The Herstory of Women Leadership in Teacher Education

By Nicole Dunn

AACTE launches it celebration of 2022 Women’s History Month on International Women’s Day with a blog on the “herstory” of women leaders in education preparation. To help AACTE celebrate women leaders in the profession, please nominate a women-identified leader in educator preparation whom you would like us to recognize in Ed Prep Matters before the month ends.

The term “herstory” was coined in 1970 by Robin Morgan, editor of Sisterhood is Powerful, An Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement. It is used today to acknowledge the way in which women have been left out of our historical narratives. Most schools teach history through the lens of America’s default norms: white, cisgendered, and male. AACTE is committed to supporting its membership with their efforts to prepare candidates to equitably represent intersectional female narratives across disciplines.

AACTE to Host Webinar on Colleges of Education: A National Portrait

By Jacqueline King

AACTE will soon release the second edition of its signature report, Colleges of Education:  A National Portrait. In addition to updating information on colleges of education and their leaders, faculty, and students, this edition features a special analysis on the contributions that community colleges make to educator preparation. Topics to be covered will include:

• Scope of educator preparation in the U.S.
• Trends in undergraduate and graduate degrees conferred in education
• Demographics of leaders and faculty
• Student demographics
• Contributions of community colleges to educator preparation

Claflin School of Education: Developing Black Male Visionary Educators

By Anthony Pittman and Anthony Broughton

This post is part of AACTE’s Black History Month 2022 Blog series. 

Claflin University is pleased to have been invited by AACTE to help celebrate Black History Month. Founded in 1869, primarily to educate freed slaves, Claflin was the first historically Black college/University (HBCU) in South Carolina to open its doors to all people – regardless of race, class, gender, and/or any of the other social constructs that have been divisive across many components of society. For over 150 years, Claflin has remained committed to her mission, one in which diversity and inclusion are central to the development of visionary leaders and scholars in their chosen fields of study. At Claflin, our belief is that our graduates will make their marks on the world by leading innovative changes in various industries and professions across the globe.

Claflin University is located in the small city of Orangeburg, South Carolina and is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and approved by the University Senate of the United Methodist Church. Among her numerous accolades, Claflin is ranked the #1 HBCU in the state, and for its 11th consecutive year, the University is in U.S. News & World Report’s “Top 10 of the Nation’s Best HBCUs.” As the oldest HBCU in the state of South Carolina, Claflin University’s commitment to teacher eucation has been consistently strong since its founding. She has produced teachers, principals, superintendents, and numerous other educational professionals who have made significant contributions to the myriad classrooms and other educational contexts within the state of SC and indeed across the United States and the world at large.

AACTE Diversified Teacher Workforce TAG to host Day Long Preconference Institute

Driving the National Conversation to Recruit, Sustain, and Retain Diverse Teaching Candidates

By Amanda Morales

The AACTE Diversified Teacher Workforce Topical Action Group (TAG) will convene Pk-20 practitioners, researchers, and community stakeholders to discuss how to bolster collective efforts to recruit, sustain and retain teachers of color. The preconference event will take place on Thursday, March 3 at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, Grand Ballroom B, 9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.  

Across the field of education (PK-20) students, teachers, administrators, teacher educators/professors, and program leaders continue to witness and lament the chronic disparities in representation and lack of ethno-racial and linguistic diversity among teachers (relative to their students) in our nation’s schools. And in the wake of a global pandemic, enduring civil unrest, the impending mass teacher exodus, and calls for racial justice related to systemic anti-Black, anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiments within all aspects of society, educational institutions are being forced to engage in introspection with greater magnitude. Teacher preparation programs in particular are feeling increased pressure to recruit, retain and effectively prepare a highly-qualified, racially-literate, and ethno-racially diverse pool of candidates as districts scramble to hire teachers with the content knowledge and pedagogical skills as well as the cultural and linguistic competencies needed to meet the needs of today’s students.

A Reflection and Call to Action from Howard University’s Dean for the School of Education

By Dawn Williams

This post is part of AACTE’s Black History Month 2022 Blog series.

As we are nearing the end of another Black History Month, this year somehow feels different. On one hand the increased representation of diversity in marketing and corporate settings is promising. On the other hand, the resurgence of attacks on the use of school curriculum that represents diverse lived experiences is troubling. We find ourselves fighting a history of structural racism while also trying to safeguard our health against a global pandemic. However, what has not changed is our steadfast commitment to “balance the scales for the disenfranchised and promote an America that is devoid of inequalities.” 

The AACTE Racial and Social Hub: It’s Not for You, Without You

By Nicole Dunn

This month, AACTE launched its Racial and Social Justice Hub, a place to learn, grow, inquire, and share resources with one another that address social injustices and advocate for the preparation of profession-ready educators. To help ensure AACTE is meeting the needs of the educator preparation community in advancing racial and social justice work, you are invited to complete a 90-second survey to inform future content – it’s not for you, without you.

New U-M Center Will Help Reshape K-12 Teaching for different kinds of Learners

By Fernanda Pires and Danielle Dimcheff

Students in the Master of Arts with Elementary Teacher Certification program work with elementary school students at Ann Arbor Open School in July 2021. Image credit: Leisa Thompson

With a $14.7 million gift, University of Michigan alumna Eileen Lappin Weiser will establish a new center at the U-M School of Education to make learning accessible to all youth.

Her gift, representing the largest commitment in the School of Education’s 100-year history, will help reshape teaching and learning to meet the needs of all different kinds of learners and prepare them for the jobs of the future.

The Eileen Lappin Weiser Learning Sciences Center will strengthen the connections between research and practice by engaging numerous partners to study the many places and ways that learning happens. This will involve the design and testing of curricula for diverse learners, collaboration with teachers and administrators to promote evidence-based practices, and efforts to scale successful education solutions to be available to all learners.

I Am My Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams

By Anthony Webster

This post is part of AACTE’s  Black History Month 2022 Blog series.

Every February, during Black History Month, we celebrate the countless contributions and achievements of notable Black inventors, educators, lawyers, and politicians from over the years. However, as I reflect, I remember to pay homage to the heroes and sheroes in my life who sacrificed to create a better tomorrow, from the Black teachers who inspired me during my PK-12 journey to the Black professors at my HBCU (Jackson State) who saw my potential and pushed me beyond my comfort zone. Because of them, I knew that getting to this point was possible.

Introducing the AACTE Racial and Social Justice Resource Hub

By Nicole Dunn and Jacqueline Rodriguez

AACTE is committed to tackling systematic censorship within our country’s education system, alongside our members and partners, and it does so through an intersectional lens.

As an organization whose mission is to revolutionize education for all learners, AACTE developed the Racial and Social Justice Resource Hub to be a place for members to learn, grow, inquire, and share resources with one another that address social injustices and advocate for the preparation of profession-ready educators.

The Hub includes three sections: Education Censorship, Combating Racism, and LGBTQ+ Rights. Each section offers resources created by AACTE and its members and strategic partners, including articles, webinars and workshops, curriculum tools, and calls for action. Considering the ongoing efforts underway that limit educators’ teaching and discussion of our nation’s history, and other so-called divisive topics, AACTE is encouraging members to engage with the Hub to support your own teaching and scholarship.

Join AACTE In Celebrating Black History Month

By Nicole Dunn

Join AACTE in celebrating Black History Month by sharing your favorite resources for teaching Black history at the Ed Prep or PK-12 level. AACTE will compile this shared knowledge as a toolkit for teaching Black history every month of the year. Please take a moment to share your resources. 

This post is the first of AACTE’s weekly Black History Month 2022 Blog series to celebrate members’ essential efforts to increase the representation of Black History in America’s schools. As a kickoff to the celebration, AACTE is releasing, for a limited time to the public, a recording of AACTE’s 2021 Annual Meeting Deeper Dive session, The 1619 Project. 

Founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Lonnie Bunch, describes the museum as a place that “transcends the boundaries of race and culture that divide us and becomes a lens into a story that unites us all.” That is a powerful statement, and one AACTE and its members strive to emulate as it celebrates Black History, not just this month, but every day as AACTE advocates for curriculum and policies that are representative of the country’s diverse history.

Black History Month began as an effort to increase the representation in history classes of Black people’s contributions to America’s society, culture, and progress as a nation. Its origin lies in the thesis of Carter G. Woodson. According to an adaption of the National Museum of American History’s blog exhibit on Dr. Woodson, he was challenged by his dissertation advisors, who, according to Dr. Woodson, cautioned him time and again not to “undertake research that the Negro had a history.” Woodson knew that education is essential to social change — and AACTE honors that as part of its mission.

Resource to Prepare, Retain High Quality Special and General Educators

By Jacqueline Rodriguez

AACTE joined the Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA) in 2020 as the pandemic gave rise to the growing challenges to teaching students with learning differences online. The Alliance steadfastly supports PK-20 students through resource development, including the newest resource: A Framework for Change: Investing ESSER Funds to Prepare and Support Teachers of Students With Disabilities. 

This resource was developed by EALA partners to give an overview of strategies for preparing and developing highly qualified general and special education teachers. It will show how states and districts can invest Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds to address the current and growing need for educators to support students with disabilities and their peers. It shares data and research on both current challenges and recommended strategies and outlines recommended actions for states, districts, and educator preparation programs.

Black Women are Leading Student Governments With Intention

By Marybeth Gasman

PHOTO CREDIT: VON HARRIS PRODUCTIONS

This article originally appeared in Forbes and is reprinted with permission.

In 2020, vast changes in higher education due to racial justice movements and the impact of Covid-19, resulted in colleges and universities clamoring to respond with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. One aspect of this response came in the form of newly elected African American student body presidents and student leaders. Whereas the majority of these posts had been held by White students for decades, the “interlocking” of COVID-19 and racial justice turmoil prompted Black students to create platforms for change on their campuses, and as a result their classmates elected them to leadership positions.

Educators Won’t Be Silenced: Register for Webinar Addressing Book Banning

By Nicole Dunn

Since the historic SCOTUS ruling in 1982, Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, which ruled that school boards cannot remove books because they disagree with them, describing libraries as spaces of “voluntary inquiry,” book bans and challenges have continued. The education field is based upon the values of intellectual freedom that were upheld by this and other Supreme Court decisions; however, the executive director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom recently stated in an interview, “We’re seeing an unprecedented volume of challenges.” While there is a formal “challenge” process for censoring information in libraries and curriculum, the enormous increase in political pressure has prompted some school districts to abandon their policies and begin pulling the books without undergoing this review process. As a result of not abiding by this process, which is legally reserved for challenging content that is “obscene,” books that overwhelmingly depict LGBTQ+ and BIPOC stories are removed from shelves, having been deemed “obscene” by local opinion.

Join the Conversation: Race and Equity in Special Education

By Rachel Walker Bowman

Watch the recorded session.

Conversations about race and equity are often missing from discussions of special education, particularly in teacher education. However, in a system where students of color make up half of those receiving special education services while fewer than 18% of special education teachers are people of color, race, and equity are essential topics. But are teacher educators prepared to address these issues? And how can we support teacher educators in their endeavors to do so? These are topics that panelists Erica McCray and Mildred Boveda will address in the upcoming AACTE webinar, “Race and Equity in Special Education.”

How Diverse Is Your Board?

By Mary Churchill

This article originally appeared Inside Higher Education and is reprinted with permission.

In December, we were able to publish a four-episode late-fall season for our podcast “View From Venus.” We had some phenomenal women as guests: Jacqueline Rodriguez, vice president at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; Shana MacDonald, faculty member at the University of Waterloo; Becky Petitt, vice chancellor at UC San Diego; and Felecia Commodore, faculty member at Old Dominion University.

We have hosted conversations with college presidents, faculty members, staff members, artists, politicians, activists and entrepreneurs—all amazing women doing great work. One goal of the podcast is to lift up, amplify and celebrate this great work and share it with a larger audience. It is also about building connections and introducing the world to these women and the differences they are making in the world.