This week, over one hundred teachers, administrators, teacher preparation providers, superintendents, and advocates attended the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board’s (PELSB) training sessions on the new, four-tiered teacher licensure system. The two sessions provided general information on the four different teacher licenses, the forthcoming online application system, supports PELSB can provide, and an opportunity for attendees to ask PELSB staff questions.
It’s been a busy few...
When I walked into a sophomore mathematics class at Ron Brown College Preparatory, an innovative high school in Washington DC that serves male students of color, the students were sitting at desks arranged in a circle, deep in conversation, and engaged in their lesson. Projected on the whiteboard was a bar chart of college enrollment statistics in the United States, broken down by race.
On February 22, the Innovation Research Zones (IRZ) Advisory Panel convened to decide which of the nine IRZ applications they would recommend to Commissioner Cassellius for approval. An important note: the IRZ legislation put a cap on the number of IRZs the Commissioner could approve—up to three in the seven-county metropolitan area and up to three in greater Minnesota.