FY19 Appropriations Move Forward as Election Season Kicks Into High Gear

By Deborah Koolbeck

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

By Amanda Lester and Kristin McCabe

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

By Kristin McCabe

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

By Erisel Cruz

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

By Samuel Santos

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.

Long Beach ‘Promise’ Fertile Context for Residency

By Kristin McCabe

The AACTE Research-to-Practice Spotlight Series continues this week with its focus on the Urban Teaching Academy (UTEACH) residency program of California State University, Long Beach. The latest video interviews feature members of the Long Beach College Promise Steering Committee and several participants from the university, Long Beach City College, and the Long Beach Unified School District.

Meet the Presenters for Next Week’s Holmes Retreat

By Jerrica Thurman

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.

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

By Jacqueline E. King, Ph.D.

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

By Vicky Zygouris-Coe

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

By JTE Insider

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

By Janeula Burt

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?

Clinical Practice Spotlight Turns to Long Beach

By Kristin McCabe

The AACTE Research-to-Practice Spotlight Series continues this summer with a new feature on California State University, Long Beach. We’re excited to introduce this member institution’s Urban Teaching Academy (UTEACH) residency program, which operates in the unique context of the massive public education partnership known as the Long Beach College Promise.

Learn About Quality Clinical Partnerships at AACTE Workshop

By Marcy Keifer Kennedy and Chris Kennedy

This event is cancelled until further notice.

“I don’t know where to start,” “it’s too hard,” “it’s too expensive,” or “it takes too much time” are among some of the comments that are often heard in conversations around the country as the push for more clinically rich teacher preparation is discussed. While it certainly can be challenging to reimagine longstanding practices, the shift to strong clinical models has become something of a national imperative for high-quality teacher preparation.

Applications Now Available for AACTE–NACCTEP Partnership

By Meghan Grenda

Applications are now available for the new partnership program of AACTE and the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs (NACCTEP). Community colleges that offer educator preparation programs are welcome to apply!

AACTE and NACCTEP launched the partnership for 2018-2019 to foster collaboration among our memberships through the common goals of advocating for, advancing, and diversifying educator preparation programs. This pilot partnership connects 4-year degree-granting institutions and community college educator preparation programs to grow and strengthen the teacher pipeline, bring diversity to the field, and advance the preparation of educators.

Stakeholder Engagement at the Heart of Quality Assurance Work

By Joseph Lubig and Carol Ryan

This event is cancelled until further notice.

The authors will be leading the “Track A” (introductory) strand of quality assurance sessions during the 2018 AACTE Quality Support Workshop in Columbus, Ohio. For details and to register, visit aacte.org, and download the full agenda here.

The quality of educator preparation programs matters, as they develop the professionals who will have the most influence on our children–and continuously shaping programs to excel in this charge is important work. This work requires calculated risk taking, established processes for critiquing the work, and a culture that fosters honest feedback focused on improvement.