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

Achieving the Goals: Goal 4 Teacher Professional Development - August 1996

Introduction

Why Professional Development

These are times of considerable promise and challenge for all who work in education. As we approach the 21st century, the nation has come to understand that raising the achievement level of all students, from pre-Kindergarten through adult learners, is essential to America's future economic security and social well-being. States and school districts throughout the nation are busy re-designing their education programs around basic principles of school reform: high content standards and expectations for all students, and authentic measures to determine whether students are achieving. Some are doing this on their own. Others are using funds that the Department provides to States under the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, a voluntary program that Congress established in 1994.

Under Goals 2000, effective state and local reform plans include strategies for enabling teachers to obtain the skills they need to provide high-quality instruction within core academic subjects so that students can meet established performance standards. But, because they are the crucial links between challenging content standards and the students who are to master them, strategies to ensure that teachers have the knowledge and skills needed to do their jobs - in short, high-quality professional development - will need to be a part of any successful school reform strategy, whether based on Goals 2000 or other state or local initiatives. Too often what is ignored in discussions of higher standards for students is the corresponding role that teachers must play. Whatever the school reform initiative, teachers are the core. Therefore, educators must be committed to their profession, and be prepared to deliver first-class standards to an increasingly diverse group of students.

Schools and society have changed dramatically. One need only think of technology to realize just how massive the changes have been. For example, the personal computer was not even invented when most educators went through their preparation programs. In addition, the increasing diversity of American students, the societal changes that have negatively impacted learners and schools, and the growing body of new research on how students learn, makes the need for professional development clear. Doctors respond to scientific and medical advances through continuing education; teachers must be given the same opportunity.

Too often, however, professional development has been handled like a passing fad rather than an integral part of a long-term reform strategy. It has been viewed as a fringe benefit, the first thing to be cut when budgets are tight. Logically, however, we cannot expect teachers to teach to higher standards and to respond to the challenges facing education today, without helping them acquire new knowledge and skills to do so.

Professional Development That Works

But what kind of knowledge and skills? And how should they be taught? The answers to these questions are critical. Every school and district is being asked to demonstrate that it can raise levels of student achievement at a time when resources are harder to find. No one can afford to waste time or money in designing, implementing, and paying for ineffective practice. The twin imperatives of education reform and tight budgets calls for a coherent, comprehensive and innovative approach to professional development.

What is needed is professional development that is dramatically different, not just in content, but also in form of delivery and level of commitment. To begin, professional development should be aligned with student content standards and be designed as a career-long continuum. It must begin with a high-quality teacher education program that attracts talented and diverse candidates, prepares them well, provides them with support during induction, and helps experienced teachers continuously update their knowledge and skills throughout their careers. In other words, it accomplishes the same thing for teachers that we are trying to achieve for students -- lifetime learning. And that learning must move beyond the "sit and get" model of one-shot workshops, conferences, in-service days, and graduate courses that have no connection with the real work of schools. Professional development should be ongoing, intensive, and an integral part of a teacher's regular work day. Activities such as self study, group study, inquiry into practice, action research, and consultation with peers and supervisors are all examples of the new vision of professional development that is being advocated to support reform efforts. In addition, professional development should demonstrate a positive correlation with increased teacher effectiveness and improved student achievement.

Realizing that high-quality professional development must be at the core of any effort to achieve educational excellence, Secretary Richard W. Riley directed a broadly representative team within the U.S. Department of Education to examine the best available research and exemplary practices related to professional development, and work with the field to develop a set of basic principles of high-quality professional development. Out of this national effort conducted during 1994 and 1995 came the following statement of Mission and Principles. They are grounded in the practical wisdom of leading educators across the country about the kind of professional development that, if implemented, maintained, and supported, will have a positive and lasting effect on teaching and learning in America.
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[Goal 4 - Teacher Professional Development]

[Mission and Principles of Professional Development]