22 Jul2024
By Lidia Gutierrez
This article is reprinted with permission from Sam Houston State University.
Professors Francisco Usero-Gonzalez and Burcu Ates led students from Sam Houston State University to venture into Costa Rica for a unique study abroad program from May 11 to May 20. This trip was designed for students interested in pursuing a career in English as a Second Language (ESL) education, offering them an invaluable opportunity to experience teaching in a different cultural context and assist local educators.
“Study abroad programs significantly impact teacher candidates by enriching their teaching practices and preparing them to engage with diverse student populations,” Ates, the faculty lead for this study abroad program, said. “This global perspective enables them to create more inclusive curricula and foster a classroom environment that respects and celebrates ALL students.”
15 Jul2024
By Arizona Department of Education
State schools chief Tom Horne says the newly passed state budget includes a change that he has long sought: the elimination of the Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA) program, which many educators consider an unnecessary bureaucratic requirement and a waste of classroom time.
“Over time, the KEA had ballooned into an endless morass of paperwork that meant teachers had to spend too much time on bureaucratic requirements versus time with students,” Horne said. “Now the legislature has taken the welcome step of entirely removing the legal requirement for the KEA, which frees up more time for teachers to spend on classroom instruction.”
24 Jun2024
By U.S. Department of Education
The U.S. Department of Education (the Department) issued a Request for Information (RFI) to help the Department better understand operational aspects of potentially expanding Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) for workers in early childhood education (ECE) settings.
“Early childhood educators help young children learn, grow, and thrive. But they are often poorly compensated, and student debt is a problem. If these educators can access Public Service Loan Forgiveness, we can help our youngest children, their families, and their communities,” said U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal.
18 Jun2024
By Martin Walls
This article was originally published on Syracuse University’s website.
An anonymous benefactor has given $150,000 to the Syracuse University School of Education to provide scholarships for Native American students preparing to become inclusive education teachers. The School of Education Indigenous Teacher Preparation Fund will provide scholarships to at least seven undergraduate students in its first cohort, which will matriculate by the 2026-2027 academic year.
The scholarship will pay for a maximum of 30% of an individual student’s tuition. A portion of the fund will provide support for special programming and academic opportunities for Native American teacher preparation students, such as undergraduate research, conference attendance, or study away opportunities within the US.
29 May2024
By Tyler Pointer
Theresa Canada, Ed.D., host of “The Silk Stocking Sisters Podcast”
Seventy years ago, the course of education in the United States changed forever with the historic passing of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark decision that determined that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were unlawful.
AACTE member and researcher Theresa Canada, Ed.D., who received an education during the 1960s desegregation efforts in New York City, recounted this experience through the lens of her and six other Black and brown girls in a recent podcast series.
Canada, a professor in the Education and Educational Psychology Department at Western Connecticut State University, and host of “The Silk Stocking Sisters Podcast,” was a student at P.S. 6, the Lillie Devereaux Blake School, (PS 6), which is nestled on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City and was one of the first schools in the city to launch desegregation efforts. Now documenting her memories of the school through the podcast, Canada explores the historical legacies of the shared experiences of PS 6 alumni and what it demonstrated for the desegregation movement in the northern United States.
20 May2024
By JP O'Hare
The New York State Education Department awarded $34 million in Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) Expansion Grants to 64 school districts across the state. The grants will enable districts to establish new full-day prekindergarten placements or to convert existing placements from half- to full-day.
Regents Chancellor Lester W. Young, Jr. said, “When children enroll in high-quality and effective PreK programs, they gain a significant advantage in early skills that prepare them for success in elementary school. Expanding access to full-day PreK programs through these grants will help more of New York’s children succeed.”
08 Apr2024
By Elena Armstrong
Currently in her third year of teaching first grade at Cotter Schools, Jessica Houghton can clearly see the influence Winona State University’s Education Village had on her teaching career.
The state-of-the-art mini-campus for the College of Education was finished in 2019 and included renovations to Helble Hall, Wabasha Recreation Center, and Cathedral Elementary School to create modernized classrooms and innovative spaces. Education Village is celebrating its five-year anniversary this April with an open house and community activities.
Houghton was in her senior year when Education Village opened. She got to see first-hand the impact it had on her schooling, peers, and learning environment.
25 Mar2024
By Nicole Dunn
AACTE is proud to offer financial and professional development support to Holmes scholars enrolled in doctoral studies in early childhood special education to help them take their research and careers to the next level through our partnership program with the Early Childhood Intervention Personnel Center on Equity (ECIPC-E) at the University of Connecticut. This national initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, aims to enhance outcomes for infants and young children with disabilities and their families by bolstering the pipeline of skilled early childhood leaders and practitioners.
26 Feb2024
By Shannon G. Magsam
Nursing, speech-language pathology, and occupational therapy students in the College of Education and Health Professions recently had the unique opportunity to work with children who have hearing loss at SPARK Day.
The college collaborated with the non-profit Arkansas Hands and Voices, which supports parents and professionals who work with children with hearing loss regardless of their communication approach.
SPARK — an acronym for Student Preparation to Care for ARkansas Kids — was partially funded through a WE CARE grant. The college’s future caring professionals gained clinical experience with this specialty population, a requirement of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association for professional certification. The day also provided clinical training opportunities for those studying to be occupational therapists and nurses.
18 Dec2023
By Judith Cebula
Lilly Endowment Inc. has approved more than $21.5 million in implementation grants to help 28 colleges and universities in Indiana prepare the next generation of teachers in methods aligned with the Science of Reading.
The Endowment made the grants through its initiative, Advancing the Science of Reading in Indiana (ASRI). The initiative aims to improve significantly the reading abilities of Indiana K-12 students by helping teachers strengthen their use of methods aligned with the Science of Reading, a vast body of research related to how children learn to read. Methods aligned with the research include explicit, systematic, and cumulative instruction focused on phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
The Endowment, which has long supported efforts to improve educational outcomes for students in Indiana’s K-12 schools, launched ASRI in 2022 to help address low reading achievement among Indiana students. Only 33% of Indiana fourth-graders scored proficient in reading comprehension in the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called ‘The Nation’s Report Card.’
04 Dec2023
By Chelsea Lin
Courtesy of the University of Washington
Jasmyne Diaz’s young daughters came home one day from the Tulalip Early Learning Academy (TELA), their birth-to-kindergarten child care center, singing a stanza from “huy syaʔyaʔ”— the Lushootseed goodbye song. Over and over they sang the lines they remembered, not knowing what followed. As a member of the Tulalip Tribes, Diaz recognized the Lushootseed words but didn’t know the language well enough to help with the rest of the song. She thought of her great-grandmother — a Lushootseed educator — and her grandmother, who’d earned a doctorate in education. She thought of her three girls and the future she wanted for them. She said, “I decided if they knew Lushootseed, I also had to learn and help them.”
Diaz is now a teaching assistant with the Tulalip Tribes’ Lushootseed Language Department, teaching not only her own children but many of the community’s young students. Diaz appreciates the important work TELA is doing to educate the tribe’s littlest learners, infusing their early education with the language, culture, and teachings of their elders.
04 Dec2023
By U.S. Department of Education
The U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (the Departments) today announced the release of an updated joint-policy statement on supporting the inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood programs.
The HHS-ED Policy Statement on the Inclusion of Children with Disabilities in Early Childhood Programs builds upon a statement originally released in 2015 and includes a renewed commitment and urgency, as children with disabilities continue to face barriers to accessing and fully participating in inclusive early childhood programs. The statement was updated consistent with a directive to both agencies in President Biden’s Executive Order on Increasing Access to High-Quality Care and Supporting Caregivers.
20 Nov2023
By University of Indianapolis
The University of Indianapolis (UIndy) is delighted to announce a significant gift in memory of Nanci Vargus. This generous gift was provided by Nanci’s daughter, Jilda Vargus-Adams who wanted to create a lasting legacy for her mother’s commitment and dedication to education and her remarkable impact on the University.
The University will establish the Nanci Vargus Learning Resource Center to remember Nanci’s legacy. Nanci was an educator at the university for over 20 years who used her expertise and kindness to guide elementary and college-age students alike in their journeys to literacy.
“As a child, Mom literally read every book in her local library’s children’s section. She loved books. But more than that, she loved the joy that everyone can get from reading and she built her career with that goal in mind,” Vargus-Adams said. “Both as an elementary school teacher and as a professor of education, Mom endeavored to ensure that all children could have the gift of literacy.”
13 Nov2023
By Megan Tagami
This article was originally published on October 29, 2023, with Honolulu Civic Beat.
At Makakilo Elementary, Christine Carder posed a question to her first graders. “What letters make the sound ‘ea’ as in tea?” The class eagerly scrambled to write down the correct letter combination in their notebooks.
This exercise helps to build students’ phonemic awareness, instructional coach Karen Yogi explained to the group of parents invited to observe Makakilo’s reading lessons for the morning. Older students will later advance to activities such as reading in pairs and assessing each other’s fluency and vocabulary skills, Yogi added.
“This is why my son says he’s famished at dinner, instead of hungry,” said parent Donna Sinclair, noting the improvement she’s seen in her fifth-grader’s vocabulary this year.
Makakilo Elementary is one of about 80 schools in the state to receive funding from a roughly $50 million federal grant awarded in 2019 to improve literacy among the country’s youngest readers.
22 Aug2023
By Nicole Dunn
Last month, AACTE announced its new partnership with the Early Childhood Intervention Personnel Center on Equity (ECIPC-E), a national center federally funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs to assist states in building comprehensive systems of personnel development to improve outcomes for infants and young children with disabilities and their families.
As part of this partnership, AACTE will recruit, mentor, and support a cohort of 12 Holmes scholars in early childhood special education doctoral degree programs.
