As educator preparation programs prepare teacher candidates to be successful in the classroom on day one, they recognize that they must anchor that preparation in teacher residencies – high-quality clinical experiences where candidates receive a full year of practice under an experienced, highly effective mentor teacher in a K-12 classroom. Read more
Are there widespread teacher shortages in U.S. public education? Recent headlines suggest there are. But a closer look at school staffing trends in recent years yields a different story, one with important consequences for education policymakers. In a new report from FutureEd and EducationCounsel, Principal Sandi Jacobs analyzes pre-pandemic teacher Read more
With the release of data never before published, NCTQ focuses on a uniquely challenging point of teacher certification: licensure tests. Their report, Driven by Data: Using Licensure Tests to Build a Strong, Diverse Teacher Workforce, raises many important considerations around the use of licensure exams and their results. After a Read more
High-quality teacher preparation can play a critical role in dismantling inequities in education, such as disparities in student achievement and access to high-quality education, which often exist and persist along racial and ethnic lines. Black and Latinx students and students experiencing poverty – like Indigenous, Asian and other students of Read more
Closing the teacher diversity gap is one of the most important steps we can take to make public education more equitable. But as many school systems across the country have prioritized the issue, one institution has largely escaped scrutiny: teacher preparation programs. In a report from TNTP, researchers use data Read more
Every year, local and state governments spend billions of dollars on economic development incentives, but even though corporations regularly say that a skilled or educated workforce is more important to them than almost any other factor — including tax incentives — few state legislatures focus on the training of those Read more
Colleen Flaherty, writing for Inside Higher Ed, recently wrote an article about the problems facing teacher education programs within our nation’s universities. Excerpts from the piece appear below: The University of South Florida shocked faculty members with its recent decision to close its College of Education, which has a large Read more
As U.S. schools closed their doors this past spring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a little-considered effect was the impact of school closures on the preparation of the next generation of educators. Teacher and leader candidates all over the country had their field experiences abruptly cut short, and educator Read more
Improving diversity among educators is one way to alleviate some of the persistent and systemic racial disparities in academic achievement and student discipline. But about 80% of the educator workforce is white, while more than half of the nation’s K-12 population is racially and ethnically diverse. A new Education Commision Read more
Writing for The Hechinger Report, Jill Barshay explores a Virginia study that shows that prospective teachers improve their handling of student misbehavior when training simulations with avatars are combined with coaching. Excerpts of the piece appear below: University of Virginia researchers are rigorously testing computerized simulations of misbehaving students to Read more
Writing for the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Patricia Saenz-Armstrong explores how student teaching and initial licensure practices are shifting during this time of school closures. Excerpts from the piece appear below: School closures have obvious impacts on current students and teachers and are also creating challenges for teacher Read more
PK-12 districts and universities across the nation are currently challenged with social distancing measures that are limiting and, in most cases, preventing deep, authentic, and job-embedded clinical experiences that we know to be one of the cornerstones of a candidates’ effective preparation as a teacher. In light of this reality, Read more
The Center for American Progress recently released recommendations to states, teacher preparation programs, and districts to improve the preparation of teachers to serve students with disabilities. Excerpts of the piece appear below: Roughly 7 million students in the K-12 public school system–14 percent–are identified as students with disabilities. Of these, Read more
Aurora Institute (formerly iNACOL) has released a new policy brief titled Transforming Teaching: What University Presidents and Deans of Colleges of Education Need to Know about Modernizing the K-12 Educator Workforce. It is a call-to-action to higher education to play a role in bringing the teaching profession into the 21st Read more
The Education Deans for Justice and Equity in partnership with the National Education Policy Center has released a statement calling for a significant shift in teacher education programs. Over 350 deans and other leaders caution against many of the current trends for “reforming” how we prepare teachers for our nation’s Read more
Since 2010, the total enrollment nationwide in teacher preparation programs has declined by more than one-third; this decline has occurred in the context of increasing enrollment in bachelor’s degree programs nationwide over the same time period. This means that across the country, approximately 340,000 fewer students elected to enroll in Read more