03 Oct2023
By Kaitlyn Brennan
The “In the States” feature by Kaitlyn Brennan is a weekly update to keep members informed on state-level activities impacting the education and educator preparation community.
Students across the Lee County School District in Florida are not receiving services they are entitled to through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
On September 20, Principal Cherry Gibson of Gateway Elementary informed a group of parents that, “Our district is experiencing a speech-language pathologist shortage. This will impact speech and or language services for the students at our school.”
03 Oct2023
By Brooke Evans
As part of AACTE’s Longview Foundation-supported Global Education Faculty PLC Professional Learning Series, on Thursday, October 12, from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET, you are invited to attend the public webinar, Leveraging Technology and Digital Advances to Develop Global Competencies in Teacher Educators and Candidates. Learn about the ways technology can be used to develop global competencies for both teacher educators and their students.
Join us as we explore different perspectives on how recent world events have led to an even greater need for global citizenship through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology. Panelists also will make the case for learning to learn with technology rather than trying to control its evolution. The session will showcase examples of pedagogy, practice, and actions teachers can employ with students in developing global competencies.
03 Oct2023
By California Lutheran University
The U.S. Department of Education has awarded Cal Lutheran a $1,241,679 grant to support the Graduate School of Education’s Deaf and Hard of Hearing Credential Program.
The five-year grant will fund Access Teach: Closing the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Educator Gap, a project to support 60 graduate-level students who will leave the program as credentialed teachers of high-need deaf and hard-of-hearing students in public schools. In addition to tuition, financial aid, textbooks, and instructional materials, the project will provide mentoring and other support to recruit and retain students.
The grant also allows the program to be restructured to a hybrid format by summer 2024. Classes will be synchronous with some in-person classes on Saturdays. This change will enable the university to accommodate the needs of working professionals across Southern California.
03 Oct2023
By Tyler Pointer
AACTE invites members to attend the 2023 American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Brown Lecture, “Otherwise Qualified: The Untold Story of Brown and Black Educators” presented by AACTE Dean in Residence Leslie T. Fenwick, Ph.D., on Thursday, October 19 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. ET at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington D.C.
Fenwick will deliver the lecture to an in-person audience and offer a newly excavated history of the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education. The lecture will also broadcast live.
03 Oct2023
By Regina Ayala Chavez
My name is Regina Ayala Chavez; I have two last names because that is the tradition in Mexico. My first last name is from my father, and the second is from my mother. Having two last names is hard in this country because people are not used to it, so they think “Ayala” is my middle name, but I wear my two last names with pride even when it makes bureaucracy harder.
I moved to the United States with my husband when I was 27 years old. Two years after I started my doctoral program in science education at North Carolina State University, I faced significant challenges regarding my background. I had studied English in school since I was a kid, but learning in a classroom and needing to use it to express my ideas was totally different.
I remember two main challenges when I started the classes: reading fast enough and learning about the U.S. educational system. I had difficulties keeping up with my peers; I couldn’t read as quickly as they did, so I didn’t finish the paper every time the discussion started. This was very discouraging until one Mexican professor told me that it doesn’t matter if I can’t keep up, that I speak two languages, and that was also valuable. He helped me with some techniques to read faster and focus only on the crucial things in the articles. Thanks to him, I improved my reading and felt more capable of keeping up with my peers.
03 Oct2023
By Nicole Dunn
The Wallace Knowledge Center on School Leadership released a new report over the summer that can help principal prep programs prepare candidates to be equitable leaders in their school districts. A Culturally Responsive School Leadership Approach to Developing Equity-Centered Principals: Considerations for Principal Pipelines posits whether pipelines can be designed to advance a district’s vision of equity, and if so, what the pipeline would look like.
University preparation programs are an integral part of the pipeline, especially in developing equity-minded leaders, as covered in Episode 4, ‘Districts and Programs Collaborate in Commitment to Equity’ of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)’s University Principal Preparation Initiative Podcast. This report focuses on the four key characteristics of equity-centered school leaders: critical consciousness, inclusive schools, culturally relevant and responsive classrooms, and community engagement.
03 Oct2023
By Marissa Garcia
This article originally appeared in the North Texas Daily.
Texas Woman’s University is helping around 100 teaching assistants obtain bachelor’s degrees and Texas teaching certifications, financed by $500,000 in grants awarded from Houston Independent School District.
The grants come from HISD’s Grow Your Own grant program, which began in May 2023 in response to the national teacher shortage. HISD offered 10 grants of $100,000 this year to institutions that “offer high-quality, low-cost pathways to aspiring educators,” according to HISD.
TWU was one of three universities selected, the others being Prairie View A&M University and Tarleton State University, and received five out of the 10 grants, said Lisa Huffman, dean of the College of Professional Education and Department of Human Development professor.
