Fixing Teacher Professional Development

The professional development for teachers is, by all accounts, broken. Despite evidence that specific programs can improve teacher knowledge and practice and student outcomes, these programs seldom reach real teachers on a large scale. To use a shopping metaphor, these research-proven programs, which are often offered by university faculty or nationally recognized providers, are boutiques serving a handful of fortunate teachers while leaving many more to shop at the Wal-Marts of the professional development world. There, most teachers receive uninspired and often poor-quality professional development and related learning opportunities. Typically, reformers address such perceptions of failure by discovering and celebrating new formats and content for teacher professional learning. In the past two decades alone, advocates of continuing teacher education have promoted school-based learning opportunities, such as coaching and lesson study; new topics, in the form of increased focus on subject matter content and, more recently, the analysis of assessment and related data; and new delivery mechanisms, including content transmitted only online. However, without a hard look at the actors in the system and the incentives facing those actors, these fads will prove the educational equivalent of pouring new wine into old bottles. Instead, policy makers must invest in fixing the system writ large in order to have a discernible impact on teaching and learning. Participation Doesn't Mean Results From the outside, one might not see the U.S. professional development system as particularly troubled. Nearly every teacher participates in some form of learning every year. Research articles trumpeting the success of a particular method or program appear practically monthly, and practitioner magazines burst with accounts of the phenomenal improvements in teacher knowledge and skills that result. But buried beneath these often-glowing reports are colder facts. For instance, from the available evidence, teachers apparently have little use for their learning experiences: Most teachers engage in only the minimum professional learning required by their state or district each year. In 1999-2000, the most recent year available, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data showed that just over half of respondents to an NCES survey reported spending a day or less in professional development over the past year; only a small minority reported attending four or more days within the past year (2001). This generally low rate of participation closely matches many state's re-licensure requirements, typically 15 days over a five-year period (NASDTEC 2004), suggesting that most teachers do the bare minimum required under law. Furthermore, new and exciting forms of professional development guarantee neither high-quality delivery nor substantive effects on teachers, teaching, and learning. Consider lesson study, a Japanese model of site-based, ongoing study of how specific lessons affect student learning. Evidence suggests that lesson study has been widely implemented across the country. In my own recent survey (2008), 51% of middle school math teachers reported engaging in lesson study during the prior year. However, as with many educational innovations, lesson study appears to have been quickly subsumed into the standard operating structure of U.S. schools. Although the model calls for an intensive time commitment by teachers, almost 60% of those who participated reported spending eight or fewer hours during the year; only 4% reported engaging in over 80 hours. Perhaps as a result, this model did not predict teachers' gains in math knowledge over the year in question. Finally, teachers themselves are lukewarm about their professional development experiences. When queried about the impact of the past three years of professional development experiences, less than a quarter, on average, reported that professional development affected their instruction (Horizon 2002). …