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Radio Show Highlights Efforts to Retain, Recruit Black and Hispanic/Latino Male Teachers

AACTE members Ernest Black and John Kuykendal joined AACTE consultant Amanda Lester on a recent episode of Education Talk Radio to discuss the networked improvement community’s (NIC’s) study on the challenges and opportunities to increase Black, Hispanic, and Latino male teachers nationwide.

“Using a NIC is part of an ‘improvement science’ approach to looking at a problem of practice that persists in education,” explained Lester. The NIC involved a study of 10 institutions that shared their own experiences in recruiting and retaining teacher candidates in this population. Black and Kuykendal represent two of the college preparation programs that participated in the study, which began in 2014.

The premise of the research is that Black and Hispanic/Latino male students underperform in schools but when paired with Black and Hispanic/Latino male teachers for as little as one year, their success improves.

Colorado Gives Grants to AACTE Member Institutions to Combat Teacher Shortage

The Colorado Department of Higher Education announced this month that it has awarded nearly $2 million to 17 collaborative projects designed to recruit and retain more educators as part of the Plan Into Action grant established in partnership with the Colorado Center for Rural Education. Of the recipients, nine are AACTE member institutions, which have developed initiatives to combat teacher shortages. The other grantees include school districts, boards of cooperative educational services, and traditional and alternative educator training programs from across the state. The projects will establish teacher residency programs, leverage technology for improved professional support, and encourage more teacher candidates to specialize in high-need content areas.

“Teachers are the backbone of our education system and critical to our state’s long-term success,” CDHE executive director Dan Baer said. “These funds will strengthen the relationships among our institutions, alternative programs and the schools in their backyard, helping communities cultivate their own teacher corps and better support those already in the classroom.”

Radio Show Spotlights Multicultural Education and Diversity at CU Denver

AACTE members Rebecca Kantor and Barbara Seidl of the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) School of Education and Human Development (SEHD) recently appeared on the EduTalk radio show to discuss their award-winning program. A recipient of the 2018 AACTE Best Practice Award in Support of Multicultural Education and Diversity, CU Denver has discovered innovative ways to infuse multicultural education and diversity into educator preparation.

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Barbara Seidl

When asked by Education Talk Radio host Larry Jacobs about what makes their program stand out, Seidl answered, “Nationally, we all struggle to diversify the teacher workforce. But we thought about it in two ways: the first is to diversify the actual teaching pool … and the other is to make sure that [multicultural education and diversity] is really infused across all of our content and preparation.”

Preparing Future Teachers to Change Lives Inside and Outside the Classroom

This column originally appeared in Chatanoogan.com and is reposted with permission.

With education on the forefront of conversations in our community, it is now more urgent than ever that we send passionate teachers into the classroom with the knowledge, resources, and drive to lead our schools through this transformation.

As director of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Education, I am charged with providing our students with a high-quality education and preparing them for the classroom. Our program trains and prepares the bulk of teachers entering Hamilton County Schools from high school to their own classrooms and beyond.

AACTE and CCSSO Partners on New Initiative to Diversify Teaching Profession

AACTE has partnered with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) on the new Diverse and Learner-Ready Teachers Initiative. The Initiative is a network of nine states that will connect with each other and experts in the field to receive individualized support as they address challenges to increase the racial diversity of the teacher workforce in their states. Participating states are Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, and New York. Through this work, these states hope to revise, enact or remove state policies that will address specific challenges for both diversifying the educator workforce and ensuring all educators are culturally responsive in practice by 2020.

“CCSSO is proud to launch the Diverse and Learner-Ready Teachers Initiative as we strive to better prepare all teachers to meet the needs of every learner in their classroom,” said Carissa Moffat Miller, executive director of CCSSO. “This work is firmly rooted in CCSSO’s commitment to providing an equitable education to all students.”

Degrees of Change: UConn Increases Diversity in Teaching Programs

This article originally appeared in UConn Today and is reposted with permission. The University of Connecticut is 1 of 10 institutions participating in AACTE’s Black and Hispanic/Latino Male Teacher Initiative Networked Improvement Community (NIC). To learn more about how UConn developed the programs noted in the article through its participation in the NIC, visit this AACTE webinar and Ed Prep Matters blog post featured in 2016.

A lack of diversity among classroom teachers in elementary and secondary schools has long been a national issue. In the state of Connecticut alone, less than 8 percent of teachers are of color, while students of color represent 40 percent of the population.

Scholars Inspire High School Students at Urban Teacher Academy

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Holmes Scholars Carlos Richardson, Benita Kluttz-Drye, Dana Dunwoody, Natoya Coleman, Evandra Catherine, and Hope Barnes join members of the Rowan Urban Teacher Academy, along with Rowan University Dean Monika Shealey (in green).

Several AACTE Holmes Scholars took time out from their intense schedule during the AACTE Holmes Dissertation Retreat and Research Symposium, July 26-28 at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, to speak with students from the Rowan Urban Teacher Academy.

The academy serves students in 10th, 11th, or 12th grade who are interested in learning more about becoming teachers. The purpose of the 10-day program is to create a pipeline into the education profession for high school students from urban areas, hoping that students exposed to the field of education will consider returning to teach in urban schools. As part of the academy’s training and exposure, students tour the campus of the university.

Yearlong Residency Prepares Strong TESOL Candidates

Four new videos are available this week in AACTE’s Research-to-Practice Spotlight Series highlighting the urban residencies of the State University of New York (SUNY) Oswego School of Education. In these final videos of the series, educators discuss the significance of getting to know students well and how the yearlong clinical experience helps TESOL candidates prepare for edTPA–and beyond.


Participants in the clinical partnerships of the SUNY Oswego School of Education say one of the significant benefits of a yearlong residency is that teachers get to know their students well and engage deeply in their community.

Exploring the Longevity of Education Deans

What factors contribute most to the longevity of education deans in their positions? Are there optimal lengths of time for these academic administrators to stay in their roles, and if so, how long and why? What are the personal and professional benefits or downsides of remaining in the role of education dean for an extended period?

These questions are among those emerging from a national survey on deans’ ways of thinking, being, and acting that revealed generally limited lengths of service in the deanship. The survey results have inspired a new line of research on factors contributing to deans’ longevity in the role, which may be important for critical initiatives to have a viable lifespan and for deans and their stakeholders to continue to be gratified.

Partnership Outcomes Build Interest in Residencies, Support Programs

Four new videos are available this week in AACTE’s Research-to-Practice Spotlight Series highlighting the urban residencies of the State University of New York (SUNY) Oswego School of Education. In the latest videos, educators discuss why demand for Oswego residents is growing, how the clinical partnerships are boosting teacher recruitment, and myriad outreach efforts supporting diversity and inclusion–including the AACTE Holmes Program.


The growing clinical partnerships and residency programs of the SUNY Oswego School of Education are generating a compelling track record that places both student teachers and graduates in high demand among local districts. The programs are also boosting recruitment and support of more culturally and linguistically diverse educators, thanks to a variety of efforts on campus and beyond.

Educational Leadership Preconference Focuses on Interaction of Policy, Practice

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On February 28, AACTE hosted a daylong preconference workshop titled “Strengthening the Pipeline to Transform the Principalship,” sponsored by The Wallace Foundation. The event, held just prior to the 70th AACTE Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, was attended by PK-12 and higher education leaders from across the nation and engaged participants in presentations and conversation on educational leadership through the lenses of policy and practice.

The agenda was broken into two thematic segments. The first segment highlighted how policy, partnerships, and resources influence strategies to renew principal preparation programs. The second included presentations about key policies that influence the renewal of principal preparation programs.

Addressing a Common Problem of Practice: Recruiting and Retaining Candidates for the Profession

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The March 1 Opening Keynote Session at the AACTE 70th Annual Meeting featured an interactive panel discussion on recruiting and retaining profession-ready candidates in teacher preparation programs as well as increasing the number of teacher candidates of color. AACTE President/CEO Lynn M. Gangone, who facilitated the discussion, was joined by special guests Marquita Grenot-Scheyer, assistant vice chancellor of Teacher Education and Public School Programs for the Chancellor’s Office of the California State University (CSU) System, and Kimberly Tobey, executive director of the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs (NACCTEP).

The conversation began with identifying ways for how teacher preparation programs are effectively implementing programs and practices that reaffirm strengthening and diversifying the teacher candidate pool. The panelists highlighted successful strategies such as developing community college partnerships, creating capacity for students to have ease of transfer, and providing support to assist first-generation college students and others to pass through required pathways to completion.

Marcelle Haddix to Win AACTE Award for Book on Diversifying Literacy Teacher Prep

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AACTE is delighted to announce the selection of Cultivating Racial and Linguistic Diversity in Literacy Teacher Education: Teachers Like Me, by Marcelle Haddix of Syracuse University (NY), to receive the 2018 AACTE Outstanding Book Award. The award will be presented at the 70th AACTE Annual Meeting Closing Keynote session, March 3 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Reviewers praised this book for its clear and engaging writing and its well-sourced, thoughtful scholarship – as well as its timely and critical focus on diversifying the teaching workforce. The book’s copublishers, Routledge and the National Council of Teachers of English, articulate this focus in the following abstract:

Our Shared Commitment to Quality


AACTE is committed to high-quality educator preparation and works continually to assist member institutions in understanding what is necessary to engage in quality assurance processes. A recent decision by the AACTE Board of Directors, described in this blog by AACTE Board Chair Renée A. Middleton, reaffirms the importance of a unified national accreditation system that assures our nation’s teacher candidates are of the highest caliber, and clarifies AACTE’s role in the quality assurance environment. The Board and the AACTE national office team are dedicated to listening to and serving our members, and Dean Middleton’s blog reflects that commitment to member value.

One of the primary roles of educators is to prepare learners to become engaged citizens in a 21st-century democratic society. Today’s educators enter highly diverse schools that reflect the breadth of our nation, and AACTE members are committed to ensuring that their candidates are ready and able to be successful with all of their students. National accreditation requires educator preparation providers to address profession-wide standards of excellence and supplies metrics that support high quality by promoting programmatic reflection and continuous improvement. AACTE members embrace accountability measures that demonstrate their programs’ effectiveness and contribute to program improvement.