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Remarks of M. Hayes Mizell at the the first meeting of the National Advisory Panel on the National Staff Development Council's project, "Results-Based Staff Development for the Middle Grades," July 8, 1997, Reston, VA. Mizell is Director of the Program for Student Achievement at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.

How Much Longer Must Teachers and Students
Wait for Good Staff Development?


I am delighted that you have agreed to share your knowledge, experience, and networks with this effort during the next two years. This project is very important, as are the contributions you will make to it, and we are grateful for the time and energy you will invest in this work.

I am sure each of you has your own reasons for participating in this endeavor and your own expectations for what it will produce. I want to take a few minutes to share my views about why this project is so very important and why it merits your serious effort.

Just two days ago, there was an article in the San Francisco Examiner with the headline, "Woman Hopes to Start Math-Friendly School for Silicon Valley's Daughters." The article described the plans of the mother of a ten-year-old to organize "the Girls' Middle School, an unusual private institution with a progressive yet rigorous curriculum emphasizing math, science and technology."

According to the article, the mother is taking this action because when her daughter "hits middle school in 14 months, she will plunge into a phase of education that saps many female pupils of the aptitude for science and math they have demonstrated in elementary school." The mother, the article reported, "has read the mounting evidence that middle schools tend to stunt girls' emotional growth and aspirations, and that sidetracking them away from science and math seems [to] lay a key part."

True, this news article is about *one* parent's atypical reaction as her child approaches the middle grades, but it is also a story about one *more* parent's concerns about the learning of subject content, or the lack of it, at the middle level.

Many parents and citizens are unhappy about middle schools because there is ample evidence that the academic performance of most students in the middle grades is unimpressive. On the reading test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, for example, less than a third of the eighth graders perform at the proficient level. Their poor performance is due in part to the difficulty of the tasks on the NAEP test and the failure of schools to prepare them to master these tasks. On the NAEP test, eight-graders "had to compare and contrast information across multiple texts, connect inferences with themes, understand underlying meanings, integrate prior knowledge with text interpretations, and demonstrate some ability to evaluate the limitations of documents."

I could go on and on providing examples and data about the inadequate performance levels of most middle school students, but many of you are already familiar with this data. As you know, it is especially appalling for students from low-income and poorly educated families, and for those who are African-American and Latino.

If *all* students in the middle grades are going to achieve at significantly higher levels, they will have to participate in very different and more effective educational experiences than is now the case. Increasingly, there are new education venues -- magnet schools and charter schools and even home schools -- that seek to provide this type of education, and there are more diverse populations taking advantage of an extant educational alternative -- private schools -- that have traditionally focused on increasing students' academic performance.

Of course, the majority of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders continue to attend regular public schools. Most of these schools have yet to demonstrate that they can provide the very different and more effective educational experiences that enable all students to perform at higher levels. Most of these schools have neither content nor performance standards. Most of these schools have curricula a mile wide and an inch deep. Most of these schools do not have syllabi or a coherent scope and sequence of subject content. Most teachers do not use rubrics that clearly define what constitutes quality student work. Many teachers, especially in math and science, are teaching outside their field of pre-service specialization. It is not surprising that these teachers are not secure in the subject content they teach and are therefore not effective in engaging students in learning that content.

Most of these schools have neither content nor performance standards. Most of these schools have curricula a mile wide and an inch deep.


There are two major factors that will have to be manifest for middle school teachers to become more effective. The first is *will*, the will of school systems, schools, and educators to change. This project cannot address this issue so I won't take your time to talk about it. However, if and when school systems, schools, and educators decide -- for whatever reason -- to make changes that can improve student performance, the second factor comes into play. People must know what to do, how to change, to obtain a different result. This is what this project is about.

This project is built on the foundational belief that if student performance is going to increase, teacher performance must increase. If students are going to learn at higher levels, teachers must learn at higher levels. Assuming the will is there, what are the most effective content-specific staff development programs? That is the central question this project will seek to answer.

Together, you and NSDC will be climbing onto a limb of uncertain stability. As one of the articles in your binder states so delicately, "The research base that links teacher behavior and student learning is still inadequate." Not only that, but you will be attempting to identify staff development programs that are sufficiently replicable that if a school system or school faithfully applies them, and teachers participate in good faith, there is reasonable assurance the staff development programs will increase student as well as teacher learning.

You can expect to hear from critics during this project and after it when NSDC publishes the "consumers' guide." Some people will say that the links between staff development, changes in teachers' content knowledge and pedagogy, and improved student performance are too tenuous for you to make any judgments at all. Some people from your own professional organizations will fault you for not selecting their favorite staff development programs, or will say that your criteria for selecting programs were flawed in some way.

Still others will say that your efforts are yet one more example of an overemphasis on subject content and student performance in the middle grades, representing a dangerous drift away from middle schools' emphasis on students' social development. There will be people who will say that as individuals, or as a group, you just don't know enough, and that this project is not long enough and lacks the funding and staff for you to learn what you need to know to identify effective staff development programs in the content areas. You will hear all these things.

My view, however, is that this is where, as the saying goes, "the rubber meets the road." After decades of staff development experience; after annual expenditures of millions, perhaps billions of dollars for staff development; after many examples of staff development being subjected to the rigors of free enterprise, entrepreneurship, and the free market, what does staff development really amount to? What is there to show for it? If we can't make judgments now about what programs are and are not effective, when will we be able to do so? How much longer must teachers and students wait? How much longer must they struggle along while ineffective staff development is the rule rather than the exception, consuming precious resources and time?

Your task is not to aim for perfection, or to become immobilized by the quagmires of the many conundrums you will encounter, but to exercise your best judgment to develop criteria for and to identify what you regard as the most effective, content-specific staff development available. If this means taking risks, as it almost certainly does, then so be it. Your many years of professional preparation and experience have brought you to this moment and this is the opportunity to apply it, with all the creativity and boldness you can muster.

How much longer must students and teachers
struggle along while ineffective staff development
is the rule rather than the exception, consuming
precious resources and time?

I cannot over-emphasize the importance of your work. It is fundamental to the growing movement for education reform. Whether by choice or mandate, more school systems, schools , and teachers are struggling to improve student performance. But even where there is the will, the way is not always apparent. There are myriad purveyors of staff development nostrums, quick fixes, and feel- good tonics that promise amazing results at low cost and little effort. It is no wonder that so many school systems, schools, and teachers are currently pursuing these false promises that lead them down blind alleys of wasted time, energy, and resources.

It is my hope that this project can help middle school educators focus on what constitutes *quality* staff development, and *specific* staff development programs that educators with the will to do so can use to improve student performance. It will be a challenge to develop criteria for selecting such programs and to find ones that meet these criteria. However, the middle school educators with the will are depending on you to respond to this challenge. It should be an exciting learning experience, and I look forward to participating in it with you.


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