Designing Effective Development: Lessons from the Eisenhower Program - December 1999
Chapter 1
This report presents information from all three strands of the evaluation. Exhibit 1.3 displays the logic of the Eisenhower program as it is laid out in the legislation. Improving teaching practice (Box 5) is the goal of the Eisenhower legislation. Teacher experiences in Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities (Box 4) are intended to improve teaching practice. The quality of the activities districts and SAHE grantees make available, and the ways districts and SAHE grantees select teachers to participate (Box 3), in turn influence teacher experiences in Eisenhower-assisted professional development. We hypothesize that the overall quality of Eisenhower-assisted activities is shaped by the degree of integration of the Eisenhower-assisted activities with other professional development and systemic reform efforts, as well as by how districts and SAHE grantees plan and evaluate Eisenhower funded activities (Box 2).
In addition to displaying the logic of the Eisenhower program, Exhibit 1.3 also describes the structure of this report. The report starts by focusing on classroom teaching practice (Box 5), then examines the professional development experiences of teachers, including their Eisenhower-assisted activities (Box 4). The report then describes how the program operates in school districts and in SAHE-supported projects in IHEs and nonprofits (Boxes 3 and 2). Throughout the report, we pay attention to contextual features that affect program-funded activities, such as district size, district poverty level, and the characteristics of SAHE-grantees (Box 1).
EXHIBIT 1.3
Program Logic Model for This Evaluation
We begin this report with a description of classroom practice, then describe the characteristics of the professional development activities that teachers participate in, and finally describe the characteristics of Eisenhower-assisted operations. In doing so, we have adopted an approach that is unusual for a federal program evaluation, which usually starts with a description of the "program" and its characteristics. We have chosen this alternative approach because it is important to understand what types of teacher practice the Eisenhower program is attempting to reinforce and to change, and because it allows us to avoid a "top-down" perspective on federal programs. This perspective, common among evaluations of federal programs, implies that federal provisions are at the center of change in teacher practice. Yet, the myriad evaluations of federal education programs over the years illustrate that federal education programs are only one aspect of the many influences upon practice.
Chapter 2 begins with an analysis of teaching practice because the Eisenhower program?s goal is to improve instruction, and ultimately student performance. The chapter examines the practice of teachers in the 30 schools that comprise our Longitudinal Study of Teacher Change; the chapter also compares teachers? reports of their classroom teaching to the standards embodied in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
The model on which the Eisenhower program is based assumes that teachers? experiences in Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities will enhance their practice. Therefore, Chapter 3 analyzes the characteristics of Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities using data from the Teacher Activity Survey of our National Profile. In addition, the chapter describes the features of Eisenhower-assisted activities, the characteristics of teachers who participate in them, the coherence of professional development from the teachers? perspectives, and teachers? reports of the impact of professional development on their knowledge and skills and classroom practice. The chapter also compares the characteristics of Eisenhower-assisted activities supported by school districts to those supported by SAHEs. Finally, the chapter identifies several features of effective professional development and explores how the features of professional development relate to one another and to teacher outcomes.
The Eisenhower legislation relies on school districts and SAHE grantees to design professional development activities and to recruit and select teachers for these activities. Because of the important role that school districts play in the Eisenhower legislation, Chapter 4 uses data from district Eisenhower coordinators and data from our in-depth and exploratory case studies to describe district "portfolios" of Eisenhower-assisted activities. A district?s portfolio is the collection of Eisenhower-assisted activities offered in a district; the activities in a district?s portfolio, taken together, represent the district?s strategy for addressing the goals of the Eisenhower legislation. This chapter describes the characteristics of activities supported by Eisenhower funds, and the types of teachers participating in these activities.
The Eisenhower legislation also lays out a variety of procedural requirements that districts must use to administer the Eisenhower program. Chapter 5 examines the ways districts link Eisenhower-funded activities with those funded by other programs, as well as the ways they plan and evaluate supported activities. In particular, the chapter examines how districts build a vision for professional development by aligning Eisenhower-assisted activities with state and district standards and assessments, and by coordinating these activities with other school reform and professional development efforts. The chapter also examines how districts plan and evaluate Eisenhower-assisted activities, including their use of performance indicators.
SAHE grantees confront some issues that parallel those faced by the districts. Like districts, SAHE grantees design professional development activities and recruit teachers to participate in them. However, SAHE grantees in other ways operate quite differently from school districts. SAHE grantees have won competitions within their states to conduct particular activities rather than receiving Eisenhower funds by formula as districts do. In designing the grant and contract competitions, SAHEs develop priorities and guidelines for professional development based on state needs assessments; therefore grantees must design their activities to be responsive to the criteria outlined by the SAHE. Unlike districts, however, SAHE grantees do not have the responsibility to address the professional development needs of all teachers in their jurisdictions. Using data from the National Profile?s telephone interviews with SAHE-grantee project directors, Chapter 6 focuses on how SAHE-grantees operate their Eisenhower-assisted projects.
Eisenhower-assisted activities, in both districts and SAHE grantees, do not occur in a vacuum. A district?s characteristics, such as size and poverty rate, may affect its approach to professional development activities. For example, large districts have more access to other funding sources for professional development than smaller districts and, therefore, may be more likely to coordinate their Eisenhower-assisted activities with those of other programs. Districts with high rates of poverty might be more likely to target teachers of at-risk students. SAHE grantees also differ from one another in a number of ways that may affect the characteristics of the Eisenhower-assisted activities that they support. For example, SAHE-grantee project directors from university education departments are likely to have different areas of expertise from those in mathematics departments, and project directors in research universities might have access to different types of resources than those in other types of institutions. Box 1 of Exhibit 1.3 represents the contextual features of school districts and SAHE grantees that may affect how program-funded activities operate. Throughout this report, we examine these contextual features and their possible effects on districts, institutions of higher education, and nonprofits.
The organization of this report allows the reader first to learn about teachers? practices in the classroom, then the Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities that are designed to affect their practices, and finally, district and SAHE-grantee management and operation of these activities. In this way, we hope that our analysis and discussion of Eisenhower-assisted activities and the operation of those activities will be grounded in a knowledge and understanding of the teacher classroom practices that the Eisenhower program is designed to improve.
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 [Chapter 2 - Teaching Practices in Mathematics and Science] |