02 Mar2015
By Trish Parrish
AACTE’s Committee on Professional Preparation and Accountability would like to encourage AACTE members to respond to the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) Call for Service. The online application for the CAEP “Volunteer Corps” is open through March 20.
Volunteers may apply to serve as reviewers at different levels or on CAEP’s governance bodies. The call seeks a diverse population of volunteers, not only faculty from programs holding CAEP accreditation. But it is important for teacher educators to be represented in CAEP, and this can be achieved if you volunteer!
16 Feb2015
By Amy Johnson and Cathie Fallona
Editor’s Note: AACTE’s two Research Fellowship teams will present a joint session at the Association’s Annual Meeting, Saturday, February 28, at 1:30 p.m. in Room A704 of the Atlanta Marriott Marquis. This post provides background on the fellowship at the University of Southern Maine.
The recent release of proposed federal reporting requirements for educator preparation programs stirred up intense interest in the methods and metrics used to evaluate programs. As many people noted in their letters of comment to the U.S. Department of Education earlier this month, several of the proposed new measures are unprecedented and would require investment of significant time and money to collect, analyze, and report data on an annual basis.
26 Jan2015
By Lucy Berrier
On January 14, the Council of Chief State School Officers announced four finalists for the 2015 national teacher of the year. The finalists are state teachers of the year from Alabama, Hawaii, Indiana, and Texas.
20 Jan2015
By Zachary VanHouten
A recent report by the think tank Third Way claims that the federal Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) grant program is failing to meet its aims, instead burdening nearly 40% of recipients to date with converted unsubsidized loans after they failed to complete all program requirements.
The report calls for changes to the program, either through “short-term fixes” such as reducing reporting requirements and limiting grant use to “high-performing” programs (as proposed in the new federal regulations for teacher preparation programs) or, preferably, in a thorough overhaul that streamlines all federal assistance for teachers into a simple loan-forgiveness program.
16 Dec2014
By Lucy Berrier
Congratulations to the future members of AACTE’s Board of Directors! In an online election that ended November 28, AACTE members chose several of their colleagues to serve a 3-year term beginning March 1, 2015:
Arlinda Eaton, Kennesaw State University (TECSCU)
Pamela Carroll, Oklahoma State University (At-Large)
Dianne Mark, Coastal Carolina University (At-Large)
Jennie Whitcomb, University of Colorado at Boulder (At-Large)
01 Dec2014
By Kristin McCabe
John I. Goodlad, a giant in 20th-century education and former elected president of AACTE, died November 29 in Seattle. He was 94.
After 8 years of teaching in his native Canada — in the challenging conditions of a one-room schoolhouse and, later, a juvenile detention center — Goodlad completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of British Columbia and then came to the United States for doctoral work at the University of Chicago. By age 29, he was head of teacher education at Emory University (GA). He briefly returned to the University of Chicago before moving in 1960 to the University of California Los Angeles, where he spent 24 years, the last 16 as education dean.
25 Nov2014
By Kristin McCabe
As teacher educators wait to see the U.S. government’s latest proposal for rating their programs, a new report commissioned by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) attempts to lay out a useful framework of “key effectiveness indicators” to answer the fundamental question: How do we identify high-performing preparation programs that routinely produce effective teachers (as well as programs that do not)?
04 Nov2014
By Zachary VanHouten and Deborah Koolbeck
As the National Council on Teaching Quality (NCTQ) steps up its document collection by communicating directly with teacher preparation programs’ PK-12 partners, AACTE encourages programs to reach out to their partner schools to raise awareness and build mutual understanding around the requests, including connecting legal counsel from both parties if appropriate.
28 Oct2014
By Kristin McCabe
Georgia, Ohio, Montana, New Hampshire, and Utah have been selected to receive technical assistance from the University of Florida College of Education’s Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform (CEEDAR) Center. The center supports states in developing educators to prepare students with disabilities for colleges and careers.
28 Oct2014
By Tim Finklea and Kristin McCabe
A recent evaluation of the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) found that program graduates are making a significant impact in Boston Public Schools, providing more racially/ethnically diverse teachers and staying in the classroom at higher rates. A webinar hosted by REL Central earlier this month highlighted the findings and challenges of the evaluation, which was conducted by John Papay and colleagues at Brown University (RI).
The study compared BTR graduates to other novice teachers in the urban school system, asking the following questions:
- Does the BTR program prepare more teachers than other pathways in hard-to-staff subjects such as math and science?
- Are BTR recruits more racially and ethnically diverse than teachers from other pathways?
- Do BTR recruits remain in the district longer than other new hires?
- Are BTR teachers more effective in raising student test scores in math and English language arts than teachers with the same level of experience from other pathways?
30 Sep2014
By Andrea Hajek and Kristin Hamilton
The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is recruiting practicing teachers as well as undergraduate and graduate preservice teachers to participate in field tests of the revised National Board certification process. This is a great opportunity to help shape the future of the teaching profession and experience a sample of the performance-based assessment that thousands of teachers have called transformative.
19 Sep2014
By Kristin McCabe
With the school year now in full swing, we know it’s a challenge to stay on top of your professional reading. Here are a few hot assignments you won’t want to miss:
1. Journal of Teacher Education
The latest issue of AACTE’s journal offers fascinating insights into the professional development and practice of teacher educators. Based on the premise that “while research on teaching informs research on teacher education, the latter needs a specialized knowledge base of its own” (see the issue’s editorial), articles address general and specific elements of that knowledge base, professional identity, core practices, and more.
Extra credit:Read the latest research to be published in future issues of the journal! It’s posted on a rolling basis in Sage’s Online First system.
16 Sep2014
By Kristin McCabe
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA) have issued the following request for public comment on their draft revision of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards (see this post announcing the Wallace-funded revision effort). Make your voice heard by October 10!
CCSSO is seeking feedback from the public on draft standards for education leaders that aim to ensure district and school leaders are able to improve student achievement and meet new, higher expectations.
03 Sep2014
By Dean Vogel and Cheryl Scott Williams
This post first appeared in the Sacramento Bee. View the original here. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
The new school year brings one of the biggest transitions our state’s elementary and secondary education system has ever experienced. As students settle into new classrooms, our teachers are adjusting their instruction to help students meet expectations of the new Common Core state standards. It’s our job – as parents, business leaders, students, community members, and educators – to look beyond both the hype and hysteria to ensure that students benefit from thoughtful, locally driven implementation.
18 Aug2014
By Saroja Barnes
Last week, members of the Teacher Leader program at the College of Charleston’s School of Education, Health, and Human Performance (SC) visited Washington, DC, and met with government and nonprofit agencies and associations, including AACTE, as well as leaders from educational think tanks and policy makers.
