24 Feb2015
By Michael Feuer
This post originally appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education and is reposted with permission.
With high rates of retirement by an aging teaching force and continuing growth in school enrollments, we as a nation need more than ever to focus on how, where, and how well we prepare our future educators. Fortunately, the U.S. Department of Education has recognized the need to move on those issues. But one of its proposed solutions, in the form of regulations for evaluating the quality of higher-education programs that prepare elementary and secondary school teachers, could take us down a hazardous track.
17 Feb2015
By Tim Finklea
Sarah Brown Wessling, 2010 National Teacher of the Year
The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) has announced that 2010 National Teacher of the Year Sarah Brown Wessling will be a keynote speaker for the 2015 Spring CAEP Conference in Denver, Colorado. The theme of the conference, which takes place April 9-10, is Preparing Effective, Classroom-Ready Teachers: An Evidence-Based Approach.
In 2010, Wessling took a short break from her post teaching English at Johnston High School in Johnston, Iowa, to come to the White House to be named National Teacher of the Year. Wessling, a National Board Certified Teacher, has since leveraged this title to give her students and peers a voice.
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.
10 Feb2015
By Sharon Robinson
This post also appears in the Public School Insights blog of the Learning First Alliance.
It’s an insidious message embedded in the American psyche: Those who can’t, teach. For years, report after report has banged the drum for raising admission standards into teacher preparation programs, citing international comparisons and championing cost-prohibitive recruitment policies.
In reality, the talent pool now entering teacher preparation programs is rich. Our programs are, in fact, attracting their share of high achievers—defined by any number of criteria.
03 Feb2015
By Amanda Bush, Christine DeGregory and Donna Sacco
Upon arriving at AACTE last month to begin our semester-long internship, we were whisked off to the National Press Club for a press briefing on The Iceberg Effect, based on the new studySchool Performance in Context: Indicators of School Inputs and Outputs in Nine Similar Nations. For three doctoral students who are dedicated to promoting social justice in and out of the classroom, this could not have been a more fitting introduction to our work at AACTE.
The report, released by the National Superintendents Roundtable and the Horace Mann Foundation, casts new light on U.S. students’ performance on international assessments, controlling for social and economic factors that have not been previously studied alongside student achievement on this scale. The results highlight the relatively strong academic achievement of America’s students in spite of our nation’s poor performance in providing supports to help offset the widespread social and economic effects of poverty.
03 Feb2015
By Sharon Robinson
Eighteen education deans have formed a new coalition, Deans for Impact, to engage in the ongoing and important discussion about educator effectiveness and quality evidence. This group has staked out an agenda that is congruent with AACTE’s overall goals and also echoes the professional standards being implemented by the Council for the Accreditation for Educator Preparation.
20 Jan2015
By Sharon Robinson
This post also appears on the Public School Insights blog of the Learning First Alliance.
Last week, the White House announced a new push to protect students’ digital privacy, as ever-expanding data collection efforts heighten concerns from parents and advocacy groups about appropriate uses of the data. Institutions of higher education share the administration’s priority to protect elementary and secondary students and uphold diligent safety and privacy practices in preparing teachers for the classroom. Ultimately, safeguarding student data is everyone’s business.
13 Jan2015
By Cap Peck
Academic leaders in teacher education are currently faced with unprecedented policy pressures related to collecting, reporting, and acting on an intensifying array of program outcome measures. Moreover, many of the state and federal policies driving these pressures are saturated with paradox, attempting to address multiple and often contradictory goals. Perhaps the most fundamental of these is related to the essential tension between policy goals related to identifying and eliminating “low-performing programs,” and those related to “program improvement.” Coping with contradictory discourses and policies related to accountability, program improvement, and “data use” has become one of the facts of life experienced by virtually all contemporary teacher educators.
16 Dec2014
By Gloriatine Jones
The December 2014/January 2015 issue of Educational Horizons is now available from Pi Lambda Theta.
Thanks to a partnership with Phi Delta Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta, all AACTE members receive free online access to this magazine for future teachers as a benefit of their AACTE membership. Chief Representatives also receive each issue by mail.
09 Dec2014
By Jerrica Thurman
The six major forums at AACTE’s 67th Annual Meeting will be stand-alone offerings. In each of three dedicated time slots spanning February 27-March 1, 2015, participants will choose between two cutting-edge topics to explore with leaders in the field.
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)?
10 Nov2014
By Gerardo Gonzalez
Editor’s Note: In this opinion piece written for his local newspaper, Gonzalez provides his perspective on the enrollment decline in his state’s teacher preparation programs. This post originally appeared in the Indianapolis Star and is reposted with permission. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE. See also Sharon P. Robinson’s recent post calling national attention to the same topic.
I was pleased to see Tim Swarens’ Oct. 26 column making the point that education reform in Indiana needs a conversation not confrontation. That conversation should start with an honest assessment of the impact of reform efforts to date.
Over the last decade, teacher salaries in constant dollars in Indiana have decreased by more than 10%. Outpaced only by North Carolina, which experienced teacher salary decreases of 14%, Indiana had the second largest decrease in the country.
04 Nov2014
By Sharon Robinson
Each year, our nation’s PK-12 schools rely on colleges of teacher education to prepare thousands of new teachers. Between 2010 and 2019, the number of students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools is expected to grow from 55 to 58 million. Already, schools in high-need urban and rural areas struggle to recruit and retain enough qualified teachers, and many districts do not have sufficient special education or STEM specialists to serve student needs. Amidst these growing needs, however, enrollment in teacher preparation programs nationwide is falling, and data from AACTE’s 800 member institutions show reductions over the last decade in both undergraduate and graduate programs. What’s at the root of this worrisome decline, and how can we start to turn the tide?
23 Sep2014
By Kristin McCabe
The Innovations Inventory of AACTE’s Innovation Exchange is an online database highlighting members’ pioneering practices in educator preparation that have shown a positive impact on issues of student learning, preparation program advancement, or educator workforce needs. This blog post is one in a series highlighting entries from the inventory. For more information, contact Zach VanHouten at zvanhouten@aacte.org.
The award-winning Professional Development School (PDS) Consortium based at the State University of New York College at Buffalo (Buffalo State) offers a supportive cohort community for teacher candidates, minigrants for action research in the schools, and even international partner settings. This clinically rich network, founded in 1991, has evolved in alignment with frameworks including the 2001 NCATE PDS Standards, the National Association of Professional Development Schools Nine Essentials, and the 2012 NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel report.
16 Sep2014
By Kristin McCabe
The Innovations Inventory of AACTE’s Innovation Exchange is an online database highlighting members’ pioneering practices in educator preparation that have shown a positive impact on issues of student learning, preparation program advancement, or educator workforce needs. This blog post is one in a series highlighting entries from the inventory. For more information, contact Zach VanHouten at zvanhouten@aacte.org.
