Additional Perspectives on the Future of Teacher Preparation in the Digital Age

On December 11, the Alliance held a webinar on the future of teacher preparation in the digital age that attracted an audience of more than 500 people. As a result, we were unable to get to as many questions from our audience as we had hoped. Happily, our four panelists agreed to answer some of our leftover questions in this space. If you missed the webinar, archived video from it is available at http://media.all4ed.org/webinar-dec-11-2012.

Below are responses from our panelists: Dr. Barnett Berry, president and chief executive officer at the Center for Teaching Quality; Dr. Lynne Schrum, dean of the College of Human Resources and Education at West Virginia University; and Dr. Ronald Thorpe, president and chief executive officer of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

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Afternoon Announcements: June 7, 2012

Today's announcements focus on (1) the economic impact of one high school class in Florida; (2) end-of-course exams in Houston; (3) a new summer online learning program in Florida that costs the same as the old program, but provides access to 50,000 more students than the old model; (4) the pros and cons of "flipping" a classroom; and (5) lessons that the U.S. could learn from the best-performing nations on preparing teachers to teach in the twenty-first century. Enjoy!

Citing data from the Alliance for Excellent Education's economic model, the Gulf Breeze News writes that the 360 graduates from the Gulf Breeze High School Class of 2012 are expected to earn as much as $4.3 million more in an average year compared to their likely earnings had they not earned a high school diploma. The spending and investments made by these graduates, combined, will likely be enough to support as many as 30 new jobs in the state and increase the gross regional product by as much as $4.5 million by the time they reach their career midpoints.

The Houston Chronicle examines Texas’s new end-of-course exams and discovers that high school students can pass most of these exams by answering fewer than half of the questions correctly. In the article, Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott said the decision was made to phase in the standards, starting low and increasing them through 2016 because students need time to adjust to the much more difficult questions. Houston Independent School District Superintendent Terry Grier, who is also a prominent business leader, disagreed with the approach and said the lower bar would give students, teachers and the public a skewed picture of schools’ performance.

 

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Morning Announcements April 23, 2012

Good Monday Morning, but if you’re following the national forecasts, it’s probably not so good of a morning. After an unusual heat wave that had much of the nation experiencing above-average temperatures, old-man winter decided to have one more rendezvous with our winter coats. Bundle up, bring an umbrella, and don’t forget to get caught up on the latest education news of the day.

The Boston Globe that low-income school districts in Boston are most likely to place students in special education programs for mild and sometimes questionable disabilities, a practice that has swelled Massachusetts’s special education population to one of the highest levels in the nation. According to a study commissioned by the state, the finding debunks a long-held belief that it is the well-heeled parents in wealthier districts that have been pushing up special education rates as they demand advantages for their children.

From the Washington Post, the U.S. Department of Education is seeking to bring test-based assessment to teacher prep programs. The Obama administration wants to expand the use of standardized test scores as an accountability tool from K-12 into higher education.

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Morning Announcements April 13, 2012

Happy Friday! Here are the latest educational headlines. Enjoy your weekend.

From the New York Times: When state investigators demanded last year to see personal tax returns filed by the founder and chief executive of a troubled network of charter high schools in Brooklyn, he did. The problem: those state tax returns were falsified and had never been filed according to the investigators. When investigators studied the books of one of the schools they found that Eddie Calderon-Melendez had used a school credit card to pay for parts of a European vacation, including accommodations at a Paris hotel and some expenses in England.

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Morning Announcements April 6, 2012

Happy Friday to you. Before darting off to enjoy the weekend, or hiding inside because of allergies, enjoy a good helping of education news to get your day and weekend started right.

This edition of the Morning Announcements is all about the attack of the teacher. In cities across the country, overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated teachers are fighting back, with big rewards. In Portland Oregon, the public schools’ officials overstepped the boundaries of their authority by forcing teachers to take on more classes and students. According to the Huffington Post, a state arbitrator ruled this week that the district officials now owe affected educators a total of $1.5 million in compensation . Cha-ching!

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Morning Announcements: March 9, 2012

Happy Friday! In only a matter of hours you will be free to hang out and enjoy the weekend. (If you haven’t already done so.) For now, catch up with the latest in education news.

According to the Huffington Post, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) will introduce an early education bill to help the economy. The plan stems from when the Senator asked a panel of education experts at a committee hearing how they would improve the country's public schools. He was surprised by the fact they didn't mention early learning.

We’ve been following the battle over teacher tenure in Virginia for quite some time and now the fight may have finally drawn to a close. The Washington Post reports that Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell’s bill to eliminate tenure-style job protections for public school teachers died yesterday at the hands of the Republican-led Senate.

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Gov. Bob Wise to Serve on National Commission on Educator Preparation

Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, will serve on a new high-profile national commission to raise standards for teacher preparation across the nation and help ensure that every classroom in the United States has an effective teacher. Announced yesterday by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), the Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting will develop rigorous accreditation standards for educator preparation that will raise the bar for preparation providers.

"The quality of a child's teacher is the single most important school-related factor influencing student achievement," said Wise. "With the development of the common core state standards, it is even more urgent to improve teacher effectiveness in delivering instruction."

Through his leadership of the Alliance and in his role as chair of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Gov. Wise has focused on the vital role that powerful teaching can play in transforming the nation's schools. He has also studied how high-performing nations around the world, such as those in Finland, Ontario, and Singapore, have used highly developed systems for recruiting, preparing, developing, and retaining teachers and school leaders to attain high levels of student performance.

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Morning Announcements: February 28, 2012

Good Morning and Happy Pancake Day! Grab yourself a short stack with all the fixings and kick back to some morning education news. Just try not to get syrup on the keyboard.

After a horrific school shooting at an Ohio school, the Associated Press  reports that authorities have announced that a student wounded has been declared brain dead. This is the second reported fatality in an attack that began when a teenager opened fire in the cafeteria at a suburban Cleveland high school yesterday. A quick thinking teacher is being credited with prevent an even larger massacre.

According to the Associated Press, President Barack Obama has urged the nation's governors to invest more state resources in education. The push for a boost in educational funding  stems from President Obama’s assertion that a highly skilled workforce is crucial for the U.S. to remain competitive with other countries.

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Morning Announcements: February 22, 2012

Enjoy the middle of the week fatigue, but before exhaustion sets in, take in the latest headlines in education!

Education Week brings you a new report by the New Teacher Center. The report scrutinizes states’ teacher-induction policies and finds as there are more and more novice teachers in the ranks of the profession, states' teacher induction policies are generally disorganized.

Teachers continue to be the focus of educational reform. According to the Associated Press, Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy is pushing for tightening teacher tenure rules, contending that the state has some teachers who "don't belong" in the classroom. Tough words for tough reform.

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Morning Announcements: June 10, 2011

“Recognizing that students likely won’t do well in the current economy without some postsecondary education, school districts and states are trying to figure out how to better support guidance counselors so high schoolers learn how to navigate the world after high school,” Education Week writes.

U.S. News & World Report reporter Jason Koebler blogs about a new survey from the National Center for Education Statistics that finds roughly 30 percent of chemistry and physics teachers in public high schools did not major in these fields and haven't earned a certificate to teach those subjects.

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