Chalkbeat

In need of more bilingual teachers, Denver looks to recruit and support international candidates

2024-05-06T17:06:32+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

When Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero was invited to a panel by the government of the Dominican Republic last year to showcase the school district’s approach to bilingual education, he said dozens of teachers there asked him how they could work for him.

Marrero said he came back to Denver excited that he may have helped recruit 30 new teachers to fill bilingual teaching vacancies. But despite their enthusiasm, only a handful of those teachers are now working in Denver Public Schools, he said.

Marrero asked the district’s human resources team to look into why. Many teachers said they felt making the switch was a big risk and they didn’t have enough support, Marrero said.

So this school year, Denver Public Schools launched the International Educators Institute to provide not only professional, but also personal support to new international teachers. The institute will help teachers from other countries figure out where to live, understand finances and credit, and provide other social or emotional support. It will also train teachers to help them earn more credentials and to understand how Denver’s school system works.

Denver Public Schools has enrolled thousands of new students who have recently immigrated from South America. Although the International Educators Institute wasn’t created because of that influx of students, it makes the work more important, Marrero said. In addition, the district is under a court order guiding how it teaches students who aren’t yet fluent in English. Meeting that order requires a large number of bilingual teachers, but there are always vacancies.

Marrero said the work of the institute is to help fill teacher vacancies without replacing existing efforts to fill those jobs.

Denver Public Schools serves 88,200 students, 75% of whom are students of color. But among the more than 6,000 teachers, just about a third are teachers of color. If the institute is successful, he envisions a system where students have more teachers of color, and teachers can expand their careers and better their lives.

If they have to go back to their home countries, they can better help more children around the world too, he said.

“That’s what hasn’t existed ever,” Marrero said of the institute. “Just like we say we have to educate the whole student, it’s the same approach. The parallel is that we have to support the whole educator.”

To get the institute started, Marrero said DPS used $500,000 from federal COVID relief money. But the district will also invest at least $1 million from its general fund.

“We would waste way more in guest teachers, substitute coverage throughout the year, so the way I see it, that’s an investment,” Marrero said.

International teachers struggle without support

Maria Moncada Rodriguez, an international teacher from Honduras, has been in Colorado for four years, but is working in Denver schools for the first time this school year.

She said she has loved the support from her colleagues and from the institute and wished she had more of it when she initially arrived in the U.S. to work in a different school district.

Moncada Rodriguez and her husband were teachers in Honduras who ran a Montessori school for more than 20 years. But as violence in the country increased, she sought a way out. Then she won a contest that allowed her the opportunity to come teach in Colorado.

She and her husband were both supposed to get jobs, and her two children would be able to come along. But at the last minute, a new principal took over the Colorado school where she was supposed to teach and rescinded her husband’s job offer.

Maria Moncada Rodriguez, a teacher from Honduras now teaching in Denver Public Schools, in her classroom.

While her family still joined her in Colorado, it took her husband more than a year and a half to get a work permit. And during that time, Moncada Rodriguez said the family struggled financially with just her income.

“We cried almost every day,” she recalled. But she said she and her husband still gave thanks that their children were in a safe home.

But now that she’s working in Denver Public Schools, she’s been able to connect to other international teachers from various countries, through the institute, and also through the teachers union.

Recently, she said she and the other international teachers she’s met decided to start a guide for newly arrived teachers. Ideally, she said it would include information on clothing drives, financial literacy classes, help with buying a home, immigration lawyers, and more.

“We need all types of information,” she said.

It’s the same kind of help the district’s institute wants to provide.

Denver’s goal: 120 new international teachers next year

As the district has rolled out the supports and launched the institute this year, it’s also hired 64 new visa sponsored teachers for the current school year. That’s brought the total of international teachers with work visas in DPS to 234. For next school year, the district’s goal is to hire 120 new international teachers.

The district plans to use some of the institute’s $1.5 million budget on visits to other countries to help recruit and connect with teachers, but also to help staff to spend time finding resources and helping new teachers.

Finding affordable housing for teachers is a particularly important issue, but Marrero said he’s not interested in being a landlord or managing property.

“There is a healthy way to engage, but there’s also a lot to be said when you have a little bit of separation,” Marrero said. Teachers, he said, “don’t want to be under the DPS thumb.”

Still, the district is exploring relationships with developers, landlords, and city officials. This year, for example, the district was able to negotiate a lower price on a long-term lease for some teachers from the Dominican Republic.

“That’s going to be us leveraging our existing relationships and leveraging also our position,” Marrero said. “Even if it’s just a building. Saying: ‘Can we have X amount of units that we have first dibs on?’ That’s what I’m looking to explore.”

Moncada Rodriguez continues to look for resources on her own. One issue she hasn’t figured out is how to help her oldest child, who’s graduating this year, pay for college. Since her children are her dependents and she is on a sponsored visa, they can’t get work permits, and they don’t qualify for any of the financial assistance for higher education she’s learned about so far.

“Of course we aren’t asking for everything to come easy or handed to us,” Moncada Rodriguez said. “We love to work and study. But coming here and knowing our kids can’t go to university because of a lack of resources is overwhelming.”

Still, she wants other teachers considering coming to the United States to know that things can get better if they can persist. And she hopes local leaders can learn to be more supportive too.

At her school, Academia Ana Marie Sandoval, she loves that she gets to use her experience as a Montessori teacher working with students from low-income families, and that she’s valued for her Spanish language skills.

She said her fellow teachers have been helpful and supportive, and her connection to the institute means there’s always someone to answer her questions.

Moncada Rodriguez said she’s taken many Denver Public Schools training courses, including one that’s taught her how to do home visits with families of newly arriving migrant students.

“Now the only thing missing is how to get a masters degree,” she said. “I’m working on that next.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Not just oppression: Lessons from one state on how schools can get Asian American history right

2024-05-09T11:01:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

A former California park ranger traced his fingers over the Chinese characters carved onto a wall. It was as if ghosts were there, sharing their stories, he said.

The ranger was standing in the immigration station on Angel Island, the lesser-known West Coast counterpart to Ellis Island. Tens of thousands of immigrants, mostly from China and Japan, were detained there in the early 1900s. Many left behind poems or messages.

Poems written in Chinese can be seen etched into the walls at the Angel Island Immigration Station in California.

Dozens of Illinois teachers watched the ranger in a recorded video. They had gathered over Zoom to learn about how they could incorporate Angel Island and other key elements of Asian American history into their lessons. It was part of a university-led training meant to help Illinois teachers comply with a three-year-old, first-in-the-nation law that requires schools statewide to teach at least one unit of Asian American history.

Laura Ouk, one of the trainers that April evening, pulled up two poems from Angel Island and asked the teachers to read them aloud. Then she offered some sample questions the teachers could use with their students to examine tone and themes, as well as how they might connect the poetry to the works of poets like Langston Hughes and Joy Harjo.

“They really appreciate being able to see it in action,” Ouk said, “rather than just being like: ‘Here’s a resource, now good luck!’”

Across the country, advocates are pushing for American history to include more perspectives and stories. Eleven states now require public schools to teach Asian American history in some capacity, and several others are considering similar proposals. But as states and school districts adopt new curriculum requirements, educators can struggle with their own lack of knowledge, where to find quality resources — and how to fit it all into an already crowded syllabus.

Laura Ouk demonstrates how teachers can use poems from Angel Island in their lessons as part of an April 2024 training about teaching Asian American history.

The work happening in Illinois offers insight into what can help. It’s common for teachers to feel overwhelmed and think: “I need to teach this, I don’t even fully know this yet,” said Ouk, the visiting inclusive education director at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s College of Education and Illinois State Board of Education.

To address that, teacher trainers say they’re modeling lessons, showing teachers where Asian American voices and experiences naturally fit within existing curriculum, and sharing strategies that are useful for teaching the history of many marginalized groups.

“We don’t want teachers to blow up their curriculums,” Ouk said.

Why states are requiring Asian American history lessons

When Illinois’ governor signed the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History Act in 2021, it became the first state with a standalone law requiring public schools to teach Asian American history. Since then, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Florida have enacted similar laws.

Half a dozen other states — California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon and Utah — require schools to teach Asian American history as part of a broader curriculum, according to a 2023 report by the Committee of 100, a nonprofit tracking these efforts.

Proponents of these laws say they’re necessary because students typically don’t learn much Asian American history at school.

Eighteen states are silent on what students should learn in their history classes, according to research conducted by Sohyun An, a professor of social studies education at Kennesaw State University.

Other states focus on just a handful of events in Asian American history, An found, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Often, that instruction presents Asian Americans as powerless victims, An said, without showing acts of resistance, such as how Chinese immigrants who built the railroad protested their working conditions and pay. And it tends to be simplistic, glossing over, for instance, how U.S. and European imperialism created economic hardships that forced many Chinese to leave their home country.

“When we teach about power and oppression, we need to highlight people’s agency, resistance, and solidarity,” An said. “That’s, I think, what good history education is about.”

Collaboration is key to Asian American history training

As happens in many states, Illinois did not offer additional funding to help schools fulfill the new Asian American history requirement. So nonprofits, universities, and foundations have stepped in to offer training and support.

Ouk is part of the University of Illinois’ efforts to offer teachers both live and go-at-your-own-pace sessions. Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Chicago, a nonprofit that works on racial equity issues, launched a free training for teachers in 2022 and put together written examples of how teachers can include Asian American experiences in their reading and social studies lessons.

The organization also maintains a giant database of lesson ideas.

“We’re trying to sift through all the garbage,” said Esther Hurh, an education consultant who helped develop the training and now leads sessions for educators. “Teachers want to do this, they just need people to support them.”

Together, the university and the nonprofit trained 1,700 teachers across Illinois last school year, the first year the new requirement was in effect. It’s a good start, advocates say, but a lot more teachers still need training. Without a better understanding of the Asian American experience, experts say, it’s harder for teachers to try out sample lessons, even if they’re good ones.

During the training that Hurh leads, teachers read reflections from Asian American teachers about how it felt not to see themselves in their own schools’ curriculum. Many felt ashamed or excluded.

Esther Hurh helped develop a teacher training for Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Chicago.

In one essay, a Japanese American teacher recalls that as her high school history class approached its unit on Japanese American incarceration, she readied herself to share what happened to her own family.

But the teacher sped through the lesson, and there was no time for sharing.

“When you’re negated in curriculum, that plays a huge role in how you feel and understand your connection to schooling,” Hurh said. “For a lot of teachers, that’s a very compelling argument for them to do this work. Because, in the end, they’re doing it for their students.”

The training breaks down the many nationalities and ethnic groups that fit within the Asian American umbrella. Teachers also learn about two major Asian American stereotypes — the racist “yellow peril” and the “model minority” — and how those ideas repeat throughout history.

With that groundwork laid, teachers watch several model lessons, including how they can include the story of Mamie Tape, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, in lessons about efforts to desegregate U.S. schools; how Larry Itliong, a Filipino American, contributed to the famous Delano grape strike; and how the children’s book “A Different Pond” can support teaching about the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees.

Trainers want to show teachers how they can choose literature and primary sources that not only center the voices of Asian Americans, but diversify the voices they include. Stories about Pacific Islanders and South and Southeast Asians tend to be even less represented than those from East Asia, Hurh noted.

How teachers have put their training into action

Tom McManamen, who heads the social studies department at Neuqua Valley High School in west suburban Chicago, walked away from his session with 24 pages of typed notes that he still consults.

He now looks for additional visuals as he teaches about what it means to be American. For example, he plays a video in his human geography class about a Sikh farmer in California. When his students see a man in cowboy boots wearing a turban, they often exclaim: “Oh, wow!”

High school teachers across McManamen’s school district and county are getting trained, too. One colleague used what he learned to incorporate the murder of Vincent Chin into lessons about immigration and the auto industry. Another used political cartoons to teach about Asian American stereotypes. The training helped teachers know what to look for as they searched for resources that weren’t shown during the training, too.

“What I love is when I hear them brainstorming over it,” McManamen said, “What used to be a difficult conversation, like: ‘How do we do this?’ It’s now: ‘Oh, you could do this, we could do this! I ran across this when I was watching TV that was totally a great example!’”

Still, even with this kind of training, experts in the field admit it can be difficult for teachers to cover as much ground as they might like, especially if their state also has requirements around teaching Black, Latino, and Indigenous histories.

An, of Kennesaw State University, noted that teaching students skills so they can conduct historical inquiries on their own helps them keep learning. That could include showing students how to find stories that challenge the dominant narrative, read between the lines of primary sources, or look for examples of resistance whenever there is oppression.

“We don’t have to teach every single topic,” An said. “One lesson can do so many things actually, if it’s well-done.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Metro Detroit educators to get lessons in making classes engaging from renowned educator

2024-04-19T15:22:29+00:00

Leslie Love Smith-Thomas was shocked when she realized what was happening.

Like other educators around her, the elementary school teacher jumped up from her seat and started clapping as a wave of applause and cheers erupted throughout the Huntington Place conference room.

Smith-Thomas and 374 teachers, principals, and superintendents across metro Detroit learned April 9 that they received scholarships for an all-expenses-paid trip to Atlanta to visit acclaimed educator Ron Clark and his school the Ron Clark Academy, or RCA, in July.

The scholarships were provided by Huntington Bank and Ballmer Group as part of the bank’s new Ignite the Classroom initiative. More than 2,000 teachers nationwide are receiving the scholarships to attend the two-day training session

The initiative is also funding events for 7,500 educators that will be hosted in five cities – Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh – where educators can learn about Clark’s teaching philosophy and classroom methods.

The training in Atlanta and in the five cities will take place over the next three years.

Launched in 2007, the nonprofit middle school is known for its unique teaching system, including its eight “houses,” based on traits like altruism and courage, and incorporating singing and dancing in the classroom. But the academy is also a demonstration school, training thousands of educators around the world in how to replicate the methods and success in their own schools. According to the school’s website, 108,000 educators have been trained at the Ron Clark Academy, while 100% of its students graduate high school and 90% attend college.

“We felt like we’ve found this secret sauce. We have really found something that works where educators can watch other educators and discuss it, our craft gets better,” Clark said during the announcement in Detroit. “You feel like you can make the change you need.”

Smith-Thomas, a math teacher at The School at Marygrove, said she believes the training will help spread some energy, excitement, and innovation to districts across the region.

She’s also excited about learning some of Clark’s methods, such as working with the brightest students as a way to set expectations for the rest of the class.

“That’s the heart of meeting each scholar where they are and it’s holding scholars to high expectations,” Smith-Thomas said. “For me, that’s what makes a highly effective teacher.”

A new way of teaching

Huntington’s partnership with the Ron Clark Academy began in 2022. Since then, more than 40 educators in Detroit and Columbus have received scholarships to participate in the training program.

Clark said it was frustrating that he could only reach a limited number of educators at one time. Then, Brant Standridge, president of consumer and regional banking at Huntington, suggested he train teachers city by city.

“When I told Brant about what we’re doing at RCA, about how we’re trying to affect the lives of children and teachers and how we really want to spread our mission and connect with communities, Grant was like, ‘That’s the whole mission of what we do at Huntington,’” Clark said.

When educators visit the academy, they sit in on classrooms with 30 students and watch teachers deliver their lessons, Clark said. Observing another teacher’s class is usually taboo in the education world, he said, but is a regular occurrence at the Ron Clark Academy.

“Our school shows teachers strategies and methods in a real world situation that they can then take back and use in their classrooms,” Clark said. “It’s simple – it’s how to question kids, depth of questioning, speed of your lesson, how to arrange your lesson plan in a way that will excite students, how to keep them engaged, how to help kids focus and go deeper into the curriculum. It’s just a lot of basic things that we teach that help educators.”

Clark said he’s heard positive experiences from educators after they took the program, such as one teacher who was ready to retire after 30 years, but decided to stay in the profession.

“One teacher said that it was a complete paradigm shift. It’s been amazing,” he said.

Michael Land, Huntington’s southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio region president, said education is one of the bank’s philanthropy interests and that the academy can provide techniques for teachers to observe and implement.

The Detroit area was selected for the initiative because it’s the second largest region for the bank, he said.

“There’s definitely something to the Ron Clark Academy way of teaching and he wants to share that with the education community,” Land said. “And we think it’s a great way for us to partner with our communities and provide scholarships for educators to go down and see it, bring it back and implement it in their school.”

Northwestern High School Principal Kimberly Rogers was one of the educators who visited the academy last year.

“Even though he (Clark) is unconventional, our motto is to elevate expectation and elevate excellence and so, that’s right in alignment with what he teaches,” she said.

This summer, she hopes to learn ways to have an exciting school environment so that more of her students will come to school. Like many schools in Detroit and Michigan overall, Northwestern is facing issues with chronic absenteeism.

“Having an exciting environment is a motivator to come to school,” she said.

Meanwhile, Rebecca Reed, a fourth grade language arts teacher at Schulze Academy for Technology and Arts, said she’s looking forward to collaborating with more teachers and making education, as described by Clark, “fun, sexy, and cool.”

“We’ve become so divisive in some of the schools, where teachers are like, ‘Well, this is the way I’m doing it,’” she said. “I like working with my colleagues. Everybody has different talents, everybody has different ideas and that’s what makes it better.”

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Demand for student-teacher stipends in Pennsylvania far exceeds $10 million allocation

2024-04-12T16:34:59+00:00

This story was originally published by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Within three hours of going live, more than 3,500 applications were received for a state-funded stipend to cover an otherwise unpaid semester of student teaching. But the new program only has enough funding for roughly 600 to 700 student teachers who will take over Pennsylvania classrooms as part of their teaching certification this winter or next spring.

The funds, up to $15,000 per student teacher, will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis.

“[The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency] is so happy to be a partner with the Shapiro Administration and of the General Assembly on the rollout of the new PA Student Teacher Support Program,” said Bethany Coleman, a spokesperson for the agency, in a statement. “By providing financial support to support teachers we are not only investing in the future of education, but also addressing the critical teacher shortage in this Commonwealth.”

The stipends are a big deal for prospective student teachers like Amber Bloom, who advocated for the program as the vice president of the student branch of the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

On Thursday morning, Bloom was refreshing her browser as the application period opened. She knew there would be more applicants than available stipends, but was still surprised by the speed and number of applicants. Without the money, Bloom will have to take out an additional loan to cover her expenses.

“We all need this money,” she said. “We need it for gas, we need it for food, we need it for tuition. So we’re all hopeful that we’re one of the [roughly] 700 that get it, but realistically, not all of us are going to.”

Allie Taffera, 21, will be a student teacher in a northeast Pennsylvania classroom next spring.

“Getting it would be such a big relief for both me and my family — I’m a first generation college student,” Taffera said. “If I don’t get it, for me that would just mean a lot more work I’d have to do on top of summer classes, and now also trying to keep a job while student teaching.”

But when she heard about the number of applicants, she was excited too. It meant word got around about a program that could change recipients’ lives. And when Taffera replaces Bloom as vice president of student PSEA, she’ll push lawmakers to increase funds.

Bloom and Taffera expect to find out this summer at the earliest whether their applications are accepted.

The applications opened only a day after Gov. Josh Shapiro, alongside Sens. Ryan Aument, R-Lancaster, and Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, and Reps. Gina Curry, D-Delaware, and Jesse Topper, R-Bedford, asked for a 50% increase in funding for next year at a press conference marking the $10 million program’s launch. The legislature would have to approve the additional $5 million through the budget process. That would still fall far short of meeting the demand on the first day of applications. Legislation creating the program passed last year with bipartisan support.

“As Governor Shapiro has made clear, this is a commonsense, critically important initiative with broad bipartisan support — and it is positive to see such high demand for it,” said Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro’s office. “The Shapiro Administration looks forward to having further conversations with leaders in both parties about how to deliver a needed increase in this grant funding as we work to continue building our teacher workforce and delivering the resources Pennsylvania students and families need.”

Aaron Chapin, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, a teachers union that also represents around 7,100 student members, said the number of applications is proof of both the program’s success and the need for increased funding in the future.

“Unfortunately, this astonishing demand means that most students who applied for stipends won’t get them, because there is only $10 million available for the program this year,” Chapin said. “This is the best possible evidence that lawmakers and Gov. Shapiro need to increase funding for the program in the 2024-25 state budget.”

Chapin estimated that providing stipends for every student teacher in the state would require roughly $75 million.

As it stands, most would qualify for $10,000 to cover their semester of work. Though those placed in high-need schools with teacher shortages or low numbers of student teachers could qualify for an additional $5,000.

The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency still encourages hopeful student teachers to submit applications, though it is unlikely they will receive a stipend.

After a gun scare, our school district is reeling from the trauma — and the financial toll

2022-12-13T20:35:00+00:00

Months after a threat locked down the school district I work in, students and staff are still reeling.

On June 3, we received a report of a gunman at one of our middle schools. While multiple police agencies searched the building, the rest of our district was on lockdown, unsure of what was happening.

Eventually, we learned a student had called in a false report. But the fallout was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. As prepared as we were to protect our students, the crisis left a lasting impact on every member of our school family. Some of our children no longer see school as their safe place. Some teachers struggle, too.

After the incident in June, we spent hours debriefing. We worked with law enforcement agencies. We shifted professional development time away from reading and math instruction so we could run safety drills with teachers instead. We went above and beyond the state-mandated hours of training on physical security. And all of that took resources that hadn’t been budgeted for school safety.

Likewise, we found ourselves revisiting recent renovations to our elementary school because of a small detail with potentially huge impact. The doors were designed to lock with keys – which means a person needs to run over and manually turn them – rather than flip locks. We’re spending more than $40,000 to fix this so that teachers can more easily protect students from a potential shooter.

Was it worth it? Of course. It also meant we were unable to update our outdated learning spaces. Likewise, local residents would like us to add a school resource officer. But at budget time, we will have to make a choice between that officer and a teacher.

The reality is that, in most cases, every dollar allocated to advance safety is money taken from teaching and learning.

Our district is not alone when struggling under the rising cost of security. In 2021, schools and colleges spent $3.1 billion on safety precautions. Yet, as The New York Times reported, researchers at John Hopkins University found little evidence that major infrastructure modifications have stopped violent school events. An article in The Washington Post went so far as to say, “Experts call it ‘school security theater’ – the idea that if a school system buys enough technology or infrastructure, it can keep its children safe from the horrors of a gunman.”

Even so, what is so tough about these decisions is that students and teachers’ feelings of physical safety make a big impact on our schools. As administrators, teachers, and parents continue to see how school violence is threatening our kids’ emotional health and their education, I hope legislators can lessen the financial burden on districts that are making every sacrifice possible to defend our students.

The U.S. Department of Education has announced $1 billion in grant funds will be available through the Bipartisan Safety Communities Act, one step in that direction. Now, legislators must monitor where spending is most effective. Lawmakers should be under the microscope to determine if their decisions to allocate funding to school safety is the best way to defend our most vulnerable, just as schools and teachers must defend their spending and curriculum decisions.

In my district, we work hard to create a welcoming environment for all students every day. We also have to pause throughout the day to remind students what to do in case of a threat. What to do in the classroom. The cafeteria. The playground.

The reality is that, in most cases, every dollar allocated to advance safety is money taken from teaching and learning.

We want to continue to prioritize social-emotional support – not only for the trauma students and educators experienced in June, but for what they may continue to experience as we practice lockdown drills. And that’s before we even get to working on social-emotional skills to cope with the normal situations they encounter in their day-to-day lives.

Schools everywhere are weighing these costs. Since 1999, more than 300,000 kids have been on campus during an act of gun violence, according to a Washington Post estimate. Unfortunately, districts nationwide have been left to fortify their schools while also trying to address other overwhelming issues.

During COVID, we picked up the banner of mental health, made sure our kids are fed, and stepped up in so many other ways. But protecting our kids from guns with limited funding, too? It’s too much.

It takes tremendous courage for school leadership to weigh these competing priorities and make difficult decisions. I feel called to help others understand how hard it is for us to eliminate safety threats and still accomplish all of our other educational goals, too.

Kelly Carpenter-VanLaeken is the chief academic officer of the Gananda Central School District in New York. She began her career in education as a social studies teacher and then became a principal. Kelly is a member of the Institute for Education Innovation and a board member of the GVASCD.

My first year teaching was demoralizing. It led me to my dream job.

2022-12-22T17:45:00+00:00

In March 2018, two months before graduating from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, I was recruited and hired to teach in a small city outside of Charlotte. I was beyond psyched that my dream of becoming a middle school teacher was finally within reach. I had plans for engaging my students in meaningful and developmentally responsive lessons. I imagined learning and sharing among supportive colleagues.

But by October, two months into my first year as a sixth grade ELA and social studies teacher, my excitement had morphed into disappointment. I was not included in planning meetings, beginning teacher conferences, or any other professional development opportunities. I should familiarize myself with the materials they gave me, school leaders told me.

Eric Gaestel

The expectation was that I reverse-engineer my lessons from the piles of worksheets and graphic organizers left on my desk each week. Many first-year teachers struggle with classroom management, and I was no exception. Teaching on the fly, which isn’t at all my style, made things worse. I felt anxious walking into the building each day.

After speaking with administrators to no avail, I decided to ride out the year as best I could, building meaningful relationships with my students, some of whom struggled daily with behavior at school. I listened as they told me about challenging situations at home. I wanted them to know that I cared and would advocate for them.

Through it all, I never doubted that I wanted to teach; I just knew that I needed to find a school that was a better fit. So in January, I quietly began looking for a teaching position for the following fall.

I realized then, as I do now, that while my first-year experience was disappointing, it was not a total loss. I started to think of it as a “Beginning Teacher Playbook” of sorts. I was now armed with interview questions about teacher mentorship, professional learning community expectations, and how I would be expected to contribute to my new teaching team. I understood what I needed from my next school and what I desperately had to avoid.

In June of that year, I attended a jobs fair in the Charlotte Mecklenburg district, where I met a McClintock Middle School principal. He told me about his expectations and listened. I expressed what I needed to be a successful teacher — all without speaking ill of my first school. A new partnership was forged that day, and I was offered a job teaching eighth grade ELA on the spot.

I felt anxious walking into the building each day.

On my first day there, I was assigned a mentor teacher, Mr. Jenkins, who observed my classes and provided specific and meaningful feedback. He helped shape my classroom management, teaching me to be fair, firm, and consistent. I still have a Google Drive folder named “Mentorship” filled with complete lessons, assessments, and other materials that I use to this day.

Now in my fourth year at McClintock, I am the chair of our school’s Faculty Advisory Committee and serve on multiple other committees, too. This year, one of our administrators approached me about being a teacher mentor. It truly warmed my heart — now I can offer up the support I so badly needed back in 2018. My mentee and I meet daily, so she can talk through her day and ask me any questions that she has. In the new year, we will be observing each other’s classes.

During my first meeting with my mentee this fall, I shared that “Mentorship” folder, happily passing along what my own mentor shared with me more than three years ago.

At McClintock, I have found the school I dreamed of during college, and I worried I’d never find that first year in the classroom. I can’t imagine ever leaving.

Eric J. Gaestel is an English Language Arts teacher at McClintock Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I recruit future teachers. I’m not always sure I’m doing the right thing.

2023-01-17T20:15:41+00:00

I recently read an essay in Chalkbeat written by Jasmine Lane, a former Teaching Fellow for the organization I recruit for. In it, she relates her personal experience entering the teaching profession in the U.S., from the financial challenges of student teaching to being treated as an outsider as a Black teacher at her first school. Eventually, she leaves to teach in another country.

Lane put a spotlight on the frustrations I hear from many teachers leaving the job. Her words brought up issues I wrestle with every day.

I am the national director of recruiting for Breakthrough Collaborative, now in my fifth year of recruiting college students for our summer program. For many, our program is their first step toward becoming a full-time teacher, and I recruit prospective Fellows with equal parts conviction and inner conflict, concern, and hope.

My conviction comes from piles of research showing that students are uniquely inspired when they see themselves in their teacher. For that reason, Breakthrough intentionally seeks to build its summer program with highly diverse teaching staff. More than two-thirds of the college students who participate in Breakthrough’s Teaching Fellowship are students of color.

But my conflict and concern come from other things we know are true about teaching.

One is the sad reality that, for college students, there is greater potential for economic mobility in choosing a profession other than teaching. I hear many say they are in college to break the cycle of poverty. Oftentimes, this climb is not only a personal endeavor but a collective one as well, with communities back home invested in their success.

Another is that our public school teachers do not reflect the racial diversity of public school students in the U.S., and schools are often unwelcoming places for teachers of color.

Am I asking Black and Latinx students to perpetuate the wealth gap? Am I setting college students of color up to find themselves in schools where they are unable to make a difference? As a white man, I struggle at times with the reality of my work.

This isn’t to inflate my role. Obviously, the capable students who join Breakthrough have agency as individuals to determine the best pathway to their goals. But every day, I am very aware of the tradeoffs in what I am asking of those with whom I engage.

I know I’m not the only one struggling with this dilemma. I am not sure, however, that we are talking about it nearly as much as we should.

Anything less than navigating a complicated “now and for the future” leaves people behind in a way that I can’t in good conscience be OK with.

Lane, for example, is exactly whom we aim to bring into teaching. Yet, she writes that it was unsustainable for her to make the impact she wanted. As we recruit more teachers of color, we must acknowledge and respond to the environment they will face: one, as she states, where teachers of color must “break down barriers of resentment” the American school system has created over hundreds of years.

How do we do that? I think it involves acknowledging two realities: There are fundamental issues with the teaching profession that require deconstructing old systems and building new ones over many years. There are also issues that can be addressed now, by doing things like making the pathway to becoming a teacher more supportive and financially sustainable. Anything less than navigating a complicated “now and for the future” leaves people behind in a way that I can’t in good conscience be OK with.

Lane’s essay shows why we cannot fix our education system simply by adding more teachers of color. A million more Lanes can’t be the answer unless they are allowed to contribute to change and have opportunities to lead.

So we must be intentional about naming and removing the barriers, including inhospitable school environments, that prevent teachers of color from thriving. And we must continue to recruit, train, and prepare them, without letting the fact that it’s not the whole answer prevent the meaningful gains that we can make now.

There is no perfect solution. As my dad used to say, “I prefer the way I’m doing it wrong more than the way you’re not doing it at all.”

Am I going to keep looking for opportunities to change the system? Of course I am. Do I hope for deeper change that would allow someone like Lane to thrive in our classrooms? Of course I do.

Jonathan Appleby is a national college recruiter focused on diversifying and strengthening the teacher pipeline in America. He lives in San Francisco and finds joy in exploring the surrounding coastline with his wife and two teenage sons.

I train future teachers. Gun violence has them on edge.

2023-03-10T16:30:00+00:00

At the end of third grade, I wrote an essay in response to the prompt: “If you could wish for anything, what would it be?” My mom recalls that my response — “I want to feel safe in school” — nearly broke her heart. Since it was 1999, and I was a third grader at an elementary school just blocks away from Columbine High School, where gunmen had killed 12 students and a teacher just months prior, my response was not all that surprising. And yet, nearly 25 years later, my wish remains the same: I want to feel safe in school.

This wish remained front of mind when I was a third-grade teacher guiding my 8-year-old students through active shooter drills. The exact same wish often overcomes me as I try to ignore the relentless news stream of gun violence and drop off my two young children at school each day. Now, as a teacher educator in the School of Education at the University of Colorado whose work focuses primarily on preparing future teachers, I hear the same wish coming from my students. They, too, want to feel safe in school.

Deena Gumina

Incidences of gun violence are so commonplace that they can barely hold the 24-hour news cycle. In the past two weeks, there were three separate incidents within a square mile of our campus, and many of my friends and family didn’t even hear about them. And despite the prevalence of mass violence, including school shootings, we have to show up each day to teach, just as our students will be expected to when they have their own classrooms. We are all tired, but we have to go on.

As a teacher educator, I am expected to model the types of behavior with my students that I hope they will then enact in their future classrooms. I work to facilitate difficult conversations and hold space for their fears and anxieties while also pushing forward and instilling hope.

But what happens when I, myself, begin to feel hopeless? What happens when they look to me for answers I don’t have? Of course, there are many situations in my work where I don’t have the answers, and my students and I try to find them together. I intentionally position myself as a learner rather than an expert, just as I hope they will with their students someday. Though making peace with not knowing is much easier when it doesn’t feel like lives are on the line.

In recent years, the perception of teachers as martyrs has shifted from metaphor to reality.

As a profession, teaching is often framed as an act of martyrdom. Society will expect you to work long, difficult hours with few resources and little pay because the job is noble and thereby involves sacrifice. In recent years, the perception of teachers as martyrs has shifted from metaphor to reality. Future teachers are asking themselves, Would I be able to step in front of a gun for my students? And if the answer is no, Should I really become a teacher?

Much of my work centers on helping teachers find the power to imagine what is possible amid constraints instead of focusing on what they can’t do. Together, we work to find space to dream of what could be as a way to transform education from the inside out. Right now, though, everything we are doing feels colored by either real violence or the fear of it. My students want change; we all do. We want to know that if we are going to commit our lives to this work that those in power are committed to making it safe. Safety does not mean teachers coming to school armed. Safety means not having to think about guns at all while you work with your students.

I find myself wondering where these spaces for change might be. What if we refused to believe that our current reality is all that could be? Imagine if more educators unions took on gun lobbyists. Imagine if school boards called on state legislatures to make laws to protect children from gun violence. Imagine if elected officials banned the kinds of firearms being used to shoot children with the same ferocity and urgency that others are banning books and drag shows. Maybe reaching our breaking point finally gives us the opportunity to build something new.

Dr. Deena Gumina is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Education at CU Boulder. Her work focuses on preparing teachers to work with and advocate for culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families. She lives in Colorado with her husband, her two children, and their chocolate lab.

Teacher pay: Adams 12 may give raises for mentoring rather than graduate degrees

2024-02-29T01:22:05+00:00

Teachers in at least two Adams 12 schools could earn higher pay in a pilot program – through district-provided training and taking on new school responsibilities – instead of by completing graduate credits, the more traditional route.

Removing pay incentives for college credits is rare, but not unheard of. About 90% of districts pay teachers more for earning graduate degrees, according to one survey of large districts.

“You don’t have to go out and spend $10,000 on a graduate degree,” said Dave Lockley, president of the teachers union in Adams 12. “We believe in continuing development. We don’t know that graduate credits are the best way.”

The pilot, designed by a team of teachers, union leaders, and district leaders, would likely take place at Thornton Elementary School and Thornton Middle School, two schools that have struggled. One goal of the pilot would be to incentivize more teachers to work in and stay at the low-performing schools with high percentages of high-risk students. The pilot also incentivizes teachers to collaborate to see if it helps with raising student achievement.

The team that designed the salary pilot had considered it for years. They moved forward with plans this year after the district committed $4.5 million to try it out. If approved, it is expected to start this fall and last three to four years, but the final agreement could change those details.

As teachers have been informed, there has been some pushback.

Lockley and district leaders said teachers’ main concerns are about what new responsibilities the higher pay requires, whether that money could do more good for more schools in another way, and whether the changes devalue graduate degrees some teachers already earned.

Union and district leaders are discussing the feedback to possibly adjust the plan or decide whether to move forward with it. If they agree in negotiations to the pilot in the next couple of weeks, the school board and the full union membership will have to vote to approve it.

Myla Shepherd, chief human resources officer for Adams 12, said the team that designed the pilot recommended Thornton Elementary and Middle schools for the pilot after the district ranked all schools using five criteria the subcommittee chose, including a three-year teacher turnover average, mobility of students, and how many students qualify for subsidized lunches.

Thornton Elementary has a three-year teacher turnover rate of 38.8%. At Thornton Middle School, that rate is 33.2%. Both schools have more than 40% of their students identified as English learners, and more than 83% qualify for subsidized meals.

But, Shepherd said, the district is open to running the pilot with more schools if possible.

None of the teachers at the pilot schools would see a decrease in their salary. Most will see a raise.

The district estimates the program will cost about $500,000 to $600,000 per school, at the start, Shepherd said, because of those salary increases, and because raises might be more accessible tied to professional development instead of college credit.

“Over time that would decrease as people earn more and turn over less,” Shepherd said the district estimates.

Ultimately, part of the goal is for schools to build a staff that’s a mix of new teachers, intermediate career teachers, and some veterans collaborating and helping each other.

“That’s when a school is at its best,” Lockley said.

Salary raises will also be flattened, so that teachers can reach the maximum earlier in their careers, even though the maximum would be a lower salary than the current schedule.

But Lockley said that under Adams 12′s current salary plan, only one teacher in the district is currently at the maximum, and for most teachers, it’s unattainable. Allowing more teachers to reach a maximum salary earlier can increase their lifetime earnings, even if that maximum is smaller, he said.

Typically, Lockley said, it is white men who are more likely to climb the salary ladder in traditional schedules, because they’re more likely to have money and time to earn higher degrees.

“It just always seemed baffling to me that we force teachers to go into debt in order to see a decent pay raise,” Lockley said. “Some of our teachers can’t afford the time or the money to go get a master’s degree. My hope would be that the things we learned from this pilot, we could use to help fix these long-term inequities.”

Researchers say studies have shown that many master’s degrees earned by teachers don’t lead to better student outcomes. However, there are cases where they do, such as a math teacher in a middle or high school, who earns a master’s degree in math, or special education teachers with specialized degrees for their field.

Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the Learning Policy Institute and a Stanford University professor, said that there are downfalls with district-provided training, too. They must be well-designed and closely tied to the work teachers do.

“And you can end up with the same inequities if they have to find their own time,” she said.

But the idea of incentivizing a system where veteran teachers would mentor and work with newer teachers can be promising, she said.

“There’s a lot to be said positively about the idea of having veteran teachers mentor younger educators,” Darling-Hammond said. “That does increase retention and effectiveness for the beginner teachers if you do it right.”

Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said that districts typically aren’t using money strategically when they pay more for graduate degrees that usually aren’t tied to better student outcomes.

“We need to pay teachers more for working where they’re most needed,” Peske said.

One measure that wasn’t considered by the group to choose the pilot schools, was a school’s state performance rating. Still, one of the two schools recommended, Thornton Middle School, is one of six in the district with a low rating that landed on the state’s watchlist for persistently low student test scores and other achievement deficits.

Ideally, Lockley said, he’d like to see a school improve performance in ways that show in better state ratings.

The subcommittee is still considering how to measure success, depending on the pilot’s length. Some version of student success, and teacher retention will be a part of it, Shepherd said.

“We’re trying something different to really honor and recognize the work of educators,” Shepherd said. “It will allow for attracting and retaining people in those challenging environments. And improved student achievement.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Concerned about teacher shortage, New York officials consider expanding ways to get certified

2024-02-28T00:43:59+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

As New York grapples with a teacher shortage, state education officials are debating additional paths to becoming certified — including options beyond obtaining a master’s degree.

Under current regulations, educators must obtain their master’s degree within five years of entering the classroom. That’s the only way teachers can stay in their jobs — and New York is one of only three states that requires teachers to obtain them in order to retain certification, according to state officials.

The master’s degree requirement can pose a significant financial and time-consuming burden early in a teacher’s career, while research does not necessarily show clear improvement in terms of the quality of teaching, officials said at a Board of Regents meeting earlier this month.

State education officials discussed possible alternative ways of fulfilling the requirement, including obtaining National Board certification, a highly regarded credential from a national teacher-quality group, or completing a set of graduate coursework that totals an equivalent number of hours to a master’s degree program.

But officials emphasized the master’s degree would remain an option.

“Some of the folks who have expressed opposition to this have said, ‘We’re getting rid of the master’s degree,’” Jim Baldwin, a senior policy advisor at the state’s Education Department, said in an interview. “We’re not getting rid of the master’s degree.”

Education officials considered the potential change as one of a set of possible reforms to the teacher certification process, aiming to strengthen and diversify the educator pipeline, streamlining the process of entering the field, and making it more equitable.

Other possible reforms discussed by state officials included expanding certification exam options and reducing barriers for teachers who want to become certified in an additional subject area. They’re also considering creating a pathway for teaching assistants to become certified teachers, streamlining the process for college professors who want to transition into the teacher workforce, and simplifying the process for school administrators seeking certification.

The February meeting involved no formal proposals, and any action by the Regents is likely a ways off. But the discussion comes amid other changes aimed at recruiting more educators to the field, particularly teachers of color. In 2022, the Board of Regents voted to remove the requirement that prospective teachers take the controversial edTPA — a national assessment that some argued acted as a barrier to diversifying and expanding the educator workforce.

“The way that we have the master’s degree requirement positioned in New York does create particular burdens for individuals of color,” Baldwin said, pointing to a 2019 report on teacher diversity. “The importance of students being able to see people who look like them in front of the classroom, in the principal’s office, providing leadership in the school district and the schools — it’s critical in terms of the future of our public schools.”

Moving away from a required master’s degree

Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Education Data and Research at the University of Washington and an expert on teacher certification, said he understands the argument for moving away from a master’s degree requirement.

“There’s no research showing a generic master’s degree either makes you better and/or is associated with teachers being better,” he said.

But Goldhaber added that data is complicated by a variety of factors, including that generally the most common master’s degree educators obtain is in educational administration, an area of study that prepares educators to transition into roles in school administration and does not necessarily improve their abilities in the classroom.

Currently, any master’s degree will fulfill New York’s requirement, though a set of credit hours must be completed within particular content areas. State officials also discussed changing the requirement to specifically mandate a degree in pedagogy or the content area in which a teacher is seeking to become certified.

Though some past studies have shown a master’s degree in math or science could predict more effective teachers in those subject areas, Goldhaber noted the research has generally been limited. There’s “better evidence that getting National Board certified is associated with higher levels of teacher effectiveness than getting a master’s degree,” he added.

Still, Goldhaber noted adding flexibility around the requirement might not shift the needle dramatically.

“There’s a very strong incentive for people to get a master’s degree — whether it’s a requirement or not — and that is that you’re on a higher lane on the salary schedule,” he said.

During the February meeting, Regent Frances Wills, who represents counties just north of the city, said she hoped the state could help people understand the alternative pathways would “provide similar rigor” to a master’s degree.

“It will still be costly in the sense that people do have to pay for some of these things,” Wills said. “But it can get to, perhaps, a better, more expansive way … of demonstrating what you can do.”

Addressing a teacher shortage

The discussion came as the state and the country have grappled with a shortage of teachers, as many educators left the profession over the course of the pandemic. In New York, state officials said superintendents have struggled to find enough certified teachers, and teacher preparation programs have seen a steep decline in enrollment.

Across the state, 80% of school districts have at least one staff member teaching a subject without the proper certification. For one-third of school districts, 5% or more of staff members are doing so — a figure that has doubled since 2019, according to state officials.

The city has largely been spared from the effects of the shortage, but it still has seen declines in its pool of educators. The city’s schools will also need to hire an influx of new teachers in the coming years, with more than 10,000 new teachers required in order to comply with a state mandate reducing class sizes, according to estimates.

“We really have a crisis in terms of the supply of teachers — not just currently, but as we look out over the future,” Baldwin said. “We have seen significant drops in the number of individuals who are entering teacher preparation programs in the state.”

He noted the state’s current requirements make it difficult for certified teachers from other states to seek employment in New York, as well as for teachers in the state to transition into teaching new subjects.

Baldwin said the state is looking to reconcile differences between New York’s teacher preparation programs and those in other states, while also reforming the process for teachers to transition into new roles such that they get appropriate exposure to the subject matter without it “bogging them down with duplicative requirements.”

Jeffrey Matteson, a deputy commissioner at the state Education Department, stressed that regardless of any changes, school districts would continue to hire qualified teachers.

“No matter what we’re proposing here as far as certification pathways and professional certification, school districts go through hiring processes, they vet these people, they have to go through a background check, they’re not just put in front of the classroom,” he said. “So this isn’t a blowing up of the system, where a bunch of unqualified people are going to be forced upon school districts.

“This is about getting school districts more options for the people that they can select to put in front of the classroom,” he said.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

I teach future teachers. They don’t need the edTPA.

2023-03-31T14:00:00+00:00

I am a supervisor of teachers who work time and a half, for free. They arrive at work as early as 6:30 a.m., consult with guidance counselors during their free periods, tutor students after school, plan lessons and grade essays before and after dinner. They don’t sleep enough.

These teachers are student teachers, but they carry a full load. And they do all this work under the constant supervision of a veteran teacher and me, their university supervisor, with the expectation that they continuously revise their practice in response to feedback. Not all will make it out with a license. Those who do will have earned it.

When Illinois’ COVID Disaster Proclamation expires on May 11, the student teachers with whom I work will have even more on their plates. Lots more. The edTPA assessment for teacher licensure, which Illinois began requiring of all new teachers in the fall of 2015, will again be required in the spring of 2024.

The edTPA is often compared to the assessment required of veteran teachers seeking National Board Certification. Developed by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity, it required my students to create some 50 pages of writing as well as video clips of themselves teaching. Despite its good intentions and fancy pedigree, this assessment is redundant, costly, and has the unintended effects of narrowing teacher education curricula and keeping strong candidates out of schools that need them — or out of the profession altogether.

To be sure, I want to hold future teachers to the highest standards; they are working with our most precious assets, our children. But to add such an onerous assessment when there are so many checks already in place is to fall prey to the accountability movement’s lie: that more testing is always good.

Already, pre-service teachers at my university have to apply for admission to our teacher education program after successful completion of prerequisite courses, maintain high grades in their education coursework, pass a state-administered content area test, and receive repeated positive evaluations of their student teaching by at least two veteran teachers. No additional testing is necessary.

For the few years that the edTPA was mandated in Illinois, its negative effects were immediately clear to me and went well beyond making a stressful student teaching semester remarkably more stressful. Because of the pressure to capture excellent student work on video, placement coordinators worried about assigning student teachers to some of the non-selective enrollment schools with which they had previously partnered. Because of the test fee, some teacher candidates with whom I worked — first-generation college students putting themselves through college and helping to support their families — put off licensure. And some, disheartened by not being able to finish on the planned timeline, put it off further.

Most ridiculously, my university colleagues and I devoted precious class time to teaching edTPA-specific vocabulary. The test emphasizes obscure terminology — terms like “language function” to describe “the content and language focus of the learning task, represented by the active verbs within the learning outcomes.” These terms left our and our students’ minds in tangles when we should have been focusing on teaching.

The edTPA doesn’t assess anything a good teacher education program doesn’t, and there are systems in place to assess the teacher education programs themselves. What the edTPA does do is distract from the work of teaching and increase stress, debt, and inequality, making it harder for lower-income student teachers to be licensed and disincentivizing their work in lower-income schools.

If the edTPA had proved itself to be a completely accurate assessment, that would be at least one point in its favor. But it hasn’t. Instead, we see damning data like that reported in a 2021 American Educational Research Journal article that “raise[s] serious concerns about scoring design, the reliability of the assessments, and the consequential impact on decisions about edTPA candidates.” (The testmakers have disputed those claims.) And yet edTPA is due to become required under law again in Illinois after the COVID-era emergency orders cease.

Hopefully, this will not come to pass. State lawmakers are considering changes to the licensure process, and I hope they make them. If the edTPA returns, I will have to return to using valuable class time to prepare students to clear this unnecessary hurdle. And I will again have to watch as the edTPA’s demands dangerously overload student teachers’ plates.

Indeed, as I watch this semester’s student teachers working so hard, giving up time with family and friends to support students of their own, I quake to think of asking future student teachers to do even more. Given Illinois’ teacher shortage (ISBE reported more than 2,000 unfilled teacher positions in 2022) and our children’s increased needs since the pandemic, we should be doing everything we can to get these dedicated aspiring teachers into the schools that need them.

Kate Sjostrom is a lecturer and associate director of English education at University of Illinois, Chicago.

As states adopt science of reading, one group calls for better teacher training, curriculum

2024-01-17T19:43:53+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Wisconsin is creating a new literacy office and hiring reading coaches. Ohio is dedicating millions to a curriculum overhaul. Indiana is requiring new teacher training.

Dozens of states are moving to align their teaching practices with the science of reading, a body of research on how children learn that emphasizes explicit phonics instruction alongside helping students build vocabulary and knowledge about the world. But a national policy group says many states still have significant work to do to ensure strong reading instruction.

A new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality finds that half of states don’t set specific standards telling teacher prep programs what future educators should know about teaching reading, and 28 states cede their authority over teacher prep programs to outside accrediting agencies with vague guidelines. A similar number of states administer weak licensure tests, the report said, creating uncertainty about how well prepared teachers are.

Meanwhile, just nine states require that districts adopt high-quality reading curriculum, NCTQ’s analysis found. Only three of those — South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia — require districts to choose curriculum from a state-approved list and cover the cost for districts.

NCTQ President Heather Peske hopes the report can serve as a roadmap for states looking to improve reading instruction.

“We cannot continue to accept the reading outcomes that we’ve been seeing,” she said.

Last year, NCTQ’s review of hundreds of teacher preparation programs found that thousands of educators graduate every year unprepared to teach children how to read, or trained using debunked literacy instruction strategies.

Some of the states that got good ratings from NCTQ in its new report have been at it for years. Mississippi passed its first reading law a decade ago. Colorado stepped up regulation of its teacher prep programs five years ago.

Other states NCTQ called out for their weak policies are just getting started. Illinois is poised to adopt a new literacy plan this year. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul just announced a major new literacy initiative. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy highlighted early literacy in his State of the State speech.

NCTQ makes five main recommendations. States should set well-defined standards for how teacher prep programs teach reading, review those programs thoroughly, use a rigorous licensing test that includes all components of how students learn to read, require that districts use high-quality curriculum, and provide ongoing training and support.

These types of policies often face pushback from school districts, universities, and teachers unions that see politicians infringing on educators’ authority and autonomy.

In Colorado, some school districts initially resisted state curriculum guidelines. Others struggled to find approved curriculum that felt culturally responsive. In Illinois, political opposition and lack of state funding means the new literacy plan has no teeth. In Ohio, Reading Recovery, a popular but increasingly disfavored reading program, is suing the state for banning certain methods of teaching.

NCTQ’s reports have also come in for criticism for their technical and narrow view of good teaching, for being incomplete, or for not relying on the right data — Peske said states had multiple opportunities to review the latest report and offer corrections. Other advocacy groups have laid out different priorities for reading instruction.

Melinda Person, president of the New York state teachers union, is excited the governor wants to invest $10 million in teacher training aligned with the science of reading. But she’s cautious about calls to get every district to adopt curriculum that meets a currently undetermined standard. She fears that state-approved lists could be influenced by lobbying or force districts to abandon good programs developed by local educators.

“Teaching a child to read is a very complex task,” Person said. “Don’t oversimplify this. It is brain science. Hundreds of studies are pointing us in this direction, but they are not pointing us to ‘buy this curriculum.’”

Data lacking on curriculum in school districts

Twelve states received “strong” ratings overall in NCTQ’s report, including Colorado, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

NCTQ categorized 16 states as having “weak” reading policies, including Illinois, New York, and New Jersey, while three states — Maine, Montana, and South Dakota — were marked as “unacceptable” because they had few or no state-level reading policies.

An analysis by Education Week found that 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new reading laws since 2013, but NCTQ found many of these states still had major gaps in teacher preparation or curriculum.

States with strong oversight of teacher prep programs lost points for having weak standards, and states with strong standards lost points for weak oversight. More than half of states, NCTQ found, review the syllabi of teacher preparation programs, but just 10 include literacy experts in the process.

Most teacher prep programs don’t devote at least two instructional hours to how to teach English learners to read in an unfamiliar language or to supporting struggling readers, NCTQ’s analysis found. Even fewer programs provide opportunities for student teachers to practice those skills.

Meanwhile, 21 states don’t collect any data on the curriculum their districts use, nearly half offer no guidance on picking curriculums that serve English learners, and a third offer no guidance on how to use curriculum to support struggling readers. Even in states that value local control, Peske said states have a duty to offer guidance, and many administrators likely would welcome it.

NCTQ’s analysis does not address third-grade retention policies that have been adopted in 13 states. Nor did NCTQ’s report address universal screeners that look for warning signs of reading difficulties such as dyslexia.

Advocacy groups like JerseyCAN have made universal screeners and parental notification key parts of their platform. “Parents cannot ring the alarm or participate in this goal effectively if they don’t know where their children stand,” Executive Director Paula White said.

Linking new policies to test scores can be challenging. Mississippi students’ growth on national exams has been touted as a “miracle.” But students there still have lower test scores than students in some more affluent states with weaker policies.

New York and New Jersey governors elevate literacy

New Jersey received a weak rating from NCTQ due to inadequate standards for teacher prep programs, no requirement that elementary teachers have reading training, and no curriculum requirements or even guidelines for local districts.

White, the JerseyCAN leader, said she hopes the state is turning the corner after years in which people told her “we got this, we’ll do it on our own,” or “We’re already doing what you want us to do, so why should we expend energy on state policy or legislation?”

In neighboring New York, NCTQ gave the state some credit for strong state oversight of teacher prep. But the state lost points because reading standards aren’t specific enough. Nor does New York require districts to adopt high-quality curriculum — its powers are limited under state law.

Hochul’s push on literacy comes as New York City is months into its own reading overhaul, with schools required to adopt one of three approved curriculums. It’s not clear yet how the state might encourage districts using low-quality curriculum to make different choices. State officials are also developing a plan to incorporate more science of reading into teacher prep programs.

Judy Boksner, a literacy coach and reading specialist at P.S. 28 in the Bronx, recalls the “aha moment” she experienced after getting trained in the science of reading on her own time. She said the approach helps more students more reliably than the methods she was previously trained to use, but it can be slow at first.

Curriculum and training requirements are good, Boksner said, but schools still need ongoing support, including literacy coaches.

“In all these curriculums, they have tasks in them. We don’t know if they’ve all been tested in the field. Some of the tasks are so hard for kids, and if you don’t train your teachers well, kids will still struggle,” Boksner said.

Illinois on verge of adopting new literacy plan

In giving Illinois a “weak” rating, NCTQ found the state has set good standards for teacher preparation programs, but called for more oversight to ensure programs are following through. And NCTQ labeled as “unacceptable” Illinois’ lack of any guidance around high quality curriculum.

The report comes just as Illinois is finalizing a literacy plan to help school districts revamp how students are taught to read. After a two-year legislative fight, advocates successfully passed a bill last year that requires the Illinois State Board of Education to write a literacy plan, create a rubric for school districts to grade curriculum, and offer professional development to teachers.

But the new law does not mandate school districts adopt a phonics-based approach that’s key to the science of reading. Other ideas, such as reading grants and an approved curriculum list, didn’t survive the political process.

“There are really no mandates on school districts,” said Stand for Children Illinois Executive Director Jessica Handy, a literacy advocate who helped write the 2023 bill and negotiated with lawmakers. “I think reading grants would be one way to get buy-in from school districts and get more people thinking about how they can accelerate their progress to improve literacy curriculum.”

Education advocates hope to see $45 million from $550 million in new state funding go towards regional literacy coaches and state board staff that work just on literacy — and Stand is working on a new bill that Handy hopes strengthens the literacy plan.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado loan forgiveness program for teachers accepting applications through Oct. 31

2023-10-27T00:41:35+00:00

Sign up for our free monthly newsletter Beyond High School to get the latest news about college and career paths for Colorado’s high school grads.

Colorado teachers have a few more days to apply to the state’s temporary student-loan forgiveness program for educators, after the higher education department extended the deadline.

The program, in its second year, taps federal pandemic relief money to provide newer educators in the state with $5,000 to help reduce their student loan balances. The new application deadline is Oct. 31.

Lawmakers intended to hand out about 2,000 such awards. But the state has rejected more than half of all applicants, and so far only about 1,200 have received the aid.

Part of the problem, some educators say, is confusion between two Colorado loan forgiveness programs for educators. The one funded through federal pandemic relief money is for educators who started working after the 2019-20 school year. Most of the rejected applicants had been in the profession longer, and some thought they were applying for a similar but separate program approved in 2019 that’s for teachers at all levels of experience.

Nonetheless, the large number of applications points to wide demand for debt relief.

The newer loan forgiveness program was part of a $52 million package of measures funded by federal relief money to help Colorado address teacher shortages. It also included programs that provide aid for educators to pay for certification tests and stipends for student teachers.

Colorado lawmakers set aside $10 million for the loan forgiveness plan through December 2024. So far the Colorado Department of Higher Education has distributed about $6.25 million of that and expects to spend the rest in the latest round. Educators can apply for an award even if they previously received money.

Teachers have had issues navigating the program, and some educators haven’t completely filled out the required paperwork, according to department spokeswoman Megan McDermott.

“We believe that teachers and special service providers are busy in their classrooms and may not have the time to complete the paperwork,” said McDermott. “Also, there is confusion between the federal programs and the state of Colorado programs, which is confusing to educators determining which programs are available.”

In the first year, the pandemic-era program served only rural teachers or those in hard-to-recruit fields, such as math or special education, who were in their first few years on the job.

That year, 359 educators received $5,000 awards, according to the higher education department. Of that group, the state has data on 281 applicants. They represented 52 districts and were mostly teachers in their first two years on the job. Most had less than $51,000 in total debt.

To reach more teachers, lawmakers broadened eligibility this year by removing the stipulation that teachers must be from rural districts or teach in hard-to-recruit subjects. The updates also increased the income limits.

After that change, the state gave aid to 884 more applicants.

Many more — over 2,250 applicants — have had their applications rejected.

Sarabeth Smith, a 12-year educator in East Grand School District, said she didn’t realize she had applied for the program for newer educators. Both programs use the same online form.

She said the directions weren’t clear, and she didn’t get a reason for her rejection the first time she applied.

More educators need help, she said, and not just those within their first few years.

Smith said many educators in their seventh or eighth year of teaching have a hard time staying in the field because of financial constraints. She said she works multiple jobs and is paying off loans for her master’s degree.

She used a federal loan forgiveness program for teachers to help pay off her bachelor’s degree loans and is hoping for more help.

“Any help towards the professional is just always going to make it a little easier to keep teachers and attract new teachers,” she said. “We know these shortages are not getting any better.”

The state’s other loan forgiveness program, which began before the pandemic, was slated to last five years and help rural teachers and those who specialize in hard-to-fill subjects. It’s open to educators of all levels.

Lawmakers were forced to put that program on hold because of budget shortfalls. The program will distribute money in 2024 to this year’s applicants, according to the higher education department.

Instructions on the top of the current application form say: “The Original rural educator application is closed at this time. You can apply for the Temporary Educator program.” But they don’t specify that the temporary program is only for newer teachers.

The program for new teachers has received about 600 applications in the latest round, the state said when it extended the deadline. This may be the last application period, or there could be one more round in the spring, the higher education department said.

McDermott reminded applicants to answer all questions and to submit required items such as a copy of their teaching license, if applicable, and employment verification.

Also, applicants must include their student loan information for the state to be able to make the payments, she said.

Despite the confusion, the program has helped, said Frank Reeves, who retired as East Grand’s superintendent last year and is the director of operations and strategic partnerships of the Colorado Rural Schools Alliance.

Districts like East Grand that are in resort areas have less trouble recruiting teachers, he said. But housing is expensive, and teachers need help, especially with student loan payments that cut into their expendable income, he said.

“It’s been more incentive to keep people, not really attract,” Reeves said.

Meanwhile, research shows the longstanding federal loan forgiveness program for educators isn’t succeeding at helping districts keep teachers and attract new ones.

That program, established in 1998, forgives $5,000 of debt for teachers, and possibly more for teachers in certain subjects. But a study released this summer found that attrition patterns among participants were the same as for those who didn’t get loan forgiveness.

The program also ran into issues getting applicants to properly fill out the forms, and researchers recommended streamlining the process.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Dyslexia support proposals are back in the Michigan Legislature

2023-10-18T15:17:20+00:00

Four bills introduced in the Michigan Legislature this month would aim to better identify and teach students with dyslexia, and jumpstart reform initiatives that have stalled in the past.

The new legislation comes with bipartisan support and follows years of failed efforts to better address dyslexia in school — most recently last year, when a package of bills calling for better screening of students for dyslexia languished in the Legislature.

Dyslexia is a hereditary reading disability that affects an estimated 5% to 20% of people. Students with dyslexia who go undiagnosed and don’t receive interventions are more likely to struggle in school, and studies show most people with the learning disability who get high-quality instruction early on will become average readers.

“We have to do something about it now,” said Rep. Kathy Schmaltz, a Republican from Jackson who introduced one of the bills. “When we know how to fix something and we’re not doing it, that’s on us, and our children shouldn’t have to suffer because we can’t get it together.”

The legislation includes two bills in the House and two in the Senate. All four were referred to their respective education committees. Here’s what they would do:

A bill introduced by Sen. Jeff Irwin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor, would tighten the state standards for the literacy screeners schools use to ensure that they can identify a student who has dyslexia or has difficulty decoding language. The bill also aims to provide evidence-based support early on for students who are identified as having a reading disability.
Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat who represents parts of Canton and Livonia, introduced a bill that would set standards for teacher education programs to ensure future educators have the tools to help students with dyslexia.
In the House, Rep. Carol Glanville, a Democrat from Grand Rapids, introduced legislation that would create a dyslexia resource guide and advisory committee in the Michigan Department of Education.
Schmaltz’ House bill would require school districts to have at least one teacher trained in Orton-Gillingham, a multisensory teaching methodology that research suggests helps students with dyslexia.

Rep. Mike McFall, co-sponsor of Schmaltz’ bill, said the additional resources will give teachers “more tools to ensure positive student outcomes and educational growth.”

Lawmakers who back the bill say the measures would help students who have difficulty reading and processing language due to dyslexia. But some advocates disagree, citing Michigan’s restrictive parameters for determining whether schoolchildren are eligible for special education.

The percentage of students in the state identified as having a specific learning disability, which includes students who schools identify as having dyslexia, decreased from 35% in 2013-14 to 25.9% in 2022-23, according to data from the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Information. Nationally, the number went up during the same time period, aside from a dip during COVID.

“It is meaningless if they don’t incorporate changes to the criteria for determining specific learning disabilities,” said Marcie Lipsitt, a special education advocate.

Lipsitt also said requiring schools to have one teacher trained in Orton-Gillingham methodology presents its own challenges.

“To say you’re training Orton-Gillingham, does that mean the teacher does four hours of training and then they are considered the Orton-Gillingham teacher?” she said.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

New York to rethink how teacher prep programs approach literacy instruction

2023-10-11T15:04:44+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Teacher preparation programs in New York and across the country have long faced criticism for not adequately training future educators to teach literacy, in part by failing to embrace long-standing evidence about how children learn to read.

Now, top New York education leaders are taking an incremental step to address that issue.

On Wednesday, officials announced a yearlong process to come up with an “action plan” for infusing “science-of-reading” principles into higher education programs that train thousands of new teachers every year. The science of reading refers to an established body of research about how children learn to read.

The Hunt Institute, a nonprofit affiliated with Duke University, is leading the effort and has worked with a dozen other states to create similar plans. Known as “The Path Forward,” the program is now adding at least five additional states, including New York, Idaho, Illinois, New Mexico, and Washington.

The goal is for state leaders to come up with a roadmap to ensure higher education programs are using research-backed methods to train teachers in literacy instruction, holding them accountable through changes in state policy or new legislation, and marshaling help from philanthropic organizations. The state’s action plan is expected next June.

In New York, the group will be helmed by the state’s top education leaders, including State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa; Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young; New York City schools Chancellor David Banks; and the leaders of CUNY and SUNY — Félix Matos Rodríguez and John King. Several other academics, elected officials, and education leaders will also participate.

“Those are the types of people that are really going to have the respect of the higher ed faculty,” said Javaid Siddiqi, president and CEO of the Hunt Institute. “We don’t want to be coming in in an adversarial sort of space.”

Siddiqi said that states “self selected” to be part of the process. In New York’s case, the effort is being coordinated by the state’s Education Department and the Literacy Academy Collective, a grassroots organization launched by New York City parents who successfully pushed the city to open a school devoted to students with reading challenges.

Bolstering literacy instruction takes center stage across nation

The effort in New York comes as momentum is growing across the country to rethink how to teach reading and jettison more dubious practices, such as encouraging children to guess at a word’s meaning using pictures.

In New York City, officials are encouraging a greater emphasis on phonics — explicitly teaching the relationship between sounds and letters. The city also launched a new mandate this fall that will eventually require all elementary schools to abandon materials that have been widely criticized and replace them with one of three approved curriculums.

Improving teacher preparation programs could bolster New York City’s curriculum overhaul, as some educators have noted they did not receive rigorous instruction on how to teach children to read. An analysis of 38 teacher preparation programs across New York released this year by the National Council on Teacher Quality found that the state’s programs generally ranked well below others across the country when it comes to reading instruction.

Some advocacy groups, including Education Trust-New York, have also placed some blame on teacher preparation programs, calling them a “major obstacle to improved reading outcomes” in a report released this year.

Katie Pace Miles, a literacy expert at Brooklyn College who will also participate in the Hunt Institute process as part of its steering committee, said it makes sense to focus on statewide reforms to teacher preparation programs.

“There’s a lack of evidence-based instruction in our teacher preparation programs, both in New York City and across New York State,” she said, pointing to test scores that show about half of the city’s students are proficient in reading. “We can’t just keep talking about how [the scores] are unacceptable. We actually have to do something substantial to change outcomes in teacher training.”

Third grade teacher Mara Ast said her master’s degree program didn’t give her much practical help teaching children to read nearly a decade ago. At the time, her first grade son was struggling to read, so she wound up searching for strategies to help him and ultimately attended a separate summer program focused on structured literacy.

“I didn’t learn it in graduate school at all,” said Ast, who now teaches at the South Bronx Literacy Academy, the city’s first standalone district school devoted to struggling readers. She said many teachers are craving better preparation, and reforming teacher education programs could make educators more comfortable using higher-quality curriculum materials.

“A school can buy all the curriculum it wants, but if the teachers aren’t trained in how to use it, it just ends up collecting dust,” she said.

The group is expected to meet virtually every other month and will receive help from a coach to research and develop their plans, though Siddiqi said the organization does not draft legislation or push specific proposals. They’ll also have access to national experts and will convene once a year with leaders from other states. (The coaching, access to national experts, and annual meetings with other state leaders last beyond the first year.)

It remains to be seen how effective the yearlong series of meetings and action plan will be in spurring change. Despite movement in dozens of state legislatures designed to overhaul reading instruction and teacher training, New York is one of five states that has not advanced similar efforts in recent years, raising questions about the appetite for significant action in Albany.

Asked whether convening state leaders to hold meetings on improving teacher preparation programs would likely spur more dramatic efforts, Siddiqi said he understood some might be skeptical.

“We don’t want to waste a precious slot on a state that is not ready to do the work — and we believe New York is ready to do that work,” he said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Newark teacher pathway program brings community support to aspiring educators

2023-09-22T17:00:20+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Newark’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

Tricia Alcaraz is a proud first-grade teacher, but her journey into the classroom came with long nights of studying, financial worries, tests – and support from a Newark nonprofit.

A single mother from Trinidad, Alcaraz always wanted to work with children. After trying pediatric nursing and running her own daycare, she spent 15 years working in New York City schools. She started as a paraprofessional and worked her way up to a teaching role while taking college classes, but she was never a fully certified teacher. In 2021, she bought her first home and moved across the Hudson River.

With a mortgage on her mind and bills mounting, Alcaraz spent six months applying to teaching jobs in New Jersey as she navigated the certification process. With years of classroom experience and a master’s degree in early childhood education, Alcaraz was offered a two-year teacher associate contract by Great Oaks Legacy Charter School in Newark, and needed to earn her credentials in the state during that time.

A Newark nonprofit called Gateway U helped her get across the finish line.

“I absolutely needed it,” said Alcaraz about the nonprofit, which offers college-degree programs and an accelerated teacher pathway program that helps aspiring teachers by providing wraparound services and study materials as they prepare for their required exams. “I was going through some financial stuff and other issues but they took personal interest in me to make sure that everything was going good.”

As school districts across New Jersey struggle to fill teaching positions and retain staff, observers say programs like those at Gateway U could help potential educators who face financial struggles or other barriers land certified teaching roles.

“As a former school leader, I think about the talent I would have had to pass up,” said Saymah Nah, Gateway U executive director. “Lots of people in our community have a knack for teaching but some don’t have the resources to make a career out of it. The biggest reason being their finances.”

During the 2020-21 school year, New Jersey reported teacher shortages in math, science, world languages, special education, vocational training, and English as a second language. Newark faces shortages of bilingual and special education teachers.

Newark Public Schools started this school year with 77 teaching vacancies and 400 new teachers, according to district spokesperson Nancy Deering.

Great Oaks Legacy Charter School, where Alcaraz is a first grade teacher, has 166 teaching positions and they’ve hired a total of 84 new teachers for this school year. Five other Great Oak staff members participated in Gateway U’s program, “a partner in finding talent and supporting people’s passions for teaching,” said Jared Taillefer, executive director at the charter network.

Alcaraz joined the summer pilot of the teacher pathway program where she joined 15 other students in a six-week intensive “bootcamp” to prepare for certification exams and get help completing the rest of her requirements.

The accelerated pathway program is designed for people like Alcaraz, local degree-holding school staff looking to become eligible for full-time teaching positions in the state.

“With the right partners, the right model, and support, we can come together to really make change and develop sustainable solutions to the teacher shortage,” Nah said.

“Everything I could cut out was beneficial”

Gateway U’s teacher program includes two pathways: one for students who have college degrees and one for school staff who need academic support to earn bachelor’s degrees.

In order to become a teacher in the Garden State, future educators must earn a bachelor’s degree, complete a teacher preparation program, pass certification exams, and complete student-teaching requirements.

Alcaraz started her second year of teaching in New Jersey this school year and since her New York teaching certification did not transfer over, she wasn’t sure what requirements she needed to fulfill.

One of the ways Gateway U recruits candidates is through school leaders who nominate “exceptional individuals who need to be in front of kids,” said Kwame Floyd, a consultant and senior advisor for Gateway U.

Alcaraz was referred to the teacher pathway program by her school’s principal, and then screened to ensure she met the requirements, including at least two years of school-based experience, a college degree, and a 3.0 grade point average.

After being accepted into the accelerated program, Alcaraz learned what she needed to complete her teaching requirements and received personalized support as she prepared for her certification exams in English, reading, and math. The program also covered her test fees.

Alcaraz completed her student teaching requirements over the summer and said Gateway U’s program gave her the flexibility to fit everything into her schedule. She also received food assistance and program staff checked in on her every week.

“There are so many exams I didn’t know about and I wasn’t aware of what I needed to take,” Alcaraz added. “I’m a single mom, so everything I could cut out was beneficial.”

Diversifying the teacher workforce

Of the 16 students in this year’s summer pilot program, 95% identified as individuals of color. Gateway U targets recruitment to both diversify the teaching force in Newark and support minorities in getting college degrees.

Studies have shown that a diverse teaching workforce allows students to connect with educators from different backgrounds and gives teachers a chance to work and learn from each other.

A Newark native, Nah said the teacher pathway program is a way to help future educators get into the classrooms quicker and without thousands of dollars in debt.

Many Gateway U candidates come from low-income backgrounds or are the first in their families to go to college. Alcaraz was among the first in her family to go to college and buy a home.

Some Gateway U participants need help accessing an affordable college-degree program, housing assistance, childcare, and other services outside of their career goals, Nah said. Gateway U also offers students an opportunity to earn a degree for no more than $7,000 per year, through a partnership with Southern New Hampshire University, a private, accredited non-profit college.

“There are so many organizations out there but people don’t really know about them,” Nah added. “This is about breaking down silos and bringing everything together so people can navigate life easier.”

In January, Gateway U will welcome its second cohort to the accelerated program where over the course of 12 weeks, participants will meet in person at its student center in downtown Newark and virtually to work on preparing for their teaching requirements. Interested applicants must apply by October 20.

Alcaraz is grateful for the program’s support as she moved her life to New Jersey. Her ultimate goal is to obtain a degree in special education — something she hopes to pursue once her finances get better.

“I just love kids. I feel like this is the time, the most delicate time in their life and they need caring, nurturing people who are genuinely interested in their education,” Alcaraz added.

Clarification: Sept. 29, 2023: The story was clarified to show that the Gateway U program offers wraparound services and study materials to help local school staff and future educators in their pursuit of becoming a licensed teacher in New Jersey. Gateway U alone will not lead to educator certification.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Educators: Do you feel prepared for NYC’s new reading curriculum mandate?

2023-09-05T10:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

A sweeping new curriculum mandate is rolling out to hundreds of New York City elementary schools this fall, requiring thousands of teachers to deploy new reading programs.

The mandate has won praise from many literacy experts, as schools have long had freedom to use a wide range of materials — with uneven results. But they note its success hinges on how strong the new materials are and how well they’re implemented.

Education department officials say they have a rigorous training plan and that all teachers using new reading curriculums will receive introductory training by the first day of school, including planning their first lessons. More intensive support and coaching is expected this fall.

If you’re an educator or school leader who is switching reading curriculums this year under the new mandate, Chalkbeat wants to hear from you. We’re interested in learning about whether you feel prepared to make the transition, what training you’ve received so far, and how you feel about the new curriculum materials your school is using.

If you teach reading in the first phase of schools to be covered by the mandate this fall — which includes districts 5, 11, 12, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, and some schools in District 75 — please let us know using the form below.

Nearly all of the schools in the districts mentioned above are required to use one of three programs: Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds; Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; and Expeditionary Learning, from EL Education. Superintendents were given the authority to pick the reading curriculum for all of the schools under their purview — all but two have selected Into Reading.

Even if you’re not an educator, you can still fill out the form below to let us know what questions you have about the big changes underway.

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis education students share career goals, doubts, and advice

2023-08-21T11:00:00+00:00

Miles Clements’ life took a turn after his parents divorced and his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

He was a student at Fishers High School at the time. His studies began to suffer and his behavior changed, he said, so much that he was issued a detention once.

Things could have turned out worse, if one teacher hadn’t checked up on him, he recalled. He said they didn’t even talk about school. She just wanted to know what was going on in his life. But it was enough for Clements to start taking his learning seriously again — and make a decision about his future.

Clements said experiencing firsthand the impact that a teacher can have on someone’s life made the difference for him. He’s now a junior at the University of Indianapolis, preparing to become a teacher himself.

“If that teacher could do that for me, I can do that for other students,” Clements said. “I just wanted to be that person that can be there to care for them and give them the education that they need.”

Like school systems across the country, Indianapolis districts have struggled to fill their teaching vacancies, especially after the pandemic. Many experienced teachers are leaving the profession, citing inadequate pay or high stress.

But in Indianapolis, a new generation of aspiring teachers are launching or preparing for careers in the classroom, motivated by the opportunities to shape young people’s lives and undaunted by the challenges. In conversations with Chalkbeat, they talked about their decisions to pursue teaching careers, their experiences so far, and how they believe they can make a difference.

At the University of Indianapolis, Clements said he’s had opportunities since his first semester to gain classroom experience. His interactions with students at Central Elementary School in Beech Grove solidified his decision to pursue education.

Clements said he was immediately drawn to teaching skills like literacy, where students can get creative. He knows that classroom instruction relies on knowledge of material and methods, but he said he’s learned there’s a balance to teaching.

“I’ve even said in the past that you could be Albert Einstein and not know how to teach something,” Clements said. “You could be super, super smart, but not have the social skills or the empathy for the students.”

Alexis Britt discovered how critical those social skills are during a combined English and history class at Decatur Central High School, where she worked with students last semester.

The UIndy senior organized a mural project related to Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night,” where students had to work in groups to pull quotes and draw imagery from the text.

“It was the best moment in my entire life, because I was like, I love that they love it,” Britt said. “Just seeing those students have all this fun doing it really made me happy.”

The prospective teachers said they feel secure in the choice to pursue teaching, either because of positive relationships with teachers in the past or classroom experiences during college. Even so, there are moments of doubt.

Aracely Guerrero-Alonso, a sophomore at UIndy, hopes to teach elementary schoolers, specifically first and second grade. She said when she tells people that she plans to become a teacher, the reactions aren’t usually positive.

She said she knows what she’s signing up for. Guerrero-Alonso said hearing accounts from teachers via social media, like TikTok and Instagram, about their daily life and any struggles they face has prepared her for the realities of education. Still, she said it’s hard having other people in her life tell her to choose another career.

“I feel alone at times,” Guerrero-Alonso said. “No one really supports what I’m doing. They say not to go into it. But if you tell people not to go into it, we’re not going to have any teachers.”

Despite public skepticism, many people are pursuing degrees in education in Indiana. According to data from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, in 2021, over 1,700 of the over 33,000 bachelor’s degrees earned at Indiana’s public institutions were in education.

First-year teacher Bianca Winston, who graduated from Martin University in December 2022 wants students majoring in education to know that more than anything, work-life balance is key to success.

There’s a world beyond the classroom and the job, said Winston, who teaches first grade in Indianapolis. “You have a life outside of that. You create your own peace. Don’t let anybody take your peace away.”

Gregory Golden is heading into his senior year at Butler University, during which he’ll do his student teaching at Center for Inquiry School 84. As graduation nears, he’s aware that teaching can feel like a “thankless job.” Golden urged people considering careers in teaching to step into a classroom for themselves to see if education is really for them.

“I see my friends that are going into business and going into health care and doing all sorts of odds and ends that are going to be, you know, to be frank, making a lot more money,” Golden said.

“We are, as teachers, very much so unsung heroes of the workforce,” he said. “Just know what you’re getting into, because it’s something that you should not take lightly. It impacts people’s lives more than a lot of other careers.”

Jade Thomas is a summer reporting intern covering education in the Indianapolis area. Contact the Indiana bureau at in.tips@chalkbeat.org

Indiana teacher helps her school implement the science of reading ‘one bite at a time’

2023-08-15T19:52:35+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free monthly newsletter How I Teach to get inspiration, news, and advice for — and from — educators.

Indiana is in the midst of an enormous undertaking to improve literacy rates. The approach: Align state standards, curriculum, and teacher training programs with practices rooted in the science of reading, which emphasizes phonics to help students decode words.

Literacy coach Mika Frame has a memorable mantra for accomplishing big goals.

“My current principal always tells me, ‘Eat an elephant one bite at a time,’” she said. “Through this saying, he always encourages me to seek change in our staff by taking small steps, as opposed to expecting my teachers to change all at once or in drastic measures.”

A K-2 literacy coach at Rose Hamilton Elementary School in Centerville, Frame is part of the first cohort of educators that trained in reading science practices as part of the Indiana Literacy Cadre. Now she co-teaches, analyzes student data to see who needs more help, and leads her colleagues through the state’s new requirements.

Frame told Chalkbeat about her work as Indiana looks to bring more literacy coaches like her to its schools.

What drew you to a career in education?

My favorite part of high school was when I was a cadet teacher and worked with elementary students. I still love working with children today. I enjoy the energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity of young learners. Witnessing the progress and achievements of students, seeing them overcome challenges, and helping them reach their potential brings me a deep sense of satisfaction.

What does your typical day look like?

My typical day at Rose Hamilton includes working alongside teachers in their classrooms. Co-teaching is my favorite aspect of working with my colleagues. An additional responsibility I have most days involves disaggregating learning data. This data often presents patterns and helps teachers identify subgroups of students who need additional interventions. Each month, I also lead professional learning community meetings and offer new ideas and strategies to our teachers. Finally, coordinating testing is an important part of my position; I help ensure testing protocols are executed with fidelity and testing deadlines are met.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

My favorite lessons to teach are phonics lessons. Phonics plays a vital role in children’s literacy development by providing them with the tools to decode words, read fluently, and comprehend written materials effectively. It sets the stage for their future academic success. Phonics empowers children to read independently and with confidence. When children can decode words accurately, they can read books and other written materials on their own. This opens up a world of knowledge and imagination. I love seeing children’s eyes light up when they start sounding out words.

When did you first learn about the ideas of reading science? How have you been able to apply those recently with fellow educators or students?

I first learned in depth about the science of reading when I was accepted into the Literacy Cadre program. In the Summer of 2022, I attended a weeklong training that dove into the science of reading. I have been able to apply these strategies by leading professional learning community meetings. During this time, I’ve encouraged teachers in the building to present to one another about the science of reading instructional practices they are doing in their classrooms.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I grew up in Modoc, Indiana. My community was rural and consisted of approximately 160 people. I graduated with only 18 students in my class, and that included a few foreign exchange students. It was a close-knit community in which everyone knew each other. This background helps me understand that every single child matters, and no matter the size of the district, helping all students succeed academically and helping them reach their full potential is the ultimate goal in education.

Literacy coach Mika Frame helps her colleagues with the state’s new requirements on the science of reading.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

My current principal always tells me, “Eat an elephant one bite at a time.” Through this saying, he always encourages me to seek change in our staff by taking small steps, as opposed to expecting my teachers to change all at once or in drastic measures. I have used this advice frequently as our school has been going through new initiatives in the last year. Our next step this coming school year is to look into a new phonics program. We are slowly looking into the programs we are using and making small changes, if needed. Again, small steps that lead to changes are important!

What’s one thing you’ve read that has made you a better educator?

This past year I read “Shifting the Balance” by Jan Miller Burkins and Kari Yates with my colleagues in the literacy cohort. It really helped me understand the aspects of science of reading. After reading the book, my superintendent was kind enough to buy a set for my teachers, and I led a book study at Rose Hamilton. It was great to meet after school with the teachers and reflect on each chapter, as well as what we do or possibly could do better.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia school district welcomes more than 700 new teachers and counselors

2023-08-14T22:19:07+00:00

The Philadelphia school district welcomed more than 700 new teachers and counselors on Monday to a weeklong orientation that started with a pep talk from Superintendent Tony Watlington, who reminded them that the most important factor in a child’s academic success is consistent access to effective and well-supported teachers.

“We want you to believe in children,” he said.

Board of Education President Reginald Streater, a graduate of Germantown High School and father of two district students, also spoke to the group, telling them: “You are the ingredient we need to make sure we educate the whole child.”

Both Watlington and Streater thanked the new hires for choosing Philadelphia, where teacher salaries lag behind most of the surrounding suburbs, and working conditions can be more difficult. Most of the district’s students come from impoverished backgrounds, and many of the school buildings are in disrepair, or potentially dangerous.

The weeklong orientation is taking place at School of the Future, a technologically advanced school building constructed in 2006 with the help of Microsoft.

The new recruits vary in age and backgrounds, with many still working on their full certification as they embark on a new career in teaching. Some are seasoned teachers who have worked in other districts or charter schools, while others are fresh out of college. They will attend sessions ranging from information on benefits to discussing racism and equity.

The first day of classes is Sept. 5.

Here are brief portraits of four new district teachers:

Kia Boggs-Pinkney

Kia Boggs-Pinkney (left) talks to Meredith Mehra, deputy chief of the district’s Office of Teaching and Learning, at the orientation.

Boggs-Pinkney was a special education assistant at Muñoz-Marin Elementary in Kensington, when both Principal Amanda Jones and Elaine Rosario, the school’s special education compliance manager, kept telling her she should become a teacher.

“I thought they were in cahoots, but they weren’t,” Boggs-Pinkney said.

Jones would stick her head into Boggs-Pinkney’s classroom every time she walked by, and try to get her attention. “Teach!” Teach!” she’d call out.

Boggs-Pinkney, who has two grown sons and a management degree from South Carolina State University, is heeding the advice this year at age 57.

Initially, Boggs-Pinkney told her fans that she wanted to work on school discipline as a climate manager. But seeing how she interacted with students in her classroom, others in the school kept pushing her towards teaching. “Do it for a year, see if you like it, and go from there,” they advised.

She will be working at Muñoz-Marin, in the same classroom where she was the special education assistant, and with many of the same students. She already knows four of the five first graders with multiple disabilities whom she will be teaching.

This is a second career for Boggs-Pinkney. She worked in human resources for many years, and started at the district in 2010 as a special services assistant while raising her two sons. In 2013, she became a special education assistant, first at Hopkinson Elementary School and then at Muñoz-Marin, where she transferred in 2021.

“I heard good things about the school,” she said, especially how school leaders “encourage staff to do different things.”

Meredith Mehra, deputy chief of the district’s Office of Teaching and Learning who was helping to run the orientation, was principal of the KIPP charter school when Boggs-Pinkney’s son was a student there. She also recognized Boggs-Pinkney’s special qualities.

“I love it,” Mehra said of Boggs-Pinkney becoming a teacher. “I remember who she was as a parent, when she was ready to be involved in any and all conversations about her kiddo. Any school community would be so fortunate to have her as a teacher.”

Boggs-Pinkney is working on completing her certification through an online program, and she is still thinking about what will change for her when she is in charge of the classroom, rather than just serving as an assistant. For sure, she said, “It will be a little different.”

Simeon Fryer

Simeon Fryer will be teaching health and physical education at Benjamin Franklin High School.

Simeon Fryer, 25 and just out of college, will be a health and physical education teacher at Benjamin Franklin High School.

Standing at about 6 feet, 6 inches, he will also be assistant basketball coach.

A small forward and graduate of Upper Dublin High School, Fryer was recruited to play at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, a Division I school. While on a team organized through the Amateur Athletic Union, he was mentored by Ron Sizer, a teacher at Franklin and a coach in the program.

Sizer is thrilled that his onetime mentee will now be his colleague.

“I’m super proud of Simeon,” Sizer said in an interview. “He was a good player, and we were able to build a great relationship.” While Fryer was in college, he and Sizer kept in touch. “I’d watch his games on my phone,” Sizer said, including NCAA games during March Madness.

What he admired about Fryer was his “resilience,” how he beat health challenges and other circumstances to get better as a player and a student.

“The resiliency this young man has is what young kids need,” Sizer said. “A lot of kids give up. To have somebody who overcame obstacles and made it, kids need to see that.”

Fryer is modest about all that. While he had a shot at playing pro ball overseas, he chose to come back to Philadelphia. People kept telling him he was “good with kids.” Besides, he said, “I have a son, and I was tired of being away from him.”

Sizer, for his part, is hoping to retire from coaching after this school year and turn Franklin’s basketball team over to his protégé, so he can concentrate more on his job teaching precision machine tool technology in the school’s career and technical education program.

Besides his talents and resiliency, Fryer “is fun,” Sizer said. “And he’s younger. He can relate to these kids. They probably listen to the same music. I look forward to watching him grow not only as a teacher and a coach, but also as a man and a father. That’s really cool to me.”

Fanta Mshindi

Fanta Mshindi taught in charter schools for 18 years, but now is moving to the district to take a position at Girls High School.

“I was offered a dance teaching post, and that’s my passion,” she said.

Mshindi is a graduate of the district; she studied dance at the High School of Creative and Performing Arts. In 18 years working at Harambee and then Sankofa charter schools, she taught English intervention — meaning she helped students behind in their reading skills to catch up — as well as African studies. She also worked with young Black women in a “sisterhood rites of passage” program.

“I am so excited to teach dance,” she said.

Frank Machos, the district’s director of arts education, said that this year the district has 22 additional positions compared with last school year in music, art, dance and theater. That’s on top of 10 positions added in 2021-22, all part of an effort to rebuild programs that were decimated after the severe state budget cuts that started in 2011.

With the district now in a better financial position, “Things are looking up” for arts programs, he said.

Peter Nelson

Peter Nelson, an engineer, will be teaching math to middle schoolers at Benjamin Franklin K-8 School starting next month.

Peter Nelson, 28, has a degree in engineering, and will be teaching math to seventh and eighth graders at Benjamin Franklin K-8 School in Northeast Philadelphia.

A native of Kennett Square, he has lived in Philadelphia for 12 years, starting with when he enrolled at Temple University, “and I wanted to teach here,” he said. After graduating, he worked for several years as a mechanical engineer.

While Nelson is also still taking courses toward getting his full certification, he has a lot of experience, having taught in prisons and juvenile detention centers, and working with young people affected by HIV. Plus, he said, “I know a lot about math.”

He applied to the district in May, and went on a few interviews at schools over the past few months, without success. But as the school year approached, things picked up. “In late July, I started to get attention,” he said. He hit it off with Franklin principal Roslynn Sample-Greene and he was offered the position at Franklin elementary a week ago.

Teaching, he said, “is what I want to do.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC revamps elementary reading curriculum, some high schools follow suit

2023-08-08T22:08:23+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

While New York City’s elementary schools undertake a sweeping shift in their approach to teaching reading, a parallel change is quietly unfolding at many high schools.

High school superintendents across the city are urging, and in some cases mandating, that schools under their supervision adopt standardized English language arts curriculum, according to principals and district officials.

The superintendent-led changes have focused on one curriculum in particular: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Into Literature, the high school extension of the company’s hugely popular elementary Into Reading program.

The secondary school curricular shift, while not as sweeping or coordinated as the changes happening at the elementary school level, could have far-reaching consequences for how literacy and literature are taught across scores of city high schools.

“It’s a huge overhaul,” said one Brooklyn administrator who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The school’s English teachers are “absolutely panicking” at the idea of swapping out books they’ve taught for years and creating lesson plans for a new curriculum in just several weeks’ time, the administrator said.

High schools were not subject to the historic mandate announced last spring that city elementary schools use one of three pre-selected literacy curriculums — an effort to standardize how young students are learning to read and move away from teaching practices that have been increasingly discredited.

An education department spokesperson said there are no plans currently to institute a citywide English curriculum mandate for secondary schools.

Nonetheless, it’s likely that high school superintendents are reacting to the changes unfurling at the elementary level, observers said.

“I think some of them are trying to get ahead of the game,” said one district staffer involved in the curriculum rollout, who spoke anonymously because they’re not authorized to talk to the press. “The writing is on the wall.”

The education department didn’t provide the number of high schools using Into Literature or other packaged curriculum, and a Houghton Mifflin Harcourt spokesperson couldn’t say how many high schools have purchased its product for “competitive reasons.”

But there are signs the shift is widespread.

In the Manhattan High Schools district, Superintendent Gary Beidleman is mandating that schools with high numbers of low-performing freshmen adopt Into Literature for ninth graders this year, according to emails obtained by Chalkbeat. In the Urban Assembly/CUNY high school district, Superintendent Fred Walsh asked schools to choose between Into Literature and two other curriculums, according to principals. Among the 47 high schools in the Brooklyn North district, 20 to 30 are likely to adopt Into Literature this fall, after strong encouragement from Superintendent Janice Ross, according to a source familiar with the district.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said “we are proud of our superintendents for taking proactive steps to address gaps in literacy” and that their efforts are “aligned” with the department’s elementary school initiative.

Experts and educators say there are big potential advantages to standardizing curriculum, including better quality control, a reduced burden on teachers to spend their time creating curriculum, and greater ease for district officials in supporting and monitoring schools.

But curriculum standardization is also fraught with challenges, requiring significant buy in from staff and heavy training both up front and on an ongoing basis.

Multiple educators said the early signs in several districts point to a rocky rollout.

“It’s going be really hard, I’m really worried about that,” said the district staffer involved with the curriculum rollout. “There are all these layers, and it just feels like there’s not a lot of time or resources to support these clear lines of communication that will allow this to be successful.”

NYC has history of curriculum changes

The recent moves under schools Chancellor David Banks toward standardized curriculum are far from the first effort to unify what’s taught across city schools.

Former Chancellor Joel Klein took a famously top-down approach to curriculum, including mandating a remedial literacy curriculum called Ramp Up at hundreds of high schools. Klein’s tenure ushered in the widespread adoption of “balanced literacy” — an approach that Banks is now trying to abandon because it didn’t include enough systematic instruction on the relationship between letters and sounds.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s chancellors turned up the focus on ensuring classroom materials were relevant to students’ backgrounds and interests, an approach known as culturally responsive education. That culminated in the city’s first-ever plan to create a homegrown universal curriculum, a $200 million initiative called Mosaic that struggled to get off the ground and was finally killed under Mayor Eric Adams.

Veterans of the city education department say the current leadership would be wise to heed the lessons of those past rollouts: chief among them the importance of adequate training before and during curriculum adoption.

When Klein introduced Ramp Up, the remedial literacy curriculum, “there was so much front-loading before it ever played out in the classroom,” recalled Vivian Orlen, the former Manhattan high schools superintendent, who was a high school principal when Ramp Up arrived.

The current curricular shifts at the elementary and high school levels mostly outsource training to the publishers, rather than offering it in-house, a move that’s raised some eyebrows among curriculum experts.

“I’ve worked with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trainers,” said Vicki Madden, a long-time teacher and instructional coach in the city education department who retired last spring. “The trainers invariably do a sort of stand and deliver [training],” or a type of instruction that’s heavy on lectures from the front of the room, and lighter on interactive and group work. “No teachers learn a curriculum package [like that],” Madden added.

Moreover, several educators told Chalkbeat they haven’t yet received any dedicated training on the new curriculum or even had a chance to review the materials, which arrived at schools over the summer.

Kathleen Kantz-Durand, an English teacher at Climate Justice High School in East Harlem, which is shifting to Into Literature under a mandate from its superintendent, said she was hoping to attend a voluntary vendor-led training organized by the district earlier this summer, but didn’t have child care.

“I think this return to really traditional curriculum and texts could be a good thing,” she said. “But…the precious little communication I’ve had about it, the lack of training, worries me that it’s not going to be implemented in a way that will work.”

Kantz-Durand said she was still hoping to attend another optional session before the start of school.

An education department spokesperson said that there are four coaches in the Manhattan superintendent’s office who will work with the 18 schools adopting “evidence-based” English curriculum this year.

The training challenges are compounded by the fact that the new contract between the city and the United Federation of Teachers cuts the weekly required professional development block from 80 to 60 minutes.

Schools weigh pros and cons of new curriculum

Among the biggest changes schools are bracing for with the adoption of Into Reading is the curriculum’s focus on shorter excerpts of texts rather than full books.

“I feel kind of complicated about [that],” said Kantz-Durand. “As a person who loves literature, I would love to see students read full text. There’s a lot of pride and joy…in reading a full book.”

On the other hand, Kantz-Durand acknowledged, reading full novels can sometimes take months, especially when students don’t reliably have access to quiet spaces outside of school where they can read independently. So swapping in shorter texts is a change she might have eventually made anyway.

Into Literature does include suggestions for full books to replace the excerpts, but educators new to the curriculum may not know about that feature, and swapping in full books can require significantly more work for teachers, said a district staffer who’s worked extensively with the curriculum.

Other educators questioned whether the pre-selected texts would speak to their students’ experiences.

“When you’re writing a textbook for the entire United States it’s going to look a little different than if you’re writing for a school in Harlem,” said one Manhattan principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s elementary school curriculum has received criticism for failing to incorporate a diverse selection of authors, a charge the company denies. One Brooklyn principal told Chalkbeat that Into Literature seemed to have a more diverse set of texts than other curriculums they reviewed.

For some schools, Into Reading won’t be entirely new.

The curriculum, previously called Collections, has been a mainstay for years in the city Education Department, and is currently the only high school English program included on the city’s list of “core curriculum.” That distinction means it’s been vetted by the Education Department and schools can use state textbook grants to buy it, rather than dipping into their general budgets.

Educators who have seen curriculum shifts come and go caution that, however promising a new program is, implementing that at scale is delicate work that can fall apart easily with a haphazard rollout.

“There’s an endless cycle in schools,” said Madden. “People are dissatisfied with kids’ achievement, engagement. People say, ‘We need a new curriculum.’ Within one week of implementation, you’ll hear from people saying, “This isn’t right for our kids, this doesn’t work,” then you have teachers veering off. Some of them will be brilliant, some will not. And then you don’t have shared curriculum at all.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

National group revises grade for Indiana’s largest teacher prep program on reading instruction

2023-08-03T21:52:24+00:00

A group that produced a report on the quality of reading instruction programs at teachers colleges nationwide has revised its score for Ball State University from a failing grade to an A.

The university’s Teachers College, the largest teacher preparation program in Indiana, is one of 45 programs that asked the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) for a revised score after the council issued a report showing that thousands of teachers attended preparation programs that taught poor reading methods.

The report caused a stir in Indiana and other states that have pushed to apply instruction strategies backed by the science of reading in elementary schools in order to improve students’ literacy rates. It gave around 260 of the 710 programs reviewed failing grades.

A spokesperson for the council said that so far, NCTQ has decided to give 24 schools across the country new, higher grades to reflect that they do teach the principles of the science of reading. While most were revised by a single letter grade, nine programs (including Ball State) jumped from F to A grades. Another five are still awaiting review.

The council anticipates that it will publish the new scores by mid-August.

The additional material Ball State submitted to NCTQ included descriptions of its course time, the spokesperson said, which contributed to its higher score. The review gave programs scores for how well they taught the five pillars of literacy: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. It gauged whether they taught methods that aren’t backed by research.

The council had based its previous grade on incomplete material obtained through a public records request, said Jackie Sydnor, an associate professor and chair of Ball State’s Department of Elementary Education. NCTQ has previously received criticism for using incomplete data in its analysis of teacher training programs.

What NCTQ received was primarily course outlines, which included objectives, grading scales, and university policies, but not calendars, reading materials, and assignments, Sydnor said, all of which better illustrated the principles of the science of reading. The council was also missing syllabi from two elementary education courses, she added.

“We knew that we taught all of these things, but it was disheartening to hear it reported that we weren’t,” Sydnor said.

The council said that it offered schools opportunities to correct their scores before they were public, but it’s not clear if these requests reached the Teachers College.

Two other universities in Indiana also requested new scores from the council.

Anderson University’s score will remain an A, according to a council spokesperson, while Huntington University’s D grade is still under review.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado offers free community college for prospective early childhood teachers

2023-07-18T20:40:56+00:00

Colorado residents interested in early childhood and five other high-demand careers can get training for free starting this fall at more than a dozen community colleges around the state.

It’s part of a new $40 million state program called Career Advance Colorado that’s intended to mint thousands of workers in shortage areas. Besides early childhood education, the program will cover tuition, course materials, and fees for up to two years of training for students studying education, construction, law enforcement, nursing, and fire and forestry.

“All these fields are in need of great folks to fill jobs that are open today and that are critical for our state’s success,” said Gov. Jared Polis in a recorded announcement about Career Advance.

The program is open to new students and those currently enrolled in one of the six target areas. For those already enrolled, the state will pay for their remaining coursework.

The offer of free training for prospective early childhood employees comes amid an ongoing shortage of child care and preschool teachers that’s led to shuttered classrooms at some centers. The need for qualified staff has become even more pressing as Colorado prepares to launch a major expansion of tuition-free preschool in August. More than 31,000 4-year-olds are expected to participate.

Career Advance is the latest effort by state policymakers to beef up the anemic pipeline of early childhood teachers. In recent years, the state used COVID stimulus money to pay for two introductory early childhood classes for hundreds of college students. It also offered scholarship and apprenticeship programs for students seeking early childhood credentials.

In Colorado, where the median preschool teacher wage is around $15.25 an hour, it’s hard to make a living in the early childhood field. The cost of college classes or student loan debt makes the barrier to entry even higher.

State officials and advocates recently have taken tentative steps towards addressing the field’s abysmal pay. As part of an effort to pay preschool teachers a living wage, the state pays a higher per-student rate in the new universal preschool program than it pays public schools for each K-12 student. In addition, the state recently unveiled a report recommending a series of statewide early childhood salary scales that would significantly boost pay. For example, the suggested rate would be at least $22 an hour for early childhood teachers in metro Denver and some mountain communities. The salary scales are not binding for preschool and child care providers, but show what workers in different regions would need to earn to make a living wage.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

NYC disbands literacy coaches amid reading curriculum overhaul

2023-07-13T15:25:15+00:00

Hundreds of literacy coaches hired under a program to help improve literacy instruction need to find new roles, even as many elementary schools are working to adopt new reading programs.

The literacy coaches, originally part of the city’s Universal Literacy Program, must apply for other jobs, according to education department officials familiar with the city’s efforts and emails sent to coaches and school leaders obtained by Chalkbeat.

The move represents a shift in the way educators who teach reading are trained and supported at a key moment. Education officials are mandating that all elementary schools use one of three reading curriculums, beginning with 15 of the city’s 32 districts this September, with the rest to follow in 2024-25. In the past, school leaders had wide leeway to pick their own programs, with many choosing materials that city officials now say are inadequate.

To help get teachers up to speed on new curriculums, the city plans to use the three publishing companies to provide initial training and then create partnerships with outside professional learning organizations, officials said.

The city’s new literacy approach scraps the remaining elements of the Universal Literacy program, launched by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2016 to ensure that all third graders were reading proficiently by 2026. About half of third graders are meeting that benchmark, according to the most recent state tests. At its peak, the program sent about 500 literacy coaches to work with teachers in more than 600 schools, largely focusing on grades K-2.

Mayor Eric Adams has chipped away at the program, cutting the number of coaches this past school year to about 200 for grades K-5, with an estimated 60 coaches for middle and high schools. A separate Bloomberg-era program known as the Middle School Quality Initiative, which supported literacy efforts, is also coming to an end, two eduction department sources said.

Publishers of the three mandated curriculums have already begun training educators, said Nicole Brownstein, an education department spokesperson. The training includes various instructional routines and planning for their first unit.

During the school year, districts will be paired with an “external professional learning partner” to provide “shoulder-to-shoulder” training to educators, including monthly coaching, Brownstein said. Officials estimate the first phase of training will cost about $30-35 million for the initial group of schools.

The city had previously budgeted nearly $69 million annually over the next three years for the Universal Literacy Program, according to the Independent Budget Office.

“It’s been an expensive proposition to have centralized coaches,” said an education department official familiar with the city’s literacy efforts, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But it’s bad timing.”

‘They won’t be there now’

Some observers contend that the impact of the Universal Literacy program has been modest and a reset could be beneficial, giving the city a chance to deploy a new suite of training options that are more consistent for teachers. But others said the coaches, who already have relationships with educators, are a valuable resource as schools work to navigate a new set of curriculum materials.

“They could have been the folks on the ground supporting the [new curriculum mandate],” the education department employee said. “They won’t be there now.”

The official expressed concern that schools will have less coaching support overall, including significantly fewer days of on-site support, even if the new training efforts are high-quality. They believe that ending the program could be an effort to cut costs.

Brownstein did not dispute that cost was a factor but also did not offer a detailed explanation of why the coaching program is ending. She emphasized that the coaches could apply for other roles that will support the city’s new reading curriculum mandate.

According to job descriptions sent to coaches, some of the new roles they’re encouraged to apply for involve helping struggling readers directly, rather than focusing on training other teachers. Another recommended job involves supporting superintendents’ offices, a role that department sources said would likely involve working with a much wider group of schools than the coaches currently support.

“This group is being offered roles in making the implementation of NYC Reads a success,” Brownstein said in a statement, referring to the curriculum mandate. “Ensuring every student grows as a strong and confident reader is priority one for this administration.”

Coaching program’s impact is mixed

Brian Blough, who served as principal of P.S. 161 in the Bronx, said his experience with the coaching program was uneven, but the program grew on him. The first coach he worked with didn’t seem to have much direction or training, making it difficult to deploy the coach effectively. But after the school received two new coaches last year, Blough found the program more useful.

“The coaches we got this year were effective and came with a real depth of knowledge about what they’re doing,” said Blough, who left P.S. 161 and will lead a charter school this fall. The coaches helped P.S. 161 teachers implement and interpret reading assessments and deploy a new program for phonics, which teaches the relationships between sounds and letters. On other campuses, coaches helped teachers learn to implement new curriculums and reading strategies.

Blough said he is disappointed that P.S. 161 won’t have access to coaches going forward. “They had purpose and direction in making the teachers successful. It’s unfortunate that now they’re trying to pull them.”

The city’s own evaluations of the program showed modest evidence of success. A 2022 progress report obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request described the program’s impact as promising, according to assessment data, but also concluded that “the initiative had not yet achieved impact at scale before the onset of the pandemic.”

Most principals believed the coaches were helping their schools improve reading instruction, according to education department surveys, though some also said there were disconnects between what their schools needed and what the coaches could offer.

Susan Neuman, an early literacy expert at New York University and member of the education department’s advisory council, said little information has been shared with the council about how the city plans to train teachers on the new reading curriculums, making it difficult to assess whether those efforts will be more effective than the coaching program.

Still, Neuman said it could make sense to “start anew and bring in people who might all have the same basic training. I think that’s not a bad idea.”

But she emphasized that effective training requires building trust, something that coaches said they worked hard to build.

“If you don’t like that coach you’re going to resist what that coach might suggest,” she said. “These new people need to know that relationships really matter.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit’s $94 million ‘right to read’ lawsuit settlement is finally coming through for DPSCD

2023-07-07T19:37:10+00:00

It has been more than three years since Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised the Detroit school district $94.4 million to settle a 2016 lawsuit alleging that the state denied the city’s schoolchildren a basic education by failing to teach them to read.

Now that money is finally on its way to Detroit.

The funds were included in the $21.5 billion K-12 school aid budget that the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed last month and Whitmer is expected to sign.

Under the settlement terms, negotiated in 2020, the money will go toward increasing reading instruction and support for students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District to address longstanding challenges with literacy. DPSCD officials have already shared proposals to use the money to hire academic interventionists to provide one-on-one support to students struggling with reading.

“Every child in Michigan deserves access to a quality public education regardless of their ZIP code,” Stacey LaRouche, press secretary for Whitmer, said in a statement. “Governor Whitmer has worked to reverse decades of disinvestment in our state’s K-12 schools by securing more funding in every aspect of a child’s education to ensure that they have what they need to be successful.

Here’s a look at how the legal case arose, what the settlement provides, and how the district is preparing to spend the money.

Settlement grew out of ‘right to read’ lawsuit

The federal case settled in 2020 is called Gary B. v. Whitmer, but it dates back to the period when the Detroit school district was under state oversight during Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration, and was originally filed as Gary B. v. Snyder.

The plaintiffs were seven Detroit public school students who alleged that they were denied the opportunity to have a quality education because of poor building conditions, a shortage of textbooks and other learning materials, and poorly qualified teachers.

In the 136-page lawsuit, students describe learning in classes of 50 or more children, inadequate education for English language learners, and rodents and cockroaches in classrooms.

The lawsuit specifically called out Michigan’s deployment of emergency managers to control the city’s public schools between 2009 and 2016. Those managers created conditions so awful, the plaintiffs alleged, that students were denied what they claimed was their constitutional right to a basic reading education.

Reading scores among Detroit students have ranked among the lowest in the nation over the past decade and a half. In fourth- and eighth-grade reading, the Detroit district’s test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have ranked near the bottom statewide and nationwide.

The lawsuit sought to establish a constitutional right to literacy for all students, but the plaintiffs agreed to a settlement in 2020 and dropped their bid to establish that right. The settlement awarded some money to each of the plaintiffs and to the district, and required the governor to propose legislation to provide more money to the district to support literacy efforts. The legislation failed to clear the Republican-led Legislature in 2021 and 2022, but it passed this year under Democratic leadership.

The legislation requires the district to spend the $94.4 million by Sept. 30, 2027.

The settlement money is small but significant

Community members, school officials, and education experts welcomed the settlement, though some argued that the $94.4 million earmarked for Detroit’s literacy initiatives is a small sum in relation to the needs that the lawsuit cited, which spanned everything from textbooks to school buildings. A 2018 audit estimated that the district’s building repair needs alone would grow to $1.2 billion by 2023.

But the district has been able to tap its share of federal COVID relief aid to address building needs and fund a $700 million facility plan. And the settlement money will help the district free up money in its general fund for other priorities, such as retaining contracted nurses, offering one-time staff bonuses to help reduce teacher turnover, and sustaining summer school and after-school programming that had been funded by COVID relief aid.

“More than $94.4 million is needed to get things back where they belong, but it is a monumental victory for a struggle that certainly did not start with this lawsuit,” said Mark Rosenbaum, the lead attorney for the right-to-read lawsuit.

Molly Sweeney, director of organizing for Detroit education advocacy group 482Forward, applauded the Legislature’s approval of the funding, saying that “this is hard-earned money for the community.”

482Forward was among the community groups that advocated for the settlement agreement.

“This is community money, and this should have community input,” Sweeney said. “We should be able to have a say in how it’s spent.”

Two task forces will address Detroit education challenges

In addition to providing money for the district — an initial $2.7 million and the $94.4 million from the legislation — the settlement requires the Michigan Department of Education to provide guidance to schools on the best practices for K-12 literacy education.

The settlement also promised the creation of two task forces to address literacy and educational challenges in Detroit, the Detroit Literacy Equity Task Force and the Detroit Education Policy Committee.

The literacy equity task force is charged with conducting annual evaluations of Detroit literacy and providing state-level policy recommendations to the governor. It will convene a series of town hall meetings over the next year and provide recommendations to the DPSCD school board on how the funds should be used.

The educational policy committee will make recommendations to the governor about Detroit’s education system. Its work will be overseen by the Community Education Commission, a nonprofit created by Mayor Mike Duggan in 2018 to address barriers to accessing quality schools in Detroit.

The district has early plans for how to use the money

Anticipating lawmakers’ approval of the settlement funding, DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has already outlined some early strategies on how the district plans to spend the money.

“We are awaiting the recommendations from the Literacy Task Force on how to use the funds,” Vitti said in an email. “We will certainly consider their recommendations but are not required to abide by them.”

Among the district’s top priorities: hiring more academic interventionists, increasing literacy support for high school students, and expanding teacher training on how to help students who are several grades below reading level.

The settlement requires that the district spend its money on programs that follow evidence-based literacy strategies. But it allows for spending on a range of initiatives that could support student learning, such as reducing class sizes for K-3 students, upgrading school facilities, and providing students with more reading materials.

Under Vitti, DPSCD has prioritized staff training on Orton-Gillingham, a multisensory teaching method typically used for students with dyslexia or other reading challenges, as well as hiring academic interventionists to work one-on-one or in small groups with students struggling to read and with English language learners.

Even after the settlement money is spent, Vitti said, the district would continue to find different funding sources to fund academic interventionists, a position he considers “a centerpiece of our literacy support.”

Literacy task force has begun working

The settlement requires 15 members to be assigned to the Detroit Literacy Equity Task Force:

Two DPSCD representatives selected by the superintendent and approved by the board
Two teachers selected by the Detroit Federation of Teachers
One paraprofessional selected by the Detroit Federation of Paraprofessionals
Three DPSCD students
Three DPSCD parents or caregivers
Two Detroit community members
Two literacy experts selected by the task force’s DFT, DFP and DPSCD members

Lakia Wilson-Lumpkins, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers and co-chair of the task force, says the group began meeting privately as early as 2022 for exploratory discussions about what to do with the money.

“In our initial meetings, we discussed possibilities in terms of supplemental resources, technologies, adaptive equipment, books,” Wilson-Lumpkins said. “Ninety-four million dollars seems like a lot of money, but it is not. We definitely want to improve facilities, improve materials, improve training, and once you do all those things for 50,000 students I think $94 million will be well spent.”

The task force is required to host six public meetings before April 30, 2024, to get community input on how the money should be spent. Then by June 30, the group will need to submit recommendations to the DPSCD school board.

The recommendations “are not mandatory, but nobody expects a tug of war on this,” said Rosenbaum. “The school board and Superintendent Vitti have been responsive to the community.”

In approving the settlement, Michigan Senate lawmakers included a clause that requires the district to explain how it intends to use community input to guide its spending.

DPSCD is required to host at least one community meeting to discuss its spending plan, Vitti said, and district officials will introduce the plan to the school board’s academic and finance committees before it comes up for a full board vote.

But he added that the district would like to move fast to allocate the money once it’s released to DPSCD.

“The School Board would likely approve use of the literacy lawsuit funding by the first (2023-24) budget amendment, which takes place after the fall count period” in October, Vitti said.

“We want to start using the funds as soon as possible, so we are eager to consider the recommendations from the Task Force.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan education budget contains some smaller-ticket items that could have big impact

2023-07-05T16:53:19+00:00

The most notable winners in Michigan’s $21.5 billion budget for K-12 schools will be the state’s neediest students, English language learners, children in high-poverty schools, and special education students.

But with smaller amounts, the budget also delivers money to benefit teachers, Detroit schools and other local districts, campus infrastructure, community-based advocacy efforts, regional education nonprofits, and rural districts. Those less-noticed budget items could have a significant impact on education across the state.

Here’s a closer look at the smaller-ticket budget items that are expected to have huge payoffs.

Money aimed at tackling the statewide teacher shortage

While a shortage of teaching applicants is a national issue, Greg Nyen, superintendent of the Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Services Agency in the Upper Peninsula, said the scarcity of educators is acute in Michigan.

“About 10 years ago, 23,000 teachers or potential teachers were in educational preparatory programs across the state,” he said. “Last year, there were under 15,000. Only about 20% end up completing their certification.”

As part of an effort to address the shortage, a number of districts will receive a total of $76.4 million to support Talent Together, a partnership among 48 school systems and nine universities that widens pathways for aspiring teachers.

“So often, when new teachers start, they don’t feel successful,” said Jack Elsey, founder of the nonprofit Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative. “Over half quit in the first year.”

The new collaborative aims to tackle barriers for prospective teachers, Elsey said, including paying for their training, offering paid apprenticeships in the classroom, and mentoring them while they are in those programs.

Districts will also be granted a total of $50 million to expand support for new teachers, school counselors, and administrators, including mentor stipends and professional development.

And the budget allocates $63.8 million to districts to increase pay for educators.

“Elevating salaries and making this career an attractive one once again makes the financial burden lighter and makes it feel like it’s worth the effort,” said Elsey.

Financial awards for teachers who have national board certification will be funded with $4 million. Eligible teachers in districts that apply for the funds will receive $4,000 and an additional $6,000 if they work in Title I schools, which have large concentrations of students from low-income households.

Paula Herbart, president of the Michigan Education Association teachers union, called the funding a proactive step in recruiting and retaining quality educators.

“It’s critical that we keep great educators on the job and attract talented people into this noble profession, and this budget agreement provides our schools with much-needed resources to help accomplish these goals,” she said in a statement.

Detroit community initiatives get support

The budget provides $6 million for a local or intermediate district to use on services from Get On And Learn, or GOAL Line, a program that transports students from northwest Detroit schools to free after-school programs. The nonprofit began in 2018 as an effort to get students to school and decrease absenteeism. But after listening to parent feedback, the group ended morning transportation and focused solely on after-school bus rides. In November, the organization’s waitlist was bigger than its enrollment due to financial constraints.
The budget will give $3 million to local districts to distribute to Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit that works to engage parents in their kids’ education. Those dollars will help cover the cost of training for parents, health resources, support groups, civic engagement programs, and advocacy to families. The nonprofit also offers a literacy program in English and Spanish as well as workforce development.
The Legislature voted to give $2 million to the nonprofit group Brilliant Detroit for neighborhood-based tutoring and noninstructional services for children ages 3 to 12. The group transforms underused housing into neighborhood centers focused on early childhood development and kindergarten readiness.

Novi, Hamtramck and other district initiatives win funding

Novi Community School District will receive $1 million to support a wellness center that will offer onsite mental health support for students outside the regular school day, a medical clinic that will provide basic care to students with and without insurance, and a building wing for staff to destress and exercise. The center will also use the funds to offer onsite, after-school tutoring for students who can’t afford private instruction and will create a hub for families to access other health resources.
The budget allocates $2 million to Hamtramck Public Schools to hire accelerated-learning coaches for all eight of its schools. The coaches will lead targeted tutoring efforts in the district; work with teachers to model lesson plans and co-teach; and identify gaps in instruction. The money will also provide professional development for the coaches on data analysis, among other areas.
The budget provides $100,000 to a district to support the Student Advocacy Center of Michigan’s statewide helpline for families in “educational crisis.”
Dearborn City School District will receive $250,000 to support a cybersecurity certificate program.

Construction projects get a boost

The Detroit Public Schools Community District will get $6.5 million for essential structural improvements and renovations for Coleman A. Young Elementary and another $5 million for needed updates to its Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School building.
Beecher Community School District near Flint will receive $2.5 million to fund the construction of a new high school to match money already raised through donations.
Waverly Community Schools in Lansing is set to get $3 million to build a new high school auditorium.
The budget provides $500,000 to Eastpointe Community Schools to build a new swimming pool.

Programs for rural and ‘isolated’ districts benefit

The budget provides $11.6 million in special weighted funding for instructional costs in rural and isolated districts.
A new rural-educator credentialing hub pilot program will get $15 million in startup funding. The program will provide free support to educators for credentialing and course fees. According to many administrators and a recent report, rural schools face unique challenges in attracting teachers.
The state created a school transportation fund and will deposit $350 million this fiscal year, $125 million of which will be spent by districts in the 2023-24 school year. The funds will likely benefit rural schools the most, which on average spend $200 more per pupil on transportation than nonrural districts.
Grosse Ile Township Schools will get $500,000 because students must cross a bridge to travel to their campuses, and the school system has not gotten funding under an existing allocation for isolated districts.

Other items

Districts including DPSCD will be awarded a total of $1 million to purchase tampons or menstrual pads to distribute free to students in school bathrooms.
Districts will receive $125 million total in grants to buy less-polluting buses.
More than $6 million in a new one-time pot of money will go to partnership schools which will be used to improve attendance, increase graduation rates, and reduce class sizes, among other targeted initiatives. Partnership schools are low-performing schools that operate under support agreements with the state to improve their operations.
Covenant House Michigan, a religious nonprofit that mostly serves students experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity in Detroit and Grand Rapids, will receive $1 million to support its residential education program. The organization offers shelter, educational and vocational programs, and support for survivors of human trafficking.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: July 5, 2023: A previous version of this story said a number of districts would receive a total of $10 million to support Talent Together. That number did not include money to support the organization’s Grow Your Own program, which will receive an additional $66.4 million.

9 big ideas to bolster the teaching profession and boost student learning

2023-06-28T11:00:00+00:00

This is part two in a two-part series. Part one focused on four major challenges facing the teaching profession. Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to get these stories and more delivered straight to your inbox.

America’s schools face a number of warning signs about the teaching profession: higher turnover, lower morale, declining interest in the profession among college students, persistent shortages in certain subjects. These problems could have big consequences for students.

“I don’t want to sound alarmist, but it’s been bad,” said Luis Rodriguez, an education researcher at New York University. “The concerning thing is that we as a nation aren’t doing anything systematic to address some of these causes.”

So what should policymakers do?

Chalkbeat reviewed dozens of studies and spoke to a number of researchers and teachers. Although there are no foolproof answers for strengthening the profession and improving teacher quality, the following are some ideas that research suggests might help.

Raise early- and mid-career teacher salaries

There is substantial evidence suggesting that higher pay attracts more talented people into the classroom and keeps them there. But teachers’ take-home pay has fallen further and further behind other college-educated workers’. Surveys show that relatively low pay is a source of frustration among teachers and deters college and high school students from choosing the profession.

A higher starting salary may be a particularly good way to draw new people into teaching. Raising salaries beyond the first year and through the middle of teachers’ careers is also important, both for attracting new teachers and retaining existing ones. Some research finds that schools are most likely to lose effective teachers after the first couple years in the classroom.

One way to raise salaries might be to shift some of teachers’ compensation from benefits to take home pay. Teachers receive a greater fraction of pay through benefits compared to other workers, and retirement benefits make teacher compensation heavily backloaded. This might be unappealing to people considering teaching and may cause them to underestimate total teacher pay.

“I think right now current compensation overweights investments in career teachers’ long-term benefits and under-invests in the first year teacher’s starting salary — we back-weight the benefits,” said Matthew Kraft, an education researcher at Brown University.

Pay teachers more in shortage areas

Severe teacher shortages tend to be clustered in certain schools and subjects — often high-poverty schools and subjects like math, science, and special education.

Again, pay can help solve this problem. Schools might consider targeted salary increases for those shortage areas. This approach is surprisingly rare, but research shows it can work to draw in and keep teachers. This, in turn, has been shown to boost student learning in some cases.

One recent study examined a Dallas program that offered large bonuses for teachers to work in struggling schools. The initiative drew an influx of new teachers and boosted student test scores. However, once the bonus program ended, student achievement fell as effective teachers were more likely to leave. That suggests that to make a sustained difference, schools should consider sustained salary increases rather than temporary stipends.

“We have a lot of pretty good, compelling evidence that it can work,” said Rodriguez, who has studied salary incentives in Tennessee.

Turn the first year in the classroom into an apprenticeship

One of the most consistent findings in education research is an intuitive one: Teachers struggle the most in their first year. New teachers are especially likely to leave the classroom, too. To a degree, this is natural. Experience matters. But what is unusual about teaching is its flat structure. New teachers are often doing the exact same job as their veteran colleague across the hall.

“It was a little rough coming from other jobs in the past where you have a little bit more transition time,” said Michele Koopman, who recently switched careers to enter teaching. “Here it was like: Here’s the key to your classroom, good luck.”

New teachers might benefit if their first year in the classroom is reinvented into more of an apprenticeship. This could be structured in different ways, but the key would be to give teachers a lighter workload — perhaps half as many classes to teach — and a dedicated mentor or coach. Research shows teachers learn from colleagues and benefit from quality mentorship and coaching.

Assign teachers to students more strategically

The benefit of teaching experience is not just about time in the classroom; it’s also about experience working in a specific grade or subject or with specific students. A number of studies have found that teachers perform better when they remain teaching the same grade or subject in back-to-back years. This may also reduce teacher turnover.

Teachers regularly switch between grades or even subjects from year to year. One study in New York City found that more than 1 in 5 teachers switched roles within the same school. In some cases, there may be good reasons for that. But school leaders might also not appreciate the costs of constant teacher churn.

If teachers do switch grades, they perform better if they follow the same group of students up to the next grade, a practice known as “looping.”

Policymakers might consider trying to disseminate information about looping and grade stability and creating incentives to encourage these practices.

Provide teachers with a strong curriculum

Teachers have many responsibilities — often including cobbling together their own lessons and curriculum. Schools could help ease teacher workload by providing quality curriculum and lesson materials that ensure teachers are not creating their own from scratch. One study found that simply providing middle-school math teachers with access to off-the-shelf lessons boosted student learning.

Koopman, who teaches in west central Illinois, said she didn’t have a math curriculum until half way through her first year as a special education teacher. “So many teachers too don’t feel like they have a great, full curriculum to use, and then they’re constantly trying to find other things to supplement,” she said.

Give teachers more support to manage student discipline

One recent survey asked teachers what their schools could do to support their mental well-being. Among nearly two dozen options, the second most common response was “more/better support for student discipline–related issues.” Sixty-two percent of teachers said this would help (which was only slightly behind a pay increase). This aligns with numerous anecdotal reports from teachers describing heightened challenges with student behavior and mental health since the pandemic.

Research does not provide simple solutions to this challenge — neither school suspensions nor an alternative of restorative justice has a proven track record, according to existing studies. Schools might consider investing in other support staff, like counselors and social workers, who may reduce disciplinary incidents and are valued by teachers. Schools could consider instituting school-wide behavioral support systems. They could also target extra support to the small number of teachers who appear to have major challenges managing student behavior. And policymakers could experiment and study new approaches to provide schools with actionable ideas.

Ease the teacher certification bureaucracy

Unnecessary or overly bureaucratic teacher licensure rules can keep good teachers out of the classroom and contribute to teacher shortages.

Many states, for instance, make it cumbersome for out-of-state teachers to get certified. But there is little evidence this is beneficial. In fact, some studies suggest it’s actively harmful to student learning by limiting the supply of teachers. In one survey of former teachers, over 40% listed a lack of certification reciprocity between states as one factor that would make it more likely they would return to the classroom.

Simply fixing bureaucratic challenges may help, too. Many former teachers say that “easier and less costly renewal of certification” might lure them back.

Prioritize recruiting and retaining teachers of color

A large body of evidence suggests that students of color, especially Black students, benefit from having teachers of the same race. And yet the share of teachers of color lag far behind the share of students of color.

This diversity gap starts early in the teacher pipeline. College graduates of color are much less likely to enter teaching than white college graduates. This gap has actually grown with successive generations of teachers. This suggests that schools of education could do a far better job recruiting people of color into the profession.

Teachers of color also often have higher turnover rates because they work in higher-needs schools. Targeted incentive pay, as mentioned above, might help. So could improving working conditions and recruiting more diverse principals.

States could also experiment with reducing certification barriers, including licensure tests, that disproportionately exclude teachers of color. Some states waived certain requirements during the pandemic and should carefully examine the consequences of this move.

Consider alternatives to seniority-based layoffs

Education budgets are in flux right now. With COVID relief money running out, some districts may face teacher layoffs in coming years, particularly if politicians don’t step up with additional funding. In some places, the teachers’ contract stipulates that layoffs be done in reverse seniority: last in, first out or LIFO.

Research suggests that this has harmful consequences. First, it requires more layoffs since less experienced teachers are lower paid. Second, such layoffs often disproportionately impact teachers of color. Third, this approach typically means high-poverty schools lose more teachers (since they usually have more novice staff). Fourth, LIFO may deter new entrants into teaching who fear they will quickly lose their jobs in the event of cutbacks. Finally, schools end up losing a number of effective early career teachers.

“LIFO layoff policies are inequitable, lead to more total job losses, and undercut efforts to recruit talented and diverse teachers,” wrote one pair of researchers after reviewing the evidence.

Districts might consider changing policies or contracts to consider a broader set of criteria when layoffs are necessary, including teacher performance and school-level needs.

Matt Barnum is a national reporter covering education policy, politics, and research. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Denver LGBTQ+ students share their stories, and joy, in new film for educators

2023-06-21T23:06:27+00:00

The last words in a new film about LGBTQ+ students belong to a 17-year-old named Ca’Shara, who graduated from a Denver high school last month.

“My queer joy is all the time,” Ca’Shara says, a wide smile on her face. “I feel like there never was a time in my life when I wasn’t queer. I feel like we should also celebrate your Black joy, your Latino joy, all these other joys. They’re just as important. And, yeah. That’s me.”

Ca’Shara throws her hands up and scrunches her face into a laugh.

The hourlong film, called “Reclaiming the Narrative: A Film About LGBTQ+ Students,” features 16 Denver Public Schools students speaking about their lives and experiences in school as LGBTQ+ students — and also, for many of them, as Black, Latino, and Indigenous students.

The film was made in partnership with A Queer Endeavor, an organization housed at the University of Colorado-Boulder that provides training to educators about gender and sexual diversity. It will be used in those trainings — in DPS, throughout Colorado, and even nationwide — starting next school year. Though the training sessions are not always mandatory for educators, even in DPS, the filmmakers hope the students’ voices will spur action and change.

“I hope that viewers are open to listening with a full heart,” said Bethy Leonardi, an associate professor at CU Boulder and co-founder of A Queer Endeavor, “and to think carefully about: What can I do? … How can I hold my community accountable to do right by these people?”

Fewer than half of LGBTQ+ Colorado youth surveyed in the fall of 2021 said they felt like they belonged at their school, according to the results of the biennial Healthy Kids Colorado survey. LGBTQ+ youth were more likely than straight and cisgender youth to report being bullied and also more likely to report attempting suicide.

But the filmmakers — and the students themselves — didn’t want to focus solely on the ways LGBTQ+ youth are marginalized or oppressed. They also wanted to focus on joy.

“That was the main thing they wanted to talk about,” said Levi Arithson, program manager for LGBTQ+ equity initiatives at DPS.

Well-meaning adults often want “to feel like they are saving a kid,” Arithson said. But, he added, “We don’t always have to wait until it’s terrible. How do we find the things that are wonderful?”

Students’ voices are the most powerful

“Reclaiming the Narrative” was filmed over the course of several days in the spring of 2022 with students from 13 DPS high schools. It was funded by a $16,350 grant from Denver-based education nonprofit RootED, which called the film a valuable tool for teacher training.

Though the film features quotes from famous writers and activists such as James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, as well as interviews with scholars from universities across the country, the students’ words are the most impactful.

“Our students, it’s really their story,” Arithson said. “All we did was make it into a film.”

Here is some of what the students had to say:

“I want to know about the previous queer people in history,” a student named Ronan says in the film. “It feels like in school curriculums, there’s no conversation about queer history.”

A student named Zoë says she has known she was gay since kindergarten. But she never saw LGTBQ+ people in her schools’ curriculum. “If I had seen that since I was in elementary school, I wouldn’t have thought something was wrong with me,” she says.

Helios talks about how empowering it was to do a history project on queer artists. “But then it also made me sad,” they said, “because I realized I’d never heard about any of them.”

Sammy, who uses they/them pronouns, recalls how sometimes their teachers use the wrong pronouns “not because they’re malicious or anything, but just because they don’t remember.” And sometimes, the teachers make a big deal of correcting themselves.

“When they correct themselves, I find more times than not, it will be much, much overexaggerated,” Sammy says. “It’s really just a grammar mistake at the root of it. And if you were to say another grammar mistake, you wouldn’t spend two minutes addressing it to your class. … So I want to treat it more like that. Like ‘Oh, sorry. My bad.’”

A student named Lumi talks about how much they love to write and how it feels “so, so amazing” when someone listens to them “talk about my gay little stories,” the characters in the stories, and how Lumi builds relationships.

“Hire queer teachers,” a student named Tally says, speaking directly to school administrators. “Hire teachers who are unabashedly and proudly queer.”

“It’s just really hard to be Black and to be part of the queer community,” a student named Karla says. “Because you just have that double standard all the time.

“Like, ‘well, I’m Black so I have to act a certain way, I have to talk a certain way,’” Karla says. “And then on top of that, ‘oh, I’m queer so I have to still act a certain way, talk a certain way, and not be too loud or not be too happy.’ It’s a lot of restriction that comes along with it. It’s just that level of trying to find yourself and be in both groups but still be just you.”

Zoë talks about how the Black students at her school are disciplined more harshly than the queer students — and how that leads to friction between the groups. “Make sure you’re not singling out anybody just because of what group they’re associated with,” she says.

A student named Eric recalls being asked what queer joy looked like to him and not knowing how to answer. But now Eric says he knows that “it’s self expression, it’s joy, it’s laughter.

“It’s being authentically you.”

Students hope the film makes a difference at school

In an interview, Lumi said participating in the film gave them a sense of belonging.

“I’ve never been in a place where I felt like I belong except for in that room with all those other students and Levi and Bethy,” they said. “It’s important for students who are queer and (people of color) to gather in a space where they feel welcomed and know that it’s OK to be a person of color and be queer. A lot of schools aren’t really all that accepting of queer students.”

Lumi, 18, graduated from a DPS high school in 2022. As a student, they said they were often afraid to speak up. Their teachers’ behavior contributed to their silence, they said. When their classmates would “say words like ‘fruity’ or use ‘gay’ as an insult, most of the time my teachers would look at those students and just let it go,” Lumi said. “That’s what made me so afraid.”

Although their school had a club for LGBTQ+ students, Lumi said the school didn’t provide much support other than a classroom for club meetings, and they often felt like they didn’t have a voice. Lumi said the film offered them another opportunity.

“It was so exciting to see myself up on that screen and realize I made a difference,” they said.

Ca’Shara recalled going to a premiere of the film earlier this month. Afterward, she said educators in the audience came up to her and told her how moved they were.

“They gave me unconditional love,” Ca’Shara said in an interview. “I’d love to see teachers — when you see students who are different and all of that, that unconditional love that you might have felt for the people in the film, put that into the classroom.

“You see students from different backgrounds? Support and love them.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Indiana has new requirements for teaching reading. Will teachers be prepared to meet them?

2023-06-21T16:54:47+00:00

Update, Aug. 15: Since this article published, the National Council on Teacher Quality revised Ball State University’s grade from an F to an A. Read more here.

Before Indiana students can learn how to read, their teachers have to learn how to teach reading.

But how that’s done may soon change at teacher preparation programs across the state, as Indiana joins a national push to adopt reading practices shown to improve literacy

By 2025, new teachers will be required to demonstrate their proficiency in the science of reading — a term for a wide body of research that emphasizes phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and phonemic awareness in reading instruction. And programs risk losing their right to call themselves “accredited” if their curriculums aren’t based in reading science by 2024.

Helping Indiana colleges make that mandatory transition is a $25 million fund from the Lilly Endowment Inc. earmarked to help incorporate the science of reading into teacher preparation programs. Several programs said they’re already using planning grants from the endowment to make sure their courses adhere to the new standards.

Just how far they have to go is uncertain.

A new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality — known as NCTQ — found an uneven landscape of reading instruction at Indiana colleges.

Yet at least two of the eight teacher preparation programs at Indiana universities that received failing grades from NCTQ, Indiana University Bloomington and Ball State, dispute the group’s conclusion that they aren’t sufficiently preparing teachers to use the science of reading.

When did Indiana adopt the science of reading?

Though science of reading has become the norm at some schools, a statewide push began last August, with an $85 million donation from the Lilly Endowment to train more teachers and literacy coaches.

A law passed during the most recent legislative session also requires districts, teachers, and teacher prep programs to get on board with science of reading research.

All of these changes are meant to help more Indiana students learn to read: Only around one-third of Hoosier fourth graders were proficient in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress last year, a result that’s similar to the national average.

Karen Betz is the assistant professor of literacy at Marian University, which received top marks for its reading instruction program from the NCTQ this year after aligning its curriculum with the science of reading in 2017.

She said it’s long been clear to psychologists and neuroscientists that reading science helps more children learn to read. But some teacher preparation programs must still figure out how to translate that research into pedagogy.

Furthermore, some teachers have told her they’re familiar with the principles of reading science, but aren’t allowed by their school districts to implement such strategies in their classrooms.

“Institutions are holding onto theories of how kids learn to read instead of putting into practice how kids actually learn to read,” said Betz.

During the so-called “Reading Wars,” detractors cast the science of reading as boring and sterile compared to an emphasis on letting children choose and read books on their own, said Jeanette Mancilla-Martinez of Vanderbilt University, who’s conducting a review of the reading curriculum at Indiana University Bloomington’s teacher preparation program through a Lilly grant.

But learning to read is a cognitively demanding skill that requires explicit instruction, Mancilla-Martinez said, and some children need more support than others.

“The idea that you have books around the house, you don’t need these boring phonics skills, you’ll learn naturally — that may happen for a small percentage of children, but that’s not good enough,” Mancilla-Martinez said.

Do Indiana teachers learn the science of reading?

For its report released last week, NCTQ evaluated whether aspiring teachers learned the five principles championed by reading science, as well as whether the schools’ curriculum included outdated or disproven practices, like the three-cueing model.

Of the 18 programs evaluated in Indiana, just four earned an A or better, and eight earned an F. The report found at least five programs teach disproven practices, and only seven offered instruction on teaching reading to English language learners.

The results are “troubling,” said Justin Ohlemiller of advocacy Stand for Children Indiana, an education advocacy group, especially when combined with the state’s low national reading scores.

“If we’re going to address the literacy crisis in our state, it’s going to take a significant change in approach from those who are responsible for training our educators of the future,” Ohlemiller said in a statement.

On a positive note, 12 programs offered some instruction on teaching reading to struggling readers, like students who have dyslexia, according to the report.

Marian University’s Klipsch Educators College was the only program in Indiana — and one of just 48 in the country — to earn an A+ rating in the report.

Meanwhile, the teacher prep programs at Indiana University Bloomington and Ball State University — one of the largest teacher prep programs in the country — pushed back on their F grades in NCTQ’s report.

Representatives of Ball State’s Teachers College said the report relied on incomplete course materials obtained through public records requests, a complaint that echoes critiques of previous NCTQ reports. The council countered that it provided an opportunity for colleges to provide additional material in January.

“We have always included the components and prepared our candidates in what is now termed the science of reading,” said Jackie Sydnor, associate professor and assistant chair for Ball State’s Department of Elementary Education.

Sydnor pointed to other indicators of the quality of Ball State’s program, such as its accreditation from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, as well as students’ higher-than-average pass rates on the state teaching exam.

Still, the college is using a $100,000 planning grant from the Lilly Endowment to conduct an analysis of its reading instruction programs, she said.

Indiana University Bloomington also received a $100,000 grant from Lilly to evaluate its existing programs for science of reading alignment, said Jeff Anderson, associate dean for undergraduate education. He said the school’s faculty believes they are teaching the science of reading, as evidenced by candidates’ performance on licensing exams.

“Our goal as a teacher prep program is to ensure our candidates graduate with the skill and expertise to be effective teachers,” Anderson said. “Clearly, the ability to learn to read is core to being successful in P-12.”

Under new state laws, the Indiana Department of Education is required to conduct a review of accredited teacher preparation programs beginning in 2024. Those who don’t have a curriculum based on the science of reading by then may be put on an improvement plan by the state, or face losing their accredited status.

How do teachers use the science of reading?

Even with a seal of approval from the NCTQ, Marian University’s Klipsch Educators College is looking to do more work with the science of reading. The college has received both a $75,000 planning grant and a $750,000 implementation grant from the Lilly Endowment to align their alternative teacher licensure and graduate programs to reading science.

The college intends to roll out Indiana’s first ever master’s program in reading science in May 2024.

Betz, the literacy professor, said a core part of the Klipsch program is the work that preservice teachers do in schools alongside their professors, who evaluate their lesson plans and step in to demonstrate effective teaching.

Higher education institutions have a responsibility to graduate teachers who are ready, rather than graduating those who will need to backtrack once they’re on the job, she said.

“That’s time lost,” Betz said.

In the same way that learning to read helps a child overcome future academic challenges, learning to teach reading effectively gives a new teacher the tools to shepherd students through their struggles, said Sally Busby, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Evansville’s School of Education. The school received an A rating from the NCTQ.

It’s using a $75,000 planning grant from the Lilly Endowment in part to create a council of literacy coaches from southern Indiana who can provide input on what’s needed in schools.

Of the competing approaches to reading instruction, Busby said teachers can find opportunities for students to enjoy books, while still devoting instructional time to decoding the language of the books they love.

“We were so desperate to make sure kids loved books, and thought the love of books would get them through the struggle of reading,” Busby said. “But you can’t enjoy reading until you can read.”

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the organization providing grants for science of reading. It is the Lilly Endowment Inc.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

CU Denver teacher prep program wins state approval after strengthening reading coursework

2023-06-15T23:00:38+00:00

The University of Colorado Denver won full state approval Thursday for three teacher preparation program tracks after addressing problems in how it trains aspiring educators to teach children to read.

The State Board of Education unanimously voted to reauthorize the elementary education, special education, and early childhood education programs nearly a year after granting only partial approval because of weaknesses in reading coursework.

State officials praised the university for improvements that ensure aspiring teachers understand and can apply key components of science-based reading instruction and don’t receive conflicting information about how to teach reading.

Thursday’s decision is the latest step in an ongoing state effort to hold Colorado’s teacher preparation programs accountable for properly training future educators how to teach reading. The state began cracking down on teacher prep programs — specifically their approach to reading instruction — in 2018 as part of a broader push by lawmakers, state education officials, and parents of children with dyslexia to get more students reading at grade level.

The state’s outgoing education commissioner Katy Anthes received praise for leading the push for more oversight of reading instruction in teacher prep programs.

“These educator preparation reauthorization items have you written all over them,” Colleen O’Neil, associate commissioner of educator talent at the Colorado Department of Education, said to Anthes during the meeting. “Because what you did was ensure every student knows how to read.”

Also on Thursday, the state board granted full approval to all majors in the teacher prep program at Colorado Christian University and an alternative prep program offered through East Central BOCES. Both programs were reauthorized on their first try.

The University of Colorado Denver is one of several teacher prep programs that revamped reading coursework in recent years following poor state reviews. The state’s two largest prep programs, the University of Northern Colorado and Metropolitan State University of Denver, also made changes.

The reading coursework overhauls seem to have paid off.

Earlier this week, a national organization gave Colorado major kudos for how its teacher prep programs cover reading instruction, ranking it No. 1 in the country. Just a few years ago, Colorado was in the middle of the pack.

In that report from the National Council on Teacher Quality, most of the state’s teacher prep programs earned an A or A+ for elementary education, including the University of Colorado Denver’s undergraduate program, Colorado Christian University’s undergraduate program, and the University of Northern Colorado’s undergraduate and graduate programs. The report didn’t analyze reading coursework in alternative teacher prep programs.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey’s teacher prep programs among the worst for literacy instruction, report says

2023-06-15T10:00:00+00:00

New Jersey is among the worst states in the nation at preparing future teachers to teach children how to read using an evidence-based reading approach, according to a report released Tuesday.

The National Council on Teacher Quality, known as NCTQ, evaluated nearly 700 teacher preparation programs across the country on how well they prepare aspiring elementary teachers to teach students to read using an approach known as the “science of reading.” That approach relies on five core components: phonemic awareness (which involves working with the individual sounds that make up words), phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

The group’s report said that in New Jersey, “no programs adequately teach all five components of reading.” It also said New Jersey is “the worst in the nation for the average number of components of reading its programs adequately address.”

The study analyzed 10 college and university programs in New Jersey that included undergraduate and graduate programs for aspiring elementary teachers. However, another 13 programs in the state did not respond or provide the requested materials to NCTQ for evaluation.

Some education experts have previously criticized NCTQ for relying on incomplete or faulty data, and for giving low marks to teacher preparation programs in states where student performance was relatively strong. NCTQ changed how it analyzes teacher preparation programs following its 2020 report on the programs.

The study comes as educators nationwide continue to debate over how children are taught to read and how much emphasis schools should place on explicitly teaching certain components, such as phonics. Supporters of the science of reading say the approach helps struggling readers who may need sound-it-out instruction, like phonics, and other direct support to build vocabulary.

Dozens of states have passed laws in recent years that require schools to incorporate the science of reading, but New Jersey has not, according to Education Week.

Experts say reading is a key component in the developmental process that starts at an early age and impacts a child’s likelihood to graduate high school, pursue college, and ultimately a career. This year, advocates in New Jersey have called on top education leaders to develop a plan to improve literacy in public schools across the state.

New Jersey’s school districts are responsible for creating curriculums using state standards. In a May committee report, the Newark Board of Education said it’s helping students learn to read by utilizing the science of reading foundations in phonics. The board is set to vote on a new K-3 phonics curriculum for the next school year, according to the report.

Only 19% of Newark’s third graders passed last year’s state reading assessment, the lowest of any grade in the city. Just 19% of third grade Hispanic students passed the assessment, and only 13% of third grade Black students did so. Roughly 92% of students in Newark identify as Black or Hispanic, according to district data from last year.

Last year, 38% of New Jersey’s fourth grade students scored at or above proficiency level in reading last year on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, compared to the national average of 32%. Eighth graders in New Jersey also outperformed the national average.

New Jersey teacher prep programs neglect phonemic awareness

For its report, NCTQ reviewed program materials such as syllabi and coursework overviews obtained through public records requests. The report reviewed each program’s five core components of science-based reading instruction.

The College of New Jersey, Georgian Court University, Montclair State University, Rowan University, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Rider University, and Stockton University participated in the study.

The NCTQ report gave Montclair State University’s program a C grade, the highest ranking in the state. The other nine programs analyzed across seven academic institutions all earned F grades in NCTQ’s report.

In New Jersey, the programs reviewed by NCTQ were most likely to cover comprehension and least likely to cover phonemic awareness, but none provided at least one practice opportunity for aspiring teachers in each of the five components of the science of reading, according to the study. Six taught multiple techniques or approaches contrary to the science of reading learning-based approach, six devoted some instruction to supporting struggling readers, and five provided instruction on supporting English language learners, the study found.

Over the last several years, New Jersey has overhauled its teacher preparation regulations to ensure aspiring teachers spend more classroom time as they work to become educators.

Ensuring teachers know the core components of reading and literacy is essential for student success, but so is recognizing the complexities and challenges aspiring educators will face in the classroom, said Dr. Margaret Freedson, an associate professor at the Department of Teaching and Learning at Montclair State University.

“Our ideal is that our students have enough of a grounding in these understandings of child development with respect to reading, and understanding of all of these contextual variables to create engaging literacy environments for students from diverse backgrounds and experiences,” Freedson said.

In the report, NCTQ recommends that New Jersey leaders incorporate “a specific evaluation of reading instruction in program renewal or reauthorization processes” for colleges and universities. It advises them to take action if programs are not aligned with the state’s standards for science-based reading instruction.

The group also recommends that the state require “a reading licensure test aligned with scientifically based reading instruction for any PK-5 teachers.”

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Many teacher prep programs include debunked methods to teach kids to read, new report finds

2023-06-13T23:20:00+00:00

Thousands of aspiring teachers are graduating from educator prep programs each year unprepared to teach children how to read, or worse, armed with debunked strategies that can actually make it harder for kids to become proficient readers.

That’s one of the most “sobering” findings of a new national report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit that uses data to evaluate teacher prep programs.

But there is some good news: Several states, like Colorado and Arizona, have made significant strides in recent years in how they train teachers to teach reading, following statewide efforts to boost early literacy.

“On the whole — when it comes to teaching teachers how to teach children to read aligned to the science of reading — I’m optimistic,” said Heather Peske, the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “And we have a lot of work to do.”

The report comes amid an ongoing national debate about how children best learn to read, and how much emphasis schools should place on explicitly teaching certain key components of literacy, such as phonics.

Dozens of states have passed laws in recent years, according to a tracker maintained by Education Week, that require schools to use materials in line with the long-standing body of evidence on how children learn to read, often called the “science of reading.” Many of these laws also aim to improve teacher training.

To conduct its analysis, the National Council on Teacher Quality looked at course syllabi and materials, such as lecture notes and textbooks, from nearly 700 teacher prep programs across the U.S. The sample is fairly large: Together, those programs produce around two-thirds of all elementary school teacher candidates annually.

Around 1,150 teacher prep programs met the criteria to be reviewed, based on the number of elementary teachers they graduated each year. But some 440 programs declined to provide materials, so they were not reviewed.

The organization also did not rate alternative teacher certification programs, which account for six of the 10 largest teacher prep programs in the nation, based on their number of graduates. The council wasn’t able to obtain materials from several of those programs, which tend to be shorter than traditional prep programs. A council spokesperson likened them to “a black box.”

“It begs the question of: To what extent are they aligning their preparation with the science of reading?” Peske said.

Some 260 programs earned an F grade from the council. Together, they produce upwards of 15,000 elementary teacher candidates a year, the council estimated. (Nationally, prep programs of all kinds graduated around 162,000 teacher candidates in spring 2021, the latest federal data shows, though that included teachers for all grades and subjects.)

Many programs fail to teach key literacy components

One major problem, according to the council’s report, is that around a quarter of the programs the council reviewed fail to adequately teach all five of the key components of literacy. Those are the skills researchers agree are crucial to how children learn to read: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

Among those skills, phonemic awareness gets the least attention. Four out of 5 programs failed to offer at least seven hours of instructional time on that skill, the bar the council set for adequate coverage. The finding was echoed in similar council evaluations in 2020 and 2016.

That matters because phonemic awareness — which involves working with the individual sounds in words, such as the C-A-T sounds in “cat” — prepares kids to develop phonics skills, which in turn helps them connect the sounds they hear to the letters on the page.

“Because of the interconnectivity of these components, a teacher who lacks an understanding of one will be less effective teaching the others,” the report warns, “and students who miss instruction on one component may struggle to become fully literate.”

Another big issue: Dozens of teacher prep programs are still teaching debunked methods, such as the three-cueing system, which encourages children to guess words they do not know by looking at a picture or the first letter of the word.

Nearly 100 programs were still using a popular curriculum developed by Lucy Calkins, of Columbia University’s Teachers College, which has been criticized by experts for failing to explicitly teach the key components of literacy. Calkins recently revised the curriculum to address those concerns.

Still other programs are teaching a mix of research-backed and non-research-based strategies.

“It reminds me a little of sedimentary rock,” Peske said. “Somehow there is a layer of debunked practices that’s embedded in the program that needs to be extracted.”

Some programs overhauled reading lessons to improve

Several states earned top marks from NCTQ after undertaking a major overhaul of their approach to reading instruction.

Colorado, for example, climbed to the top spot in the nation after a yearslong, statewide campaign that included banning discredited elementary reading curriculum and requiring teacher training that follows the science of reading. Three years ago, the state was in the middle of the pack.

Arizona jumped from near the bottom to the ninth spot over that same period, following similar efforts to improve reading instruction in that state.

Teacher prep programs have put in a lot of work to make that happen.

At Arizona State University, for example, which has one of the largest teacher prep programs in the country, faculty members put in hundreds of hours of work to create a new course that focuses solely on the five key components of literacy. It replaced another class that didn’t dive as deeply into those five skills.

The university’s graduate and undergraduate teacher prep programs earned As on the council’s report.

“This class has a lot of content in it that helps students when they get to the next course, which is more application of their knowledge,” said Carlyn Ludlow, an associate director at ASU’s program who was involved in revamping the courses. “We felt like it was incredibly foundational.”

Next year, the university also is changing an internship so teachers-in-training have a full semester to practice teaching reading in a school.

Some programs are getting outside support to overhaul their work on literacy instruction. Last year, the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment pledged $25 million to support phonics-based instruction for undergraduate teacher prep programs in Indiana’s colleges and universities.

The teacher prep program at Texas A&M University-Texarkana earned an A+ from the council after Carol Cordray, an assistant professor of education, tore up the university’s old approach to teaching reading and started over.

“It was a 100% revamp,” Cordray said. “I don’t know that anything is left of the courses as they were four years ago.”

One of the classes that got a full overhaul focuses on how to assess children in reading. Now teachers-in-training go through a series of case studies, learning how to gather data and make decisions about which interventions to use.

“I’ve had several of my students come back and just say: ‘I’m so grateful for all we learned in your courses because I was right ready to walk in and do what I needed to do,’” Cordray said. “That’s the very best thanks you can get: A prepared teacher.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado teacher prep programs ranked first in nation for reading instruction, report says

2023-06-13T04:01:18+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to keep up with education news from Denver and around the state.

Colorado is the top state in the nation for how its teacher preparation programs train aspiring educators to teach children to read, according to a new national report.

The report, released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality, praised Colorado for pushing teacher prep programs to improve reading coursework through stricter state oversight. It credited those efforts with moving Colorado from the middle of the pack in the council’s 2020 report to No. 1 in 2023.

Colorado’s top billing in the council’s report reflects the state’s yearslong campaign to get more students reading on grade level by banning discredited elementary reading curriculum and mandating teacher training aligned with research on how children learn to read. Those efforts sometimes spurred pushback from school district and teacher prep program leaders, but generally the state education department held its ground.

Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said Colorado’s progress in recent years demonstrates that teacher prep programs not only can change their practices, but can do so relatively quickly.

Nationally, there’s been improvement, but more is needed, she said. “Part of the problem is it’s pockets of progress rather than progress at scale.”

Of 15 Colorado teacher prep programs included in the report, about three-quarters received a grade of A or A+ compared with about a quarter of prep programs nationwide. Since this year’s report uses different methodology and takes a deeper dive into universities’ reading coursework than past reports, prep program grades aren’t comparable across years but state rankings are, Peske said.

Colorado is unusual in the clarity of its standards for reading coursework in teacher prep programs and its willingness to sanction programs that don’t meet those standards, she said. Over the last five years, the State Board of Education has ordered seven teacher prep programs to improve their reading coursework — withholding full state approval until they did.

The University of Northern Colorado, the state’s largest teacher prep program, was the first program to face that penalty in 2019. Two years later, it won full state approval, and now, the council’s report has awarded its undergraduate and graduate elementary education programs an A and A+ respectively. The university’s undergrad program was also the only one in Colorado to earn full credit for its approach to reading instruction for English learners.

Jared Stallones, dean of the University of Northern Colorado’s College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, said, “We really appreciate the reviews that NCTQ has done .... I think it reflects well on the work our faculty have done and revising our programs.”

He said the university decided to make changes to its reading courses after “some soul searching, and frankly, some critique back and forth between the Department of Education and our faculty.”

Faculty members created a literacy committee to standardize practices for reading instruction across the university, clustered state reading standards in a few key courses, and gave students a chance to practice applying those standards through a tutoring program offered in a local school district.

Emily Kahler, who will graduate this summer with a master’s degree in elementary education from the University of Northern Colorado, said she took two core classes that focused on the science of reading.

When she began substitute teaching in a kindergarten class this spring, she said, “I was able to jump right in and easily figure out where my students were using all the foundations that the program taught me.”

Mary Bivens, executive director of educator workforce development at the Colorado Department of Education, said state officials found when they began reviewing reading content in teacher prep programs that some faculty members didn’t have deep knowledge about the science of reading — a large body of research about how children learn to read.

“It just wasn’t there for many of our programs,” she said during a recent webinar put on by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Experts agree that learning to read includes five key components, including phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and reading comprehension.

In some cases, prep programs mixed science-aligned and debunked methods, which left students confused, Bivens said. State officials emphasized that science-based methods were “the way” to teach future teachers, not simply one option.

For the first time this year, the council’s report looked not just at whether prep programs teach scientifically-based approaches, but whether they include disproven methods, such as encouraging children to guess words based on pictures or other clues. Colorado’s prep programs had the second lowest use of such methods in the nation.

Bivens said when the state first started applying what she described as “gentle pressure” to teacher prep programs to change their reading coursework, some deans and professors resisted, citing academic freedom.

“The way we addressed it is, you don’t have the academic freedom if you want to be approved as a [teacher] licensure program in Colorado,” she said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Sara Martin is an intern with Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Sara at smartin@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado legislature delivers on school funding, math tutoring, free college despite drama

2023-05-12T12:00:00+00:00

Colorado’s K-12 schools got a major funding increase. Younger students should get more help with math learning, and older students should have more ways to get a free college education.

And long-standing areas of education policy debate — how to more fairly distribute money among schools and how to determine what makes a good school — will get the focused attention of dedicated task forces that could recommend changes to future lawmakers.

When the 2023 Colorado General Assembly concluded its work this week, education stood out as an area of relative consensus and modest progress, in sharp contrast to heated debates over gun control, crime, housing, and tax policy that saw progressives frustrated and conservatives alike disappointed and disillusioned.

Education had its contentious moments as well. Republicans argued that a bill to expand mental health assessments in schools risked trampling on parental rights. Legislators scaled back a bill to give far more protections to students facing expulsion. A bill to promote universal screening for dyslexia, a common learning disability, never even got a hearing.

But overall, advocates across the spectrum rated education a bright spot this session.

“It is pretty remarkable when you can peel away the drama of the session,” said Jen Walmer, Colorado state director of Democrats for Education Reform. “There were real wins for kids.”

State Rep. Don Wilson, a freshman Monument Republican, said that education issues felt less politically charged.

“We did have a bunch of party-line votes, but there was good discussion about them and I really appreciate that from my fellow committee members,” he said.

With so many bills convening task forces — there also will be groups working on transportation and student discipline — the 2023 session could tee up bigger debates ahead or see the status quo win out.

“We have all these opportunities to talk about where we want our education system to go,” said Brenda Dickhoner, president and CEO of the conservative education group Ready Colorado. “We have this moment where we could choose to do better for our kids, but I’m also worried we’ll keep doing the same things.”

Here are some of the big education issues lawmakers tackled during this year’s session.

School funding

Lawmakers approved a budget and school finance act for 2023-24 that raises per-pupil spending to $10,614, up by more than $1,000 from this year. Legislators also wrote into law a promise to fund education according to constitutional requirements starting in the 2024-25 budget year. That would mark the end of the 13-year practice known as the budget stabilization factor, under which lawmakers held back more than $10 billion from K-12 schools to pay for other budget priorities.

At the same time, a last-minute property tax relief measure contains provisions that Democrats say will shore up school funding over the long-term.

“We made huge progress this year,” said Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, a Commerce City Democrat. “Buying off the B.S. factor completely is within striking distance. I think we’re going to be able to do that next year.”

Moreno said Proposition HH also would allow the state to better fund higher education by relieving budget pressures to cover K-12.

The tax package came together in the final days of the session, and Republicans balked at what they described as an excuse to undermine the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. In the House, the entire GOP caucus walked out rather than vote on the measure.

House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, in cowboy hat, gives an impromtu press conference with other House Republicans on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol after walking out of the chamber in protest.

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican, said Democrats need to prioritize education first, rather than one priority among many, and that it will be easier to hold schools accountable for outcomes when they have more resources.

“When we have 60% of our third graders not being able to read at the third grade level, 70% or so of our eighth graders, not being able to do math at the eighth grade level, we need some accountability here, and we need to start to figuring out how we’re going to get our kids educated so that they can succeed,” she said.

Lawmakers raised special education funding to meet promises made in 2006, put aside money for capital construction grants in cash-strapped districts, and promised an extra $30 million just for rural districts.

Legislators also increased funding for state-authorized charter schools and promised to fund them next year at the same level as their district-authorized counterparts, which benefit from local revenue sharing.

Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of the Colorado Education Association, the state teachers union, said she hopes additional funding translates into higher teacher pay, smaller class sizes, and more mental health support for students.

Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie started the session with high hopes, including for big changes to school finance that didn’t materialize.

But lawmakers put off any major changes to the school funding formula — how the state distributes money to schools.

Some advocacy groups lamented that Colorado missed an opportunity to send more money to districts that serve more students in poverty, but Bret Miles, who leads the Colorado Association of School Executives, said the proposed changes were coming too fast and presented too many complications.

“It’s a big ship to turn,” Miles said. “It doesn’t turn on a dime.”

There’s always next year. The school finance act commissions a study to determine at what level Colorado should fund its schools and a task force to determine how that money should be distributed.

Walmer said she is optimistic the task force will be less political than a previous legislative committee. Miles said he also expects the state to be able to increase funding in future years — and a larger pie is always easier to divide in new ways.

School safety and student discipline

Lawmakers faced pressures this session to address gun violence and school safety after the horrific shooting in Uvalde and, closer to home, the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, which raised questions about the effectiveness of Colorado’s new “red flag” law.

Two shootings outside Denver’s East High School and another inside the school building that wounded two deans and ended with the death by suicide of a student highlighted the steady toll of community gun violence.

Students repeatedly walked out of East High and rallied at the Capitol for better gun control.

East High School students rally in support of gun control at the Colorado Capitol in March after student Luis Garcia was shot and killed just outside school.

Lawmakers banned ghost guns, raised the age to purchase firearms to 21, created a three-day waiting period before gun purchasers can take possession, and added educators to the list of people who can ask that someone’s guns be temporarily removed in response to a safety threat.

Lawmakers also created an Office of School Safety to bring various services under one roof and improve coordination and communication among state agencies and school districts.

Concerns about rising youth violence hampered efforts to reform school discipline, as some educators and administrators pointed to the shooting at East as an example of why traditional schools should exclude some students. Lawmakers also decided to continue to allow children as young as 10 to be arrested and prosecuted.

Nonetheless, lawmakers passed some protections for students facing expulsion. Under House Bill 1291, hearing officers would have to learn about trauma and disability and how those can affect student behavior, and school districts will have to adopt policies that consider alternatives to expulsion.

And Senate Bill 29 would convene a task force to make recommendations to reduce disproportionate discipline.

Colorado lawmakers also banned corporal punishment in schools. The practice did not seem to be widespread in the state, but lawmakers and advocates wanted to send a message that it’s never OK to hit a child.

Student mental health

Colorado would provide more funding and support for schools to implement universal mental health screening in schools under House Bill 1003. The goal is to identify problems and provide support early, before children are in crisis.

Colorado had a high youth suicide rate before the pandemic. In 2021, doctors at Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a youth mental health emergency, and educators consistently report mental health as a top concern for students.

Lawmakers also took steps to ease severe shortages of counselors, social workers, and other mental health professionals. Senate Bill 4 will expedite licensing to work in schools.

Math instruction

House Bill 1231 would invest more than $27 million in math learning, which saw particularly concerning declines in the wake of pandemic learning disruptions. Most of the money will go to teacher training and afterschool tutoring.

Teacher training programs will be asked to make sure teachers understand best practices and recent research in math instruction, preschool teachers will be asked to do more to build early foundations, and schools facing state intervention for low academic performance will have to show what steps they’re taking to improve math learning.

Schools will be encouraged to talk to parents more and make training available to them so they can better support students at home.

But the bill stops short of the widespread mandates that have characterized Colorado’s approach to improving reading instruction.

Some advocates said they would have liked Colorado to go further, but most said they hope a voluntary approach builds buy-in and puts resources toward teachers and schools eager to do better.

College access

Few issues brought lawmakers together this session like college access.

In a bipartisan rollout in March led by Gov. Jared Polis, lawmakers outlined proposals to expand free training to students for in-demand fields at the state’s community colleges and scholarships for graduates of the Class of 2024.

House Bill 1246 opens free college for students training in early childhood, education, law enforcement, firefighting, forestry, construction, and nursing.

The $45 million program targets careers with high social value but not necessarily high salaries.

Senate Bill 205 would spend $25 million for scholarships for up to $1,500 for students in the Class of 2024 who attend college, join an apprenticeship, or train in an in-demand job.

Democrats and Republicans agreed to allow universities to enroll more out-of-state students if the institutions provide more merit aid to Colorado students.

Nursing students, Jade Prophet, left, and Cami Gardetto, work at a nursing station simulation classroom at Colorado Northwestern Community College.

Senate Bill 96 primarily impacts the University of Colorado Boulder and the Colorado School of Mines, which enroll more out-of-state students. The state requires schools to enroll 55% of their students from Colorado. Schools get to count some of those students twice if they get certain institutional aid, allowing schools to enroll more out-of-state students. The bill already signed by the governor allows schools to now double count up to 15% of its students who get more institutional aid toward the in-state enrollment cap.

Lawmakers voted mostly in lockstep to increase options for adults who never finished high school, ensuring they have a path to continue their education or get better jobs.

Senate Bill 7 would triple state spending on adult education programs to $3 million a year and will add a digital literacy requirement. The bill also would allow colleges to award high school diplomas to adults.

Senate Bill 3 would create the state’s first high school for adults. The $5 million program will support students, including paying for courses, child care, and transportation.

Teacher shortages

Lawmakers passed three laws addressing teacher shortages.

Last school year, about 440 of the 5,700 open teaching positions went unfilled for the entire year. The number of positions that end up without a teacher has also grown.

The laws this year expanded on work in 2022, when lawmakers expanded loan forgiveness programs and made it easier for retired teachers to get back into the classroom.

House Bill 1001 broadens the state’s loan forgiveness program to include principals and special service providers to apply. The state also has a shortage of special service providers.

The bill also raises the income levels eligible for the $52 million program. The program provides up to $22,000 in stipends to student teachers and $5,000 in loan forgiveness to those who stick it out. Student teachers who work in other states in some circumstances now are allowed to apply to the program.

The state also created an apprenticeship program for teacher candidates. Senate Bill 87, which has been sent to the governor, would cost more than $120,000 a year and allow undergraduate education majors to work as student teachers or substitutes while they earn their bachelor’s degree.

Kira Badberg works as a student teacher at Lowry Elementary School in Denver in 2022.

House Bill 1064 will allow teachers licensed in another state to more easily obtain a Colorado license. The Interstate Mobility Compact will allow states to share disciplinary information and require background checks. The compact only goes into place if 10 states agree to join the compact. In January, seven other states were working to approve an agreement to join the compact.

Baca-Oehlert said Senate Bill 111, which provides some workplace protections for teachers, would also help with hiring and retention. Fear of retaliation and political interference is a major reason teachers consider leaving the profession, she said.

School accountability and testing

Groups along the education politics spectrum united to support House Bill 1241, which would create a task force to recommend changes to Colorado’s school accountability system.

The school accountability system rates schools largely based on test scores, and schools that report low performance for five years or more face state intervention. Education reform advocates believe the system is imperfect but provides critical insight into how schools are serving students and where improvement is needed. Many school administrators and educators see it as punitive and overly simplistic and say it pushes schools away from art, music, career, and other educational experiences.

Bills to scale back standardized testing failed. Facing opposition, the sponsors withdrew House Bill 1239, which would have ordered the state to seek federal waivers to testing requirements and encouraged more local experimentation in assessment.

In the final days of the session, a bill to eliminate the social studies standardized test given to fourth and seventh graders also died without a vote, despite seemingly widespread support. Advocates said the release of national test scores that showed concerning drops in students’ social studies and civics knowledge led lawmakers to hesitate to end the state’s own tests in those subjects.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

The Colorado General Assembly met from Jan. 9 and May 8, 2023, and now it’s done. Next year, there’ll be another one.

NYC forces elementary schools to use one of three reading programs in massive literacy push

2023-05-09T20:09:40+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

New York City’s elementary schools will be required to use one of three reading curriculums, a tectonic shift that education officials hope will improve literacy rates across the nation’s largest school system.

Beginning in September, elementary schools in 15 of the city’s 32 districts will be required to use one of three programs selected by the education department, Chancellor David Banks and Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday. By September 2024, all of the city’s roughly 700 elementary schools will be required to use one of the three. Chalkbeat first reported the plans in March.

The new mandate won support from the teachers union, whose leaders expressed faith in the city’s efforts to train thousands of teachers on new materials. Training for the first year is expected to cost $35 million, though city officials declined to provide an estimate of the effort’s overall price tag, including the cost of purchasing materials.

Meanwhile, the plan earned a strong rebuke from the union representing principals, who have long had wide latitude to choose which materials their teachers use. That freedom has allowed school leaders to use programs that vary widely in their approach and quality, Banks has argued.

The chancellor has frequently called for a more systematic approach, citing lagging reading scores. About half of the city’s students in grades 3-8 are not considered proficient readers based on state tests. The results are even more stark among certain subgroups: Fewer than 37% of Black and Latino reached that threshold and the numbers significantly are lower for students with disabilities and those still learning English.

“They aren’t reading because we’ve been giving our schools and our educators a flawed plan,” Banks said during the announcement at Brooklyn’s P.S. 156. He added: “It is really an indictment on the work that we do.”

Now, city officials will require one of three reading programs: Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds; Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; or EL Education. They charged superintendents of each district to select their schools’ curriculum. Thirteen of the initial 15 districts are planning to use Into Reading. Some schools are already using these curriculums, and city officials did not say how many will have to switch.

What curriculum is your school’s district planning to use?

Into Reading
Manhattan District 5
Bronx District 12
Brooklyn districts 14, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 32
Queens districts 25, 26, 29, 30
Select schools in District 75, a citywide district for students with more complex disabilities

EL Education
Bronx District 11

Wit & Wisdom
Brooklyn District 19

City officials said they selected the first 15 districts based in part on how many schools in each district were prepared to make a curriculum change. Notably, some of the city’s most affluent districts (Manhattan’s districts 2 and 3, and Brooklyn’s District 15) will be in the second phase of the rollout. Those districts include many schools that use balanced literacy approaches, including Lucy Calkins’ curriculum, so sweeping changes in those neighborhoods could spark more pushback from educators and school leaders.

All three curriculums have met quality expectations set by EdReports, an independent curriculum reviewer. And they also met the group’s standards for helping students build background knowledge by exposing them to more content in topics like science and social studies, something many experts say is an important ingredient for building reading comprehension skills.

But some of the curriculum materials have also faced criticism. A review from New York University found that Into Reading is not culturally responsive and “used language and tone that demeaned and dehumanized Black, Indigenous and characters of color, while encouraging empathy and connection with White characters.”

Asked about those findings, Deputy Chancellor Carolyne Quintana pointed to the education department’s own culturally responsive materials that can supplement the other reading programs “to better reflect the range of ethnicities and cultures that we have here in New York City.”

The new initiative builds on previous efforts to bolster literacy instruction, including a requirement that schools use city-approved phonics programs, which help students master the relationship between sounds and letters. Education officials have also launched programs to reach students with dyslexia, including a standalone school dedicated to students with reading challenges that will launch in the fall.

Adams, who has repeatedly pointed to his own struggle with dyslexia in school as a motivation for improving literacy instruction, acknowledged that the city’s efforts will take time to come to fruition, likely stretching beyond his administration.

“Is it going to be perfect? No,” the mayor said. “But dammit, we’re going to try.”

Retraining teachers in the shift from ‘balanced literacy’

City officials are pushing schools to move away from a framework known as “balanced literacy” which places a greater emphasis on exposing students to books of their choice to help them develop a love of reading rather than explicit instruction on foundational reading skills.

Balanced literacy was pushed into schools in 2003 under Chancellor Joel Klein and has enjoyed support from successive school chancellors.

But even as a growing chorus of experts have pointed to research showing the importance of teaching foundational reading skills, a balanced literacy program written by Lucy Calkins at Teachers College has remained in hundreds of elementary schools in recent years, an investigation by Chalkbeat and THE CITY found. (Calkins has revised her materials to include more of an emphasis on phonics.)

Many advocates felt relieved when Banks took the helm of city schools and issued a blunt assessment of balanced literacy and Calkins materials, arguing the approach “has not worked.” And literacy experts have widely cheered the city’s plans to mandate a smaller set of reading choices, effectively preventing schools from using balanced literacy programs like the one written by Calkins.

But a new curriculum alone is unlikely to dramatically improve student learning. Much of the plan will hinge on how effective the city’s training is and whether educators buy in to the changes. Meanwhile, curriculum shifts often take years to execute, and there is little time to train thousands of teachers who will be expected to transition to new materials beginning in September.

Education department officials are gearing up training efforts and will pay teachers extra this summer and during the school year to help them prepare, though it’s unclear how much training most teachers will receive before the rollout begins. They also noted each school will have access to more than three weeks worth of training and teachers will receive “job-embedded coaching.”

Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, said he’s seen the city’s training plans come into focus in recent weeks and lent his support, flanking Adams and Banks during the announcement.

“It’s all hands on deck — everybody has to work together,” Mulgrew said in an interview, though he noted that many of his members are “pessimistic” about being forced to adopt new materials. “It should have never been a school system where every school was left on their own to do whatever they want.”

Having fewer curriculums will make it easier to provide teacher training, proponents of the change argue, since superintendents can focus on supporting schools with one curriculum instead of a hodge-podge. And if students switch schools, particularly students who live in temporary housing, they’ll be much less likely to start from scratch with a new program.

“Right now professional learning is like random skills led by fly-by providers,” said Evan Stone, executive director of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group that has pushed for more standardized curriculums. “Now teachers can become true experts in a core set of tools.”

Principals union worries about buy-in from schools

Still, the changes have met resistance from the city’s principal union, whose members’ freedom to choose instructional materials will be curtailed. And some educators have also expressed frustration that they will no longer be able to use approaches that they believe are working for their students. Other veteran educators have seen education initiatives ebb over time and worry they’re being asked to make a change that will ultimately be scrapped in a few years.

Henry Rubio, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, issued a statement criticizing the department for its lack of outreach in developing its plan, saying that his union repeatedly asked why city officials did not engage parents, teachers, and principals on the shift.

With superintendents choosing their district’s curriculum without giving schools a chance to evaluate them, Rubio cast doubt on whether the move will “earn essential buy-in within their communities.” He also worried that the timeline was too short for many principals, who have been focused on end-of-year activities and planning for summer school.

“This is a massive overhaul of how we teach children to read, and the DOE has provided little detail on how thousands of educators will be adequately trained by September,” Rubio said. “Perhaps more importantly, why have half the districts been given well over a year to adequately prepare while the other half are forced to rush through this vital training?”

Education department officials said there may be some exemptions to the mandate, but emphasized that they will be limited in scope and only apply to a small number of schools.

Some teachers are hoping their schools will qualify for exemptions. At P.S. 236 in the Bronx, the school has been transitioning to Wit & Wisdom from Calkins’ balanced literacy curriculum called Units of Study. Teachers there have been learning how to implement the new lessons, which include more difficult texts and less independent reading time when students read books of their choosing.

And while the school is not in the first wave of those expected to change curriculums, they worry that they’ll be forced to start fresh with a new program depending on what their superintendent selects for their district, even though they’re already using one of the city’s approved programs.

“That would be a lot of work and a lot of wasted effort,” said Susan Mackle, a second grade teacher.

The city is also planning to require more standardized curriculums in other parts of the system. About 178 high schools will begin using a standardized algebra curriculum called Illustrative Math. And early childhood programs will be expected to use a program called The Creative Curriculum.

Amy Zimmer contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

How Wisconsin uses race and income to label students ‘high risk’

2023-04-27T12:00:00+00:00

This article was co-published with The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society. Sign up for The Markup’s newsletters.

Last summer, administrators at Bradford High School in Kenosha, Wisconsin, met as they do every year to plan for the incoming class of ninth graders. From a roster of hundreds of middle schoolers, Assistant Principal Matt Brown and his staff made a list of 30 to 40 students who they suspected might struggle the most to graduate.

Over the course of the summer break, Brown and his team went down the list and visited each child’s home. The staff brought T-shirts for the students, introduced themselves to parents, left behind their contact information and, they hoped, a positive first impression.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, we want to hook you up with some Bradford gear. You’re gonna be part of a Bradford family now,’” Brown said. “It’s kind of coming out from that standpoint of, ‘Hey, we’re here to support you,’ not necessarily, ‘Hey, your kid really messed up last year’ … because we don’t want parents to feel like you’re already labeling their kid as somebody that’s a troublemaker.”

But in most cases, the students on Bradford’s list for summer visits land there because of a label — “high risk”— assigned to them by a racially inequitable algorithm built by the state of Wisconsin, one that frequently raises false alarms.

Since 2012, Wisconsin school administrators like Brown have received their first impression of new students from the Dropout Early Warning System, an ensemble of machine learning algorithms that use historical data — such as students’ test scores, disciplinary records, free or reduced-price lunch status, and race — to predict how likely each sixth through ninth grader in the state is to graduate from high school on time.

Twice a year, schools receive a list of their enrolled students with DEWS’ color-coded prediction next to each name: green for low risk, yellow for moderate risk, or red for high risk of dropping out.

Education officials once held up DEWS as a key tool in their fight against the state’s graduation gap. While 94% of white students graduated on time last year, only 82% of Hispanic and 71% of Black students completed high school in four years. DEWS was intended to put personalized predictions in the hands of educators early enough that they could intervene before a child showed obvious signs of falling off track.

But after a decade of use and millions of predictions, The Markup has found that DEWS may be incorrectly and negatively influencing how educators perceive students, particularly students of color. And a forthcoming academic study from researchers based out of the University of California, Berkeley, who shared data and prepublication findings with The Markup, has concluded that DEWS has failed at its primary goal: improving graduation rates for the students it labels “high risk.”

An internal Department of Public Instruction equity analysis conducted in 2021 found that DEWS generated false alarms about Black and Hispanic students not graduating on time at a significantly greater rate than it did for their white classmates. The algorithm’s false alarm rate — how frequently a student it predicted wouldn’t graduate on time actually did graduate on time — was 42 percentage points higher for Black students than white students, according to a DPI presentation summarizing the analysis, which The Markup obtained through a public records request. The false alarm rate was 18 percentage points higher for Hispanic students than white students.

DPI has not told school officials who use DEWS about the findings nor does it appear to have altered the algorithms in the nearly two years since it concluded DEWS was unfair.

The DPI presentation summarizing the equity analysis we reviewed did not include the underlying false alarm rates for Black, Hispanic, and white students that DPI used to make its calculations. It also did not include results for students of other races. The department declined to answer questions about the analysis and, in response to a subsequent public records request, DPI said it had no documentation of the equity analysis results beyond the presentation. (A video of the presentation can be seen here.)

A separate DPI validation test of DEWS’ accuracy in March 2021 shows it was wrong nearly three-quarters of the time it predicted a student wouldn’t graduate on time.

Students we interviewed were surprised to learn DEWS existed and told The Markup they were concerned that an algorithm was using their race to predict their future and label them high risk. “It makes the students of color feel like they’re separated … like they automatically have less,” said Christopher Lyons, a Black student who graduated from Bradford High School in 2022.

Wisconsin DPI spokesperson Abigail Swetz declined to answer questions about DEWS but provided a brief emailed statement.

“Is DEWS racist?” Swetz wrote. “No, the data analysis isn’t racist. It’s math that reflects our systems. The reality is that we live in a white supremacist society, and the education system is systemically racist. That is why the DPI needs tools like DEWS and is why we are committed to educational equity.”

In response to our findings and further questions, Swetz wrote, “You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how this system works. We stand by our previous response.” She did not explain what that fundamental misunderstanding was.

To piece together how DEWS has affected the students it has judged, The Markup examined unpublished DPI research, analyzed 10 years of district-level DEWS data, interviewed students and school officials, and collected survey responses from 80 of the state’s more than 400 districts about their use of the predictions.

Our investigation shows that many Wisconsin districts use DEWS — 38% of those that responded to our survey — and that the algorithms’ technical failings have been compounded by a lack of training for educators.

DEWS is a voluntary program, and DPI encourages educators to use the predictions in combination with other local data about students to make decisions. The agency does not track whether or how schools use the predictions. Principals, superintendents, and other administrators told The Markup they received little or no explanation of how DEWS calculates its predictions or how to translate a label like “high risk” into the appropriate intervention.

In districts like Kenosha, students of color don’t need data to understand the consequences of being judged by biased systems. In 2020, the city grabbed national headlines following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. And earlier this year, the family of a 12-year-old Black student sued the Kenosha Unified School District after an off-duty police officer working security placed her in a chokehold in the lunchroom of her school.

In 2018, the year Lyons entered Bradford High School, a teacher there was filmed repeatedly using a racial slur in front of students. That year, DEWS labeled 43% of Black ninth graders in Kenosha high risk, compared to 11% of white ninth graders.

By that point, Lyons said he’d already lost motivation academically. “It kind of felt like we weren’t expected to do much,” he said. “It felt like they knew that we were just destined to fail.”

Then something unexpected happened his sophomore year: The COVID-19 pandemic hit, classes went virtual, and, as he put it, his grades “skyrocketed” from a 2.9 GPA pre-pandemic to a 3.8 GPA after the switch to remote learning. What for many students was a disorienting interruption to their education was for Lyons a reprieve that allowed him to focus. “I didn’t have that social pressure of, like, the teachers around me or the administration around me,” he said. “It was just me, the computer, whoever I was talking to.”

Last year, Lyons began his freshman year at Carthage College in Kenosha on a full-ride scholarship. His journey illustrates the quirks in personality, learning style, and environment that, some experts say, make it counterproductive to predict an individual student’s future based on a population-level analysis of statistically similar students.

Nonetheless, early warning systems that use machine learning to predict student outcomes are common in K-12 and higher education. At least eight state public education agencies provide algorithmic early warning systems or are currently building them for future use, according to a Markup survey of all 50 states. Four states did not respond. Montana was the only state besides Wisconsin that said it had examined how its early warning system performed across different racial groups. Montana Office of Public Instruction spokesperson Brian O’Leary said that his state’s equity study was not yet finished.

‘Is DEWS Fair? No ...’

At the beginning of and midway through each year, DEWS calculates how likely each incoming sixth- through ninth-grade student is to graduate from high school on time on a scale of 0 to 100. A score of 90 indicates that students with similar academic, behavioral, and demographic features have graduated on time 90% of the time in the past. Any student whose DEWS score (plus margin of error) is below 78.5 is labeled high risk of not graduating on time.

To make it easier for educators to understand the predictions, DPI translates DEWS scores into a simple, color-coded format. Next to every student’s name in the DEWS tab of the statewide information system is a label showing their score and a green “low,” yellow “moderate,” or red “high” risk designation.

During the 2020-21 academic year, more than 32,000 students — 15% of the state’s sixth through ninth graders — were labeled “high risk.”

Examples of how students’ DEWS predictions are displayed in the statewide information system.

Experts say the system is designed in ways that may inadvertently bias educators’ opinions of students and misdirect scarce school resources. Of particular concern is how heavily DEWS draws on factors like race, disability, and family wealth, which are likely to encode systemic discrimination and which neither the school nor student can change. Other data points fed into DEWS, like discipline rates, have clear racial disparities — DPI knows this and has written about it on its website.

“I wonder at the ways in which these risk categories push schools and districts to look at individuals instead of structural issues — saying this child needs these things, rather than the structural issues being the reason we’re seeing these risks,” said Tolani Britton, a professor of education at UC Berkeley, who co-wrote the forthcoming study on DEWS. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing that students receive additional resources, but at the same time, creating algorithms that associate your race or ethnicity with your ability to complete high school seems like a dangerous path to go down.”

When DEWS predicts that a student will graduate, it’s usually right — 97% of the time those students graduate in the standard four years, according to the 2021 validation test, which shows how the algorithms performed when tested on historical data. But when DEWS predicted a student wouldn’t, it was usually wrong — 74% of the time those students graduate on time, according to the same test.

This is partially by design. DPI calibrates DEWS to cast a wide net and over-identify students as being at risk of dropping out. In a 2015 paper describing DEWS in the Journal of Educational Data Mining, former DPI research analyst Jared Knowles wrote that DPI was “explicitly stating we are willing to accept” 25 false alarms that students won’t graduate if it means correctly identifying one dropout.

But in its equity analysis, DPI found the algorithms don’t generate false alarms equally.

A screenshot from a DPI presentation summarizing the results of the department’s DEWS equity analysis.

“IN LAYMAN’s TERMS: the model over-identifies white students among the on-time graduates while it over-identifies Black, Hispanic and other students of color among the non- on-time graduates,” a DPI research analyst wrote in notes for the presentation. The presentation does not specify what DEWS scores qualify as on-time graduation, for the purpose of the equity analysis.

The notes for the slide, titled “Is DEWS Fair?” end with the conclusion “no….”

“They definitely have been using a model that has systematic errors in terms of students’ race, and that’s really something that’s got to get fixed,” said Ryan Baker, a University of Pennsylvania education professor who studies early warning systems. “They had demographic factors as predictors and that’s going to overemphasize the meaning of those variables and cause this kind of effect.”

A decade of DEWS demystified

Recently, a team of researchers working primarily out of UC Berkeley — doctoral candidate Juan Perdomo, Britton, and algorithmic fairness experts Moritz Hardt and Rediet Abebe — have examined DEWS’ efficacy through a different lens.

Their research using nearly 10 years of DEWS data — which DPI voluntarily shared — is the largest ever analysis of how a predictive early warning system affects student outcomes. While previous studies have asked how accurately early warning systems perform when tested against historical data, the UC Berkeley study examines whether DEWS led to better graduation rates for actual students labeled high risk.

The researchers tested whether graduation rates improved for students whose DEWS scores were just below the 78.5 threshold to put them in the high risk category compared to students whose scores were just above that threshold, placing them in the moderate risk category. If the system worked as intended, students in the high risk category would see improved graduation rates because they received additional resources, but the study found that being placed in the high risk category had no statistically significant effect on whether students graduated on time.

“There is no evidence that DEWS predictions have in any way influenced the likelihood of on-time graduation,” the authors wrote.

If the system was working as intended and schools were directing more resources to students labeled high risk, the UC Berkeley study suggests, it would have a different but also inequitable impact. “If schools select students for intervention by ranking their [DEWS] scores and selecting those with the lowest predicted probability of graduation, underserved students would be systematically overlooked and de-prioritized,” the authors wrote.

That’s because DEWS’ predicted graduation rates don’t accurately reflect students’ true graduation rates. White students, in particular, graduate at much higher rates than their DEWS scores would suggest, according to data shared with The Markup by the UC Berkeley researchers.

For example, students of color who received DEWS scores of 83 went on to graduate on time 90% of the time. That’s the same as Wisconsin’s statewide average graduation rate last year. White students who received the same DEWS score of 83 went on to graduate on time 93% of the time, above the state average.

But crucially, white students who received significantly lower DEWS scores of 63 graduated on time at essentially the same rate as the higher-scoring white students: 92% of the time. But students of color who received DEWS scores of 68 graduated on time only 81% of the time, below the state average.

In other words, if educators followed DEWS’ advice and prioritized white students with scores of 63 for help over students of color with scores of 68, they would have prioritized students who ultimately graduate at above-average rates over students who ultimately graduate at below-average rates.

That particular quirk of the algorithm likely hasn’t exacerbated inequality in Wisconsin, the study concluded, because DEWS isn’t improving outcomes for anybody labeled high risk, regardless of race.

Advanced algorithms, ‘second-class school system’

From its earliest days, DPI promoted DEWS as a cost-effective tool to combat the state’s “unacceptable” graduation gap. But the early warning system wasn’t the agency’s first-choice solution.

As part of its biannual budget proposal in 2011, DPI, which was under the leadership of Tony Evers, who is now the state’s governor, requested $20 million for an “Every Child a Graduate’’ grant program that would send resources directly to struggling districts. That year, 91% of white students in the state graduated from high school on time compared to 64% of Black students.

But then-Gov. Scott Walker had a different plan for public education. He cut nearly $800 million, about 7%, in state funding for public schools from the two-year budget. That included the $20 million for “Every Child a Graduate,” of which Walker’s administration redirected $15 million to build a statewide student information system to house all pupil data in one place.

Denied its grant program but in possession of a wealth of new data, DPI looked for a high-tech solution to its graduation gap. In 2012, it began piloting DEWS.

At the time of its creation, DEWS was one of the most advanced predictive early warning systems in the country. Its accuracy was “on par with some of the most well regarded systems currently in use, but is done at a larger scale, across a more diverse set of school environments, [and] in earlier grades,” Knowles, the former DPI research analyst who built the system, wrote in the 2015 Journal of Educational Data Mining paper.

DPI quickly decided to expand its use of predictive analytics and in 2016 launched a sister algorithm, called the College and Career Readiness Early Warning System, which predicts whether students are “ready” or “not ready” for the ACT and college. In The Markup’s survey of Wisconsin school districts, seven out of 80 respondents said they use CCREWS in some capacity, compared with 30 districts that reported using DEWS.

In 2019, DPI piloted yet another algorithmic model based on DEWS that purported to predict which students would succeed in AP courses. Schools in 11 districts signed up for the pilot, but the project was abandoned after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to documents obtained through a public records request.

Over the past decade of the state’s experimentation with predictive algorithms, Wisconsin’s educational inequality has hardly improved.

The graduation gap between Black and white students has shrunk by only four points since 2011, from 27% to 23%. Meanwhile, the gulf between Black and white eighth graders’ reading scores in Wisconsin has been the worst of any state in the nation on every National Assessment of Educational Progress going back to 2011. It has also had the widest gap of any state between Black and white eighth graders’ math scores on every NAEP since 2009.

“The question I always ask when that data comes out is not just how bad are Black kids doing, [but] how is it that white kids are doing so well?” said Gloria Ladson-Billings, a national expert on education inequality and a retired University of Wisconsin–Madison professor. “It’s not like we don’t know how to get these kids through. The problem is they have to look like Division I athletes for us to care enough.”

Black and Hispanic students in Wisconsin told The Markup that they often feel part of a second-class school system.

Kennise Perry, a 21-year-old student at UW-Parkside, attended Milwaukee Public Schools, which are 49% Black before moving to the suburb of Waukesha, where the schools are only 6% Black. She said her childhood was difficult, her home life sometimes unstable, and her schools likely considered her a “high risk” student.

“I was the only Black kid in all of my classes. No other representation of anyone who looks like me, and my peers were extremely racist,” she said. “It was really traumatic.… I was just so angry and I didn’t know how to place my anger. I was miserable. So then, of course, the labels and stuff started. But I feel that the difference between people who make it and people who don’t are the people you have around you, like I had people who cared about me and gave me a second chance and stuff. [DEWS] listing these kids high risk and their statistics, you’re not even giving them a chance, you’re already labeling them.”

Waukesha’s school district did not respond to The Markup’s survey or request for comment. However, documents obtained through public records requests show that Waukesha North High School, which Perry attended, signed up to participate in the pilot for DPI’s algorithm designed to predict which students would succeed in AP classes.

Milwaukee Public Schools, the state’s largest district, does not use DEWS or any kind of machine learning for its early warning system, spokesperson Stephen Davis wrote in an email to The Markup. Like many districts and states, it instead uses a low-tech approach that identifies students as on or off track based on whether they’ve hit certain benchmarks, such as being absent for a predefined number of days.

Last year, students at Cudahy High School created its first Black Student Union in response to racist incidents they felt the school’s administration wasn’t properly addressing.

Mia Townsend and Maurice Newton started Cudahy High School’s first Black Student Union.

“You know that [white students] already have a leg up,” said Mia Townsend, a junior and vice president of Cudahy’s Black Student Union. “You already feel that separation.… They have more opportunities and they have more leeway when it comes to certain things.”

Students in the BSU have organically provided the same kind of supportive interventions for each other that the state hoped to achieve through its predictive algorithms.

During the 2020-21 school year, 18 percent of white students in Wisconsin took AP exams compared to 5% of Black students. Townsend, an honor roll student, said she was on path to avoid AP courses until fellow junior Maurice Newton, the BSU’s president, urged her to accept the challenge. She asked to join an AP English class next year.

“They make it seem like it’s more challenging and it’s honestly the same,” Newton said. “You can pass the class with a good grade.”

In response to The Markup’s questions about DEWS, Cudahy district Superintendent Tina Owen-Moore shared an email thread in which staff members expressed that they hadn’t known about and didn’t currently use the predictions but that counselors were “excited about this resource.” After reviewing our findings, however, Owen-Moore wrote, “That certainly changes my perspective!!”

“They just handed us the data and said, ‘figure it out.’”

Many districts who responded to The Markup’s survey said they use DEWS predictions similarly to the way Brown and the staff at Bradford High School in Kenosha do — to identify which new students in their buildings may require additional attention.

In the city of Appleton’s school district, high school case managers use DEWS and other data to identify incoming first-year students in need of support and to determine special education caseloads, for example. Relying “heavily” on DEWS data, Winneconne School District sends letters to parents informing them their child may be at risk, although those letters don’t reference the algorithm.

But some schools have found other, off-label uses for the data. For example, Sara Croney, the superintendent of Maple School District, told The Markup that her staff has used DEWS’ “perceived unbiased data” to successfully apply for a staff development grant focused on reaching unengaged students. In the city of Racine, middle schools once used DEWS to select which students would be placed in a special “Violence Free Zone” program, which included sending disruptive students to a separate classroom.

The Racine School District is “not currently utilizing DEWS or CCREWS,” spokesperson Stacy Tapp wrote in an email.

Many administrators The Markup interviewed said they had received little or no training on how DEWS calculates its predictions or how to interpret them.

“They just handed us the data and said, ‘Figure it out,’” said Croney. “So our principals will analyze it and decide who are the kids in the at-risk area.”

DPI provides documentation about how DEWS works and its intended uses on its website, but much of the public-facing material leaves out a key fact about the system: that its predictions are based in part on students’ race, gender, family wealth, and other factors that schools have no control over.

For example, the department’s DEWS Action Guide makes no mention that student race, gender, or free or reduced-price lunch status are key input variables for the algorithms.

DPI’s webpage describing the data used to generate DEWS predictions lists four distinct categories of information: attendance, disciplinary record, number of districts attended in the prior year (mobility), and state test scores. It states that “demographic attributes are used,” but not which ones or how they influence the predictions.

Similarly, when educators view students’ DEWS predictions in the statewide information system, they can examine how students’ attendance, disciplinary record, mobility, and test scores affect the overall risk label, but they are not shown how students’ demographic features affect the prediction.

Shari Johnson, director of curriculum and instruction for the Richland School District, said her schools were starting to create action plans and assign staff mentors to “high risk” students with the goal of getting them out of that category, especially those at “most risk” because she said it wouldn’t be possible to mentor everyone.

However, when she spoke to The Markup, she didn’t know that characteristics such as a disability or being economically disadvantaged affected a student’s score.

“Whose responsibility is it that we know about these things? That’s my concern in this position, for me to only have found out by chance,” Johnson said. “What I do is directly correlated to DEWS and the information that’s there, and that’s scary to me.”

The disconnect between how DEWS works and how educators understand it to work isn’t news to DPI.

In 2016, researchers with the Midwest Regional Education Laboratory wrote a report for DPI that was never published, based on a survey of middle school principals’ experiences with DEWS. The report, which The Markup obtained through public records requests, concluded that respondents “desired more training and support on how to identify and monitor interventions” and that “time, money, and training on DEWS” were the top impediments to using the system.

Bradford High School Principal Brian Geiger said he remembers hearing about DEWS around the time of its launch, back when he was an assistant principal at another Kenosha school, and has used it for various purposes, including summer home visits, ever since. Now Brown, his assistant principal at Bradford, has picked up the practice. Even knowing there are flaws with DEWS, Brown said the predictions are the best data he has for incoming students.

“It’s not a 100% predictor. My perception on this is that we kind of use it as a guide,” he said, adding, “I wish we could go visit every single house of all 1,400 kids [enrolled at Bradford High School]. We don’t have a summer school budget to do that.”

Correction: A previous version of the map in this article incorrectly included Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Michigan. The states use early warning systems, but they do not use algorithms or machine learning to predict student outcomes.

Tennessee school employees could skip implicit-bias training under bill headed to governor’s desk

2023-04-22T01:00:16+00:00

A bill allowing Tennessee school and university employees to opt out of implicit-bias training is headed to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk.

The measure easily passed Friday in the Republican-controlled Senate and House over the objections of Democrats who argued that the policy is the wrong direction in a state where students of color make up about 40% of Tennessee’s public school population, while the vast majority of the state’s teachers are white.

The legislation is the latest example of the legislature’s efforts to stifle or silence conversations about diversity in education.

In 2021, Tennessee became one of the nation’s first to enact a law limiting how race and gender can be discussed in the classroom, including conversations about systemic racism. Last year, the legislature passed another law that could lead to a statewide ban of certain school library books, some of which deal with matters of race and gender.

Implicit-bias training is designed to increase self-awareness around subconscious prejudices and stereotypes that may affect how individuals see and treat people of another race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background.

A significant amount of research in education says that implicit biases may contribute to racial disparities, such as differences in student achievement, learning opportunities, and school discipline between Black and white students. But it’s less clear whether training about implicit bias actually changes behaviors.

In Tennessee, it has been up to local school districts, charter schools, and public universities to determine whether to offer or require implicit-bias training for their employees.

Sen. Todd Gardenhire said his bill doesn’t ban schools from offering the training or employees from participating. It just protects school employees from disciplinary action or firing if they choose to opt out.

“You want to have that course, have it all day long, but don’t make me do it,” said the Chattanooga Republican.

But Democrats worried that those who opt out might be the ones most in need of self-reflection, based on research that says, for instance, that teachers are more likely to discipline Black children than white children for the same conduct, or give boys higher grades in math than girls.

“This is simply to give our educators another tool to make sure that all students are treated with equity and dignity and respect,” said Rep. Justin Jones, a Nashville Democrat.

Gardenhire and the bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Jason Zachary of Knoxville, charged that some trainings in Tennessee have crossed the line beyond building self-awareness into ideologically driven presentations that are themselves rooted in biases.

“All of this depends on a developer or a designer that designs the course. But who checks the checker?” Gardenhire asked.

In House debate, Rep. Sam McKenzie, a Knoxville Democrat who voted against the bill, suggested that instead of the state letting employees opt out, trainers and their courses should be screened to ensure they represent best practices in implicit-bias training.

And in the Senate, Sen. Jeff Yarbro said the purpose of implicit-bias training isn’t to make people feel bad about themselves but to educate people who work with students to avoid stereotypes.

“The data is 100% clear that implicit bias is a real thing that has real effects in classrooms across the country,” said the Nashville Democrat, “and certainly Tennessee is no exception.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee lawmakers advance bill to let teachers carry firearms without notifying parents

2023-04-05T23:06:20+00:00

Legislation to let some teachers carry firearms in Tennessee public schools advanced Wednesday in the House as state lawmakers and citizens clashed over the best way to protect students after last week’s deadly school shooting in Nashville.

The proposal would let a teacher or staff member carry a concealed handgun at school after completing 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, as well as passing a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

The 12-6 vote in the Education Administration Committee came with one member present but not voting: Republican Rep. Kirk Haston, who works for Perry County Schools.

It would be up to the local district whether to let teachers go armed under the legislation sponsored by Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville and Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta, both Republicans.

Williams said the principal and district director would be notified who in their schools are authorized to carry, as would their local law enforcement agencies. But the school’s parents and students would not be notified under his legislation, which runs counter to the GOP’s emphasis on parental rights and notification in other areas of education such as curriculum and library materials.

The development in Tennessee comes more than a week after an armed intruder shot and killed three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members at The Covenant School, a private Christian school with about 200 students in Nashville’s Green Hills community. As gun violence at schools has spiked over the last few years, educators nationwide have grappled with how to address acute safety concerns without militarizing their campuses or ignoring the rights of students, their parents, and educators.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 29 states allow individuals other than police or security officers to carry guns on school grounds.

Most Tennessee parents say school-based gun violence is one of their top concerns, but significantly fewer agree that schools are safer when teachers are armed, according to the latest poll conducted by the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy.

Williams told the committee that his bill is permissive.

“If your district and your local law enforcement agency does not want to participate, they simply do not have to do that,” he said. “But if you’re from a small rural district where resources are limited and you don’t have the ability to provide [school resource officers] for your community or an SRO at all, this would give you an opportunity to find a different pathway.”

Even if the Tennessee bill clears the full House, it’s not likely to pass in the Senate this year.

Bucking gun control advocates who have called for an urgent response to the tragedy, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to defer all gun-related legislation — including the companion bill to let teachers go armed — until 2024, the second year of the legislature’s two-year session. Chairman Todd Gardenhire, a Republican from Chattanooga, said he didn’t want to rush legislation as the city mourned the victims and police continued their investigation.

Emotions have been running high about the issue, including at the state Capitol.

Williams’ House bill would apply to public schools but not schools such as Covenant, which is a ministry of the Presbyterian church that sits on the same campus. Staff at Tennessee private schools already have the option to let some staff go armed if their administrators approve.

During Wednesday’s debate, people spoke passionately for and against the policy proposal. Here’s a sampling of what we heard:

“If more guns in more places made us safer, we’d be the safest state on the planet, and we’re not.” — Jason Sparks, Nashville parent, representing Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which opposes the bill

“The greatest benefit, I believe, in this bill is it allows our local [districts] to put a sign outside the front of their schools that says there may be someone in this facility that carries a concealed weapon. … Deterrents are the greatest asset we have.” — Rep. Ryan Williams, R-Cookeville, the House bill’s sponsor

“It’s terrifying to know that I could go to school and not know who has a firearm.” — Keernan Reed, student, Hillwood High School in Nashville

“If you think that we’re going to have an SRO in every one of our schools tomorrow, you’re fooling yourself. … Folks, that’s four to five years away that your children will be at risk.” — Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, who voted for the bill

“This approach may harm the very ones that we say that we are trying to protect — harm that comes when someone overpowers a teacher, takes their gun, or a young teacher is mistaken for an active shooter by a law enforcement officer, a teacher losing their cool with a student and aiming a gun as a threat or worse.” — Krista Westerfelt, mother of three children, who opposes the bill

“I’ve checked with one of my school superintendents in my district, and he’s for this bill.” — Rep. Todd Warner, R-Chapel Hill, who voted for the legislation

“As I looked at the [police] body camera footage [from the Covenant School shooting], these men were extremely nimble, tactical, and they took that building systematically and left no stone unturned. This is not easy work in terms of the training and preparation.” — Rep. Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville, who voted against the bill

“According to Giffords Law Center, armed adults frequently mishandle guns in schools. Their study shows that there have been nearly 100 publicly reported incidents of mishandled guns in schools over the last five years, including a case where a teacher unintentionally fired a gun in class during a safety demonstration, and a loaded gun falling out of a teacher’s waistband while on the playground.” — The Education Trust in Tennessee, in an April 5 letter to House Education Committee members asking them to oppose the bill

You can track the bill on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent who covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago staffs fewer National Board certified teachers as it pushes to grow their ranks

2023-04-03T18:12:54+00:00

In the thick of the pandemic, Molly Beth Jourdan, a science teacher at Kenwood Academy High School on Chicago’s South Side, started an arduous two-year quest for the “gold standard” in her profession: certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

She spent hundreds of extra hours reviewing footage of her own teaching, reflecting on ways she could improve, and parsing data on how her students were doing. The work paid off for her 10th graders, she said. By February this year, they had covered three more months of chemistry than she used to teach in a typical year.

Jourdan was one of a class of 49 newly National Board certified teachers recently feted by district and teachers union leaders, who noted research linking the certification program to better learning outcomes for students.

But a Chalkbeat analysis found the overall number of board-certified teachers has decreased steadily, even as the number of educators Chicago Public Schools employs has grown. About 1,000 of the district’s more than 22,000 educators are board-certified, down almost 30% since 2016.

Last school year, about 170 of the district’s 500-some campuses did not employ any certified teachers, up from roughly 120 in 2016 — most of them schools serving predominantly Black students.

The reasons for that decrease are not entirely clear, but likely involve a tangle of factors, officials say. Those include a shift years ago to a lengthier certification process that briefly dampened certifications, COVID’s disruption more recently and some certified teachers leaving their posts — both for leadership roles in the district and for jobs in other districts.

Still, district and teachers union leaders say a longstanding partnership on board certification remains strong — and they share a goal of cultivating more certified educators in the coming years. The district said in a statement it plans to step up outreach to teachers to promote board certification, especially among teachers of color and other underrepresented groups.

“That should be our goal — to lead the nation,” said school board president Miguel del Valle during the March board meeting, “and I think we can get there.”

He added, “I can’t think of a better way to spend our dollars than to help teachers develop to the point where they are the gold standard.”

Tamara Poulson, a spokeswoman for the National Board, said Chicago came in fifth nationally based on the number of new certifications. The Chicago Teachers Union says the district is third for overall certified teachers, data the board said it does not publicize.

Poulson said the start of the pandemic disrupted the certification process. But nationally, the overall number of board-certified teachers has continued to grow to more than 133,000 by latest count, and the number of new certifications has rebounded, with a record pool of 2023 candidates.

Some studies have shown that the students of board-certified teachers learn more than their peers in other classrooms on average. One mid-2010s National Board-funded study by CNA, a nonprofit research organization based in the Washington D.C. area, looked at outcomes for students in Chicago Public Schools and rural districts in Kentucky and found board-certified educators made a difference for students across subjects and types of schools.

But Dan Goldhaber, the director of the Center for Education Data & Research at the University of Washington, who has studied board certification, said the evidence is not conclusive on whether board certification itself actually builds better teachers. There is strong evidence, however, that the process is powerful at identifying and empowering the most talented educators.

Number of board-certified teachers in Chicago shrinks

Amid a push in the 2010s to evaluate and pay teachers based on performance, a growing number of districts and states offered board-certified teachers pay incentives. Those incentives, along with the growing research on the program and student outcomes, powered steep increases in newly certified teachers. That enthusiasm has cooled off somewhat, Goldhaber said, and some states have done away with compensation incentives.

Not Chicago, where certified educators in the district get a $2,295 annual stipend. In keeping with the union contract, the district pays $750,000 a year to support the Chicago Teachers Union’s “Nurturing Teacher Leadership” program that helps educators attain certification and covers all their expenses.

Proposed legislation in Illinois would give retention bonuses of $4,000 per year for two years to board-certified teachers working in hard-to-staff schools.

In keeping with the national trend, Chicago’s board-certified teacher ranks had swelled rapidly earlier in the 2010s, but the rise has slowed more recently. Few new teachers got certified in the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years amid changes that made the process lengthier. Except for a dip in 2019, 50-some teachers a year have gotten certified in recent years.

Meanwhile, ensuring schools with the highest student needs have board-certified teachers on staff has remained a challenge.

Majority Black schools made up about 65% of campuses with no board-certified teachers on staff last year. Among schools that do employ at least one certified teacher, the student-to-board-certified-teacher ratio is highest in schools that serve predominantly Latino students and lowest in the relatively small number of schools where white students are the largest racial group.

Not surprisingly, the district’s selective enrollment high schools topped the list of campuses with the largest clusters of board-certified teachers, leading with Whitney Young with 25 such teachers. But Curie Metropolitan High, a high-poverty campus on the Southwest Side, came in fifth with 18 board-certified educators, outranking some test-in schools. Back of the Yards High School, also on the Southwest Side, has also cultivated a growing cluster in recent years. Among elementary schools, Ogden, Coonley, and Peirce — all on the North Side — have the most certified teachers.

Lynn Cherkasky-Davis, who leads the CTU’s certification program, said some board-certified teachers have been promoted to assistant principal, principal, and central office positions — and that’s a good thing: “They are still supporting our teachers and our students.”

Some likely have left the district; COVID brought an uptick in educator resignations and retirements after years of steep decreases in teacher departures from the district. To keep more of these educators, she said, the district should consider upping incentives for certified teachers.

Cherkasky-Davis noted that over the years, the CTU’s program has come to work with fewer certification candidates but it also better ensures that they are prepared for the enormous time and effort involved. As a result, 94% of district teachers who attempt certification succeed, compared to a national average of 70%. That probably means that fewer Chicago teachers ultimately get certified — but also fewer attempt the process unsuccessfully.

Educators praise board certification for helping them improve

At a celebration during the March school board meeting, district and union officials recognized the 49 newly certified educators, 45% of whom are of color. Another 103 teachers, counselors, and librarians recently renewed their certification.

The event brought a rare moment of mutual appreciation between district and teachers union leaders. CTU president Stacy Davis Gates called the certification efforts “a great demonstration of collaboration and cooperation,” noting the program is special to her because the late union president Karen Lewis was a board-certified teacher.

Sharon Coleman, a counselor at Wendell Smith Elementary on the South Side, became one of 18 district counselors, or 2% of all counselors in Chicago Public Schools, to get board certified. She said the certification process taught her how to better track and crunch data on her students. That helped her realize they needed more guidance in choosing high schools to apply to, so she created a selection chart to help them figure out what campuses were the best fit. Certification also propelled her into school and district leadership roles.

“I wanted to improve the well-being of students in my school community,” she told the school board, noting she was also eager to help increase the number of board-certified counselors of color.

Israel Perez, the principal at Yates Elementary on the Northwest Side, said the process of becoming board-certified a decade ago was the most helpful professional development he ever got. Certification cleared the way for him to make the transition from classroom teacher to school leader.

He renewed his certification this school year, spending weeks teaching fifth-grade math — an experience that helped him reconnect to the classroom and better understand the needs of students and teachers in his building.

Perez said he is forming a group of teachers at Yates to pursue board certification together — and has asked the district to offer the board certification stipend to principals as well.

Cherkasky-Davis told the board roughly 15% of the new class of certified teachers work with students with disabilities, and about 17% are STEM educators. All in all, almost 40% of all certified teachers in the district now are educators of color.

She is pleased with the numbers, she said, but “there’s still work to be done.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado School of Mines wins state OK to prepare math and science teachers

2023-03-08T21:22:36+00:00

The Colorado School of Mines, a public science and engineering university in Golden, could soon mint math, science, and computer science teachers.

On Wednesday, the State Board of Education unanimously approved the university’s plan to offer teacher preparation in four areas: secondary science, secondary math, middle school math, and K-12 computer science.

The creation of a teacher preparation program at the highly regarded engineering school has been years in the making and could help beef up Colorado’s teacher pipeline in chronic shortage areas. The new program will also give the university’s 7,400 students more professional options.

“Our surveys find that almost half of Mines students have an interest in teaching,” said Wendy Adams, director of the Teach@Mines program. “Not all of those people, of course, are going to pursue it, but they’re interested and so we just need to give them that option.”

She said when the program ramps up, she expects it to produce 20 to 30 teachers a year, mostly in science and computer science. Students will be able to complete the required education coursework and earn a state teaching license as part of a bachelor’s or master’s degree program.

The School of Mines teacher prep program comes at a tenuous time for the education workforce.

Nationwide, the pool of prospective teachers has been shrinking for over a decade as enrollment in teacher preparation programs has declined. Plus, teacher turnover rose in several states after years of pandemic-related stresses, according to a recent Chalkbeat analysis.

“The way we see it we really have a responsibility to the state to offer teacher licensure because there’s 7,000 students at Mines, some of the best STEM students in the state, and to not provide them a pathway to become a teacher is basically removing them from the pipeline,” Adams said.

The university’s journey toward teacher preparation began in 2015. That’s when it partnered with the Greeley-based University of Northern Colorado, which runs the state’s largest teacher preparation program, to provide a route for Mines students who wanted to teach.

Students would complete science and math coursework at the School of Mines and take most teaching classes online through the University of Northern Colorado. Twenty-two students completed the program and earned teaching licenses before the program ended last year.

Adams said the partnership was good, but tricky.

“There were just so many different competing things from an administrative perspective that it didn’t function as well as it could have,” she said.

School of Mines leaders decided to bring the teacher preparation program in-house a few years ago. The university began offering education courses in 2019 and now offers the full menu of options. The State Board vote on Wednesday means that Mines is now a state-approved teacher preparation program and that those who complete it are eligible for teaching licenses in Colorado.

Adams said about 85 Mines students are enrolled in one or more education classes at the university, with about half of those seriously interested in becoming teachers.

She said she knows of Mines students who’ve done computer science or engineering internships but haven’t found the work satisfying.

One student, she said, worried that his computer science specialty would most likely lend itself to a job in the weapons industry.

“He doesn’t want to do that,” she said. “He wants to help people and help students so he’s going to be a teacher.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Pritzker proposes $70 million program to hire and retain teachers amid Illinois teacher shortage

2023-03-03T20:36:30+00:00

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has proposed a three-year, $70 million pilot program in the state’s 2024 budget that would help school districts hire and retain educators amid the state’s ongoing teacher shortage.

Pritzker’s plan, called The Teacher Pipeline Grant Program, identifies 170 school districts across the state with the most vacancies; these districts account for 80% of unfilled teacher positions in Illinois. Pritzker estimates that 870,000 public school students would see an improved teacher-to-student ratio in the future under the initiative.

“Parents and children deserve schools that are fully staffed with quality educators,” Pritzker said at a press conference to announce the new grant program on Friday morning.

Pritzker said districts can create their own plans for how funding from the initiative should be used to attract new teachers. Schools could use the funding for sign-up bonuses, housing stipends, tuition assistance, professional development, and other approaches to address the teacher shortage in their districts, he said.

Pritzker said he hopes the program will attract teachers from abroad and surrounding states to join the teacher workforce in Illinois.

Some school districts have also used federal emergency coronavirus relief funds for programs to attract more teachers, since the COVID-19 pandemic heightened staff shortages in schools.

In January, the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools released a survey showing that the teacher shortage has worsened. A majority of school leaders from 690 districts said that the shortage is as bad or worse than last school year and applicants who apply aren’t qualified for open positions.

School districts across the state struggle to fill openings for special education, bilingual education, STEM courses, and support positions. The survey found that districts in towns and rural areas in east-central and west-central Illinois had more vacancies.

State Superintendent Tony Sanders applauded Pritzker for creating a plan to support teacher hiring.

“The experience of teaching is incredible,” Sanders said. “It is not teaching itself that’s causing the teacher shortage but the systemic inequalities present in our most under-resourced districts.”

The State Board of Education last year created a $4 million grant to support teachers who wanted to get a bilingual educator endorsement. The state has also expanded the Minority Teacher Illinois Scholarship, which is aimed at increasing the number of teachers of color and bilingual educators, to $4.2 million. Under Pritzker’s recent budget plan, he proposed another increase to the scholarship to a total of $7 million.

The general assembly will have to approve Pritzker’s new initiative in the 2024 budget at the end of the current legislative session.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that the grant program would target 170 schools rather than 170 school districts.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee looks to ‘Mississippi miracle’ as it grapples with stagnant reading scores

2023-03-01T17:29:52+00:00

Tennessee, which once counted on Mississippi’s worst-in-the-nation reading scores to elevate its own national ranking for literacy, is now looking to its neighbor to the south as a role model for how to improve.

In a turnaround dubbed the “Mississippi miracle,” the state saw its fourth-grade reading scores on a national test rise dramatically between 2013 and 2019, even for historically marginalized groups like Black and Hispanic students. Mississippi also maintained its reading gains in 2022, while scores in most other states declined after the pandemic caused unprecedented disruptions to schooling.

Now under several 2021 laws, Tennessee is employing many of the same tactics that Mississippi did under its 2013 law. Among them: prioritizing reading improvements and investments in grades K-3, training teachers on the “science of reading,” including an emphasis on phonics, and — most controversial of all — requiring third graders to pass a state reading test to get promoted to the fourth grade.

Carey Wright, Mississippi’s education chief from 2013 to 2022, praised Tennessee during testimony Wednesday before state lawmakers in Nashville who are considering whether to make changes to Tennessee’s policies for holding third graders back.

“You are really to be commended for the comprehensive nature in which you’ve approached this topic,” she said, noting that Tennessee has even required its teacher training programs to change how they teach reading instruction, which Mississippi did not.

Wright cited a recent Boston University study finding that Mississippi third-graders who were retained under that state’s law went on to achieve substantially higher scores in English language arts by the sixth grade. The study also found that retention had no impact on other outcomes such as attendance or identification for special education.

But national research about retention is mixed. Critics argue that there are more risks than benefits — from negative social and emotional effects to a disproportionate impact on student groups who are already marginalized, such as those who come from low-income families, are of color, or have disabilities.

Why Tennessee zeroed in on third grade

Literacy is foundational to all subsequent learning, and third grade is considered a critical marker. As the old saying goes: You learn to read up until the third grade, and after that, you read to learn.

But for years, reading scores have been mostly stagnant in Tennessee, with only about a third of the state’s third graders showing proficiency based on state tests.

In 2011, lawmakers passed a retention law to try to address the problem, but the statute was largely unenforced, with few third graders being held back by local school leaders.

“So here we are 12 years later having the same discussion,” said Rep. Mark White, who chairs the House Education Administration Committee and helped pass the state’s new reading and retention policies.

“I personally am grateful that we passed a retention law … because now we have everybody’s attention,” the Memphis Republican said to kick off Wednesday’s hearing.

House leaders have compiled a list of 14 bills that aim to revise or tweak the law. They range from gutting the retention provision altogether to giving local districts more authority to determine which students should be held back. Gov. Bill Lee pressed for the 2021 law and wants to stay the course.

To avoid retention, the law says third graders whose scores on state tests show they are “approaching” proficiency must attend a summer camp and demonstrate “adequate growth” on a test administered at the camp’s end, or they must participate in a tutoring program in the fourth grade. Students who score “below” proficiency must participate in both intervention programs.

Third graders are exempt from retention if they were held back in a previous grade; have or may have a disability that affects reading; are English language learners with less than two years of English instruction; or retest as proficient before the beginning of fourth grade.

Parents also can appeal a retention decision if their child performed at the 40th percentile on a different test that allows for comparisons with national benchmarks, or if the child experienced an event that reasonably impacted the child’s performance on the TCAP test. The appeal can be based on other criteria such as results from locally administered screening tests required by the state.

Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn has shepherded Gov. Bill Lee’s reading improvement plan including Reading 360, an array of programs to train teachers on reading instruction, provide more resources and mentoring networks to school districts, and support families to help their children read better.

Pushback against retention is widespread

While Tennessee’s tutoring and summer learning programs are popular, many parents and educators dislike the part of the law that makes results of the state’s standardized TCAP test for English language arts the only criterion to determine whether third-graders can progress to the fourth grade. Numerous school boards also have passed resolutions urging the legislature to revisit the new retention policy.

On Wednesday, several district superintendents echoed that call.

“I respectfully ask that you allow districts to use multiple data points when making the monumental decision to retain a student, which can have serious long-term consequences,” said Gary Lilly, director of Collierville Schools in Shelby County.

Beyond the state’s test, school districts generally give students multiple assessments that are specifically designed to gauge reading progress. All of those results could be considered, Lilly said, along with other factors such as a student’s overall achievement, attendance record, and emotional and social maturity.

Lilly noted that Tennessee also has among the nation’s highest thresholds for measuring proficiency. The state began working to raise them when a 2007 U.S. Chamber of Commerce report gave Tennessee an “F” for truth in advertising, because its standards were so low that most students were deemed proficient.

But Lilly suggested that Tennessee may want to rethink those high thresholds.

“I am not advocating to decrease the rigor of our standards,” he said. “What I am saying is that the TCAP test should not be viewed as the definitive authority to target students for retention.”

Another concern is the state’s one-year timeline for implementing the new retention policy at scale, affecting third graders who score either “approaching” proficiency or “below basic.” Some district leaders have argued that starting just with the students who score “below basic,” which is Tennessee’s lowest-performing category, would be a more targeted and logistically feasible approach.

Jeanne Barker, director of Lenoir City Schools, said her district won’t receive TCAP results until after the school year ends, leaving little time for students to take the test over or for families to decide about attending summer learning camps or appealing retention decisions to the state education department.

Penny Schwinn, Tennessee’s education commissioner, acknowledged the “tight timeline” but testified that no parent should be surprised by the end of the school year if their child is identified as having a reading deficiency.

“Parents should be receiving notification that their child may be at risk for needing additional supports two times before we even get into testing season,” said Schwinn, adding that preliminary TCAP results will become available the week of May 19.

Advocates look beyond third grade

Policy conversations that began with third grade reading continue to gravitate toward earlier grades.

Wright said Mississippi’s playbook emphasized the importance of literacy instruction and interventions for struggling readers as early as possible.

“My goal was that, by the time third grade came around, there shouldn’t even be an issue around third grade,” she said. “We should have captured those kids a long time ago and made sure that they were getting the interventions and the help that they needed.”

Tennessee education advocates shared similar sentiments.

Nancy Dishner, president and CEO of the Niswonger Foundation supporting students and educators in East Tennessee, said her biggest concern about Tennessee’s current initiative is that “we’re not doing it early enough.”

“We have to move back,” Dishner said. “Birth is when we need to start helping our kids, not when they enter elementary school.”

Amy Doren, a 35-year educator and former coordinator of early childhood programs at Kingsport City Schools, agreed.

“Children’s brains develop 90% to capacity by age 5. So why would we not seek to make an impact in those early years?” Doren asked. “That’s where we want our children to learn to be problem-solvers and critical thinkers, so that when they get to the third grade, they’ll be ready to handle it.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated on March 1, 2023, to add that parents can appeal a retention decision based on the results of locally administered, state-required screening tests; and to clarify that the one-year timeline for implementing the third-grade retention policy “at scale” refers to potentially holding back students in two scoring categories, versus starting just with the lowest-performing category.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

CU Boulder gets kudos for reading courses, but state reviewers raise alarm about a speech professor

2023-02-09T20:51:06+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Subscribe to our free Colorado newsletter to keep up with education news from around the state: ckbe.at/subscribe-colorado

Colorado’s flagship public university won kudos Wednesday for its approach to training teachers on reading instruction, but in an unusual twist didn’t receive full state approval for one program because of allegations that a professor mistreated students.

The University of Colorado Boulder earned full state approval from the Colorado Board of Education for 11 programs in its teacher preparation program, but not school speech-language pathology, which is housed elsewhere in the university. That’s because two students in that program shared a “number of examples of alleged objectionable, confrontational, and unethical behavior by a particular professor” while they were talking with state reviewers who visited campus last fall, according to the state’s report.

The state board awarded the speech-language program only partial approval Wednesday. State reviewers will return to the university next October to determine if the university has done enough to address “negative behavior by faculty” and provide support for students.

Over the past four years, several prominent universities have received only partial state approval for some majors in their teacher prep programs because of problems with reading coursework. They include the University of Northern Colorado, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, and University of Colorado Denver.

But the University of Colorado Boulder received good reviews in that area. State officials reported that current students showed a clear understanding of evidence-based reading instruction and that all coursework is aligned with the science of reading — a large body of research about how children learn to read.

The otherwise positive evaluation was marred only by concerns about the professor’s behavior.

The state’s report didn’t identify the professor or describe any specific incidents of mistreatment, but did mention some faculty members shared stories about the professor similar to what the two students described. That information “appeared to illustrate a pattern of negative behavior over time,” the report said.

In a December letter to the Colorado Department of Higher Education, university Provost Russell L. Moore detailed the university’s response to the allegations, saying that after state reviewers raised alarm about the issue, it was immediately reported to the university’s Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance, which began an investigation.

Moore wrote that the professor received a formal letter describing the allegations on Nov. 13 and that the university would likely make a final decision on the matter within 60 days of the letter being issued. A university spokesman on Thursday couldn’t immediately say whether the university had made its decision.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Teacher apprenticeships among solutions lawmakers consider for educator shortages

2023-02-09T02:00:08+00:00

A teacher apprenticeship program, stipends and loan forgiveness for student teachers, and the ability for out-of-state teachers to more easily qualify to work in Colorado.

Those are the ideas Colorado lawmakers have proposed this year to address staffing shortages across the state. So far, each proposal has received favorable support from Colorado legislators.

Every year, legislators put forward new programs and tweak old ones in an effort to get more teachers into the classroom and fix a problem that has plagued districts nationwide. Last year Colorado created a new loan forgiveness program and made it easier for retired teachers to get back into the classroom.

On Tuesday, Senate Bill 87 became the latest proposal to move forward in the General Assembly. The bill would create an alternative pathway to help those earning a bachelor’s degree in a subject they plan to teach — such as math, science, or a world language — get the necessary teaching license. It has widespread support from school districts, teachers unions, universities, and other organizations.

The bill cleared the Senate Education Committee on a unanimous vote. It’s sponsored by state Reps. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, and Don Wilson, a Monument Republican, as well as state Sens. Mark Baisley, a Woodland Park Republican, and Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat.

The apprenticeship program would add a fourth option for the state to license a teacher and would be overseen by the Colorado Department of Education. The program would cost the state a little more than $100,000 a year, according to a legislative analysis.

Apprentices would learn on the job for up to four years while they earn their bachelor’s with the ability to extend the timeline by two years.

Apprentices would be allowed to work as a student teacher or substitute and need to take regular competency tests. They then would need to prove their knowledge as a teacher either through a test or a body of work.

Marchman said about 40% of Colorado districts are reporting a teacher shortage and schools need to fill more than 7,000 positions annually. The state’s teacher preparation programs, however, produce only about 3,200 teachers a year, she said.

“We are experiencing a massive teacher shortage,” she said.

Meaghan Sullivan, CareerWise Colorado executive director, said the program would create quality teacher candidates rather than lowering the standard to fill positions. It also would give rural districts the flexibility to develop teachers to meet local needs.

Sullivan said the bill helps coaches, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, or classroom aides who want to become teachers work and learn without having to leave their community.

“That’s really where we see the potential,” she said.

The other two bills have been working their way through the House and Senate.

House Bill 1064, which received initial approval in the House on Wednesday, would create an agreement between Colorado and nine other states to make it easier for teachers to transfer from state to state. A teacher could more easily obtain a teacher’s license in Colorado if they hold one from another member state.

The Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact, as it is called, would also allow states to share disciplinary information and would allow for background checks before teachers could qualify to work in Colorado. The bill is expected to especially help active-duty military and military spouses who need to relocate.

The bill is sponsored by Marchman and Democratic state Reps. Meghan Luken, of Steamboat Springs, and Mary Young, of Greeley.

House Bill 1001 would give student teachers more financial support in the form of stipends and loan forgiveness. The bill has cleared the House and still needs Senate approval.

The bill would raise the income threshold for teachers in training to apply to a $52 million statewide grant program that was started last year. The program provides up to $22,000 in stipends to student teachers and $5,000 in loan forgiveness to those who stick it out. The bill would also allow principals and special service providers to apply and permit student teachers to work in other states in some circumstances.

Along with the three bills, Gov. Jared Polis also has proposed $70 million to provide free training and scholarships to students who want to qualify for in-demand jobs such as teaching, firefighting, and law enforcement. The program aims to ease the way to those jobs, especially those offering lower pay.

Whitmer wants to extend help for future educators, but drops teacher retention bonus plan

2023-02-06T13:00:00+00:00

During her reelection campaign, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised to prioritize teacher recruitment and retention, but the budget she will unveil on Wednesday includes just $100 million for it — a small fraction of what she proposed last year.

Her proposal last February called for spending $1.5 billion on teacher retention bonuses over four years. Republicans wouldn’t support that. This year, Whitmer’s own party is in charge of the Legislature, but the bonuses are no longer a budget priority.

Instead, Whitmer’s education agenda is focused on tutoring and preschool. During her State of the State address last month, Whitmer said she would work to provide free preschool for all 4-year-olds and to provide one-on-one tutoring for all students who need it.

How much she intends to invest in those initiatives will become clear Wednesday during a budget presentation to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

Those measures are part of the school aid budget that Whitmer will present along with a broader general fund budget proposal to invest in everything from agriculture to workforce development.

The governor’s office provided an early peek at her plan to continue the MI Future Educator incentive program, which was created in last year’s budget to help attract teachers. It provides $50 million in stipends for student teachers and $25 million in scholarships for education majors. Her new budget proposal would maintain those spending levels and add $25 million to “ensure sustainability of the program,” spokesman Bobby Leddy said.

“This is everything on recruitment and retention” in the budget, Leddy added in a text message Sunday. He did not provide details on how the additional money would be spent.

“In the best of years, education is a tough job, but the last few years have been historically challenging,” Whitmer said Sunday in a written statement. “Let’s build on our work last year to establish education fellowships, pay student teachers, boost teacher recruitment, and create more paths to the profession so every classroom has a caring, qualified educator.”

MI Future Educator provides up to $9,600 per semester for student teachers and up to $10,000 per year in tuition for Michigan residents who are enrolled in eligible educator preparation programs and working toward their first certification.

Education advocates including Launch Michigan, which first proposed the MI Future Educator program, are glad Whitmer wants it to continue.

“It clearly indicates that the governor recognizes that the solution to (the teacher shortage) is of a long-term nature,” said Adam Zemke, who was president of Launch Michigan when the program was conceived. “These are recruitment strategies that work.”

The Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals supports the initiatives, too.

“We have a massive educator shortage in the state of Michigan, and we need to address that shortage,” said spokesman Bob Kefgen. “Helping people become teachers will certainly help.”

Leddy did not respond to questions about why retention bonuses aren’t part of Whitmer’s new budget.

Others say that the moment for them may have passed. Last year at this time, COVID cases were spiking, and teachers were struggling to manage student behavior as students readjusted to in-person learning.

When Whitmer proposed the $1.5 billion in bonuses last year, “that felt like a one-time thing,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents school administrators in six counties. “It’s not sustainable, to be honest.”

And, McCann said, bonuses aren’t the only way to support teachers.

“What we should be doing to keep teachers invested in staying in school starts with investing in classrooms,” he said. That means “putting more money into reading coaches, social workers, and things that help teachers to do their jobs and be successful in the classroom. That’s what’s critical in retaining teachers.”

The budget request comes as the state considers what to do with a projected $9 billion budget surplus. Whitmer and fellow Democrats want to use some of that to distribute inflation-relief checks to all taxpayers.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado would expand financial aid, loan forgiveness for student teachers

2023-01-27T01:57:51+00:00

Colorado on Thursday moved toward expanding financial aid for university students studying to become teachers. A bill to broaden a $52 million program received unanimous support Thursday in the House Education Committee.

The legislation is a top priority for Democratic lawmakers seeking to attract more Coloradans to the teaching field and to alleviate growing teacher shortages. The bill must win approval on the House floor before moving to the Senate.

The legislature last year approved the current program, funded with federal pandemic relief dollars. The program gives student teachers access to up to $22,000 in stipends and $5,000 in loan forgiveness if they stick it out as teachers. The goal is to clear financial barriers for prospective teachers who worry about low pay and college loan debt.

House Bill 1001 would raise the income threshold for teachers in training to apply. It would open up the aid to student teachers from families with moderate incomes — those earning up to 300% of the level set for Pell Grants, the federal aid program for students from low-income families. The bill also would permit student teachers to work in other states in some circumstances.

The bill would offer loan forgiveness to principals and special service providers as well as classroom teachers and school counselors. It also would remove a requirement that applicants teach in a rural school or in certain subject areas in a high-poverty school.

State Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat co-sponsoring the bill, said the program has shown that it can attract more people to the teaching profession and increase the diversity of educators.

“This bill has made an enormous difference in student teachers’ lives, which corresponds to getting more highly qualified and licensed teachers into the classroom, so that our kids can have the best experience,” she said.

State Rep. Barbara McLachlan, a Durango Democrat, and state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat, are also sponsoring the bill.

The proposal did receive some scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who asked if the bill could be expanded to educators at charter schools. While the committee did not add that provision, the bill still garnered Republican support.

Expanding program eligibility would help prospective students like Lauren Levey, a University of Colorado Boulder student. Levey, 19, who shared her experience with lawmakers, said she’s seen many students decide not to go into the teaching profession because they’re worried about the cost of certification tests and relatively low pay.

She said she works three jobs to save money and realize her dream of becoming a teacher. Many students have reported fear of having to pay back a large college loan debt.

“I’ve seen people drop out of college completely because it becomes too much of a stressor and starts affecting people’s mental health and other aspects of their lives,” she said. “It’s a lot of pressure.”

She said expanding eligibility for financial help will keep even more students on track to becoming a teacher.

“I do think it’s for sure going to sway people back into the profession,” Levey said.

Teach For America to cut a quarter of staff in latest shakeup

2023-01-20T23:12:36+00:00

Teach For America, once a centerpiece of the nation’s impassioned education reform debates, will cut more than a quarter of its staff by June.

The organization will reduce its staff by roughly 400 positions, according to a video shared with staff in mid-December. Officials this week acknowledged the internal shakeup, which comes after TFA’s 2022 cohort was its smallest crop of first-year teachers in more than a decade.

The organization projects its incoming cohort will be larger, and says it will focus more attention on supporting its alumni and on other programs, like a virtual tutoring fellowship. But the layoffs are a sign that the organization is on uncertain footing, occurring while TFA no longer places new recruits in 13 of the 51 communities it served a few years ago — like San Diego, where the organization now focuses on “alumni innovation.”

“We have to transform — all of us do,” CEO Elisa Villanueva Beard told Chalkbeat. “It’s hard, but we have to position ourselves to have the greatest impact for our kids. Period. End of sentence.”

Spokesperson Erin Bradley said the organization would have a “smaller and more agile team of about 1,000 staff by summer.”

The need for teachers is especially high, as schools across the nation continue to recover from the sweeping effects of the pandemic, and demand for TFA’s services hasn’t faded. But drivers of that demand have also appeared to disrupt TFA’s recruitment efforts in recent years, said Melissa Arnold Lyon, an assistant professor at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy.

“Right at the moment where districts are facing considerable staffing challenges in a very tight labor market, you might think a recruitment and training organization that helps districts fill hard-to-fill spots would be particularly useful,” she said. “But instead of TFA coming in and helping districts with these staffing challenges, TFA is shrinking.”

The reorganization will allow the company to lean more heavily into being a “full talent partner to our districts and schools,” Beard said, connecting alumni with jobs.

Teach for America has garnered staunch supporters and fierce critics since its founding in 1989. Its opponents say its structure — a relatively short training program paired with a two-year commitment — is inadequate. By relying on its recruits’ ambition and idealism instead of preparation, TFA contributes to high-needs students experiencing a revolving door of educators, critics say.

Its allies have lauded it as an innovative program that supplies school districts that struggle to fill roles with teachers, many of whom might not have considered becoming an educator otherwise. A number of studies have shown its teachers make a positive academic impact, though researchers have also pointed to high turnover rates.

The organization has diversified over the last decade, and says about half of its educators placed since 2014 are people of color.

It has also shrunk from its recent peak in the wake of the Great Recession, when a weak job market pushed TFA applications up. In 2013, the organization received roughly 57,000 applications and placed nearly 6,000 new recruits in schools.

Over time, that figure has steadily dropped. By 2022, new corps members had fallen to less than a third of that number.

TFA is not alone in finding it difficult to recruit. Traditional teacher preparation programs are also seeing numbers fall, and there is growing evidence that interest in becoming a teacher in the U.S. has diminished. Meanwhile, the pandemic has further complicated recruitment efforts.

But this year, the organization has seen some positive signs in recruitment.

This week, TFA’s president and chief operating officer Jemina Bernard told staff the organization had “a real shot of having about 2,000 incoming 2023 corps members this year” — a 25% increase from the number of teachers it ended up placing in 2022. Applications are also up 30% this year, Beard said.

The organization also pointed to its Ignite Fellowship, a virtual program pairing undergraduate tutors with schools, as another example of growing recruitment momentum. That program saw a 100% increase in its second year, sending 1,500 new undergraduate tutors into 74 schools, Bradley said.

And TFA is still attracting interest from major philanthropists like MacKenzie Scott, who recently donated $25 million, and Oprah Winfrey, who donated $1 million.

But public audits and financial reports show some signs that TFA has faced financial difficulties. In the last fiscal year, the nonprofit reported more than $274 million in operating expenses but only about $197 million in revenue. Its endowment and investments have also dropped steeply in value in recent years, which Beard attributed to being sensitive to the stock market.

TFA asserted it remains “a financially strong and healthy organization,” pointing to its endowment balance of roughly $200 million and an additional more than $200 million in cash and operating reserves.

In addressing staff this week, Bernard acknowledged that the organization would need to ensure “that what we spend and what we raise are completely aligned” in the coming fiscal year.

The recent layoffs are not the first time the organization has eliminated positions. In the 2021 fiscal year, TFA spent about $4.4 million on severance payments and related expenses as a result of a “strategic reorganization,” according to its most recent fiscal audit. Layoffs also occurred in 2016.

To Jack Schneider, a professor of education at University of Massachusetts Lowell, TFA’s meteoric rise — and its outsized role in debates about how to improve schools — came in part thanks to it embodying reform philosophies of the 1990s and 2000s. But as education politics change, and as schools seek to help students recover from the pandemic, debates about staffing feel beside the point, he said.

“Right now, the fight is between people who want to totally privatize education … and people who are fighting for the existence of public education,” Schneider said. “TFA in that context feels like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Now, some districts that once relied heavily on TFA have turned to other means of recruiting teachers.

One rural county in eastern North Carolina, for example, leaned on TFA recruits to make up about 20% of its teaching staff in 2015, according to a New York Times report. Today, Warren County Schools Superintendent Keith Sutton isn’t sure they have a single member still in the district. He’d welcome more, but has been told they aren’t available.

“If I can get a few years out of a recruit, I’m happy to get it,” he said. “It’s much more difficult for me to recruit high-quality candidates to a small rural community that doesn’t have the lights and the glitz and the glamor that a Raleigh, or a Durham, or a Charlotte does.”

Three TFA teachers left at the end of the last school year, but the district hasn’t been able to replace them, Sutton said. The district has partnered with historically Black colleges and universities and other universities, as well as other teacher training and international teaching programs, to diversify its recruitment efforts, he added.

“I don’t think we would ever find ourselves in the place we were before, where we were that reliant on TFA,” Sutton said. “But I would like to see it be more of an option for us.”

Correction: This story was updated to remove a reference to TFA’s Austin region.

Patrick Wall contributed reporting.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering national issues. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Bill would curb ‘implicit bias’ training in Tennessee schools, universities

2023-01-12T23:16:20+00:00

Tennessee public schools and universities would not be allowed to require employees to take “implicit bias” training under legislation filed this week by two state lawmakers.

The legislation also would apply to employees of Tennessee’s education department and state Board of Education.

Currently, it’s up to local school districts, charter schools, and the state to set personnel policies that may or may not include implicit bias training for their employees. Such training is designed to increase self-awareness around subconscious prejudices and stereotypes that may affect how individuals see and treat people of another race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background.

A significant amount of research in education says that such biases may contribute to racial disparities, such as differences in student achievement, learning opportunities, and school discipline between Black and white students. But it’s less clear whether training about implicit bias actually changes behaviors.

The Tennessee bill comes about two years after the state became one of the nation’s first to enact a law limiting how race and gender can be discussed in the classroom, including conversations about systemic racism. Last year, the GOP-controlled legislature passed another law that could lead to a statewide ban of certain school library books, some of which deal with matters of race and gender.

State Sen. Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga, who is co-sponsoring the bill with fellow Republican Rep. Jason Zachary of Knoxville, said the measure is needed to protect school employees from policies that could lead to disciplinary action or firing. He cited the case of a Texas nurse who said she was fired by a hospital last year for refusing to take a mandatory course that she said was “grounded in the idea that I’m racist because I’m white.”

Sen. Todd Gardenhire is a Republican from Chattanooga.

“It’s about having to admit to something that you’re not,” Gardenhire told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

Gardenhire, who is white, noted that his legislation would prohibit “adverse licensure and employment actions” in schools or education-related agencies if an employee refuses to participate in such training.

Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat who is Black, called the proposal “a step in the wrong direction.”

She cast the legislation as a continuation of politically motivated national conversations that seek to pit people against each other instead of fostering policies that promote understanding, respect, and reconciliation among people of different races and backgrounds.

“That is a bill that I think is damaging to children,” Akbari said. “At the end of the day, we want to make sure that they have the safest, most equitable and fairest opportunity when they go to school.”

Implicit bias can hurt people of certain races and backgrounds in their interactions with numerous institutions — from law enforcement and criminal justice to health care and education.

In Tennessee, students of color make up about 40% of the state’s public school population, while teachers of color make up about 13% of its educators.

Mark Chin, a Vanderbilt University assistant professor who studies racial bias in education, said his research published in 2020 suggests a need to address bias in the classroom.

Using national data, he and his colleagues found larger disparities in test achievement and suspension rates between Black and white youth in counties where teachers hold stronger pro-white/anti-Black biases.

But implicit bias training is not enough to significantly change outcomes, Chin said.

“A single session where people are told of implicit biases is less impactful than sustained, embedded conversations around implicit bias,” he said.

It’s unclear whether or how many school districts or charter schools across Tennessee have policies that require employees to participate in implicit bias training.

Elizabeth Tullos, a spokeswoman for the State Board of Education, said Tennessee does not require such training within its agencies. However, staff members for the board, which sets rules and policies around education, go through the state’s required annual training on workplace discrimination, she said.

Brian Blackley, a spokesman for the state education department, said his agency doesn’t require its employees to participate in implicit bias training either and has not taken a position on the legislation.

The bill defines implicit bias training as any program that presumes an individual is “unconsciously, subconsciously, or unintentionally” predisposed to “be unfairly prejudiced in favor of or against a thing, person, or group to adjust the individual’s patterns of thinking in order to eliminate the individual’s unconscious bias or prejudice.”

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Seven issues we’re watching in the 2023 Colorado legislative session

2022-12-21T23:24:34+00:00

How to fund Colorado schools in ways that reflect student needs. How to open college opportunities to more students. How to narrow pandemic learning gaps, especially in math.

When Colorado lawmakers convene Jan. 9, they’ll have pressing education issues to address, competing needs to balance, and a tricky budget to navigate.

Expect bills that seek to address youth mental health, school safety, and teacher shortages. Lawmakers could find bipartisan agreement on efforts to improve math instruction and better connect higher education and job opportunities. But debates over rewriting the school finance formula and overhauling the school accountability system could divide Democrats.

For a fifth session, Democrats will control both chambers and the governor’s office. They grew their majorities in November’s election. The Colorado General Assembly will be full of new members, many from the progressive wing of the party, potentially introducing new political dynamics.

At the same time, lawmakers with a long history of engagement on education issues have moved into leadership positions. Members of a special committee on school finance, for example, now lead the House Democrats, the Senate Republicans, and the powerful Joint Budget Committee. The House Education Committee has at least four former teachers, a former school board member, and members with experience in mental health and higher education administration.

Colorado economists expect the state to have more money in its 2023-24 budget, but inflation will play an outsize role controlling spending. And the risk of a recession could diminish revenue. Questions of short-term uncertainty and long-term sustainability will affect K-12 and higher education.

Here are seven issues we’ll be watching in the 2023 legislative session:

Colorado could get a new school funding formula — or not

Is this the year? The interim committee on school finance has been trying for five years to rewrite a decades-old school finance formula that nearly everyone agrees is unfair.

In November, the bipartisan committee voted unanimously to begin reworking the formula to better account for student needs and educational changes like fifth-year high school students taking college classes.

The chair of the school finance committee, state Rep. Julie McCluskie, is also the incoming speaker of the House and has the power to marshal support for a new approach. But rewriting the school finance formula will be politically challenging.

The current formula sometimes sends more money to well-off districts than to ones serving more students in poverty, and no school district wants to get less than they get now. Bret Miles, head of the Colorado Association of School Executives, said his members would object to a formula rewrite that “takes from one school district to give it to another.”

State Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, chair of the Joint Budget Committee, said one of her priorities will be developing a “hold-harmless” provision for the new formula. Fewer students and higher local property tax revenues take some pressure off state education funding obligations. Lawmakers could use that cushion, she said, then phase in a new formula to ensure no district gets less than it does now.

Brenda Dickhoner, president and CEO of the conservative education advocacy group Ready Colorado, expects Republicans to push their own priorities for school finance, which means more focus on money following students and less concern for the impact on district budgets.

Dickhoner said she hopes all sides are “at the table thinking about how we can more equitably fund our students and really get to a student-focused formula.”

Colorado could make a push on math instruction

State and national test data show that students’ math skills took a bigger hit from pandemic learning disruptions than did reading. Right now, Colorado doesn’t have the tools to address it.

House Education Chair Barbara McLachlan said she’s working with Gov. Jared Polis’ office on legislation that would better train teachers on best practices in math instruction and make training available to parents so they can better support their children.

In his November budget letter, Polis called on lawmakers to ensure that every school district adopts high-quality instructional materials and training and gets all students back on track in math.

How to improve math skills also remains a priority for conservatives. Dickhoner said her organization is looking to higher-performing states for ideas.

The push comes after years of intense focus on improving reading scores. Expect the debate over the math bills to mirror ones about reading instruction, including how much the state should be involved in setting curriculum.

There’s never enough money for either K-12 or higher ed

Last year Colorado flirted with fully funding its K-12 system after years of holding back money for other budget priorities. But a last-minute deal to reduce property tax increases would have reduced state revenues, and Democrat lawmakers held back.

Getting more funding for schools is always a top priority for the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, but wiping out the withholding known as the budget stabilization factor and fully funding Colorado schools are unlikely to happen this year.

Colorado will have less money overall after voters approved two ballot measures — one lowering the income tax rate and the other setting aside money for affordable housing. That shouldn’t cut into budgetary spending, but will reduce the buffer the state has in case of an emergency.

Zenzinger said it’s important to increase K-12 spending and that lawmakers hope to do better than the $9.1 billion proposed by Polis in his budget recommendation.

But budget writers also have their eye on long-term sustainability and any future recession.

The picture is different for higher education, which has to fight for scraps. Polis wants to increase university budgets and financial aid by 6.8%. Schools are expected to make a case for more funding, especially to keep tuition low and because inflation exceeds that.

Metropolitan State University of Denver President Janine Davidson said the school will seek more investment from lawmakers. Programs to help students from low-income backgrounds or who are the first to go to college in their family are costly, she said. And the state funds schools with a lower share than it did 30 years ago.

College access could be increased

Lawmakers also may address how to ensure students can get to and stay in college.

Elaine Berman, Colorado Trustees Network chair, said college board members want more support for students who need skills or credentials for in-demand jobs. School trustees want more funds to build partnerships with businesses and communities to better connect college degrees to jobs, she said.

Lawmakers also may explore how to make it easier for students to get college and workforce skills earlier, including extending opportunities in college and vocational schools.

The Colorado Community College System also wants more college options for incarcerated people. The federal government will begin to allow those students access to federal grants, and the system wants the state to prepare for the changes. It’s also a priority for Representative-elect Matthew Martinez, D-Monte Vista, who led Adams State University’s prison education program.

“I think it’s time that we really boost up education for this population,” Martinez said.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Department of Higher Education has a small agenda starting with removing military draft questions from college enrollment applications, which colleges report stops some students from enrolling.

Students are leaving financial aid on the table

Advocacy groups plan to ask lawmakers to make filling out the FAFSA a requirement to graduate. That’s the federal application for financial aid, and each year Colorado students who don’t finish the form leave behind almost $30 million in federal grants. Plus students who fill out the FAFSA are more likely to go to college, according to research.

“We want to make sure that we get it right,” said Kyra DeGruy Kennedy, Rocky Mountain region director for the advocacy group Young Invincibles. “And so if that means we have to wait another year, we’ll totally wait another year, but we are hopeful that this is a year that we’ll be able to make some progress on it.”

Superintendents want to rework the school accountability system

The top priority of CASE, the school executives group, is convening a task force to consider changes to the school accountability system. They will press this even though a recent audit found that the system is largely “reasonable and appropriate” and that most schools receiving state intervention improve.

Miles said the system still hurts school districts that receive low ratings called turnaround and priority improvement, even if the intentions are good.

“It’s terrific that they make a difference,” he said of the state teams that work with schools with low test scores. “It doesn’t change the fact that it’s harder to hire in a turnaround school than a performance school” — the schools that meet state academic goals.

Jen Walmer, state director of Democrats for Education Reform, said she expects any reform to be contentious, with debate about the makeup of the task force and the scope of its work — as well as whether Colorado needs a change at all.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Porter-Leath teacher coaching program aims to professionalize early childhood education

2022-12-15T11:00:00+00:00

Clarissa Odom had her hands — and lap — full when a visitor stopped into her preschool classroom.

Odom, a new infants teacher at a Porter-Leath center in Orange Mound, sat cross-legged on a colorful rug, bouncing two finicky babies looking for snuggles, one on each knee. At the same time, she tried to comfort a crying baby propped up on a boppy pillow in front of her.

The visitor, Nicole Williams, greeted Odom with a cheerful “Good morning!” and without another word, crouched to the floor to help her comfort the crying child. Once the baby calmed down a bit, Williams turned to Odom, smiled, and asked, “How’s everything with the curriculum going?”

Between cuddles, coos, and songs, Odom told Williams about her theme of the week — insects or “creepy crawlers.” Odom reviewed some books she’d read and songs she’d sung to the children so far. Williams suggested an art project: putting paint on the infants’ fingertips to create fingerprint ants. She offered to help Odom find another book, perhaps about spiders.

Williams’ visit on that November day is part of an ambitious effort by Porter-Leath, one of Memphis’ largest providers of preschool services, to professionalize early childhood education and help new teachers become superior educators. As an instructional coach in Porter-Leath’s Teacher Excellence Program, Williams provides teachers with real-time feedback on their instructional methods and student interactions, helps brainstorm new lesson plans or gathers classroom supplies, depending on what the educator needs that day.

A distinguishing feature of the program: Giving teachers a chance to participate in professional development during the school day, while another qualified teacher looks after their students and keeps lessons on track.

Porter-Leath officials hope the program will not only help teachers become better prepared and more effective in the classroom, but also improve educational outcomes for Shelby County’s youngest residents, as Memphis and Tennessee grapple with bleak literacy rates and overall learning loss after the pandemic.

Supporting and investing in early childhood educators is especially important as preschools and early childhood centers struggle to recruit and retain teachers and other staff — a problem that worsened during COVID and continues to wreak havoc on providers in Tennessee and across the nation.

A report from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment last week found that national child care employment is steadily increasing, but it’s still 8% below what it was in February 2020.

“The workforce itself is depleted,” said Elizabeth Pufall Jones, director of preparation and work environment programs at the research center. “And the solutions and initiatives to fix it are not getting a lot of traction.”

Against that backdrop, Porter-Leath’s Teacher Excellence Program stands out as a model for how other institutions and cities throughout the U.S. can improve teacher quality and morale in the early childhood education profession, and boost student outcomes.

By national standards, Memphis doesn’t have an acute shortage of early childhood education options. But developing high-quality programs has been a persistent challenge across the region’s fragmented network of small and independent child care centers.

So three years ago, Porter-Leath expanded the Teacher Excellence Program beyond its own preschool centers, and now provides coaching and professional development to 23 privately owned child care centers and 13 in-home daycares across the county, as well as First 8 Memphis pre-K. Officials with the nonprofit preschool giant hope to keep the program growing.

Much more still needs to be done to elevate the early childhood education profession and address widespread burnout among teachers and other child care workers, Jones said. The pandemic has fueled conversations about ensuring that early childhood teachers, who face debt burdens from the degrees and certifications they need, earn a living wage.

But a critical piece, Jones said, is having a supportive work environment. Jones has found that providing professional development and real-time coaching to teachers can be a powerful tool to reduce turnover and empower teachers.

“We know that ages 0 to 5 are the most critical and important years for a child’s development and if they’re not properly supported during the first five years, it’s that much harder for a child to recover and progress,” Jones said. “We need to value the work that child care workers do and support them. It’s much more than babysitting.”

Keva Smith reads to her class at the Porter-Leath & University of Memphis Early Childhood Academy at Orange Mound. An independent study on the impact of Porter-Leath’s teacher training showed significant improvement in students’ pre-literacy skills.

Teacher training boosts student literacy

Since launching in 2017, the Teacher Excellence Program has provided hundreds of Memphis early childhood teachers like Odom with professional development opportunities — both through classroom coaching and regular training sessions embedded throughout the school day. Participants come from within Porter-Leath network and the other providers it partners with. Porter-Leath spent about $420,000 on the program in the fiscal year ending in 2019.

“We need to value the work that child care workers do and support them. It’s much more than babysitting.”

A November 2019 study of the program’s impact by an independent consultant found that in the first year, an overwhelming majority of participating teachers said the instructional coaching was “very helpful” and had a large impact on their classroom practices. In turn, students’ pre-literacy skills and kindergarten readiness significantly improved, as measured by assessment scores at the beginning and end of the school year.

The pandemic prevented Porter-Leath from collecting more current data, but Kelley Nichols, vice president of early childhood services, said it’s clear that teachers participating in the program continue to improve — and so do the students.

“The goal is to really just come alongside teachers at any level, meet them where they are, find out what their unique goals are, and help them grow,” Nichols said.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools and state education officials have emphasized improving early childhood education as a way to boost academic results. But MSCS abruptly cut ties with Porter-Leath in June 2021, ending a seven-year partnership in which Porter-Leath provided pre-kindergarten and Head Start services to over 3,000 students.

Even so, the nonprofit remains one of Memphis’ largest providers of early education instruction, and an influential force in workforce training.

Lametria Rudd works with her 3- and 4-year-old students during center time. To provide training during the day, Porter-Leath assigns relief teachers to conduct lessons while the teacher focuses on their development.

Teachers get training — and relief — during the workday

Over the years that Nichols worked in child care centers and school districts, she attended training sessions regularly. But it often meant staying late, long after the school day ended, to attend a session from 5 to 9 p.m. Sometimes it meant coming in on the weekends.

Nichols understood why training couldn’t be held in the middle of the school day — who would take care of her classroom and others? — but those added hours for little or no extra pay in an already demanding field were exhausting.

On top of that, there was often little follow through on the training, Nichols said.

“You would go to a training, you learn stuff, you kind of check a box that you’ve done it, but nobody cared whether you implemented any of it in the classroom,” she said. “There really wasn’t accountability.”

Nichols complains of what she calls the “Monday morning effect” — when something learned over the weekend is forgotten by the next week.

That’s what makes Nichols so passionate about the Teacher Excellence Program she oversees. Though Porter-Leath holds larger professional development conferences a few weekends a year, most of its teacher training occurs during the work day, as in most other professions.

So who watches the children? That’s where the relief teachers come in.

These are not unqualified substitutes. Relief teachers in the Porter-Leath system must have at least two years of experience as an early childhood education classroom teacher, with formalized education or certification in the field, and are expected to continue the teacher’s lesson plan.

“You don’t have to worry about your class,” Nichols said. “A relief teacher will go into your classroom, they’ll teach the regular day’s lessons, meet children where they are, and keep them safe, so the teachers can focus on that training and then take that back into their classroom.”

“We created this program to really respect and honor the profession,” Nichols said.

The instructional coaches visit teachers at least weekly for around two hours at a time. They, too, must be highly qualified, Nichols said — Porter-Leath requires them to have a master’s degree, a minimum of six years of experience as an early childhood classroom teacher, and an ability to train adult learners.

“We created this program to really respect and honor the profession.”

Beyond typical first aid and CPR trainings, professional development provided by Williams and Porter-Leath’s six other instructional coaches centers on topics such as literacy, health, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math), and social-emotional learning — an especially important focus given many of the children Porter-Leath serves come from Memphis’ poorest neighborhoods and are more likely to struggle academically.

Kimberly Eiland reads to her class at the Porter-Leath & University of Memphis Early Childhood Academy at Orange Mound. Professional development from Porter-Leath’s instructional coaches focuses on a range of topics, including social-emotional learning.

An instructional coach aims to reassure early education teachers

Williams recalls falling in love with early childhood education when she started working at a Memphis daycare at age 17. A self-proclaimed kid at heart, Williams enjoyed the laughter and love that came with playing with children and helping them grow.

But self doubt frequently plagued her in the classroom. Was she interacting with the children the way she should? Was she cut out to be the kind of teacher who set children up for success beyond preschool?

Ultimately, Williams’ passion won out over her doubts. Though she had long planned on studying criminal law, she switched majors during her sophomore year at the University of Memphis. She’s been working in the early childhood profession for over two decades in Shelby County — as a teacher, the director of three child care centers, a state program evaluator tasked with ensuring child care centers meet Tennessee regulations, and a consultant who helped child care providers select developmentally appropriate furniture, toys, and curriculum.

All of those experiences feed into Williams’ work today as an instructional coach at Porter-Leath.

“Every teacher is different, every personality is different. As their advocate, I have to meet them where they are.”

As a teacher, Williams felt that sometimes all she needed was a cheerleader — someone who could reassure her that she was doing OK, even if her lesson plan didn’t turn out exactly the way she had envisioned.

That’s the kind of mentor Williams aims to be for all the teachers she works with, though it looks different from person to person.

“My first goal with my teachers is to build relationships,” Williams said. “Every teacher is different, every personality is different. As their advocate, I have to meet them where they are.”

Rose Smith does a sign-along with her class of 2- and 3-year-olds.

From curriculum help to nap time: Teachers want extra support

Odom, a new employee at the Porter-Leath & University of Memphis Early Childhood Academy at Orange Mound, is still getting settled in her infant classroom. This is her first job in a larger center. Before this, she largely worked in home daycares.

So for Odom, Williams’ support is more hands on.

During her visit to Odom’s classroom Nov. 16, Williams’ suggestions ranged from how to incorporate Porter-Leath curriculum naturally into the babies’ days, to how to rearrange the cribs, to techniques for comforting an upset baby.

Later that morning, Williams met with Deanna Rayner, a Porter-Leath teacher for nearly a decade.

Rayner beamed with pride as she watched her 13 preschoolers — ages 3 to 5 — shuffle between stations before settling into their new activities. The question of the day was “What do we know about buildings?” and Rayner had students drawing their own buildings in one corner of her classroom, while others constructed buildings with Legos and blocks in other areas.

Keeping the attention of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds has become increasingly difficult as children are introduced to technology earlier and earlier, Rayner said.

But that day, as the children moved on to a hands-on group activity mixing dirt and water together to simulate mixing concrete for the foundation of a building, they seemed to have no trouble engaging.

Deana Rayner helps a student as he builds a popsicle house. Rayner credits the support and training from Porter-Leath with making her a better educator.

“You’ve got to get more creative in order for them to pick up what we want them to pick up,” Rayner said with a laugh. “We have to work really hard.”

It’s one of many challenges Rayner has had to navigate as an educator. But with the support of Williams and the Teacher Excellence Program over the last five years, Rayner doesn’t feel quite as overwhelmed.

After looking around the classroom and observing Rayner for a while, Williams suggested displaying the question of the day on another spot on the wall and pledged to bring Rayner more chart paper from the supply closet. When Rayner expressed concern over when she’d have time to hang up a new wall display, Williams offered to take care of it herself.

Rayner credits Williams and the program as a whole with helping her become a better teacher.

“She helps us. She is supportive. She comes in here to check on us and makes sure we have everything we need,” Rayner said. Instructional coaches “are that shoulder, that support that we need.”

Having trouble viewing this survey? Go here.

This story is the second installment of a Chalkbeat Tennessee deep dive into the role early childhood can play in improving literacy in Memphis and across the Volunteer State. This effort is supported by the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program.

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s pre-K program will soon have seats for all children with disabilities who want one, mayor says

2022-12-13T21:43:57+00:00

Mayor Eric Adams committed Tuesday to addressing a longstanding shortage of preschool seats for students with disabilities, with plans to open 800 more of those spots for 3- and 4-year-old children by this spring.

The mayor will boost pay for preschool special education teachers, who typically earn up to $20,000 less than their general education counterparts, officials said. The city will also increase the school day in these programs by an hour and 20 minutes, matching the hours for general education preschool programs.

Adams announced the changes at a press conference in which he sharply criticized the system under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, charging that the lack of access for hundreds of students with disabilities “was just wrong” and meant that New York City’s lauded universal preschool program was never truly universal.

“Children who need it more were receiving less,” Adams said. “That is just dysfunctional at its highest level.”

Schools Chancellor David Banks said the teacher pay disparities were a result of “what happens when you don’t think it’s a priority.”

Universal prekindergarten was regarded as de Blasio’s signature achievement. But advocates criticized his administration for failing to provide seats for hundreds of children with disabilities or adequately paying teachers in those programs. At the end of last school year, about 800 preschool-aged children with disabilities were still awaiting seats, an education department official said at a City Council meeting in September.

For students with disabilities who did get seats, disparities remained. An analysis of the 2019-20 school year found that Black and Asian American preschoolers were less likely to be identified for special education services when compared with their white peers. Black and Latino children who were identified for services were more likely to be placed in settings exclusively for students with disabilities rather than classrooms integrated with students of mixed abilities.

The new plan is expected to help providers open more classes with a mix of students with disabilities and those in general education, officials said. The process of adding 400 new seats is already underway, said Deputy Chancellor Kara Ahmed, who oversees early childhood education. Officials did not say exactly when these seats will open.

The department approved funding increases for 65 community-based organizations that provide special education programs for the city’s youngest learners. The additional money will allow those programs to open new seats, extend class hours for students with disabilities, and boost wages for teachers.

The salary bumps will mean increasing salaries from the current range of $50,000-$58,000 up to a range of $68,000-$70,000, Ahmed told reporters. And doing so will allow existing programs to keep teachers and attract new ones, Ahmed said.

The city has also committed to opening another 400 new seats by sometime this spring.

“We plan to hold the administration accountable for delivering on that promise,” said Randi Levine, policy director for Advocates for Children, a nonprofit organization that has for years pushed for more such seats, during Tuesday’s press conference. “The city has a legal obligation and a moral obligation to do so.”

The plan will cost $130 million during this fiscal year and the next one, and is being paid for using federal relief dollars, a department spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to say how the city plans to cover funding for those seats once the temporary dollars run out in 2024. That’s a larger question for many education department programs funded by relief dollars, including thousands of new 3K seats the city has opened over the past two school years.

Gregory Brender, policy director for the Day Care Council, said the plan includes positive steps, but noted that his organization wants the Adams administration to raise wages for all early childhood educators working for community-based programs. As of October 2020, these teachers are making the same amount as new public school teachers, even with 20 years of experience, Brender said.

In an interview, Levine noted that under the city’s plan, preschool special education teachers will now be paid as much as a new teacher who works for the education department.

“But every step helps,” she said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan teacher shortage prompts superintendents to propose new certification route

2022-12-06T21:41:47+00:00

After scouring the state’s pipeline to find more certified teachers, a group of Michigan education leaders are now looking to create a pipeline of their own.

Regional superintendents across the state are banding together to develop an alternate route to certification that emphasizes early on-the-job training and income opportunities for prospective teachers.

The initiative, called Talent Together, is just the latest in a series of efforts by stakeholders across the state who are working to mitigate a looming shortage of teachers, especially in areas such as special education, math and science. The efforts include initiatives to provide stipends for student teachers, shorten teacher preparation programs, offer scholarships to education majors, create programs for high school students interested in the profession, and more.

Talent Together’s goal is to provide employment in schools for teacher candidates so they can be paid while fulfilling student teaching requirements.

“The current model is when you go to a university, it’s theory, theory, theory, then practice,” during a concentrated internship period, Eric Hoppstock, superintendent of the Berrien County Regional Educational Service Agency, said during a press conference Tuesday. “We’re really promoting practice, theory, practice, theory, practice, theory” under the supervision of an experienced teacher.

That sort of path allows people to earn a living while working toward certification, said Kevin Oxley, superintendent of Jackson County Intermediate School District.

“We don’t want people to quit their lives and have to go back to school,” Oxley said. “They can’t do that, so we are going to meet people where they are and remove barriers so they can become certified.”

The program would be similar to On the Rise Academy, an alternative route program offered by Detroit Public Schools Community District that pays candidates to work in support staff roles while working toward certification. Nine other alternative route providers are approved in Michigan for teacher certification.

Talent Together expects to start enrolling students next September, but it still needs three things: funding, approval from the Michigan Department of Education, and responses to requests for proposals from universities that would provide the coursework.

Elizabeth Moje, dean of the University of Michigan School of Education, said she has been approached by Talent Together organizers and is still trying to learn more about their plans.

Talent Together could not say how much the program would cost. Organizers plan to apply for a share of $175 million the Legislature budgeted for grow-your-own programs that provide free tuition for school staff members enrolled in teacher preparation programs.

The length of the program would depend on each candidate’s background, said Jack Elsey, founder of the nonprofit Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative, which is helping design the program. It might take a year for someone who already has a bachelor’s degree in another field, for example, or several years for someone who enters without any degree, he said.

The idea for Talent Together came out of a meeting of seven regional superintendents in October. Since then, the consortium has grown to 39 of the state’s 57 regional educational service agencies, and more are expected to join. The agencies, also known as intermediate school districts, provide consolidated support to local districts. For example, they provide teacher training and coordinate early childhood, vocational, and special education programs for the districts they serve.

“Together, we are asking for the opportunity to be utilized differently,” said Kyle Mayer, superintendent of Ottawa Intermediate School District. “Imagine if Michigan, as a state, were to have an ISD hub that works in partnership with higher education and has resources to expedite the certification process for high-quality teachers.”

The group expects its program will produce hundreds of teachers over the next five years.

The Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is still learning about Talent Together and hopes its members will be asked to shape the program.

“It’s important that any efforts include frontline educators at the table,” said MEA spokesman Thomas Morgan.

“We are willing to work with anyone who is committed to ending the educator shortage,” he added.

At least one local superintendent is grateful for the consortium’s work.

“Ypsilanti Community Schools is facing the teacher shortage crisis,” Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross said.

“This is real for districts, urban and rural,” she said. “We’ve been creative. We’ve been doing our recruitment and retention strategies. Even though we can try to do this on our own, the solution is bigger than us at the local level.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan State condenses teacher preparation program from five years to four

2022-12-02T15:00:00+00:00

Michigan State University will shorten its teacher preparation program from five to four years, saving education majors $16,700 in tuition and awarding them a credential more quickly.

The change alleviates a financial burden on students and addresses an educator shortage by getting teachers in classrooms faster, said Tonya Bartell, MSU’s associate director of elementary programs.

Revamping the program is one of several efforts in Michigan to help produce more teachers, particularly in hard-hit areas such as math, special education, and world languages. The state and education officials also are providing alternative routes to certification, stipends for student teaching, scholarships, and more.

The program change takes full effect with students enrolling next fall.

MSU graduates about 300 certified teachers per year, more than any other university in the state, according to the Michigan Department of Education’s 2022 workforce data report.

The vast majority of teacher preparation programs are four years. MSU adopted a five-year model in the 1990s to provide a year of student teaching to build up students’ preparation and confidence to manage their own classrooms as first-year teachers.

“We recognized that having a five-year program put a financial burden on students who were going into a field that was not a high-paying field,” Bartell said in an interview Thursday. “We’re trying to continuously think about that balance between preparing high-quality beginning teachers and not having them bear too much of a cost in the process.”

That’s a consideration for Jecholiah Marriott, a senior at Detroit’s Cass Tech who plans to become a teacher. She already has been accepted to Michigan State and several other colleges. She isn’t yet sure where she’ll go.

She knew MSU was a five-year program when she applied. Now the condensed program makes the university even more appealing.

“College is extremely expensive, so the financials alone make it extremely easier and kind of like a weight lifted,” said Marriott, 17. But she also sees value in a full year of student teaching. “It’s a trade-off,” she said.

Under the revamped program, students will be able to earn 16 general education credits through education courses that cover required subjects through a teaching lens, Bartell said. That shift will free up credit hours for student teaching.

Requirements for student teaching will vary.

Elementary education majors will student teach for a full year. At least eight weeks will be full time. The rest of the time, they will student teach three days per week, leaving time for coursework or paid substitute teaching, Bartell said. Students also will spend time in schools earlier in their education — one half day per week as sophomores and two half days per week as juniors.

Secondary education majors will student teach one day per week during the fall semester of senior year and five days per week during the spring semester, said Kyle Greenwalt, associate director for teacher preparation.

That’s more than the 10 weeks the state requires for certification.

Student teaching time is important, said Jasmine Ramahi, who runs Educators Rising, a grow-your-own program for East Kentwood High School students who aim to become teachers.

“The thing that makes you the most confident taking over a classroom is your exposure of being in a classroom,” Ramahi said in a telephone interview. “So, as long as the program has a lot of clinical hours or field work hours, I think students will feel supported.”

She said the truncated program will be more accessible to students who are unable to afford the longer program.

“Student loan debt is a real concern for a lot of students, and an extra year of student loan debt is pretty hefty, so being able to minimize that as much as possible does create more equitable outcomes,” Ramahi said.

That was one of the goals, Bartell said.

“We are very much committed to diversifying the teaching workforce and we have a focus on justice and equity,” she said. “If we want to live up to those ideals we have to [serve more than] students who are privileged enough to go through the five-year model. That isn’t creating the workforce we want.”

Accessibility and inclusivity were at the forefront as College of Education leaders revamped the program’s timeline and curriculum, Greenwalt said.

“We wanted to identify and eliminate every barrier while maintaining the strength of our program,” he said.

A five-year program made sense in the 1990s when there was more interest in the field of teaching than jobs available, Greenwalt said, but times have changed. The restructured program is more responsive to current needs.

“Having that fifth year is a luxury,” he said. Graduates of the five-year program “probably entered their first year of teaching with more confidence than people who’ll do four years, but I think they’ll probably still be plenty good.”

Graduation requirements and state certification exams will ensure that, he said.

“We’re trying to balance needs here,” he said. “There are people who never even applied” because of the program length.

“When you have the imperative to increase the racial diversity of our teaching force, we can’t be creating these barriers,” he said.

Current freshmen and sophomores have the option of switching to the four-year model now.

“Some of our current juniors are a little upset because they felt like they had missed the boat, being right on the cusp,” Bartell said. “The tenor I get from them is, ‘We think it’s great you’re moving to four years. And, wow, I wish I could have.’”

Chalkbeat staff writer Ethan Bakuli contributed. Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Computer science classes have an equity issue. Some NYC educators are trying to change that.

2022-11-21T20:00:00+00:00

Computer science teacher Shanua Newton-Rodriguez is hoping to lead by example.

A woman of color who grew up in the Bronx, she wants to see more students who look like her learning Java, Python, web design, or other coding skills.

But for many students in the nation’s largest school system — particularly girls, Black students, and Latinos — by the time they get to high school, it’s too late. Many get turned off before they make it to the high-level courses Newton-Rodriguez teaches at the Bronx Academy for Software Engineering, or BASE.

In the various computer science classes she leads this year, the number of girls ranges from just one to four. (Nearly 90% of the students at tech-heavy career technical education school are boys, Newton-Rodriguez said.)

“Some students don’t see themselves as programmers. They won’t take the first steps,” Newton-Rodriguez said. “It’s still taking some time, even for the adults, to validate computer science. It’s still seen as an elective.”

Despite New York City’s 10-year plan to bring “computer science to all” students by 2025, equity remains a big issue, according to a recent report from New York University’s Research Alliance analyzing the program through the 2020-21 school year.

Just 17% of schools were meeting the equity goals of reaching girls, Latinos, and Black students under CS4All, as the initiative is called. Schools that made bigger strides in building up computer science courses enrolled lower percentages of Black and Latino students on average, the report said, finding “persistent inequities” in access to computer science within and across schools. (Some schools saw a bit of a backslide in their computer science offerings most likely due to the pandemic stretching schools thin, but overall the city saw improvements toward equity goals, the report noted.)

“It’s not just about getting more seats in more classrooms. It’s also about representation,” said Cheri Fancsali, the report’s author and deputy director of NYU’s Research Alliance.

To shift the culture in computer science classrooms, Fancsali said, educators not only need to emphasize the value of the subject, but also need to show how computer science can be a “tool for solving problems and issues in your own community and for social justice.” That also requires educators to think more “holistically” about computer science and embed it across disciplines, she said.

Teacher training has remained a roadblock. While the CS4All initiative aims to reach 5,000 teachers through a two-week summer professional development session, more substantive courses have been sparse.

New York City is trying to address this through a program called “Computer Integrated Teacher Education” to help train more than 1,000 New York City teachers to integrate computing across subjects. The $14 million initiative, announced Monday, is funded through a public/private partnership with the education department, CUNY, Google, Robin Hood, and Gotham Gives, and is believed to be the largest effort of its kind in the nation, city officials said. The funding will cover scholarships for at least 800 teachers enrolling in the program as well as enable CUNY to design new courses.

“We are focused on an ambitious goal to provide our students with a clear pathway to and preparation for a rewarding career and long-term economic security,” schools Chancellor David Banks said in a statement.

Shanua Newton-Rodriguez accepting her Sloan Award for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics in April 2022.

Teaching culturally responsive computer science

For her part, Newton-Rodriguez — who last year was recognized with the Fund for the City of New York’s prestigious Sloan Award for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics – is doing what she can to get more students from underrepresented groups engaged in computer science.

She talks about possible career pathways, or even ways to make pocket money, explaining that students in her user experience/user interface design class can make posters for their local pizza shops or religious organizations and charge $500 to $1,000 for their services. She embeds culturally responsive lessons in her classes, talking about “what happens if they are not there” contributing to top companies. For instance, she discusses how in the early days of Tesla, the camera technology used by the self-driving cars were not picking up pedestrians with darker skin tones, she said.

“It’s trying to convince them why they are needed,” said Newton-Rodriguez, who worked as a graphic designer before becoming a public school teacher 17 years ago.

She sees the possibilities of cross-discipline collaborations: For instance, a social studies lesson on Harriet Tubman could discuss what she could have done for the underground railroad if she had information technology, and what kind of problems that tech could have brought as well. But when she suggests giving computer science—related professional development to her colleagues, they push back, saying they have other topics to cover in those sessions, she said. And because it’s not a core subject, she can’t get a co-teacher to help her with students with disabilities, making it harder to differentiate and help students whose math skills need help.

She and other educators said that computer science training has to start when children are younger to give students a stronger foundation. Research has found that exposing young children to computational thinking is crucial to building future success in tech fields — and shaping early attitudes toward careers in technology — but a 2020 Center for Urban Future study looking at nonprofits running after-school and in-school programs, however, found relatively few of them focused on grades K–5.

Computer science teachers need peer support

While Newton-Rodriguez has helped her school build up its computer science program, including the Advanced Placement courses in the subject that she teaches, she also found a supportive community of computer science educators through Math For America, a nonprofit focused on connecting the city’s accomplished math and science teachers. Joel Bianchi, a computer science teacher at Energy Tech High School in Queens, said meeting colleagues through Math for America has been “life-giving,” since he had previously felt like he was on “an island” working on the subject matter.

New York State only created a license for computer science education a few years ago, Bianchi said, but there have been few pathways to get it. He’s in one of them, with about 60 other educators: a three-year-old free program through CUNY’s Hunter College for middle and high school teachers with other licenses to get a certificate for the subject.

Bianchi — another winner of last year’s Sloan Awards for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics — created and taught a new AP Computer Science A course when he moved to Energy Tech in 2019. (AP Computer Science A focuses on Java and coding, while AP Computer Science Principles focuses on broader computing concepts.) The first year he taught the course, Bianchi had 10 girls and 10 boys, and the school received the College Board AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award.

But since the pandemic, the demographics have changed. This year, his course initially enrolled six girls. Three have since dropped it. (His school is also more than 80% male.)

“Almost every year I’ve had issues with really high performing girls feeling overwhelmed. And at the same exact moment, several underperforming boys feel completely confident,” Bianchi said. “I struggle with it … What are the things as a teacher I can control?”

He worries that female students hear messages that “subconsciously perpetuate the stereotype” that the course is too hard and technical, and he worries those messages start from a young age.

He noticed that boys tend to speak over the girls in mixed gender groups, so he groups girls together. But the girls continue to struggle with feeling like they belong, and once one left this year, it was a domino effect. He tried to get ahead of it. When the students struggled, he had them go over and correct their tests, giving them a chance to learn from their mistakes and bump up their grades. (He even shared an article with his class last year about why girls excel in the classroom but boys excel in the workforce.)

“There’s a feeling in this particular class: It’s hard, it’s different from what you’re used to,” Bianchi said. “You’re gonna hit a wall. You’re gonna fail. And that’s OK.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia gathering focuses on increasing numbers of Black male educators

2022-11-19T00:04:12+00:00

Growing up, Horace Ryans had all sorts of plans for his future: He might become a neurosurgeon or an architect, maybe cure cancer.

Then, five years ago, his friend, Tamir Harper, invited him to speak about student activism and voice at a conference in Philadelphia sponsored by the Fellowship for Black Male Educators.

At the conference as a 16-year-old, he saw the camaraderie and absorbed the life-changing impact a teacher can have. Even though both his parents are educators – his father is a school counselor and his mother a climate manager in Philadelphia – Ryans didn’t realize until then how many Black teachers existed.

“For me, it was the exposure to so many revolutionary Black men in one space,” he said. “I had never before been in a space where Black men were trying to change the narrative.”

From then on, Ryans knew what he would do. He would become a teacher.

Five years later, now nearly 21 and a junior at Morehouse College majoring in sociology and education, he again attended the Philadelphia conference, which was held this week in person after a two-year hiatus due to COVID. The three-day event, sponsored by the organization now known as the Center for Black Educator Development, drew close to 1,000 people from across the country, almost all of them Black men.

Attendees this year looked at historical trends related to teacher diversity, discussed how to promote student activism, and opened up about dealing with mental health issues of teachers and students. They talked about school disciplinary policies and how they disproportionately affect Black boys.

Mostly, they studied data and strategies for both recruiting and keeping Black male teachers in the profession at a time when teachers of all backgrounds are leaving in droves and many fewer are aspiring to enter the profession.

But Ryans has no doubts – and the conference only reinforced his resolve.

“Being in this space helped me develop a deep love for what education and teaching and learning can be,” Ryans said in a break between sessions. “Now that I’m on my path to becoming an educator, so many other black men congratulated me and affirmed me. That’s what made it so special.”

‘Teaching is a revolutionary act’

In the past few summers, Ryans participated in programs sponsored by the Center and based on the Freedom Schools model, in which older students work with younger ones as literacy coaches and mentors. These experiences helped him take to heart the motto of Sharif El-Mekki, founder of the Center and mentor to many teachers of color in Philadelphia and elsewhere: Teaching is a “revolutionary” act.

“In my college years, when I actually got to work with students one-on-one, that’s when I started to love the art of teaching for what it is.”

Ryans said he believes he can have an impact, citing research showing that Black students who have a teacher of the same race by third grade are 13% more likely to attend college than those who don’t. For those who have two teachers who look like them in the early grades, that percentage jumps to 32%.

Tamir Harper, the friend who invited Ryans to the conference, started out as a student activist but now teaches English, social justice, and writing to eighth graders at the Henry Lea Elementary School in West Philadelphia, not far from where he grew up.

“I get to interact and learn from beautiful brilliant eighth graders every day I walk into the classroom, and understand their reality,” Harper said.

Yet, overall, the percentage of Black teachers is declining, even as the percentage of Black and brown students in the nation’s public schools is growing. Once as high as 40%, the percentage of Black teachers in Philadelphia now stands at 24%, while those who are Black and male are just 4%. In Pennsylvania as a whole, only 1% of teachers are Black men, and almost all of them work in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, El-Mekki said.

Among the reasons for the low numbers of Black teachers are the high cost of teacher education, its relatively low pay, an overall negative perception of the teaching profession, and barriers to entry including skills tests that experts said have little to do with determining a person’s potential to be a great teacher.

“Nobody becomes a teacher to get rich, but we do have to make sure that we are offering work environments, compensation, and professional development that someone willing to take that leap deserves,” said Eric Hagarty, Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of education, at one of the sessions. “I strongly believe we need to make it free to become a teacher.”

In addition, many Black students, especially Black boys, have negative experiences in school themselves. Travis Bristol, associate professor of teacher education and education policy at the University of California at Berkeley, said these experiences start early.

According to Bristol, Black boys make up 18% of the preschool population, but account for 43% of the suspensions in that grade level, he said. He found this out when his own son was suspended for two weeks from a preschool he had barely begun to attend.

“I didn’t even know preschool suspension was a thing,” he said.

On the other end, Black men who do enter the teaching profession are often treated as disciplinarians.

“They get all the behavior problems,” said Joyce Abbott, speaking in the same session as Bristol and Hagarty. She is the namesake of the TV show “Abbott Elementary” and a longtime Philadelphia educator who just retired in June. (She taught Quinta Brunson, the developer and star of the show.)

El-Mekki, who started his career as a middle school teacher in 1993, has created a Black Teacher Pipeline Project, which started out awarding four fellowships to aspiring Black male teachers each year. Now, there are 26 fellows annually and $1 million in the Future Black Teachers of Excellence Fund. Also as part of the pipeline, three high schools, including Science Leadership Academy-Beeber in Philadelphia and schools in Camden and Detroit, offer an elective course on teaching.

A new Pennsylvania law, SB99, allows high school courses on education and teaching to be eligible for Career and Technical Education credits. And the state school code now requires districts to share their data on the demographic makeup of their teacher corps.

Last summer, El-Mekki said, there were 140 paid Black and brown apprentices teaching in the Freedom School academies, as well as teacher residents in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Washington, DC.

Besides working to attract and retain more Black teachers, El-Mekki said he wants to challenge policymakers and districts and policymakers to change the entire “ecosystem” of education and to help all teachers improve cultural responsiveness.

El-Mekki also pointed to research showing that all students benefit from a diverse teacher workforce.

“Black teachers are absolutely critical to the student achievement of Black students and every other student,” he said.

The conference runs through Saturday at the Loews Philadelphia hotel.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia ramps up program for paraprofessionals in effort to ease teacher shortage

2022-11-01T21:18:39+00:00

A shortage of educators, especially those of color, is “the most urgent crisis facing our schools today,” said acting Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Eric Hagarty said at an event Monday in Philadelphia.

His comments came as the new state Committee on Educational Talent and Recruitment convened in Philadelphia to consider strategies for finding, training, and retaining more qualified teachers in the state.

As part of the effort, Superintendent Tony Watlington said at the meeting that the Philadelphia school district, which has already invested $2.5 million of federal American Rescue Plan funds to help district paraprofessional employees earn teaching credentials, will add $1.7 million more to the effort.

“We know that research tells us the single most important factor in student academic attainment is a highly-qualified, well-supported teacher force over time,” Watlington said.

The “grow your own” program, which is a collaboration between the district and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, has 84 paraprofessionals studying to become teachers, said Larissa Shambaugh, the district’s chief talent officer.

The additional $1.7 million will allow the district to train an additional 75 paraprofessionals to become teachers and pay them during their student teaching. Some paraprofessionals previously may have had to take unpaid leave to join the program, which might have deterred some from participating.

The program also covers tuition and other related costs so that participants can graduate debt-free.

For Philadelphia, finding enough teachers to fill all the positions continues to be a challenge: More than 200 teaching jobs are vacant, according to the district, which has about 9,000 teachers and more than 216 district-operated schools.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan said the goal is to have a teacher workforce in Pennsylvania in 2025 that is “healthy and robust, representative of the students we serve … and ensures access to leadership and professional growth opportunities.”

There are several different pathways for aspiring teachers in Philadelphia, depending on their level of education. Those with a bachelor’s degree but a grade point average under 3.0, for example, can take courses at LaSalle University. (State law requires aspiring teachers to maintain at least a 3.0 GPA in college to be eligible for certification.)

Those who have a 3.0 GPA or better, meanwhile, can study at Temple and Drexel universities. Those with only high school diplomas, GEDs or fewer than 60 college credits take courses through the nonprofit College Unbound.

Pool of potential teachers shrinks

The new state committee was established under legislation sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Vincent Hughes that was enacted in July and aims to expand and diversify the state’s teacher workforce.

The legislation created a career and technical education pathway in high school for aspiring teachers, and requires all districts to establish a dual-enrollment program with a local post-secondary institution.

It also makes it easier for people who are certified in another state to transfer their credentials to Pennsylvania, temporarily waives a basic skills test for aspiring teachers — although to be certified all candidates must still pass the Praxis exam — and requires better data collection by school districts and colleges that prepare teachers.

Hughes appeared briefly at the meeting and urged educators to “think big, do not have low aim,” when it comes to devising ways to attract more young people to teaching.

He noted that the issue of finding and training excellent teachers is even more crucial now since the pandemic has caused many students to fall further behind.

(Hughes has a particular interest in education and teaching. His wife Sheryl Lee Ralph plays the kindergarten teacher Barbara Howard on the hit show “Abbott Elementary,” which is about a fictional Philadelphia public school.)

Statewide statistics help explain the urgency from Hughes, Hagarty, and others.

A decade ago, 20,000 people graduated from state colleges with teaching degrees. This year, that number had dropped to just 6,000, said Tomas Hanna, the state education department’s chief talent officer.

In a July report, the state announced its strategy to build up its teacher workforce by 2025, which includes efforts to streamline preparation, increase diversity, and provide more access to high-quality “professional growth and leadership opportunities.”

The shortage of teachers in Pennsylvania spans rural, suburban, and urban schools, but is most pronounced in areas serving low-income students and students of color, the report said.

In addition, the state must not just find more teachers, but find more teachers of color, Hagarty said. Right now, 37% of students in Pennsylvania are nonwhite, but only 7% of teachers are, he said Monday.

“This is an urgent moral calling,” Hagarty said. “If we don’t focus on the diversity of the education workforce, we are not doing right by” the state’s students.

He added that it is not just students of color who benefit from a diverse pool of teachers. “We owe it to white students to ensure a variety of perspectives are heard,” Hagarty said.

Howard Griffith, a paraprofessional who specializes in conflict resolution at Frankford High School, said at Monday’s event that one thing he learned in his 20 years at the school is that students “need to see people who look like them in the classroom every day.”

He is now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership through College Unbound so he can become a teacher.

Dimitra Glyptis, who works at Samuel Powel Elementary School as a paraprofessional, is a teacher resident at Drexel. A native of Greece, she has a degree in early childhood education, and said that the program “made her dreams come true” by giving her the means and opportunity for her to become a teacher.

As a paraprofessional, she said, “I always felt I could do more for students and Philadelphia.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org

English-learner, special education teacher training program in Colorado gets boost

2022-10-25T21:15:46+00:00

Many school districts have long struggled to hire teachers prepared to work with students with disabilities and with those who don’t speak English as their first language. It’s even harder to find a teacher qualified to do both.

The BUENO Center for Multicultural Education, at the University of Colorado Boulder, has secured a federal grant to expand its ongoing work to get more teachers earning those dual certifications.

“Every child needs an opportunity to be understood,” said Estella Almanza, project director at the BUENO Center. “We are investing in human capital.”

This year, the federal grant for the center was for $2.8 million. Overall the U.S. Department of Education awarded 44 grants nationwide totaling $120 million to projects supporting teachers of English learners. The Bueno Center was the only recipient in Colorado.

The grant enables the center to cover tuition for a master’s degree with double state endorsements for 60 teachers from about a dozen school districts primarily on the Western Slope and in southwestern parts of the state. The Roaring Fork, Eagle, and Summit school districts have partnered with the university before for the training and are continuing the work. New partners include school districts of Aspen and Durango.

Some of the communities are hours away from a university offering master’s courses, and some teachers find it difficult to pay for the specializations.

As part of the project, the university is also focusing on teaching family engagement practices, helping teachers collaborate with each other, and improving lesson plans for reading. The university will track data from the teachers’ classrooms, to evaluate how much progress English learner students of participating teachers make compared with English learners in other classrooms.

Jessica Martinez, the director of multilingual education for Eagle County schools, said that when applications have opened for the program, teachers quickly fill the spots.

Most teachers completing the training then qualify for new roles using one of the two specializations. In Eagle, Martinez said that it’s often hard to recruit teachers for both areas, though the local college now offering a degree program with a culturally and linguistically diverse education endorsement has provided more English learner teachers in recent years. The district also hires dual-language teachers from other countries.

But Martinez said that when teachers can help students who are identified as both having a disability and being English learners, the dual certifications really help.

According to federal data, more than 16,000 students in Colorado, or more than 16% of all students with disabilities, are also identified as English learners. Nationally, some advocates worry that English learners are overidentified as having a disability and many districts struggle with offering these students both services.

Martinez especially appreciates that teachers with both certifications are better prepared to identify whether a student is struggling because of a special education need, or because of a language barrier.

“Having a teacher who can better identify what their needs are — that’s been the big thing,” Martinez said. “If a teacher only has one background, they don’t always know what the other possibilities are, and they aren’t able to identify the root causes.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

New York City grapples with influx of new asylum-seeking students

2022-10-18T22:30:11+00:00

As New York City grapples with how to better support the influx of students from asylum-seeking families hailing from South American countries, schools are looking for more bilingual educators and social workers.

They’re also trying to get clothes and food to families in need.

But getting there isn’t simple. At least 5,500 new students living in shelters have enrolled, whom officials believe are largely newcomer immigrants, though their immigration status is not tracked by the education department. Given the additional students, schools should receive, at minimum, an additional $34 million in funding, Comptroller Brad Lander said Tuesday.

Before this school year began, officials had expected about 1,000 children would enroll, though they expected that figure to grow. Now, as nearly six times that number of newcomer students have arrived, officials are scrambling to tackle a raft of challenges at the school level, including a shortage of Spanish-speaking staff.

“There are no easy answers here. We are all very clear about that,” Chancellor David Banks told reporters Tuesday during a press conference at P.S. 16 in the Bronx, which recently welcomed several asylum seekers to its school. “We’re figuring it out as we go and doing the best that we can.”

The influx of students, many of whom have high needs, comes as schools had already been dealing with funding cuts due to declines in projected enrollment. Officials promised emergency funding for schools that are seeing a surge of new students, but some schools report not yet receiving extra support, Lander said. Brooklyn’s P.S. 124, which enrolled 35 new migrant students, added a temporary guidance counselor but received no new funding or staff, such as another bilingual educator, Lander’s statement said.

P.S. 16, where the chancellor visited Tuesday, now has a psychologist intern and a new English as a new language teacher, Lander said.

Banks said that the school recently saw 39 new students living in temporary housing, though the city does not track whether those students are part of the surge of asylum seekers.

Schools will likely face more challenges as they try to address the various needs of newcomer immigrant students, especially if the number of asylum-seeking students continues to grow.

Need for more bilingual instruction

Some schools with many new students are struggling to provide instruction in Spanish. At P.S. 33 in Chelsea, parents reported that their children are having difficulty understanding lessons, the New York Post reported.

Lander believes more resources are needed, and he is calling for the education department to immediately release an additional $34 million to schools that opened their doors to migrant students. But that might be a conservative estimate. The figure excludes preschool programs, as well as costs associated with any students who may be newly identified with disabilities, according to his office.

Education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said the city has distributed $25 million so far to schools seeing an increase of new students, on top of $50 million distributed to schools that appealed the budgets they received over the summer. Lander’s office noted that the education department has not responded to requests for their funding plan for migrant students, and it’s unclear how that $25 million will be spent.

Generally, schools that have enrolled more students than the department has projected receive more funding in the winter as part of the city’s “midyear adjustment” process, but the late timing of that extra money makes it tough for school leaders to hire staff when the needs are more immediate.

“These children – who have little English proficiency, varying degrees of grade level readiness, possible special education needs, and extreme trauma to overcome – need extensive academic and social emotional support,” Lander said in a statement.

Students who are learning English are entitled to traditional English as a new language instruction, meaning their classes are in English, but they receive extra support and translation help during and outside of class. Their families can also choose from bilingual programs or dual language instruction, but most city schools lack such programming, according to data from last school year.

Carolyne Quintana, the education department’s deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, said the city is creating transitional bilingual programs at schools as needed, in response to the influx of newcomer students. These programs gradually increase the amount of time that students receive instruction in English, she said.

“The goal of the programming is to support students in their home language while they transition into acquisition of English instruction,” Quintana said at Tuesday’s press conference.

Department officials did not provide more details on how the department is creating these new programs or where they’re being created. A spokesperson said they’re adding teachers at schools as needed, based on the language needs at the school. Facing a shortage of bilingual educators, the city recently announced hiring teachers from the Dominican Republic.

Advocates have pointed out that schools in New York City have long struggled to support students learning English as a new language. Over the past decade, the city has failed to comply with a state-issued corrective action plan focused on students learning English as a new language. For example, the city has failed to provide legally required services to all bilingual students with disabilities, largely because there aren’t enough trained bilingual educators.

In a letter issued to the city last year, the state said it was “dismayed” by the continued lack of bilingual programs for students learning English.

Hiring bilingual social workers

Education officials and advocates have emphasized that asylum-seeking students are likely grappling with many different stressors: leaving home and loved ones behind, learning to speak a new language, and acclimating to a new country. In his remarks Tuesday, Banks recounted recently meeting a student who had nearly drowned crossing into the United States.

“If you take time, and we really think about the level of trauma that a lot of these young people have had to go through, just to get here … it’s an opportunity to stand for everything that we’ve always said that we’re about,” Banks said.

Of the roughly 3,100 guidance counselors who work for New York City public schools, about 10% are bilingual, according to a city report from February. Of 1,900 social workers, nearly 13% are bilingual — meaning there would be one social worker for every 580 students learning English as a new language. The report didn’t specify which languages these staffers speak. About 14% of city students are learning English as a new language.

Advocates often report that students they work with don’t have access to a counselor or social worker who speaks their native language.

Banks said the education department is currently recruiting more social workers who speak Spanish. Officials did not elaborate on how many they’re looking to hire.

Coordinating donations and other supplies

Many of the new students are in need of basic supplies, such as food and clothing as their families get settled.

City officials are planning to create “borough response teams,” which will “organize food and clothing drives, resource fairs, and listening sessions/focus groups across the city,” according to a flier shared with parent councils across the city, asking people to sign up to join.

The teams will “help organize donation drives to support our newest New Yorkers, leveraging the incredible generosity of our communities,” Banks said Tuesday, but neither he nor the flier elaborated further on what these teams will do.

Some parent councils have already kicked into gear gathering donations for families in need.

The parent council overseeing Manhattan’s District 2 blasted out an email Tuesday asking people to donate or purchase items from Amazon wishlists that have been requested by various schools in the district. Schools are requesting warm clothing and shoes, undergarments, toiletries, and snacks that they’ll distribute to families in need.

Lupe Hernandez, a member of that parent council, is also a member of the newly minted Manhattan borough response team and has been helping coordinate donations. The parent council has always collected items for schools that enroll many students living in nearby shelters, but those same schools are now seeing a surge of newcomer immigrant students, she said.

Her new “borough response” team is still figuring out how they’ll support families, but volunteers are brainstorming ideas, including mirroring a plan in the Bronx to have a fair-like event with booths that provide various support, such as health services, and fun activities for new families, she said.

“I think the goal is to try to provide as many wraparound services in one location, as well as provide uplifting fun for families and kids,” Hernandez said.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Most Colorado K-3 teachers finish science of reading training

2022-10-13T21:11:24+00:00

The vast majority of Colorado’s early elementary teachers have completed training on the science of reading — a milestone in the state’s ongoing effort to boost reading proficiency rates among Colorado schoolchildren.

Around 20,600 of the state’s approximately 23,000 kindergarten through third grade teachers met the 45-hour training requirement as of October, according to state education officials. The science of reading is a large body of research about how children learn to read.

Over two meetings this fall, including one on Wednesday, the State Board of Education granted extensions to a dozen school districts where most but not all teachers have completed the training. They include large districts like Adams 12 and Colorado Springs 11 and small ones like East Grand and Cotopaxi. In most cases, the reason teachers didn’t finish the training was because they were on family or medical leave or had other extenuating circumstances.

In September, officials from a handful of school districts described to Chalkbeat bureaucratic or logistical obstacles that prevented full compliance with the training rules. For example, some teachers had recently moved from other states, switched to jobs in kindergarten through third grade, or hadn’t yet been assigned state ID numbers needed for districts to submit the training data.

Floyd Cobb, associate commissioner for student learning at the Colorado Department of Education, said in most districts seeking extensions, fewer than 5% of teachers still had to complete the training. The deadline for completion was Aug. 1.

Receiving an official extension matters because there’s money at stake.

Districts where all K-3 teachers completed the training or districts where waivers were granted will get tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars — in some cases more than a million — to help struggling readers. Until now, that annual funding, which is slated to go out in November, hasn’t been tied to sweeping mandates that apply to individual educators.

Cobb said Wednesday that eight of 179 districts still haven’t submitted data showing their K-3 teachers completed the training. An additional eight districts requested extensions but hadn’t verified the data they submitted to the state.

The state could delay the delivery of reading money to those districts or withhold it completely if they don’t satisfy the requirements, but it’s unclear if that will happen. State officials said they are still working to check districts’ compliance.

Ibeth Leon Ariza, who teaches students newly arrived to the United States at Homestake Peak School in the mountain town of Avon, said she liked the online training, which she took with a live instructor on Saturdays last winter.

A native of Colombia and a teacher there before she moved to Colorado, she has more experience teaching reading in Spanish, which she said is different — and easier — than teaching reading in English.

“It was really helpful for me,” she said of the training. “I have all the tools to support and teach my kids and I’m applying that for my newcomers.”

Teachers had several ways to complete the training requirement, including through free online classes provided by the state, or other courses, such as Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading, or LETRs. Teachers with certain reading specialist credentials also met the requirement and didn’t need to do extra training.

The training requirement was one of several that put more teeth into the state’s main reading law in 2019. Around that time, lawmakers, education officials and dyslexia advocates were growing increasingly frustrated that millions of reading improvement dollars were flowing to school districts every year but proficiency rates on state literacy tests had barely budged.

At the same time, many teachers said their teacher preparation programs hadn’t taught them much about teaching young students how to read. The state took a two-pronged approach to fixing the problem — targeting both existing teachers and teachers-in-training. Besides mandating the K-3 teacher training as part of the reading law, the state pushed Colorado’s teacher preparation programs to purge debunked reading methods and ensure coursework included scientifically based approaches to reading instruction.

Over the last three years, the state ordered four traditional teacher prep programs, including some of Colorado’s largest, to make changes to their reading coursework after state reviewers found shortcomings. Additional universities are currently undergoing such reviews.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Where do Hochul and Zeldin stand on education?

2022-11-07T17:29:07+00:00

On the surface, New Yorkers might assume that the state’s candidates for governor — Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican Lee Zeldin — would have polar opposite approaches to education if they were elected.

And while that likely holds true in several ways, there are still many open questions about how both would craft policy for schools.

Hochul has not focused much at all on education on the campaign trail, and while her time in office so far provides some clues, her campaign website has no details about her goals for the state’s K-12 schools beyond wanting to invest more money in them.

“As a frontrunner she has little incentive to take sharp or even very precise and specific positions, particularly on policies that are at all controversial, particularly policies that are controversial in suburbs,” said Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

In contrast, Zeldin is “throwing everything at the wall that Republicans are trying in lots of places,” Henig said.

The congressman has proposed several priorities, such as banning “divisive concepts” from being taught in schools related to race — a talking point that conservatives across the country have embraced — but he has not provided more specifics on many of his ideas. Some of his proposals are self explanatory, such as wanting to lift the cap on how many charter schools can open in New York.

Zeldin’s campaign did not respond to questions asking to elaborate on his positions or provide more details.

As the governor’s race nears this fall, here’s what we know about where both fall on education issues:

Curriculum

Zeldin has said he would ban “divisive curriculum that pits children against one another based on race and other factors” — language that’s similar to what conservative lawmakers in other states have pushed for.

His platform does not explicitly talk about critical race theory, or CRT, which is an academic framework for studying systemic racism but has been used by Republicans as an umbrella term for diversity and inclusion efforts. Both city and state officials have said critical race theory is not taught in the city’s and state’s public schools. Both locally and statewide, officials have encouraged schools to teach culturally responsive lessons.

But Zeldin wrote in an opinion article last year that CRT was politicizing education. In it, he blasted a lengthy framework released by the state education department that encourages — but does not mandate — districts to teach culturally responsive lessons, or lessons that relate to and affirm various students’ backgrounds. The department also wants districts to consider acknowledging the role of racism in American history and create lessons that empower students to be “agents of change.”

Zeldin’s platform also calls for restricting “age-inappropriate” sex education, though it does not detail what that means, requiring financial literacy courses in public schools, and civics lessons that “teach students about how and why they get to live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.”

Still, if Zeldin were elected, it’s unlikely that he would be able to successfully ban schools from teaching about race since the state legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic and unsupportive of such policies. For example, a bill seeking to ban critical race theory in schools didn’t make it out of committee last year.

“You may see outside money and national organizations try to come in and really sort of add amplitude to those messages around parental rights and critical race theory and gender identity issues,” Henig said. “I don’t want to discount the importance of how people talk about things, but the impact on actual policy would be delayed, at best.”

So far, Hochul has not taken a strong position on what sorts of curriculum or learning standards she supports in schools. When pressed about a New York Times investigation that revealed a lack of basic lessons in core subjects, such as English, in Hasidic yeshivas, Hochul said responsibility over those private religious schools fell to the state education department, not her office. (Zeldin has been supportive of the Hasidic yeshivas, and has been courting the vote of the Orthodox and Hasidic communities, the New York Times reported.)

Asked where Hochul stands on curriculum, her campaign pointed to an ABC 7 story from May, where she said she supported a bill that would have required New York schools to teach about Asian American history. (The bill did not move out of committee.) They also pointed to a bill she signed that requires the state education department to ensure school districts are meeting requirements to teach children about the Holocaust — an idea that Zeldin also supports.

Traditional public schools vs. charter schools

Zeldin has expressed substantial support for school choice and charter schools. In fact, he first announced his education agenda last spring outside of a Success Academy school in Queens.

Zeldin supports lifting the cap on how many charter schools can open in New York, which was reached in the city in 2019. He also wants to establish “tax credits for school choice” and create education savings accounts, but doesn’t provide more details. With an education savings account, parents can withdraw their children from public schools and receive tax dollars in a restricted-use account to pay for private school or other educational options like therapy.

The state legislature so far has not supported lifting the charter cap.

Zeldin’s platform online says he wants more options for “technical grade school level learning, experience and certification,” though it’s unclear if he’s referring to career preparation programs or something else.

On the city level, Zeldin saw eye to eye with Mayor Eric Adams and Hochul on extending mayoral control of schools. And, like Adams, Zeldin also supports keeping the controversial admissions exam in place for the city’s specialized high schools, as well as “advanced and specialized” academics. He’s earned the support of some parents who favor screened admissions to the city’s public middle and high schools and “gifted and talented” programs.

During a debate with Zeldin on Oct. 25, Hochul also said she supported lifting the charter school cap, which seemed to be the first time she said that publicly. [Note: This story originally published before the debate and was updated to reflect her comment.] She’s repeatedly touted overseeing a budget that sent more state money to school districts as the result of an agreement to fully fund Foundation Aid, the state funding formula that sends more money to higher needs districts.

Hochul has taken an interest in boosting mental health resources for students, ensuring more children go to college, specifically by expanding college tuition assistance to part-time students in New York, and has attempted to address the teacher shortage by expanding alternative teacher certification programs and temporarily waiving an income cap for teacher retirees who want to return to the profession.

She also signed a popular bill that requires lower class sizes in New York City, which was celebrated by many families, the teachers union, and advocates. City officials and some conservative parent groups pushed back, arguing the mandate would pull money away from other services for students.

School budgets and enrollment

Neither Hochul nor Zeldin have addressed one of the most critical issues facing public schools: dipping enrollment.

Enrollment in traditional public schools has dropped by more than 2% nationwide since the onset of the pandemic, and by about 9.5% in New York City public schools. Changes in enrollment have big implications for school budgets that are closely tied to the number of students in classrooms. That issue is already playing out in New York City, where three-quarters of schools saw cuts in the funding that pays for staff and programs for students.

Zeldin’s education platform doesn’t address the issue. While Hochul has touted her commitment to boosting funding for public schools, she has not addressed what to do about enrollment changes across the state.

“What you see on the Hochul side is, ‘Yes, we support education, we are willing to spend more on it,’ but kind of resisting what progressive forces might want to see on the campaign, in terms of challenging basic funding formulas in ways that might not play well in wealthy or more affluent communities that would see this as redirecting state monies away from them and towards lower-income communities,” Henig said.

COVID policies

Most COVID mitigations for schools have ended, so it’s not likely that the election of either candidate would drastically change that.

Both Zeldin and Hochul have supported peeling back COVID mitigations, such as masking, with Hochul recently calling remote learning a “mistake.” But Zeldin has pushed harder to remove all sorts of mandates.

While Hochul ended mask mandates, she also oversaw sending at-home COVID tests to schools and has touted keeping schools open during a major surge in infections last winter, though in-person instruction was still severely disrupted. (She’s come under fire in recent weeks for a deal she made when choosing a vendor for those tests.)

Zeldin has opposed COVID vaccine and mask mandates. If elected, he may press Adams to drop a vaccine mandate in place for New York City schools staff. At one point, Hochul expressed support for requiring children to get COVID vaccines. The state legislature would have to pass a bill that added COVID vaccines to the list of already required shots for school children, according to the New York Times.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

A Colorado experiment aims to expand the teacher pipeline and stem turnover

2022-09-28T00:39:42+00:00

Teacher vacancies and hiring headaches are a fact of life in many Colorado school districts these days.

A Denver-based nonprofit hopes to relieve some of those pressures by expanding its alternative licensure program and contracting new teachers to stay in their districts for three years.

The Public Education & Business Coalition’s plans are part of a new initiative that relies on “pay for success” financing, a funding mechanism in which outside investors cover up-front costs and get paid back later with public money if certain goals are met. The three-year project aims to reduce teacher turnover and cut the costs associated with recruiting, onboarding, and training new teachers.

This year, 35 prospective teachers and seven districts, including Aurora, Adams 12, and Durango, are participating in the project. Over three years, coalition leaders seek to mint 335 new teachers, including a significant number of teachers of color.

“The fear is there’s more teachers that are going to leave the profession than are entering the profession,” said Brett Johnson, chief financial officer for the Aurora district. “We’re leveraging this pay for success model in hopes to recruit and retain quality teachers.”

Pay for success financing — also called social impact bonds — has gained traction nationwide in the last decade as a way to pay for social programs that yield long-term dividends but are expensive to launch. Typically, if such projects don’t generate the hoped-for savings or meet certain metrics, outside investors lose some or all of their money.

A recent project that paid for housing and support for chronically homeless Denver residents was particularly successful, reducing jail, detox, and emergency room costs. One investor in that project, Northern Trust, is one of three investors in the coalition’s project. The Gates Family Foundation and the Denver Foundation are the other two.

Chalkbeat receives financial support from the Gates Family Foundation.

The coalition’s long-standing teacher training program is one of dozens of alternative teacher preparation programs in Colorado. Such programs typically provide on-the-job training for prospective teachers who already have bachelor’s degrees. The program doesn’t charge tuition, but participants have to cobble together living expenses during their training year.

The three investors will provide $1.4 million to cover costs associated with the year-long teacher residency program. The residency places participants in Colorado classrooms under the supervision of an experienced teacher and provides outside-the-classroom training.

Normally, school districts pay up to $18,000 to place one of the coalition’s teacher residents in their classrooms. Under the pay for success initiative, districts pay only about one-third of that amount up front. If the resident completes the three-year commitment — a year of training plus two years teaching in a district classroom — the district will make another payment. If the resident leaves before completing three years, the district is off the hook.

Johnson said part of the appeal is that the model shifts the initial financial risk of teacher turnover off the district and onto the project funders. Plus, he said the lower up-front costs of placing teachers in training make it easier for districts to scale up placement numbers.

Evan Kennedy, the coalition’s senior director of policy and strategic initiatives, said his group talked with school districts over two years to figure out what they needed from the project.

District leaders told the coalition, “If you can help us retain these teachers for three years, we have a lot of confidence that we can keep them for the long term,” he said.

In addition to defraying school districts’ up-front costs, the pay for success project will pay teacher residents a $5,000 incentive during their training year. That’s on top of state funding, scholarships, and other dollars that help teacher residents cover living expenses during training. Residents who don’t fulfill the three-year term will pay a financial penalty based on the amount of time completed.

Besides the 35 teacher residents participating in the project this year, the coalition has 51 other teacher residents.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

LGBT training video for Michigan teachers rankles Republicans

2022-09-20T22:40:32+00:00

Bryce was 14 when he came out to his father. He was 12 when he came out to his mother. But he was just 10 when he came out in elementary school.

“In school, being trans is very awful,” said Bryce, now 19. “It is horrible.”

But for him, he said, it would have been worse at home.

When he finally did come out, he said, his parents ridiculed him. His father refused to call him “son,” he said, and his stepmother locked him outside in a rage.

“They were very aggressive and immature and emotionally abusive,” said Bryce, who lives in a rural area in the Lower Peninsula. He asked Chalkbeat to withhold his last name and town out of fear for his safety.

Bryce said being able to be himself at school saved him. He would bind his chest with an Ace bandage every morning in the middle school locker room to hide the shape of his body beneath a loose hoodie.

“I don’t think I’d even be alive now, to be honest,” he said. “I’m very lucky to be here today.”

Now he worries about other trans schoolchildren in light of a controversy that erupted last week over teacher training around the care of LGBTQ+ students. The training, from the Michigan Department of Education, exposed a gap between teachers’ obligation to inform parents about potential mental health issues and their responsibility to shield children from potential harm.

The controversy emerged last Wednesday after conservative activist Christopher Rufo tweeted a 43-second video clip excerpted from a nine-hour professional development series offered by the MDE.

In the clip, which was later criticized by both Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican opponent, Tudor Dixon, a trainer suggests that teachers can talk with parents about a student expressing suicidal thoughts, without having to reveal that gender identity or sexual orientation is a cause of their distress.

Rufo tweeted that the clip proves MDE instructed teachers how to “facilitate” transgender students’ transitions and keep their chosen names and pronouns “secret from parents, even if the child is suicidal.” (Rufo is also one of the activists behind the conservative outcry over the teaching of critical race theory in America’s K-12 schools.)

The video, Rufo told Fox News last week, is an example of a way schools nationwide are radicalizing children, and he warned that parents need to be on guard.

MDE calls those accusations “patently false” and said the training helps schools create inclusive environments for vulnerable students who are more likely than classmates to be bullied and to attempt suicide. State superintendent Michael Rice has defended the training as important for teachers to better understand vulnerable students and help them feel safe and accepted in school.

Dixon, who has staked out conservative positions on a range of LGBTQ issues in schools, seized on the video Tuesday to call for Rice’s resignation. “Someone who has such contempt for parents as to instruct staff to hide information from them about their struggling child is unfit to oversee our education system,” she said at a press conference in Lansing, during which she criticized Whitmer for not taking a stronger stand.

Whitmer’s administration has itself raised concerns about the training. On Friday, the state’s chief operating officer, Tricia Foster, sent Rice a letter saying the training video goes outside the scope of his department’s responsibilities and asked him to ensure that trainings “comply with all applicable regulations, maintain department guidelines, and are reflective of best practices.”

Foster’s letter did not specify which regulations, guidelines, and practices she meant, and the governor’s office did not respond to questions.

The guidance in the video is consistent with MDE policy that has been in place since 2016, when the state board adopted guidance for schools around LGBTQ issues.

“The unique needs and concerns of each student should be addressed on a case-by-case basis, with a student-centered approach that includes the ongoing engagement” of the student, relevant school personnel, and parents “except in situations where educators are aware parental knowledge might threaten the student’s safety and/or welfare,” the policy says.

Whitmer campaign spokeswoman Maeve Coyle said that the governor “knows parents are crucial and should be involved in decisions about their children’s education” and that’s why she created the Michigan Parents Council to advise her.

Along with Dixon, the GOP-controlled Michigan Senate also condemned the professional development program in a resolution that passed on party lines. The resolution reaffirms “the fundamental right of parents to direct the education of their children.”

On Friday, the two Republicans on the eight-member state Board of Education also called for Rice’s resignation. Nikki Snyder of Dexter called the videos a “fundamental betrayal” and Tom McMillin of Oakland Township said they were evidence that “the assault on parents and parental rights has ramped up.”

Josh Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University, said the training could have been better but that conservatives are making political hay out of almost nothing.

“There is a silliness to this outrage by the right,” he said. “Some of this is just about scaring parents into thinking they have no agency or oversight of their children. We don’t live in that world.”

But he said MDE made missteps when it provided this training directly to teachers instead of guiding school districts to set up their own policies, ideally calling for consultations with trained mental health providers.

“My experience with MDE is that professional development they develop isn’t entirely based on evidence or rigor,” he said.

Rufo did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

For Bryce, school was the safest place to come out as transgender, and he wouldn’t have done so if he thought his teachers were obligated to tell his parents he had started using a different name and pronouns at school.

He wants it to be safe for other young people to be themselves at school, too.

“There are reasons why people don’t come out to parents, whether it’s safety or their parents aren’t going to accept them,” Bryce said. “I lost my family. That’s why I waited so long.”

He said he understands the view among conservatives like Rufo and Dixon that parents should direct their children’s education and that they need information to do that.

“We aren’t trying to silence the voices of our parents,” he said. “We just want to be in a safe and loving environment while we learn and grow as human beings.”

Siblings Cloud and Seassun Rosenfeld, who have a supportive family, said they didn’t have those kinds of worries for themselves when they came out — but they have friends who are frightened to tell parents they are struggling with gender identity issues.

“If there’s a policy that teachers have to or should tell parents, then kids who live in fear of their parents knowing wouldn’t tell anyone,” said Cloud, a seventh-grader in Ann Arbor who identifies as gender queer.

Cloud put their concerns bluntly: “If a teacher is obligated to tell that a child’s suicidal thoughts are around gender issues, that could result in the child actually committing suicide.”

Their father, Dave Rosenfeld, shares the concern.

“Not all LGBT kids, trans kids, get the support they need at home. That makes it even more important that they get the support they need at school,” he said. “LGBT kids who are not supported, who do not get the support they need, are at a massive risk of bad outcomes” such as running away, homelessness, drug addiction, suicide, and dropping out of school.

As a father, he understands the need for parents to be informed, but he said schools’ first obligation is to protect children from harm.

It’s a tough line for educators to walk, he acknowledged.

“Schools should work together with parents to educate the child, but if there’s any potential danger to the child, you have to respect the child’s choices,” he said. “Have some faith in the competence of children to know if it’s something they’re ready for their parents to know about.”

The uproar over the training videos demonstrates the need for more training around LGBT issues, not less, he said.

“The backlash against that type of professional development is born out of religious fanaticism,” he said. “I find it disgusting, because what they are advocating for … will really cause harm to kids who haven’t done anything wrong at all. All they want to do is get an education like all the other kids.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

State board restores Adams 14’s accreditation, citing unintended consequences

2022-09-14T22:59:00+00:00

The Adams 14 school district will regain its accreditation from the state of Colorado.

The State Board of Education on Wednesday afternoon voted 6-1 in favor of the state education commissioner’s recommendation to restore accreditation immediately. However, the change does not affect the state’s orders to reorganize and potentially dissolve the district.

Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said she made her recommendation after learning and reflecting on some of the district’s problems after the state removed accreditation in May. Mainly, she pointed to the district’s difficulty in hiring bilingual teachers from abroad. During a court hearing last month, the district testified that previously secured sponsors for the teachers’ visas had backed out after learning the district was no longer accredited.

Anthes noted the challenge that Adams 14 and its outside manager, TNTP, have in improving achievement in the struggling district, while “reorganization is considered.”

“I don’t want any unintended consequences around the loss of accreditation to make that road any harder than it already is,” Anthes said.

The state removed Adams 14’s accreditation as a largely symbolic move, with officials saying their May vote wouldn’t affect students’ ability to learn in school and earn a diploma, nor the district’s ability to receive funding.

“Little by little, the state board is understanding that its heavy-handed order has had unintended consequences on the children of Adams 14,” Joe Salazar, the district’s lawyer said in a released statement. “We are pleased with this recent development, and we hope this further builds on a more positive relationship between the state board and Adams 14.”

Board member Joyce Rankin, the sole vote against restoring accreditation, expressed concern about the district’s training of teachers in the science of reading. She said it was still unclear how many Adams 14 teachers have been trained, and wondered if international teachers would also be trained in the science of reading.

“I would like to focus more on the students rather than the adults in the situation,” Rankin said. “I think if we were going to emphasize this, and we were serious before, I believe I’m serious now.”

Board member Rebecca McClellan, who voted in favor of restoring accreditation, said she just wanted the public to be clear on the state’s reasons. “If there’s any chance at all that this makes the road or the pathway toward success more likely, then it’s the right thing to do.”

Two other board members, Steve Durham and Deb Scheffel who voted to support restoring accreditation, mentioned ongoing concerns with the district.

“The student achievement data in this district is heartbreaking,” Scheffel said. State achievement data released last month shows Adams 14 achievement declined on most tests in the 2021-22 school year. The one improvement was in sixth grade math where 5.3% of students met or exceeded expectations, up from 4.2% in 2019.

The state’s May reorganization order requires Adams 14 to set up a committee to consider redrawing district boundaries. Potentially, that process could ultimately cost the district control over some schools or areas. The process hasn’t yet started, and the district is challenging the order in court.

“We’re trying to figure out, what can we do? The district has a lot of wonderful teachers, but something is amiss and it’s been amiss,” Scheffel said. “I think we’ve been bending over backwards to do what we can… while still saying that it can’t just go on. We’re really trying to figure out what would matter and we hope that what we’re trying to do in partnership with you really matters on behalf of your students.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Two new Chicago efforts to cultivate more diverse teachers land federal grants

2022-09-13T19:56:53+00:00

Two new initiatives to recruit and support aspiring teachers at some of Chicago’s highest-need public schools are getting an infusion of federal cash.

Chicago Public Schools and DePaul University are receiving a collective $2.5 million from the U.S. Department of Education, part of a broader grant program to support innovative ways of enlisting, preparing, and retaining more educators, especially teachers of color.

The district’s program aims to offer more help and guidance to student teachers — educators-to-be working on district campuses while they pursue licensure — at high-poverty, hard-to-staff schools across the city.

DePaul University is gearing up to place 800 new teachers — career-changers and recent graduates in fields other than education — to teach special education, math, and other hard-to-fill roles at high-need neighborhood schools over the next five years.

The department announced the grants this week as U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and First Lady Jill Biden set out on a weeklong bus tour to showcase promising pandemic recovery efforts, including those to address teacher shortages.

District officials said in a statement that its new student teacher program will work to recruit and retain more veteran teachers of color to pair with novice teachers in the classroom, offering added support and mentoring to both groups. The effort aims to build on existing programs to create a pipeline for more diverse educators, including Teach Chicago Tomorrow, which steers district students toward careers in education.

The district credited Teach Chicago Tomorrow, among other efforts, with increasing the portion of new teacher hires who are Black or Latino to roughly half of all new educators this school year.

“We know that teachers make a profound difference in our students’ lives everyday and that impact can be even greater when a teacher looks like and understands their students,” district spokeswoman Mary Ann Fergus said in a statement.

Teacher and staff turnover is a perennial challenge for the district.

After increasing the number of staff positions during the pandemic and seeing retirements and resignations in some roles pick up, CPS saw a slight uptick in the number of unfilled positions at the start of the school year. It reported an almost 5% vacancy rate, compared with almost 3.5% during the first week of the 2021-22 school year.

Here and in other districts, certain teaching positions — particularly those in special education, science, math, and others — remain tough to fill. In addition, recruiting and retaining male Black and Latino teachers has continued to be a challenge: Latino men, for example, make up about 5% of Chicago’s teachers, even as Latino boys account for almost a quarter of all students.

The federal money awarded this week from the Teacher Quality Partnership grant program seeks to address these issues, supporting efforts in which school districts and teacher prep programs partner more closely. This fall, 22 initiatives nationally received a total of $24.8 million in five-year grants, including a teacher residency program in Colorado.

“These programs help prepare, place, develop, and retain effective teachers and leaders in our schools and classrooms,” Cardona said in a statement. “Our students need quality educators now more than ever to address their academic and mental health needs.”

The federal departments of education and labor recently sent a joint letter to district and state education leaders across the country urging them to step up efforts to tackle teacher and support staff shortages. The letter called for setting competitive wages for educators, including by using federal COVID relief dollars, though it is not clear how districts might sustain wage increases once that one-time funding runs out.

Chicago’s new Pre-Service Teaching Equity Project, or P-STEP — the CPS program receiving a roughly $1.1 million Teacher Quality Partnership grant — aims to ensure schools work more closely with faculty at local college teacher preparation programs to support student teachers. In partnership with Chicago State University, Northeastern Illinois University and DePaul, the program will focus on pairing veteran teachers of color with those student educators and better supporting the mentors as well as the new teachers. The goal: more diverse novice educators qualified to teach hard-to-staff subjects accepting permanent jobs with the district.

The DePaul program, in tandem with the Academy for Urban School Leadership and CPS, is also setting out to recruit and place more Black and Latino teachers in hard-to-staff positions at district schools serving 70% or more low-income students.

Starting next fall, the aspiring teachers will participate in a residency model, receiving mentorship from a veteran teacher at one of 25 district schools and working to complete master’s degrees in education and get their teaching licenses. The project is setting itself a goal of retaining at least 85% of first-year teachers in schools with higher-than-average vacancies.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Federal grant to help CU Denver expand teacher residency program

2022-09-12T23:02:19+00:00

The University of Colorado Denver will use about $7 million in federal grants over the next five years to expand a teacher preparation model to rural communities across the state. The federal government has touted the effort as an emerging program getting results in addressing the country’s teacher shortage.

The money from the U.S. Department of Education is part of $25 million five-year Teacher Quality Partnership program grants meant to help recruit, prepare, develop, and retain a strong, effective, and diverse teacher workforce.

CU Denver professors said the money will strengthen existing partnerships and allow the school to expand the NXT Gen Teacher Residency program to other rural colleges. The school will expand the program at Otero College and Trinidad State College and will add Lamar Community College to the fold.

Barbara Seidl, CU Denver teacher experiences and undergraduate experiences associate dean, said rural communities often bring in teachers from outside their community or the state, but have difficulty keeping them there.

Seidl said the goal is to “recruit from the local rural communities really talented people who want to stay, teach, and lead across a long career there.”

Colorado has made some efforts to help address a teacher shortage that’s impacted the entire country, investing in grow-your-own programs that tap promising high school students for teaching careers. The legislature this year approved stipends so teacher candidates from low-income backgrounds can get paid while student teaching, a point where many drop out because they can’t afford to work for free. The state also offers loan forgiveness to qualifying rural educators.

But successful programs like that at CU Denver are touted as another way to get high-quality teachers into communities where recruitment is the most difficult.

NXT Gen began in 2014 through a federal grant that aimed to work with Denver Public Schools.

The program has so far produced 124 teachers in schools that historically have lacked resources. It’s also tried to recruit first-generation students and students of color and place them back into their communities.

The program equips students with one-on-one support, as well as resources such as scholarships, tutoring, and peer mentoring.

Similar to the Denver program, the expansion will have students stay within their local communities — this time instead learning at their home colleges — and intern at their local school districts. During their senior year, the students transition into full-time paid residencies.

“We’re excited to bring true access to very high quality preparation programs where access hasn’t really been before,” said Cindy Gutierrez, CU Denver’s Office of Partnerships and Clinical Teacher Education director.

CU Denver is one of 22 programs selected for the grant program. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a news release the department wants to ensure it is providing the necessary resources to promote a diverse educator workforce.

“Our students need quality educators now more than ever to address their academic and mental health needs,” he said.

16 back-to-school stories with news you can use

2022-09-06T14:28:12+00:00

Hey, Michiganders (er, Michiganians)! It’s officially the first day of school in Michigan for districts and charters that didn’t get the OK from the state to start early. The back to school shopping is all done, all the supplies are in the backpacks, and the kids are back in the classroom. Now it’s time to turn our focus to news you’ll need to know heading into this 2022-23 school year.

Here, we’ve compiled some Chalkbeat stories with important information on some key issues, such as COVID safety protocols, test score performance, third-grade retention, chronic absenteeism, and staffing challenges.

Also, be sure to sign up for our newsletter here, and read more about our team here.

COVID safety protocols

Where Michigan school districts stand on COVID protocols

Masks are now optional for Detroit district students

Attendance/Chronic absenteeism

Detroit launches attendance initiatives as rising absenteeism threatens pandemic recovery

Detroit’s back-to-school enrollment efforts take on new urgency

Staffing vacancies

Michigan’s teacher shortage: What’s causing it, how serious is it, and what can be done?

Michigan programs provide route for second-career teachers. Are they rigorous enough?

Detroit school district moves closer to being fully staffed

Legislative action

5 policy changes affecting Michigan classrooms, cafeterias, and school buses

Betsy DeVos-backed school voucher-like initiative submits Michigan petitions

6 Michigan education proposals that lawmakers punted to the fall

COVID relief spending

COVID aid is a lifeline for financially troubled Michigan districts. Can they stay healthy?

Without state leadership, Michigan’s patchwork tutoring programs struggle to address learning loss

Gov. Whitmer proposes $280 million tutoring investment for Michigan

Michigan student test performance

Michigan test scores down sharply from pre-pandemic

Reading skills gap grows in Michigan

Detroit district students slide back on M-STEP tests as pandemic challenges linger

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis educator named Tennessee’s 2022-23 Teacher of the Year

2022-08-26T22:48:36+00:00

Fresh from being named Tennessee’s Teacher of the Year for 2022-23, Memphis second-grade educator Melissa Collins credits her family and 21 years in the classroom for preparing her to represent a profession that badly needs recharging.

Her father, she recalls, taught her how to compete as a young athlete, while her mother’s dying words in February were to “keep it moving.”

And as a national leader in STEAM education, Collins has inspired both students and colleagues while also serving on numerous panels to develop curriculum and training that integrates science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math.

“I feel like I was just built for this,” she said about the opportunity to serve as Tennessee’s chief education ambassador across the state and nation. Next spring, she’ll compete in the National Teacher of the Year competition.

Collins is a teacher and classroom innovator at John P. Freeman Optional School in Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

“I’m ready to share our stories,” Collins told reporters Friday, after receiving her honor the night before at a banquet in Nashville hosted by the Tennessee Department of Education and the state superintendents organization.

Collins is already a highly decorated educator. In 2020, she was inducted into the National Teacher Hall of Fame. Her list of honors includes Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year, a National University Award, and a 2018 Global Teacher Prize Finalist.

And on Friday, she received her second major statewide accolade in two days: Tennessee’s 2022 History Teacher of the Year. That award is presented annually by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to K-12 U.S. history education.

In her second-grade classroom, Collins integrates multiple subjects and uses the STEAM approach to guide student inquiry, discussion, and problem-solving.

In a 2016 interview with Chalkbeat, she described how she loves “thinking outside of the box” to bring her lessons alive — whether by using music as a learning tool or providing her students with lab coats during science lessons so they view themselves as real-life scientists.

“I want my students to form a curiosity about the world — to think beyond their neighborhoods,” she said. “That’s success to me, when a student is asking questions for the sake of their own understanding.”

That summer, Collins joined 36 educators from around the world at a global summit in India. Three years earlier, she went to Brazil as a Global Learning Fellow through the NEA Foundation — an experience she blogged about and used to develop lessons for other teachers. Those experiences, she said, helped her expose her students at John P. Freeman Optional School to other cultures.

Now she will also seek to energize other teachers and represent a profession that has suffered from burnout and endured extra scrutiny while navigating a public health emergency, mask mandates, book bans, and a political backlash on how to teach America’s history of racism.

“For the last two years, the pandemic has brought so many challenges,” Collins said. “But as teachers, we continue to dream big for our students.”

She added: “You can only achieve success if you refuse to give up.”

Collins was chosen for the state’s top teaching honor out of nine finalists from across Tennessee, all of whom will serve this school year on Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn’s teacher advisory council to provide feedback and inform her department’s work.

She follows Morgan Rankin, a second-grade educator at South Side School in Johnson City, who was named Tennessee’s top teacher last year.

The award has been given annually since 1960 to recognize outstanding teachers, promote effective teaching practices, and celebrate the teaching profession. You can view past recipients here.

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

5 policy changes affecting Michigan classrooms, cafeterias, and school buses

2022-08-25T12:30:00+00:00

A new school year comes with education policy changes for Michigan’s 1.4 million schoolchildren.

Those changes affect who’s teaching them, what’s served in their cafeterias, who can step onto their school buses, and more.

Here are five changes taking effect this year.

More retired educators returning to schools

A new state law is making it easier for retirees to return to work at any school in any position while continuing to collect their full pensions. To qualify, they must wait nine months after retirement.

Previously, unless they were filling a critical shortage area, retirees had to wait a full year and had to forfeit pensions and benefits for every month their pay exceeded one-third of their former compensation. Those limitations had been meant to protect the state’s pension liability from people who might retire early with an understanding that their principal would immediately hire them back, allowing them to simultaneously collect pensions and regular compensation.

The new law protects against double dipping by stipulating that retirees must completely sever their employment relationship and must not expect a reemployment offer from any district.

Michigan superintendents pushed for the change because of difficulties hiring enough teachers, substitutes, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and other school personnel. Returning retirees could fill any of those positions.

Education advocacy groups are encouraging retired educators to return to work under the new law.

“They could help fill the gap and help our schools continue to thrive as they do important work, while still earning a full pension and additional paycheck,” said Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals.

A return to college-credit requirements for subs

Education requirements are back in effect for substitute teachers.

To alleviate a shortage of subs, lawmakers in December passed a law allowing school support staff to substitute teach as long as they had finished high school or had a graduate equivalency diploma. The temporary measure expired at the end of last school year.

That means substitutes once again have to have an associate degree, 60 college credits, or, in the case of career and technical teachers, subject-matter expertise.

“For students, that’s going to mean you’re going to have a qualified individual stepping in on an emergency basis to make sure there are not gaps in the learning,” said state Rep. Tyrone Carter, D-Detroit.

A return to paying for lunch

This school year marks the end of free lunches for all students regardless of income, a benefit that was in place since 2020.

That could be a big change, particularly for parents of second-graders who have never had to pay for school lunch and who may not know they need to apply for free or reduced-price lunches this year. Most families will have to pay roughly $3 to $5 per meal, depending on prices set by local school boards.

Free and reduced-price lunches will remain available for those who meet income guidelines, but in most districts, parents will have to apply. Income limits vary by family size. Children in a family of four, for example, would qualify for reduced-price meals (30-cent breakfasts and 40-cent lunches) if their family income is no more than $51,338, or for free meals with an income below $36,075.

In some districts, including Detroit Public Schools Community District, meals will remain free for all students, as they were before the pandemic. That’s because those districts qualified for federal community eligibility for free lunches for all students based on overall community participation in other federal programs for needy families.

School lunches might taste a little different this year, too.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued three changes in school nutrition standards. One allows districts to increase the limit on sodium content in school meals. Another allows districts to offer flavored milks with 1% fat content instead of requiring them to be fat-free. The third waives a rule requiring school cafeterias to serve only whole grains. Now 20% of grains served may be refined.

The changes are intended to provide flexibility as school food service programs recover from pandemic-related challenges including unreliable supply chains.

Indeed, one thing that hasn’t changed much is the struggle many school cafeteria managers are having getting enough supplies and labor to meet the demands of serving more than a million meals a year.

“Students will continue to see our cafeterias struggle to get all of the products that they need,” said Diane Golzynski, director of the Office of Health and Nutrition Services for the Michigan Department of Education. “Our supply chain isn’t in its pre-pandemic state yet. We’re still struggling to get bread. We’ve been going to every store we can find, and we can’t find canned pumpkin anywhere.”

Pay for student teachers

A new state law guarantees pay for Michigan’s student teachers, alleviating the financial strain during their mandatory internships.

Student teachers, who teach full-time while paying college tuition, will now be paid $9,600 per semester they teach under a provision in the new state budget. Most Michigan education programs require one semester of student teaching, but some including Michigan State University require a full year.

The provision was prompted by a shrinking teacher pipeline that wasn’t producing enough educators to fill Michigan’s needs.

Supporters of the stipends say the money will make it easier for prospective educators to complete their internship requirements without having to work weekend jobs to pay the bills. That means student teachers will be able to focus more fully on their students, they said.

Safer bus transportation

New laws went into effect over the last year that are meant to keep children safer on school buses.

One law prohibits unauthorized people from getting on a school bus without the driver’s permission and prohibits impeding the operation of a school bus by, for example, blocking its path. Violators could be fined up to $500.

Another new law makes it easier for police to issue tickets to drivers who illegally pass a stopped school bus. The Michigan Vehicle Code requires drivers to stop their cars 20 feet from a stopped school bus that is displaying its flashing red lights and to remain stopped until the bus resumes motion with those lights off.

Previously, an officer had to witness the traffic violation to issue a ticket. The new law allows police to ticket drivers later if the violation is captured on a school bus’s camera system, said Carter, the law’s sponsor and a retired lieutenant in the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office.

“You can’t have a police officer everywhere,” he said, but cameras can help. “My goal is to make sure no child gets hit.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chakbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

I set out to show that men could teach elementary school. Then I changed course.

2022-08-23T12:00:00+00:00

I have always loved working with kids, and I long ago decided I wanted to be a teacher. Two years ago, when I was accepted into the teacher education program at Montclair State University, I decided to work toward a certification to teach kindergarten to sixth grade.

I wanted to play a role in changing the way elementary education is viewed as an area where only female teachers work. I had reflected on my own experience as a student and realized that I didn’t have many male teachers until high school. I wanted to show young boys that men can teach, too.

Twice a week for five months, I student-taught in a fourth grade classroom. I became “Mr. Lisojo” for the first time, and I couldn’t help but think of how close I was to achieving my childhood dream of becoming a teacher.

Omar Lisojo

I loved teaching fourth grade because the students are so alive and care about everything.

Ambivalence is rare. I learned quickly that most students that age are still eager to learn. They are independent enough to explore but dependent enough to listen. That memorable class will always have a special place in my heart.

While I was a student teacher, I was also a high school substitute. When I told a friend of mine that I wanted to sub at the high school level, he said, “Are you sure? High schoolers are scary, and they are going to walk all over you because you’re so young.” I responded, “I am 100% sure that I want to at least try it.” What I didn’t know at that moment was that I would develop a strong rapport with the senior class and become a mentor to some students.

I often covered English classes due to my love of English, but I ended up having some seniors in all different classes, from precalculus to AP Biology. As the months went by, I started to realize how much I enjoyed working with high schoolers. I participated in senior class activities and even assisted students with college decisions. I questioned if K-6 was still the route I should take.

I was at war with myself for months on end. All I knew was that when I was at the high school working with those seniors, I felt like I was right where I was supposed to be.

That senior class allowed my teaching philosophy to come to life every time I was in the classroom with them. At its core, my philosophy is that a safe classroom environment — a place where students can discuss their struggles, even with mental health, and where a diverse group of students feels challenged and nurtured — leads to young people reaching their highest potential.

The burdens that students carry during their high school years are often heavy. We are living in a world that invites students to compare themselves to others. Senior year, students expect big things from themselves. I know that students benefit immensely from an education that leaves room for discussions and focuses on the core pieces of being human.

Omar Lisojo with members of the class of 2022.

As the school year came to an end, a few students approached me to sign their yearbooks. I was caught completely off guard, but I was beyond honored.

As I attempted to formulate my thoughts, one of the students asked, “Mr. Lisojo, you’re coming to our graduation, right?”

“If you guys want me to be there, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said.

The Morris Hills High School class of 2022 inspired me to make an extremely difficult decision: Now, I plan to teach high school English.

Although I will no longer be working with students at the K-6 level, I know that I have made the best decision for myself. I almost wanted to find a way to teach elementary school and high school. However, I knew that wasn’t possible.

During my time of reflection, I kept going back to how amazing it was to connect with those high school students and help prepare them for a new chapter of their lives. I couldn’t be any more excited to transition from substituting to having my own classroom.

Omar Lisojo is a substitute teacher at Morris Hills High School in Rockaway, New Jersey. He will graduate from Montclair State University in December.

Indiana announces $111 million for phonics-focused reading instruction

2022-08-18T17:31:19+00:00

Indiana will spend $111 million to revamp its method of teaching reading to young students by prioritizing phonics, state leaders announced Thursday.

The lion’s share of the funds will go to training teachers in the “science of reading” — a vast body of research on optimal early literacy techniques.

The fund represents the state’s largest-ever investment in literacy, according to the Indiana Department of Education. It comes just a week after the state announced its most recent reading scores for third graders, which remained mostly unchanged from last year, except for drops among English-language learners. Concerns about the pandemic’s impact on literacy in general motivated the state to act.

“This couldn’t be a more timely response to the last couple of years,” said Gov. Eric Holcomb in a press conference about the fund.

The bulk of the total money — $85 million — comes from the Lilly Endowment, an Indianapolis-based philanthropic foundation, and will go toward training current and future teachers on phonics-focused literacy instruction.

Another $26 million in federal COVID relief funds for Indiana will support literacy instruction through the University of Indianapolis’ Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL) and the Hunt Institute.

“Although we understand that many factors affect reading achievement, we are compelled by the research showing that Science of Reading strategies can help all students learn to read better and address equity gaps in reading,” said Lilly Chairman and CEO N. Clay Robbins in a statement. “Knowing the important contributions teachers make every day in their classrooms, we want to make sure they are fully supported in this important work to help students learn to read well.”

Money for coaching, teacher prep, and oversight

Up to $60 million from Lilly is for the state education department to increase the number of instructional coaches who specialize in phonics-based literacy in elementary schools.

This school year, 54 elementary schools across the state opted into the instructional coach model, a number that will now grow to around 600 — or 60 percent of elementary schools — by the end of the 2025-26 school year.

This money will also help pay for stipends of up to $1,200 for teachers who participate in professional development focused on the “science of reading.”

Another $25 million from Lilly is earmarked for colleges and universities to incorporate phonics-based reading instruction into their undergraduate elementary teacher preparation programs.

Similar instructional approaches relying on phonics have been rolled out in New York City and states like Colorado, which is in the midst of revamping reading instruction in its at the state’s teacher preparation programs.

In Indiana, no student groups have recovered to their pre-pandemic literacy rates, according to recent state data, which showed just under 82% of all students passed the statewide third grade reading test, the IREAD.

The goal of the new initiative is to have 95% of students pass the IREAD by 2027.

On the other statewide assessment given in grades 3-8 — the ILEARN — around 41% of all students scored proficient or better on the English/language arts section, with wide disparities among student groups.

The new reading initiative will further provide “targeted support for students who need the most help improving their reading skills,” according to the education department, as well as fund an oversight center.

Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said reading instruction currently varies not just from school to school but classroom to classroom, where some teachers may already be using components of phonics instruction, while others aren’t.

Schools nationwide have used other approaches to reading instruction — like “balanced literacy” — which has recently drawn criticism for practices like separating reading and writing, and asking students to look for context clues to understand a word.

Jenner said the shift in reading instruction statewide will continue to be on an opt-in basis for the time being. If there is overwhelming interest in the program, Jenner said the department could earmark more federal funding to expand it to more schools or upper grades, or bring a funding request to the state legislature.

Jenner told an assembly of elementary schoolers and teachers at Eastside Elementary School in Anderson that reading would allow them not only to learn other subjects, but to realize their dreams.

She flipped through her favorite book from school — a book about oceans — to show students an image of the anglerfish, which fascinated her as a child.

Eastside Elementary is one of the schools participating in the state’s instructional coaching pilot this year.

Karen Griner, a literacy instructional coach at Eastside, said coaching helps teachers who may not have had the opportunity to study phonics-based instruction during their teacher preparation programs.

In the earliest grades, it begins with a focus on phonics, and later turns to fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, Griner said.

She said she hopes the investment from the state will expand the practice to more students affected by COVID.

“The last few years have been a struggle,” Griner said. “The masking has been a real delay for some of our students because they haven’t been watching the mouth and the articulation of sounds and words. So we’re hoping now we can really move to that piece and help students learn to articulate.”

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan programs provide route for second-career teachers. Are they rigorous enough?

2022-08-12T20:30:49+00:00

Smitha Ramani leaned over a folding table to whisper encouragement to a student about to give a presentation on her summer school invention: a device that smashes pretend guns and transforms them into pretend cotton candy.

Ramani, a student teacher in the Michigan Alternative Route to Certification program, had been helping summer school students write presentations, create posters, and fill out mock patent applications.

“It’s very difficult for children to articulate what they want to say, so the best way to help them is to ask a lot of questions,” Ramani explained after the Parade of Inventions in the hallways of Willow Run Middle School in Washtenaw County last month.

Three weeks earlier, Ramani’s day looked much different. She was behind the pharmacy counter in a Livonia Rite Aid, juggling phone calls from doctors’ offices, answering patient questions about drug interactions, and filling prescriptions for azithromycin, Adderall and all sorts of other medications.

She’s giving up her career in pharmacy to do something she believes will be more rewarding: teaching.

Smitha Ramani is transitioning from a career in pharmacy to teaching through M-ARC.

Ramani is among 39 students in a new Initial Certification Pathway, an expansion of the Alternative Route to Certification program at the University of Michigan that previously prepared teachers only in the Detroit metropolitan area. The new pathway serves prospective teachers from all areas of the state. It’s one of a growing number of programs in Michigan to help people with bachelor’s degrees in other fields quickly become certified educators.

Alternative certification programs are becoming more common nationwide partly as a response to concerns about a potential teacher shortage. In Michigan, two new programs opened last year, bringing the total number of state-approved programs to 10.

The number of prospective educators enrolling in these programs is growing, too. There were 1,935 students enrolled in Michigan programs in 2019-20, according to the most recent data available. Five years earlier there were just 95 enrollees.

The programs provide expedited routes to certification, sometimes in as little as six weeks.

Program completion, along with passage of the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification, qualifies participants for interim teaching certificates, which carry the same rights and responsibilities as standard certificates. After three years, during which the teachers receive additional mentoring and professional development, they can be fully certified.

In the Michigan Alternative Route to Certification, known as M-ARC, candidates spend five months in online courses and two weeks student teaching under the watch of field instructors, who provide daily feedback.

That’s a fraction of the time required to complete a four-year education degree. At $9,000, it’s also a fraction of the cost.

“We’re opening access to teacher certification to people for whom a traditional pathway isn’t accessible, either for geographic reasons, for financial reasons, or for time reasons,” said Jean Mrachko, the M-ARC program’s associate director. “It allows people to be working in the field while they are completing the program. That really opens access.”

Alternative teacher certification programs have grown in recent years. Proponents view them as a way to mitigate difficulties principals have in hiring enough teachers.

Critics wonder if expedited programs shortchange teachers and the children they will later serve. They worry that such programs compromise standards and dilute teacher preparation curricula.

“Are they looking to make it easier and quicker to become a teacher?” asked Thomas Morgan, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association. “If that’s the case, it’s not rigorous enough. … We believe there needs to be a hill to climb to become a teacher.”

The National Council on Teacher Quality does, too.

“We should not be lowering the bar for getting into teaching right now,” said NCTQ President Heather Peske. “Given the data we’re seeing on learning loss during the pandemic, we need the most skilled, the most qualified, the most committed teachers entering schools right now.”

Proponents including state Superintendent Michael Rice see alternative route programs as a key part of the solution to the shortage of teachers plaguing many districts across the state as they work to make up for lost learning opportunities during the pandemic.

“I view it as responding to the moment,” Rice said. “If the question is whether we have a teacher that is certified through (an alternative route) or have Mikey from the curb teaching a child — a person who has no experience whatsoever and is simply an adult substituting in a classroom for a long period of time because there isn’t a math teacher, there isn’t a social studies teacher, there isn’t a science teacher — the teacher that is developed through an alternative route program or expedited program is going to be preferable.”

That’s not to say they are preferable to someone with a four-year teaching degree, he added.

“People have to have ways to break into the profession” that don’t require four years, Rice said. “There have to be multiple onramps to the profession based on multiple sets of experiences, competencies, and knowledge bases.”

Providers say their training programs are comprehensive.

“We are not sacrificing the quality of the preparation. We’re doing it on a different timeline and at a different price point,” Mrachko said.

She said students said course content is comparable to traditional education classes at the University of Michigan, but M-ARC participants are relieved from taking courses in content areas because they already have bachelor’s degrees and have demonstrated competency on Michigan Test for Teacher Certification subject-area tests. Many also have work experience in the fields they want to teach.

“There are benefits to doing four years of an education program and then becoming a teacher, but why would you think that people like me won’t be successful?” Ramani asked. “We are coming into the profession with not a lot of school experience but with other experiences, life lessons, and passion most of all.”

M-ARC administrators know Ramani and her classmates will need intensive ongoing support during the three years they will work under interim certificates.

“We don’t just drop them off at a school door and wish them luck,” Mrachko said. “We hold their hands and walk in beside them.”

Students undergo six classroom observations a year, continue to attend twice monthly M-ARC seminars, create teaching portfolios, and complete assignments that ask them to reflect on their teaching, Mrachko said. They also have experienced colleagues in their school buildings who serve as mentors.

Academics like Brent Maddin acknowledge the tension between resolving the teacher shortage and maintaining standards.

“It’s really complicated because at this moment in American history — world history — we need to ensure that all students have access to the best educators they’ve probably ever needed,” said Maddin, a professor and director of Next Education Workforce at Arizona State University.

Sarah DePriest, a student teacher in the University of Michigan’s Alternative Route to Certification program, works with summer school students at Washtenaw International High School and Middle Academy in Ypsilanti.

Sarah DePriest, 46, of Willis in Washtenaw County has felt that tension.

While working a part-time job in the office at Lincoln Consolidated School District near Ann Arbor, she saw how desperate administrators were to staff classrooms. So she pitched in as a long-term substitute teacher. She soon realized she could contribute more as a full-time teacher, but only if she could find a certification program that would prepare her quickly enough to help but also well enough for her to feel confident leading her own classroom.

M-ARC seemed to fit the bill, although she still wonders if two weeks of student teaching would have been enough if she hadn’t already had experience as a sub.

“It was a great experience, but it wasn’t like having your own class,” said DePriest, who previously worked in restaurant management and as associate director of a nonprofit humanitarian organization, MOST Ministries. “Being in a classroom is different than any job I’ve ever had.”

She and other M-ARC participants said they wish they’d had more practice teaching students, managing classrooms, and writing lesson plans. Even during their student teaching, practice was limited. They worked in teams of three or four with a certified teacher and a field instructor from the university who critiqued their teaching and offered suggestions for improvement.

Mark Smith had careers in sales, marketing, and mental health before enrolling in the University of Michigan’s Alternative Route to Certification program.

Critics of alternative route programs say students deserve teachers who’ve had more practice than that.

“I would absolutely acknowledge that as a valid point,” said M-ARC student Mark Smith, of Grand Rapids. “On the other hand, I have experienced so many different areas of life, that I have a lot more reference points to connect with students” than most traditionally prepared teachers, he said.

Before enrolling in M-ARC, he spent decades working in sales, finance, marketing, SAT tutoring, and most recently as a behavioral health technician in a mental health program for teens.

Classmate Edgar Watson, 53, of Ann Arbor, knew from a young age that he wanted to be a teacher like his father, but his dad and other teachers he knew dissuaded him. They said the job is stressful and not well paid.

So he stayed away from teaching. Instead he earned a degree in computer engineering and then took a series of jobs leading his church’s music ministry, photographing weddings, and working as a chemical operator in an ink plant.

When he learned that districts near him were struggling to staff schools after last year’s return to in-person learning, he signed up as a substitute. He spent his days following lesson plans other people had written, and doing his best to manage a different class of students at a different school every day.

“It got me thinking,” Watson said. “I said, ‘I wonder what would be different if I were the real teacher in this room? I wonder what the dynamic would be if I had access to the grades, and the parents, and the union for that matter — everything. What could I really do?’”

That’s what led him to M-ARC.

Edgar Watson grew up wanting to teach, but was dissuaded by people in the profession. He was drawn back as nearby schools struggled through staff shortages.

His classmates have worked in construction, food service, journalism, library science, and more. Eleven have master’s degrees and one is a step away from having a Ph.D. Their average age is 39.

“It’s courageous, what they’re doing, especially people who have previously been near the top of their field or have been in leadership positions,” Mrachko said. “To step back and be the new guy who doesn’t know as much as the (colleagues) who are much younger, it’s a potential challenge, and it’s humbling. It takes a particular mindset.

Ramani, 43 of Ann Arbor, said she and her M-ARC classmates have that mindset.

“We know what we’re getting into,” she said. “We’re getting into it because of a passion for the idea of inspiring someone — building the next generation of humans.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

NYC wants to change the way students learn to read. Here’s how.

2022-08-12T19:48:06+00:00

Mayor Eric Adams has made literacy a priority, promising to overhaul reading instruction in New York City schools.

Educators agree it’s a critical moment. Even before the pandemic, fewer than half of students in grades 3-8 were reading on grade level, according to state tests. Now, interrupted learning has only heightened concerns that students have been knocked off track.

To preview some of the initiatives expected this coming year, Chalkbeat on Aug. 10 convened a group steeped in New York City’s literacy push from various perspectives — a top education department official, an academic expert, a principal, a teacher, and a parent of children with dyslexia. (See below for the video of the event.)

Carolyne Quintana, the education department’s deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, shared some insights around the city’s push to incorporate more phonics in K-2 classrooms across the five boroughs, along with more training for teachers. Some smaller scale initiatives: Two new elementary school programs will target children with reading challenges including dyslexia, and about 160 elementary and middle schools will receive extra training on literacy strategies and different types of interventions for struggling readers.

A list of resources from Chalkbeat’s NYC literacy event

Panelists and attendees during our Aug. 10 event on literacy changes coming to New York City schools submitted resources for parents and students who want to better understand how to teach children to read. We collected them for you here:

NYS Collective Impact: Public Comments about Literacy, a collection of NYS public comments in support of students who are struggling to learn to read. People can add comments to the list by contacting dyslexiarochester@gmail.com.
Reading Ready, a program to help first grade elementary students learn to read and professional development training for teachers and other school staff. Created by Katherine Pace Miles, associate professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY.
Read Write Inc. Phonics, free tutorial films for parents to help their children learn to read at home. It was created by Ruth Miskin Training, an organization dedicated to teaching reading.
Ofsted Reading by Six: How the best schools do it, an example of how other English-speaking countries support early readers – from the United Kingdom’s Office for Standards in Education.
Savvas Learning Company, provides resources, curriculums, and digital learning solutions for K-12 students and teachers.
Savvas Learning myView Literacy/mi Vision Lectura, a literacy program that provides tools for reading instruction for English and Spanish early-readers.
Savvas Learning Foundational Reading, literacy curriculum for students K-2 that focuses on phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, and other concepts. Savvas Learning Company provides resources, curriculums, and digital learning solutions for K-12 students and teachers.
Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Sciences of Reading Into the Balanced Literacy Classroom by Jan Burkins, a resource guide for reading instruction for K-2 students, specifically regarding high-frequency words, reading comprehension, and phonemic awareness. It was written by Jan Burkins, a former elementary school teacher and literacy coach.
Learning without Tears, dedicated to providing training, free webinars, and resources about reading instruction for teachers and parents.
Amplify, an education company that provides resources and curriculums for K-12 teachers for literacy instruction as well as other school subjects.
Science of Reading: Making the Shift, an online book that provides a checklist of key instructional practices based on the science of reading.
Science of Reading: A Primer Part One and Science of Reading: A Primer Part Two, breaks down reading instruction practices based on the science of reading.

In terms of the big picture, one goal is to increase awareness of reading challenges among educators so they “understand what the different and varying needs of students with reading challenges may be,” Quintana said.

To that end, the education department is providing all K-12 teachers with a two-hour training from Made by Dyslexia, and will have literacy coaches in K-12, unlike previously, where coaches were provided for K-2 classrooms. (At the same time, however, the city is shrinking the number of literacy coaches from 500 to 200.)

A lot of this work, however, takes time, and questions remain about the many struggling readers who may not have challenges as severe as dyslexia, or might be in older grades, which the new phonics push won’t reach.

Katie Pace Miles, an associate professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY, offered a possible solution: scaling up tutoring programs with teachers-in-training.

This past year CUNY trained 650 students from the university system’s education schools in “evidence- and research-based programs” and placed them in schools where they worked one-on-one with first and second graders, explained Miles, who is the academic advisor for Reading Rescue and the creator of Reading Ready, both of which are reading intervention programs.

“These are readers who may not be individuals with dyslexia,” she said. “Some of them may be. We’ll know more once we do this tutoring work, and we have evidence from assessments.”

Scaling up such a program is crucial, she said.

“That’s one really important thing that we need to do because the urgency is immediate. It’s right now for the students coming out of the pandemic. We can’t wait for a school to get going with the phonics curriculum,” Miles said. “These students need the interventions straight away.”

If money were no object, here are other ideas the panelists believe would help most when it comes to reading instruction:

“If we had all the money in the world, we would be able to pay teachers to come in a week or two earlier than they do right now … and receive the kind of intense literacy training that they’re all craving,” said Darlene Cameron, principal of Manhattan’s STAR Academy. “It can be challenging to have the amount of time that needs to be dedicated to providing that kind of training, and I think administrators could also use that kind of training and support.”
Naomi Peña, a parent who is part of the Literacy Academy Collective launching a program at the Bronx’s P.S. 161 geared toward students with dyslexia, wants to include parents in deeper ways.

“How do we incorporate them because right now the model is a little bit of shaming the parents, saying, ‘Are you reading to your child? You’re not reading enough,’” Peña said. “So it’s also changing the modality of how we interact with parents, not putting shame on them, but understanding that we’re in this together, and we want to lift your child up and also support you.”

Deeper training is something that many teachers long for, said Mercedes Valentin-Davila, a kindergarten and dual language teacher at Brooklyn’s P.S. 24, who recently overhauled her literacy instruction by incorporating more phonics.

“We want to learn. We want to be trained,” she said. “But it’s not just train us for a week, and then throw us in there, and that’s it. There has to be a partnership between the professionals, the researchers, the scientists.”

She wants to see a community formed around literacy that includes those experts along with teachers, administrators, and parents.

“I feel like there’s always this separation, and I feel like if we had all the money in the world, we would be not just trained, but we would form a real community,” she said. “Literacy is equity, and that means that we all need to work together.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Elena Johnson is a community listening and engagement intern at Chalkbeat.

New to Philadelphia teacher orientation: a required session on race

2022-08-08T23:09:54+00:00

More than 600 new teachers and counselors in Philadelphia kicked off their week-long orientation on Monday, and this year, for the first time, the issue of race is a required discussion topic.

Most of the sessions for new hires are tailored to the teacher’s specialty, such as elementary school math, high school science, special education, digital literacy, art, and music. But there are also sessions on helping students deal with trauma, becoming a “culturally responsive” teacher, and on “racial equity and the history of Philadelphia.”

Within the past several years, the district created an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to study racism on an individual and institutional level, provide training and examine current practices. Discussions in past years have dealt with race, but have always been voluntary.

The focus is designed to help teachers forthrightly deal with a subject that is often avoided: Most of Philadelphia’s teachers are white, while most of the students are Black or Hispanic.

Sia Beckwith, who works in the district’s DEI office and is one of the trainers in this new session, presents that demographic information (which dates to last February) and explores why it matters with the new hires. Beckwith said the point is not to say white teachers can’t teach students of color or vice versa, but rather to make sure teachers are “mindful of the disproportionality, and always consider what that might mean that we’re missing.”

Ryan Villanueva, also from the DEI office and another presenter, said he and Beckwith aim “to support the district in becoming more antiracist and more equitable. We felt it’s important to get in front of new teachers to support that learning and growth, because the way we’re socialized is not to have too many discussions about race.”

For the third straight year, the district’s orientation for new hires is virtual, rather than in person. For the sessions, teachers are grouped based on their years of experience, either as a novice with two years or less, or a veteran with at least three years in the classroom.

“Everyone is coming with a different background,” said Meredith Mehra, the Deputy Chief for Teaching and Learning who designs the training.

In addition to the training sessions, the new hires heard short greetings from Superintendent Tony Watlington, Board of Education President Joyce Wilkerson, and Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

“We have a couple of things in common. I join you in my new status here,” said Watlington, who took over the district in mid-June. “Sometimes it can feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose.”

Watlington, who most recently worked in a North Carolina district, confessed that on a pop quiz about quintessentially Philly words — like “jawn” — he only got two right.

“I have some work to do,” he said.

‘I love to see the children succeed’

When the district began hiring for the upcoming school year, they had to fill roughly 900 vacancies among 9,000 total positions for teachers and counselors. With roughly three weeks to go until the school year begins Aug. 29, there are 270 vacancies for those positions, and the district is 97% staffed.

This year, as in the past, the hardest jobs to fill are in special education, math, science, and English as a second language, according to a district spokesperson.

Another session for Philadelphia’s new hires about “culturally responsive” training is to help teachers “to marry inclusive and equitable practices with routines and procedures in the classroom,” Mehra said.

The session is designed to help teachers comply with Policy 252, which was adopted by the district in 2016 and focuses on “safety, equity and justice for students regardless of gender identity or gender expression.”

For instance, Mehra said, it has been common in schools to line up students for excursions outside the classroom in two lines, one for boys and one for girls.

“If it is not part of an actual instructional purpose, there is no need to separate students by gender,” she said. “If you need to split the class into two groups, you can do it based on a variety of factors outside of gender.”

One of the new recruits is Cameile Graham, who will be a life skills teacher for kindergarten through second grade students at Overbrook Education Center, where her daughter is a fourth grader. Her son, who has special needs, attends the Widener Memorial School for students with disabilities.

Graham said she taught for 20 years in her native Jamaica, and with her children in the system, she decided to reenter the education workforce.

“I am from a family of educators,” said Graham, who lives in West Philadelphia. “I appreciate the teaching and learning process and I love to see the children succeed. I share the belief of [Dr. Watlington] that all children deserve great schools, and I’m excited to be a part of that,” she said.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

CSU professor helps Colorado teachers find LGBTQ history close to home

2022-08-01T19:52:11+00:00

The notable figures and moments in the fight for LGBTQ rights are numerous.

For example: The New York Stonewall riots that launched the gay rights movement. The activism of San Francisco’s Harvey Milk, who was California’s first openly gay man to be elected to public office. The 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage.

But there are also examples closer to home for Colorado students, such as the lesbian ranchers who were some of the state’s early homesteaders or the Colorado State University students who elected a Homecoming Person rather than a Homecoming Queen back in 1974.

Colorado State University professor Thomas Dunn has been working to find and preserve these stories as part of the Queer Memory Project of Northern Colorado. This summer, he had hoped to hold the project’s first workshop for K-12 teachers who want to incorporate these stories into history and civics lessons.

The workshop was prompted in part by a 2019 state law that called for a more inclusive approach to teaching Colorado history. The State Board of Education is still debating the proposed updates to social studies standards envisioned by the law. Facing conservative backlash, a committee removed many refences to LGBTQ history and social contributions from the draft standards. Final standards are set to be adopted in November.

There is growing opposition across the country to LGBTQ rights and the teaching of LGBTQ history. In June, a Florida law went into effect that will limit LGBTQ issues and identities from being discussed in the classroom. Multiple states recently sued the Biden Administration over its anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBTQ students and workers. And conservative parent groups have mounted campaigns across the nation to remove books in schools and libraries with LGBTQ characters or references.

Earlier this year, Dunn made his case for the value of teaching LGBTQ history to the Colorado State Board of Ed. There are plenty of ways to introduce important historical figures to students at an early age, he said, without broaching the heavy topics that might be better suited for older students.

Dunn shared some of those examples in a recent interview. And he stressed there are ways to make teaching LGBTQ history relevant and appropriate based on the communities that students come from.

Helping students feel included

Dunn said he wants to be clear that LGBTQ history doesn’t need to include complex conversations about sex and sexuality. While he doesn’t have training as a K-12 teacher, he said he knows educators across the state have the tools to approach tough subjects in delicate ways.

The focus should be on the contributions of people and their differences, Dunn said, noting that teachers can highlight the Colorado educators whose notion of gender and dress looked different than the norms and the prominent business people who influenced their communities. Including all people and their differences will give students a better understanding of the world, he said.

“These are people within our communities, and we can focus on that,” he said.

Many students he works with hadn’t learned about LGBTQ history until they got to college. Stories that reflect the greater community makes all students feel part of a system, he said.

“Being able to tell those stories both in a way that is age appropriate as well as giving an increasingly surging LGBTQ youth population some representation is important,” he said. “And I’m also a father — I have an adopted daughter — and so this is something I care about in that way.”

LGBTQ history isn’t just big events

Stonewall. Harvey Milk. The debate behind gay marriage rights.

Dunn agrees such topics can be difficult to teach students at an early age or involve national references that may not feel relevant to students’ lives.

That’s why he wants teachers to think about how to focus on their own community. For instance, Dunn pointed to Hattie McDaniel.

The actress, who also attended Denver’s East High School, lived in Fort Collins and is one of the more prominent names in the city’s history. She was the first Black person to win an Academy Award, when she was honored as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 1939 movie “Gone With the Wind.” Dunn said evidence points to her also being bisexual.

Teachers across the state can easily find a teachable moment to reference race, gender, and sexual identity by focusing on McDaniel’s accomplishments, he said.

Prominent Colorado LGBTQ figures

Grace Espy Patton

Grace Espy Patton was a Fort Collins resident and one of the most prominent graduates of Colorado State University in the 1800s. She was an instructor at the school and was elected in 1896 to become the state’s superintendent of public instruction. She also was an advocate for women’s rights.

Evidence suggests that Patton was a lesbian, making her possibly the first LGBTQ instructor in the history of Colorado State University.

Theron Abbott

Theron Abbott is a favorite of Colorado State University students, Dunn said.

Abbott became Colorado State University’s first Homecoming Person in 1974 after successfully running for homecoming queen. University officials ended the homecoming queen tradition after Abbott’s win.

Matthew Shepard

While violence against the LGBTQ community is a difficult subject to approach, Dunn said Matthew Shepard is a prominent figure who students should learn about at some point in their educational career.

Shepard died at Poudre Valley Hospital after he was beaten and tied to a fence in a Wyoming field. His murder, which was an anti-gay hate crime, created more awareness of the violence the LGBTQ community faces.

“That wouldn’t require a significant wholesale change,” Dunn said. “It would just require a richer telling of that story. That could be a really good jumping-off point to have a broader conversation.”

Resources are available to teachers

Teachers aren’t alone, Dunn said.

He knows that while teachers can lean on their training about how to teach their own students age-appropriate topics, sometimes finding material for lessons can be difficult.

In June, Dunn tried to host a seminar to help teachers across the state better understand Colorado’s LGBTQ history and find avenues to teach about the contributions of the community. Fifteen educators were selected but only one showed up on the first day. While interest in the topic was very high, that tapered off as conservative backlash toward the state’s proposed standards mounted, he said.

“We’ve committed to doing these a number of different times,” he said, “but it’s a great example of how the tone set at the top can shape what an individual teacher feels like they can or don’t have permission to do.”

Many teachers across the state are leading the way in developing lessons in their own districts, he said. He wants educators to know they have support.

Teachers can turn to the online archives of the The Queer Memory Project. The project focuses mostly on Northern Colorado history. Dunn said the project can also connect teachers to the greater community of educators wanting to explore how to better teach about the LGBTQ community.

And he hopes districts and educators continue to have the conversation about the best path forward to teach students.

“I trust our teachers to tell these stories,” he said. “And I hope we support them and give them the space and encouragement to teach.”

I overcame enormous financial challenges to become a teacher. Would I always feel like an outsider?

2022-07-29T12:00:00+00:00

I’ve been working since I was 16 years old. My family supported me as best they could, but I knew that education was my only way out of poverty.

In 2016, after a positive experience with a summer teacher training program called Breakthrough Collaborative — and triple-checking salary expectations to ensure I wouldn’t be impoverished — I decided that the classroom was for me.

Jasmine Lane

I knew there would be obstacles, but I had no idea the challenges would prove so numerous. The heart of the matter was this: No one understands the core issues in recruiting and retaining teachers, especially teachers who are not white and middle class.

My experience is not unusual. Those who wring their hands over the ongoing teacher shortage and see the need for more educators of color often don’t get what prevents teachers like me from entering and staying in the profession.

I chose a teacher training program that requires about three months of unpaid work — better known as student teaching — over an alternative program where you are paid a salary to learn on the job. I knew the social and professional benefits I would accrue by receiving a degree from a highly ranked university, but it was expensive, especially since it was more or less impossible to hold a second (paid!) job while student teaching.

I surveyed 21 teachers of color in my university licensure program, and almost 80% had funding gaps, 66% of which involved the cost of tuition and the required three months of unpaid student teaching. That was my experience, too.

After graduating, I taught high school just outside Minneapolis. The students were predominantly non-white, and the teaching staff was overwhelmingly white.

I had imagined the emotional baggage that would come with being a perpetual outsider in a state where about 95% of the teaching staff is white , but I wasn’t prepared for the reaction of students. As a Black teacher, I was never under the impression that I would be a sort of superhero, but I did imagine that my race and background would differentiate me from my white colleagues, at least in a small way.

I soon realized that more than representing my Blackness to my students, I represented power, the power of a white establishment that had disrespected and disregarded their wellbeing. Black skin didn’t make me kin; thus, I remained an outsider even in my own classroom as I tried to break down barriers of resentment that educators — and American society, generally — had created over hundreds of years.

I soon realized that more than representing my Blackness to my students, I represented power.

My students saw my high academic standards as targeting them; they mistook feedback for animosity, and when they said my class was ‘too hard’ after I assigned a five-paragraph essay to my seniors, my principal sided with them and threw my authority away.

The administration appeared more concerned with graduation rates than with proficiency and growth. My students were poised to achieve so much more if the system actually cared.

When you question these low and racist standards, you risk being isolated from staff, targeted by administrators, and called inadequate because this child never had a problem in English before you came along. I could endure abuse from parents and students, or I could endure abuse from the school administration team — but I couldn’t do both. So I quit that job, but I stayed with teaching, albeit 4,000 miles away.

I moved to East London and now have a job at a local state school, teaching students ages 11-18. There is the expectation that schools are safe, children are looked after, and students learn. And these small things have made the biggest difference.

But some days, when I see my kids playing during break time or creating incredible essays and analyses of complex works, I’m wracked with guilt. Guilt that I can’t give back to the system that made me, back to the other children that came from neighborhoods like mine, and guilt that I left everyone behind.

Organizations like Sharif El-Mekki’s Center for Black Educator Development and the Man Up Teacher Fellowship are looking to improve the recruitment and retention of Black teachers, but the systemic issues are bound to continue when solutions tackle the effects, not the cause.

American schools love Black teachers until we disagree with you.

Jasmine Lane is an English teacher and Key Stage 3 coordinator for curriculum. She lives in London and, when not teaching, spends her time in the many museums that the city has to offer. You can follow her at @MsJasmineMN.

Note: This essay was commissioned by The Grade, an independent effort to support and improve schools coverage. Follow @thegrade_ on Twitter.

For this LA educator, teaching Asian American history and activism is personal

2022-07-22T18:30:00+00:00

Five-year-olds have a very literal way of understanding the world, says Kimi Waite, who spent her early career in a kindergarten classroom.

“One of my students had an incredible mind for science and engineering,” said the Los Angeles-based teacher, noting that he was eager to experience everything he learned.

“One day during recess, I found him outside of the classroom door with his cheek pressed against the wall. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, ‘Today, our vocabulary word was texture! I’m trying to experience the texture of the wall.’”

She delights in students’ radical openness to those new textures, new ideas, and new people. That’s one reason Waite, who now works as an elementary school STEM curriculum specialist while pursuing her Ph.D. in sustainability education, is passionate about teaching about underrepresented communities.

“I believe that young learners are perfectly primed to think about issues of injustice and also scientific inquiry due to their unique way of looking at the world,” said Waite. “They’re very passionate about what’s fair, what’s not fair.”

Growing up Asian American in Seattle, Waite says she rarely saw herself reflected in her school curriculum. “If I did, it was always like a very oppressed narrative,” she said.

Teaching, Waite said, was “a calling to counter the experiences I had, and to make it better for [other] children.”

But improving the experience for all students requires better training for educators, she said. “Our teacher education programs need to emphasize more anti-racism and social justice,” she said. “I think it’s fundamental that teachers are trained.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

I wanted to learn about different places and education systems around the world that were different than in North America. I first started teaching as a fifth and sixth grade ESL teacher at a public school in Seoul, South Korea. I’ve also taught professional development for early childhood educators in Guyana. One of the reasons why I love Los Angeles is because of the local and global connections that always show up in the classroom.

But the main reason why I became a teacher was because I wanted to make a difference. I believe that education and teaching have a larger purpose and a larger goal of advancing social justice and environmental justice.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

As an Asian American, I never saw myself reflected or represented in my K-12 curriculum. On the rare occasion that Asian Americans were in the textbooks or were mentioned in a lesson, the portrayal was one of an oppressed people who silently accepted their fate. However, history tells us that this stereotypical portrayal isn’t true. Throughout history, Asian Americans have engaged in resistance and coalition-building against injustices. But this typically isn’t taught in schools.

Much of the work I did to prepare to be a teacher, in undergrad and in my teacher preparation and masters program, was about unlearning the whitewashed narratives that were presented to me during my own K-12 education.

My own K-12 education also showed me the importance of having teachers of color. From kindergarten until my doctoral program, I’ve only had five educators who have looked like me. In elementary school, I never really felt like I connected with any of my teachers or that I was seen.

What’s your favorite — or in your opinion, most important — lesson of Asian American history to teach and why?

Asian Americans have a long history of resistance, and this resistance has shaped our civil rights today. The nuts and bolts of each court case may not appear in early elementary school, but the concept they reflect of Asian Americans fighting for equality can. Here are some examples:

United States v. Wong Kim Ark: This 1898 case affirmed that American-born people of Asian descent were U.S. citizens, and gave legal precedent for citizenship rights of historically marginalized U.S.-born people. A great book to use to teach this is, “I am an American: The Wong Kim Ark Story.”
Korematsu v. United States: Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were given orders to report to assembly centers. Fred Korematsu defied these orders and was arrested. Legal challenges were filed, but his conviction was deemed constitutional. Scholars now regard this as wrongly reasoned, along with cases like Dred Scott v. Sanford and Plessy v. Ferguson.
Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution is celebrated annually in California and 12 other states on January 30 to honor the legacy of Korematsu. Some great books to teach this are: “Fred Korematsu Speaks Up” and “They Called Us Enemy.”
Related to Japanese American incarceration during World War II, the POV documentary “Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust” tells a story of historical dispossession: the dispossession of Indigenous lands; the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans; and the extraction of natural resources. Three communities rise up in solidarity to fight for environmental justice. The lesson plans I wrote for the film are available on PBS Learning Media.

California also has one of the country’s largest Sikh populations; however, despite their rich contributions to the culture, economy, and industries of California, there’s a lack of awareness about Sikhs that can lead to bullying. Pre-pandemic, a Sikh Coalition volunteer came to my kindergarten class, and my students learned about Sikhs in California as part of a state history lesson. They used coloring pages of Sikh children as superheroes. It celebrated a group of people creating awareness and understanding but also showing them experiencing joy, which I think is really important.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

It isn’t direct advice, but the best example that has been set for me in my career has actually been from 5- and 6-year-old kindergarten students. I love their inquisitive minds, their unfiltered honesty, and the pure joy that they gain from things that we might find mundane.

Young learners are perfectly primed to think about issues of injustice and also scientific inquiry due to their unique way of looking at the world. I also admire their courage and authenticity. We should all be like this, but as adults, we’re socialized out of it.

What’s one thing you’ve read that has made you a better educator?

“The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century” by timeless activist foremother Grace Lee Boggs.

One of Boggs’ most famous questions is, “What time is it on the clock of the world?” She encourages us to think globally and to see how interconnected we are. Even with kindergarteners, I always had this question in mind when lesson planning or when preparing for learning projects.

You have a busy job, and this is a stressful time. How do you take care of yourself?

Knowing when to say “no” is a skill that I’ve had to learn (and keep learning) over the years. And not compromising on the “no,” because “no” is a final and a complete answer. As educators, we are in a helping profession, and we want to help. However, you need to take care of yourself first and protect your own time and energy for your own mental, physical, and emotional health.

Tennessee governor responds to outcry over Hillsdale charter leader’s criticism of teachers

2022-07-06T22:41:01+00:00

Praising teaching as both a profession and a calling, Gov. Bill Lee sought Wednesday to defuse the backlash that arose after a leaked video showed him sitting silently as a conservative education adviser mocked teachers, their training programs, and diversity officers.

But the Republican governor didn’t reject or disavow the recent remarks by his friend Larry Arnn, president of Michigan’s Hillsdale College, who said that “teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

Lee also sidestepped questions about whether he would end any “partnership” between the state and Hillsdale, a small, conservative Christian school that Lee has invited to bring a hundred of its “classical charter schools” to Tennessee.

“I fully support our public schools in this state and our teachers as well,” Lee told reporters, citing increased funding for teacher pay and public education every year since he took office in 2019.

The governor’s response came nearly a week after Nashville station WTVF released portions of a nearly two-hour video taken with a hidden camera at a private event hosted by Hillsdale in Franklin, south of Nashville.

During the June event, which Lee attended, Arnn compared modern education to “the plague,” and dismissed degrees earned by higher education diversity officers as “easy.”

Speaking of Hillsdale’s charter school work, Arnn said: “We are going to try to demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it.”

But Lee told reporters that Arnn was criticizing “the influence of left-leaning activists” in public education. “It wasn’t about Tennessee teachers or Tennessee schools,” the governor said.

At his annual state address in January, Lee lauded Hillsdale as a “standard bearer in quality curriculum” and said Tennessee was formalizing a partnership with the college based on its approach to civics education. Critics say Hillsdale’s 1776 charter school curriculum is rooted in the idea of American exceptionalism and glosses over or misrepresents uncomfortable history or progressive ideas.

In a radio interview Wednesday with conservative talk show host Matt Murphy, Lee said Arnn’s remarks about teachers and teacher training have been taken out of context and emphasized that they were not aimed at Tennessee educators.

“I’m not going to rebut someone who was speaking about left-wing problems in public education in this country that have actually hurt the genuine work of our teachers,” Lee said. “That’s why we in our state passed a law prohibiting critical race theory. That’s why we in our state passed a law that allowed parents to have access to what their kids have access to in a library.”

He added: “I will put our [Tennessee] teachers up against anyone in the country when it comes to their performance and their value.”

Leaders of Tennessee’s two major teacher organizations were disappointed, however, with Lee’s explanation, which comes amid a looming educator shortage.

“Gov. Lee missed a real opportunity to really separate himself from Mr. Arnn,” said JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, who has called Arnn’s remarks an “insult” to students who attend colleges of education and the professors who teach them.

Tanya Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association, said Lee’s muted response showed that his loyalties lie with charter school operators.

“The video is clear. Gov. Lee allowed an out-of-state privatizer to stand on a stage in Tennessee and insult public school educators and teacher prep programs,” Coats said.

Lee, who is running for reelection, enjoys significant support in the polls. But since the TV report on June 30, he has faced swift and sharp criticism over Arnn’s remarks, from frequent critics as well as some political allies.

Hendrell Remus, chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party, called Lee’s reaction “a new low for the governor,” while fired-up educators across the state started a #ProudToTeach campaign on social media.

The Tennessee Charter School Center, a Lee ally that works to bring more high-quality charter schools to the state, said in a statement that it “categorically rejects” Arnn’s comments, while the head of the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association called the remarks “incredibly disturbing.”

The Tennessee State Board of Education, which works closely with teacher training programs to address teacher quality and supply, issued a statement after the news report and called the teaching profession “vital to the continued success of our state.”

Several legislative leaders in Lee’s own political party also voiced their displeasure with Arnn.

“He has insulted generations of teachers who have made a difference for countless students,” House Speaker Cameron Sexton tweeted on Wednesday, adding that he “will never agree with or support Mr. Arnn’s comments.”

State Rep. Jeremy Faison, chairman of the House Republican caucus, said most teachers enter education because of their commitment to children. “To argue that they are bottom of the barrel is wrong & ignorant. The guy from Hillsdale doesn’t speak for any Tennessean I know,” Faison said in a tweet.

State Sen. Ken Yager of Kingston, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, agreed. “As a former classroom teacher, I have some idea of the challenges our public school teachers deal with on a daily basis,” he tweeted. “They do an outstanding job preparing our youth. I support them and say thank you.”

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan student teachers could get paid for their classroom time

2022-06-15T21:15:00+00:00

Lindsey Wiseman was supposed to student teach in Elk Rapids last semester but couldn’t afford gas for the 76-mile round trip from her home in Lake Leelanau near Traverse City. So she asked to be reassigned to Suttons Bay Elementary School, 8 miles away.

The shorter commute was more manageable, but Wiseman still finished each day exhausted and resentful of friends in other fields who had paid internships while she worked, unpaid, to help manage a classroom full of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students.

“It was so much to be doing for free,” said Wiseman, 25, who was also paying tuition for her student teaching credits. “I felt mad about it.”

State lawmakers are trying to help. The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would provide student teachers a stipend of $90 per day. Experienced teachers who serve as their mentors would receive $1,000, under the bill introduced by Pamela Hornberger, the Chesterfield Township Republican who heads the House Education Committee.

Student teaching is required for certification in Michigan, but in most districts it is unpaid. That makes it challenging for the state to attract new people to the teaching field, at a time when it’s trying to mitigate a growing teacher shortage.

The teacher shortage already has led to temporary school closures, larger class sizes, and the assignment of underqualified educators assigned to courses they feel unprepared to teach. The problem is expected to get worse because of a sharp decline in the number of students in Michigan’s teacher preparation programs.

So policymakers are under pressure to make it more affordable for college students to earn education degrees and to pay living expenses during student teaching, which can last from a semester to a full year.

The Hornberger bill passed overwhelmingly and without debate. Four members opposed it: Steve Carra of Three Rivers, Steven Johnson of Wayland, Matt Maddock of Milford, and John Reilly of Oakland, all Republicans. The legislation now heads to the Senate.

The Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals supports the measure.

“In order to increase the pool of teacher candidates and build a diverse educator workforce, people have to be able to afford to go into education,” Executive Director Wendy Zdeb said.

Student teachers work 8.5 hours a day, five days a week, not including lesson planning, grading, after-school meetings, and tutoring sessions with students who need extra help, Zdeb said.

“These hard-working future teachers shouldn’t also have to hold down night and weekend jobs just to pay the bills,” she said.

Alie Little said a $90-a-day stipend proposed in the bill would have helped a lot after she gave up her part-time nannying job to student teach at Cherry Knoll Elementary School in Traverse City Areas Public Schools last semester.

“Anything would have helped,” she said. “I love the idea of paying the mentor, too. They’re doing extra work. They’re feeding and pouring knowledge into you. It’s a lot to take on a younger teacher and put in extra work to help them.”

Like Wiseman, Little recently graduated from Central Michigan University. To get by during student teaching, both relied on support from fiancés and from odd jobs: dog walking, babysitting, and photographing a high school hockey team.

State Superintendent Michael Rice said the financial strain can be even greater for education majors leaving full-time jobs to student teach.

“What we need the Legislature to do is provide funds for those people who are in the midst of a career, people who need to make up for lost revenue during that period,” Rice said.

Rice has been working with lawmakers on other solutions to the teacher shortage. One proposal moving through the Legislature would get new hires in classrooms faster by waiving certification tests for experienced out-of-state educators. Another would support grow-your-own programs that introduce high school students to the profession.

Rice is also asking the Legislature to help ease the tuition burden for education majors.

One plan he backs for that was proposed by Launch Michigan, a coalition of business and philanthropic leaders working to improve schools. The governor and Legislature included the plan in disparate budget proposals, but haven’t agreed on details, which are being worked out in negotiations this month.

Launch Michigan wants the state to pay partial tuition for education majors who agree to teach in Michigan public schools after graduation. The state’s contribution could be as much as half of tuition, and the new educator’s commitment to teaching in Michigan could be as long as eight years, depending on which version of the proposal lawmakers adopt in the school aid budget.

“It needs to be significant,” said Launch Michigan President Adam Zemke. “The cash should be significant, and the required years of service should be significant.”

Recipients who leave Michigan or leave the profession before the end of their commitment would have to repay a portion of their scholarships, Zemke said, and participating universities would have to cap tuition hikes and provide ongoing resources to graduates during their early teaching years.

“If the state pays for half the tuition, universities have to be there for new teachers at their most vulnerable times,” Zemke said.

If the program had been in place when Camryn Booms was applying to teacher preparation programs, she’s sure she would have stayed in Michigan.

Instead, Booms, 23, of Harbor Beach, avoided student loan debt by going to the University of Wisconsin, where a state program called Wisconsin Teacher Pledge provided her free tuition as long as she promised to teach in the state for three years.

“I really love my home state” and didn’t want to leave, she said. “I’m like an outsider in Wisconsin, and it’s nine hours away. I was sad.”

Launch Michigan’s proposal is “a brilliant strategy,” said Joe Lubig, associate dean of the School of Education at Northern Michigan University. “Look at what it says: As a society, we’re going to invest in the people developing our children and young adults.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan may waive test for veteran teachers certified in other states

2022-06-10T12:30:00+00:00

Experienced educators from other states could soon teach in Michigan without having to pass the state certification exam.

Under proposed reciprocity legislation, people with three years’ experience elsewhere would no longer have to take the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification in order to start teaching in the state. And once they start, they would have a year to fulfill other state licensure requirements, including becoming certified in CPR, and, for some, completing additional coursework in reading diagnostics.

The idea is to reduce barriers and get experienced teachers in the classroom faster, said state Sen. Ed McBroom, a Republican from Vulcan, who is sponsoring the bill.

That’s important as the state tries to mitigate a longstanding teacher shortage in many districts that worsened during the pandemic. Class sizes are growing, principals are assigning educators to classes they don’t feel qualified to teach, and staff morale is down. Students, meanwhile, need good teachers more than ever as they try to make up for lost learning time during the pandemic.

Most other states already waive testing requirements for new hires who have experience in other states, said Phillip Rogers, executive director of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. And some states are relaxing their testing rules even for less experienced teachers, he said.

State Superintendent Michael Rice supports McBroom’s bill, saying it could be very helpful and would cost the state nothing.

“It’s all upside, no downside,” he said.

The Michigan Education Association hasn’t taken an official position on the bill but supports its concept as long as its provisions are temporary.

“We do want to maintain the longtime, rigorous standards for being a teacher in Michigan, because our kids deserve the best and the brightest,” said Thomas Morgan, spokesman for the labor union. The certification test ensures teaching candidates meet those standards, Morgan said.

“But we do understand there is a crisis in our schools — a shortage of educators — and whatever we can do to get good teachers into our state and into our classrooms while we help them get on the path to meeting Michigan’s rigorous standards, we’re willing to do that,” he said.

About a third of teachers hired last year in Michigan were initially certified in other states. Rice believes the state could have hired more if experienced candidates from other states didn’t have to first meet the testing, CPR and reading course requirements set by the Legislature.

Those hurdles aren’t insurmountable, but they may be inconvenient enough to dissuade prospective hires at a time when they’re most needed, Rice said.

Principals say the legislation would be helpful.

“This would allow us to recruit and bring in new teachers without requiring them to take an assessment to prove abilities” they have already demonstrated by passing another state’s test, said Paul Liabenow, executive director of the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association.

The change could make a big difference in Traverse City, home to a U.S. Coast Guard Air Station whose personnel sometimes arrive with spouses who are teachers looking for work.

Scheduling and taking the certification test can be enough of a barrier to persuade some of them to seek other kinds of jobs when they’re both qualified and needed in schools, said Traverse City Public Schools Superintendent John VanWagoner.

“I definitely want people that are strong, know their content, and are able to teach our kids at a high level, but I don’t know that that specific standardized test is the only measure,” VanWagoner said. “If we as an education entity believe they know their content and we feel good enough to put them in front of our kids, we should have the local autonomy to be able to do so.”

The Senate Committee on Education and Career Readiness is expected to take up the bill later this month.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

If schools want more Black male teachers, they can’t treat us like ‘disciplinarians first’

2022-06-01T11:00:00+00:00

After clinging to the climbing ropes and losing to the stopwatch during a physical fitness test, I was devastated when my teacher told me I would “never amount to anything.” I was in second grade, significantly overweight, and crushed by my teacher’s words.

While experiences like this cause many young people, especially Black boys like me, to want nothing to do with school, I made up my mind on that day that I would become a teacher. I wanted to change a system that was not created to serve people who look like me; I wanted to provide much-needed healing and motivation to the next generation of children.

Durrell Burns

When I entered the classroom as a new teacher on an emergency certification in 2017, I was excited to make a difference. But I often felt pigeonholed into stereotypical roles — asked to serve as a disciplinarian for young Black boys or to teach more intro-level elective classes. Schools recognized neither my intellect nor my leadership potential.

My experience as a Black male educator is not unique. Students of color are 36% of Pennsylvania learners, but teachers of color make up only 6% of the state’s teacher workforce. Black men represent less than 2% of teachers. While many school systems say they want more Black male educators, especially as research confirms our positive effects on students, we remain some of the least respected personnel in American education.

It is well documented that we are seen as “disciplinarians first and teachers second.” We are often locked into teaching electives, introductory courses, and remedial classes. Meanwhile, colleagues view us as overseers of the school-to-prison pipeline — responsible for monitoring behavior and punitive discipline — rather than transformational teachers and leaders.

Over time, I have silenced the little boy in me inclined to believe the cruel words of his second grade teacher, and I have embraced my brilliance and power as an educator. I am proud to give my ninth grade English and public speaking students a quality and culturally responsive education. A 2017 study found that low-income Black students who have a Black teacher for at least one year in elementary school are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to consider college.

But until we change our schools and systems, we will continue to face a shortage of Black male educators. We must focus on the recruitment, retention, and professional development of teachers of color.

We remain some of the least respected personnel in American education.

A bill with bipartisan support currently making its way through the statehouse could open pathways to teaching careers for underrepresented youth. Senate Bill 99 would fund educator preparation programs aimed at diversifying the teaching workforce, and it would remove barriers to certification that disproportionately impact teachers of color. Other measures, such as competitive salaries, more pathways into the profession, and teacher residency programs, are also needed to make teaching more attractive to a diverse talent pool.

At the school level, administrators need to be trained to respect Black male educators as intellectual and professional leaders and not view us as campus security there to keep Black and brown children in line. Schools need to embrace non-traditional, culturally responsive teaching methods; create spaces where teachers of color can feel safe and supported, and train other educators to foster school environments free from bias and microaggressions. We also need to encourage students of all races to enter the teaching profession, with special attention paid to Black boys, who are so often overlooked by the education system.

It is not a partisan issue; it’s a human rights issue. We need to ensure that educators reflect the students and communities they serve. We must also make sure that once in classrooms, those teachers can thrive.

A version of this piece appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital Star.

Durrell Burns teaches ninth grade English and public speaking at Harrisburg High School: John Harris Campus. He is a 2021-2022 Teach Plus Pennsylvania Policy Fellow.

Short on teachers, Michigan schools try to grow their own

2022-05-25T14:00:00+00:00

Logan Welch, 18, sat in the back of a high school English class typing on his laptop, but he wasn’t taking notes on the poem like everyone else.

Instead, he recorded observations of the teacher, noting the way she quieted a disruptive boy, used sarcasm to relate to students, and engaged students by asking them to rank poems.

And he gained new perspective on what it might be like for him to be at the front of that classroom someday — as a teacher, with his own group of high school English students.

“When you’re in school it seems like teachers just give a lesson, but there’s so much that goes into it, so much thinking they have to do about different learning styles,” said Welch, a senior at East Kentwood High School in the suburbs of Grand Rapids.

Welch is one of 20 students in Educators Rising, a national program offered as an elective for high school juniors and seniors considering careers as teachers. The hope is that some of them go on to study education in college, then return to teach in East Kentwood.

State Superintendent Michael Rice sees such grow-your-own recruitment programs as an important part of his multi-pronged strategy to expand the teaching pool in Michigan. The state faces a teacher shortage at a most inopportune time: when students need more educational resources to catch up academically after two years of pandemic-related disruptions.

Although Michigan’s teaching force is larger than it was a decade ago, and the student population is smaller, administrators struggle to get fully certified teachers in classrooms where they’re most needed, especially in disciplines such as special education and world languages.

Another challenge: Diversifying the pool of future teachers so it’s more representative of the student population.

The grow-your-own strategy can help with that, too, Rice said in an interview Tuesday.

“Our student body is more diverse than our teaching staff, so not only does this help in terms of recruitment, it provides the opportunity to diversify the workforce as well,” he said.

Senior Rodnika Dickens, left, talks with Educators Rising teacher Jasmine Ramahi after returning from observing a freshman English class at East Kentwood High School. Dickens is among 20 students in a course for students exploring careers in education.

Helping students see themselves as teachers

Jasmine Ramahi has been teaching East Kentwood’s Educators Rising course for two years. She believes more people would enter the education field if they could picture themselves as teachers. Sometimes, she said, someone else has to see them that way first.

What makes a good teacher is not just about academic achievement, she said. “Teaching is about: Do you understand empathy? Do you like to be around people? Do you like to empower people?”

For senior Shawn White, the answers were yes, yes and yes.

Ramahi, who had been White’s Spanish teacher, saw promise in him. She encouraged him to sign up for the Educators Rising course.

“When she told me this class revolved around teaching, I didn’t really see myself in that field,” he said, adding: “I didn’t think I would have the nerve” to teach.

That was a year ago.

Two weeks ago, he was teaching a lesson about common grammar mistakes to a high school class of English language learners. It was the culmination of a year of observing other teachers and studying learning styles during Ramahi’s course.

Now White can envision himself leading class discussions, crafting lesson plans, and building relationships with students.

“This class opened another door, another opportunity,” White said. “Teaching is something I could see myself going into.”

As graduation approaches, White has been thinking a lot about the teachers he’s had over the years. Only one looked like him: male and Black.

That thought makes the idea of going into teaching — particularly at a diverse school like East Kentwood — feel even more impactful.

Senior Shawn White, foreground, tells classmates what he learned from observing a freshman English class. Behind him, left to right, Xander Schall, Olivia Martell, and Logan Welch listen. The students are in East Kentwood High School’s Educators Rising class for students considering teaching careers.

“Being able to see someone like me, the students might get a deeper connection,” White said. “If they have that trust, if they have that relationship, it motivates them to learn more and really enjoy the class.”

Equity, diversity, and representation are topics that come up often in Ramahi’s class.

“We talk very openly about the need for our teaching staff to look like our hallways,” Ramahi said. “We talk about the power it has to have students who look like you.”

Statewide, 17.7% of students are Black, but only 6.6% of teachers.

Rice, the state superintendent, wants to do better.

Programs like Educators Rising could help. Nationally, 52% of students in Educators Rising courses are people of color.

The growth of Educators Rising

The grow-your-own concept isn’t new, but programs have proliferated over the last few years as a response to the teacher shortage.

Eighty-five years ago, Future Teachers of America chapters began cropping up in high schools to help inspire promising students to become teachers. The group morphed into the Future Educators Association in 1994 when the professional organization Phi Delta Kappa International took it over from the National Education Association.

Seven years ago, Phi Delta Kappa relaunched the program under the name Educators Rising. Seventeen schools used the curriculum that first year. Now, 11,180 high schools across the country use it. Thirty-one of them, including East Kentwood, are in Michigan.

Participating districts pay $6,500 for each classroom using the curriculum.

In addition to the classroom observations, the curriculum includes lessons on professionalism, bias and equity, small group instruction, classroom management, lesson sequencing, culturally responsive teaching, and assessing learning.

About half of Educators Rising’s students have always had teaching on their minds — the kinds of kid s who used to line up their stuffed animals and play school, said Joshua Starr, executive director of Phi Delta Kappa and former superintendent in Maryland and Connecticut. The other half are teenagers who didn’t consider the profession until they learned their school was offering a course on it.

So far, 103,000 students have completed Educators Rising courses. It’s unclear how many of them enrolled in college education programs or have become certified teachers. Starr said it has been difficult to track students once they’ve graduated high school, but Phi Delta Kappa is hoping to work with states to collect data.

Sixty percent of teachers already end up working within 20 miles of where they went to high school, according to Educators Rising.

Starr urges districts to reaffirm the grow-your-own philosophy by guaranteeing jobs to their Educators Rising students who become certified teachers. “We’d like to have signing days with graduates signing letters of intent to come back,” he said.

His organization also is working to connect graduates of the program once they arrive on college campuses. About three dozen chapters of Educators Rising Collegiate have cropped up in the last year as student organizations, Starr said.

“We offer some programming and support, but it’s really student-driven,” he said. “It started because our kids actually asked us after they graduated. They said, ‘Hey, we’re in college now, and we’d love to network.’”

Other grow-your-own programs take root in Michigan

The Michigan Department of Education last year awarded $10,000 grants to help 44 schools develop opportunities for students to explore careers in education.

And more support could be coming.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s budget recommendation included $150 million to support district grow-your-own programs for support staff who want to become teachers. The House budget proposal added $74 million and added eligibility for programs aimed at high school students. The final budget is subject to negotiations between Whitmer and legislative leaders.

Separately, state Rep. Sarah Anthony, a Lansing Democrat, has introduced legislation that would require the MDE to develop or adopt a model “teacher cadet” program that districts could choose to offer to students.

Many schools already are using other curricula or developing their own.

Educators Rising teacher Jasmine Ramahi, right, talks with students KeAvion Buggs, Rodika Dickens, and Abigail Best, left to right. The students, all seniors at East Kentwood High School, are exploring careers in education.

This fall, Detroit Public Schools Community District will launch its Rise to Teach initiative to encourage students to pursue careers in education. The district plans to develop the initiative into a formal pathway to teacher preparation programs. Rise to Teach students who go on to become certified teachers will be guaranteed jobs in the district, said Assistant Superintendent Ben Jackson.

Wyoming High School near Grand Rapids started offering an exploratory class this school year to 17 students who expressed an interest in teaching.

And Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District plans to launch its Future Educator Academy in September. Teacher Erin Luckhardt’s goal is to help students in Charlevoix and Emmet counties determine early on whether the educator profession is a fit for them, to provide them opportunities to observe high-quality teachers in their own districts, and to encourage those who go on to receive education degrees to return to teach in the area.

Luckhardt is working with districts within the ISD to guarantee job interviews for students who take her class and go on to become certified teachers.

Not all graduates of the program will wind up pursuing teaching, and that’s OK with Luckhardt.

Starr agreed.

“The ideal is that every student who goes through the program is inspired and says, ‘Yes, I’m going to be an educator,’ but the reality is some of them will say this isn’t for them,” he said.

The curriculum is designed to give prospective teachers an idea of what the profession would be like — “warts and all” — Starr said. “We try to make sure their eyes are wide open.”

In East Kentwood and Wyoming high schools, that has meant frank classroom discussions and opportunities to interact with guest speakers who include experienced teachers, principals and superintendents.

East Kentwood High School senior Lisa Ha, center, talks with freshman Tyson Johnson while observing a special education class. Ha is a student in Educators Rising, a class for juniors and seniors exploring teaching careers.

What students noticed when they observed teachers

But a big part of the curriculum is delivered through observation.

One afternoon in April, each of Ramahi’s 20 prospective teachers observed a different freshman class. They took note of the way teachers managed behavior, built relationships, developed lessons that incorporated different cultures, and used alternative instructional methods to reach students with different learning styles.

Welch visited a class tasked with identifying imagery in slam poet George Masao Yamazawa’s piece about growing up as a child of immigrants. Students worked at their desks while their teacher, Jessica Baker, circulated and spoke with them individually.

Welch zeroed in on one such interaction.

“There was a student who kept interrupting and giving answers that were obvious,” Welch recalled. “Instead of telling him to be quiet, she acknowledged him and then moved on.”

It worked, Welch said, because the teacher had already established a rapport with the student earlier in the school year. That’s something he might not have realized before taking Educators Rising, he said.

“I see now that there’s so much that goes into being a teacher and just how heavy the responsibility is for teachers,” he said. “My eyes have definitely been opened to that.”

Another student, Lisa Ha, who is considering a career in special education, visited a class of students who have developmental disabilities. She held freshman Tyson Johnson’s hand to reassure him during an occupational skills activity.

In the band room, Abigail Best noticed how a music teacher sat next to students to be at eye level during one-on-one conversations.

Rodnika Dickens observed an English class full of well behaved freshmen reading at their desks while quiet nature sounds played on a speaker in the background. She attributed their behavior to classroom management skills.

“It wasn’t like the teacher was strict, but they knew when they came in the classroom what they were supposed to do,” Dickens said the next day in a small group discussion with Educators Rising classmates. “They knew the routine.”

Ramahi said her class’s learning objectives are so closely aligned with introductory college education courses that some universities in Michigan are considering granting college credit for the East Kentwood course.

Senior Logan Welch observes a freshman English class at East Kentwood High School. Welch, who hopes to become a high school teacher, is one of 20 students in the school’s Educators Rising course.

Most of the students in her program still haven’t decided for sure what their majors will be, but Welch has made up his mind.

He’s headed to Michigan State University to begin training to be a high school English teacher.

Educators Rising has prepared him well, he said.

“I’m glad for this class,” Welch said, adding: “There aren’t always a lot of classes where you actually get to do something that you’re passionate about and that could help you in the future.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee DOE, UT system launch Grow Your Own Center to bolster teacher pipeline

2022-05-16T20:23:57+00:00

As Tennessee grapples with ongoing teacher shortages, the state Department of Education and the University of Tennessee system are opening a Grow Your Own Center to bolster the educator pipeline across the state.

The $20 million center will centralize and strengthen the state’s 65 existing “grow your own” programs, which seek to create new paths to the teaching profession by providing students with early teaching apprenticeship opportunities at no cost to them, state education officials and the UT system said during a Monday press conference at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Retaining teachers is just one part of the solution to teacher shortages, said Penny Schwinn, the state commissioner of education. Tennessee wants to go one step further by building the workforce from the ground up, she said.

“The single most important thing we can do in public education is provide an excellent educator in front of every child, in every class, every single day,” Schwinn said.

To do that, she said, “we have to remove the barriers that prevent great people from becoming great teachers.” The apprenticeships supported by Tennessee’s Grow Your Own Center give future teachers “exceptional preparation at no cost,” Schwinn said, with thousands of hours of experience in the classroom alongside an experienced lead teacher who serves as a mentor.

While existing programs vary by district, they typically hire prospective teachers who work in school support roles and get paid while pursuing their education and credentials through a teacher training program.

The new Grow Your Own Center will serve several functions, state officials said, including serving as a technical assistance hub for local teacher apprenticeship models, helping develop and recruit candidates, and providing additional endorsements for teachers — like special education and English as a second language certifications.

Monday’s announcement comes four months after Tennessee announced a partnership with the U.S. Education and Labor departments to establish a permanent teacher apprenticeship program — the first state to do so. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona has hailed Tennessee’s teacher recruitment efforts as “a model for states across the country.”

It also comes as the pandemic has put a spotlight on teacher shortages, caused by retention issues and the shrinking teacher pipeline across the nation. State and local public education employment fell by nearly 5% overall since the beginning of the pandemic — and by almost 7% among just K-12 teachers — according to a recent Economic Policy Institute report.

Last fall, 18 of 20 large U.S. school districts that provided data to Chalkbeat reported the number of teacher vacancies had increased this year.

Even before COVID, U.S. schools were struggling to fill open positions for over a decade: Between the 2008-09 and 2015-16 school years, the number of people graduating with education degrees decreased more than 15%, according to the report.

In Tennessee, the latest report card on the state’s 43 teacher training programs earlier this year found that the number of new educators graduating has dropped by nearly one-fifth over five years. At the time, state officials said Tennessee had about 2,200 teacher vacancies, though other estimates put the count significantly higher.

“We need to figure out a way to fix that,” said University of Tennessee system President Randy Boyd.

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.

NYC to expand transfer high schools to help English language learners

2022-05-11T22:10:53+00:00

New York City education officials are planning to expand the number of transfer high schools that can serve students learning English as a new language, using a Bronx school for newcomer immigrants as one model, according to a top department official.

The city shared few details but the move could be an answer to calls from advocates who want more support in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx for new immigrant students, who can struggle to find schools that fit their academic needs and ultimately may not graduate on time or even stay in school. The city defines a newcomer immigrant student as someone who has been in the United States for three years or less, but officials did not specify whether other English learners would qualify for the seats.

The Education Collaborative has been pushing for such an investment since before the pandemic, arguing that newer immigrant students may be juggling work and family responsibilities, know limited to no English, or have gone years without formal education before arriving in New York, but cannot find high schools that meet their academic and social-emotional needs. These advocates have been working with education department officials to craft a pilot program that would place more English-as-a-new-language teachers and bilingual social workers in some of the city’s existing transfer schools, which are designed for any student not on track to graduate on time. Sixteen percent of English language learners dropped out last year, compared with 5% of all city students.

A primary goal of the pilot is to bring more intensive support to schools in neighborhoods where immigrants actually live. Four of the five existing transfer schools that serve students learning English as a new language are located in Manhattan, and one is in the Bronx, even though the majority of newer immigrants, ages 14-21, live in the Bronx, followed by Queens and Brooklyn, according to Census data analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute.

In April, department officials said they have been working with advocates on the idea, but any decisions will include “input from our superintendents, school leaders, and communities.” On Tuesday, Deputy Chancellor Carolyne Quintana said the city is planning to “expand the number of transfer schools that currently serve the needs of our English language learner population” in the upcoming school year. She pointed to English Language Learners and International Support Preparatory Academy in the Bronx as a model to follow. ELLIS Prep is one of the city’s five transfer schools for English learners and specifically serves newcomers.

Quintana told City Council members they want to develop individual schools down the road that serve these students “and wherever possible…design or find existing transfer schools so that they can meet the needs of our English language learners by using models that are already successful.”

The Education Collaborative’s proposed pilot program would cost $8.2 million over three years to reach 400 newcomer immigrant students, with $2.1 million next school year alone. The money would be infused into a handful of existing transfer schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. In addition to ENL teachers and bilingual social workers, the money would cover overtime for teachers planning summer and after-school programs, training for current teachers to work with newer immigrant students, student internships, wraparound support provided by community-based organizations, and enrichment programs for students who are two or more years below grade level in their home language in literacy, math, or both.

The education department is looking at districts where programs like ELLIS Prep don’t currently exist and “working very closely with our school design folks to make those decisions and to build those out as soon as we can,” Quintana said.

A department spokesperson declined to answer questions about Quintana’s comments, including whether she was referring to the pilot that advocates are proposing, saying only, “More to come soon.”

Advocates — who held a rally on the education department’s front steps Wednesday in support of the city expanding these programs — were surprised by Quintana’s comments. Officials haven’t confirmed to advocates that they will be expanding these programs, but have previously said they’re “committed” to making them work, said Andrea Ortiz, education policy manager at the New York Immigration Coalition, who has been working on the pilot program proposal.

“We haven’t heard anything about new schools, but we will take them if they come,” Ortiz said. “We know that’s a longer-term process — it might take a few years to find funding for that. That’s why the pilot program was a great first step: We can create a model, and then if we have the funding and we have the energy for a new school, then we know what to do and how to implement it.”

ELLIS Prep Principal Norma Vega said she was “grateful” that her school is being considered a model, but she hasn’t heard anything from department officials about helping to duplicate it. Department officials visited her school last month, she said, but this initiative was not mentioned.

Rather than creating individual programs, Vega thinks the city should focus on creating dedicated new schools like hers for new immigrants, primarily because she thinks the principal should be solely focused on that student population since they can have varying degrees of high needs.

But with dipping enrollment, it may be tough for city officials to justify opening new schools.

“If the leader doesn’t feel passionate about it, then it’s not going to work,” Vega said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Teacher prep programs can do better. Here’s how.

2022-05-04T13:00:00+00:00

Anyone who observed my kindergarten report card conference would never have expected me to become a teacher myself someday.

As Ms. Campbell, my teacher, handed my mom my report card, I saw that she was not excited to see me. Though my mom could not speak English, she could tell from Ms. Campbell’s body language that my report card was not good. Ms. Campbell was pointing to me and her head and saying the word “headache” repeatedly. My five-year-old self was flooded with shame and sadness. As a non-native English speaker, it was true that I required more help than my classmates, but I never considered that I could be a burden, let alone a headache, to my teacher.

The next day, instead of yelling at me or putting me down, my mom, who grew up in a war-torn society and could neither read nor write, went to the library and got flash cards. Each night, she would sit me down in our living room and hold up the letters of the alphabet. When I finally learned all 26 letters and saw her smile, the feelings of shame and sadness washed away and were replaced with pride and joy.

Bach Tram

As I reflect on that moment, I realized two things. First, my first real teacher was not Ms. Campbell, but my mom. And second, I wanted to be the kind of teacher my mom was for me — a teacher who can instill feelings of pride and joy and see the potential in all her students.

Since becoming an educator, though, I have seen Ms. Campbell in myself many times. Like her, I have sometimes struggled to address the needs of my students who are English language learners, require emotional support, or have special learning needs.

I attribute that partially to the reality that most of my time in teacher preparation programs was spent learning about education theory and observing other teachers rather than practicing my skills in front of students with a mentor teacher’s support. I did not have many opportunities to gain practical experience in working with students with diverse learning needs, and I entered the classroom still feeling unprepared.

My experience is not unique. A 2018 study found that 72% of new teachers in Philadelphia reported feeling unprepared to work in an urban classroom, and 62% felt unprepared to teach culturally diverse students. Given this lack of preparation and the stress of being a new teacher, especially in the age of COVID, it’s no wonder that half of new teachers in Pennsylvania leave their school or the profession within the first five years.

I learned how to create lesson plans but not how to help students with diverse needs.

I believe this high turnover rate is directly related to the way we prepare teachers. Currently, most pre-service teachers in traditional Pennsylvania preparation programs have only 12-16 weeks of hands-on student teaching experience. While they might observe mentor teachers for longer, many do not have sufficient student teaching time to encounter and solve problems with mentor teachers’ help they will someday face in their own classrooms.

Take, for example, my own student teaching experience. Per our program’s requirement, I spent the first half of my time watching and observing my host teacher prepare and teach. By the time I finally got comfortable in front of the class, my student teaching experience was over. I learned how to create lesson plans but not how to help students with diverse needs.

It does not have to be this way. Teacher preparation programs should create opportunities for future teachers not only to observe classrooms but also to practice teaching throughout their preparation, in the same way that apprenticeships and medical residencies allow for intensive and sustained on-the-job training. Pre-service teachers should have opportunities to work with students and share leadership of classrooms from their freshman year of college. Mentor teachers must also be trained to support, coach, and gradually release responsibility to their student teachers.

By reimagining teacher preparation, we can help future teachers learn to manage their time, develop confidence and their teaching style, and build rapport with students and families. This shift will also ensure that future teachers are equipped to support students with special academic, language, social, emotional, or behavioral needs from day one, benefiting all students and teachers.

This way, rather than see students with diverse needs as a “headache,” teachers will feel confident in their ability to support all students and see the strengths and brilliance in every child.

Bach Tram is a middle school teacher in the School District of Philadelphia and a Teach Plus Pennsylvania Policy Fellow.

What people say when they hear I’m becoming a teacher

2022-04-27T21:23:21+00:00

“Teachers make no money.”

“Don’t you know teachers are quitting their jobs?”

“Are you sure you want to be a teacher?”

These are some things I hear when I tell people I’m an education major. It would be easy to let such comments hinder me, but I don’t. Instead, I let people know that my career choice is about more than salary or recognition. I want to be an educator to impact others’ lives and fulfill the dreams I’ve had since I was a young child — back when I was reading books to my stuffed animals as they were “seated” like students in a classroom and correcting pretend worksheets.

Emilia Spann

In December, if all goes according to plan, I will graduate from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis with a bachelor’s degree in education and a focus on teaching English and English as a New Language. Soon after, I will stand in front of my own classroom and be called Miss Spann. I can’t wait.

When I walked across the stage at my high school graduation four years ago, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to this point. I had grown up in Plainfield, Indiana, hearing mixed things about higher education and wondered if the time and tuition would be worth it. But a degree would put my dream of becoming a teacher within reach. It would also make me one of the first people in my family to go to college.

Along the way, there have been financial and familial hardships. Then, in March 2020, my college journey was turned upside down as COVID spread across the country. One day, I was driving to campus and learning in person alongside professors and peers; the next, everything was remote. I didn’t know how I would continue my education. I didn’t know how to use Zoom, and I had only a cluttered dining room table for a workspace. But I’m glad I persevered through four years, two of them in a pandemic, dozens of late nights, hundreds of assignments, and months as a student-teacher.

In my IUPUI classes, I’ve learned about educational inequities, past and present; the importance of choosing books with diverse authors and stories; and the benefits of building strong relationships with students and their families. These lessons reinforced my decision to earn a college degree and helped me understand what it means to be an educator in the 21st century.

Then in January 2021, my training became less theoretical when I began student-teaching sixth grade English in Indianapolis.

These long, full days showed me how to do the job and reminded me of the positive impact teachers can have on their students (and vice versa).

On weekdays, I’d rise at 5:30 a.m. and leave home by 7 a.m. to prep for the day, which began at 9 a.m. There, I watched my mentor teacher make use of every minute of the school day. When she wasn’t in front of the classroom, she was planning lessons, grading papers, attending IEP meetings, dealing with disciplinary matters, and collaborating with colleagues.

The experience in the classroom — in front of it and working one-on-one with students — taught me that even the most carefully prepared lesson plans don’t always translate into students understanding the material. It taught me the importance of being flexible and willing to adapt your approach. It taught me to show up fully for students, even when there’s a lot going on. It taught me to approach all children — and particularly those facing hardships like food insecurity or an incarcerated parent — with empathy and grace.

These long, full days showed me how to do the job and reminded me of the positive impact teachers can have on their students (and vice versa). They also showed me what educators are up against (in addition to the low wages everyone talks about). I heard about the staffing shortages, the untenable workloads, school funding disparities, and controversial changes, such as efforts to restrict certain conversations about race, gender, and sexuality. I realize that I’m choosing a career that many veterans, discouraged and disheartened, are leaving.

But my love for education — and desire to make a difference — propels me forward. I want my classroom to be a welcoming space that fosters learning and relationships. As graduation approaches, I eagerly await my first professional job, my first classroom, my first classroom library, and my first day of school. So when people ask me if I’m sure I want to be a teacher, I’m more confident saying: Yes, and now more than ever.

Emilia Spann is a senior at IUPUI, majoring in secondary English education and Spanish. After graduating, she plans to teach at a public middle school or high school in Indiana.

Advocates seek more school programming for NYC’s newcomer immigrants

2022-04-21T18:13:49+00:00

Choosing a public high school can be a daunting process for New York City families. But it can be particularly confusing for older students who are new to the United States, speak limited to no English, and in some cases, may have gone years without formal schooling.

For years, immigration advocates have cited those students as they pushed the city to create more school programs tailored to the needs of new immigrants — and this year, they may get their wish.

The Education Collaborative, a coalition of more than 30 community organizations, wants the city to launch a three-year, $8.2 million pilot program that would hire more teachers and bilingual social workers to work with up to 400 more newcomer immigrant students, ages 16-21. Those staff, paired with professional development for current teachers, would be directed to several of the city’s existing transfer schools, which are for students not on track to graduate on time.

“Public schools are in many ways largely inaccessible for thousands of newcomer youth from the ages of 16 and up,” said Andrea Ortiz, senior manager of education policy at the New York Immigration Coalition, which helped draft plans for the pilot.

Every city school must identify and provide extra language services to students learning English as a new language and receive extra funding to do so. However, newcomer immigrant youth often face even more challenges, such as balancing a job with school, than others learning the language. They also report that they don’t receive enough support in learning English at school, or that it’s tough for them to navigate and understand classwork. Advocates point to the city dropout rate as a key indicator of these problems: 16% for English learners last school year, compared with 5% of all students.

Those schools may also lack enough teachers trained in serving English learners or bilingual social workers. And the teens might be refugees or the officially designated Students with Inconsistent/Interrupted Formal Education — meaning that they’re two or more years below grade level in their home language in literacy, math, or both.

There are five transfer schools with more intensive programming for students learning English as a new language. The pilot program would expand that sort of model into Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. Four of the five existing schools are located in Manhattan and one is in the Bronx, even though the majority of newer immigrants ages 14-21 live in the Bronx, followed by Queens and Brooklyn, according to Census data analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute.

“It’s very frustrating and actually quite depressing for us as advocates because we know that when we meet a student who lives geographically far from the [English language learner] transfer schools, we know immediately it is going to be an uphill battle,” said Rita Rodriguez-Engberg, director of the Immigrant Students Rights Project at Advocates for Children New York.

Carolyne Quintana, deputy chancellor of teaching and learning, said the city plans “to increase the number of transfer schools for newcomer [English language learners]” during a town hall meeting last month.

Asked about Quintana’s comments, city officials say they have been working with these advocates and are interested in the idea, as Mayor Eric Adams crafts a budget plan for next fiscal year, which starts July 1.

“Expanded access to high quality transfer school programs for older newcomer students is one way we can meet the needs of students who need alternative forms of education in supportive, welcoming environments,” said Nicole Brownstein, a spokesperson for the education department, in a statement.

Immigrant students face struggle to find right services

Just under 22,000 immigrants ages 14-21 lived in New York City for three years or less — the city’s definition for a newcomer — between 2015 and 2019, according to Migration Policy Institute’s analysis. Nearly 18% of them — or 3,900— were not enrolled in school or had not yet received a diploma or an equivalent. Just 500 of those non-enrolled teens were ages 14 or 15, while the rest were between 16 and 21 years old.

Like any city resident, newly arrived immigrant youth have the right to enroll in school up to age 21. But for many years, advocates have highlighted complaints from their newcomer immigrant clients that they’ve struggled to find a program that fits their needs or is nearby, or both. Sometimes students have reported being told by enrollment staff that they’re too old to enroll and are better off pursuing a GED — a complaint that state officials also received in 2019 about New York City’s enrollment practices.

If the pilot program is established, just over $480,000 would go to each participating school. Among other things, that money would go toward:

hiring an English as a new language (or ENL) teacher
a bilingual social worker
overtime pay for school year and summer planning
wraparound supports provided by community-based organizations
professional development so that all teachers at the school can learn how to work with older immigrant students
student internships
enrichment for SIFE students

During visits to the five transfer schools focused on students learning English as a new language, Rodriguez-Engberg was struck by how many students said they were glad to have a bilingual social worker who “could help them navigate not just school life but life in the U.S.” Students may be dealing with varying levels of trauma, she said, such as coming to the U.S. alone, leaving conflict behind in a home country, being detained at the border before being released, or just missing home.

Still, the dropout rate is high at those five schools: 29% for English learners on average, or 13 percentage points higher than for English learners citywide.

But Ortiz, from New York Immigration Coalition, noted that these programs tend to serve a higher proportion of high-needs English learners, such as low-income students and those who have not had formal education for multiple years.

In four of the five schools, more than 73% of students are English learners. In two of them, more than 92% are English learners, and at all of the schools, 78% or more students are low-income.

“This is a population that’s being pulled in a lot of directions that often has really real responsibilities — they are oftentimes being pushed to work and support their families — but that doesn’t meant they don’t need a school option or the time they were in school is not worth celebrating,” Ortiz said.

‘I would refer it to everybody’

Georges Remy, who is now 23, graduated from one of the Manhattan transfer schools in 2019, two years after arriving in New York City from Haiti. He felt welcome in the school because there were many students like him who were new to the country. His teachers took time to translate their lessons into various languages, and had an open door policy before and after class to seek out help.

Georges Remy

He attended after-school classes, and also credits his guidance counselor who checked in on him throughout the week and encouraged him to pursue an advanced Regents diploma.

“Personally, I would refer it to everybody who comes to the U.S.,” he said.

The pilot program’s effectiveness will rely not just on the hiring of more ENL teachers, but also how well other subject area teachers are trained in serving English learners, said Sebastian Cherng, an associate professor of international education at New York University who has studied the city’s English learners.

The state has previously highlighted the city’s failure to provide enough services for the city’s English language learners in a yearslong corrective action plan to improve how it educates these students.

Last August, state officials told city officials they were “extremely dismayed and disappointed by the overall lack of bilingual education programs,” according to a letter obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request. The city has also failed to provide legally required bilingual special education services to most English learners with disabilities.

One of the city’s priorities is to boost the 60% graduation rate for English language learners, a department spokesperson said, though her response to a question about the issue from Chalkbeat did not specifically mention older immigrant students. Its efforts to address the issue include building teams of teachers who create a “welcoming environment” for English language learners, and teaching immigrant students about financial aid options and their rights as they figure out life after high school.

While $8.2 million for the pilot program is a start, the city should consider a larger investment, Cherng said.

“It is the last time that many of our young people will experience schooling,” he said. “It has broader implications than just academic stuff, but also a sense of belonging.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools have spent just half of this year’s COVID relief, report says

2022-04-12T22:32:08+00:00

Last spring, New York City schools celebrated its receipt of $7 billion in federal stimulus dollars as the administration of former Mayor Bill de Blasio planned how it would reopen buildings following two school years disrupted by the pandemic.

But as of the first week of March, the education department had spent just half of the $3 billion in federal COVID stimulus dollars it had planned to spend through June 30, according to a new report from Comptroller Brad Lander. All of the money can be spent through the 2024-2025 school year.

De Blasio and his administration last year devised a plan to spend those stimulus dollars on a slew of items. That included operating school buildings, extra academic support for students, and an ambitious new reading and math curriculum.

The report, based on data obtained from the education department, found the city has spent:

Less than a quarter of the $984 million plan for boosting academic recovery and instructional support
24% of what had been planned for investments to care for “the whole child,” which includes social emotional supports
65% of costs associated with reopening school buildings

The education department called the report a “mischaracterization of our stimulus spending to date” because “the snapshot of data as of early March does not account for all spending,” said Dan Weisberg, first deputy chancellor, in a statement.

“This funding continues to be available to the Department of Education beyond this year, and we are evaluating ways to utilize any unspent funds to continue supporting students and schools going forward,” Weisberg continued.

New York City’s slow spending mirrors issues seen in school systems across the nation facing labor shortages and supply chain issues that have struggled to spend their COVID relief dollars.

In response to questions from the comptroller’s office, education department staff blamed the underspending on many reasons, including pandemic-related delays, difficulties in hiring and supply chain issues, and problems with contracting and procurement, the report said.

But separately, a department spokesperson said the “full and final account” of stimulus spending won’t be known until the fall, when the city completes its fiscal year accounting. She added that spending in many categories, such as building accessibility, will rise “significantly” before the end of this fiscal year.

Reasons for underspending can include “work not beginning until later in the fiscal year to goods and services having not yet been fully received,” for various initiatives, the spokesperson said.

In a news release, Lander raised concerns about his office’s findings.

“The city cannot afford to squander this opportunity to invest in the programs and supports to help our young people begin to succeed again academically, process the trauma they’ve experienced, and address long-standing inequities in our school system,” he said. “We still have an opportunity to spend this one-time funding wisely – but the clock is ticking.”

In some areas, the department appeared to be near or on track with that spending. It has spent most of the money it earmarked for reopening school campuses, which includes health and safety costs, and to “maintain current services.” It spent about 70% for its Summer Rising program that wrapped up in August, but city officials said the remainder of the money can be used in the future.

The comptroller’s office raised concerns about the low spending for academics and so-called “supporting the whole child” initiatives, which include social and mental health supports. Spending delays, the report said, “mean that schools are failing to provide urgently needed additional support” after “the trauma of the prior two school years.”

Slow spending on academic support

The city has spent 22% of the nearly $1 billion it had planned for extra academic support and programs, the report found. Included in that bucket was $350 million that went directly to schools to provide extra tutoring for their students and professional support for teachers. Schools have spent just under a third of that money, according to the report. Chalkbeat reported in February that some school leaders were struggling to spend this money because they couldn’t persuade enough staff to work overtime and oversee such programs and services. This money was reserved for this year only, and schools must return any unused money.

Academic recovery also included a $49 million initiative called “Early Literacy for All,” which included a tool to screen K-2 students for reading skills, as well as hiring more reading coaches and providing more training to K-2 teachers. The city has spent $10 million for this.

The department has only spent 12% of the $251 million it planned for extra support in special education and creating more pre-K special education seats. At least $158 million of that money went directly to schools to provide extra services for students with disabilities. But Chalkbeat recently reported that just 35% of the children who were offered services will have participated. On top of staffing issues, children were not guaranteed transportation to these programs, and some parents said it was unclear what services their children would receive.

About $17 million has been spent of $202 million planned for the creation of a new culturally responsive reading and math curriculum, called “Mosaic.” The plan was originally to roll out the curriculum by the fall of 2023, but education department officials told the New York Daily News last month that it will only be available to middle school grades by then.

Low spending on ‘whole child’ investments

Similar to academics, the city has spent about 24% of its planned investments in initiatives to support “the whole child.” The city has spent just a third of its planned $80 million for social-emotional support, which includes plans to hire more social workers and a three-year, $18 million contract for a screener for schools to assess their students’ social-emotional skills. Officials have spent $1 million of the $12 million reserved for expanding restorative justice programs.

Lander’s office noted that these funds can be rolled into the $1.8 billion in federal funds planned to be spent next fiscal year, which begins July 1. They can either be used as planned or allocated to different priorities.

The report suggests the department could use unspent funds to provide salary parity to teachers and staff at community-based preschool special education programs. It could also be used to increase support for English language learners, for whom advocates had hoped there would be specific, dedicated COVID stimulus funding, similar to the money for students with disabilities.

The education department is expected to release an updated spending plan for stimulus dollars “in the coming weeks,” according to Lander’s report.

Here is a link to the report.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

New York officials vote to scrap edTPA teacher certification exam

2022-04-12T19:17:02+00:00

Prospective teachers in New York state will no longer have to take the controversial edTPA, a national assessment that some have criticized as being a barrier to diversifying and growing the teacher workforce.

New York’s Board of Regents, the state’s education policymaking body, voted unanimously Tuesday to remove the multi-part exam as a requirement for earning a teaching certificate. The change goes into effect April 27.

Members of the board did not discuss the matter before approving the change. But several Regents applauded the idea when it was first proposed in December, with New York City-based Regent Kathleen Cashin calling it “a very good move.”

The edTPA, which comes with a $300 fee and is assessed by Pearson, involves multiple parts. Teacher candidates must provide a portfolio of work, video recordings of their classroom instruction, their lesson plans, analyses of their students’ progress, and their reflections from classroom practices.

The pandemic helped drive the state’s decision to scrap the requirement, and follows reforms in recent years to teacher certification in New York. New Jersey educators have also recently pushed to get rid of the test.

During the public health crisis, state education officials have allowed teaching candidates to take a written exam in lieu of the edTPA, and teacher prep program leaders embraced the change. That led many of them to ask for the removal of the test altogether, William Murphy, the state education department’s deputy commissioner of higher education, told the Regents in December.

Program leaders reported that their students were more focused on completing edTPA requirements than learning from their student teaching experiences, according to Murphy. It was also challenging for them to manage the multiple components of the exam.

In lieu of the exam, teacher preparation programs will be required by Sept. 1, 2023, to create their own “multi-measure assessment” that stacks up with New York’s teaching standards.

Union hails end of test, but questions remain

Critics have long worried that the exam shut out candidates of color from the teaching workforce, which faces a shortage. In 2017, New York officials reported that Black test takers were nearly twice as likely to fail the edTPA compared to their white or Hispanic peers. State officials have declined to share more recent test data.

The state’s teacher union celebrated the change, which has advocated against the test since New York first introduced the exam in 2014. Jolene DiBrango, the union’s executive vice president, said the union has long heard complaints about the exam as overly burdensome and led some candidates to quit teacher preparation programs.

This is a “critical time” to ax the exam as the state faces a teacher shortage, DiBrango said. Union figures show that enrollment in state teaching programs has decreased by more than half since 2009.

“We have a great deal of respect and trust in our teacher prep programs across New York state,” DiBrango said. “We have seen in this state that one-size-fits-all doesn’t really fit anyone.”

But Dan Goldhaber, a researcher who helped study the effects of the edTPA in Washington state, noted that allowing teacher prep programs to create their own assessments will result in a patchwork of different requirements across the state. So it’s unclear, he said, that such a policy change will result in better qualified teachers.

“Ultimately, I think that we need to try to judge what is happening in teacher preparation based on the impact that teachers, who are prepared, have on student outcomes,” Goldhaber told Chalkbeat when New York first proposed the change in December.

It’s up to the state to try to understand whether these requirements “appear to be beneficial to students,” he said.

Goldhaber’s 2016 study found that Hispanic teacher candidates in Washington state were more than three times as likely to fail the exam as white candidates.

That same study showed mixed evidence of a link between higher edTPA scores and effectiveness in instruction, measured by students’ scores in state reading and math tests. While there was a correlation between higher edTPA scores and student scores in math, there was no such correlation with reading scores.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado needs preschool teachers. Will these incentives work?

2022-04-05T00:39:28+00:00

Joyful Rothe worked in a nursing home kitchen for 18 years before taking an entry-level job as an aide at a child care center. Shelby Wilson also wants a career working with young children, but for now handles the paperwork for her husband’s log-hauling business.

The two women spend an hour every Monday evening in a second-floor classroom at Front Range Community College in Fort Collins, cars whizzing by outside as they learn how to talk to children about feelings, plan learning activities, and handle meltdowns. They are among hundreds of students across Colorado taking advantage of a new state program that pays for two introductory early childhood courses — a stepping stone to teaching in the field.

The initiative, funded with $4 million in federal COVID aid, is part of a state effort to mint more early childhood teachers before the state’s universal preschool launch in 2023, and help the industry recover from staff shortages exacerbated by the pandemic. In addition to the free college classes, the state is funding apprenticeships, scholarships, training opportunities, mentoring programs, and translation and other support for people from underrepresented groups seeking early childhood careers.

The need for new preschool and child care teachers in Colorado is formidable. State officials estimate that more than 2,000 people — 10% of the workforce — left the field during the last two years. They hope to add back more than 1,000 workers by June.

Melanie Gilbertson, who teaches the Monday night class, believes the free coursework has been instrumental in helping students earn qualifications they might not otherwise have been able to afford.

“You don’t make a lot of money in this field,” she said. “And so to ask somebody to go spend $6,000 on a couple of college courses just doesn’t seem right when they’re going to turn around and only make $15 an hour.”

Rothe makes $13 an hour as a full-time aide working with toddlers. Once she finishes Gilbertson’s course, she anticipates a raise. She knows it won’t be a lot, but this is the career she wants.

“I love it,” she said. “I find that I enjoy going to work for the first time in my life.”

But state officials know that low compensation hurts efforts to recruit and retain early childhood workers, many of whom make so little they qualify for public assistance.

Mary Alice Cohen, director of the state’s office of early childhood, said the state is using some of its COVID stimulus money to boost wages and benefits for early childhood workers — though she acknowledged that some of those higher payments will last for only nine months. In addition, some of the COVID aid will allow workers to earn additional credentials that will move them higher on their employers’ pay scale, she said.

“We have 20,000-plus early childhood professionals,” she said. “We really need to figure out how to move the needle on compensation across the board in a sustainable way. This is the start and we have a lot of work left to do.”

Laura Killen-Wing, an Aims Community College instructor who teaches the two free early childhood classes, said more support is needed for early childhood educators. Her classes include high school students, retirees, single moms, career-changers, and those who already work in early childhood. Some students take the classes online during their lunch breaks while sitting in their cars or a storage closet at work.

There are more than a half-dozen ways to become an early childhood teacher in Colorado. The two free classes, along with a certain amount of on-the-job experience, provide the minimum qualifications.

The state’s universal preschool program, funded partly through a nicotine tax that took effect in 2021, will provide 10 hours a week of free preschool to 4-year-olds, with some students eligible for more. State leaders say they want to provide a living wage for early childhood workers, but it’s not clear how they’ll achieve that.

“Free preschool is amazing, but somewhere along the line those people need to be paid,” Killen-Wing said.

Wilson, one of nine students in the Monday night class and one of about 240 taking the free classes through Front Range Community College this year, hopes to eventually work with preschool students. She became interested in the field for deeply personal reasons.

“I actually started because I can’t have kids, she said. “So I was like, might as well work with kids.”

Wilson will wait until she completes Gilbertson’s class to apply for an early childhood job. In the meantime, she volunteers at her church’s weekend child care program, where she applies lessons from the course about helping children manage their emotions.

Autumn Kady, who recently moved to Colorado from Arizona, is another one of Gilbertson’s Monday night students. She’s paying for the course because of her out-of-state student status, but may be eligible for partial reimbursement from the state.

Kady has a business degree and currently works procuring disposable items, such as gloves, masks, and takeout containers for Sprouts Farmers Market. But she wants a career change.

“I’ve gotten into the corporate ladder situation and I just don’t feel that’s where I belong,” she said. “I’m … willing to take a pay cut to get into an industry where I feel like I’ll fit better and will be able to make a bigger impact.”

Since Kady is planning to start a family soon, it may be a few years until she actually enters the early childhood workforce. Even then, she’s not sure what age group she wants to work with. She’d long thought about teaching second grade, but now she’s not sure.

“My classes are really eye-opening in that there are different directions,” she said. Being a preschool director, Kady said, “might marry my business background with my passion for kids.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

New Michigan law allows school support staff to sub, but few are doing it

2022-03-17T20:00:07+00:00

A new law that allows school districts to use support staff as substitute teachers drew ire from many who envisioned bus drivers and cafeteria workers suddenly taking on a role for which they had no preparation.

But three months after the law was enacted, those fears don’t appear to have been realized.

Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan reached out to dozens of superintendents around the state. Only two districts – Paw Paw and West Bloomfield – regularly take advantage of the new law that temporarily allows school staff members to cover classrooms even if they wouldn’t otherwise be qualified to substitute teach.

Both are using paraprofessionals, who assist teachers and already are familiar with students and with classroom routines.

Passed in December, the new law expires at the end of this school year. It temporarily allows school staff members to sub even if they don’t have a single college credit. They need only a high school diploma or equivalency certificate.

Ordinarily, substitute teachers must have an associate degree, 60 college credits, or, in the case of career and technical courses, subject-matter expertise. Substitutes who are not school staff members still have to meet those requirements.

The struggle to find subs is not new, but it worsened during the pandemic when teacher retirements spiked and coronavirus exposure forced staff to quarantine. The nationwide problem prompted some districts to temporarily close and others to increase substitutes’ pay. Legislatively, many states joined Michigan in loosening qualification requirements for subs.

West Bloomfield superintendent Gerald Hill said Michigan’s new law has provided flexibility that’s especially needed now, when other would-be subs are hesitant to enter school buildings for fear of getting COVID from unvaccinated children.

He prefers to use substitutes with at least 60 college credits, but a few times recently when there weren’t enough he has turned to less-educated paraprofessionals on staff in his 4,500-student district north of Detroit.

West of Kalamazoo, Paw Paw Public Schools Superintendent Rick Reo said the new law is helpful but isn’t enough to make a big difference when shortages of both teachers and subs are so severe.

“We’re just putting a Band-Aid on a really big wound. We’ve got a big issue here that we need to get solved,” Reo said.

Lawmakers appear to be trying. On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Education and Career Readiness advanced a bill that would allow former school employees to begin substitute teaching four months after retirement. The bill also would remove financial penalties for returning retirees who earn too much. Under current law, they must wait a year and forfeit pensions and health care benefits for every month their substitute pay exceeds one-third of their former compensation.

Superintendents hope the measure passes the full Senate and House.

“That would be wonderful,” Reo said. “I have retired teachers who are like, ‘What can I do? How can I help?’ but they have to wait.”

Since the new law passed, Hancock Public Schools, a 650-student district in the northernmost region of the Upper Peninsula, has been using paraprofessionals to substitute rarely and, even then, only for one or two class periods at a time, said Superintendent Steve Patchin. Most of the time, those paraprofessionals have enough college credits to qualify as substitutes even without the new law, Patchin said.

Administrators of the Au Gres-Sims School District on the shore of Lake Huron don’t plan to use staff members as subs, but might in a true emergency when there are no other options. “Even then,” superintendent Chris Ming said, “the conditions to do so will need to be right.”

Other superintendents said they have no plans to use otherwise unqualified staff to substitute teach.

“While I believe we have many support staff who are more than capable of managing a group of students, it is disingenuous to expect that they provide a day of instruction in accordance with what the state expects every other day of the school year from highly qualified, certified teachers,” said Robert D. Livernois, superintendent of Warren Consolidated Schools just north of Detroit.

Detroit Public Schools Community District, the state’s largest, also has no plans to use otherwise unqualified school staff to sub.

It would have been a better use of legislators’ time to pass laws that school administrators want, said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, an Ann Arbor-based nonpartisan think tank focused on education’s role in bolstering the state economy.

“It sounds like they just passed a bill that no one is really using,” he said.

Glazer said policy makers, school administrators, and state education officials should come together to develop a set of legislation solutions that will truly alleviate the substitute shortage.

The state Department of Education opposed the law in December along with most Democratic lawmakers. Some said, in impassioned floor speeches, that it would diminish the quality of education and pull staff from cafeterias, bus garages, and school libraries that are already stretched thin.

The latter is a particular concern, said Paul T. Shoup, Superintendent of Mason County Eastern Schools, a 400-student district on the western part of the Lower Peninsula. Shoup hasn’t used support staff to substitute teach. If he had it would have created a void in other areas where they are needed, he said.

Beaver Island Community School, a remote one-building district with just 58 students, has occasionally called on the school secretary to fill in. She is a retired school nurse with a bachelor’s degree, so she would have qualified without the new law.

Still, the law is a helpful backstop, said Wilfred Cwikiel, Beaver Island’s superintendent and principal. It ensures learning continues even when traditional substitutes aren’t available, he said.

“It helps knowing that if I need to, I could ask our cook, the person who runs the kitchen, to stay on a couple hours to handle a classroom,” Cwikiel said. “When we have to cover a classroom, it’s wonderful to have the flexibility.”

Iowa scrapped teacher training on equity. Students of color felt the sting of that decision.

2022-03-11T13:00:00+00:00

This story was co-published with The Washington Post.

Volta Adovor has a lot she wants Iowa’s teachers to know.

To start: Some kinds of hands-on learning can feel inappropriate, not illuminating. A lesson about the tight quarters Africans were packed into during the global slave trade doesn’t require students to lie down side by side on the floor, as Adovor was asked to do in 10th grade.

Being singled out can be hard, too. “If we’re watching a video of a Black man getting hung, which is something that did happen when I was in eighth grade, the teacher then should not ask me: ‘Oh, do you feel comfortable?’” Adovor said. Checking in with a student after class, or sending an email in advance, might work better.

Those are a few of the ideas Adovor and two other high school students included in a presentation they crafted last spring. Called “What We Need Our Teachers to Know About Race,” it was to be part of a conference put on by Iowa’s state education department in April 2021 focused on equity in education. More than 650 educators had registered to attend.

But a few weeks before it was scheduled to take place, the conference was postponed. A bill that would limit how teachers can talk about racism was making its way through the state legislature, and state education officials said they were “mindful” that the bill could affect the conference.

“I was pretty mad,” said Adovor, who’s now 18 and a freshman at the University of Iowa. “It just felt like our voices were being silenced.”

The bill became law in June. It bans state agencies and schools from teaching “divisive concepts” at mandatory training sessions, including the idea that the U.S. or the state of Iowa is systemically racist or sexist, though it doesn’t apply to optional events like the state conference.

Still, the department hasn’t rescheduled the event, and officials have removed more than a dozen related videos posted in the run-up to the conference. One was a workshop about how schools could better listen to student voices. (The conference “is one option that we continue to consider,” department spokesperson Heather Doe said in an email.)

The deferred conference stands as just one illustration of the nation’s about-face on centering race and equity in teachers’ work over the last year. For the students, though, the fallout has been both local and personal. After state officials asked them to share their time and experiences as students of color, the apparently open-ended postponement has left some feeling doubly dismissed.

Iowa is one of 14 states that have passed laws restricting the teaching of racism and sexism in the classroom.

“We wanted to give solutions,” Adovor said. “It was just us talking about things that we cared about.”

Iowa education officials announced plans to host trainings centered on social justice and education equity in July 2020, about two months after the murder of George Floyd.

At the time, school districts and education organizations across the country were promising to better serve their students and families of color and acknowledging how they’d fallen short. A Virginia school district apologized for the role it had played in racially segregating its students. A Chicago charter school network disavowed a disciplinary practice it described as “white supremacist and anti-black.” Advocates successfully lobbied cities like Minneapolis, Oakland, Denver, and Seattle to reduce the presence of police officers in their schools, pointing to the disproportionate share of Black students who are arrested at school.

It was in that climate that Iowa’s education department started its many months of work on an event where educators, school leaders, and state education officials could “engage on issues that impact educational opportunities for historically disadvantaged/marginalized students,” as a program draft put it.

As more schools have undertaken equity and inclusion training for staff, some educators and parents have complained about what they see as heavy-handed and divisive tactics, like putting teachers into groups based on their race or asking white people to acknowledge their inherent privilege.

This conference bore little resemblance to that. Several sessions appeared to offer introductory information, such as “Equity Challenges and Solutions for Iowa’s English Learners” and “What is new since 1492 - An Overview of the American Indian Experience.” Others offered practical how-tos for teachers and school leaders looking to make their curriculum more inclusive or adjust school policies.

Drake University freshman Orlando Fuentes was going to share survey results about Latinx students who were called racial slurs, or were on the receiving end of racist jokes.

Notably, students were set to play a prominent role. In his conference presentation, Orlando Fuentes, now 19, was going to share the results of a survey he’d participated in that found dozens of Latinx students in Iowa reported they’d been called racial slurs or had racist jokes made about them at school.

Mariah Martinez, now 20, wanted to push educators in her home state to better incorporate the contributions of Black Americans, after her own history lessons as an Iowa student focused on “slavery, and Jim Crow, and hangings.”

“For the first time in five years, I felt like we were really moving forward and ‘doing’ equity work and not just ‘saying’ we are doing it,” wrote April Pforts, an Iowa education department official, in a letter that Chalkbeat obtained through an open records request.

Western Illinois University junior Mariah Martinez hoped to advocate for better education on the contributions of Black Americans.

Iowa would then become a part of another national trend. Over the last year, Iowa and 13 other states have passed laws or other policies that restrict how teachers can talk about racism and sexism at school, according to Education Week. Dozens more states have considered similar proposals.

Iowa House lawmakers passed an initial version of their legislation in March 2021, about a month before the scheduled equity conference.

The legislation’s main backer, Iowa House Rep. Steven Holt, said the proposal would ensure that schools don’t unfairly portray whole groups of people as inherently racist or sexist, and that concepts like white privilege are taught as part of more in-depth lessons. He and his wife, an Iowa public school teacher who was temporarily put on leave in 2019 for using an anti-Black racial slur in class, valued “academic freedom,” he said.

“This does not in any way ban diversity training or racial sensitivity training,” he said in a speech from the Iowa House floor last March. The bill, he added: “specifically allows training that promotes racial, cultural, ethnic, and intellectual diversity and inclusiveness.”

He reiterated that in a statement to Chalkbeat about the conference.

“Either those involved in the cancellation had not taken the time to understand the provisions of the bill,” Holt wrote in an email, “or in fact they intended to teach the divisive concepts identified in the bill that scapegoat and stereotype entire classes of people, in which case canceling the conference was appropriate.”

Here, as elsewhere, though, the effects would stretch beyond the text of the legislation.

Within a week, state education officials were scrambling to call off the equity conference and explain to confused educators why all the related materials had disappeared, emails obtained by Chalkbeat show.

“I think we need some sort of a blanket message to respond,” Jeanette Thomas, one of the lead conference organizers, wrote to several high-ranking education department officials. “This is my third message in about 15 minutes. Help!!” When Thomas received little guidance, she reiterated her concern: “Rather than delete the emails, I was hoping we could have one response to use.”

Some education department officials were clearly upset. The day the department pulled the plug, one of the lead organizers, Isbelia Arzola, summed up her feelings in a chat with a coworker. “It is very sad and disappointing,” she wrote. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

After her colleague closed the conference registration, Arzola replied: “Thanks, I am crying again…”

In a phone call, panelists were told the conference was being postponed until the fall. “We were mindful of the presenters’ time in making this decision because we did not want to move forward with sharing content without knowing whether or not it would be compliant with the final bill language,” Doe, the education department spokesperson, told Chalkbeat in an email.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has risen to prominence within the Republican party, signed the bill in June, saying she was “proud to have worked with the legislature to promote learning, not discriminatory indoctrination.”

In the months that followed, Iowa teachers would report curtailing classroom discussions about topics like genocide, sexism, and the “one-drop” rule in response to the new law. The education department co-hosted a conference about emotional and behavioral health in November. There was still no word on the equity conference.

“No one contacted me at all,” Adovor said. “That’s how I knew it wasn’t going to happen.”

The conference is still officially postponed, according to the Iowa Department of Education, but has not yet been rescheduled. That left participating students like (from top left) Martinez, Adovor, and Fuentes disheartened.

The experience left students feeling frustrated or disheartened. They’d accepted invitations to headline sessions because they knew their experiences could offer lessons for Iowa educators.

Martinez, for example, was going to draw on her experience as a young Black and Mexican woman who attended a predominantly white Iowa school. She wanted to explain what it felt like to learn only a limited slice of Black history and to have classmates who expected her to speak on behalf of all Black Americans.

“I had very supportive teachers,” she said. Still, “I never really received any positive stories about Black history until I went and sought after it myself,” Martinez said.

Fuentes had wanted to make his pitch for why schools should prioritize hiring a more diverse teaching staff and offering more culturally responsive teacher training.

As a middle schooler, he remembers being challenged and encouraged by a Latina teacher who led his Spanish class for students who’d already been exposed to the language at home. But when a white teacher who wasn’t a native speaker took over the following year, “the teaching was night and day,” Fuentes recalled.

When he asked for more difficult assignments, Fuentes was told he was being ungrateful and disrespectful. “To be received that way when I asked to be pushed educationally, it infuriated me,” Fuentes said. He stopped taking Spanish classes after that, fearful of repeating that experience.

“That’s why I was so strong about having representation in our schools,” he said. “It’s so important, so things like that don’t happen to our students.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Despite pushback, Colorado will enforce K-3 teacher training on reading as planned

2022-03-10T00:25:23+00:00

Colorado will stick to an August deadline for early elementary teachers to complete mandatory training on how to teach reading, despite pushback from some school district leaders about burdensome reporting requirements.

Most State Board of Education members on Wednesday agreed that districts should be able to handle the job by the deadline. Districts that don’t — except in rare cases where emergencies or unforeseen circumstances prevent teachers from completing the training on time — could risk losing their annual allocation of state money for teaching struggling readers.

The board did not vote on the matter, but its direction to state education leaders aligns with its stance in recent years to hold firm on efforts meant to boost the state’s dismal third-grade literacy scores. The teacher training requirement came out of a 2019 law and is seen as a key lever for changing how early reading instruction is delivered in kindergarten through third grade.

About 23,000 early elementary teachers must complete the 45-hour teacher training, either by taking a free online course or completing other state-approved options. So far, more than 20,000 teachers have enrolled in the free course, and 7,500 have completed it. Another 1,000 teachers have signed up for other approved options, and nearly 700 have completed them.

A number of Colorado superintendents, along with groups representing district leaders and school boards, recently raised concerns about the data being collected on the K-3 teacher training as well as a separate topic, graduation guidelines.

They wrote in a February letter to the Colorado Department of Education, “In each of these cases, the amount of data being requested and how it is collected far exceeds the intent of these legislative actions.”

But generally, State Board members didn’t agree.

After education department staffers explained the process by which most teachers will submit proof they completed the training, board member Steve Durham said, “It doesn’t seem to me to be as big of a data burden certainly as described in the letter.”

For teachers who take the free course, there’s a simple online process to show evidence of completion in the state’s teacher licensing database, which districts can access. The process is somewhat more complicated for teachers who satisfy the training requirement in other ways or choose not to submit their completion evidence to the licensing database. In such cases, districts could face more administrative hassle in proving that their teachers have met the training requirement.

Multiple board members said it’s important to communicate to districts what’s expected by the Aug. 15 data submission deadline and what will happen if they fail to meet the deadline.

“We’re either moving forward and treating this like a requirement or we’re not,” said board member Rebecca McClellan. “If districts know that their funding truly is contingent on this and that we want to give ample, crystal clear notice, my hope is that we’ll see this reported correctly by the deadline in August.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

As pandemic complicates recruitment, Teach For America’s incoming class expected to hit a 15-year low

2022-03-08T12:00:00+00:00

Facing a sharp drop in applications, Teach For America is expecting its smallest crop of first-year teachers in at least 15 years, new data from the organization shows.

The organization expects to place just under 2,000 teachers in schools across the country this coming fall. That’s just two-thirds of the number of first-year teachers TFA placed in schools in fall 2019, and just one-third of the number it sent into the field at its height in 2013.

The latest drops are a continuation of a years-long trend. Still, it’s a striking decline for an organization that’s played a prominent role in American debates about how to improve education and how to staff schools that often struggle to attract and retain teachers.

“It’s more than you would expect,” said Pam Grossman, the dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, who has studied teacher preparation. “In a strong economy you would expect interest to decline, but that’s a big drop.”

Alongside declines in enrollment at traditional teacher prep programs and other nontraditional programs, it’s also more evidence that interest in becoming an educator in the U.S. has fallen.

Enrollment in all kinds of teacher preparation programs stood at a little more than half a million in the fall of 2018, the latest federal data show, down 18% from eight years earlier. More recent data from colleges that produce large numbers of teachers is mixed: Some traditional programs have seen enrollment increases more recently, while others have seen small dips.

“You have to put TFA in the broader picture of teacher ed programs,” said Grossman, whose university partners with TFA to provide their teachers with additional training. “I don’t think they’re alone in seeing drops. This is, in general, a trend that I’m very concerned about.”

COVID has added to the challenge of convincing prospective educators to take the plunge. TFA officials acknowledged that the pandemic has made recruitment tougher.

“People are feeling like with what they’re seeing in teaching, they’re not sure they can do it,” Tracy St. Dic, TFA’s senior vice president of recruitment, said of the organization’s teacher prospects. “They care about social impact, they care about social issues,” she said, “but they also really want to have the security, and the safety, and the stability.”

Coupled with changing working conditions is a competitive job market.

“There are a lot of jobs,” Grossman said. “Teaching has to compete with so many other professions that also require a bachelor’s degree or more, but pay much better than teaching.”

Other teacher residency and alternative teacher prep programs are experiencing similar challenges. TNTP, for example, which runs a teacher fellowship program in Baltimore, New Orleans, Indianapolis, and elsewhere, has received fewer applications than it typically would by this time of year. Similarly, applications to the Chicago Teacher Residency program are slightly down from last year, a spokesperson wrote in an email. (Both programs will continue to recruit throughout the spring.)

“We’re seeing more people withdraw because they are no longer interested in being a teacher,” Jacob Waters, a spokesperson for TNTP, wrote in an email. The organization is hearing “greater concerns about the teaching profession, burnout, pay.”

The Arkansas Teacher Corps, which places teachers in rural Arkansas schools with acute staffing needs, received only 55 applications this year, about a third of the number they received four years ago. Meanwhile, schools are asking the organization for even more teachers.

Typically, the organization can fulfill only about 15% of school staffing requests. “It’s just a bigger discrepancy now,” said John Hall, who oversees recruitment for the program.

The pandemic is still disrupting the mechanics of new teacher recruitment, too. TFA recruited teachers remotely last year, and this year it’s still a mix of virtual and in-person recruitment, which can make it harder to build relationships with student groups and professors who refer candidates, St. Dic said. Programs that TFA has historically drawn teachers from, like a partner AmeriCorps reading tutoring program, have also had a harder time recruiting young workers during the pandemic, narrowing the pipeline.

TFA also has its specific perception issues to overcome, including the longstanding critique that the organization often puts little-trained teachers in high-need classrooms who then exit education after a couple years. The organization has made changes to address that over the years, including recruiting a more diverse group of teachers and placing more teachers in rural schools.

New recruits say that’s been a topic of discussion. When 21-year-old Sarai Hertz-Velázquez attended a recent orientation, she was struck that a TFA leader spoke candidly about how the organization could improve. That was important to Hertz-Velázquez, who has thought critically about race and power dynamics in her work as a tutor and after-school program staffer.

“I don’t think anyone that I’ve spoken to has a savior mindset or thinks that they’re going to change the lives of every student they work with,” she said. “Part of that is because TFA makes it known that that’s not what people should come in expecting to do.”

Still, some aspiring educators remain wary of TFA’s history and its early reputation for recruiting many young white, Ivy League-educated graduates.

“I don’t think the current leadership of the current organization would ever say that they would want to see themselves as white saviors,” said Joshua Starr, who heads PDK International, a professional organization for educators. “I’m sure they actively work against that. It still may have that perception.”

And as many school systems look to diversify their teaching ranks and attract candidates who are graduates of their own schools, districts may be more inclined to spend money on a grow-your-own program rather than on a contract with TFA, Starr said.

“TFA doesn’t loom as large as it used to,” Starr said.

For its part, TFA has made a number of recruiting changes in recent years. The organization recently tripled the number of historically Black colleges with a TFA recruiter, and it hired a Native staffer this year to help recruit aspiring Native teachers, St. Dic said.

TFA is trying other strategies, including new financial incentives. This year, the organization is offering every first-year teacher at least $5,000 to help pay for teacher certification and moving costs. Incoming teachers who qualified for Pell Grants or who have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status will receive $10,000.

TFA has also recruited several hundred new teachers from the paid virtual tutoring program it launched during the pandemic. “What we believe is, when you meet students and you see what they’re capable of, and you see the impact you can have, it’s going to be hard to turn away from that,” St. Dic said.

Twenty-two-year-old Grant Jamison, for example, is joining TFA in the Cleveland area after working as a virtual tutor. He had already planned to join the corps, but after he worked with second-graders on their reading skills, he decided to seek an elementary school position. The experience of helping students learn to distinguish between the ‘B’ and ‘D’ sounds that had tripped them up stuck with him.

“It really flipped my idea of what it would actually be like teaching elementary school kids,” he said. Tutoring “definitely gave me a taste of teaching.”

And for some, meeting the needs the pandemic created or exacerbated in schools is part of the draw.

Patricia Garcia, 37, will be teaching through TFA in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley this fall after making a career change. She was a lab assistant at a technical college before the pandemic, but decided to take the leap into teaching after she enjoyed working with migrant high school students who’d fallen behind in their studies.

She knows she’ll be setting an example for students who grew up in the same community as her — “They’ll see me in the classroom teaching, and they’ll think ‘Hey, I could become a teacher, too,’” she said — and she’ll be stepping into the classroom when educators are in high demand.

“You hear stories in the news about the shortages and how people are resigning,” she said. “Right now, students need somebody to be there.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois hopes a $4 million grant will strengthen the bilingual teacher pipeline

2022-03-07T20:14:16+00:00

The Illinois state board of education has created a $4 million grant from federal coronavirus relief funds that would help increase the number of bilingual educators in the state, amid growing calls to fill teacher vacancies.

The grant will give school districts money to pay tuition for current teachers who have a bilingual endorsement but want to earn professional licensure and for current educators who want to earn a bilingual endorsement.

Illinois school districts have struggled to fill teacher vacancies throughout the pandemic. Bilingual educators are in high demand, second only to special education teachers. In October, local school districts reported 98 vacancies for bilingual educators. One key issue preventing districts from filling vacancies is finding teachers who have a state license.

The state estimates that 2,200 bilingual teachers currently have a non-renewable five-year license. The goal of the two-year grant is for that group of educators to be able to teach longer than a five-year term and for current teachers to earn a bilingual endorsement.

The state hopes that increasing the number of bilingual educators will help English learners, who make up 12.9% of the state’s student population. The state’s 2021 report card shows that English learners have been one of the student groups hit the hardest during the pandemic.

English learners’ proficiency in English language arts and math dropped by half compared with 2019. Also, chronic absenteeism among English learners increased from 17.2% in 2019 to 23.8% in 2021.

State superintendent Carmen Ayala said in a press release that after serving as the director of bilingual services in a school district for nine years, she understands how important it is for teachers to be properly trained to support English language learners.

“Their ability to flourish in school in any subject depends wholly on getting effective services to support their language development,” said Ayala.

‘Nearing a collapse,’ Indiana needs more special educators

2022-03-03T22:42:53+00:00

When her colleague resigned unexpectedly over Christmas break, special education teacher Lisa Whitlow-Hill took 20 more students under her wing.

In addition to coordinating a college and career program for young adults with disabilities, Whitlow-Hill now had to identify goals and create service plans for preschoolers to eighth graders, too.

As schools throughout the state struggle to fill special education jobs, their task will likely grow ahead of a July expiration date for about 1,200 emergency teaching permits.

“Education is so important, but we’re struggling,” Whitlow-Hill said. “We’ve lost so many people.”

Indiana doesn’t keep track of how many special education teachers its schools lack or will need. But many districts face vacancies, which squeeze their budgets and leave them vulnerable to lawsuits for failing to provide services guaranteed by federal law.

To help fill the gap, the state and school districts have earmarked millions in federal dollars to train more special education teachers. One pathway will offer a bridge for teachers whose emergency permits are expiring, while another focuses on working paraprofessionals.

But the programs will take one to four years to yield classroom-ready teachers, leaving concerns that at the moment, schools simply can’t find enough people to hire.

What’s driving special education shortages

The number of working special education teachers in Indiana declined around 4% from 2014 to 2021, while the number of students in special education grew 12%, according to the Indiana Department of Education.

A state job bank lists over 150 open special education teaching positions, but more openings likely exist. Not all schools list vacancies in the bank, department spokesperson Holly Lawson said.

At the same time, fewer students enter and stay in traditional teaching programs, while the educator workforce is aging, said Carey Dahncke, who leads a University of Indianapolis education center. Only about 16% of undergraduate education majors go on to earn their teaching licenses, according to one study. And candidates who want to teach special education must also obtain an addition to their teaching license.

Previously, schools could fill vacancies with substitutes, said Angie Balsley, president of the Indiana Council of Administrators of Special Education.

But finding substitutes has been more challenging during the pandemic, as schools need to fill in for educators out because of COVID, Balsley said. She said the general demand for workers, low wages, and a negative public perception of teaching also discourage people from pursuing a career in education.

“We’re nearing a collapse on the current trajectory because of personnel shortages,” Balsley said.

What the shortage means

Balsley, who also serves as executive director of Earlywood, a special education services co-op in Franklin, said four of its 85 certified staff members resigned in December alone, placing a heavy burden on those who remain.

For students who qualify for special education, services are a right, she said.

“In a classroom, unlike a fast food chain, we don’t get to just close for the day,” Balsley said.

That’s what left teacher Whitlow-Hill to take over the documentation duties for special education at a small private school, while a paraprofessional leads the classroom under Whitlow-Hill’s direction.

COVID considerations like exposures, masking rules, and contact tracing weigh heavily on educators’ minds, Whitlow-Hill said. But those worries may be even more acute for special education aides who risk exposure to COVID in the classroom and may not receive a paycheck if they have to quarantine, she added.

This in turn makes it harder to hire aides.

“You’re kind of taking on hazardous circumstances,” she said. “It’s a different level of stress.”

Pandemic restrictions and risks also have eaten into the ranks of the cadre of specialists — speech and occupational therapists, as well as psychologists — vital to special education. They face heightened risks traveling from school to school and being in close contact with multiple students.

After Earlywood lost one of its school psychologists in a tragic accident, Ashley Landrum stepped in to cover two districts with the help of an intern, which leaves her responsible for dozens of special education evaluations and a growing number of behavior assessments of children struggling with the stresses of the pandemic.

Because federal rules set a strict timetable for evaluations, Landrum said she’s working longer days to get them done. She said schools struggle to hire contractors to do that work, because they’re in short supply, too.

“Timelines haven’t changed. Deadlines haven’t changed,” she said. “Two years into the pandemic, none of our expectations have changed.”

State tries to fill gaps

With about 1,200 educators set to lose emergency permits after this school year, the state will grant provisional teacher status to those who are seeking full licensure.

Those permits will allow them to remain in the classroom for three years while working toward their license, said Lawson of the state Department of Education. The state is underwriting the tuition and fees for their studies by tapping about $4 million in federal relief funds through 2024.

“We’re seeing strong engagement so far,” Lawson said. “This is a really great program that covers costs and streamlines the process.”

About 170 teacher candidates have enrolled in the state’s alternative permit program, known by its acronym I-SEAL.

Most will earn a special education certification in one to two years, depending on whether they have completed prior coursework, said Dahncke, executive director of the University of Indianapolis’ Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning, which coordinates the programs.

“The idea is to try to inject 300 new special education teachers in the field,” he said. “But we’re only scratching the surface.”

Among the I-SEAL candidates is Drue Yates, a special education resource teacher working on an emergency permit at Greater Clark County Schools.

After graduating with an education degree in May, Yates started as a permanent substitute at Parkwood Elementary then quickly became a resource teacher. Instead of running a large classroom, Yates works all day with small groups of students on academic and behavior skills.

“Given the opportunity and how much I’ve fallen in love with the job I do, I decided it would be best if I tried it,” Yates said.

“Within the first month, I knew this was what I wanted to do,” he said.

Teaching is a challenging field, Dahncke said, and special education comes with amplified challenges, including the pressure to meet each child’s individual needs.

Districts want more people like Yates.

“We’re looking for someone who, this is the type of work they want to do,” Dahncke said. “It’s not helpful if a teacher gets into the field and turns around and leaves. We need people who are equipped to do this, who want to do this.”

Dahncke said the state may consider expanding licensing programs to those who don’t have bachelor’s degrees, through apprenticeships or pathways that offer both a bachelor’s degree and a teaching license.

Grow-your-own teachers

Bartholomew County Schools, partnering with St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, is doing just that.

It runs a pilot program with nine paraprofessionals who work in schools during the day, and take online classes in the evening in either secondary special education or elementary education with an add-on certification for special education.

The district is paying for tuition, books, and fees for students who commit to working for the district for two years after graduation, said Gina Pleak, the district’s assistant superintendent for human resources.

Pleak said the district started the program as a way to encourage more diversity in its teaching ranks — but the focus on special education is an added bonus. It costs around $12,000 per candidate per year, paid by COVID relief funds.

The aides take about four years to graduate, making the program a long-term investment.

“In education there is not a quick fix. If there is a quick fix, we’re probably sacrificing something,” Pleak said.

About 15% of the district’s special educators, or 17 people, are working on the emergency permits that are set to expire, Pleak said. Nearly all are on track to continue working in the classroom after the deadline.

Pleak said she hopes the state someday will allow greater flexibility for obtaining teaching licenses, by waiving some testing requirements if candidates have work experience, or offering tuition reimbursement if they enroll in an education program.

“They already see the day-to-day work, they feel connected, they have purpose,” Pleak said.

Alternative pathways to licensure are becoming more popular as school leaders recognize there are many barriers in traditional teacher prep programs.

“You have to quit your day job to student teach for 12 weeks. That’s unaffordable,” said Lucy Fischman, an independent education consultant who designed the Bartholomew program.

Teachers on emergency permits also may not be able to afford to complete their full license, Fischman said. And until the federal government said it would cease recognizing their licenses, they assumed they could simply renew their permits annually.

Fischman wants the state to commit to funding the programs after emergency federal dollars expire in 2024.

“There’s nothing more joyful than working with kids. … The variety you get each day is something you can’t find anywhere else,” Fischman said. “The camaraderie you see among special education teachers is unmatched.”

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

America’s oldest HBCU aims to be driving force again in producing teachers

2022-03-02T02:23:26+00:00

Joyce Abbott always wanted to be a teacher.

For the Hamilton Elementary School educator, who is the namesake of the hit show “Abbott Elementary,” the road to becoming a teacher took some turns, but ultimately hit pay dirt at Cheyney University outside Philadelphia.

“A lot of people don’t know, but I did my undergrad studying business and economics, because I thought that was something I really wanted to do at that time,” she said. “But the love for teaching has always been a part of my life with my family.”

Abbott attributes her success as a teacher to the small classes, student collaboration, and strong professors at the university, which celebrated the 185th anniversary of its founding last week.

The oldest historically Black college, or HBCU, in the country, Cheyney is looking to rebuild the university’s legacy of producing teachers like Abbott at a time when many are leaving the profession. University leaders are also looking to improve teacher diversity numbers, as white teachers still account for the majority of U.S. teachers. According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, about 79% of U.S. public school teachers are white; Black teachers accounted for about 7% of the country’s teaching force, while Latino teachers accounted for 9%, and Asian American teachers 2%.

The Philadelphia school district has struggled with recruiting and retaining teachers of color and also has seen a midyear surge of teacher resignations. In the city’s district schools, about 24% of teachers are Black, but the district is predominantly Black and Latino.

Abbott returned to Cheyney after serving in the military and attended the school’s graduate program for elementary education. She will retire at the end of this school year after teaching for 40 years.

“I will tell you a lot of the stronger teachers in Philadelphia obtained their education degree from Cheyney,” Abbott said. “They would go into schools and just be phenomenal. And that was a direct result of the instruction and training they received from Cheyney.”

Cheyney was founded by Quaker philanthropist Richard Humphreys in 1837 as the African Institute and later renamed the Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth. Training Black teachers became the foundation of the school’s success.

When the institute opened its doors, it became the first high school for Black people in the U.S. — 28 years before the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted to officially abolish slavery, freeing more than 3.9 million enslaved Black people. In its mission, Humphreys called for the school “to instruct the descendants of the African race in school learning, in the various branches of the mechanic arts, trades and agriculture, in order to prepare and fit and qualify them to act as teachers.”

Joyce Abbott, namesake of the popular TV show, Abbott Elementary, has been teaching for 40 years. She attributes her success as a teacher to Cheyney University.

The school’s first location stood at Seventh and Lombard streets in South Philadelphia, then it moved to a larger building at Ninth and Bainbridge streets in what is known as the Samuel J. Randall School. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

One of the most famous figures associated with the early years of the institute is Fanny Coppin, a former slave who became a principal and was credited with advancing the school’s curriculum. Last year, the city’s Board of Education renamed Andrew Jackson Elementary School in South Philadelphia after Coppin, who is also the namesake of Coppin State University, an HBCU in Baltimore.

The institute also is mentioned on HBO’s “The Gilded Age” – Peggy Scott, a lead Black character, tells white observers who are fascinated by her advanced writing skills that she is a graduate of the institute in Philadelphia.

The university got its name after moving in 1902 to a farm named after another Quaker George Cheyney. It was renamed the Cheyney Training School for Teachers in 1914 and then Cheyney State Teachers College in 1951, a reflection of its focus on educating future teachers. During this time the majority of the university’s graduates studied education and went on to be teachers in nearby cities like Baltimore, New York City and Philadelphia.

“Cheyney became the option, the place to go for Blacks to have undergraduate and graduate education,” said Robert W. Bogle, a Cheyney graduate and member of the State Board of Governors, which oversees Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education that consists of 14 colleges and universities including Cheyney.

“Our sister institutions did not want Black students at their schools,” Bogle said. “Being a teacher became a profession needed for our community but desperately needed to prepare African American or Black children, and Cheyney was the largest of its kind in preparing teachers, particularly for the Philadelphia public school system, which was growing in a Black population.”

As time went on, job opportunities for Black people grew, and training and education became needed in other areas. The most popular majors at Cheyney today are science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, business management, liberal arts and psychology.

“There was a time that Cheyney relied almost 100% exclusively on the training of teachers,” said Aaron Walton, president of Cheyney University. “And that was an admirable thing to do. But Cheyney has had to make some changes in the way they’ve operated in terms of being able to be sustainable. So it has to offer more than one type of education, because it has to satisfy many demands.”

But Cheyney might have a reason to emphasize its education program again.

At a Board of Education meeting last week, officials in the Philadelphia school district discussed data showing that teacher resignations were up almost 200% midyear, compared to last school year. The resignations are coming at a time when the ratio of students to teachers of color in Pennsylvania is among the worst in the nation.

District officials say they are committed to improving those numbers through several strategies, including higher salaries, retention bonuses, and early notification of intent to retire or resign.

Monica Lewis, spokesperson for the school district, said, “we believe that it’s important for our workforce to reflect the rich diversity of our student body. We have a multi-faceted approach to increasing teacher diversity throughout our schools.”

Walton said he thinks Cheyney could assist with both issues, in part, through its summer program, Aspire to Educate or A2E. The enrichment program was built to inspire high school students to consider a career in education. It’s free and is designed to introduce students to the rewards and benefits of teaching, Walton said.

The program is a collaboration among Cheyney, the School District of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Department of Education, and the Community College of Philadelphia to track students who are in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades, and encourage them to go into teaching. To apply to the program, a student has to be a graduating senior with a minimum GPA of 3.0. The student must also achieve at least 1,000 or higher on the SAT.
On the collegiate level, Cheyney offers degrees in early childhood education, early childhood education for prekindergarten to fourth-grade, and special education for prekindergarten to eighth-grade, through its Department of Business, Education and Professional Studies.

“With the model that we’re creating here at Cheyney, bringing private industry on campus, with a focus on having those partners provide internships for our students, it’s giving them an experience that they would not get anywhere else,” Walton said.

For Black students to study at an HBCU and return to the community as a teacher is where true change can happen, said Abbott. She believes it’s important for Black students to see people who look like them in a professional setting. The connection with students, she said, resonates.

“A lot of times in their neighborhood they don’t see a lot of positive role models. And as a Black teacher you can relate to the things they are going through,” she said.

Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org

Report: Too few new educators are graduating to reverse Tennessee teacher shortage

2022-02-16T01:47:37+00:00

The number of new educators graduating from teacher training programs across Tennessee has dropped by nearly one-fifth over five years, with most of the decline happening before the pandemic, according to a new report.

The latest report card on Tennessee’s 43 teacher training programs shows just more than 3,000 would-be educators graduated in the 2019-2020 school year, compared with about 3,700 in 2014-2015.

The troubling trend, which mirrors national declines, comes as many districts struggle to fill vacant teacher jobs and keep classrooms staffed because of teacher absences caused by COVID. The state also anticipates a major teacher exodus during the next decade due to attrition and a wave of retirements.

Teacher supply was on the minds of state lawmakers Tuesday who were considering ideas to address the shortage.

Assistant Education Commissioner Charlie Bufalino told a House education panel the state has about 2,200 teacher vacancies, although other estimates put the count significantly higher. Officials with the education department told Chalkbeat they can’t provide details until after this week, which is the deadline for districts to submit teacher vacancy information.

Tennessee’s largest district reported having 200-plus teaching positions open in Memphis in the fall. And in Nashville, the state’s second largest district currently has more than 80 full-time teacher vacancies.

The leader of the Professional Educators of Tennessee called the shortage a “full-blown crisis.”

“We’re driving people out of the profession faster than we can replace them,” said Executive Director JC Bowman.

About 22% of Tennessee educators responding to a recent survey by his group said they plan to leave education.

Modest pay, a punitive culture of student testing and teacher evaluations, student discipline challenges, and a shortage of planning time are among the reasons, Bowman said.

“It’s clear there’s a morale crisis,” he said. “Teachers are doing their best, but they don’t feel supported. These are highly educated people who are increasingly walking away to do other things that also pay them more money.”

“Teachers are drowning,” said Joey Vaughn, director of schools in Manchester, during testimony last month before state lawmakers about the pandemic’s impact. “We have to be very cognizant not only of our student needs but of the needs of people working with our kids.”

With teacher prep programs producing fewer potential hires, Tennessee is looking to several new initiatives to help replenish the ranks.

The state has cleared the way for school systems to develop “grow your own” training programs similar to one pioneered by Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools and Austin Peay State University. While the programs vary by district, they generally hire prospective teachers who can work in a school in a support role and get paid while pursuing their education and credentials through a teacher training program.

And last month, Tennessee leaders announced a partnership with the U.S. departments of education and labor to establish teacher apprenticeship programs across the state.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona has called Tennessee’s efforts “a model for states across the country.” On Friday, he’s scheduled to host a roundtable discussion in Nashville to discuss ways to strengthen and diversify the teacher pipeline.

The State Board of Education also has eased requirements for out-of-state teachers to obtain licenses in Tennessee. And it’s added pathways to fast-track credentials for teachers to shift to special education and English as a second language, both high-demand areas.

Regarding compensation, Gov. Bill Lee has proposed investing an additional $125 million next year in the fund that allows for pay raises for teachers and other school workers.

“Everything we can do to take a bite of the apple, we’re doing,” said Brian Blackley, a spokesman for the education department.

Some good news was highlighted by the State Board of Education in its annual report card.

Executive Director Sara Morrison credited teacher training programs — from colleges of education to nontraditional programs like Memphis Teacher Residency and Teach for America — for recruiting more diverse cohorts and encouraging students to pursue licenses in high-demand subjects.

Since 2016, training programs have increased by 6 percentage points the number of candidates earning credentials to teach in special education, English as a second language, and high school math and science.

There also was an uptick in the number of newly trained teachers from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds.

“These positive trends reflect the intentional work of Tennessee’s (educator training programs),” Morrison said.

Marta W. Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Newark students in teacher training program to receive $3,700 stipends from union

2022-02-15T00:30:04+00:00

“What makes my favorite teachers so amazing?” Aniya Mahfood Shockness, 15, wondered aloud to herself in a multipurpose room full of other high school students chattering among themselves.

“It’s how they interact and connect with us, and try to understand us,” the East Side High School ninth grader said. “You can teach wonderful lessons, but they’re not wonderful if you don’t know how to connect with us.”

That’s what the teacher-in-training hopes to do in several more years: teach wonderful lessons.

Mahfood Shockness is in her first year at The Teacher Academy at East Side High School, Newark’s four-year teacher training program aimed at recruiting and preparing students to enter the teaching profession and return to their communities.

She and roughly 34 other students currently enrolled in the program will be receiving a $1,200 stipend this spring and another $2,500 in the summer from the American Federation of Teachers, the union’s president Randi Weingarten announced at a news conference on Monday.

“We want to make sure that you can dream your dreams and achieve them,” Weingarten said to that same room with Mahfood Shockness, her classmates, and teachers. “We need to help create those conditions so that it becomes doable and workable for you to do this kind of work.”

Weingarten said the one-time donation for student stipends will total $125,000. She hopes that the state, district, and other community organizations can step in going forward to fund semester stipends for students in the program.

The academy, which kicked off in 2020, partners with Montclair State University in a dual enrollment portion of the program for juniors and seniors to earn up to 30 college credits. The program’s Class of 2023 will be the first to graduate from the academy.

Some students in the program, Weingarten said, have been overwhelmed with other responsibilities.

“We had people who actually said I can’t do this program any more because I have to work,” she said. “We saw in the work we’ve done in the teacher academy that this piece was missing. A stipend for kids is missing. And instead of waiting for other people to solve it, we said, `let’s give the seed money now.’”

Brianna McClave, who teaches ninth graders in the program, said she was excited to see her students’ faces light up when they heard the announcement.

“I think this pandemic has impacted a lot of people, especially our students,” McClave said. “I’m so happy my kids will be able to take advantage of this opportunity. It’s really going to help them in the long run.”

Rayssa Fernandes, a junior in the program, hopes one day to be a psychology teacher.

“My goal is always to learn as much as I can,” Fernandes, 16, said. “In the future, I really hope that what I learn can help and benefit future generations.”

Superintendent Roger León recommitted to the promise he made when the program was first announced in 2019 and said a teaching contract will be waiting for graduates of the program.

“Not only will they graduate in June of 2023, but I will issue all of them teaching contracts in Newark,” he said. “In 2027, I expect to see all of you back here in Newark.”

As of now, it’s a $65,000 annual salary contract, he added.

At the end of the event, the juniors in the program invited Weingarten and Montclair State University President Jonathan Koppell to attend their graduation in June of 2023.

The investment in the teacher academy comes amid a national teacher shortage that has rippled across the state, including Newark schools.

In the district, León said, there are currently 110 teacher vacancies. When the school year started, there were 120 instructional positions unfilled in the district.

Earlier this school year, after Mahfood Shockness learned about the teacher shortage, she started to research articles about the shortage of Black teachers. Growing up in Brooklyn, she had many Black teachers. But when she moved to Newark, she had fewer teachers who looked like her, she said.

“I know how it feels to feel isolated in a classroom you’re going through a school day and none of my teachers are Black,” she said. “I find that to be kind of sad. This class definitely feels like a good option and good opportunity for me.”

Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark, covering the city’s K-12 schools with a focus on English language learners. Contact Catherine at ccarrera@gmail.com.

Philly district aims to support 75 aspiring leaders and diversify principal pipeline over three years

2022-02-11T00:42:31+00:00

The Philadelphia school district is investing $3.1 million for district employees, specifically those of color, to consider leadership roles at schools.

The “Pathways to Leadership” initiative aims to offer 75 leadership positions — about 25 a year — over the next three years to Black, Latino, and Asian workers within the district. They are urged to apply. Educators who work in neighboring school districts like Camden, New Jersey, or Wilmington, Delaware, are not eligible.

“We have great leaders within our schools already, and want to ensure that we have pathways for those individuals to pursue leadership opportunities,” Superintendent William Hite said Thursday at Edward T. Steel Elementary School in Nicetown.

The effort comes as Philadelphia has one of the highest principal turnover rates in the state.

Over 24% of principals in Philadelphia left their schools between the 2007-08 and 2015-16 school years, according to a report on principal mobility by the Philadelphia Education Research Consortium, or PERC. Mobile principals in the city are concentrated in schools that serve higher-poverty, lower-achieving, and minority students, the report states.

Through this program the district wants to recruit more leaders of color, specifically Black males, to mirror that of its student population. In addition to principals and assistant principals, there are leadership positions like teacher coaches and other roles the district aims to fill.

Those trained in the program will receive a $25,000 stipend that will help cover costs for certification and training through a partnership with Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania.

There’s currently a teacher residency program in which those who have math and science skills can come in and learn alongside another teacher for a year before becoming a teacher by themselves in the classroom. The Pathways initiative is similar to the district’s effort to recruit educators who mirror the district’s student demographics.

More than 70% of the district students are Black and Latino, yet district teachers are predominantly white, according to the district. Similarly, Black males make up over 24% of the student population but only 13% of the district’s principals, said Deputy Chief of Leadership Development Michael Farrell.

He added Latino students, who represent 24% of the district’s student population, are 7% represented of principals; and Asian students, who represent 10% of the student population, are 3% represented of principals.

“We want the representation of these three groups to increase. Future leaders of color are strongly encouraged to apply,” Farrell said.

The program officially begins this summer. The district ran two cohorts to create the program, the first in 2019. Thursday’s announcement was made at Edward T. Steel School where two of its leaders were involved in the first pilot program.

The initiative “provides school leaders with the foundational skills needed,” said Steel principal Angikindslows Senatus.

Steel climate manager Darnell Bolds said he decided to go back to teaching in 2016 because he felt a void in his life as an electrical engineer. “I wanted to identify my purpose in life.”

Before becoming climate manager, Bolds served as a special education teacher and dean of students for the district. He credits the leadership program for cultivating him as a district leader.

“I’d always thought of pursuing a leadership position within my first few years of teaching special education because I saw the effect my presence, dedication, and fair approach was having on students,” Bolds said. “This experience was valuable for me, because it has forced me to improve on my personal and professional areas of growth in order to become a better leader.”

Uncertified education majors could soon teach in Michigan

2022-02-01T23:14:07+00:00

Uncertified college students soon could find themselves leading Michigan classrooms and in charge of students’ academic progress for a full year.

The state House Education Committee is considering a bill allowing districts to hire not-yet-certified education majors as paid teachers with their own classrooms for up to one year. The bill aims to alleviate a severe teaching shortage that has crippled schools in Michigan and across the country, but some say it could do more harm than good.

“This is not a reasonable solution,” said Gail Richmond, director of teacher preparation programs at Michigan State University. “As a parent, I want to know that the teacher of my children has been through a program that has a particular set of expectations, offers a certain set of learning opportunities, and has a set of standards that they’ve met,” she said.

Education majors need that kind of structure too, Richmond said, calling the legislation a “lose-lose situation.”

Bill Sponsor Pamela Hornberger, who leads the committee, said her legislation provides one more tool in a toolbox that now also includes legislative authority for bus drivers, library aides, and other support staff to substitute teach with only a high school diploma. She acknowledged that hiring education majors may not work for every district, and it would be optional.

“We’re at the point where we’re voting to put anyone with a pulse and breathing in a classroom to sub,” the Chester Township Republican said during a committee hearing Tuesday. “We need to do something.”

The bill does not specify how far along students must be in teacher preparation programs to participate, but during testimony Tuesday Hornberger suggested that they would have had at least some teaching experience during their college coursework.

The Michigan Department of Education opposes the bill. Department spokesman Martin Ackley would not elaborate.

Rep. Lori Stone, a Democrat and former Macomb County teacher, said she feels “some hesitancy” about college students leading a classroom without real-time support and feedback from a certified teacher. Still, she said, the legislation could alleviate financial hardships for education majors, whose student teaching assignments are usually unpaid.

Hornberger said teacher preparation programs could restructure their programs to ensure education majors are prepared sooner to lead their own classrooms, and districts could establish mentorship programs to guide them.

None of that is specified in the bill, and that’s a problem, Richmond said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon.

“I can imagine some version of this might work if it were carefully crafted, carefully designed, carefully assessed, and carefully overseen, but not if it doesn’t identify the kinds of necessary and powerful supports that developing educators need,” she said. That should include regular real-time feedback, co-teaching experiences, and day-to-day support of an experienced mentor, Richmond said, describing the support students typically receive during unpaid student teaching assignments.

Hornberger said during the hearing that she’s open to amending the legislation. If districts and universities work together, they can craft a model that provides good experience to student teachers while solving local teacher shortages for districts in crisis, she said. Universities might have to restructure their model for how student teaching is delivered, she said.

From South Carolina to Colorado, school systems are increasingly relying on uncertified instructors.

Petoskey Superintendent Chris Parker said he wouldn’t choose to have education majors act as teachers in his district, but said it could be an option for districts with a more severe teacher shortage.

“It’s nice to see the Legislature trying to help solve the current crisis,” he said, but “would you want a surgeon taking out your appendix who’s on a temporary certification but has binge watched the ‘ER’ television series and took a couple biology classes?’

Rep. Darrin Camilleri, Democrat from Brownstown Township, said the legislation could be impactful.

“This is a much bigger step than filling a teacher shortage. It’s re-evaluating what the concept of teacher education is,” Camilleri said.

The legislation could add administrative costs for the Michigan Department of Education, according to a House fiscal analysis. Those costs would likely be absorbed using existing staff, analysts said.

Education advocate Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, said it isn’t ideal to have uncertified instructors in charge of classrooms, but it’s a reasonable option during a severe teacher shortage. Michigan Future is a nonpartisan think tank focused on education’s role in bolstering the economy.

“There’s more demand for teachers than there is supply. There’s a real problem, and given this environment, we’re going to have to find alternatives,” Glazer said. He said a student in an education school program “sure seems a hell of a lot better” than a bus driver without any college credits.

State Superintendent Michael Rice has proposed a menu of other options to alleviate the teacher shortage. So far, the Legislature hasn’t considered them. They could cost between $300 million and $500 million over five years, he told lawmakers in a November letter.

Rice’s proposals include offering scholarships to education majors, extending loan forgiveness to current teachers, and better mentoring of new educators. He also wants support to ease restrictions on accepting teacher licenses from other states, to create grow-your-own programs that train support staff to become teachers, and to revive teacher preparation programs in the Upper Peninsula and lower Northern Peninsula.

Bridge Michigan staff writer Isabel Lohman contributed.