AACTE Leads Task Force on Teacher Preparation in Higher Ed

By Michael Rose

Earlier this year, AACTE reconstituted the Higher Education Task Force.  The task force, which was previously led by AACTE, will share information about the policy work underway in the teacher preparation world with our higher education colleagues and inform Congress and other key officials about important developments related to the field.  Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the change of administrations and other factors, the task force was dormant for a short time. But AACTE’s colleagues eagerly accepted our invitation to rejoin.

Task force participants are from the major associations of higher education, whose members are presidents of institutions of higher education. Members include the American Council on Education (ACE), American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), Association of American Universities (AAU), Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) and UNCF. 

AACTE Summer Savings on Office and Classroom Supplies for Members

By Meghan Grenda

As a member of AACTE, you have access to discounted on Office Depot pricing wherever business takes you. Your discount never expires and can be used for personal, school, or business purchases such as ink, toner, paper, and cleaning and classroom supplies!

Find all the essential items you need to keep running as efficiently as possible. With free next-business-day shipping, AACTE make sure you have what you need, when you need it.

Register Early for 2021 Washington Week

By Linda Minor

Registration for AACTE’s 2021 Washington Week is now open. Take advantage of the virtual rates and join AACTE’s efforts to advocate for educator preparation programs in a post-pandemic world. Each session will take place during the month of September. 

Holmes Policy Institute – September 8-9

AACTE Holmes Scholars will learn how to advocate for their profession by participating in interactive policy discussions and briefings.

Holmes Scholar – $25

Holmes Program Advanced Policy Short Course – September 14-15

This short course is intended as an introduction to begin equipping you with the knowledge, desire, and skills to be an effective advocate and resource in the policy making process.

Holmes Scholar – $25

Attend the ETS Webinar on Educating for American Democracy

By Trisha DiZio and Jacqueline Rodriguez

There is wide recognition that history and civics have been neglected disciplines in American K-12 education. Recent events, including the January 6 insurrection of the U.S. Capitol, underscored this point and the need to elevate learning in these essential disciplines.

The Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative has garnered broad cross-partisan and stakeholder support as a way to re-imagine and re-prioritize the important civic mission of K-12 public education. AACTE became an EAD organizational Champion in 2021 and is developing professional development that addresses inquiry-based civic instruction in our member educator preparation programs. AACTE is participating in the upcoming webinar, Monitoring Civic Learning Opportunities and Outcomes: State of the Field and Future Directions, on July 13

See the Latest Discussions with AACTE Connect360 Updates

By Jerrica Thurman

 

 

 

Log into your account on aacteconnect360.org and visit your profile page. You may access your profile by selecting your avatar at the top right of the page. Select the “My Account” tab and use the dropdown menu to see your email preferences, as well as communities to which you belong. Edit your notification preferences for each community, including opting to receive real time updates or daily digests.

 

Introducing the Updated AACTE State Affiliate Leaders Manual

By Ward Cummings

AACTE is happy to announce the release of the newly updated State Affiliate Leaders Manual. As with previous versions of this important resource, the purpose of the manual is to advise AACTE state officeholders on how best to use their leadership roles to support and guide their state affiliates, as well as to help them channel their efforts toward improving teacher quality and the education profession in their state, in their region, and nationally. 

Assuming the leadership of an AACTE state affiliate can be a daunting experience for any newly elected president.  Not only must new leaders attend to all the sundry responsibilities associated with the proper functioning of a state chapter, they must also attend to regional duties—such as the responsibility to participate in AACTE regional meetings and activities and the national AACTE State Leaders Institute.  As a guide on how to perform these and other functions, this updated manual is a resource not just for newly elected state leaders, but also for long serving ones.

AACTE’s ‘Combating Racism is Educator Preparation Series’ Offered to Informal Affinity Groups

By Nicole Dunn

You are invited to register for the upcoming BIPOC affinity webinar and White Racial Justice affinity webinar offered as part of the “AACTE Racism is Educator Preparation” series.

AACTE’s “Combating Racism is Educator Preparation Series’ began in 2021 with three specific objectives for our membership, audience, and the field at large:

1. Contextualize the role of racism in structural oppression and how the education system at large maintains and promulgates these oppressive systems.
2. Engage with you, our audience, to understand you and your organization’s understanding and capacity to address racism using antiracist, abolitionist, inclusive, and intersectional policies.
3. Normalize and humanize critical conversations around racism within the field that will lead to collaborative action around structural oppression in education.

Join the Webinar: Discover How to Make the Most of AACTE Connect360

By Meghan Grenda

AACTE invites you to attend a webinar to introduce you to the new members-only AACTE Connect360 resource, walk you through how to access its many features, and provide resources to help get you better acquainted.  Topics will cover how to setup your community profile, how to join and post a discussion to a community, how to connect with colleagues, and how to explore the unique community libraries where member can upload resources, share documents, and participate in the ongoing conversation. 

Connect360 is an engaging and interactive virtual platform that brings together AACTE’s community in an exciting way. Featuring over 20 unique communities, a community of over 15,000 individuals, and dozens of discussion posts, members can begin discussions, ask questions of fellow AACTE members, provide insight on each other’s posts, and share best practices.  

Turning a Crisis into an Opportunity to Invest in Teachers

By Jane E. West

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Rahm Emanuel, Former Mayor of Chicago

In the past year, our nation’s educational system faced an epic crisis brought about by the pandemic, leaving education leaders wondering when relief would be in sight. That relief arrived on March 11, 2021, when the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) was passed by Congress, allocating approximately $130 billion for the K-12 education system and nearly $40 billion for the higher education system. As the Biden-Harris administration launches into action with the massive rollout of unprecedented education funding, school districts now have the financial resources and the opportunity to collaborate with educator preparation programs (EPPs) to tackle a long-standing crisis—the shortage of professionally qualified educators.

The Consumer’s Guide to Data: New resource from DQC

By Blair Mann

As advocates, we want data to be used for accountability and transparency, to tell stories, and to inform impactful, equitable policies. But without context, clarity, transparency, the stories data could tell about school, student, and teacher experiences can be lost to misinformation and distrust.

Last week, the Data Quality Campaign released a new resource that breaks down what it means to build trust in data for both those who share it and those who consume it—providing tips to make meaning from the numbers that you see so you can demand clarity, uncover biases, understand how to foster trust in data, and take action armed with full information.

This Consumer’s Guide to Data is an especially great resource for producers of data (such as state or district leaders) and consumers of data (parents, families, or interested community members), but it can also be valuable to advocates who are looking to support good decision making and storytelling at every level.

Download the guide.

Congress Faces Packed Summer Agenda

By Jane E. West

This blog post is written by AACTE consultant Jane West and is intended to provide updated information. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE. 

 Congress Will Sprint to the Fall with a Packed July Agenda

As we head into the final week of June, Congress is poised for an intense July. Between the upcoming July 4 recess and the coveted month-long August recess, there are only a few legislative weeks in which to complete action on critical measures to keep the wheels of the federal government in motion. This week, the House began marking up the first two (of 12 in total) appropriations bills. Many insiders report that the House is on track to pass most, if not all, of the appropriations bills in July. But the Senate is still lagging well behind with no set plans for markups or floor consideration. However, the markups and floor considerations of appropriations bills are just one piece of the larger, more complicated summer Congressional agenda.

Access AACTE 2021 Annual Meeting Videos

By Linda Minor

• Strand 1 – Preparing Educators In and For the Future
• Strand 2 – Renewing Democracy through Activism and Collaboration
• Strand 3 – Addressing Public Concerns for the Future of the Profession
• Strand 4 – Confronting the Challenges Facing Our Programs and Institutions

ETS and AACTE Seek Member Input: Pilot PlanWise™ Formative Assessment Tool

By Jacqueline Rodriguez

AACTE is excited to announce a new opportunity for members to pilot the PlanWise™ tool, a Chrome Extension developed by ETS and focused on delivering formative assessment practices and strategies. The PlanWise™ tool meets teachers where they are in a number of ways, including by providing suggestions for formative assessment strategies to teachers and teacher candidates while they are lesson planning in Google Docs. After an initial pilot with K-12 teachers, there is increased interest in expanding use of the PlanWise™ tool to teacher candidates. Many novice teachers in the initial pilot valued the utility of the tool in identifying a variety of new formative assessment strategies and indicated that the strategies increased their use of formative assessment with students.

AACTE 2021 Leadership Academy Registration is Open

By Linda Minor

Registration is open for the 2021 Leadership Academy Series designed for educational leaders navigating the challenges of the current global environment. This three-part series will augment your leadership skills during these unprecedented times. The first of these virtual series will take place August 11^.  The second will be held in October and the final session of the series is scheduled for January 2022.

AACTE Launches New Podcast ‘Revolutionizing Education’

By Jerrica Thurman

 
In this episode, we hear from AACTE members Kyle Harrison, Kelly Hayek, and Irene Ann Resenly from the University of Wisconsin who explore the role of joy in teacher education.