Posts Tagged ‘equity’

New UH Program Transforms STEM Pros into STEM Teachers

$1.2 Million Grant from National Science Foundation Funds Alternative Certification Program

Photo credit: Getty

Some people are born to be teachers, even if early career choices lead them down other paths first. For professionals working in STEM fields, a new University of Houston program offers a fast track to earn a place at the head of a secondary school STEM classroom – and change their own lives in the process.

Applications are currently being accepted for the first cohort of STEMPro, an intensive nine-month alternative teaching certification program and a collaboration between UH’s College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and College of Education. The addition of this post-baccalaureate outreach, which focuses on already established professionals, expands the existing teachHOUSTON program, which serves undergraduates seeking teaching certificates. It also supports the UH focus on training quality teachers ready to serve in communities where they are needed most.

Department of Education Updates Title IX Rule

On June 23, the 50th anniversary of the enactment of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Biden Administration released a new rule (read the fact sheet) for how colleges should respond to cases of sexual harassment.

Title IX is the law that protects students, faculty, and staff from sex-based discrimination in education programs that receive federal aid.  Since its inception, it has opened scores of opportunities in classrooms, athletic fields, and elsewhere on campus for traditionally underrepresented students. However, the rule has been silent until now on how to protect students that identify as LGBTQ+ as well as pregnant students and employees.

Appropriations Subcommittee Approves Proposed FY2023 Labor-Education-HHS Funding

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.

All eyes were on Washington Friday morning as news broke that the Supreme Court has officially overturned Roe. V. Wade. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued a statement:

MIT Seeks District Partners for Free Equity Professional Development

Among the many challenges K-12 educators are gearing up for this upcoming academic year, building more equitable, inclusive schools is of utmost priority. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is proposing a new project for the U.S. Department of Education’s Innovation and Research program to implement and test a whole-school program called “Becoming a More Equitable Educator: Mindsets and Practice.”

MIT invites all district school administrators, teachers, and staff to participate in this 12-16 hour online course — and share with any partnering district.

Representation Matters: The Necessity of LGBTQ+ Content in Schools

GLSEN’s 2019 National School Climate Survey (N=16,636)the most recent for which results are available—provides an alarming overview of the state of LGBTQ+ inclusive education. According to GLSEN, only 16.2% of participants reported engaging with positive representations of LGBTQ+ content, and fewer than 20% stated that LGBTQ+ topics appeared in their textbooks and curricular resources.

Celebrating 50 Years of Title IX

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 being signed into law. Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. Specifically, it states: 

No person in the United States shall, based on sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 

$1.4M Grant for New JMU Upward Bound Program Aims to Help Underrepresented Students Prepare for College

JMU College of Education program will empower first-generation college and at-risk local students to unlock potential

James Madison University’s College of Education will receive $1.4 million over the next five years to help eligible high school students in the Shenandoah Valley overcome social, emotional, and academic barriers to achieve success in education beyond high school.

JMU will receive a total of $1,437,685 to create a JMU Upward Bound Program. The funds will support two programs, one at Harrisonburg High School in Harrisonburg City Public Schools and one at Spotswood High School in Rockingham County Public Schools, supporting a total of approximately 30-35 high school students at each school. 

LGBTQ+ Research in Teacher Education

Pride flags and gag orders, a Queer as Folk reboot and white supremacists at Pride celebrations, My Two Moms and Me and “Don’t Say Gay”: this whiplash of dissonance is the backdrop against which we as LGBTQ+ teacher educators navigate as scholars in 2022. I was asked to write a post on LGBTQ+ research in teacher education — an exceptionally tall order. One post can hardly encapsulate the complexities, tensions, and exceptionality of current work in the field. Research specific to LGBTQ+ topics in teacher education might be broadly organized into a few categories: the lived experiences of Queer1 persons in teacher education, LGBTQ+ issues in curriculum and instruction within teacher preparation, and policies and practices directly impacting LGBTQ+ persons and issues within the realm of P-12 schools. 

Counteracting Censorship: Protecting Academic Freedom through Faculty Senate Resolution Campaigns

A 2022 Washington Week Recap and Reflection

*Slides from this session are provided by Jennifer Ruth, Higher Education Faculty Lead at African American Policy Forum can be found on AACTE Connect360.

COVID-19 has exacerbated a pre-existing education crisis and increased inequalities since its outbreak two years ago. And now, educators around the nation are grappling with yet another challenge. Outside of academia, critics are condemning the fight for intellectual freedom.

In the past couple of months, the attack on academic freedom at K-12 and post-secondary levels have reached new heights. From the fight to remove books affiliated with the history of the United States of America to the “great resignation” being affiliated with teacher shortages directly affecting the sustainability of education. There is a direct assault on education from all areas of social and political streams. For example, some of the significant challenges being faced are critical race theory (CRT) education, academic tenure, educator resources, and the hindering of legislative impediments to the educational curriculum. Below are some of the recent headlines featuring these issues:

First-of-its-kind National Aspiring Principal Fellowship Now Available in 37 States and DC

Educators looking to become school leaders in 37 states and Washington, DC, can now enroll in the National Aspiring Principal Fellowship, a first-of-its-kind program created by national nonprofit New Leaders in partnership with distinguished historically Black institutions Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse College to dramatically boost the number of principals of color leading K-12 schools across the country.

College of Education Program Serving Arizona’s Native American Communities Gets $1.2M Boost

Chris Richards/University of Arizona

A University of Arizona College of Education program that provides mentorship and educational resources to Arizona’s Indigenous communities will extend its reach thanks to a $1.2 million grant from the Arizona Department of Education.

The Native Student Outreach, Access and Resiliency program, better known as Native SOAR, emphasizes Indigenous teaching and knowledge. Over the course of 10 weeks, the program allows UArizona students from any major to spend about three to four hours a week mentoring middle and high students across Arizona and teaching them about attending college, cultural resiliency, leadership skills and identity exploration.

Voices from the Field: What Early Career Teachers Need Right Now

On June 8, the EdPrepLab, a collaboration between the Learning Policy Institute and Bankstreet College, will host its annual Spring Convening. Registration closes Tuesday, June 7.

Speakers will discuss research on new design principles for educator preparation based on the science of learning and development. We will kick off the discussion with a keynote address by Pamela Cantor, MD, founder and senior science advisor of Turnaround for Children, on the importance of using the science of learning and development to design learning environments for PK–12 students. We will then turn to a conversation about how EdPrepLab is using the science of learning and development to craft principles for the preparation of teachers and leaders. These principles will sharpen EdPrepLab’s focus on the structures and practices educator preparation programs need to enact in order to prepare teachers and leaders focused on deeper learning and equity. Speakers will discuss the critical role these principles should play in designing preparation programs that develop the educators all our students need and deserve.

AACTE Members Pledge their Support for Digital Equity at Signing Event

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:

Supporting LGBTQ+ Persons in Schools: What’s at Stake for Teacher Educators?

In the summer of 1969 — 53 years ago this June — the infamous Stonewall Riots took place in New York City, launching the modern LGBTQ+ movement for equity and freedom. For this reason, June has become synonymous with PRIDE celebrations across the nation. Rainbows color many storefronts and major retailers launch their PRIDE-related marketing blitzes. I, for one, love the proliferation of the rainbow across our neighborhoods, retail districts, and campuses. Afterall, visibility matters. As a gay man who came out during his senior year of high school 30 years ago and who worked hard to advance an agenda of openness and support for LGBTQ+-identified individuals, first as a high school teacher and later college professor, I look back on these decades with pride as we acknowledge where we were so many years ago. And yet, PRIDE takes on a new meaning this year, as schools increasingly become the battleground in the fight against LGBTQ+-equity and in particular trans lives.

What are the stakes in this culture war? What are the possible ramifications of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and censorship? Most notably, our children are the ones who suffer in these baseless attacks against trans and queer kids. LGBTQ+ students report harassment at rates much higher than their peers (and the highest of all minority populations, GLSEN). LGBTQ+ students in many states report that their school does not feel safe, and that teachers do not feel supportive. According to the Trevor project, LGBTQ+ students report higher rates of depression and anxiety than their peers and rates of suicide in this group are by some estimates 7X higher than other peer groups. Indeed, this is a matter of life and death for our kids.

Opinion: The Ugly Backlash to Brown v. Board of Ed That No One Talks About

Sarah L. Murphy teaches children in a two-room schoolhouse in Rockmart, Ga. on June 23, 1950. | AP Photo

This article, by AACTE dean in residence Leslie T. Fenwick, Ph.D., was originally published in Politico and is reprinted with permission.

Today, most Americans think about the segregation-shattering 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision in one of three ways. We may think about Linda Brown, the plaintiff in Brown, a little girl forced to walk miles to a segregated Black school instead of attending the white school down the block. We may remember the famed Norman Rockwell painting featuring 6-year-old Ruby Bridges escorted by U.S. Marshals past a wall splattered with tomatoes and a racial slur. Or we may recall the tumult of busing in the South — Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia… and even much further north of the Mason-Dixon Line in South Boston, too.

But there is plenty that we have not been taught about Brown, which turns 68 today, or how it continues to impact us. We know about Linda Brown and Ruby Bridges. But we don’t know about Pressley Giles, Mary Preyer, Virgil Coleman and Jewel Butler. They were among the 100,000 exceptionally credentialed Black principals and teachers illegally purged from desegregating schools in the wake of Brown.