The National Center for Teacher Education is pleased to announce their newly redesigned website has gone live. Please take a few moments to browse through the site and be sure to check out the NCTE NEWSIRE archive section, where we will catalogue this resource. Check back here often for new information as we update content in a continuous effort to transform this site into a valuable resource for teacher preparation educators in Arizona. Contact us if you have any comments, suggestions or questions at ncte@domail.maricopa.edu.

On June 14, 2005, the NCTE staff held a retreat and accomplished several important goals. By examining the NCTE identity and focusing on programs, community and our customers, we developed a new, powerful mission statement:

ADVOCATE – SERVE – LEAD To achieve this mission statement we defined and created goals while identifying our core values:

NCTE Goals:

* Provide leadership, planning, and coordination for national and statewide programs and services to support preK-12 teacher recruitment, preparation, retention and renewal.

* Develop community partnerships, programs and services to support the recruitment, preparation and retention of pre K-12 teachers.

* Provide leadership and support for the planning and development of the teacher education programs within the Maricopa Community Colleges.

* Develop and maintain relationships and partnerships that support current Maricopa Community Colleges initiatives.

Governor Janet Napolitano recently signed an executive order creating a P-20 Council designed to improve education in Arizona, and to ensure more students graduate from high school, succeed in college and are ready for the modern workforce. Maricopa Community College Chancellor Dr. Rufus Glasper and Governor Janet Napolitano will co-chair the board that will help shape the future of education in Arizona. The board's plan is to be submitted to voters in 2008. 

The first meeting of the Council held Friday, August 5, 2005, was informative as Dr. Glasper led an agenda filled with presentations from local and national efforts.  The purpose of the Council, as reported by Debra Raeder the Executive Director of the Council, is to focus on continuous improvement of education in Arizona by examining the broad array of educational issues and efforts, providing review and research into these issues, and ensuring implementation of the strategies necessary to align and renew P-20 education efforts.

Presentations included:

Alignment Project - Steve Bella, Public Works, to assess high school graduation standards and career readiness certifications as compared to business expectations and college entrance requirements.

Graduation Rate Project and Compact - Dane Linn, National Governors Association, assessing the quality of high school graduation and dropout data.  (Forty-seven governors and 12 national organizations signed an agreement which includes five recommendations states should use to develop comparable high school graduation rate data.  The numbers will not include those who pass the GED as high school graduates.)

Arizona’s Graduation Data - Superintendent Tom Horne, Arizona Department of Education, reported that Arizona has been defining the drop out rate based on those same recommendations for several years.  He contends that Arizona does not have the highest drop out rate but that other states have over inflated their graduation rates including GED data.

Adolescent Literacy - Elizabeth Schneider, Alliance for Excellent Education, focusing on raising adolescent literacy levels preparing students who can read to learn.

Educational Outcomes of Occupational Postsecondary Students

Published by the U.S. Department of Education as part of the National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE), and written by Thomas Bailey, Mariana Alfonso, Marc Scott and Timothy Leinbach, this report examines whether postsecondary occupational students, particularly at the sub-baccalaureate level, are more likely than other types of postsecondary students to achieve their educational goals. The analysis focuses on what proportion of occupational students who set out to earn a particular certificate or degree actually complete that credential, and investigates the student background and enrollment characteristics that impact those outcomes. In addition, the report compares these findings with similar findings about postsecondary students enrolled in academic programs.


What does today’s typical teacher
look like?

A recent New York Times article states that research indicates 75% of teachers are female, 84% are white and 46% are likely to leave the field by their fifth year. New to the teaching field are “career-changers,” who tend to be 35, on average, with around seven years experience in a different field. They’re bringing marketplace attitudes and expectations to teaching that schools aren't prepared to meet.


"Teacher Credentials Questioned"

A grassroots group, Californians for Justice, is suing the California agency that issues teacher credentials, accusing it of wrongly classifying thousands of inexperienced instructors as "highly qualified" in an effort to circumvent No Child Left Behind. The group said the state's Commission on Teacher Credentialing has misclassified teachers who are teaching with emergency credentials as highly qualified since 2003, even though the new instructors lacked adequate training and supervision. Officials from the state credentialing commission are standing by its program that enables teachers without full credentials to obtain Individualized Internship Certificates, which allow the instructors to be deemed highly qualified.