02 Jul2020
By Linda Minor
After careful consideration, AACTE has decided to transform the 2020 Washington Week conference into its inaugural virtual event. The in-person meeting has been canceled due to our concern about the health, well-being, and safety of our attendees and the coronavirus-related meeting and travel restrictions. We are excited to bring a virtual conference that will center on the same education and connections attendees experience at AACTE face-to-face meetings—from the comfort of your home. Take a moment to review the questions and answers we’ve prepared to acquaint you with this year’s Washington Week conference.
02 Jul2020
By Meghan Grenda
To ensure you have continual access to the many resources available to members, AACTE encourages you to renew your AACTE membership for 2021 today. Members who submit 50% of their dues by August 31, 2020 are eligible for a complimentary second registration to the 2020 Washington Week and 2020 Leadership Academy events. This means if you and a colleague are planning to attend one of these meetings, the second registration for the same event is free.
02 Jul2020
By Jacqueline Rodriguez
In collaboration with national experts including AACTE, Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK) has released a Blueprint to Establishing a Place-Based Grow Your Own Program to support growth in the teaching profession. According to PDK, “Grow your own programs recruit students from their current high school population to enter educator pathway programs. Districts and states then partner with local educator preparation programs to offer enrollment incentives to students, keeping them close to home so that they will return as teachers to the classrooms where they currently learn.”
As our nation’s schools are increasingly diverse, our teaching workforce must reflect the communities in which they serve. This step-by-step Blueprint provides the context and the guiding principles to support local leaders who seek to grow their own teaching pool from within their diverse eco-system.
02 Jul2020
By Jacqueline E. King, Ph.D.
AACTE invites proposals for a campus-based team to edit the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) for a 3-year term, commencing with the January/February 2022 issue. Proposals must be submitted online by October 1. Qualified teams from schools, colleges, and departments of education at AACTE member institutions may apply.
Download the complete request for proposals, or enter the online submission site.
JTE, in continuous publication since 1950, is the premier journal for teacher education, providing a vital forum for considering practice, policy, and research in the field. Published five times a year, the journal reaches a worldwide audience and is regularly cited in new research. JTE is AACTE’s only journal, published in partnership with an editorial team based at a member institution and SAGE.
Michigan State University has served as editorial host of the journal since 2015, led by a team of four co-editors—Tonya Bartell, Dorinda Carter Andrews, Robert Floden, and Gail Richmond. Editors aim to achieve a strategic balance among the areas of pre-service and in-service teacher education practice, policy, and research, bringing those areas to bear on one another in challenging and productive ways. They offer a forum for diverse work of teacher education researchers (university and non-university based), teacher education practitioners (e.g., university, state, district, community college), and policy makers at all levels. Linking research and practice is paramount in their vision for JTE.
02 Jul2020
By Jacqueline E. King, Ph.D.
The AACTE Board of Directors recently created two new advisory committees to promote diversity in the educator workforce and among future leaders and scholars in educator preparation. These committees will be an integral part of fulfilling the strategic priority of diversity, equity, and inclusion outlined in AACTE’s strategic plan.
Advisory Committee on Educator Diversity
The purpose of this committee is to advise the AACTE staff and Board of Directors on current trends, issues, and programming needs related to advance diversity in educator preparation program faculty and candidates. The committee shall provide recommendations and feedback for program improvement that may pertain to the following:
01 Jul2020
By Nicole Dunn
The Wallace Foundation’s University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), which supports universities redesigning their principal preparation programs, has never been more important to students and communities. In addition to creating and sustaining efforts to improve equity and academic achievement for their students, school principals are navigating unprecedented changes to the way teaching and learning occurs.
AACTE invites you to join us as we continue to participate in the national conversation about principal preparation redesign through UPPI’s online learning series, “Taking Education Preparation to the Next Level.”
The five-session series, brought to you by The Wallace Foundation’s UPPI Network, in coordination with the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), will provide university/college principal preparation faculty within and beyond the UPPI network some important, collaborative tools and practical ideas on ways to support principal preparation and pipelines. Through the five-part series, national experts provide 45-minute, interactive sessions that address the following questions:
- How can principals lead schools focused on equity and academic improvement now and in the future?
- How can universities engage with partners to develop and sustain principal preparation programs to meet future challenges?
All are invited to attend the 45-minute interactive sessions facilitated by national experts. These sessions, described below, provide ideas and tools to advance leadership preparation, and foster improved collaboration between teacher and principal preparation.
30 Jun2020
By Monika Jo
Face-to-face clinical field experience cancelled? Find out how teacher candidates can safely practice instructional strategies through virtual reality (VR) classrooms.
Join the AACTE and Mursion co-sponsored webinar, “Feasibility & Utility of Mixed Reality Simulations in Higher Education,” presented by guest speakers from AACTE and Kennesaw State University tomorrow, Tuesday, June 30 at 1:00 p.m. ET. The presenters will share their wealth of experience using mixed reality solutions and will engage in critical dialogue on the feasibility and utility of mixed reality simulations in higher education. You will discover how virtual simulations help teacher candidates develop high-leverage practices before entering real-world clinical experiences.
30 Jun2020
By Katrina Norfleet
In an article that appeared in “The Atlantic,” Pirette McKamey illustrated the many ways anti-racist teachers make black students central to the success of their own teaching. “This is a paradigm shift: Instead of only asking black students who are not doing well in class to start identifying with school, we also ask teachers whose black students are not doing well in their classes to start identifying with those students,” said McKamey.
McKamey is the first black principal of Mission High School in San Francisco, and has taught high-school English and history for 26 years. From 2005 to 2016, she co-founded and co-led the anti-racist teaching committee at Mission High. In the article, she offers a firsthand account of students’ level of success when their academic strengths are overlooked and marginalized by educators who do not respect the intellectual contributions of black students versus those who do.
Read the full article.
30 Jun2020
By Trine University
This article originally appeared on the Trine University News site and is reprinted with permission.
Three Trine University students from the Franks School of Education have been recognized as Outstanding Future Educators by the Indiana Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (IACTE).
Graduating seniors Cassi Wyse, an elementary education major from Archbold, Ohio, Mackenna Kelly, a mathematics education major from Angola, Indiana, and Connor Moore, a health and physical education major from Indianapolis, were scheduled to be honored with other students from across the state at the Outstanding Future Educators Banquet in Carmel, Indiana, on April 3. However, the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Though I’m heartbroken we were unable to join together to recognize these future educators in the way they deserved, the lack of a formal celebration in no way diminishes their accomplishments as teacher education students at Trine and the excellence they bring to their teaching careers,” said Anthony Kline, dean of the Franks School of Education. “We are proud of their effort here and look forward to their success as professional educators.”
Each teacher preparation program in the state recognized teacher candidates with the honor.
26 Jun2020
By Rodney Robinson
This article originally appeared on Rodney Robinson’s blog and is reprinted with permission.
Yesterday, I woke up to a country and a city in crisis. I had text messages from former students who are now in their late 20’s looking for guidance and advice. Teachers who are close friends and some strangers have asked for my advice on what they should be doing. I did my best to calm their fears and try to help them channel their anger, anxiety, and aggression into a more impactful way but soon became overwhelmed at the sheer hopelessness of the situation. Like everyone, I’ve been sulking and processing the events of the past week.
Politicians, the media, and pundits love to use the term systemic racism to describe what is going on to generalize the problems of being black in America. While this is true, we must address the causes of systemic racism and not allow them to generalize and describe the system they are complicit in maintaining. We must push them to make systemic racism more than a buzzword. We must push them to define systemic racism and demand solutions that provide actionable change and implementation which most aren’t willing to do because they must sacrifice their comfort and position.
Peaceful protests and uprisings are not inspired just from the frustration of a lynched unarmed Black man. This is the frustration that comes from an inherently racist society that was built to subjugate Black people. According to Ta-Nehisi Coates, the “destruction is merely the superlative form of a dominion whose prerogatives include frisking, detainings, beatings, and humiliations.” It also comes from lack of safe, affordable neighborhoods, an education system that punishes black and brown boys and girls at rates 3-4 times higher than white kids, and a criminal system that stalks and preys on black bodies limiting their opportunities for physical and financial freedom.
26 Jun2020
By Blair Mann
Parents and teachers have had to deal with unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, but their demand for data is as strong as ever. The Data Quality Campaign’s (DQC) fifth parent poll and third teacher poll—conducted by The Harris Poll—makes clear that, especially during these uncertain times, parents and teachers value data. DQC’s national polls found that parents overwhelmingly want more information to support student success and teachers want more data on how the COVID-19 crisis has affected student learning—but teachers also want training and resources to use that data effectively. As state leaders pursue efforts to restart school in the fall, state policymakers and school leaders must take action to give parents and teachers the information and resources they need to ensure their students succeed.
“While the pandemic causes uncertainty in and out of schools, we know that parents and teachers want data and need more support to use it to help their students succeed,” said Data Quality Campaign President and CEO Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger. “As state and district leaders prepare for instruction to resume—whether it’s in person, virtual, or a hybrid—they must prioritize getting parents the information they need and ensuring that teachers have both the data they need and the tools to use it. Taking steps toward both of these goals will ensure that those closest to students have the data they need to make decisions that best serve students.”
Parents see the value of data. They want more data to understand the effects of school closures on student learning in their communities and to inform recovery efforts to best meet students’ and families’ evolving needs.
25 Jun2020
By Leslie T. Fenwick
This essay is excerpted from Leslie T. Fenwick’s forthcoming book, Jim Crow’s Pink Slip: Public Policy and the Near-Decimation of Black School Leadership after Brown. The excerpt provides a brief history about how many public schools came to be named for confederates and racist politicians who fought against integration and illegally resisted the Brown decision.
In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education legal decision proclaimed that segregation had no place in America’s public schools. With this new law of the land and ensuing federal pressure to desegregate, school districts in 17 dual system states complied by closing black schools and firing, demoting and dismissing legions of exceptionally credentialed black principals and teachers. At the time, closing black schools was the primary method for ridding the system of black principals and teachers most of whom were better credentialed than their white peers. Directly after Brown there was little displacement of black principals and teachers, but as Title VI compliance mandates increased, the National Education Association (NEA) received reports from black teachers’ associations indicating that displacements were increasing.
In late 1969, C. J. Duckworth who served as executive secretary to the Mississippi Teachers Association clarified the link between black school closures and black principal firing and demotions in 17 Mississippi school districts. In his report to the NEA, he wrote:
Alcorn County – the black high school reduced to a junior high school and the black principal demoted to a federal projects coordinators; Clarke County – the black high school reduced to a junior high school and the principal made an elementary principal for remainder of the year, after which he was to be terminated; Clay County – the black high school reduced to a junior high school with a white principal; ….Franklin County – a black elementary principal replaced by a white principal; Hancock County – the black high school phased out and only two of 10 black teachers remain; Harrison County – a black junior-senior high school eliminated and the black principal made supervisor of a material center;….Itawamba County – all black schools and principals eliminated; ….Prentiss County – black high schools and principals phased out; ….Marion County – black high school principals replaced with whites…. (p. 5332)
25 Jun2020
By Daniel Bergman
Like many educators, I experienced a crash course in teaching via Zoom during 2020. More than another technological tool, videoconferencing has helped me rethink and refine my pedagogical practice—for both online and face-to-face settings.
Classroom Norms
In my typical class sessions, we jump into instruction and activities to model “on-task” productivity. However, Zoom has reminded me that giving attention to procedures and expectations is time well spent.
In a videoconference setting, these “norms” often relate to technical set up—microphones, chatroom, camera, etc. Such issues relate to all sorts of teaching environments. How can students use phones or other devices? What should they write down or record? When and how do they talk with one another and the instructor? These are all important questions, and answering them at the start establishes expectations for successful learning (Finley, 2013).
25 Jun2020
By AACTE
AACTE celebrates the recent rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in support of the LGBTQ community and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. AACTE commends the two decisions and their significant impact for growing a diversified educator workforce prepared by AACTE member institutions to meet the needs of diverse learners.
For the first time in American schools, LGBTQ teachers will not fear the loss of employment when self-identifying thanks to the SCOTUS June 15 ruling. It affirms the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. AACTE believes representation of LGBTQ educators in schools is vital to the mental and physical health of LGBTQ students, particularly Black transgender youth. The SCOTUS decision will increase the visibility of gender diverse teachers on all levels of the education system and will help students gain a deeper understanding about the LGBTQ community.
22 Jun2020
By Jacob Easley II
This article originally appeared on the Graduate School of Education at Touro College website and is reprinted with permission.
To the Touro GSE community, our candidates, and in particular, the youth and children we serve by way of our educator preparation programs, I write to you in solidarity with the many educators across the United States who collectively speak out against the horrific brutality and the death of George Floyd and many others. The world is watching. These are indeed troubling times coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our president of Touro College and University System, Dr. Alan Kadish has led the charge for those of us within the Touro academy to “Be part of the solution.” To our Black and brown youth, our first desire is your safety and to let you know you are valued. This too we hold dear for all communities of color. Yet, desires without actions are delusions. We must also move beyond rhetoric and engage the tools of professional educators. This we must and will continue to do as researchers, practitioners, and advocates focusing on educational equity.
