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 7

District Management and Operation of Eisenhower-Assisted Activities

We now turn from describing teachers? experiences in Eisenhower-assisted activities to a description of the ways that districts manage and operate their Eisenhower programs. Each district receiving Eisenhower funds generally uses the funds to support a collection of professional development activities. The collection of professional development activities that a district supports with Eisenhower funds can be viewed in its entirety as its "portfolio" of Eisenhower-assisted professional development activities. In our analysis, we examine the factors that influence the quality of the portfolios of professional development activities that districts offer and the extent to which districts engage in efforts to target teachers of high-need students.

The measures we use to characterize the quality of a district?s portfolio of Eisenhower-assisted activities are: (1) the percent of participations in reform types of activities, (2) the average span of time of activities (i.e., number of days, weeks, or months), (3) the number of opportunities for active learning in in-district workshops and institutes, and (4) the degree of collective participation in in-district workshops and institutes.⁸

In assessing district management and operations, we focus on the role of several provisions emphasized in the legislation: (1) the coordination (co-funding) of Eisenhower-assisted activities with other sources of funding for professional development; (2) the alignment of Eisenhower-assisted activities with state and district standards and assessments; (3) the participation of teachers and school-level staff in planning Eisenhower-assisted activities; and (4) the use of a process of continuous improvement, including monitoring progress against measurable objectives and performance indicators.

The Relationship of District Management and Features of Professional Development

In Chapter 5, we report the results of a path analysis of the relationship between these provisions of the legislation and the characteristics of quality professional development that districts provide. The path analysis is based on a national probability sample. Our path analysis of district professional development portfolios (Exhibit 5.11) controlled for district size, poverty level, consortium, and cluster status. We began our analysis of districts by examining co-funding (one aspect of coordination) and alignment. Consistent with the literature on systemic reform (e.g., Fuhrman, 1993; Smith & O'Day, 1991), we find that co-funding Eisenhower professional development activities with other professional development initiatives has important direct and indirect effects on the quality of the Eisenhower-assisted professional development offered by districts. For example, districts that engage in more co-funding of Eisenhower activities with other programs tend to support a greater proportion of reform activities than districts that engage in less co-funding, and they tend to provide more opportunities for collective participation. In addition, districts that engage in more co-funding tend to engage in more extensive continuous improvement efforts, and they tend to involve teachers more widely in planning, both of which are related to increased opportunities for active learning. Alignment of professional development with state and district standards and assessments also has positive effects. Districts that align professional development with standards and assessments are more likely to offer reform types of activities. In addition, these districts are more likely than others to engage in continuous improvement, which is related to increased opportunities for active learning. These results (along with others reported in Chapter 5) lead us to conclude that the intentions of the program concerning strategies such as co-funding, alignment, continuous improvement, and teacher involvement in planning are appropriate, in the sense that they appear to lead to higher-quality professional development.

Thus, through analyses of our data, we find support for the appropriateness of the key provisions of the Eisenhower legislation. Generally, these provisions tend to encourage districts to offer professional development with effective structural and core characteristics, as identified in the literature and supported by our evaluation.

Variation Among Districts in Management and Operations

Given that co-funding, alignment, teacher participation in planning, continuous improvement, and targeting are intended features of the program, and given that our evidence indicates that these strategies generally lead toward higher-quality professional development, we ask to what extent each is being implemented (Chapter 4).

Co-funding and working closely with other federally supported professional development programs (where the programs are available) occur most often with professional development programs that have a mathematics and/or science focus similar to that of the Eisenhower program. Thus, working closely with other programs and co-funding is more likely between the Eisenhower program and National Science Foundation programs than it is with other Department of Education programs. For example, among teachers in districts with an NSF-funded Urban Systemic Initiative (USI) that supports professional development, over 80 percent are in districts where the Eisenhower project co-funds with the USI. Among teachers in districts with Title I, Part A funds, 50 percent are in districts where the Eisenhower project co-funds with Title I.

Most districts report being engaged in efforts to align Eisenhower-assisted professional development with standards and assessments. Alignment is more likely for state standards and assessments than it is for district standards and assessments and more likely for mathematics than science. In addition, Alignment is, however, more likely for standards than for assessments. This may reflect the fact that the ESEA requirement of aligned assessments had not yet gone into effect; alternatively, these results may reflect that districts first establish standards, and then seek to revise their assessments to be aligned with the newly developed standards.

The program intends that teachers participate in planning Eisenhower-assisted activities. Our results indicate that 99 percent of teachers are in districts that report involving teachers in planning professional development. Thus, we conclude that this provision of the law is relatively well-implemented. Still, our case-study data reveal that the Eisenhower legislation's 80/20 rule, calling for at least 80 percent of funds to be used "in a manner that is determined by such teachers and staff" and "to the extent practicable, takes place at the individual school site," is not well-understood and is sometimes not even known to exist. We conclude that this provision of the law could be clarified and given more emphasis in the information provided to projects from the Department of Education and from the states.

Our data suggest that the use of performance indicators to guide the continuous improvement process is not yet widespread in districts that receive Eisenhower funds. Fewer than one in five teachers are in districts that collect data on performance indicators established to guide district professional development efforts. One-third of the teachers are in districts that have developed such indicators. The majority of teachers are in districts whose Eisenhower coordinators are not aware that their state has performance indicators. Clearly, the development of state and district performance indicators is a goal of the program that is not generally being implemented, at least not yet. There are other ways in which districts show some commitment to continuous improvement. Needs assessments through teacher surveys and informal conversations are common. Nearly every district reports evaluating their professional development activities. These evaluations, however, are frequently based on teacher satisfaction surveys or participation counts. It is less common to use observations of teachers? subsequent classroom practice to evaluate the effectiveness of Eisenhower professional development.

Districts report a strong emphasis on recruiting teachers from high-poverty, low-achievement schools, and slightly less emphasis on recruiting teachers from Title I schools. Despite these reported efforts at targeting, and even though districts with larger numbers of high-poverty students receive greater funding, teachers from high-poverty schools are only slightly more likely than others to participate in Eisenhower-funded activities. Apparently, current targeting strategies have limited effectiveness. Perhaps these results are explained, in part, by the fact that most participants in Eisenhower-assisted activities are volunteers and teachers from high-poverty schools are no more or less likely than other teachers to volunteer for professional development. It is possible that districts do not have adequate strategies to shape the incentives and constraints that determine which teachers volunteer.

Differences in Management and Operation of Eisenhower-assisted Activities by District Poverty and Size

Throughout our analyses of district data, we tested to see where the management and operation of Eisenhower-assisted professional development differ significantly according to the district poverty level or the size of the district. All of our analyses simultaneously controlled for size and poverty, so any effects are independent of one another. We also tested for the interaction between these two variables. Of the two variables, district size is much more frequently related to the nature of the Eisenhower professional development provided than is poverty. Generally, larger districts are more likely to provide high-quality professional development than are smaller districts. This is true for features of the activities provided?such as active learning, collective participation, and the span of time over which the activities extend?as well as district management strategies, including alignment with standards and assessments, frequency of co-funded projects, and a commitment to continuous improvement. Also, when several small districts form consortia to deliver Eisenhower professional development, the quality is higher in ways that parallel that for large districts. We speculate that larger districts and consortia have a better infrastructure and greater capacity to provide high-quality professional development. Higher-poverty districts also are more likely to co-fund Eisenhower professional development with other professional development, and they are more likely to be committed to continuous improvement. Large districts and high-poverty districts have a greater variety of funding sources in addition to Eisenhower, increasing opportunities for co-funding, and perhaps creating a complexity that demands a commitment to continuous improvement.

[Teachers' Experiences in Eisenhower-Assisted Activities]

[SAHE-Grantee Management and Operation of Eisenhower-Assisted Activities ]