Colleges for Teacher Education

AACTE Weekly News Briefs | May 12, 2009
. . . delivered to your inbox so you can enjoy up-to-date news on colleges of education, teaching and the classroom, legislation, STEM teacher issues, grants, and upcoming events. Please click on linked headlines for full story.


AACTE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Learn About the New Accountability Provisions in Title II of HEOA (AACTE webinar)
Title II of the Higher Education Act requires all higher-education based educator preparation programs and states to report on the quality of their teacher candidates and to describe their preparation programs. The statute was significantly revised in 2008, which will affect how institutions collect data for the report cards. The U.S. Department of Education has released drafts of the revised institutional report card and state report cards, and the public has until June 8 to submit comments on these drafts. Join AACTE and Allison Henderson of Westat, the Department's contractor for data collection, to learn more about the new requirements in the statute and to review the draft report cards. This webinar, to be held this Thursday, May 14, 2:00-3:30 p.m. EDT, is ideal for the staff/faculty at your institution who submit the Title II report cards.

FREE Access to Archived Webinar on Closing the Achievement Gap for Children in Foster Care (AACTE webinar)
Access this free webinar anytime through June 30! “Tutor Connection: Closing the Educational Achievement Gap for Children in Foster Care” is sponsored by the Casey Family Programs. Tutor Connection has provided 1,240 student teachers from California State University-San Marcos to work directly with children in foster care to improve academic performance. Hear about the results for over 1,500 foster care youth who have participated in this program and learn more about the roles that Departments of Education can play in positively impacting this unique and often invisible population.

Register Now for AACTE's Day on the Hill
AACTE's 2009 Day on the Hill will take place June 17-18 in Washington, DC. This is AACTE's premier advocacy event! Come to DC to meet with your members of Congress and to tell them about the good work you do. This year's theme is “Innovation and Reform in Teacher Preparation.” For more information, please contact Mary Harrill-McClellan at mharrill@aacte.org.

New AACTE Leadership Academy
Two of AACTE's yearly professional development conferences, the Leadership Institute for Department Chairs and the New Deans Institute, will be combined in 2009 to create an exciting educational opportunity. With the goal of sustaining the teacher education profession by providing powerful learning and networking tools, AACTE's new Leadership Academy is an essential event for new deans, department chairs, and other educational administrators to attend. This event will take place June 28 - July 3 in St. Louis, Missouri. Click here to view the 2009 Leadership Academy brochure. Registration deadline: May 28.

Last Call for Comments
Your chance to provide commentary on AACTE's 2010 resolutions is drawing to a close. Take this opportunity for input on any or all of the 13 resolutions due to expire next February. By this Friday, May 15, let us know your stance on the issues to be addressed:
- Accountability
- Global Diversity
- Government Relations
- Innovation and Technology
- Professional Development
To leave feedback online, visit the Briefs web page, or direct your comments to anyone serving on AACTE's standing committees. Faculty, staff, and Institutional Representatives may respond to this call for comments on member resolutions. You are the strength of this member-driven association!


NATIONAL NEWS

White House Seeks Comments on Education Law
From the Washington Post
No Child Left Behind pushes schools to boost the performance of low-achieving students, and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gives the law credit for shining a spotlight on kids who need the most help. Opponents, however, insist the law's annual reading and math tests have squeezed subjects like music and art out of the classroom and that schools were promised billions of dollars they never received. Duncan wants to hear how the program works from educators, parents and kids, and he began a 15-state "listening tour" last week in the eastern panhandle of rural West Virginia.

Obama Wants to See 5,000 Failing Schools Close
From the Associated Press
President Barack Obama wants to see 5,000 failing schools close and reopen with new principals and teachers over the next five years. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says kids have only one shot at a good education. He said Monday that chronically underperforming schools need a new start.

Governors' Group Urges Higher Educator Standards
From Education Week (LOGIN REQUIRED)
The nation's governors should promote a higher-quality educator workforce by retooling key leverage points on state and local systems for recruiting, training, and retaining talent, a new report concludes. Such changes should include setting or raising minimum-entry standards for teacher- and principal-training programs; strengthening such programs by improving their emphasis on student achievement; and designing performance-based pay and professional career ladders to keep effective educators in the field, says the report, released May 11 by the Center for Best Practices, the consulting wing of the Washington-based National Governors Association.

Obama Budget Proposes Increase for Education
From Education Week (LOGIN REQUIRED)
President Barack Obama's first budget proposal would boost U.S. Department of Education spending by 2.8 percent and provide substantial resources to turn around low-performing schools, reward effective teachers, and bolster early-childhood programs. But – not counting massive one-time increases in the recent economic-stimulus legislation – the plan also provides no more than level-funding for special education and, arguably, a cut to grants for districts under the Title I program for disadvantaged students.

A $100 Billion Question: How Best to Fix the Schools?
From the Washington Post
If you had $100 billion to fix our schools, what would you do? A surprisingly smart list of suggestions for the education portion of the federal stimulus money is circulating in the education policy world.


NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

For Many Teachers, a Famously Fertile Market Dries Up Overnight
From the New York Times
In an effort to cut costs and avoid teacher layoffs, the New York City Department of Education on Wednesday ordered principals to fill vacancies with internal candidates only. As a result, aspiring teachers at education schools and members of programs like Teach for America – a corps of recent college graduates – and the city's Teaching Fellows – which trains career professionals to become teachers – are scrambling for jobs.

Task Force to Look at Qualities of ‘Highly Qualified' Teachers
From the Arkansas News Bureau
In the not-too-distance future, school districts across Arkansas will be able to evaluate a teacher using the same criteria – not with a test, but with a research-based list of criteria. A state Department of Education task force is about to tackle the job of formulating the standards.

House Bill Waters Down Teacher Training in Ohio (Opinion)
From the Toledo Blade
Until recently, Ohio has insisted on rigorous standards for its teachers and close regulation of the teaching profession. However, House Bill 1, currently under consideration in the General Assembly, has the potential to liberate the preparation of teachers much in the same way that the Commodity Futures Modernization Act liberated banks and the Blue Skies Initiative promised to liberate the air. While some aspects of the complicated bill are benign, House Bill 1 contains several references to teacher quality, including one provision that will allow a single, six-week, summer course to qualify a person to teach.

VCU, Richmond Schools Get Grant for Principal Training
From the Richmond Times-Dispatch
Richmond could need a fresh supply of school principals in the near future. Educators at Virginia Commonwealth University think they know how to fill that need. Thanks to a $5.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the two can begin working together on a novel approach to training school administrators. The novel part is basing the training on a computer-based simulation.


OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

Update on the Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Competition
The U.S. Department of Education just informed AACTE that the competition for Teacher Quality Partnership grants will be announced in approximately two weeks. The application needs to be cleared by OMB before it can be announced in the Federal Register.

Free Interactive Webcast: Systems and Strategies to Address the Inequitable Distribution of Teachers
The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality presents a live, interactive webcast addressing the inequitable distribution of teachers on Thursday, May 21, 3:00 - 4:30 p.m. EDT. Registration is required but free of charge.

Call for Papers - JUSTEC 2009
The Japan-United States Teacher Education Consortium (JUSTEC) is a professional organization of Japanese and American teacher educators. The group has held an annual meeting, the JUSTEC Seminar, every year for the past 20 years. The seminar is a forum for the exchange of research, best practice, and policy papers on teacher education issues of interest in both countries. Papers on a wide range of topics are presented, including teacher quality, pedagogy, issues of diversity, professional development of teachers, and technology, to name a few. This year's forum will take place September 17-20 at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. The proposal submission deadline is May 15.

NBPTS Seeks Reviewers for Library Media Standards
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is accepting applications for the committee responsible for reviewing and revising its Library Media standards. Please visit the NBPTS Standards Committees web page for information on the duties and responsibilities of a standards committee member and to begin the application process. The application is open through May 15, 5:00 p.m. EDT. For assistance or additional information, contact NBPTS at nominations@nbpts.org.

U.S. Department of Education Invites Comments on the HEOA Title II Reporting Forms on Teacher Quality and Preparation
The U.S. Department of Education recently released the draft institutional and state report card forms required of the accountability provisions in Title II of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA). The public may comment on these forms by June 8. Title II of HEOA requires institutions of higher education that prepare teachers to provide annual reports on how these teacher candidates perform on certification/licensure exams; goals that the institution has set for preparing teachers in key shortage areas; assurances for how institutions are preparing all candidates to be successful in the classroom; and descriptions of how preparation programs are structured. AACTE encourages its members to respond to this call for comment.


Kristin K. McCabe, Editor
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
1307 New York Ave., NW Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005
(207) 899-1309
kmccabe@aacte.org