CEEDAR Releases New Resources to Support Inclusive Education

By AACTE

Education systems must adapt and tailor its programming to meet the needs of every learner. The Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform (CEEDAR), a technical assistance center, aims to successfully educate and train educator and leader preparation programs to support inclusive education. The center’s aim is to create quality education for every student — with a focus on preparing students with disabilities to achieve college and career-ready standards. This is done by implementing evidence-based practices within multi-tiered systems of support.

CEEDAR, an AACTE partner organization, recently announced two new resources based on evidence-based practices:

In the States: Updates on Local School Districts in Iowa and Wisconsin

By Kaitlyn Brennan

The new “In the States” feature by Kaitlyn Brennan is a weekly update to keep members informed on state-level activities impacting the education and educator preparation community.

DOJ Settles with Cedar Rapids Community School District

Last week, the Justice Department announced a settlement agreement with Cedar Rapids Community School District in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A Department of Justice investigation found that the district “inappropriately and repeatedly secluded and restrained students with disabilities as early as kindergarten,” leading to hundreds of hours of instructional time lost.

U.S. Department of Education Awards Nearly $25 Million to Support Educator Workforce

By U.S. Department of Education

The U.S. Department of Education has announced new awards to help recruit, prepare, develop, and retain a strong, effective and diverse teacher workforce for classrooms across the country through the Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grant program. This year’s investment includes 22 new five-year grants totaling $24.8 million through its TQP program. The award recipients represent IHEs and national nonprofits, including three HBCUs and one MSI.

The Unintended Consequence of Brown v. Board: A ‘Brain Drain’ of Black Educators

In 74 Interview, author Leslie T. Fenwick said the effects were so damaging that ‘the nation’s public schools still have not recovered’

By Greg Toppo

This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.

American students have attended school for nearly 70 years under the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools. But a new book uncovers a little-known by-product of the case: Educators and policymakers in at least 17 states that operated separate “dual systems” of schools defied the spirit of Brown by closing schools that served Black students and demoting or firing an estimated 100,000 highly credentialed Black principals and teachers.

In Jim Crow’s Pink Slip, scholar Leslie T. Fenwick, tapping seldom-seen transcripts from a series of 1971 U.S. Senate hearings on the topic, writes that the loss of Black educators post-Brown was “the most significant brain drain from the U.S. public education system that the nation has ever seen. It was so pervasive and destabilizing that, even more than half-century later, the nation’s public schools still have not recovered.”

AACTE Celebrates Member Leaders of Hispanic Heritage

By Rachel Walker Bowman

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, AACTE is re-posting an Ed Prep Matters article by student member Rachel Bowman that spotlights Mildred Boveda and David Fuentes, who discuss their heritage and what it means in the world of teacher education.

When Mildred Boveda, associate professor of special education at Penn State University, was filling out some basic forms required for an academic appointment, she came to a question that made her pause:

Which of these best describes your race/ethnicity?

• White/ Non-Hispanic
• Black/ Non-Hispanic
• Hispanic

The list went on.

Boveda, an Afro-Latina woman of Dominican descent and complex intersecting identities, had always felt more at home in the Black community. But the erasure of her Latina roots, even just through a checkmark, was not something she could reconcile with.

She checked Hispanic.

Doctoral Candidate Accepted to National Fellowship to Study Test-Optional Policies

By Teresa Monaco Burnett

This article originally appeared on the Texas Christian University News site and is reprinted with permission.

Leslie Ekpe, a Texas Christian University doctoral candidate in higher educational leadership and Holmes Scholar, was named a fellow at the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Center for Leadership and Social Justice. Ekpe was motivated to apply after learning that the fellowship’s foundation was social justice, something that aligns with her current research work.

VCU School of Education Develops Statewide DEI Training

By Owen Wachter

Research has shown that addressing unconscious bias will contribute to creating a more equitable society. A team at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Education is leading statewide diversity, equity and inclusion training for those who work with people with disabilities — a training that is open to all.

The Partnership for People with Disabilities in the School of Education is collaborating with the School of Education’s Office of Strategic Engagement to lead a six-session online training course on diversity, equity and inclusion this fall, aimed primarily at employees of Medicaid home- and community-based organizations.

PVAMU Welcomes Students with Aldine ISD, Impact Leadership Academy Partnership

By Prairie View A&M University

Prairie View A&M University students, faculty and staff were on hand bright and early to help welcome students to the first day of school at Aldine ISD’s Impact Leadership Academy (ILA), the district’s first all-boys school. PVAMU is partnering with the ILA to cultivate learning experiences rooted in identity, leadership, community, and activism, all designed to address academic achievement and support social and emotional needs for young Black and Latino male students.

Federal Agency Funds STEM Project for Next Five Years

Funding will enable 18 more Noyce scholars to become STEM instructors

By Nicola Paerg

Sacred Heart University has received a grant of nearly $1.5 million from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. SHU will apply the grant to the preparation of educators to teach elementary science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Pathways Alliance to Release Seminal Report Defining Teacher Residency Programs

By Jonathan Barry Wolf

The Pathways Alliance, a coalition of education organizations dedicated to supporting and implementing diverse and inclusive educator preparation pipelines, announces the release of their latest report, “Towards a National Definition of Teacher Residencies.” Based on input from teacher residency programs and other education leaders from across the country, this groundbreaking first-of-its-kind report offers a condensed yet thorough definition to guide policies that can support high-quality residencies to attract, prepare, and retain a robust and diverse teaching workforce. The report was written by the Pathways Alliance Teacher Residency Working Group, co-chaired by the National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR) and Prepared To Teach, Bank Street College. The working group participants included state education departments, educator preparation programs, and national nonprofit organizations. In addition, more than 40 organizations gave feedback and reviewed the report and definition.

Department of Education Releases New Discipline Guidance for Students with Disabilities

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.

Time is winding down in Congress as Members prepare for the summer recess. While there is always much to be done- we don’t expect much movement on FY2023 appropriations until the fall.  As always, your voice at the table is imperative to ensuring investments in the special educator and specialized instructional support personnel workforce remain at the forefront.

Literacy Leaders Undergo Transformative Experience Through Warren Fellowship

By Teresa Monaco Burnett

This May, a group of students in the Texas Christian University’s College of Education took a week-long trip to the Holocaust Museum of Houston as part of the Warren Fellowship program. The trip was a culmination of studying the Holocaust and antisemitism in Jan Lacina’s Literacy Leadership class. Lacina is the Bezos Family Foundation Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Education and associate dean of graduate studies in the TCU College of Education.

“I was compelled to integrate course goals, readings, and discussions about the Holocaust into my Literacy Leadership class because of recent antisemitic acts that took place in Texas,” Lacina said.

The Importance of Community Engagement and Freedom of Expression in Higher Ed

By Natalie Khairallah

Educational institutions must engage with their communities to illuminate the systemic injustices experienced by those hypermarginalized, including people and communities of color.

In the Spring 2022 issue of AAC&U’ magazine, Liberal Education, AACTE member Tania Mitchell reflects on the killing of George Floyd to highlight these structural inequities. She urges those in higher education to rethink how community can be created and how to engage differently within the context of racism, economic inequality, and COVID 19:

“Our community engagement work of colleges and universities should be revealing. It should illuminate the systemic injustices that reify and deepen the marginalization already experienced. Moreover, it should focus on the policies, practices, conditions, and experiences that shape the everyday realities of the poor and people of color.”

Georgia State University Awarded State Department of Education Funding to Support Dyslexia Endorsement Programs

By Angela Turk

Georgia State University’s College of Education & Human Development received a $106,928 grant from the Georgia Department of Education to help teachers earn their dyslexia endorsement.

Georgia State is one of 14 universities and regional education service agencies to receive state funding, which can be used to cover tuition, fees and exam costs for teachers in dyslexia endorsement programs or to improve and expand those programs, according to the Department of Education’s website.

New UH Program Transforms STEM Pros into STEM Teachers

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

By Sara Strong

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.