In my first post about early December’s Learning Forward conference in Atlanta, I highlighted a Rand Corporation study on barriers that get in the way of effective school leadership systems, and some strategies to overcome them.
A second keynoter, Stanford University’s Ann Jaquith, reported on professional development trends in the states and districts, including policies and strategies in several states that are ramping up the effectiveness of investments in professional learning.
Dr. Jaquith began by sharing a ten-minute video in which teaching scholar Linda Darling-Hammond compared professional development in the U.S. with several high-achieving nations. She began by defining effective PD (the kind that increases student achievement) as “embedded in the content, ongoing, and sustained” — and pointed to a series of studies suggesting that for PD to have any measurable impact on teacher practice and student performance, more than 14 hours of sustained teacher learning opportunities need to take place. She also shared what I thought was a startling statistic: some of the countries where student achievement is higher than the U.S. routinely provide 15-20 hours per week for collegial planning and professional development during the school day.
Dr. Jaquith then outlined key findings from case studies in four states with effective professional development structures and systems in place: New Jersey, Vermont, Colorado, and Missouri. (This work is part of a multi-year research project co-led by Learning Forward and Stanford University, The Status of Professional Development in the United States.)
The Stanford researchers were able to identify four key factors they believe determine whether state policy results in more effective professional development for teachers, including leadership, infrastructure, resources, and, the ability of professionals and innovators to shape their learning strategies to meet specific needs.
You can read a summary of all their findings in this executive summary of their report. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that I was most intrigued by a finding that these four most successful states are leveraging professional organizations and independent providers to provide professional development, and that a provider’s authority (formal and informal) seems to influence how effectively it can connect the state’s vision to local needs.
The successful states also have multiple accountability systems to assure quality professional development. “Rather than just issuing mandates,” the states emphasize guidance and oversight, including not only professional development standards and other regulations, but district and school committees that oversee local professional development, monitoring tools like surveys that gauge teachers’ satisfaction levels with professional learning experiences, and support for studies linking professional development to changes in teacher practice and student learning.
Individually, the researchers say, these policies exert modest leverage, but when taken together, they can create a coherent system of policies and mechanisms for enforcing, monitoring, and enabling policy implementation at the local level. Specific strategies include local professional development committees, which create professional development plans that are aligned with state standards but based on local needs, as well as individual professional development plans for teachers, which engage educators in the process and provide a mechanism to evaluate the quality of the continuing education to prevent it from becoming merely an exercise in accumulating credits and hours.
We can see some pieces of these successful strategies beginning to fall into place in Alabama. The challenge for us is to achieve the cohesiveness the Stanford researchers found throughout the public education enterprise in New Jersey, Vermont, Colorado, and Missouri.
Next: Some take-aways from a thought-provoking keynote by leadership expert Andy Hargreaves, revealing some secrets he garnered in a groundbreaking study of 18 organizations that perform beyond expectations in business, sport, and education.
