers.
2) Piqued: The case for curiosity Scientists are discovering that curious learners from low-income households perform as well as affluent students.  Another option is for teachers to model curious behavior. Curiosity, as it turns out, is contagious.
3) The importance of difficult conversations in U.S. classrooms: Teaching about the migrant crisis   The teachers-in-training I work with speak of a “Food Around the World Day,” …They never discussed immigration when they were students, and they are unprepared to teach those who have recently come to the United States. There are ways to do better.

InsideHigherEd.
1) From Community College to a Selective University   ..a 2016 report from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College found that of the nearly 1.1 million students who enroll at two-year institutions each year, about 80 percent indicate their goal is to transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree. But only 14 percent earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.
2) Senate Appropriators Boost Pell Grant   Senate appropriators on Tuesday advanced a fiscal year 2019 funding bill that boosts the Pell Grant and appropriates new funds to address eligibility issues for borrowers seeking Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
3) The Graduate Training Trade-Off ‘Myth’  New study says “tension” between graduate training in research and teaching is false and that teaching training may actually build research confidence and output.

NYTimes [editorial]. How Entitled Parents Hurt Schools   In 1932, Willard Waller’s classic work on the sociology of teaching pronounced parents and educators to be “natural enemies”… Controversies can escalate quickly, and unprepared educators sometimes make things worse.

WashingtonPost. Bill Gates spent hundreds of millions of dollars to improve teaching. New report says it was a bust.

NEW YORK STATE
NYSED. My Brother’s Keeper: Changing the Narrative – June 2018

NYS Board of Regents. Board of Regents Acts to Amend Dignity for All Students Act Regulations. Public comments accepted through 7/23/18

NEW YORK CITY
Teachers College.
1) Digital Learning for the K-8 Classroom. This course is offered in an online, self-paced format. Students are invited to enroll any time.   …developed in partnership with award-winning educator, Detra Price-Dennis
2) Grounded in Service, Uplifting Students: Brittany Davis   …decided to pursue her master’s degree at TC, because she felt the College – and New York City – would prepare her to become a fourth- or fifth- grade teacher “in ways I wouldn’t experience anywhere else in the United States.”
3) Vialogues video featuring Felicia Moore Mensah: “Whiteness as Property in Science Teacher Education”