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Remarks of Hayes Mizell at the first joint meeting of representatives
from Staff Development Leadership Councils on the evening of December 5
in Washington, DC. Mizell is Director of the Program for Student Achievement
at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.
NOTE: The Councils are a project of the National Staff Development Council,
an 8,000-member national organization committed to high levels of learning
and performance for all students and staff members. The SDLCs will "advocate
for state and local policies and practices that support outstanding staff
development. They will guide the work of small, action-oriented groups in
communities throughout their states, helping to create schools in which
all students learn at high levels." The first group of SDLCs are in
California, Maryland, Missouri, New York, and Texas. There is also a second
tier of SDLCs in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, and Louisiana.
Staff Development That Benefits Student Learning
I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you about Staff Development
Leadership Councils, but I confess to being a little nervous about the agenda's
description of this segment as the "Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
Vision." It is, after all, not the Foundation's vision that is important,
but yours.
If there is one thing I have learned in my eleven years at the Foundation
it is that the Foundation can't make anything happen, it can only support
people who have the vision, commitment, creativity, and intestinal fortitude
to bring change about.
Why are we supporting the SDLCs? As I believe many of you know, we have
been very disappointed about the quality and effects of most staff development
in most school systems. Too much staff development is ill-conceived. It
is too little valued by the educators who participate in it. It fails to
benefit student learning, and it is never rigorously evaluated.
This is major problem at a time when states and local school systems expect
teachers and students to perform at increasingly higher levels, and when
there are more persons teaching who did not graduate from any teacher
education program. In effect, to the litany of school reform and teacher
education reform and assessment reform, we now have to add staff development
reform.
What will it take to make staff development meaningful?
What will it take for staff development to demonstrate that it has the power
and potential to improve educators' attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, and
skills so they benefit student learning? Certainly it will require the people
who control and shape staff development to make different and better decisions.
Staff development is like learning in the sense that it occurs whether or
not it is organized and planned, but high quality staff development,
like high quality learning, only occurs when people are intentional
about it making it happen -- when they are explicit about the results they
are seeking to achieve, and when they can subsequently produce evidence
to document that they have achieved the desired results.
It is my hope that SDLCs will be the vanguard for staff development reform,
hammering away at educating policy makers about what constitutes high quality,
effective staff development, and, conversely, what does not.
Of course, there will be temptations for SDLCs to become something else:
lobbyists for more money for staff development, apologists for activities
that masquerade under the label of staff development, or defenders of the
faith, explaining why staff development should not be held accountable for
results. If SDLCs take any of these paths, staff development will not improve
and its credibility and support will continue to decline in the eyes of
policy makers and the public.
As advocates for high-quality, results-oriented staff development, you will
have the field largely to yourselves. I urge you to make the most of this
opportunity. Unlike most other organizations of educators, you will be able
to adhere to a very specific message. As is true in politics, it is very
important for your message to be clear, and for you to stay "on message."
That message is: If policy makers want student performance to improve, then
teachers have to improve their performance, and staff development is the
primary means to improve the performance of current teachers.
Having said that, you will have to be equally specific about what constitute
the elements of effective staff development and how decision makers can
embed those elements in policy. Equally important, you will have to help
policy makers grapple with framing and assessing measurable objectives and
results for staff development initiatives.
Who are the professional development "policy makers"?
I want to take this opportunity to remind you that when we use the term
"policy makers" we are, in fact, talking about more than just
members of the state legislature, or members of the state board of education.
In fact, most staff development resources are allocated by local
policy makers, ordinary citizens who serve as school board members. Most
decisions about conceiving and implementing staff development are also made
at the local level, by superintendents, curriculum coordinators, and staff
development directors. They are in desperate need of your guidance.
Also, because of site-based management in many school systems, principals
and school site councils are also policy makers; they not only allocate
resources but set the expectations for staff development, define how it
will occur, and provide oversight for its application. Keep in mind that
staff development is primarily a local event, and if you want to
make a real difference you will have to find ways to influence local
decisions.
I also caution you not to get lost in the politics and status of policy
development. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous gap between policies
made by legislatures, state boards of education, school boards, and the
teachers and administrators who participate in staff development and should
be benefiting from it. Policy matters, but it only matters if it helps real
people struggling in real contexts. A lot of education policy is irrelevant
and ineffective because it does not reflect how people really behave and
ignores the pressures and priorities that shape their lives.
In developing their agendas, I hope SDLCs will shed themselves of the assumption
that written policies will necessarily change what people do. They may,
but they may not. This is why it is so important for you to pick your issues
carefully, and focus your efforts where it seems there is the greatest
potential for you to make the most difference in reforming the practice
of staff development.
Important in the beginning to focus on one or two issues
During this first year, it is natural that SDLCs will be finding their way.
I hope you will exercise the self-discipline to focus on only one or two
issues, set specific and realistic goals for what you want to achieve by
a date certain, and develop and use a work plan that will help you stay
on task. Make sure that assignments among SDLC members are clear, that everyone
knows who will do what, and that internal reporting and accountability
become part of the SDLC's culture.
You are about to begin an exciting endeavor. It is one that I believe can
make a great difference to the field of staff development and to the effectiveness
of this organization. If you keep focused on the task of changing staff
development so that its value is more apparent to citizens and policy makers
alike, and if you act boldly and with courage, unconstrained by conventional
and ineffective paradigms of professional practice, you will accomplish
great things.
If you can do this, the value of the Staff Development Leadership Councils
as forces for change will be so apparent and so compelling that funders
will find it almost impossible to resist supporting the replication of your
work.
Readers may also be interested in this talk:
Is Staff Development a Smart Investment?