Teacher Education in the US

AACTE Weekly News Briefs | August 26, 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

AACTE Web Conference: "Lessons From Practice in Teacher Education: Teacher Residency Models"
September 15-17
Join thought leaders and successful teacher residency program developers as they share their motivations and lessons. Education school deans and their school district and community-based partners will discuss roles, pitfalls, and essential elements of residency programs that prepare teachers for challenging schools. Model profiles, how-to steps, "dos and don'ts," and funding sources will help you on your way.

Early Bird Registration Open for 62nd Annual Meeting & Exhibits
Come to Atlanta for AACTE's 2010 Annual Meeting & Exhibits! Register by October 30 and save $70.

NATIONAL NEWS

Programs to Prepare Teachers for Some Student Populations Lack Oversight, GAO Says
From The Chronicle of Higher Education
The majority of teacher-preparation programs require course work and field experience in teaching students with disabilities, while less than one-third require such training for those who teach English-language learners, says a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

U.S. Education Secretary Briefs Stakeholders on 'Investing in Innovation Fund' at Symposium held by ACT, Inc. and America's Choice
From PRNewswire
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan kicked off an August 20 symposium for superintendents with a keynote address that highlighted the Department of Education's "Investing in Innovation Fund," or "i3 Fund," formerly known as the "Invest in What Works and Innovation Fund." The Department will look for programs that (1) expand proven and scalable models regionally and nationally to inspire public and decision makers; (2) build scaling capacity of key, high-impact programs and organizations; (3) demonstrate, validate, and codify promising evidence-supported models; (4) create platforms that facilitate innovation efforts and broad adoption of "what works;" and (5) create new breakthrough models.

STEM Teaching Pool Growing as Vacancies Shrink
From Education Week (LOGIN REQUIRED)
Across the nation, alternative-route program officials say they are seeing increasing enrollments from career-changers with strong backgrounds in the highly sought-after fields of math, science, and technology. But the extent to which school district officials are primed to take advantage of larger – and in some cases stronger – talent pools in those fields depends on those officials' ability to negotiate the factors affecting the teacher labor market.

Gates Foundation Seeks Education's Magic Pill
From the Associated Press
Nine years and $2 billion into its work to improve America's public schools, the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is turning its focus to teacher effectiveness. Over the next five years, the foundation plans to spend another half a billion dollars in its quest to figure out what qualities make the best teachers and how to measure those qualities in the classroom. The project has two parts: research to develop and test methods to rate teachers and experiments at a handful of school districts around the nation to try out new ways of recruiting, training, assigning and assessing teachers.

U.S. Students Middling on International Exams
From the Washington Examiner
American students are slogging along in the middle of the pack compared with their contemporaries around the world, according to test data released Tuesday by the U.S. government's National Center for Education Statistics. Among fourth-graders tested for reading literacy, 14 countries of 45 that participated scored higher than the United States, including Hungary and Bulgaria. Math results were more dire. Among 15-year-olds in 30 developed countries, the U.S. scored sixth-worst, ahead only of a handful of countries in southern Europe, and Mexico.

When a Gifted Teacher Has to Jump Through Hoops Just to Keep His Job, Change Is Needed
From The Washington Post
Our current teacher pay upgrade and certification system, based largely on education school credits, is dumb and should be changed.

NEA Attacks Administration's Education Reform Plan
From The Washington Post
The nation's largest teachers union sharply attacked President Obama's most significant school improvement initiative on Friday evening, saying that it puts too much emphasis on a "narrow agenda" centered on charter schools and echoes the Bush administration's "top-down approach" to reform.

Opinion on Race to the Top From The New York Times

NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

Rethinking Teaching
From the Evansville Courier & Press (IN)
A plan to overhaul teacher licensure requirements in Indiana remains controversial, but some changes made last week might have pushed it closer to becoming law. Tony Bennett, Indiana superintendent for public instruction, has said his plan strives to improve teachers' content knowledge and bring more people with private sector experience into Indiana classrooms. Bennett said the plan would improve teacher quality, but some groups, especially university teacher educators, argue it would weaken standards for new teachers.

Changes to Education Plan Please State Panel
From the Indianapolis Star
Members of the Indiana Professional Standards Board on Thursday said they were much more comfortable with the process of overhauling teacher preparation and licensing in Indiana after changes to a proposal and more time to review documents.

A Focus on Education
From the Omaha World-Herald
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman Monday unveiled eight goals, developed by the state's P-16 Initiative, that include closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and making Nebraska one of the top states for getting high school students into college. Raising the number of teacher education graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics is one of the goals.

Academy for Principals Helped Raise English Scores, Study Says
From The New York Times
Graduates of the New York City Leadership Academy, designed to inculcate school principals with unconventional thinking, have gone on to help drive up English test scores even though the graduates were often placed at schools with histories of academic failure, according to a study released on Monday.

Teacher Pay Could Be Linked to Student Performance, Graduation Rate
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
After lifting the 16-year-old controls on teacher compensation in the state, known as the qualified economic offer, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle recently said he hoped the move would prompt more innovative approaches to paying teachers. And state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) has announced she is working on a proposal to give extra money to school systems that create pay systems for teachers based on student performance.

Teachers Take Alternate Route Into Classroom
From the San Francisco Chronicle
More than 8,000 teachers each year participate in 70 California internship programs, including 10 in the San Francisco Bay Area, said Catherine Kearney, president of the California Teacher Corps, a nonprofit organization launched Wednesday to support alternative certification. Participants get about 160 hours of preclassroom training before starting the school year and then they are heavily coached and supported once they get assigned to a school, Kearney said.

Cultivating Teachers
From the Tulsa World
Tulsa Community College is second in the nation among two-year schools in education graduates, a sign that the college's efforts to fill the state's teacher shortage may be succeeding. TCC has agreements with several four-year universities for a seamless transition to a degree and the ability to be certified.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS

Last Chance: Race to the Top Feedback Due August 28
The U.S. Department of Education seeks public comment on proposed priorities for the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Comments must be received by August 28.

Final Reminder: Proposals Due September 1 for 54th ICET World Assembly
The 54th World Assembly of the International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET) will be held December 14-17 in Muscat, Oman. The theme of the conference is Maintaining Strategic Agility: Managing Change and Assuring Quality in Education for Teaching. Paper proposals are due September 1.




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