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Illinois School Board Journal
March-April 1999
Professional staff development
By William B. Abel
Massachusetts Flunks 59 percent of Its Prospective Teachers" screams the title of an article by Jon Schneider in the American Association of School Administrators Journal in 1998. As questions arise about the quality of U.S. teachers, professional staff development is coming under scrutiny.
Every district has professional staff at varying stages of professional development: new teachers who have just graduated from college, teachers who have taught for several years, and teachers who are reaching retirement age. These teachers graduated from a variety of colleges across the United States where vast differences in philosophy in the teacher education programs exist. Do you know what training your staff has received and how much and what kind of training they continue to receive? Do they all have at least an adequate knowledge of the subjects they are teaching?
Moreover, the education workforce is aging. In 1994, researchers found that the average teacher has taught for 14.5 years. This means that when these teachers received their education and instruction, they were not introduced to the many skills that are needed in today's educational world of reform and restructuring school curriculum, standards, and meeting the needs of students who will lead us into the next century.
As boards of education and superintendents, you need to ensure that all of your staff is "on the same page" with the district philosophy, mission, goals, and current academic knowledge of subjects taught. This is not an easy task, but one in which board members need to become involved, because it is through common professional development experiences and training that your district will flourish and continue to improve.
Setting policies for professional development and providing an adequate budget are among the most important decisions that a school board can make to directly impact the quality of teaching and student achievement.
Where are we now?
Professional development in the past has not been seriously viewed as a way of increasing student achievement or teacher effectiveness. Professional development for teachers and administrators has been largely individual in nature and undertaken to attain salary increases and/or meet certification requirements.
That has changed, however. In 1996, teachers were surveyed by Greenburg Research, Inc. to determine why they take professional growth courses, seminars, workshops, or degree programs. Seventy-three percent responded that it was to improve student achievement, 55 percent said that they were looking to improve teaching skills, and 34 percent wanted to increase their own knowledge. Down at the bottom of the reason list was career advancement (7 percent), financial reward (5 percent), and maintaining professional certification (5 percent).
The survey reveals that the focus of professional growth is shifting. Teachers are no longer looking at professional growth as a collection of course hours to advance across the salary schedule. District administrators are beginning to realize the potential for appropriate professional growth opportunities for their staffs.
Barriers still exist. Unlike other professionals, teachers have no time built into their work schedule for their own professional development. Traditionally, professional development took the form of courses offered within the district, through colleges or correspondence work, or workshops and institutes, during the summer, after school, or during professional development days set aside during the school calendar year. Parents, legislators, administrators and board members have tended to regard anything that takes teachers away from the classroom and the students as unfavorable. Therefore, most districts have relegated professional development to the sidelines.
Often, teachers have been presented with a predetermined slate of professional development activities, either by colleges and universities or by top-down mandates from the administrative level in a school district. Teachers have been left out of the process of planning reforms and professional development activities. As early as 1957, the National Society for the Study of Education stated that schools and staffs should be collaborating on the provision of inservice education. Forty years later teachers are still not involved to a large degree in the decisions of professional development.
Educational leaders now are beginning to recognize the need for professional development that is integrally related to educational reform, to new educational standards that are being created by individual states, to the explosion of new technology and subject matter, and to student achievement.
What is effective?
In 1996, Abdal-Haqq reported that effective professional development:
Further, The National Foundation for the Improvement of Education has learned that:
Research is showing that students' achievement in science and mathematics is directly linked to the extent to which their teachers have had substantial training in these areas. The use of technology to enhance student learning is directly linked to teacher competence in technology, and the level of professional preparation for teaching, certification and induction programs give rise to student achievement.
Stumbling blocks
The need for restructuring the professional growth process is evident. However, there are stumbling blocks that need to be overcome. Professional growth requirements and policies are often driven at the state level by governors, legislators, researchers and reformers. This process needs to be a collaborative one between staff, administrators and board members who represent the interested parties of business, industry and the community. Beyond that, it has been found to be vital to the success of professional growth for an entire school to work together to devise professional development activities based on common goals for that school.
Time is another barrier to successful professional growth. It may be the single most difficult factor to overcome. Teachers are already overworked, have added responsibilities, and little time to interact with colleagues. Everyone agrees that instructional time in the classroom of students with teachers is sacred. Yet, if teachers are to grow, learn new practices and methods, interact with other professionals, reflect on what they learn, and work collaboratively, then they must have time away from the classroom for planning, reviewing, mentoring, observing, studying, and reflecting.
The dilemma, then, for teachers is to be in the classroom and continue their own professional growth in a meaningful way. In most cases, at the present, professional development is done after the teacher's school day, during the summer, or in a few days or half days set aside by the school district for inservice programs. This is hardly going to create the new pathways we need to be investing in.
A third major barrier to the improvement of professional development is funding and accountability. First of all, few districts have a specific division budgeted for this area, but do provide some professional development activities or opportunities. Some federal programs come to the school districts through the states and require that some of the funds be used for professional development. Thomas Corcoran, at a consortium for policy research at Rutgers University in 1995, estimated that four percent to seven percent of a typical district's budget is spent on professional development, less than one percent to no more than three percent of state funds, and he did not attempt to calculate the federal government funds earmarked for professional development due to the complexities of federal programs being administered through states via districts.
This is a fairly significant amount of money being funneled into educational growth activities, but the activities largely lack accountability as to their effectiveness.
Quality and quantity are questions to be pondered, as well. The quality of professional development workshops, courses, or inservice programs is often shoddy and haphazard or driven by those who are not in the classroom. Further, there is no evidence that determines how much professional development is needed to effect change on a daily basis. Availability is another concern for many teachers. Teachers in urban areas have more opportunities, choices, and exposures than teachers in a rural area. These can all create stumbling blocks to successful professional development.
Solutions
Other countries successfully provide for effective professional growth. In Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, prospective teachers must complete graduate level study after receiving an undergraduate degree in the subjects taught. Japan requires new teachers to complete a year of supervised internship that includes a reduced work load and mentoring. Then, each first-year teacher is required by law to have at least 20 days of inservice training and 60 days of professional development.
In order to improve professional development in the United States, research shows that we must find a way to provide time. Flexible scheduling, reorganizing the school day and extending the school year are possibilities. Reorganizing the day gives teachers a chance to collaborate and work individually on a daily and weekly basis. Extending the school year allows for sustained study by an entire staff or district. These solutions do not place further stress on teachers and will not take teachers away from the classroom during instructional time.
Providing opportunities for leadership roles for teachers will encourage them to take responsibility for their own professional development. As it stands now, the only way a teacher can become a leader is to become a principal or other administrator. We need to allow teachers to become leaders of educational practice and remain in the classroom.
New teachers need mentoring. The veteran teachers who provide the mentoring also gain, as they must verbalize and examine what they do and articulate it to someone else. New teachers come in with new ideas, knowledge and methods and thus, ideas flow in both directions during the mentoring process.
Districts need to be devising their own goals and plotting their own programs for professional development. Lawmakers, politicians, and administrators should be the conduit through which funds are provided. Teachers should be setting the standards and personalizing their growth.
Professional growth depends upon forming partnerships with colleagues, parents, community, and higher education. The National Foundation for the Improvement of Education is calling for a national institute that would house a collection of organized and applied research, encourage advanced study and experimentation, and provide materials, models and demonstrations that would enhance professional development. Letting teachers set goals and standards and devise professional development programs and implementing a national institute of professional development would begin to address the problem of quality and accountability.
To find a workable solution to the funding problem, there needs to be a study to determine how much money states and school districts are spending on professional development and how it is being spent. Then, a means of determining measures of effectiveness of dollars spent can be devised. In the meantime, individual districts should look at how much they are spending for the professional development of their staff and how it is being spent. Lastly, boards can work with their partnerships to reallocate the money into appropriate avenues that will provide the most return in terms of student achievement and reform of instructional practices.
Where do we go from here?
If schools are to address the next century, they must extend the teaching abilities of their teachers to teacher learning in ways that will affect their students in a positive manner. In A New Vision for Staff Development by Dennis Sparks and Stephanie Hirsh, there are four changes in professional development that require attention if teachers are to succeed with students. In order to achieve a more effective level of professional development we must move:
It is time to realize the importance of teacher training and professional development and update a system that can enhance the education the students it serves.
William B. Abel is a former superintendent of Community Unit School District 205 in Galesburg and is currently the president of Abel Educational Consulting, Ltd., specializing in superintendent searches.