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Have You Ever Wondered What Makes an Effective Professional Development Plan?
by the CMC Executive Board
In January 2002, President
Bush reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA,
more often thought of as Title 1 Programs). This act is now known as
the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and has generated sweeping changes
in education as our country works to address the instruction of all
students (NCTM, 2002). Besides its focus on accountability for all
stakeholders (teachers, administrators, superintendents, parents,
community members, etc.) to increase student achievement, it also deals
with issues of teacher quality. This, of course, addresses the role of
professional development. In the past, Eisenhower funding was set aside
for professional development opportunities, primarily in mathematics
and science. Eisenhower funding has now become Title II Part A:
Improving Teacher Quality State Grants, which sets guidelines for all
professional development. But what does that mean?
In order for states to receive funding through the Improving Teacher
Quality State Grants, there must be a state level Local Improvement
Plan that addresses how the state will ensure that all teachers are
“highly qualified. ” Funds from this grant can be used to recruit,
hire, certify, license, or monitor teachers. Funds can also be used for
teacher preparation to increase content knowledge. This includes
attendance at conferences and meetings for professional development.
The caveat is that the conference or meeting must be justified in the
school’s needs assessment. As educators, we know that professional
development can be pivotal in creating effective teachers (Fullan,
1991). One of the benefits of joining professional organizations is the
opportunity to attend conferences that allows us as educators to stay
current on the new developments in our field. Looking through the NCLB
lens, we need to determine how to maintain the value and integrity of
professional development while at the same time jumping through the
federal hoops to ensure the funding needed for California public
schools.
To really understand where we need to move in the area of professional
development, perhaps we need to look back on the progression of this
part of our profession. According to Bellanca (1995), professional
development started out as an annual inservice for teachers coming from
small, isolated schools. This was a time for teachers to complete
licensing requirements and network—until they met again the following
year. This format evolved into staff development provided by districts.
With the advent of the Sputnik crisis, there was a need to focus on
building content knowledge for teachers who were interested in pursuing
additional training. “The step-and-scale” pay increases were developed
by districts to encourage teachers to take advantage of these staff
development opportunities, which generally occurred after school hours
(Bellanca, 1995). In the 1990s, public education embarked on
educational reform. To make systemic change in a school, more was
needed than optional staff development days. Thus the evolution of the
professional development model that we follow today.
According to Loucks-Horsley, et al. (1998), effective professional development experiences:
- are driven by a well-defined image of effective classroom learning and teaching.
- provide opportunities for teachers to build their knowledge and skills.
- use or model with teachers the strategies teachers will use with their students.
- build a learning community.
- support teachers to serve in leadership roles as supporters of teachers, agents of change, and promoters of reform.
- provide links to other parts of the education system.
- are continuously assessing themselves and making
improvements to ensure positive impact on teacher effectiveness,
students learning, leadership, and the school community.
Due to the intense focus on accountability in
California, many of us are very familiar with this form of professional
development as we design plans to meet our Academic Performance Index
(API) Growth Targets. The question now becomes: How do we pursue the
professional development we need using the NCLB guidelines to assure
funding?
Professional development has become part of a two-pronged approach that
requires plans from both the state and the site levels. Currently,
schools that receive Federal funding (i.e. Title 1 Programs) are
required to create annually a site plan that guides the instructional
program at the school and justifies the use of federal dollars in the
implementation of that plan. In writing a site plan, schools must use a
needs assessment to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses so that
a plan can be developed to increase the achievement of all students.
After reviewing Title II guidelines, it is clear that more time must be
devoted to developing the rationale for the professional development
plan and describing the long term actions that will turn weaknesses
into strengths. Specifically, time must be spent discussing follow up
activities to workshop/conference attendance, developing goal
statements that involve student outcomes, and integrating the use of
technology in content instruction. Opportunities for monitoring and
refining the plan should also be a part of the school’s site plan.
Creating both the professional development plan and the site plan must
involve stakeholder input to ensure the successful implementation of
both. Additional steps will need to be taken to clearly express the
purpose of conference attendance, the justification for selecting a
particular conference, and the value for students once the teacher has
attended the conference. One of the section affiliates of the
California Mathematics Council has experimented with the development of
a form for participants to use to justify conference attendance and
show future plans for implementation at the site.
LINKS TO CONFERENCE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES TO FOLLOW
The
state responsibility lies in developing an understanding of the NCLB
guidelines and using that to create a plan of action based on a
statewide needs assessment. The Local Improvement Plan should outline
what will be done to assure that every school has highly qualified
teachers. In the area of mathematics, the obvious stakeholders are
teachers of mathematics, parents, and community members. The
information gathered by the state should be the basis for the plan that
is approved by the federal government. Once the state?s Local
Improvement Plan has been deemed as compliant, districts have a model
with which to build a district Local Improvement Plan specific to the
needs of its population.
NCLB is just in its second year of implementation. Details of
this major reform continue to be clarified, even as districts struggle
to understand the very guidelines they are expected to implement. It is
too early to predict the success of professional development under the
NCLB parameters. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that professional
development will finally move from “. . . a ‘frill’ that can be cut
during difficult financial times to staff development as an
indispensable process without which schools cannot hope to prepare
young people for citizenship and productive employment” (Bellanca,
1995).
References
Bellanca, James. Designing Professional Development for Change. Arlington Heights, IL: IRI/Skylight Training and Publishing, Inc., 1995.
Business Roundtable. No Child Left Behind: Business Leaders Toolkit. Washington, D.C.: The Business Roundtable, 2002.
Fullan, M.G. The New Meaning of Educational Change. New York, NY: College Press. 1991.
Loucks-Horsley, Susan, Peter Hewson, Nancy Love, and Katherine Stiles. Designing Professional Development for Teachers of Science and Mathematics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc. 1998.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “No Child Left Behind?What It Means to Teachers.” NCTM News Bulletin 39 (November 2002): 4.
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This Page was last updated: Sunday, March 7, 2004 at 11:49:19 AM
This page was originally posted: 7/4/2003; 10:26:38 AM.
Copyright 2008 cmcmath
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