District PD spending does not equate to teacher improvement, study finds
Results from a study of more than 10,000 teachers across four districts reveals that professional development — of any type — did little for the teachers or districts studied, and found that less than a third of teachers improved performance year-over-year as a result.The study, conducted by nonprofit TNTP, found that the participating districts (there were three large ones and one charter network) spent an average of $18,000 per teacher, per year on PD, but only three in 10 teachers saw “substantial” improvement over a two- to three-year period. Two in 10 teachers at surveyed districts saw declines in practice. No particular approach or quantity of PD was found to help improve teacher performance, although there were modest gains for teachers in districts that focused on two related practices.
“The hard truth is that the help most schools give their teachers isn’t helping all that much,” said TNTP CEO Dan Weisberg. “There’s enormous untapped potential within our nation’s teachers, but our findings suggest that we’re nowhere close to unleashing it. That’s not what we’d hoped to find.”
If administration would work with teachers to see what PD is truly needed, investigate fully programs to see what difficulties might arise, carefully plan, implement, observe and modify, PD would more likely produce positive results.
The best teachers have a pretty clear idea of what they need to do to improve professional practice, but professional development is limited to ineffective “one size fits all” programs designed to train teachers in the novel theory of the day. Professional Development would be much more effective if it each teacher developed their own PD program, perhaps as part of the annual evaluation process and in consultation with building leadership.
Instead of bringing in an expensive canned program, teachers should be given a PD budget and the ability to choose an effective course of study. Some teachers need help with content, others with classroom management, or assessment, or addressing students social/emotional needs. Still others may need or desire subject matter training to become qualified in a different discipline…an elementary teacher might want to switch to AP calculus for example.
Professional development programs should be tailored to the needs of the individual teacher, just as schools should be tailoring instruction to the needs of individual students.