A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Designing Effective Development: Lessons from the Eisenhower Program - December 1999

Chapter 4

District "Portfolios" of Eisenhower-Assisted Professional Development Activities

School districts shape the use of the majority of Eisenhower Professional Development Program (EPDP) funds; eighty-four percent of Eisenhower funds go to the district component of the program.¹ In the last chapter, we described patterns of teachers? participation in Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities, including teachers? reports of the characteristics and qualities of those activities, and how the activities increased teachers? knowledge and skills and changed their teaching practice. Now we turn to the district?s role in shaping teachers? professional development experiences. Teachers? experiences in Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities depend largely on two things: (1) the types of professional development activities districts make available to teachers, and (2) how teachers come to participate in these activities. In this chapter we look at the mix of professional development activities that districts support with Eisenhower funds—their "portfolio" of Eisenhower-assisted activities—and the selection of teachers to participate in these activities.

Provisions of the authorizing legislation guide district decisions about the characteristics of Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities and who participates in them. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended by the Improving America?s Schools Act of 1994, describes the characteristics that districts should strive to incorporate in the professional development opportunities that they provide. In particular, the legislation aims to support "intensive, ongoing professional development programs" (Section 2207(5)(A)) that include "sustained and intensive high-quality professional development" (Section 2101(a)(1)). Congress further directs that local Eisenhower plans be designed in ways that would likely affect teacher practice and "have a positive and lasting impact on the student?s performance in the classroom" (Section 2208(d)(1)(E)).

The legislation also provides that Eisenhower-assisted activities should address the needs of teachers of students from historically underrepresented groups (Section 2205(b)(2)(F)). In particular, because of Title I?s size and prominence in serving children at risk of school failure, the Eisenhower legislation places a special emphasis on addressing the needs of teachers in schools receiving Title I, Part A funds (Sections 2205(b)(2)(E), 2208(b)(2), and 2208(d)(1)(B)). The Title I statute has a similar provision regarding the Eisenhower Professional Development Program (Section 1119(b)(11)(C)).

In this chapter, we describe how school districts differ from one another in the types of activities that they support with Eisenhower funds. We examine how these activities differ on several of the dimensions of the structural and core features that were related to teacher outcomes in Chapter 3. We also discuss district practices of targeting specific groups of teachers, and the ways that districts select teachers to participate in the activities. Exhibit 4.0 highlights how the issues that we address in this chapter fit into the framework of the entire report.

EXHIBIT 4.0
Conceptual Framework for This Evaluation

While the last chapter described teachers? experiences in Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities, this chapter turns to similarities and differences across districts in the professional development activities that districts support. And while the previous chapter described the characteristics of teachers nationwide who participate in Eisenhower-assisted activities, this chapter describes the similarities and differences across districts in targeting and recruiting teachers to participate in Eisenhower-assisted activities.

Data Sources

We rely heavily in this chapter on National Profile data from our telephone surveys of a national probability sample of district Eisenhower coordinators. Where appropriate, we supplement these survey data with case-study information regarding district patterns of Eisenhower support for a variety of different types of professional development opportunities and experiences. Our case-study data come from two sources. One source is a series of in-depth case studies that we conducted during the 1997-1998 school year. We chose 10 districts, two from each of five states, to allow variation on state-level reform efforts, the district?s approach to professional development, and demographic and geographic characteristics. The second source of case-study data is a series of six exploratory case studies that we conducted during the spring of 1997, also chosen to capture variation on these dimensions.

To obtain the National Profile data we conducted telephone interviews with a national probability sample of district Eisenhower coordinators in the spring of 1998. Through a system of stratified sampling to ensure variation on district poverty level, we randomly drew about 400 districts, giving larger districts a higher chance of being drawn; of these 400, we were able to interview 363, which provides us with a response rate of 88 percent (see Appendices A and B for more details about our National Profile and case-study design).

During the telephone interviews, district coordinators reported on professional development activities that occurred during the time period from July 1 through December 31, 1997. As a result, the data referenced and exhibited in this chapter that represent characteristics of specific professional development activities refer to activities that took place during this time period. Questions that do not refer to specific activities, but to general practices (e.g., targeting groups of teachers), apply to the entire 1997-1998 school year. Ten districts in our sample report that they offered no activities over the period from July 1 through December 31, 1997; therefore, analyses in this chapter that apply to particular activities exclude these ten districts, and thus are conducted with a maximum sample of 353 districts.

The probability of a district being selected into our national sample was proportional to the number of teachers in the district. Consequently, all of the results are weighted by the size of the district (i.e., the number of teachers in the district). As a result, our data reflect information according to the percent of teachers in a district. For questions that ask about teacher participation in Eisenhower-assisted activities, we report the number of participations rather than the number of participants. As a rule, districts are unable to determine whether Eisenhower participants attended multiple Eisenhower-assisted activities. Therefore, a single participant may account for more than one "participation."

Organization of Chapter

In this chapter, we examine district "portfolios" of Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities. The mix of professional development activities that a district supports with Eisenhower funds can be viewed in its entirety as a "portfolio" of Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities. Activity portfolios can differ according to the types and range of opportunities offered, as well as according to the structure and substance, or core, of the opportunities.

For example, district portfolios of professional development activities can place more or less emphasis on particular subject areas; they can include several different kinds of activities or be limited to only one or two; and they can place more or less emphasis on strategies that afford teachers the time to learn complex subject matter and to reflect on and practice what they have learned. Taken together, the activities that comprise the portfolios of professional development activities represent a district?s professional development strategy, although the degree to which districts strategically plan their portfolios varies from district to district.

To describe the district Eisenhower portfolio, we divide the chapter into five main sections. The first section examines the subject area focus of Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities. The second section describes districts? patterns of support for "traditional" versus "reform" types of professional development activities, and the other structural and core features of these activities. Workshops and conferences are considered to be "traditional" forms of professional development. Activities that appear to be structured to allow longer duration and greater depth and focus, such as mentoring or committee or task force participation, are considered to be "reform" activities (Little, 1993; Sparks & Loucks-Horsley, 1989). (See Chapter 3 for a detailed discussion of types of activities.) The structural and core features discussed in these sections include the duration of the activity, both in number of contact hours and span of time across days, weeks, or months; collective participation, or the extent to which groups of teachers or whole schools participate together in the activity; and the types of active learning opportunities that the activities provide to teachers. As part of our examination of district portfolios in this section, we also compare Eisenhower-assisted activities in the district to the district?s entire program of professional development.

In the third section of the chapter, we examine district strategies concerning targeting and recruiting teachers into Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities. There is sometimes greater need for professional development for teachers in high-poverty areas, and often district strategies for recruiting these teachers for participation in professional development meet with limited success. In Chapter 3, we showed that teachers from high-poverty schools are only somewhat more likely to participate in Eisenhower-assisted professional development than other teachers. Here we examine district strategies that may explain these participation rates. To address these targeting and participation issues, we focus on: 1) the targeting of Eisenhower-assisted activities toward special populations of teachers, 2) how teachers come to participate in Eisenhower-assisted activities (e.g., whether they volunteer or are selected), and 3) strategies that districts use to increase participation.

Throughout the chapter, we report where the structural and core features of district professional development, and district targeting patterns vary significantly by district poverty level (defined as the number of children living in poverty in the district) and the size of the district (defined as the number of teachers in a district), or both. Differences among variables by size and/or poverty are reported if they are statistically significant at the .05 level. For these analyses, both district poverty and district size are always estimated in the same model, so effects for one always control for the effects of the other. Therefore, any significant size effects are independent of poverty effects, and likewise any significant poverty effects are independent of size effects. Whenever we test for poverty and size differences, we report the findings. If there are significant effects either by district poverty level, by district size, or both, we show this in an exhibit; if the effects of both are insignificant, we report the findings in the text, but do not include an exhibit. Interaction effects between poverty and size are insignificant unless otherwise noted.²

We divide poverty into three levels¾ low (less than 10.9 percent of children in poverty), medium (from 10.9 to 21.4 percent of children in poverty), and high (greater than 21.4 percent of children in poverty).³ District size is divided into four types¾ small (districts with less than 250 teachers), medium (districts with between 250 and 1500 teachers), large (districts with greater than 1500 teachers), and consortia. A consortium is a group of districts, ranging in size from several districts to several hundred districts, which can sometimes comprise a substantial portion of a state. To identify consortium status, we asked each sampled district whether or not the district participated in the Eisenhower program through a consortium. If the district indicated that the district participated through a consortium, we then drew the entire consortium into our sample, and adjusted the probability of the consortium being selected into the sample, based on the full set of member districts. In reporting results, we use "district" to indicate district or consortium, unless otherwise noted.

In the fourth section of the chapter, we summarize and synthesize the findings for district poverty and district size. We discuss how the level of poverty and the number of teachers in a district might affect district Eisenhower portfolios, and targeting and recruiting strategies, and discuss the implications of these findings for the Eisenhower program. The fifth and final section of the chapter summarizes our major findings about district portfolios of Eisenhower-assisted professional development, and discusses implications for district and federal policy.

³ These categories divide the population equally into thirds.

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[Chapter 3 Summary and Conclusions]

[District Portfolios? Emphasis on Mathematics and Science]