Teacher Education News

AACTE Weekly News Briefs | September 8, 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

LAST WEEK to Register for AACTE’s Web Conference on Teacher Residencies
September 15-17 – Lessons From Practice in Teacher Education: Teacher Residency Models
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

Teacher Beat: Teachers' Colleges Left Out on 'Race to the Top'
From Education Week
That's one of the major concerns raised by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, on the Race to the Top front. While alternative-route programs get a good share of attention in the teacher-quality section of the proposal, traditional education school routes are practically absent.

Multi-City Study Eyes Best Gauges of Good Teaching
From Education Week (LOGIN REQUIRED)
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will embark this fall on an ambitious research effort to provide some initial answers to a perennially vexing question in education: What are the best indicators of excellent teaching? Among other activities, the foundation’s research partners intend to videotape and examine the teaching practices of 4,000 teachers in New York City, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., and several other yet-to-be named districts, to arrive at an understanding of the correlation between those practices and student learning.

Secretary Endorses Obama’s Talk for Students
From The New York Times
Criticism of President Obama’s plans to address the nation’s students Tuesday, which has bubbled up on conservative radio talk shows and in calls from parents to hundreds of school districts in recent days, has been “just silly,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Sunday.

Schools Aided by Stimulus Money Still Facing Cuts
From The New York Times
How much federal stimulus money has succeeded in stabilizing cash-strapped schools depends on the state. In those where budget deficits have been manageable, federal money largely replaced plunging taxpayer revenues for schools. But in Arizona, California, Georgia and a dozen other states with overwhelming deficits, the stimulus money has failed to prevent the most extensive school layoffs in several decades.

Top-Notch Teachers Found to Affect Peers
From Education Week (LOGIN REQUIRED)
Teachers raise their games when the quality of their colleagues improves, according to a new study offering some of the first evidence to document a “spillover effect” in teaching. Authors C. Kirabo Jackson and Elias Bruegmann based their findings on an analysis of 11 years of data on North Carolina schoolchildren. The study is due to be published in October in American Economics Journal: Applied Economics, a peer-reviewed journal.

Proposed 'Race to Top' Rules Seen as Prescriptive
From Education Week
As the U.S. Department of Education prepares to fine-tune its rules for the Race to the Top Fund competition, officials face objections from many states, school districts, and teachers’ unions that the federal government is seeking to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to its education improvement efforts. During the 30-day comment period on the proposed rules, which ended Aug. 28, the department received 1,135 comments on 19 criteria by which states would be judged.

Surge in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools
From The New York Times
Budget-battered school districts must try to salvage education for more than one million children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil.

Does Teach For America Work?
From The Vanderbilt Orbis (TN)
Teach For America (TFA) is an innovative program designed to close the achievement gap in American high schools by recruiting high achievers from selective universities and placing them in low-income school districts for two year teaching stints. But criticisms of TFA run deeper than simple student achievement. For students, teacher placement volatility has a negative effect on achievement and devalues the role of interpersonal relationships in education. For districts, low teacher retention means spending more money on recruiting teachers. For students, teacher placement volatility has a negative effect on achievement. For districts, low teacher retention means spending more money on recruiting teachers.

NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

Mid-Career Professionals Now Find a Route to Teaching
From The Providence Journal
Rhode Island schools have suffered from persistent teacher shortages in certain areas, especially math, science and secondary special-education. Now the New Teacher Project (NTP) is partnering with the state on the Rhode Island Teaching Fellows initiative.

New Model for Indiana School Accountability Discussed
From the Indianapolis Star
The Indiana Department of Education wants to change the way school accountability is evaluated, with more emphasis on how students improve over the years instead of focusing mostly on how schools perform on a yearly basis. Gov. Mitch Daniels said Indiana should adopt some major educational changes that were pushed through in Florida under its former Gov. Jeb Bush: a new accountability system that places more emphasis on struggling students, more charter schools and requiring most third-graders to read before they can move to the fourth grade.

Indianapolis Tests Out Education Reform
From The Wall Street Journal
Indiana’s new superintendent of public instruction, Tony Bennett, is trying to break habits that have long guided school policy. Mr. Bennett recently unveiled a plan to pay bonuses to top teachers willing to work at the city's worst schools, and to tie their pay to student performance in the future. He also wants to require teachers to have more expertise in their subject areas than they are required to have now. But change comes hard.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

ED Announces Paraprofessional Preservice Program Improvement Grants
Application deadline: November 3. Applications are now available for awards from the U.S. Department of Education for improvements to preservice preparation programs for paraprofessionals. The purposes of this program are to (1) help address state-identified needs for highly qualified personnel to work with infants, toddlers, and children with disabilities, and (2) ensure that those personnel have the necessary skills and knowledge to be successful in serving those children.

Free Webinar: "Screening for Reading Problems in an RTI Framework"
Thursday, September 17, 2 p.m. EDT
The RTI Action Network presents "Screening for Reading Problems in an RTI Framework" with Evelyn Johnson and Juli Pool of Boise State University. This free webinar is designed to help practitioners understand the benefits and limitations of a variety of instruments so that practitioners may become more critical consumers of screening measures as they move forward with RTI implementation. Click here to register.

Reminder: Second Closing Date for TQP Grant Competition
The U.S. Department of Education has announced a second closing date for the Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grant program competition: October 6, 2009. This date was set up to accommodate applicants affected by the technical amendments that Congress passed in July. Two amendments impacted the TQP grant program – extending the 12-month teacher residency program to 18 months and allowing 5th-year initial licensing programs to participate in the prebaccalaureate activity. However, all eligible partnerships may apply in this round of the competition.

Fulbright Applications Available for 2010-2011
October 15, 2009: Application deadline for Fulbright Classroom Teacher Exchange Program
January 15, 2010: Application deadline for Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching
Visit www.fulbrightteacherexchange.org for application forms and more information on both programs.




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