Are Teachers Who Need Sustained, Content-Focused Professional Development Getting It? An Administrator’s Dilemma

Purpose: Policymakers and administrators are increasingly focusing on professional development as a means to improve teaching quality. In this study, the authors examine whether professional development in mathematics is primarily performing an educative function by addressing weak teacher preparation, or a catalytic function by serving mainly teachers who already have a strong content knowledge of mathematics. Methods: The data used are from the teacher surveys completed for the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The analysis is conducted using multinomial logit results transformed into relative risk ratios that indicate the relative odds that a teacher will participate in sustained, medium-length or brief (mathematics)content-focused professional development. Findings: The results indicate that teachers with strong content knowledge in mathematics—measured by type of degree in mathematics and self-reported preparedness to teach different topics in mathematics—are more likely to take sustained content-focused professional development than teachers with weak content knowledge in mathematics. Thus, professional development is primarily serving teachers with already strong content area expertise in mathematics, rather than addressing content knowledge gaps for teachers less prepared to teach mathematics. Implications for Practice: Options for administrators include: (a) encourage teachers to take challenging professional development by scaffolding and matching activities to teachers’ level of expertise, (b) build links between the activities and the school’s vision, and(c) require teachers to take high-quality professional development. The most powerful but also the most challenging recommendation is for district and school administrators to stop providing low-quality, ineffective professional development.