Higher Education

AACTE Weekly News Briefs | November 19, 2008___________

. . . delivered to your inbox so you can enjoy up-to-date news on Colleges of Education, Teaching and the Classroom, Campaigns, Legislation, STEM Teacher Issues, International Teacher Issues, Grants, and Upcoming Events. Please click on linked headlines for full story.







AACTE IN THE NEWS



Tennessee’s Teachers Say “No” To Licensing Shortcuts

From Tennessee News Wire *audio file*

The Tennessee State Board of Education is meeting today and tomorrow to approve a new licensing program designed to address the state’s growing teacher shortage. The proposed transitional license will allow an academic organization to design its own program for selection, training and support of new teachers.





AACTE ANNOUNCEMENTS



AACTE Board Elections

All AACTE Institutional Representatives are eligible to vote for new members of the AACTE Board of Directors, one of the most important benefits of AACTE membership. Please take advantage of this privilege and make your voice heard. For more information please click here.



AACTE Web Conference

AACTE presents "Building an Accreditation Learning Community," a Web Conference for Deans and NCATE Coordinators. From December 2, 2008 through December 4, 2008 participate from the comfort of your own office in this multi– day web event that includes a mix of pre -recorded and live sessions, online chats, and resource sharing on topics such as Assessment Rubrics, Creating the Electronic Exhibit Room, Writing An Institutional Report and preparing for the Visit. For more information about fees and registration, please click here.





NATIONAL NEWS



President-Elect Gets School Policy Advice

From Education Week

While President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team works behind closed doors, education groups are openly trying to influence the next administration’s K-12 policies.

In a series of position statements and strategy memos, diverse groups are offering their advice on how the president-elect can advance legislation and regulations aimed at meeting his goals of expanding access to preschool, improving the quality of teachers, and revising the No Child Left Behind Act.



Struggling Economy Puts Colleges in a Tight Spot

From the Washington Post

At colleges across the country, the economic crisis is playing out in ways large and small, immediate and long-term. It is creating short-term problems that school officials have scurried to patch. And it is creating more-fundamental worries about the future.



CEOs’ Top Demands for Obama: Fix the Economy, Education

From the Wall Street Journal

The 100 CEOs gathered at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council had a clear – and unsurprising – top demand for President-elect Barack Obama: Fix the economy. Fixing the country’s schools came a close second.



Gerstner’s Rx for Schools: Far Fewer Districts, National Standards

From the Wall Street Journal

How to fix the public education system? Run it more like a business, former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner said. Speaking at a lunch panel on education at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council in Washington, Gerstner, who has a longtime interest in education, said the nation’s 16,000 school districts need to be abolished. “When I took over IBM I found out I had 81 profit centers,” he said. “How’d you like to create change with 16,000 profit centers?”



Policy Worker Bees

From National Journal

The Obama-Biden Transition Team announced leaders today for a series of Policy Working Groups. The focus of the groups "will be to develop the priority policy proposals and plans from the Obama Campaign for action during the Obama-Biden Administration."





Spending of Federal Teacher-Quality Funds Questioned

From Education Week

Nearly seven years into its implementation, little information exists on whether the $3 billion the federal government spends annually on teacher quality as part of the No Child Left Behind Act has measurably improved the effectiveness of the nation’s educators, a report scheduled released yesterday concludes.



Gates' New Approach Gets Good Reviews

From Education Week

In unveiling its new strategy for education grantmaking here this week, leaders of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation assured those in attendance that they wanted honest feedback on their new direction. After committing some $2 billion this decade to the cause of improving the nation’s high schools, the foundation intends to refocus its grantmaking efforts in that realm on three pillars: identifying and promoting higher standards for college readiness, improving teacher quality, and fostering innovations to aid struggling students.



SMHC Releases Reports Detailing Progress and Pitfalls in Developing Effective Educators

From Strategic Management of Human Capital

At a press conference led by Governor Pawlenty and former Governor Hunt, SMHC released a series of case studies on five top-performing districts, one state and three organizations. The SMHC Case Studies assess progress on teacher and principal recruitment, selection, and placement; induction and mentoring; professional development; performance management (evaluation); and compensation, and chronicle: Boston, Chicago, Fairfax County, Long Beach, New York, Minnesota’s Q Comp program, Teach For America, New Leaders for New Schools and The New Teacher Project.



Class of 2020: Action Plan for Education

From SETDA

SETDA’s Class of 2020: Action Plan for Education Project includes the development of the five publications listed below designed to create a succinct message addressing technology’s transformative role in education in the hopes of informing future education and workforce development policy at the state and federal levels.



Head of Teachers’ Union Offers to Talk on Tenure and Merit Pay

From the New York Times

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Monday that given the economic crisis, her union would be willing to discuss new approaches to issues like teacher tenure and merit pay.





NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY



State to toughen rules on teacher training

From Readingeagle.com

Officials at some Pennsylvania colleges and universities say their authority to shape curriculum is being undermined by changes the state wants in the way elementary and middle-school teachers are trained.



Grant funds Native teachers program

The Arctic Sounder

Schools in rural Alaska have long been plagued with an epidemic of high teacher turnover. One plausible solution, some are concluding, is to fight the need to import teachers by training the community’s own.



Mentoring program keeps first-year teachers charged up

From Mail Tribune.com

Peggy Cowens is a mentor with Southern Oregon Education Service District's four-month-old teacher mentoring program. The program, funded by a one-year, $405,000 grant from the state of Oregon, provides professional mentors to first-year teachers in 11 school districts in Jackson, Josephine and Klamath counties. The state Legislature last year appropriated $5 million to hire teacher mentors across the state, with the goal of improving teacher quality and curbing teachers' high attrition rate.



UVM receives $1 million to make education accessible

From Vermont Cynic.com

The University of Vermont was one of 22 schools to receive $1 million to aid faculty in helping students with learning disabilities. Susan Edelman, a research professor at the UVM's Center on Disability and Community Inclusion, and Larry Shelton, a professor in the College of Education and Social Services, applied for the grant from the U.S. Department of Education with the intentions of bringing teaching practices and knowledge to both students and faculty.





Other Announcements



National Academy of Education Sponsors Forum on Education Policy in Transition

On November 19, the National Academy of Education sponsored a briefing to release White papers it has had under development for some time intended to inform policy makers on education issues. The White Papers Project was intended to bring together experts to examine the research base for several key areas of education policy and provide recommendations to policy makers. This initiative represents a landmark effort in attempting to bridge the gap, that is often gaping, between education researchers and policy makers.



Center for American Progress to hold forum entitled Addressing the Teacher Quality Gap on November 20, 2008.

It is no surprise that according to most measures, teachers are inequitably distributed among students. Poor and minority students are more likely to have teachers with less experience and weaker qualifications. Panelists will include Cory Curl, Senior Research Analyst, Governor’s Office of State Planning and Policy (TN); Segun Eubanks, Director, Teacher Quality Department, National Education Association; Dan Goldhaber, Research Professor, University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education;
Julie Kowal, Senior Consultant, Public Impact; Victoria Van Cleef, Vice President of Staffing Initiatives, The New Teacher Project; and will be moderated by: Robin Chait, Senior Education Policy Analyst, Center for American Progress.


AERA Grants and Fellowship Programs

AERA Grants and Fellowship Programs provide funding to help graduate students and early career scholars develop research skills and conduct studies in education and related fields. Application deadlines for the 2009 competitions are fast approaching! Please follow the links below for more information.



AERA-AIR (A²) Fellows Program
Application deadline: December 15, 2008.

AERA-ETS Fellowship Program in Measurement
Application deadline: December 15, 2008.
· Minority Fellowship Program in Education Research
Application deadline: December 15, 2008.

· AERA Grants Program
The next application deadlines are August 29, 2008; January 7, 2009; and March 6, 2009.

From the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is accepting applications to serve on committees responsible for reviewing and revising standards in two areas: English as a New Language and Social Studies-History. To access the online application click here. The application will be available through December 12, 2008, 5:00pm EST.



For assistance or additional information please contact NBPTS at nominations@nbpts.org.



AACTE 61st ANNUAL MEETING & EXHIBITS

February 6 - 9, 2009
Hyatt Regency Chicago - Virtual Tour
Chicago, IL





REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!

Click Here to register for the 61st Annual Meeting & Exhibits. This will lead you through creating an account which you can use for future meetings. If you registered for the Accountability, Accreditation, and Quality Conference, Click Here to use the account you set up when registering for that meeting.



Alyssa J. Mangino

Communications Manager

AACTE

1307 New York Ave., NW Suite 300

Washington, DC 20005

(202) 478-4596 -Direct

(202) 457-8095 -Fax

amangino@aacte.org