Congratulations to the following individuals who will join the AACTE Board of Directors effective March 6, 2022:
Laura Alamillo
Dean, School of Education
Sonoma State University
HACU Representative
Carole G. Basile
Dean
Arizona State University
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College
At-Large Representative
Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Representative Alma Adams (D-N.C.) recently introduced the Educators for America Act, which would modernize Title II of the Higher Education Act and help ensure that future teachers are profession-ready to enter the classroom. The Educators for America Act was introduced after more than a year of consultations with experts in the educator field and partner organizations. 
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 Checks Another Item Off The “Must-Do” List
Last week lawmakers in Congress rallied to unite behind a deal that keeps the government funded at its current levels through February 18 __a Continuing Resolution (CR).This is the first in a series of “must-do” tasks before the New Year. The temporary patch keeps the government open, but it could result in federal agencies delaying grant competitions and disbursement of funds.
Since spring 2020, when schools and colleges around the country switched to online instruction due to COVID-19, AACTE has periodically surveyed members on the impact of the pandemic on educator preparation. A new report updates that series with information collected in fall 2021. It describes how conditions have changed since 2020, highlighting the lasting effects of the pandemic.
This report contains a lot of good news regarding the resumption of in-person instruction and field experience and the easing of enrollment and budget reductions. Nonetheless, the effects of COVID-19 linger for many institutions, with a sizable minority of respondents reporting significant enrollment losses, budget cuts, and staffing reductions. State licensing requirements have been reinstated, but some states are creating opportunities for prospective teachers to circumvent those rules, which may negatively affect enrollment in educator preparation programs and exacerbate the current shortage of profession-ready educators in the workforce.
Mississippi Public Universities support the state’s children and K-12 schools across the state in numerous ways. In addition to preparing the teaching workforce through the education academic degree programs, the universities support teachers, students, and schools through outreach efforts ranging from a partnership school for middle school students located on a university campus to a clinic housed at a high school to help teens stay well so they can perform at their best in the classroom and beyond.
The Mississippi Excellence in Teaching Program (METP) is a collaboration between the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University to attract top-performing students into the education profession with full financial support, travel abroad opportunities and invaluable professional incentives. METP aims to increase the import—and reduce the export—of talented educators to create a pipeline of new teachers committed to Mississippi’s future. All students who enter the program make a five-year commitment to teach in Mississippi after graduation. Funded by the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation of Jackson, METP is designed to create a unique “honors college-style” learning experience for high-achieving education students and promote collaboration between students and faculty at both universities.
During a two-day visit to the U-M campus, the inaugural class of Marygrove students worked together on problem-solving and engineering projects. Image credit: Heather Nash
Isra Elshafei, a teacher at the School at Marygrove in Detroit, is grateful for a unique teaching residency program that offers additional support and mentoring she doubts others who completed student teaching online during the pandemic are getting.
Excitement is building for the 74th AACTE Annual Meeting, March 4 – 6, 2022. Why? To start, this will be AACTE’s first in-person meeting in nearly two years. Second, the meeting will be held in one of the nation’s most exciting cities, New Orleans, LA. Finally, and most importantly, the meeting will feature a speaker lineup comprised of leading experts on the education topics that matter most.
AACTE is excited to bring together hundreds of speakers from across the United States to inspire new ideas, provide fresh perspectives, and drive positive change in the educator preparation field. Take a peek at this year’s lineup through personal video messages from some of the speakers themselves. Visit the speaker video wall and learn about #AACTE22 speakers’ stories, topics, and their passion for rethinking, reshaping, reimagining, and revolutionizing the profession post-pandemic.
This article originally appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune and is reprinted with permission.
Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune Students raise their hands in full classroom of 32 students in a Spanish class at South Jordan Middle School in 2017.
A crisis is defined as a time of intense danger when important decisions must be made. It can’t wait!
A few days ago, we read with frustration an article in The Salt Lake Tribune about the substitute teacher crisis in Utah—a direct result of Utah’s severe teacher shortage. The substitute statistics were staggering. Granite School District needed 518 subs at the end of September and couldn’t fill 194 of those positions.
AACTE recently launched its year-long collaboration with the Teacher Licensure Collaborative (TLC), a partnership with the Learning Policy Institute, Education Commission of the States, and additional national partners. TLC is a gathering of national organizations and interested state education institutions working to advance revisions of state licensure and certification standards in order to incorporate whole child practices and to ensure alignment with the science of learning and development.
The partnership meeting began with a welcome from Linda Darling-Hammond, Ed.D., who explained the various motivations that inspired the creation of TLC. The kickoff was an opportunity for all of the state team members to gather and learn about the collaborative’s goals and structure. A few AACTE affiliate members were among the states participating in the TLC including Ohio, Massachusetts, and North Dakota.
AACTE congratulates former AACTE Board Member Dianne L. Hall Mark on her retirement, effective January 1, 2022. Mark will receive the distinguished professor award from Coastal Carolina University during the fall 2021 commencement ceremony and receive emeritus status upon her retirement.
Mark joined Coastal Carolina University (CCU) in fall 2009 as the dean of the then Spadoni College of Education, where she became the first African American female dean in the University’s history. Since 2011, she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses as a professor in the Department of Foundations, Curriculum, and Instruction.
CNN’s Katie Lobosco recently reported on President’s Biden’s universal pre-K plan that would make preschool available and affordable for six million more children and the resulting challenge of hiring “tens of thousands” of new teachers. In referring to the teaching shortage, Lobosco writes, “The average number of college graduates who completed teacher preparation programs fell 24% between the 2009-10 and 2018-19 academic years, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.”
The third episode of AACTE’s new University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI) Podcast series chronicling this Wallace Foundation multi-year principal program redesign initiative is now available. In the last episode, AACTE identified the gaps between “learning” and “doing.” In this episode, guests dive into a case study of the UPPI program at University of Connecticut (UConn ) and what they have learned from their program redesign. Episode 3 features Richard Gonzalez, who oversees the principalship and superintendency program at UConn and serves as the director of UConn’s UPPI initiative project. Gonzalez and current program candidate Symone James, explain the core assessments, how they were tied to clinical practice and what that structure accomplished in closing the “learning” and “doing” gap of principal preparation.
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.
It’s the end-of-year countdown season for Congress and a lot is at stake!
Congress Races to the Finish Line
On this past Thursday, just 36 hours before government funding was set to lapse, lawmakers rallied to unite behind a deal that will keep the government funded at its current levels through February 18. The House voted 221-212 to approve the measure. The Senate then passed the 11-week stopgap spending bill in a 69-28 vote—sending the measure to the President’s desk. The legislation, referred to as a continuing resolution (CR), will prevent a government shutdown while keeping the government funded at levels set nearly one year ago by former President Trump.
The Center for Innovation, Design, and Digital Learning (CIDDL) is inviting you to join a community of higher education faculty members focused on sharing tips and tricks, research-based practices, and strategies for innovative use of educational technology in educator or leadership preparation programs. CIDDL’s mission is to influence change that supports the appropriate use of educational technology in all early intervention/early childhood special education (EI/ECSE), related services, and K-12 learning environments to improve outcomes for all students, especially those with disabilities.
