by
Sarah R. Pinsky
» July 18th, 2013, 9:55 am
Thank you for taking the time to participate in the AACTE online community for State Policy Priorities. An AACTE State Policy Taskforce was established as a result of dialogue among ACSR members at the 2013 AACTE Annual Meeting to develop a set of recommendations for sound state-level educator preparation policies. Special thanks go out to Sylvia Brooks, Cindi Chance, Marci Greene, Virginia Keil, Ray Lorion, Kim Paulsen, Tracy Schuster-Matlock, Eugene Sheehan, Ena Shelley, Joelle Tutela, and Karen Verbeke for serving on this taskforce.
As mentioned in the invitation email, AACTE staff will be making a presentation at the National Conference of State Legislatures in mid-August and would like to take advantage of the opportunity to share the profession’s views on state policy with a captive audience. As such, please provide your feedback on the document before Tuesday, July 30.
Please keep in mind that all comments should be geared toward recommendations at the state level rather than at the program level because this document is designed for state policymakers. After the Online Community closes, AACTE staff will incorporate your comments into the document and submit the final draft to the full ACSR membership for a vote in early August.
This document is intended to be a resource for state chapters to support their state advocacy work. This document (in its entirety or specific sections) could be circulated to state policymakers as a primer on the professional consensus around educator preparation issues. Then, as specific issues arise in states, chapters could dig deep into the issue and develop more tailored policy recommendations for their state contexts.
These recommendations will also serve as a foundation for ACSR and AACTE’s work on state policy. For example, in the future ACSR and AACTE will develop model legislation and other resources based on the recommendations set out in the document.
There is no expectation that every state chapter will agree with every point made in this document. If your state chapter decides to take a different direction with respect to a policy issue addressed in this document, you can still expect support and technical assistance from AACTE and the ACSR community. That being said, the document will be stronger and more beneficial to both AACTE and State Chapters if it reflects a genuine consensus in the professional community.
As you review this document, please consider the following questions and provide feedback as able.
General
Are there other policy issue that should be included? Are there concerns about any of the various policy parts? What is missing that you need from this document to help with drafting state legislation or teacher education policy?
Data Systems
Given the discussion at SLI and the disagreement about what metrics can capture indicators of program quality, we removed examples of specific metrics. Are there certain metrics ACSR should encourage states to include in their state data systems?
Selectivity
Given that there does not seem to be much professional consensus around this issue, should we delete this section? On the other hand, many governors and policymakers are moving in this direction so perhaps it would be good for the profession to take a stance on this issue? What do you think?
Again, thank-you for your commitment to this work.