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These findings of the National Evaluation of the Eisenhower Professional Development Program have a number of implications for professional development generally and for future Eisenhower legislation and program operations specifically.
First, the program should seek ways to encourage the use of all features of professional development that are related to teacher knowledge and skills, and change in practice. The program should continue emphasizing "sustained and intensive" professional development activities. More specifically, this evaluation suggests that professional development should focus on deepening teachers' content knowledge and knowledge of how students learn particular content, on providing opportunities for active learning, and on encouraging coherence in teachers' professional development experiences. Eisenhower professional development should pursue these goals using activities of greater duration and collective participation. Clearly, there is considerable room to increase the frequency of these attributes of effective professional development in both district and SAHE-grantee activities. While reform professional development is more effective than traditional professional development, the advantage to reform activities is explained primarily by greater duration.
Second, the program should develop additional approaches to targeting teachers in high-poverty schools. While increasing the participation of teachers in high-poverty schools is an important goal of the legislation, current approaches to targeting these teachers are insufficient to achieve this goal.
Third, federal indicators might be improved by specifying more clearly the dimensions of high-quality professional development, focusing on annual improvements rather than absolute levels, and setting higher standards. The federal indicators are not as directive as they might be in specifying the dimensions of high-quality professional development. Our analyses suggest that the federal indicators should guide local practice toward greater emphasis upon content knowledge, active learning, and coherence, and that districts should pursue these attributes of professional development through offering activities of greater duration and with more emphasis upon collective participation. In addition, several of the federal indicators are stated in terms of absolute levels to be achieved by a specified date (e.g., "at least 50 percent of teachers"). It would be better to have indicators stated in terms of the amount of improvement needed annually, until an acceptably high level of performance is reached. Finally, the federal indicators set some standards that are too low. For example, in targeting teachers from high-poverty schools, the standard is simply to exceed the national average. Furthermore, in the targeting indicator, participation in Eisenhower professional development is stated as a dichotomous variable (participate or not), while clearly teachers participate in Eisenhower-supported professional development in varying amounts and types.
Fourth, the program should pay attention to building district capacity to foster continuous improvement efforts. If using data to make decisions is to be a serious endeavor, then districts may need assistance in determining the types of data that would be useful and in interpreting them. We believe local evaluation can be done in ways much stronger than current practice, which relies heavily upon participation counts and teacher satisfaction surveys. We recommend that local evaluation of professional development focus on instruction, by assessing the degree to which the professional development is characterized by well-implemented attributes of high-quality professional development: a focus on content, active learning, and coherence, delivered with sufficient duration and collective participation. Such evaluations might be based on a variety of sources of data, including well-designed surveys of participating teachers, and the observation of teachers to assess the extent to which they have made appropriate changes in their instruction. Although the assessment of student achievement might be used as part of a balanced evaluation of professional development, we suggest that local evaluation efforts should not focus on assessing the effects of professional development on student achievement. There are simply too many intervening variables between professional development experiences and subsequent gains in student achievement to make such studies feasible at the local level. Further, collecting and analyzing high-quality data on gains in student achievement is expensive and requires technical skills that may not be present at the local level. Clearly, there needs to be more research that looks at the relationships between features of professional development and gains in student achievement, but this is better done as a part of well-designed major research studies.
Fifth, more information is needed on the characteristics and conditions that give some districts the capacity to provide high-quality professional development. We have speculated that districts could provide the same types of professional development as do SAHE grantees. There are existence proofs of districts doing exactly that. What we do not know from our analyses is the percentage of districts that have the capacity to provide such professional development. Our analyses indicate that larger districts have greater capacity and, to some extent, so do high-poverty districts. This larger capacity may be explained, in part, by their larger district staff and, in part, by their greater Eisenhower funds. Consortia that tie together several small districts into one unit for providing Eisenhower professional development also seem, on average, more effective than small districts. The issue of district capacity is one that should be closely monitored in future research.
Sixth, districts could increase the quality of the professional development they provide by focusing their Eisenhower money on a small number of teachers, rather than spreading it across a large number of teachers. Not surprisingly, high-quality professional development costs more per participant than does lower quality professional development. Districts may feel a greater responsibility to reach a large number of teachers than do SAHE grantees, and this is reflected in the cost per participant. The question is, should districts continue to spread the money from the Eisenhower program across as many teachers as possible? Or, should they focus the money on a small number of teachers, so that they can provide higher quality, more influential professional development? Our results suggest the money should be focused. This recommendation also interacts with the finding about targeting. More effective targeting might, at the same time, provide a rationale for more focused expenditures.
Seventh, one reason that SAHE-grantee professional development is, on average, of higher quality than district professional development may be that SAHE grantees have to compete for funds. We do not know as much about these SAHE-sponsored competitions as we would like. We find that the majority of SAHE grantees have been receiving Eisenhower support for several years. Still, in all cases, IHE/NPOs interested in Eisenhower support must develop a proposal and have it judged worthy of funding. In contrast, districts receive money from the state educational agency on a formula basis, with no competition. Perhaps having districts compete for funds would push them toward higher quality professional development.
Eighth, there is considerable evidence that, on average, education departments in institutions of higher education provide higher quality professional development than do mathematics and science departments. The one exception is that mathematics/science departments in non-research/doctoral institutions focus more on content knowledge than do education departments. We do not have empirical data on inter-departmental collaboration, but, in our case studies, we did not see much evidence of these two types of departments collaborating and combining their expertise to provide high-quality professional development. Lack of collaboration between education and mathematics/science departments is a well-recognized problem in pre-service teacher education and may be an issue for in-service education, as well.
Ninth, SAHE-grantee projects should be engaging in higher levels of coordination with districts, as called for in the legislation. The evaluation shows that such coordination is related to the provision of high-quality professional development. Therefore, more attention might be paid to supporting and developing opportunities for SAHE grantees to coordinate and work with districts in mutually beneficial ways—ways that allow grantees to exercise their expertise in developing professional development projects while benefiting from district expertise in serving the needs of their teachers and students.
Finally, the evaluation supports the importance of programs that fund professional development activities within specified subject areas. Over the past 15 years, the Eisenhower Professional Development Program has provided continuous support for professional development activities for mathematics and science. This evaluation highlights the importance of the content focus of professional development activities and the role that the Eisenhower program has played in building capacity in these two subjects in school districts. Generic professional development that focuses on teaching techniques without a content focus does not appear to be effective. If the Congress is considering expanding the program, it should consider creating analogous programs in other academic subject areas, rather than eliminating the content focus on mathematics and science.
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