teacher certification

Boldly going where no group has gone before - that is what ABCTE is all about. This month, we have set the unprecedented goal of recruiting 900 new teacher candidates into our program. To do this, we have discounted the program by $150 for January to give people the incentive to enroll.

Every one of our 34 employees are focused on making this goal a reality. We are going to be traveling across all our ABCTE states to talk to people who want to teach and get them focused on making their dream a reality.

I am creating a training day for the ABCTE staff and have spent a lot of time reading in preparation. In trying to stretch the mindset of our amazing team, we will be talking about Tribes by Seth Godin, and The Long Tail and Free by Chris Anderson. I will throw in a smattering of Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen just to tie it all together.

The great thing about the blogosphere right now for people like me who don't have a lot of time is that you can find quick summaries from great people like Steve Sawchuck at Teacher Beat on critical policies affecting teachers.

The “coolest map ever” award has to go to the Leaders and Laggards report on education innovation from AEI, Center for American Progress and the Institute for a Competitive Workforce. Besides being very slick, it presents some interesting information on education innovation. It will be really cool if they do this map again in a year or two to see if the billions spent by US DOE actually move any of the state grades on innovation.

Another great plug for alternative teacher certification and for ABCTE in the Heartland Institutes monthly publication. This time Ben DeGrow reviews the latest alternative teacher certification study showing we need alternative quality routes to teaching in order to ensure that we have enough great teachers. The article has some great quotes (including mine) on where teacher certification is moving.

There is a very important article on teaching by Rick Hess in EducationNext this month. He has some outstanding facts and great suggestions on what has to happen in teaching in order to maximize talent and increase student learning.

First the background – he uses one of my favorite stats about our society of career changers: by 30, most people have held 4 different jobs. So assuming that every kid in college going into teaching is going to stay in teaching through retirement is ludicrous.

We continue to stay in the news in Indiana as SUPERintendent Tony Bennett pushes for major reforms in education. This is great to see as you have a teacher speaking out in favor of these reforms and the SUPERman himself pushing hard.

Let’s break it down – shall we?
1. Teachers have the greatest impact on students

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc has a new study out on teacher certification comparing traditional versus alternatively certification teachers.

The conclusion:

We toured Missouri last week to let state leaders know how well we are doing with teacher recruitment. We have been approved there as a route to teacher certification for only 6 months and we have over 900 people enrolled with 450 focused on math and science. This is an amazing success story. Obviously this was very well received in the capital and it is great, as a non-profit, to let people know that we are living up to the expectations set for the ABCTE program.

It is appropriate for the blogosphere to recognize the transformation in DC right now. Since our birth occurred during the Bush era I am often asked how we will fair with the new administration. The answer apparently lives at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/education/