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.
25 Jul2023
By Weade James
AACTE is excited to announce a new partnership with the Early Childhood Intervention Personnel Center on Equity (ECIPCE), 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. ECIPCE has awarded AACTE a 5-year sub-award to support a cohort of 12 Holmes Scholars pursuing doctorates in early childhood and early childhood special education.
More early childhood leaders and practitioners with the requisite skills and knowledge are required to meet the needs of children aged birth – 5 years old. This partnership will directly address this issue, in part, by providing targeted mentorship, professional development, and financial support to doctoral students of color pursuing a Ph.D. or an Ed.D. in early childhood and early childhood special education.
04 Oct2022
By AACTE
There has never been a more critical time to work together to support public education and students’ success. AACTE is joining forces with Learning First Alliance and partners across the country to support a critical effort to help ensure a bright future for our children.
The Here for the Kids campaign brings together families, educators, and community members to shine a light on local public schools and tell the stories of the amazingly positive things happening in classrooms and school buildings nationwide.
02 Aug2022
By Kaitlyn Brennan
This weekly Washington Update is intended to keep members informed on Capitol Hill activities impacting the educator preparation community. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
This week marked the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This landmark civil rights legislation represents the promise of inclusion and access for individuals with disabilities across our nation. While our country has made significant progress since the law was signed over three decades ago- there is more work to do to live up to the promise of ADA.
Senate Appropriations Committee Releases Draft FY2023 Funding Bills
On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee released its proposed Democratic fiscal year (FY) 2023 funding bills along with an explanatory statement and summary for each bill. The explanatory statement comes in lieu of a Committee Report and explains the intent behind the funding values and includes an overview and descriptions of each account, list of earmarks, and a programmatic funding table at the end. The Senate bills won’t be marked up, but they will serve as a starting point for negotiations in the fall.
28 Jun2022
By SFA News
Stephen F. Austin State University’s James I. Perkins College of Education has partnered with the Galena Park Independent School District to staff up to five paid internships during the 2022-23 academic year.
The program, which launches this fall, will let students use clinical teaching assignments to gain valuable classroom experience before entering the education workforce. While all teaching areas are available, GPISD particularly needs interns in early childhood through sixth grade, special education, bilingual education, math and English language arts.
19 May2022
By Abbey Goers
As program director for early childhood education in the School of Education, Barnhart received several inquiries from working adults who were hoping for an online degree option.
“Our traditional face-to-face, four-year program didn’t meet the needs of these individuals,” she said. “UW-Stout’s new online early childhood education degree was created specifically for working adults with an associate degree, coursework completed at another institution, a degree in another field or currently licensed teachers in another area.”
The program was approved by the Provost’s Office on March 4. Applications are open, and classes begin this fall semester.
17 May2022
By Kaitlyn Brennan
This weekly Washington Update is intended to keep members informed on Capitol Hill activities impacting the educator preparation community. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of AACTE.
After 45 years, the Department of Education has announced plans to update Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Stay tuned for opportunities to provide feedback to stakeholders on what you would like to see. Take a read for more information on that and more below.
Department of Education Announces Plan to Update Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Education announced plans to update Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The forthcoming changes will mark the first update to the regulations in 45 years. The Department’s Section 504 regulations were the first set of regulations issued by the federal government that addressed the treatment of people with disabilities through a civil rights framework, rather than through solely a medical or vocational framework. Section 504 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in public and private programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance, including schools and postsecondary institutions.
“While the world has undergone enormous changes since 1977, the Department’s Section 504 regulations have remained, with few exceptions, unaltered,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon. “As we observe the 45th anniversary of these important regulations this month, it is time to start the process of updating them. Just as in 1977, the voices of people with disabilities must be heard and incorporated as we engage in that work.”
