14 Jun2022
By Michael Rose and Jacqueline Rodriguez
On June 9, Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona released a vision to support and elevate the teaching profession. AACTE applauds the vision to recruit, develop, and retain future educators in a time when extreme educator shortages are afflicting the country, and looks forward to working with the secretary to realize each strategy. The secretary’s vision, announced during a fireside chat at AACTE member institution, Bank Street College of New York, arrived on the heels of AACTE’s premier advocacy event, Washington Week, as AACTE members and its state affiliates met with their federal legislators to promote comprehensive educator preparation.
10 Jun2022
By James Minichello
The 17 organizations above representing the full breadth of the national K-12 education community, including school superintendents, administrators, educators, school mental health providers, school staff and parents, call on Congress to swiftly pass legislation that will address the senseless epidemic of gun violence in this country.
Schools and educators alone cannot bear the full burden of addressing the public health crisis of gun violence. The answer to stopping gun violence in our schools is not to arm our educators or to focus solely on better addressing the mental health crisis. As a nation, we must take a hard look at the various societal factors that are contributing to our high rates of gun violence and suicide and commit to meaningful action.
10 Jun2022
2022 Washington Week Attendee Recaps Her Experience
By Christine Gentry
This year, AACTE’s Washington Week event (Educating the Future: Policy and Advocacy as Levers of Change) was held in person for the first time in three years. The energy in the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel was high as colleagues met and reunited with each other.
The week opened on Monday with a warm welcome by Lynn M. Gangone (AACTE’s president and CEO), followed by a plenary session on AACTE’s legislative priorities by Mike Rose (AACTE’s senior director of government relations) and members of AACTE’s Committee on Government Relations and Advocacy (including myself), who offered tips on having successful meetings with public officials.
07 Jun2022
By Matthew Wales
Today, representatives from several AACTE member institutions, along with AACTE staff, representatives from both the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) and the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP), and colleagues from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), committed to leveraging their resources to support the adoption of the EPP Digital Equity and Transformation Pledge.
In a signing ceremony at the U.S. Department of Education with Deputy Secretary Cindy Marten, the following AACTE members, on behalf of their respective institutions, committed their educator preparation programs to expanding and scaling digital equity and transformation in learning:
01 Jun2022
By Brooke Evans
For the first time in three years, AACTE will be hosting its 2022 Washington Week in-person in Washington DC, June 6 – 8. This annual educational policy and advocacy event draws together AACTE’s State Chapter Leadership, Holmes’ Scholars, deans, and faculty for an opportunity to learn and advocate for education and for high quality educational preparation programs throughout the country.
This year, AACTE is combining the best programming from three separate events — State Leaders Institute, Holmes Policy Institute, and Day on the Hill — into one reimagined mini-conference for enhanced collaboration and networking. The 2022 Washington Week program includes shared keynotes and strand-based sessions on today’s most critical issues in education and teacher preparation: censorship, educator shortage, and educator diversity. Attendees can choose to align with a particular strand throughout the event or select sessions from among the three strands.
Holmes Scholar Vivian Medina-Messner is passionate about having conversations that build community. Washington Week provides this opportunity, “[At] Washington Week educators can meet other educators and have great conversations about educational policies and about issues important to our communities and students.” Read below for the rest of AACTE’s conversation with Medina-Messner.
31 May2022
By Michael Rose and Weade James
We’re getting close to kick off for AACTE’s Washington Week, June 6 – 8! Join us in the nation’s capital for the first, in-person Washington Week since 2019.
We are excited to share our lineup of exemplary speakers, including DoE Deputy Secretary Cindy Marten. They will cover critical topics in education and teacher preparation, including censorship, teacher shortage, and educator diversity. View the full schedule here.
27 May2022
By AACTE
On behalf of AACTE (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education), President and CEO Lynn M. Gangone issued the following statement after the most recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which at least 19 students and two teachers were murdered.
“Our nation has experienced yet another senseless act of violence in our schools. By one estimate, since 1999, at least 554 children, educators, and school staff have been victims of school shootings and 311,000 children have been exposed to gun violence at school. This is simply unacceptable. It is long past time for policymakers to take action to protect our students, educators, and school staff from such violence. We can and must do more.
What is clear is that no progress has been made toward keeping guns, especially semi-automatic weapons, out of the hands of those that seek to cause devastation. As a result, more children and their teachers are murdered. This must stop. We implore Congress to pass sensible, life-saving, gun-reform legislation, which the vast majority of the American public overwhelmingly supports.
24 May2022
By Brooke Evans
For the first time in three years, AACTE will be hosting its 2022 Washington Week in-person in Washington DC, June 6 – 8. This annual educational policy and advocacy event draws together AACTE’s State Chapter Leadership, Holmes’ Scholars, deans, and faculty for an opportunity to learn and advocate for education and high quality educational preparation programs throughout the country.
This year, AACTE is combining the best programming from three separate events — State Leaders Institute, Holmes Policy Institute, and Day on the Hill — into one reimagined mini-conference for enhanced collaboration and networking. The 2022 Washington Week program includes shared keynotes and strand-based sessions on today’s most critical issues in education and teacher preparation: censorship, educator shortage, and educator diversity. Attendees can choose to align with a particular strand throughout the event or select sessions from among the three strands.
Holmes Scholar and Ph.D. student from Ohio University, Shauna Torrington attends Washington Week because she loves how the training has helped her to find her voice, “I have been better able to articulate my views to support my stance on any subject.” Torrington shares the rest of her thoughts about Washington Week with AACTE.
17 May2022
By Nicole Dunn
As of May 2, PEN America has noted that 34% of Live Educational Gag Order bills affect Institutes of Higher Education, and 100% of the teachers in the 15 states that have signed gag orders into law feel the impact on their work. In addition to these laws and the more than 80 live gag-order bills, rampant illegal and legalized banning of books is restricting the rights of educators to serve diverse students and their equally diverse needs. It is necessary for educators to understand and address this coordinated attack to protect students’ quality of education, human rights and mental health.
This year, at AACTE’s 2022 Washington Week, AACTE has dedicated one of its three strands to education censorship. The strand was developed based on feedback from members and AACTE’s research report on education censorship. Highlights from the report will be released at Washington Week. Sessions will cover the following objectives:
- The scope, tactics, and themes within education censorship policies
- Which policies implicate IHE, and how faculty can organize to address them
- How these policies and the moral panic surrounding them affect the work of teachers, and therefore teacher educators
17 May2022
By Lisa Bisogno
Advocacy for teacher preparation programs and the fundamental need to place highly diverse qualified teachers in the classroom across the nation is more dire than ever before. AACTE’s Washington Week is the precise opportunity to perfect one’s craft of advocacy through training, workshops, and immersive experiences by conducting congressional visits with Senators and Congressmen or Congresswomen on Capitol Hill.
Legislators may not be aware of the obstacles our teacher preparation programs are confronted with on a daily basis nor the negative impact it is having on school districts in surrounding communities, and someone else might be telling your story incorrectly. This is one of the times when universities aren’t competing against one another and can come together to advocate the need for teacher preparation to be an equitable education for all children. Institutions of higher education are able to cohesively express the barriers encountered by teacher preparation programs and share their stories as one collective unit to their designated state legislators. You are able to learn how to advocate for the importance of the Higher Education Act, Teacher Quality Grants, and other fiscal appropriations that pertain to teacher preparation in the hopes that legislators will move it to the forefront of their agenda. More significantly, Washington Week has returned in person this year allowing you to better collaborate with colleagues in your field and even within your state.
16 May2022
By Weade James
AACTE’s upcoming Washington Week conference will feature speakers from national civil rights and advocacy organizations who have sought to empower and increase educational access and opportunities for disenfranchised communities. One of these organization is the National Urban League. Founded in 1910, the National Urban League, also known as The League, is a historic civil rights organization whose mission is to help African-Americans and underserved communities achieve their highest true social parity, economic self- reliance, power, and civil rights. The League promotes economic empowerment through education and job training, housing and community development, workforce development, entrepreneurship, health, and quality of life. Through their signature education programs, The League strives to ensure that every child is ready for college, career, and life.
Representing The League at the upcoming Washington Week conference is Horatio Blackman, vice president of education policy, advocacy, and engagement. Blackman’s work has focused on educational improvement, access, and opportunity for marginalized communities, specifically Black youth, utilizing data and evidence to support change efforts at the local, state, and national levels. Central in his practice is engaging communities in education improvement efforts. In his role at the National Urban League, Blackman leads the Equity & Excellence Project and related education policy and advocacy work.
Blackman joined the League after serving as an assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development and a research associate with the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy at the University of Delaware. Blackman is an expert in connecting evidence to policy, practice, all with a focus on supporting the needs of historically underserved communities. He is a graduate of Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.
Register today for AACTE’s Washington Week conference.
16 May2022
By Brooke Evans
For the first time in three years, AACTE will be hosting its 2022 Washington Week in-person in Washington DC, June 6 – 8. This annual educational policy and advocacy event draws together AACTE’s State Chapter Leadership, Holmes’ Scholars, deans, and faculty for an opportunity to learn and advocate for education and high quality educational preparation programs throughout the country.
This year, AACTE is combining the best programming from three separate events — State Leaders Institute, Holmes Policy Institute, and Day on the Hill — into one reimagined mini-conference for enhanced collaboration and networking. The 2022 Washington Week program includes shared keynotes and strand-based sessions on today’s most critical issues in education and teacher preparation: censorship, educator shortage, and educator diversity. Attendees can choose to align with a particular strand throughout the event or select sessions from among the three strands.
AACTE Holmes Scholar and Hofstra University adjunct instructor, Angeline Dean, successfully defended her dissertation recently. But Dean isn’t just a faculty and scholar, she is also an activist studying at Rowan University, eager to share her enthusiasm for Washington Week and how it served as the catalyst for her new role as campaign manager. “We [Candidate Armstrong and I] are working to dismantle the status quo in our communities, says Dean, “If you believe in all of this, you have to fight back.” Read below for the rest of Dean’s interview with AACTE.
10 May2022
By Brooke Evans
For the first time in three years, AACTE will be hosting its 2022 Washington Week in-person in Washington DC, June 6 – 8. This annual educational policy and advocacy event draws together AACTE’s State Chapter Leadership, Holmes’ Scholars, deans, and faculty for an opportunity to learn and advocate for education and for high quality educational preparation programs throughout the country.
This year, AACTE is combining the best programming from three separate events — State Leaders Institute, Holmes Policy Institute, and Day on the Hill — into one reimagined mini-conference for enhanced collaboration and networking. The 2022 Washington Week program includes shared keynotes and strand-based sessions on today’s most critical issues in education and teacher preparation: censorship, educator shortage, and educator diversity. Attendees can choose to align with a particular strand throughout the event or select sessions from among the three strands.
Executive Director of the Office of Educator Support and Partnerships at Rowan University, Stacey Leftwich, has only attended Washington Week once, and it was virtually. But, as the new president to her AACTE state affiliate, she found Washington Week’s State Leadership Institute (SLI) invaluable in preparing her for her state advocacy activities, stating “(SLI) was particularly helpful as we prepared for the Day on the Hill activities and for our meeting with our state senators and representatives.” Leftwich shares more during her chat with AACTE about her Washington Week experience.
06 May2022
By Michael Rose
AACTE is sponsoring its second Public Policy in Action webinar on May 19 at 1:00 p.m. (EST) to help federal student loan borrowers new to the teaching profession manage their federal student loans and, eventually, to have them forgiven.
Among the most significant reasons educators to leave the field is low pay and the significant debt they must take on to earn their degree. This is particularly acute for those just starting out, whether it be as a teacher in a K-12 classroom or as a faculty member at a school of education.
The information in this webinar is critical to help keep profession-ready, highly motivated educators in our nation’s classrooms. AACTE encourages you to share the registration link with those who are on the verge or entering the profession via residency programs or new educators that may be interested.
In response to COVID-19, Congress passed legislation in 2020 that authorized a “pause” on all Federal loan repayment plans, interest accumulation and suspended garnishment efforts. This pause is scheduled to expire on August 31, 2022.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF) is an underutilized program that forgives the federal student loan debts for borrowers that make 120 qualified payments while working in the public sector, including teaching and other education positions. While the program has been mismanaged over the past several years, the Biden Administration is working to make significant improvements to the PSLF, so that more beneficiaries will see their loans eliminated. This webinar will provide background on the program, explain the planned upgrades, and discuss how federal borrowers could benefit from the program.
Panelists will include the following:
- Michael Rose, Senior Director of Government Relations, AACTE
- Rachel Gentry, Director of Government Relations at National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)
- Michael Yudin, Principal, The Raben Group
Register today
How Educators Can Better Manage their Federal Student Loans
1:00 – 2:00 p.m. (EDT)
25 Apr2022
By Michael Rose
Join AACTE in Washington, DC, June 6 – 8, for this year’s annual signature event, 2022 Washington Week, “Educating the Future: Policy and Advocacy as Levers of Change.” AACTE and ACSR state affiliate leaders, Holmes Scholars, and deans and faculty will join together in the nation’s capital to advocate for education and teacher preparation.
With legislative and other critical challenges facing educators and students throughout the country, this is the year to get involved and make your voice heard.
What’s new and different?
This year, AACTE combines the best programming from three separate events—the State Leaders Institute, Holmes Policy Institute, and Day on the Hill—into one reimagined mini-conference.
