As you prepare for AACTE’s Annual Meeting, I would like to highlight a new opportunity for attendees— an advocacy preconference! Preconferences happen on Thursday, February 21, and this one is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Join members of the AACTE Committee on Government Relations and Advocacy as well as other colleagues in the field for “A Return to Discourse: A Foundation for Effective Advocacy.”
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released yesterday A Vision and Guidance for a Diverse and Learner-Ready Teacher Workforce, a report that outlines key recommendations state education chiefs, leaders in educator preparation, local education agencies, and others can take to ensure each child in the public school system is taught by a diverse and learner-ready teacher workforce. The report highlights actions for attracting, preparing, placing, supporting, and retaining teachers from diverse ethnic or racial backgrounds and socioeconomic experiences. It identifies specific policy levers state education agencies (SEAs) have authority over that should be activated to achieve the vision of what success can look like for students and teachers as well as highlight distinct responsibilities of SEAs where they have a moral imperative to lead for equity. Additionally, the report appendix references some of the best practices and policy recommendations states have implemented to push this work forward.
Along with state chiefs, AACTE and other national education organizations partnered with CCSSO on its new initiative to diversify the teaching profession through its Diverse and Learner-Ready Teachers (DLRT) Initiative. The collaboration led to the production of the new report—a viable resource for state teams that provide model research- and evidence-based state best practices and policies.
The Third Annual Diversified Teaching Workforce (DTW) Institute will convene on February 21, 2019 at the AACTE Annual Meeting in Louisville, KY. The Institute will convene a group of national leaders at colleges and universities across the United States to spotlight and explore innovative efforts for addressing racial/ethnic teacher diversity across five key areas: recruitment and retention, teacher preparation, mentorship, induction and professional development, and advocacy. Recognizing the need to create spaces within professional networks to discuss and unpack the challenges and possibilities for increasing teacher diversity, the institute offers presentations on current research, opportunities to converse in working groups, and panel sessions focused on best practices from teacher preparation and teacher diversity pipeline leaders. A brief overview of potential panels at the Institute include:
Check out the initial lineup of sessions and presenters for the 2019 Annual Meeting, now available through the online AACTE Event Planner!
Once you have logged in, sort through the hundreds of sessions to attend by searching titles, descriptions, presenter names, locations, and other fields. And new this year, you can now select strands and interest areas to narrow down your options as well.
The 2019 AACTE Annual Meeting is just 12 weeks away! As you prepare for your stay in Louisville, Matt Wales, AACTE vice president, membership, events and special projects, offers some helpful tips to help you make the most of your time at the conference and in the host city:
What features of the Kentucky International Convention Center (KICC) make it a great host location for the AACTE Annual Meeting?
The KICC is truly a state-of-the-art facility. The KICC was closed in 2016, to undergo two years of construction enhancement and renovation. Having just reopened in August 2018, AACTE attendees will experience our General Sessions and Deeper Dives in a brand new, 40,000-square-foot ballroom that allows us to accommodate more seating, more space for networking, and additional, technological capacity for increased interactivity during these AACTE sessions.
AACTE is pleased to announce a second participant in the 71st Annual Meeting Opening Keynote. Marvin Lynn of the Graduate School of Education at Portland State University (PSU) will join Marilyn Cochran-Smith of the Lynch School of Education at Boston College for the general session, Friday, February 22, 2019. Lynn brings his extensive experience in teacher education to this thought-provoking discussion on accreditation, assessment, and other facets of teacher education accountability.
Lynn is the dean of the Graduate School of Education at PSU. He is an internationally recognized expert on race and education and the lead editor of the Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education. He serves as an editorial board member of several journals, and has published more than two dozen research articles and book chapters. At PSU, Lynn works closely with an outstanding and diverse faculty and staff to advance the national profile of high quality academic programs while further building and strengthening relationships with local schools.
The 2019 AACTE Annual Meeting in Louisville is an opportunity for you to not only invest in your own professional development but also come away feeling both energized and refreshed. Chief executive officer of Louisville Tourism, Karen Williams, took time to share what Louisville has to offer Annual Meeting attendees in a short Q&A session. Here is what she had to say:
How has Louisville grown beyond being known solely for its bourbon to The Spirited City?
As AACTE plans a lineup of dynamic presenters and content for its 2019 Annual Meeting in Louisville, local school officials from Jefferson County took time to share insights about what’s happening in education in the city and throughout Kentucky on topics related to AACTE’s Deeper Dive sessions. In response to questions regarding social justice issues and shaping the future of education in Louisville, Jimmy Adams, Chief of Human Resources for Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), provided the following comments:
What does Louisville have to offer education leaders from across the country in their work to shape the future of education in America?
AACTE is pleased to announce that social justice champion Marilyn Cochran-Smith will speak at the Opening Session of the 71st AACTE Annual Meeting. The session will take place at the Kentucky International Convention Center on February 22, 2019.
A teacher education scholar and practitioner for more than 40 years, Cochran-Smith is the Cawthorne Professor of Teacher Education for Urban Schools in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College (MA). She is widely known around the world for her scholarship on teacher education research, practice and policy and for her sustained commitment to inquiry-based teaching and diversity and equity in teacher education.
Did you know AACTE selects the Annual Meeting destination four to five years in advance? To ensure the conference offers the best bang for your buck, AACTE works behind the scenes to secure event space and accommodations at budget-conscious pricing. Many factors are taken into consideration when determining future locations for the Annual Meeting, such as geographic location and rotation among U.S. regions, cultural diversity, attendee cost, available meeting space and accessibility, and social justice considerations. A complete list of the AACTE site selection procedures is available at aacte.org.
The AACTE 2018 Annual Meeting drew positive reviews from attendees who completed the event survey, with more than 95% rating the conference content as “Excellent” or “Good.” When asked what they liked most about last year’s Annual Meeting, more than 95% chose General Sessions and Deeper Dives (AACTE’s reimagined Major Forums) as their top activities. AACTE’s new Learning Lab session format was also popular among respondents, as more than 88% rated these interactive sessions as “Excellent or “Good.”
AACTE invited and encouraged Annual Meeting attendees to share specific feedback, and here’s what a few had to say about the 2018 event:
The 2019 AACTE Annual Meeting in Louisville, KY, is packed full of professional development opportunities designed to expand your knowledge base and engage you in conversations with fellow attendees. But when the meeting is not in session, you will want to venture out and explore the sights that will both energize and inspire you, many of which are just steps away from the hub of the AACTE Annual Meeting.
Learning Lab Sessions will take place in both the Omni Louisville and the Louisville Marriott Downtown, with the Deeper Dives and General Sessions taking place at the brand new ballroom in the Kentucky International Convention Center (KICC). AACTE has blocks of sleeping rooms in four hotels that are either connected to or just a short walk from the KICC:
Registration is now available for the AACTE 71st Annual Meeting, coming to Louisville, Kentucky, February 22-24, 2019. Sign up by October 24 to secure the Early Bird registration discount!
The 2019 Annual Meeting is themed “Sustaining and Advancing the Profession,” conceptualized as follows in the call for proposals:
AACTE experienced another record-setting year for its Annual Meeting in 2018, receiving an astounding 567 proposals for consideration. Given the limited number of spaces available for presentations, we were able to accept only 47% of the proposals received.
Looking to share your work at AACTE’s 2019 Annual Meeting in Louisville? Then you will want to prepare a proposal that stands out in our competitive, peer-review process. Here are five tips to keep in mind:
In a recent radio show recorded at AACTE’s 70th Annual Meeting, Education Talk Radio host Larry Jacobs interviewed several leaders in educator preparation about their work, including AACTE members from Kentucky as well as Board of Directors Chair Wanda Blanchett and President/CEO Lynn M. Gangone.
The first interview of the show focused on work in Kentucky to use technology and create a statewide system for sharing teacher preparation program data and accountability (as presented in a session elsewhere in the conference). The following guests joined the interview:
