Archive for 2016

Supporting Students Taking Their Credentialing Exams

When I was advising prospective teachers at my former institution, I encountered many candidates who had strong potential as educators but struggled to pass the licensure tests. For some of these students, it was helpful to offer practice tests, with feedback, to help combat their test anxiety, but it was challenging for me to find time for this work.

So when I recently met Stephanie Shapiro, the partnerships manager of a test-prep company that offers just this kind of service to teacher candidates–some of it for free–I was intrigued and persuaded her to join AACTE as a new affiliate member. I asked her to share how her organization, Teachers Test Prep, is helping teacher candidates pass their exams. Here’s her response:

Explore Roles for EPPs in Solving Teacher Shortages

Mark your calendar for a special webinar September 29 about key roles for educator preparation providers (EPPs) in solving the nation’s persistent teacher shortages.

Offered by AACTE in partnership with the Learning Policy Institute (LPI), the webinar will highlight the latest enrollment and staffing data and promising models for programs and policies to improve educator recruitment, preparation, and retention.

Congress Is Back! Join a Federal Update Webinar

As Congress returns from recess, so do the Federal Update webinars offered each month for AACTE members. This month’s update will be held September 20 and 21.

Each month, I’ll update you on what is happening in Washington, DC, related to educator preparation, and discuss how you can engage in advocacy for the profession. To accommodate a variety of schedules, each set of webinars is offered on consecutive days of the week at different times of the day.

AACTE to Offer Regional Workshops in 2017 for Quality Assurance Work

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In support of AACTE’s mission to build capacity for high-quality educator preparation programs, we are excited to announce plans for new regional workshops focused on performance assessment, continuous improvement, and quality assurance.

Three of these Quality Support Workshops will be offered in 2017, tentatively scheduled for spring in the south, summer in the midwest, and fall in the northwest. Specific details will be announced this fall.

Sept. 13 Webinar to Explore University-District Partnerships for Principal Preparation

On Tuesday, September 13, AACTE will host the second free webinar in its series on partnerships for principal and supervisor preparation. Please join us 12:30–1:30 p.m. EDT for “Successful University–District Partnerships to Prepare School Principals.”

This event will feature participants in two of The Wallace Foundation’s Principal Pipeline Initiative districts, Hillsborough County Public Schools (FL) and Tulsa Public Schools (OK), and two partner universities in Florida, Saint Leo University and the University of South Florida. Because the Tulsa district is working within a slightly different framework to assist principals via role and structural changes, its participation lends an “outside” voice to this webinar.

Call for JTE Manuscripts: Historical and Contemporary Issues in Teacher Education

The editors of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) invite manuscripts for a special issue on historical and contemporary issues in teacher education. Manuscripts are due February 1, 2017, and the editors anticipate that the issue will be published later that year.

As is the case in many other fields, historical events and issues in education have the potential to inform contemporary ones, and it is clear that the field would benefit from attention to the connections between the past and present.

NCTQ–Brookings Report Offers Gloomy Outlook on Teacher Diversity

A new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) and the Brookings Institution explores the teacher diversity shortages that persist throughout the United States. To illustrate the current imbalance between teacher and student demographics, the report notes that in order to reach uniformity between the two populations, some 1 million White teachers currently in the profession would need to be replaced with approximately 300,000 African American teachers and over 600,000 Hispanic teachers.

Pointing to problems that exist throughout the teacher pipeline, the authors predict that resolving the imbalance in teacher demographics will continue to be challenging. As the nation’s diversity continues to grow, so too will the pressure and struggle to address teacher workforce diversity, they say, requiring a long-term approach to improving it.

August 2016 State Policy Recap

Ed Prep Matters is pleased to bring you this special feature on state policy and AACTE state chapter activity. For similar recap articles from earlier months, browse the “State Directions” section of the blog.

Overview of State Policy Activity

In August, legislatures actively met in only two states, Illinois and Alaska; most other states’ legislative sessions had adjourned. No educator preparation-related bills were introduced during the month, although California enacted one bill into law that will allow city or county boards of education to issue a temporary teaching certificate to an individual with an existing certificate, including one from out of state.

48th Annual PDK Poll: Americans Divided Over Purpose of Education

If it’s back-to-school time, it’s time for the annual Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) International Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. The findings released today, in this 48th year of the survey, show views that are consistent with prior years in many areas and reveal ambivalence about the primary purpose of public education.

As usual, most of the 1,221 adults (especially parents) who participated in the telephone interviews say they like their local public schools, in general, but are less positive about schools elsewhere and about their own schools’ performance in specific areas, ranging from academic rigor to development of students’ critical thinking and teamwork skills. Respondents are notably divided about the chief goals of public education, the degree of freedom that charter schools should have, and the appropriate balance between technology-based and traditional teaching.

Invitation: ‘Teach to Lead’ Teacher Prep Summit With USED

AACTE and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities are working collaboratively with the U.S. Department of Education to put together a dynamic Teach to Lead summit this fall related to teacher preparation in the United States. We invite you to apply by September 15 to participate in this event, which will be held November 3-4 in Washington, DC.

The summit will convene teams of educators to focus on the successes and challenges in teacher preparation. If you are developing or currently have partnerships with your local community colleges and school districts, then this event is especially for you. This summit is particularly timely given the presidential election this fall and the implementation/interpretation of the Every Student Succeeds Act. It will be an opportunity to explore our narrative prior to the new administration, which is critical to enable us to spotlight the high-quality work we do with teacher candidates and the children they will serve.

NCSL Report Recommends State Actions to Improve Education

At the recent National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Legislative Summit, the organization’s International Education Study Group released the report No Time to Lose: How to Build a World-Class Education System State by State. This report culminates a 2-year study by a bipartisan group of state legislators and legislative staff examining the highest performing countries on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to discover common themes across their policies and practices.

Holmes Scholars: A Brief History

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As the AACTE Holmes Program has expanded its scope over the past year and brought many new members into the fold, several participants have asked about the program’s history. To supplement the brief overview available on our web site, I am pleased to present the additional backstory below, written by Holmes alumna Phyllis Metcalf-Turner, dean and professor in the Whitlowe R. Green College of Education at Prairie View A&M University (TX).