AACTE Award Winner Discusses Empathy in Culturally Responsive Teaching

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Have you seen the JTE Insider blog managed by the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) editorial team at Michigan State University? This blog is available to the public, and AACTE members have free access to the articles themselves in the full JTE archives online–just log in with your AACTE profile here.

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Chezare Warren, assistant professor at Michigan State University, received AACTE’s Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2014 for his study Empathic Interaction: White Female Teachers and Their Black Male Students, which was completed in 2012 at the University of Illinois at Chicago. (Reminder: AACTE is seeking submissions for the 2019 Outstanding Dissertation Award now through August 20.)

Poll: Parents Concerned for Student Safety but Generally Against Arming Teachers

After a year marked by some of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, parents are more concerned than ever about the safety of their children, according to a special school security survey conducted as part of this year’s PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools.

Public opinion on arming teachers is divided, and confidence in schools’ security against attacks is waning. Two thirds of parents with children in public school said they would rather not have their child in a classroom with an armed teacher; that number jumps to 80% of Black and Hispanic parents. But when asked if they support arming teachers who are also provided 80 hours of intensive training and support, parents are evenly split.

FY19 Appropriations Move Forward as Election Season Kicks Into High Gear

As the focus of Congress turns toward accumulating “wins” for members to use to get re-elected, the appropriations process has taken an unexpected turn – work is getting done.

As I have shared with AACTE members in recent Federal Update webinars, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL, chair of appropriations in the U.S. Senate) and Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ, chair of appropriations in the U.S. House of Representatives) committed to seeing the appropriations process return to “normal” this year–and that commitment is coming to fruition. By the end of June, the Senate had moved all 12 appropriations bills through subcommittee and full committee, and the House is on track to do so by the August recess.

Study Points to Strategies for Shifting Principal Supervisor Roles

A new study of The Wallace Foundation’s Principal Supervisor Initiative (PSI) identifies successful ways for principal supervisors’ jobs to be refocused to more effectively support principals’ instructional leadership.

Typically, principal supervisors in large, urban districts are assigned to oversee too many principals, in addition to numerous district tasks, to be able to have an impact on principals’ effectiveness as educational leaders. The PSI aimed to improve this situation by addressing five core components: (a) revising supervisors’ job description to focus on instructional leadership, (b) reducing the number of principals in each supervisor’s case load, (c) developing supervisors’ capacity so support principals, (d) developing systems to identify and train new supervisors, and (e) strengthening central office structures to support and sustain these changes.

Committed Partnership Key to Overcoming Inevitable Hurdles


In this week’s featured videos in the Research-to-Practice Spotlight Series, participants in the education partnerships of California State University, Long Beach, discuss the hurdles they’ve faced, supports they’ve implemented, and advice to others interested in starting a similar program.

Strong communications and trust lie at the heart of both the Long Beach College Promise and the UTEACH residency program, stemming from the well-developed relationships as well as enabling new collaborations to solve evolving problems.

Grow With Us: AACTE Wants You

Are you looking to contribute to the educator preparation community at the national level? AACTE is hiring!

AACTE, the leading voice on educator preparation, represents nearly 800 postsecondary institutions with educator preparation programs dedicated to high-quality, evidence-based preparation that assures educators are profession-ready for all learners.

Gangone, Alliance Leader Hold Video Interview

On July 16, AACTE President/CEO Lynn M. Gangone met with Richard Long, executive director of the Learning First Alliance (LFA), for an interview about the challenges facing the teaching profession and where the field needs to go moving forward. Their conversation aired on Facebook Live and can be viewed at this link.

AACTE is a member of LFA, a partnership of leading education organizations dedicated to improving learning outcomes in America’s public schools. A recent report with contributions from LFA members, Elements of Success: 10 Million Speak on Schools That Work, outlines six elements that are vital for success in the classroom and provided the springboard for last week’s interview.

Meet the Presenters for Next Week’s Holmes Retreat

AACTE is excited to share the confirmed list of presenters for the AACTE 2018 Holmes Dissertation Retreat & Research Symposium, July 26-28 at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. The 2½-day event will offer expert-facilitated, interactive sessions for Holmes Scholars and other graduate students to receive the latest strategies and best practices for their research and dissertation work.

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Welcome

Lynn M. Gangone, AACTE
Monika Shealey, Rowan University
Wanda J. Blanchett, Rutgers University New Brunswick
Janeula Burt, Bowie State University
Dana Dunwoody, Boston University

Coming Soon – ‘Colleges of Education: A National Portrait’

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On August 9, AACTE will release Colleges of Education: A National Portrait, a major new report that provides a comprehensive picture of today’s schools, colleges, and departments of education: the work they do, the people who do that work, and the students they serve.

AACTE produced this report to describe the many ways that its members contribute to U.S. education and to outline some of the challenges they face. The report also provides a wealth of information that colleges of education can use for benchmarking their work. Below are just a few of the report’s many findings:

Action for Literacy Through Teacher Preparation, Professional Partnerships

In the College of Community Innovation and Education at the University of Central Florida (UCF), we view partnerships as one of our core values. The UCF Literacy Symposium, an annual conference with a mission to be at the forefront of literacy learning, is one example of a strategic partnership between our college and in-service educators. The event creates a space for bringing together teacher and PK-20 educators to connect, share, advocate for, and learn about literacy.

This year, we celebrated our 20th annual event with the help of 768 educators and other stakeholders who share a common interest in literacy instruction and learning. The symposium is well known across the state of Florida, and every year we attract educators from various Florida universities and school districts as well as from other states. Participants at the 2018 symposium included PK-20 teacher educators, in-service and preservice educators (including school administrators, specialized literacy professionals, school counselors, and other support staff), local superintendents and school district personnel, state Department of Education officials, and others (e.g., legislators, publishers, and representatives from research and educational centers).

Community-Engaged Model Shapes Candidates’ Cultural Responsiveness

Have you seen the JTE Insider blog managed by the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) editorial team at Michigan State University? Check out the following interview with the authors of a recent article. This blog is available to the public, and AACTE members have free access to the articles themselves in the full JTE archives online–just log in with your AACTE profile here.

The following interview features insights from the authors of the article “Loving Out Loud: Community Mentors, Teacher Candidates, and Transformational Learning Through a Pedagogy of Care and Connection,” published in the March/April 2018 issue of JTE. The article is written by Ball State University (IN) faculty members Eva Zygmunt, Kristin Cipollone, Susan Tancock, Jon Clausen, Patricia Clark, and Winnie Mucherah, and is summarized in the following abstract:

Jump-Start Your Dissertation at Holmes Retreat

Please get me through the academic year … and I promise that I will write my dissertation during the summer! is a common refrain among doctoral students who are in the throes of their dissertation work. It seems there is not a single doctoral student or candidate who hasn’t bargained with the “dissertation gods” to finish their dissertation research.

Well, summer is here! Sadly, we are already halfway through the academic break, and soon you’ll have to face the questions: How many pages have you written? How many chapters are completed? How tight is your methodology? Have you exhausted the literature? Are your research questions appropriate? Is your dissertation research IRB-worthy? Are you currently on your dissertation committee’s radar? Have you done everything that you need to do in order to graduate in the fall or spring?