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[Remarks of Hayes Mizell on October 27, 2000 at the meeting, "Professional Development in New York State: A Working Symposium." The New York State Staff Development Leadership Council, an affiliate of the National Staff Development Council, sponsored the symposium, held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Albany, NY. Mizell is Director of the Program for Student Achievement at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.]

Sustaining Support
for Professional Development

The other day while using the Internet for research, I came upon the web site of a New Jersey school system that is not far from where I live. I noticed that the school system had posted its "staff development program," so I went to that page to examine it.

The complete "course guide" was on the web site, providing "information on the 1999-2000 in-service courses offered by the [school district]." It explained that the district also "provides teachers and administrators from other school districts the opportunity to participate in [the] staff development institutes." The school system was even more generous: "All courses are free for staff members and senior citizens in the..community."

The course guide then listed 47 courses. Half of them related in some way to instruction. These included 12-hour courses such as "Writing and Scoring Open-ended Questions to be Implemented into the Math Classroom, " "Traits of an Effective Reader," "Teaching for Understanding," and "Rubrics for Assessing Student Performance." Nearly 25 percent of the courses focused on technology, such as "Writing Technology Enhanced Lesson Plans," "Technology for the Special Learner," and "Internet Projects for the Classroom." Persons knowledgeable about students' needs in this school system might argue whether these were the most important topics for staff development, but other people might concede that the courses were in the ballpark of what is appropriate.

Curiously, the remaining 25 percent of the topics were those one would typically find in listings of adult community education courses that some school systems offer. Among them were "Enriching Your Life Through Photography," "Basics of Elder Care," and the "Integral Yoga/Stretching Class." In this case, however, the school system made no distinction between the courses to improve classroom instruction and those to enhance more general adult learning. The course registration form simply listed all courses in alphabetical order. Apparently, if I were a senior citizen in this community, I could have taken, without cost, "Brain Based Teaching," and if I were a teacher, I could have taken "German for Travelers."

I acknowledge that there may be a lot that I do not understand about this staff development listing. Did the school system's web master simply bungle it when he or she posted the courses on the Internet, mistakenly combining community adult education courses with professional development offerings for educators? On the other hand, did the school system really mean to imply that all the courses are legitimate "staff development"? In the unlikely event that a course intended primarily for educators was one person short of capacity, and a senior citizen registered and was given that seat, would the school system then deny admission to an educator who subsequently sought to enter the course? Moreover, where does the funding come from to enable the school system to be so generous in making the courses available to educators and senior citizens alike?


The muddled image of staff development

This may not be the most clear-cut example of confusion about staff development, its purpose, who benefits, and how, but for our discussion this morning it is a useful illustration. The school system's lack of clarity about its expectations is typical of the image many policymakers have of professional development.

If legislators and school board members have any impression of staff development, it is either negative or vague. In their minds, the words "staff development" are likely to stimulate recollections either of conversations with teachers about their dissatisfaction with training experiences, or of school systems' non-teaching "professional development days" that permit all teachers to attend a state or district conference. Policymakers may base these impressions on outdated information and probably on no direct experience with professional development, but as we all know, it is such mental images that are at the root of decisions about the value of staff development relative to other interventions to improve education.

In considering how to sustain support for professional development-- political, administrative, and financial support -- we have to begin with the unpleasant task of recognizing that many policymakers hold staff development in low esteem. They do not understand it, or they have a very simplistic understanding of it. They may consider it a "necessary evil," believing that in any organization there has to be some orderly process for adult learning, even if one has questions about the results.

In discussions and debates about how to improve public education, policymakers may advocate strategies ranging from smaller classes, to more technology, to providing more educational options for parents, but they rarely cite the need for more or better professional development. If they do advocate it, they have no idea how to achieve it. Consequently, policymakers support staff development, to the extent they do, more out of resignation than with enthusiasm.


It's kind of like baking soda . . .

This is a formidable hurdle to overcome in seeking to sustain support for professional development. It means the product you are selling is kind of like baking soda, everybody knows it is good to have a box in the pantry, but it is hard to work up much passion for buying it. If the people who authorize expenditures for staff development are to sustain and increase their support, they need to not only understand its purpose, but also develop greater confidence that it will produce impressive results. This is the task before you, but exactly how do you go about attacking it?

First, people who are advocates for staff development need to develop and communicate a clear and consistent message about its purpose. Is it for the personal development of educators? Is it only for their professional development? Or is it just one of many ways that states and communities demonstrate their support for the educators they employ, like providing health plans and a credit union? You have to decide how you want to define the purpose of staff development, but I suggest that you take into account the current environment of concern about public education.

What do people say they care about? Certainly, they do not care whether educators have access to courses like the ""Integral Yoga/Stretching Class." They do not even care whether educators attend the state convention of the teachers' association. What they do care about is whether students are learning to read, write, compute, and think so they are able to perform at standard.

People care most about student achievement. But they also care whether students have competent and caring teachers who have the content knowledge and pedagogical skills to help students learn what they need to perform at standard.


What policymakers need to hear about staff development

Therefore, the message policymakers need to hear over and over is that high-quality professional development is necessary to get members of the current teaching force up to speed. In many classrooms, there are teachers who, during their pre-service education, never dreamed they would be teaching students as diverse, as ill prepared, and as needy as they now face in their classrooms. Math and science teachers never imagined that schools would call on them to integrate reading and writing into their instruction. Middle school language arts teachers never anticipated they would have to teach reading. Most teachers did not realize the day would come when social promotion would end and they would face the same students for the second and perhaps the third year.

These teachers may be conscientious and energetic and have university-level degrees, but most of them do not have the knowledge and skills to meet successfully the instructional challenges they currently face. Students who are most dependent on effective instruction will not achieve at the levels of which they are capable until their teachers are able to perform at higher levels. In the near term, quality professional development is the only tool that states, school systems, and schools have to increase teacher achievement.

Policymakers want to know what return they will get for their
investment in staff development. Does it increase the performance of
teachers and administrators? Few people know . . . .

The next step in sustaining support for staff development is to demonstrate its value. Policymakers want to know what return they will get for their investment in staff development. Does it increase the performance levels of teachers and administrators? It is difficult to answer this question because the field does not give high priority to collecting and analyzing data about the effects of staff development. Few people know about its effects because few people try to find out. Until this changes, until persons responsible for staff development are intentional in determining its results in relation to the performance of educators and students, it will be very difficult to sustain or increase support for professional development.

One aspect of this problem is that among practitioners there is little knowledge about how to assess staff development outcomes. As is often the case, they are not making good use of the knowledge that does exist. One currently underutilized resource is Tom Guskey's book on Evaluating Professional Development (1999), and more staff developers need to draw upon it to begin moving serious staff development assessment from concept to reality.

Additional help is on the way. By this time next year the National Staff Development Council will have produced tools and resources educators can use to collect information about and document the effects of staff development. While this will not be the ultimate technology for staff development assessment, it should advance the field considerably and its use by local school systems, in the aggregate, should produce valuable information about the degree to which staff development increases the effectiveness of educators. (Also see this article by Guskey and NSDC's Dennis Sparks.)


Not all staff development is created equal

The third step towards sustaining support for professional development is to understand and explain to others that not all staff development is created equal. Some professional development will produce gains in the learning of teachers and administrators, and promote the application of that learning in classrooms and schools; other staff development will not. Just as some curriculum and pedagogy is more effective for students than others, so it is with professional development for educators.

It is only a recent phenomenon that educators are beginning to acknowledge publicly that there are qualitative differences among types of staff development. Educators now admit that short-term training with no follow-up is generally not effective. There is a lot of doubt about the value of feel-good motivational speakers, and even about those providers whose presentations are so didactic and pat, even if also compelling, that educators learn little they are able to apply successfully to their classrooms and schools.

A report published just last week raises to a new level this analysis of the qualitative differences among types of staff development. The Milken Family Foundation and the Educational Testing Service collaborated to produce the monograph titled "How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back Into Discussions of Teacher Quality."

Using 1996 eighth grade mathematics and science data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the study found that among the teachers of the students tested, 25 percent had neither a major nor minor in the subject they were teaching, and 40 percent had been teaching less than 10 years. Among all the students' mathematics and science teachers, they had participated in professional development covering a variety of topics. The report includes an extensive discussion of the types of staff development in which mathematics and science teachers participated and how their participation relates to their teaching practices. It finds that:

Students whose teachers major in the relevant subject area are 39 % of a grade level ahead of other students both in math and science. Students whose teachers receive professional development in working with different student populations are 107% of a grade level ahead of their peers in math. Students whose teachers receive professional development in higher-order thinking skills are 40% of a grade level ahead of students whose teachers lack such training in mathematics. Students whose teachers receive professional development in laboratory skills are 44% of a grade level ahead of those whose teachers lack such training in science. Students whose teachers receive professional development in classroom management are 37% of a grade level behind [my emphasis] their peers in science.

Among the report's conclusions are the following:
Policymakers should stop relying on inputs that do not make a difference, and pay greater attention to the classroom practices that do. To improve teacher quality in ways that will improve student achievement, then, policymakers need to find ways to encourage effective classroom practices. Another implication of this study is that professional development is a useful tool for improving classroom practices. This study indicated that the most effective classroom practices involve conveying higher-order thinking skills and engaging in hands-on learning activities. The study also finds that teachers who receive rich and sustained professional development generally, and professional development geared toward higher-order thinking skills and concrete activities such as laboratories particularly, are more likely to engage in effective classroom practices. Policymakers could thus improve teacher quality by providing more opportunities for teachers to receive professional development. That professional development should occur over an extended period of time rather than being limited to a weekend seminar, and it should cover topics closely tied to classroom practices.

This type of analysis is rare, but it points the way to studies that should become routine in states and school systems. What exactly is the link between different kinds of professional development, classroom practices, and student achievement? Too few states and school systems attempt to answer that question and as a result there is a lack of compelling evidence that documents the value of staff development generally, and more specifically, the staff development that is most effective in increasing the performance levels of teachers and students.

Even without such studies, however, it is possible for school systems to move away from staff development that is less effective and towards staff development that is more effective. If I were a policymaker, I would want to know that school systems and schools are less frequently using large assemblies, after-school workshops, and conferences to engage educators in staff development. Conversely, I would want to know that school systems and schools are more frequently using study groups, faculty meetings, classroom observations, school-based peer coaches, teachers' development of curriculum units, and teachers' examination of student work as the means for staff development. Unfortunately, no one at the state or school district levels routinely collects such information so there is no objective, reliable analysis of whether or not professional development is changing or improving. As a result, advocates for staff development have little in their arsenal of persuasion other than generalizations and anecdotes.

Support for high quality staff development is not
a priority lobbying issue for educators,
or most of their professional associations.

The ultimate weapon for sustaining support for staff development is teachers and administrators who can testify to its value. Policymakers seldom, if ever, hear such testimony. They hear from teachers and administrators concerned about salaries, high-stakes testing, paperwork burden, and regulations, but support for high quality staff development is not a priority lobbying issue for educators, or most of their professional associations. If this is more of less the case in New York State, what is to be done?

In a state as large as New York, there have to be some educators who over time have participated in high quality professional development. If major education associations are not identifying and mobilizing these teachers and administrators, who will? Is there a role for the Staff Development Leadership Council to influence policy and practice by finding and organizing the educators who are not staff development professionals but who have personal experience with both high quality and low quality professional development? If these educators are happy about the effective staff development in which they participated, and unhappy, even angry, about their experiences with ineffective staff development, how can the SDLC forge alliances with these educators to help them share their experiences with policymakers? I hope you will ponder these questions and how you might respond to them.

It is possible, then, to sustain support for professional development, but doing so means knowing what you want. Do you want to sustain support for staff development as most teachers and administrators have experienced it to date? I hope not, but if that is what you want then your struggle to sustain support will be one of drudgery and small numbers. Or do you want to increase support for high quality professional development, the type that is not yet the norm for most educators, but which must become the norm for teachers and principals to meet the practical challenges they now face?

I hope this is your goal, and if it is then pursuing it can be an exciting, rewarding adventure that is on the leading edge of school reform in this country.


Five strategies to improve staff development

As you seek to sustain and increase support for staff development, I urge you to keep the following five strategies in mind:

1. Focus on the clear, simple message that the purpose of staff development is to increase the performance levels of both educators and students, and that persons responsible for staff development should be accountable for achieving that result.

2. Emphasize that teachers and administrators now face instructional and leadership challenges for which their pre-service education did not prepare them.

3. Identify and mobilize teachers and administrators who will describe how their participation in high quality professional development increased their effectiveness as educators.

4. Mount an aggressive campaign urging local school systems to assess the classroom and school effects of staff development, and to document and report the results.

5. Be specific in describing the types of professional development that most frequently benefit educators and students, as well as the types that experience have proven to be ineffective. Be a lot less tolerant of school systems and schools that waste staff development resources by persistently using ineffective staff development.

I understand this task will be difficult. Many persons responsible for staff development continue to cling to discredited, ineffective practices. Many educators continue to believe that professional development should be a low-risk experience, with no accountability. But these practices and beliefs represent the past when teachers and administrators faced fewer challenges and when no one cared whether all students performed at standard.


Emerging from the shadows of dubious results

The current demands on educators and students are an opportunity for staff development to emerge from the shadows of dubious results and demonstrate that it can increase what educators now need to know and be able to do.

This is what policymakers are seeking -- staff development that not only increases the knowledge and skills of front-line educators, but also supports them in changing their practice so they cause all students to perform at standard. There is great potential for increasing support for staff development, but everything depends on the actions of persons responsible for conceiving, planning, implementing, and assessing staff development.

When it is apparent that they are pursuing a new vision for both the process and results of staff development, everything will fall into place. School boards and superintendents will know how much money they are spending on professional development and they will target the funding to improve the instruction of the lowest performing students. Persons responsible for staff development will make decisions based on what will benefit children rather than on what is convenient for the school systems. School systems will produce evidence of the link between staff development and the achievement of both educators and students. Policymakers will hear from more and more teachers and administrators that they value staff development and that it is playing an important role in helping them raise the performance levels of their students.

At that point, you will not have to worry about sustaining support for staff development. Policymakers will recognize it as a valuable tool for school reform and they will fund it accordingly. There is a lot of work to do to arrive at that day, but that is why you are here.

Thank you.