Late yesterday afternoon, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan held a press conference to announce the release of proposed federal regulations for teacher preparation programs. While the regulations are not yet open for public comment through the Federal Register, the draft language is now available on the Department of Education’s web site.
AACTE has hired two new senior directors in the Department of Policy and Programs. Linda S. McKee is the Association’s senior director for performance measurement and assessment policy, and Rodrick S. Lucero will be senior director for member engagement and support.
“We are delighted to welcome Linda and Rod to AACTE,” said Mark LaCelle-Peterson, AACTE vice president for policy and programs. “Each of them brings extensive experience in education, from public schools and higher education to work with associations. They’ll add to our ability to respond to the needs of our members in an immense way.”
In its latest effort to cast the nation’s schools of education in a negative light, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) today released a report claiming that vague, “criterion-deficient” assignments in educator preparation programs result in too many high grades among teacher candidates, compared with students in other majors at the same institutions. The report, Training Our Future Teachers: Easy A’s and What’s Behind Them, rests on the same meager evidence—mere document reviews—as NCTQ has used in past reports. One of its underlying tenets, however, is important, if not new: that teacher candidates and their readiness to practice must be developed and assessed fully and accurately, an area that is already the subject of intense focus and innovation led by the educator preparation community.
AACTE is thrilled that the U.S. Department of Education last week announced the awarding of a new round of Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grants, the federal government’s only investment in reforming teacher preparation. With grants totaling more than $35 million to 24 partnerships in the first year alone, these awards will assist to recruit, train, and support more than 11,000 educators in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
AACTE is pleased by the administration’s recognition of the value of continued federal investment in higher education-based teacher preparation programs. Many AACTE member institutions have benefited from TQP funding since the program’s inception in 2009, and the new round of grants expands the reach to more institutions and their partner schools.
AACTE Members Addressing Key Concerns Through Rigorous Programs, Partnerships, and Policy Initiatives
AACTE member institutions across the country are leading rigorous and effective teacher preparation programs that echo the priorities of those surveyed in the 46th annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. The 2014 poll includes a special section released today on teacher preparation and evaluation.
The first report on the 2014 poll, released last month, showed that Americans are skeptical of federal policy influences on public schools and of the Common Core State Standards and standardized tests. The newly released second report delves into specific ways respondents think teacher quality and schools should be improved.
AACTE President/CEO Sharon P. Robinson announced Friday that Mark LaCelle-Peterson, senior vice president of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), will join AACTE’s staff as vice president for policy and programs July 1.
“We are delighted to welcome Mark to AACTE,” Robinson said. “He knows the work of our membership very well, and we are eager to bring his expertise to the Association’s programs.”
LaCelle-Peterson will provide strategic and operational leadership for AACTE’s Policy and Programs Department. The position is a member of the senior management team that is instrumental in developing and executing the overall strategic goals of the Association. Managing a team consisting of staff and consultants, LaCelle-Peterson will provide program and policy leadership and will develop high-level activities to showcase and support the work of the Association.
Yesterday, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released its second annual Teacher Prep Review: A Review of the Nation’s Teacher Preparation Programs. Although parts of this report venture a conciliatory tone, as might be expected from NCTQ’s past reports, this review offers largely unhelpful recommendations that are based on questionable methodology.
Public Shaming—Over a Document Review
In an attempt to provide a consumer-friendly guide to teacher preparation programs, NCTQ has moved from rating institutions on a 4-star scale to ranking them numerically—a divisive tactic that mostly serves to pit institutions against one another. Notably, these rankings have as little to do with graduates’ readiness to teach as did last year’s star system.
AACTE applauds the Council of Chief State School Officers’ 2014 National Teacher of the Year Sean McComb, the three additional finalists, and the colleges of education that helped prepare all of them for their highly successful careers.
McComb, who is also the 2014 Maryland Teacher of the Year, teaches English at Patapsco High School & Center for the Arts in Baltimore. Additionally, he oversees the school’s Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) program. He completed his undergraduate and graduate preparation at the University of Pittsburgh, earning a bachelor’s degree English literature and master’s degree in English education.
AACTE today announced the official launch of an initiative to support innovation in the professional community and speed the pace of change in university-based educator preparation. The Innovation Exchange will serve as a forum for AACTE members, partners, and other constituents to share experiences and findings as they work together to address the most urgent issues of student achievement, curriculum reform, and educator preparation program advancement.
Through this national initiative, AACTE will seek to strengthen educator preparation, demonstrate the necessity and effectiveness of educator preparation, and enhance members’ opportunities to collaborate on key issues.
AACTE, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) have announced a partnership to support teacher preparation programs in including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues in their curriculum.
Research suggests that positive, supportive, and inclusive classroom environments lead to better academic and psychosocial outcomes for students. While some teacher preparation programs incorporate LGBT-inclusive content and awareness into their curriculum, there has been no deliberate, comprehensive effort to expand the practice throughout the profession.
AACTE is delighted to announce the winners of our 2014 awards!
The following awards will be presented during the Welcoming Session (March 1) and the Speaker Spotlight Session (March 3) at AACTE’s Annual Meeting in Indianapolis:
As AACTE’s Mary Harrill-McClellan alerted members last week, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released its latest critique of university-based teacher preparation today, Training Our Future Teachers: Classroom Management.
The report follows the standard NCTQ model of using a review of course materials from a small sample of programs to support the broad claim that the teacher preparation profession is not getting the job done.
AACTE issued a statement citing specific concerns with the report, including mainly that the report does not actually tell us whether programs are adequately preparing teacher candidates to manage classrooms. Other concerns noted in the statement are that the report contains no evidence to support the sweeping claims about “the field” of teacher preparation and that the assertions that edTPA does not focus on classroom management skills are incorrect.
Today, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released results from the 2012 administration of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a worldwide study of 15-year-old students’ performance on mathematics, science, and reading. American students’ performance remained largely unchanged from the previous PISA administration in 2009, although the U.S. ranking declined relative to other countries that improved over the past 3 years.
AACTE signed on to a statement of the Learning First Alliance about the results and also issued its own call for policy makers to look closely at the test’s lessons, along with the recommendations made by the OECD in its report Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education: Lessons From PISA 2012 for the United States as well as in the 2011 edition of the report, which focuses more on teacher preparation.
A groundbreaking policy guide released today provides state lawmakers and education advocates with a blueprint for practical changes to improve teaching quality in America. The guide recommends policies based on research and state models that have been highly effective in developing and sustaining talented and diverse teaching forces that prepare all students for college, career, and life.
Today marks a proud accomplishment of the teacher preparation community and our partners as we celebrate the launch of the first nationally available, standards-based performance assessment for preservice teachers: edTPA.
edTPA was created for the profession by the profession and is already in use by nearly 500 teacher preparation providers in 32 states and the District of Columbia. With edTPA now fully operational, every preparation program in the country has access to a rigorous, reliable assessment that will give us confidence that aspiring teachers are ready to take charge of their classroom on Day One. This is truly a transformational moment in teacher preparation.
