The 2019 ACSR Elections are open and we need you to cast your vote!
The ACSR Annual Election for the Chair-Elect and Region Representatives is now open through December 13. Only the State Chapter President or the ACSR Liaison may vote with the ballot delivered by email.
This article, written by AACTE Director of Government Relations K. Ward Cummings, originally appeared in the Daily News Opinion section and is reprinted with permission.
The civil rights leader Malcolm X once famously said that the most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday. If he were alive today, he might also include those weekday hours between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. when our children are in school.
This past May was the 65th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education. The occasion inspired numerous panel discussions, seminars and reports about how much or how little the state of education has changed in the last half-century. Sadly, considerable attention also was paid to the subject of how segregated American schools remain 65 years later.
Around the country, regulators and legislators are demonstrating that they understand the urgent need to promote school safety. The 2019 state legislative session was an active one on the subject. Hundreds of bills were introduced covering every aspect of the matter from prevention to response. Join me as I present a wide-ranging overview and analysis of some of the most noteworthy school safety bills introduced over the year, with a particular focus on legislation impacting student and teacher mental health, in an upcoming State of the States webinar.
We encourage you to register in advance for the member-exclusive State of the States webinar, which will take place Thursday, October 31 from 11 a.m. to noon ET.
There will be time at the end of the webinar for questions and answers. The webinar will be recorded and posted on the website for future viewing.
For questions, please contact me at wcummings@aacte.org.
Most of the state legislatures around the country have adjourned for the year. During the session, legislators introduced more than one hundred thousand individual pieces of legislation, of which hundreds focused on the teaching profession and the preparation of teachers. In the September 2019 State of the States Legislative Roundup webinar, AACTE offered an overview of education-related bills introduced over the year.
Each month, these state-focused policy and legislation webinars will examine a particular theme; October’s theme is school safety. If you or your colleagues are doing specific work around school safety—including campus safety, social-emotional learning, integrating trauma-informed instruction into your curriculum, or other related work— we encourage you to submit a blog. Learn more about the submission guidelines.
We hope you view the recording of September’s webinar and stay tuned for a blog when October’s registration opens. This webinar series is designed to help AACTE members stay abreast of the actions of state legislatures around the country that impact the profession, and we encourage you to attend.
Would you like to learn more about the resources AACTE has pulled together to support its members in their state level legislative research? AACTE Government Relations Committee member Allen Clarkson will host a webinar describing the features of AACTE’s new state legislative resource page on Thursday, October 3, from 11am to Noon EDT.
Attend this webinar to learn how to use the three legislative search engines and other resources found on this new page to pursue your legislative research and advocacy goals. There will be time at the end of the webinar to get your questions answered. The webinar will be recorded and posted on the website as well.
Register now for the Introducing AACTE’s New Legislative Resource Webpage webinar.
As states work to allocate funding for school districts, they must take into account the various needs and populations of the students they serve. The Education Commission of the States (ECS) has developed a resource, “50-State Comparison: K-12 Funding” that helps clarify and compare each state’s school funding mechanisms, organized by method and category.
Visit the ECS webpage to review data describing the funding mechanisms of the states as well as the specific funding allocations for a list of funding priorities, including special education, English language learning and at-risk and low-income students.
As elementary and secondary teachers head back into their classrooms, conversations on teacher shortages, teacher salaries, and teacher strikes continue. Having an understanding of how your state funds its K-12 schools can help you support the schools in which your graduates will teach and engage in democracy on this critical issue.
State of the States Legislative Roundup
As AACTE director of government relations, I will guide attendees through this members only webinar, a brief overview of the recent legislative trends in education policymaking emerging around the country. The 2018-19 legislative session was active and productive, with many states introducing and passing bills on a range of issues that directly impact the education profession. Please join us for a rundown of some of the more noteworthy legislative proposals advanced by state legislatures over the past year.
Register now for the AACTE members only webinar, taking place Wednesday, September 18 from 11am to Noon, EST.
Introducing AACTE’s New Legislative Resource Webpage
Join Allen Clarkson, Western Governors University government relations manager and AACTE Government Relations Committee member, as he leads a webinar describing the features of AACTE’s new legislative resource webpage. The new webpage will include links to three legislative search engines as well as other useful resources that AACTE members can use to pursue their research and advocacy goals. Clarkson will guide participants through the features of the new webpage and invite you to ask questions afterward. The webinar is open to all and will be recorded and posted on the AACTE Advocacy Center state page.
Please join us on Thursday, September 26 from 11am to Noon, EST. Register now.
AACTE’s contact lists for state policy makers in each state and the District of Columbia have been updated and are now posted in the AACTE Resource Library (accessible to AACTE members only!). The links to these lists also can be found on the AACTE Advocacy Center’s State Advocacy page and on AACTE’s State Policy and Legislation page.
These resources are an AACTE member benefit to support you in your state-level advocacy work. I encourage you to use them to find key state policy officials, such as legislators for authorizing and appropriating education funds and state department of education contacts.
Of course, state officials change often. If you discover your state’s contact page needs to be updated, please email the new information to gra@aacte.org.
For the first time since 1914, all but one state legislature in the U.S. is dominated by a single party. The result has been a pattern of conservative leaning legislation in Republican-held states and liberal legislation in states controlled by Democrats. This is a political dynamic that will have far-reaching consequences for education policymaking well into the future. To find more information about the types of education bills being developed and advanced around the country and how politics is playing a leading role in state policymaking, view the State of the States webinar.
Originally presented at the State Leaders Institute during the 2019 AACTE Washington Week Conference, this video and the accompanying PowerPoint presentation, helps to demystify policymaking at the state-level by focusing on the political drivers that influence policymaking.
The 2019 State of the States webinar answers questions such as: What types of education bills are advancing in Democrat and GOP dominated legislatures? What role are governors playing in the education policymaking of their states? How are political leaders in state governments working together to influence education policy? And, what are the emerging trends among states in the ed-prep arena?
With a special emphasis on how “one-party-dominated” political leadership can dictate the development and shape the progress of education bills in a state, this webinar provides both a 30,000-foot and a ground-level perspective on education legislation, and will help you to see what it takes today to pass a bill in a state with one-party rule.
It was another successful Washington Week as AACTE members, students, and partners descended on the nation’s capital to network, advocate, and augment the 
capacity of the profession at the table. There was something for everyone—whether they were attending Washington Week for the first time or were a perennial attendee.
Three signature events comprise AACTE’s Washington Week: the State Leaders Institute (June 2-3), the Holmes Doctoral Scholar Summer Policy Institute (June 3), and Day on the Hill (June 4-5). Kim Metcalf, chair of the AACTE Board of Directors, and Michael Maher, chair of the AACTE Advisory Council of State Chapters, kicked off the week of events opening the State Leaders Institute (SLI).
Focusing on building the capacity of the state chapter and its leadership, SLI attendees learned about the impact of their state’s political dynamics on the development and advancement of education policy. Diving into the challenges of chapter leadership, SLI sessions included the development of sustainable leadership pipelines and the recruitment and retention of chapter membership. Conversations and sessions covered ideas and practices on a host of important issues of interest to AACTE members, including how to attract more teachers to the profession, how to use social media to augment the presence and voice of the chapter and its membership, and how to employ the power of grants to meet state and regional chapter goals.
The Education Commission of the States (ECS) recently released a report regarding college campus safety policies, based on its research gathered from statutes in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Though it does not include postsecondary board or institutional policies, the 50-State Comparison: Postsecondary Campus Safety report provides an overview of relevant laws in each state. However, this resource does not reflect on how these laws may interact with other state or federal policies.
Key takeaways from the report include the news that 22 states have codified a campus sexual assault policy; five states have defined affirmative consent; and 22 states have written into statute a prohibition for individuals to carry firearms on public college or university campuses.
This resource reviews state statutes that explicitly address sexual misconduct on college campuses or off-campus incidents that involve at least one student. It also examines state statutes that explicitly allow or prohibit guns on college campuses and those states in which statute allows guns in locked vehicles on college campuses. Follow this link to download and review this important report.
For questions about this announcement or other offerings by ECS, please email me at wcummings@aacte.org.
The Department of Education is seeking Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) applicants to apply for a portion of a new $24 million developmental grant created to address low completion rates among Hispanic postsecondary students.
This new grant is open to all HSIs that demonstrate a commitment to developing ways to identify and address the strengths and weaknesses of their institution’s enrollment, retention, and support for Hispanic and low-income students. The Department of Education will support projects designed to expand the number of Hispanic students at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional level and that help to facilitate their rates of graduation. HSI programs hoping to use the grant to expand and enhance the academic offerings, program quality, faculty quality, and institutional stability of colleges and universities that serve a majority of Hispanic students are encouraged to apply.
Awards will not exceed $600,000 for a single budget period of 12 months. The deadline for applying for these FY19 awards is July 15, 2019.
Those institutions interested in applying are encourages to visit grants.gov.
Do you have questions about this announcement? Please contact me at wcummings@aacte.org.
In anticipation of Washington Week’s Day on the Hill, AACTE’s premier advocacy event, members of the Committee on Government Relations and Advocacy hosted a webinar on Thursday, April 18 to answer questions about the event. How to schedule a congressional meeting, how to develop an advocacy message, and how to walk into a U.S. Senator’s office with confidence, are just samples of the many issues discussed during the webinar. The recorded webinar, Are You Ready for a Day on the Hill? is now available to watch on the AACTE website.
During the webinar, an experienced panel of experts shared their personal stories and provided guidance on the methods and reasons for advocacy. Additionally, they explained what attendees at this year’s Washington Week in the nation’s capital can expect when they attend Day on the Hill events.
Webinar attendees were instructed on what things to arrange prior to traveling, who to involve from their institution, how to request an appointment with their legislator, and how to prepare for the meeting. It was a one-stop-shop for all things related to the event.
The “AACTE Initiatives toward Increasing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Colleges of Teacher Education” Deeper Dive session was held during the 2019 Annual Meeting. The session highlighted the association’s current, ongoing, and future commitments in these areas in a discussion moderated by Jennifer Robinson of Montclair State University and included panelists Lillian Sharon Leathers of William Paterson University of New Jersey and AACTE’s Jacqueline King, Jacqueline Rodriguez, and Jane West.
King, author of AACTE’s recently published Education Students and Diversity: A Review of New Evidence report, described the findings, which showed that education is the least diverse in bachelor’s degree fields. King shared other important data such as 50% of African American education students and 40% of Hispanic education students are independent; 30% of African American students and 20% Hispanic students had children; and 20% African American students were single parents. She emphasized that child care, for example, is an issue that cannot be ignored when considering the matter of diversity. In addition, 4% of Hispanic students are first generation students and 22% do not have a parent that has graduated from high school. The study revealed that one in five African American students work full-time and that the median family income of white, dependent students is more than double of their African American and Hispanic peers.
The Deeper Dive session, “Too Expensive to Ignore,” held during the AACTE 2019 Annual Meeting explored the many creative ways educators are working to address the high costs associated with becoming a teacher. The panel discussion was moderated by Karen DeMoss, executive director of Prepared to Teach, Bank Street College of Education, and the presenters were Tara Kini, director of state policy at the Learning Policy Institute (LPI); Karen Riley, dean of the College of Education at the University of Denver; Karen Kindle, division chair, Teacher Residency and Education at the University of South Dakota (USD); Jeannie Aversa, coordinator of educator effectiveness at the Syracuse City School District; and Nichole Brown, director of field placement and project director, Teacher Opportunity Corp II at SUNY Oswego. The group of educators engaged in a lively conversation about how to create sustainable funding for teacher residencies.
DeMoss began the discussion with an overview of the reasons solutions to the funding problem are necessary. She shared that attracting diverse candidates to the teaching profession requires a focus on the money matters that teaching candidates care about. For example, 40% of undergraduates and 76% of graduate students work full time, and they incur debt that is often untenable in comparison to the salaries they can expect as teachers.
