October 23, 2014 | Sign up to receive THE TEACHERS EDITION.
 Tim Bailey
demonstrates “how to be sneaky and not break a branch” when going through the
bushes to attack during the Civil War.
VIDEO WORTH WATCHING
Why Tim Bailey Teaches
The teachers at ED love this video of Utah American history teacher Tim
Bailey showing the rest of us how good teaching is done!
A 2009 National History Teacher of the Year, Bailey teaches
at Escalante Elementary School (Salt Lake City, Utah), serving mostly
disadvantaged students. Although his students come from families that recently
immigrated from Latin America, Africa, Asia and other parts of the world, the
children respond enthusiastically to Tim's creative approach to teaching
American history and citizenship.
Bailey believes it is important that his students understand
the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance--what they are promising when saying
the words, and why the words themselves are important. History “is the glue that binds us,” Bailey says. We are
hoping he sticks around the classroom for a whole lot longer.
Check out other inspirational videos of teachers practicing their specialized craft at Teach.org, including a particularly compelling video called "Teach Special Education."
 UPDATE
Submit an Idea for the Louisville Teacher Leadership Summit
A few weeks ago, Teach to Lead announced that we will be hosting three regional Teacher Leadership Summits, one each in Louisville, Ky. (December 6 – 7, 2014); Denver, Colo. (January 2015) and Boston, Mass. (February 2015).
These summits will bring together educators from around the regions to collaborate, problem solve and develop plans to put teacher leadership ideas into action. Teachers are invited to submit an idea, which may be selected for inclusion in the Louisville, Kentucky Teacher Leadership Summit, to be held December 6–7.
All educators are welcome to apply as individuals or as a team (teachers, principals, administrators, school board members etc.). There is no registration cost for the summit, and you can register for any summit, regardless of where you live. However, costs, such as travel and lodging, may not be covered, so please keep that in mind when you apply.
If Kentucky is not the right regional summit for you, but you still want to submit your idea, check future issues of The Teachers Edition for information about how to submit ideas for Denver and Boston.
The deadline for idea submissions for the Kentucky Summit is 10 pm ET Sunday, November 2, 2014.
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As space is limited for each summit, idea submissions will be reviewed and invitations for participation, with registration details, will be emailed to those accepted. Please read the criteria below carefully before submitting your idea.
Summit Participants must: • Have an actionable teacher leadership idea; • Be available to attend the entire summit; • Commit to taking implementation steps following summit participation; • Currently serve as an educator committed to teacher leadership (this can include teachers, principals and administrators).
Submitted Ideas must: • Allow teachers to lead from the classroom; • Identify an area of need or target a specific problem; • Develop and implement approaches that address the need or solve the problem; • Utilize teachers’ professional experiences and expertise; • Promote collaborative work among multiple stakeholders; • Seek to create systemic supports for teacher leadership; • Be viable in the local context and sustainable over time; • Include tracking measurable improvements, including improvements beyond test scores.
Submitted Ideas may: • Focus on any level of change: the school, district, or state; • Be functioning at any stage of development: an emerging idea requiring input and buy-in from stakeholders; something currently being developed in collaboration with recruited stakeholders; or something that has been implemented which is ripe for improvement or expansion.
Click here to submit your best teacher leadership idea. The Teach to Lead team will notify you once your idea is accepted for attendance. We hope to see you in Louisville!
 During his presentation, Richard Ingersoll described the primary reasons that teachers who are dissatisfied leave the profession and argued for a strategy of addressing these concerns to retain teachers.
TEACHER RETENTION
Why We Leave
At a recent panel discussion about how to recruit and retain great teachers in hard-to-staff schools, University of Pennsylvania professor Richard
Ingersoll presented
data that indicate teacher recruitment may not the problem we think it is. Instead, Ingersoll presented research that shows the nation is recruiting quality teachers well but that we are losing highly skilled teachers faster than we are gaining them. He argues that we should focus efforts on retaining teachers with a
high level of skill. Learn more in Ingersoll's article, Data
Say Retention Is Better Answer To ‘Shortage’ Than Recruitment.
"BETTER, FAIRER, FEWER TESTS"
Getting Testing Right
Last week, the Center for American Progress (CAP) held an event to discuss the growing concern around tests and the role they play in our nation’s education system.
In the invitation to the event, CAP argues that there is a need for "Better, Fairer, Fewer Tests." They write, "For decades, many states and districts have taken a slap-dash approach to testing, and they have relied heavily on so-called bubble tests, which are often poor benchmarks of student learning. What’s more, tests have taken an outsized role in many areas. There’s far too much teaching to the test, and in some states and districts, students are simply overtested." Download the report unveiled at the event, Testing Overload in America.
Read a Washington Post op-ed by Arne Duncan in support of efforts by state and local education leaders "to examine their assessment systems, ensure that assessments are high-quality and cut back testing that doesn’t meet that bar or is redundant."
 STAND UP FOR KIDS
Teach For America
Stokes Passion
for the Classroom
Teach for America's
short inspirational video
is part of a new series, and one that teachers may want to show to aspiring
teachers in their classes. It offers cool scenes of real teachers demonstrating
the impact of inspiring urban and Native American students in subjects like
photography, band and P.E.
Featured
in the video are: Hoang Pham, Teach
For America - Los Angeles ‘11. Hoang teaches first grade at KIPP Empower Academy in South Central LA; Samantha Wauls, Teach For America - South Dakota ‘13. Samantha
teaches fifth grade at Lower Brule
Elementary in Lower Brule, South
Dakota; Wisdom Amouzou, Teach
For America - Colorado ‘13. Wisdom teaches 8th grade at STRIVE Prep Montbello in Denver,
Colorado; and Tamara Porras,
Teach For America - New York ‘08. Tamara teaches at the International Center of Photography in New York City.
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ENTEROVIRUS, FLU,
EBOLA
Get the Facts, Spread the Word
Check out some of the resources available to inform students and families
about the enterovirus (EV-D68) associated with the severe respiratory illness that has afflicted so many
children the past couple months. Educators
can access materials from the Center for Disease
Control (CDC) and ED’s Office of
Safe and Healthy Students that address the outbreaks, including what parents need to know; how the
virus is spread; and how to prevent illness.
Although
enterovirus season is expected to taper off, flu activity
usually begins to increase in October. CDC recommends that ALL
children 6 months old or older get a flu vaccine. Resources can be found on the
CDC
flu web site. Finally, the President has made control of Ebola a top
national security priority. Learn more.
 TEACHER LEADERSHIP
N.J. Teachers Create
Model Curriculum
New Jersey’s teachers have developed a model curriculum for English language arts
and mathematics, aligned with the state’s new college- and career-ready
standards, to help teachers make the shift in their classrooms.
An estimated
300 teachers volunteered to work with the State to create the model curriculum
in 2012 and many Garden state teachers say the model curriculum supports them in implementing the new standards while
still allowing them to be creative in the classroom.
“The model
curriculum guides you by expanding on the standards,” one teacher said, “but
you have a lot of freedom with it in how you teach.”
Meghan Snow, who helped lead the
effort in mathematics for the New Jersey Department of Education, said that teachers “were very excited about putting something together that was coherent
and made sense, that reflected what they wanted good instruction to look like.”
New Jersey’s Race to the Top grant helped support the curriculum’s development.
Learn more (Progress).
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CORE ADVICE
"Go slow in order to go
fast."
Advice to states on how to succeed with the Common Core State Standards from Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday (EdWeek).
In the interview with Marc Tucker, Holliday elaborates, "When the teachers see the Common Core being rushed into place, when they are told that their heads could roll if their students are not making progress against the Common Core, when they have not had the support they need to teach it well, they are at least frustrated and many will turn against the Common Core. It is critical that there is enough time between the time the Common Core is first introduced and the time that the professionals are held accountable for the results for teachers to get the support they need to teach it well."
 Nostalgia for Budgets Past?
• At least 30 states are providing less funding per student for the 2014-15 school year than they did before the recession hit.
• Fourteen of these states have cut per-student funding by more than 10 percent.
According to a Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities report, in at least 27 states, per-student funding is
higher in the current fiscal year (2015) than it was in the last fiscal year
(2014). Although they have added back a portion of the
jobs cut since 2008 (estimated at 330,000), local school districts are still
down 260,000 jobs compared with 2008.
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INNOVATIVE ANSWERS TO TOUGH PROBLEMS
Solution-Driven Activism
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) recently announced winners of its second annual Prize for Solution-Driven Unionism, a competition among AFT state and local affiliates to shine a light on innovative, inspiring and collaborative solutions to tough problems.
Two first-place prizes were awarded: Milwaukee Area Technical Federation, AFT Local 212 won for its solution to lagging graduation and course completion rates, while the other prize will be shared by the United University Professions and the New York State Public Employees Federation for their successful campaign to save Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., from privatization and to promote investment in the facility and actually expand healthcare in Brooklyn. The AFT's Prize for Solution-Driven Unionism - which was created in partnership with the Albert Shanker Institute and the AFT Innovation Fund - comes with $25,000 for each of the two winners. Learn more.
CONNECTED EDUCATOR MONTH
Staying Connected One Byte at a Time
Connected Educator Month is in full swing and the Office of Educational Technology at ED invites educators to join several upcoming events.
Check out the links below for more information about each webinar and learn how to get
connected!
What Are Future Ready Schools and Classrooms? Oct. 22 (8-9 pm ET)
Designing
and Evaluating Effective Online Communities of Practice Oct. 23 (1-2 pm ET)
How Do We Support Future Ready Teaching? Oct. 28 (8-9 pm ET)
How Do We Measure Future Ready Progress and Success? Oct. 30 (8-9 pm ET)
The Teach to Lead Initiative Oct.30 (8-9 pm ET), brought to you by Teach to Lead.
 FRONT & CENTER
Teacher Leadership that Works
The Aspen Institute, working in partnership with Leading Educators, released Leading
from the Front of the Classroom: A Roadmap for Teacher Leadership that Works,
which offers practical guidance for designing effective teacher leadership
opportunities. Leading from the Front of the Classroom provides grounded lessons from leading systems
and a practical framework for designing and implementing teacher leadership
effectively.
The organizations contend that "teacher
leadership should not be pursued as a stand-alone or isolated project, or even
primarily as a retention or reward strategy. Instead, teacher leadership should
be designed to advance the most important district and school priorities." Put another way, the teachers at ED say, "If you want anything in schools to work well, let the teachers lead."
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 Tools for Students
WHY YOU SHOULD GO TO COLLEGE. This post highlights recent Brookings research on key areas related to the value of a college degree: the economic return to a college degree; student loan debt and paying for college; the changing model of post-secondary education; and overcoming barriers to college. All of it points to one conclusion, to quote Richard Reeves: “Go to college.”
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 Teachers' Notes
• TEACHERS PREFER CASH. In theory, teachers might accept lower current salaries in exchange for better benefits like health care and pensions. But a new paper suggests what teachers can already tell you: the concept is fundamentally flawed. Read more (Aldeman, Teacher Pensions).
• THE SECRET LIVES OF TEACHERS. Nifty introductory piece in a series of segments about what teachers really do when they log off of their gradebooks and walk out of the school building (Drummond, NPR). There's a link for teachers to post stories about their "secret lives" as well.
• TEACHER eATLAS. UNESCO has published a handy virtual map that previews the number of teachers that will need to be recruited by 2030 by country.
• SAVE THE PLANET. Habitat the Game is looking for teachers with students between
the ages of 7-12, who have access to smart phones, to collect baseline
data on the impact their game has on changing kids’ behaviors. Launched as a collaboration between the Wildlife
Conservation Society and the Rainforest Alliance, Habitat the Game was designed
to teach 7-12 year-olds ecologically sustainable habits. For more
information, contact kylee@habitatthegame.com.
• HONOR OUTSTANDING URBAN EDUCATORS. Nominate
a colleague or apply for the Sontag Prize in Urban
Education that recognizes outstanding teaching in mathematics, English language
arts and other disciplines. Educators chosen for the Sontag Prize receive
a $3,000 honorarium, a weekend of professional development at Harvard
University’s Graduate School of Education, and the opportunity to teach
students in Lawrence Public Schools’ Acceleration Academies, held during school
breaks in Lawrence, Mass. Learn more.
• SPECIAL EDUCATION'S BULLY-FREE ZONE. America’s 6.5 million students with disabilities are already
protected from bullying. Recently, however, schools received guidance
detailing their responsibilities under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
and Title II of Americans with Disabilities Act regarding the bullying of
students with disabilities. Catherine E.
Lhamon, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, emphasized that ED wants to
work with schools to ensure that all their students learn in a safe
environment “so that no student is limited in his or her ability to
participate in and benefit from all that our educational programs have to offer."
Learn more.
• DISCOVERY
EDUCATION’S STREAMATHON THIS SATURDAY. The
annual free idea-sharing marathon
is a live, day-long virtual professional learning event that offers
participating educators proven strategies for integrating digital media into
classroom instruction to improve student engagement and achievement. Walk away with
ready-to-use integration
strategies to incorporate into the curriculum, creative ways to utilize digital
media to engage students, strategies for differentiating instruction, and best
practices for promoting a collaborative, connected classroom community. Learn
how to participate.
• CYBERSECURITY. Help kids stay safe online with information
from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Trade Commission, the
Department of Homeland Security, and more in the Federal Registry for
Educational Excellence (FREE).
• TEACHERPRENEURS ANNOUNCED! The
Center for Teaching Quality announced their 2014-2015 cohort of Teacherpreneurs. Teacherpreneurs are expert teachers whose work-weeks are
divided between teaching students and designing systems-level solutions for
public education. Find out who they are.
• HALLOWEEN TREATS. Check out these sweet lesson ideas for Halloween-inspired learning from the Teaching Channel.
• WEBINAR: RECRUITING AND RETAINING MINORITY TEACHERS. The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for
African Americans will be hosting a webinar entitled Recruiting and
Preparing Minority Teachers in Urban Schools on Thursday, November 6, at
6:30 pm ET. The webinar will discuss the
topics surrounding minority teacher recruitment and supporting the educational
excellence for all students. Register.
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 Recommended Reading
TO REACH A CHILD, GET IN THEIR MINDSET. Teachers will love the insights
of Joan Richardson, of Kappan, as she explores two
powerful ideas in her Learning First Alliance blog.
She reflects on both Haim Ginott’s
concept of who has the power in schools to set what he calls “the weather” in
classrooms and schools and W.E.B.
Dubois’s question of “how a child must feel when days and weeks and years
have drilled into him that everyone thinks he’s a mistake.”
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 Top 5 Quotes
Wisdom from educators heard by ED
5. "I used to think change happens with a
leader. Now I think change happens when we are all leaders." (Teacher, Wash.)
4. "A resource is not a resource if you don't know about it or can't find it." (Teacher, Texas)
3. "I am one of two teachers on an advisory board, but really, I feel like parsley on the plate." (Teacher, N.J.)
2. "Teachers need support, not sympathy." (Teacher, N.Y.)
1. "Teachers aren't respected because people don't really understand the complexity of teaching a student who has suffered generational trauma." (Principal, Penn.)
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