Teacher Education News from Washington

AACTE Weekly News Briefs | August 4, 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 Introduces Bookmarking and Content Sharing
AACTE's web site, www.aacte.org, features a new "share" icon on the right blue content column of every page. This feature allows users to bookmark and share AACTE pages utilizing over 50 social networks and bookmark destinations.

FREE Webinar for AACTE Members Only: Stimulus Update
August 11, 2:00-3:00 p.m. EDT
This webinar will provide an overview of the Race to the Top Fund and other opportunities under the stimulus and outline ways in which educator preparation programs can position themselves to participate in the grants.

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.

NATIONAL NEWS

Business Is Brisk for Teacher Training Alternatives
From The Washington Post
The high unemployment rate has provided an unexpected boon for the nation's public schools: legions of career-switchers eager to become teachers. Across the country, interest in teacher preparation programs geared toward job-changers is rising sharply.

Senate Panel Rejects Bid to Further Boost TIF
From Education Week
The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee turned back a bipartisan effort Thursday to increase funding for the Teacher Incentive Fund by an extra $100 million, after overwhelmingly approving a bill for financing the U.S. Department of Education in fiscal 2010. Without the amendment, the bill included $300 million for the TIF, a teacher-performance-pay program that is currently funded at $97 million. The Obama administration had asked for $487 million for the Teacher Incentive Fund in its fiscal 2010 budget request, and the U.S. House of Representatives last week approved $445 million for the program.

Teach for America: Elite Corps or Costing Older Teachers Jobs?
From USA Today
Despite a lingering recession, state budget crises and widespread teacher hiring slowdowns, Teach For America (TFA) has grown steadily, delighting supporters and giving critics a bad case of heartburn as it expands to new cities and builds a formidable alumni base of young people willing to teach for two years in some of the USA's toughest public schools. But critics say the growth in many cities is coming at the expense of experienced teachers who are losing their jobs – in some cases, they say, to make room for TFA, which brings in teachers at beginners' salary levels and underwrites training.

Census: Feds Contributed Little to Schools in 2007
From The Boston Globe
Per pupil spending in public schools varies widely from state to state, but the federal government contributes comparatively little to K-12 education, according to a Census report released Monday. The report, based on 2007 figures, shows the country's 15,638 school districts received $556.9 billion in government funding. Of that amount, only 8.3 percent came from the federal government.

Transparency of Common-Standards Process at Issue
From Education Week (LOGIN REQUIRED)
As the most concerted effort to create common academic standards in more than a decade rolls forward, the process has drawn criticism from those who say that too much of the nitty-gritty work is taking place behind closed doors. The organizations leading the effort–the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, both headquartered in Washington–have assigned a pair of working groups to oversee the initial writing of the documents.

NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

Teacher Training Faces Overhaul
From the Indianapolis Star
Proposed rules being unveiled today would give Indiana teachers a new mandate: what you teach matters more than how you teach. A broad series of changes proposed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett would require even elementary education majors to minor in core subjects such as math, English, science, art or social studies while limiting undergraduate coursework in education. The proposal also would relax the amount of training required of principals and superintendents.

State OKs 2 Colleges' Fast Track to Teaching
From the Des Moines Register
Iowans who crave a faster way to trade in their jobs for teaching careers can find it this fall at Morningside College and Maharishi University of Management. The private colleges' plans to offer educated Iowans a shortcut to teaching licenses received approval from members of the state Board of Education on Thursday. Classes will be open to Iowans who have bachelor's degrees and want to teach middle or high school.

Chancellor Urges Filling Vacancies With Veteran Teachers
From The New York Times
Warning of "unacceptable financial consequences" for the city school system, Chancellor Joel I. Klein sent principals a letter Thursday urging them to fill vacancies with teachers who have been let go by other schools in recent years. For several years, principals generally had the freedom to hire whom they wished, and many preferred younger teachers, who are new to the school system and are paid less, to veterans who have lost their classroom positions. Those teachers may have been cut loose for circumstances like drops in student enrollment, cuts in school budgets or the closing of a low-performing school, and they receive a full salary.

Professionals Change Courses to Become Teachers for Urban Schools
From the Providence Journal
Now, thanks to an agreement between four urban school districts, the Rhode Island Department of Education and something called The New Teacher Project, professionals in other careers who have expertise in specific, hard-to-fill subject areas will be able to get a teaching job. And, if they are successful, the program will lead to a teaching certificate a year later.

Aides Paid by Parents May Return to Schools
From The New York Times
After telling New York City's public schools that they could not keep their parent-paid teaching aides, the Bloomberg administration said Thursday that it was working to return those aides to classrooms this fall. Under Mr. Klein's proposal, essentially a technical change, the assistants would now be employed under the title of "substitute aide," an existing departmental position that pays $12.30 an hour, with no benefits. The city's current hiring freeze would not apply to them, as the positions would still be paid for with donations.

Court Says English-Only Tests OK in Schools
From the San Francisco Chronicle
California is entitled to administer school achievement tests and high school exit exams in English to all students, including the nearly 1.6 million who speak limited English, a state appeals court ruled Thursday. The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco rejected arguments by bilingual-education groups and nine school districts that English-only exams violate a federal law's requirement that limited-English-speaking students "shall be assessed in a valid and reliable manner."

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS

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.

Review Period Closes August 9 for Revised NBPTS Standards for Social Studies/History
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is collecting public comments on its revised standards in social studies/history. The review period runs through August 9.

Reminder: NCATE Seeks Comment on SPA Guidelines
An NCATE task force has developed new criteria for Specialized Professional Association (SPA) standards. The new guidelines are designed to ensure that SPA standards are more focused and more consistent, while still maintaining an emphasis on student learning and on candidate knowledge and skills. Comments are due by August 17. A web-based forum will be held August 12 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. EDT to discuss the draft.

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



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