The AACTE Advisory Council of State Representatives (ACSR) seeks nominations by October 13 of state chapter leaders to run in an election for the ACSR Executive Committee. The positions open for election are the South Region representative, Midwest Region representative, and ACSR chair-elect, all to take office in March 2018.
Terms and Roles
Have you seen the JTE Insider blog managed by the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) editorial team? Check out the following interview with 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.
This interview features insights from the article “Change Happens Beyond the Comfort Zone: Bringing Undergraduate Teacher Candidates Into Activist Teacher Communities,” from authors Kathleen Riley and Kathryn Solic. The article, featured in the March/April issue of JTE, is summarized in the following abstract:
An education subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing June 28 on “Exploring Opportunities to Strengthen Education Research While Protecting Student Privacy.” Throughout the hearing, hosted by the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, witnesses stressed the need to maintain a balance between safeguarding sensitive student data and allowing researchers access to information that evaluates performance and determines best practices.
Anonymizing the data in order to maintain student privacy was a top concern for the panelists, but Nathaniel Schwartz from the Tennessee Education Department noted that guidelines outlining proper procedures for doing so are lacking at the federal level, leaving states and districts to determine how best to handle the data.
On behalf of AACTE, I recently attended the annual National Forum on Education Policy of the Education Commission of the States (ECS), a national organization of state education policy leaders. The more than 550 attendees at the forum included governors, state education chiefs, chairs of state legislatures’ education committees, and higher education executives, many of whom were new to their position. In fact, one of my main takeaways from the conference was the high level of recent turnover in states’ positions for education decision makers – and the associated need for educators to maintain outreach efforts to connect with them.
Over the past 2 years, there has been drastic leadership change for state legislators, chief state school officers, and governors. In 2016, elections were held for 86 of the 98 partisan state legislative chambers and for 6 of the 13 elected chief state school officers. Furthermore, the average tenure of a chief state school officer is approximately 2½ years. In 2017, 36 states will hold elections for their governors, at least 16 of which must be new due to term limits.
UPDATE: The Department has extended the deadline to submit comments on federal regulations. Those who would like to do so now have until September 20.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Regulatory Reform Task Force has released a progress report identifying more than 150 regulations and 1,700 pieces of guidance for review, and now the public is invited to comment on the items by August 21.
The task force, which originated from an executive order signed in February by President Donald J. Trump to reduce regulatory burdens, will now further review the regulations and guidance and develop recommendations on whether to repeal, modify, or keep them.
AACTE is excited to be hosting the 2017 Midwest regional Quality Support Workshop August 10-12 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The summer is a wonderful and exciting time to be visiting the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, so when you are not indoors working on quality assurance, accreditation, and assessment with our jam-packed schedule, there is plenty more to do right outside the hotel doors!
Our host hotel, the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, is conveniently located on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. Nicollet Mall is lined with shopping, cafes, and an array of other sites – see this map of key attractions. If you venture northeast to the Mississippi River, you can enjoy the waterfront and even take a kayak tour, board a river cruise, or rent a bike from any of the Nice Ride stations around the city.
