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INSTITUTIONSPONS AGENCYPUB DATENOTEAVAILABLE FROM

PUB TYPEEDRS PRICEDESCRIPTORS

IDENTIFIERS

ABSTRACT

DOCUMENT RESUME

SP 038 685

Bull, Barry; Buechler, MarkLearning Together. Professional Development for BetterSchools.Indiana Univ., Bloomington. Education Policy Center.Indiana State Dept. of Education, Indianapolis.1996-09-00115p.Indiana Education Policy Center, Smith Center for Researchin Education, Suite 170, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN47408-2698; Tel: 812-855-1240; Web site:http://www.indiana.edu/-iepc/welcome.htmlGuides Non-Classroom (055)MF01/PC05 Plus Postage.Administrator Role; Administrators; Boards of Education;Educational Finance; Educational Improvement; EducationalPolicy; Elementary Secondary Education; *FacultyDevelopment; Financial Support; Leadership; StateDepartments of Education; Teacher Collaboration; *TeacherImprovement; Teacher Role; Time Management; Trust(Psychology); UnionsIndiana; School Improvement Teams

This document presents a set of principles for effectiveprofessional development and a series of practical suggestions to helpschools and school districts implement these principles. The document alsoprofiles several Indiana schools and programs that exemplify the type ofschool-based approach to professional development that is so promising.Information comes from a review of research on professional development;discussions with experts nationwide; focus groups with Indiana teachers,principals, and professionals representing other organizations; and a reviewprocess that involved teachers, principals, superintendents, andrepresentatives of educational service centers, professional organizations,and the Indiana Department of Education. Chapter 1 presents "Principles ofEffective Professional Development." Chapter 2 discusses "A Framework forEffective Professional Development" (trust, time, and recognition) . Chapter 3offers "An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development." The actionplan involves identifying the school's improvement needs and priorities;establishing a reservoir of resources; establishing school improvement teams;providing initial support for school improvement teams; operating schoolimprovement teams; maintaining communication and meaningful accountability;and establishing new priorities. Chapter 4 focuses on "Rethinking the Role ofCentral School District Actors: School Boards, Administrators, and Unions"(policy, funding, and assistance). (Contains 27 references.) (SM)

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PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENTFOR BETTER SCHOOLS

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PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE ANDDISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS

BEEN GRANTED BY

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)

U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOffice of Educational Research and Improvement

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

O This document has been reproduced asreceived from the person or organizationoriginating it

O Minor changes have been made toimprove reproduction quality

Points of view or opinions stated in thisdocument do not necessarily representofficial OERI position cr policy

THE INDIANA EDUCATION POLICY CENTER

is a nonpartisan organization that provides research-basedinformation on education issues to legislators, state board members,Indiana Department of Education officials, district administrators,

principals, teachers, and others across the state and nation.

The Center conducts and publishes research on such topics aseducation reform, student assessment, choice, charter schools, funding,

and professional development. A complete list of Centerpublications is available upon request.

The Indiana Education Policy Center is funded by theLilly Endowment Inc. and Indiana University.

IndlanayEducation

Policy Centerat Indiana University

Indiana Education Policy Center, Smith Center for Research in Education, Suite 170, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47408-2698Telephone: (812) 855-1240 Internet: http://www.indiana.edu/iepc/welcome.html

SCOPE OF INTEREST NOTICE

The ERIC Facility has assignedthis document for processingto:

In our judgment, this documentis also of interest to the Clear-inghouses, noted to the right.Indexing should reflect theirspecial points of view.

_LEARNINGft


by Barry Bull and Mark Buechler

Prepared for the Indiana Department of Educationby the Indiana Education Policy Center

This publication is based on work sponsored by theDepartment of Education/State of _Indiana under a personal services contract.

The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views ofthe Department of Education or any other agency

of the State of Indiana.

September 1996

'JJL 4

sPnor

YS:

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Barry Bull is Director of the Indiana Education Policy Center and Professor of Philosophy of Educationand Education Policy Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. He has taught high school English andsocial studies and served as a teacher education specialist for Washington state's Office of the Superinten-dent of Public Instruction, among many other positions.

Mark Buechler is a Research Writer for the Indiana Education Policy Center. He has written a variety ofarticles and reports on topics such as charter schools, performance assessment, and the Indiana educationwork force. He has a Ph.D. in English from Indiana University Bloomington.

© 1996 Indiana Department of Education

5

Graphic Design: Carol BucheriIllustration: Kris HacklemanDesktop Publishing: Sarah Martin

° @OHLYNH`JO 0

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A SUMMARY vii

(glin.PU'Eca 'CI 0

PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 1

Purpose and Content of This Document 2

Overview: Professional Development for Better Schools 3

Principles of Effective Professional Development 4

Conditions for Effective Professional Development 30

(41n,1701312 0

A FRAMEWORK FOR EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 41

Trust: Shared Purposes, Discretion, and MeaningfulAccountability 43

Time: Sufficient, Flexible, and Sustained 45

Recognition: Authorization, Support, and Acknowledgment 46

'FILZ.P41112 Q3.

AN ACTION PLAN FOR EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT .... 51

Identifying the School's Improvement Needs and Priorities 53

Establishing a Reservoir of Resources 61

Establishing the School Improvement Teams 67

Providing Initial Support for the School Improvement Teams 70Operating the School Improvement Teams 74

Maintaining Communication and Meaningful Accountability 78

Establishing New Priorities 80

(g14&,P413E3 °RETHINKING THE ROLE OF CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT ACTORS:SCHOOL BOARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND UNIONS 83

Policy 84

Funding 91

Assistance 96

CONCLUSION 101

REFERENCES 102

6

PRINCIPLES IN PRACTICE

Charles Elementary School 7

Cold Spring Elementary School 17

Lynwood Elementary School 25Marion High School 33The CLASS Program 39Beardsley Elementary School 49Gosport Elementary School 55Harshman Middle School 65Harcourt Elementary School 81

The School on Wheels (Anderson CSC) 87

FIGURES

1: A Framework for Effective Professional Development 422: An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development 523: Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 84

TABLE

Training Procedures and Their Effect on Teachers 11

7

iv

Cg I-XI Cc2=-1- LMD u-'0 0

THE AUTHORS WOULD LIKE TO THANK Phyllis Usher, Assistant Superintendent for the Indiana Depart-ment of Education (IDOE), for helping conceive and support this project. Without her initiative, Learning

Together would never have been produced.

A hearty thanks also goes to the teachers, principals, district administrators, educational service centeradministrators, IDOE personnel, and representatives of professional organizations who attended one of the

focus groups the Center held to discuss the principles of effective professional development. Focus groups

and their members included:

PLANNING GROUP: Steve Heck, Director, Indiana Principal Leadership Academy (IPLA);Norma Kacen, Government Relations National Coordinator, Indiana State Teachers Association;

Gail Pluto, Staff Representative, Indiana Federation of Teachers; Sally Sloan, Staff Representa-

tive, Indiana Federation of Teachers; Phyllis Usher; Assistant Superintendent, IDOE; Ed Wall,

Executive Director, Indiana Association of School Principals; and James Welling, ExecutiveDirector of Elementary Education, Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation.

!DOE Focus GROUP: Scott Bauserman, Service Learning Consultant; Kevin Beardmore,Science Program Coordinator; Linda Cornwell, Educational Consultant; Robert Fallon, Director,Office of Program Development; Donna Long, Director, Office of School and ProfessionalDevelopment; Patricia Shutt, Director, Office of Career and Vocational Education; Marge Simic,

Assistant Director, Title 1; Trish Weiss, Educational Consultant; Carolyn White, EducationalConsultant; and David Wilkinson, Educational Consultant.

PRINCIPALS' FOCUS GROUP: Walter Bourke, Fall Creek Valley Middle School; William Duke,Carmel High School; Myra Dunn, John Beard Elementary School; Jerry Goldsberry, PlainfieldMiddle School; Jacqueline Greenwood, Arlington High School; Sandy Hillman, Lebanon High

School; and Linda Wallace, parent, Arlington High School.

TEACHERS' FOCUS GROUP I (SOUTH BEND): Tom Holzinger; Goshen High School; RoseLeonard, Calumet High School; Terri Little, Knox Middle School; Anne Moudy, Marion HighSchool; June Owen, Iddings Elementary School; Shirley Ross, John Glenn High School; andSally Will, Gavit Middle/High School.

TEACHERS' Focus GROUP II (INDIANAPOLIS): Wanda Bennett, Covington ElementarySchool; Gerrie Bonarrigo, Lawrence Central High School; Pat Eddy, South View ElementarySchool; Jeanette Jones, Daleville High School; Billie Moore, Julian D. Coleman Middle School;

Lee Ann Robinson, Everton Elementary School; Katie Smith, Harcourt Elementary School; andJanice Youngblood, Indian Creek High School.

TEACHERS' Focus GROUP III (OOLITIC): Carrie Burton, Floyd Central Junior/Senior HighSchool; Mark Fletcher; Lawrenceburg High School; Michele Hulse, Castle Junior High School;Nancy Peabody, Shawswick Junior High School; Russ Smith, Shelbyville High School; andDiana Wright, Elberfeld Elementary,School.

g

Several school districts and organizations were kind enough to provide space for focus group meetings:the Indiana Youth Institute, the South Bend Community School Corporation, the Indianapolis LibraryServices Center, and Dol lens Elementary/Oolitic Junior High School in the North Lawrence CommunitySchools.

A number of focus group participants also reviewed an early draft of the document, including teachersBurton, Eddy, Ross, and Smith; principals Duke and Dunn; IPLA Director Heck; IDOE personnelCornwell, Long, and Usher; and professional organization representatives Kacen, Pluta, and Wall. Otherswho reviewed a draft included Ilene Block, Educational Consultant, IDOE; Peggy Ondrovich, Superinten-dent, LaPorte Community School Corporation; Keith Spurgeon, Superintendent, MSD Mount Vernon;Cindy Whalen, Director of Professional Development, Central Indiana Education Service Center; andDonald Warren, University Dean, School of Education, Indiana University. Their suggestions were invalu-able, and many of them were incorporated into the final version of the document.

We would also like to thank the principals of the schools and the directors of the programs profiled inthese pages: Patricia Burton, Principal, Harcourt Elementary School; Debbie Caincross, Principal, Gos-port Elementary School; Marcia Capuano, Principal, Harshman Middle School; Ingrid Carney, AssistantSuperintendent for Human Resources, Anderson Community School Corporation; Phyllis Coe, Principal,Cold Spring Elementary School; Frances Fitzgerald, Principal, Beardsley Elementary School; KristiKnapp, Principal, Charles Elementary School; Jerry McVicker Assistant Principal, Marion High School;Barbara Pedersen, Director, Connecting Learning Assures Successful Students (CLASS); and GaryPellico, Principal, Lynwood Elementary School. They were all gracious enough to discuss their schoolsand programs at length during phone interviews.

Whatever merit this document has is due in large part to the contributions of the educators and adminis-trators named above. Needless to say, they do not necessarily endorse the approaches presented in thedocument.

Finally, a number of Indiana Education Policy Center staffmembers made valuable contributions to thisproject. Gayle Hall, Associate Director, administered the day-to-day details of the project, organized thefocus groups and the review process, and reviewed drafts at every stage of development. Policy AnalystNick Vespei- provided technical assistance. And Lee Krehbiel, Research Associate, and Lisa Gabbert,Administrative Secretary, helped proofread final copy.

9vi

LEA NI TOGETHERPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

FOR BETTER SCHOOLS

0 n. OcoaaRanlau 0

Traditionally, professional development for teachers has consisted of one-shot training workshops deliv-

ered by outside consultants with no follow-up. This document sets forth five principles for a much broader

approach to professional development, one that encompasses research, reflection, discussion, peer coach-ing, collaborative planning and problem solving, and involvement in decision making, along with more

traditional skills training.

PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The following five principles encourage teachers and administrators at each school site to plan and imple-ment professional development activities based on a coherent vision for overall school improvement:

Effective professional development is school based.Effective professional development uses coaching and other follow-up procedures.Effective professional development is collaborative.Effective professional development is embedded in the daily lives of teachers, providing for

continuous growth.Effective professional development focuses on student learning and is evaluated at least in part on

that basis.

CONDITIONS FOR EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Without the proper setting and support, even the best professional development initiatives undertaken by the

most motivated school professionals are in danger of failing. The three most important conditions for

initiating and sustaining professional development are:

Capable, active leadershipPolicy and resource supportAdequate time built into the school schedule

u A Summary vii

ESTABLISHING A FRAMEWORK OF TRUST, TIME, AND RECOGNITION

Implementing the principles of effective professional development may mean making profound changes inthe way schools operate and in the relationships among administrators, teachers, parents, and communitymembers. One framework for enabling schools to make these changes involves trust, time, and recogni-tion:

To foster trust, professional development should be founded on a participatory process ofidentifying concrete needs for school improvement at each school site.

To make time available, each school should place all of its resources for professional develop-ment into a reservoir to be used exclusively to support work on the school's priorities forimprovement.

To provide recognition, each school should appoint teachers and other relevant personnel toteams formally charged with achieving its school improvement priorities.

AN ACTION PLAN

One way to build trust, provide time, and ensure recognition for effective professional developmentinvolves the following seven steps:

STEP

STEP

STEP

STEP

STEP

STEP

STEP

Identify the school's improvement needs and priorities through a process that includes teachers,parents, and administrators and that is formally endorsed by the school board, central office,and union.

Establish a reservoir of resources by consolidating existing professional development funds.

Create school improvement teams, focusing on one or two top priorities that each school hasthe resources to support.

Provide initial support for the teams by exposing them to new concepts of professional devel-opment, providing access to resources, and making adequate time available.

Operate the school improvement teams, using data, research, and outside help, and enablingother teachers in the school to benefit from their work.

Maintain communication and meaningful accountability by reporting to parents, colleagues atthe school, and school district actors.

Establish new priorities by beginning new school improvement projects as old projects winddown and new priorities emerge.

Through this or a related process, schools can build their own capacity to improve student learning.They can adapt continuously to changing social circumstances and public expectations. And they canbecome accountable to the public in truly meaningful ways. In short, they can become centers of continu-ous learning for students and teachers alike. '

viii A Summary11

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PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVEPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS IS CORRECT?

Professional development is usually a waste of time.Professional development is central to the success of education reform in America.

More and more educators these days believe both statements. On the one hand, they agree that profes-sional development as it has been practiced for decadesthat is, occasional workshops conducted byoutside consultants with little or no follow-upis generally ineffective. "Every teacher in America'spublic schools has taken inservice courses, workshops, and training programs," wrote American Federa-tion of Teachers President Albert Shanker in 1990. "But as universal as the practice has been, so is thedisappointment among teachers and management as to the usefulness of most staff development experi-ences."

On the other hand, many teachers also realize that genuine education reform brings a whole new set ofdemands into play. Teachers may be:

assuming leadership roles in schools with site-based management;devising and implementing new curricula and instructional strategies;being held accountable for more rigorous academic standards for all students;using portfolios and performance-based assessments;working with students from different cultures, backgrounds, and ability levels, including studentswith disabilities; andincorporating multimedia, listservs, the World Wide Web, and other technologies into theirclassrooms.

iuL. 2 4 Principles of Effective Professional Development 1

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

Now, teachers aren't magicians. They can't snap their fingersand miraculously begin managing multi-age classrooms or design-ing Web pages. Like doctors, lawyers, business executives, scien-tists, professors . . . in short, like people in every profession whereknowledge advances and new challenges emerge, teachers needopportunities to learn new approaches. And learning obviouslymeans professional development.

So the dilemma is clear. Many teachers want to participate inrigorous professional development activities so they can meethead-on the demands of educating America's youth for the 21stcentury. But too often, current professional development programsprovide neither the kind of learning opportunities that benefitteachers nor the time teachers need to learn successfully. So a newapproach to professional development is called for. What might itlook like, and how might time be made available for teachers toparticipate when their days are already filled with other responsi-bilities?

PURPOSE AND CONTENTOF THIS DOCUMENT

AT THE REQUEST OF THE INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCA

TION (IDOE), the Indiana Education Policy Center has developeda set of principles for effective professional development and aseries of practical suggestions to help schools and school districtsimplement those principles. This document also provides profilesof several Indiana schools and programs that exemplify, in part orwhole, the type of school-based approach to professional develop-ment that is so promising. Preparation for this task included (a) areview of the research on professional development, (b) discus-sions with experts around the country, (c) focus groups withIndiana teachers, principals, and representatives of professionalorganizations, and (d) a review process that involved teachers,principals, superintendents, and representatives of educationalservice centers, professional organizations, and the IDOE.

The principles of effective professional development are setforth in this chapter, along with some conditions necessary for theprinciples to be implemented and sustained. Chapter 2 provides aframework for establishing effective professional development inschools. Chapter 3 describes an action plan for schools. Finally,Chapter 4 addresses the role of school district authoritiesschoolboards, central office administrators, and unionsas responsibilityfor professional development shifts to the school. Complete cita-tions for books and articles mentioned in the text are given in thereference list at the end of the document.

2 Principles of Effective Professional Development

'1 5

OVERVIEWPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

FOR BETTER SCHOOLS

OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, a fairly firm consensus has emergedamong researchers, consultants, and teachers regarding the prin-ciples that drive effective professional development initiatives.One thing almost everyone agrees on is that one-shot workshopsfor teachers are generally ineffective. Instead of occasional, frag-

mented workshops, professional development activi-ties need to include sustained training for teachers,with plenty of opportunities for observation, prac-tice, feedback, coaching, and reflection.

However, skills training for individual teachers,no matter how well designed, may not be enough tofurther the innovations that need to take place in

schools. What is needed goes beyond skills training to organiza-tional development, which involves not just changes in individualteachers' beliefs and abilities but also "improvements in the capac-ity of the organization to solve problems and renew itself," asDennis Sparks, executive director of the National Staff Develop-ment Council, put it in a 1994 article. This means, among otherthings:

SKILLS TRAINING FOR INDIVIDUAL TEACHERS,

NO MATTER HOW WELL DESIGNED, MAY NOT

BE ENOUGH TO FURTHER THE INNOVATIONS

THAT NEED TO TAKE PLACE IN SCHOOLS.

respecting the professional judgment of teachers;encouraging teachers to work together to analyze and solveproblems at the school level, not just at the classroom,team, or department level;modifying school policies and governance structures toensure teacher participation in decisions on professionalgrowth and the mission of the school;cultivating a school culture (the norms, values, and beliefsthat underlie formal operations and help establish aschool's identity) that promotes collaboration, risk-taking,and continuous learning; andactively seeking evidence on the effects of professionaldevelopment effortsparticularly the effects on studentachievementand making appropriate adjustments inresponse to the evidence.

Ultimately, organizational development means transformingschools into "centers of inquiry," in Robert Schaefer's trenchantphrase, that is, centers of continuous learning for students, teach-ers, and administrators alike.


PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVEPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES of effective professional developmentdiscussed in this chapter stem directly from the invitation to alignindividual improvement goals with overall school improvementefforts. The principles are as follows:

Effective professional development is school based.

Effective professional development uses coaching andother follow-up procedures.

Effective professional development is collaborative.

Effective professional development is embedded in thedaily lives of teachers, providing for continuous growth.

Effective professional development focuses on studentlearning and is evaluated at least in part on that basis.

Principle #1Effective professional developmentis school based.

AT PRESENT/ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT is by and large adistrict-level responsibility. Districts administer inservice programsand provide funding for individual teachers to attend workshops

and conferences. Unfortunately, these types ofactivities lend themselves to the smorgasbord effect:

THE IDEA IS TO BRING TEACHERS AND

ADMINISTRATORS AT EACH SCHOOL TOGETHER

TO PLAN AND IMPLEMENT A COHERENT SET

OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES

BASED ON A VISION FOR OVERALL

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT.

one of these, one of those, maybe some of that overthere, with little thought given to how the dishescomplement each other or what will be served thefollowing day.

It may be advisable, therefore, to shift fromdistrict-level professional development initiatives tosite-specific, school-based ones. District initiatives

often do not address the unique challenges, the unique possibilities,and the unique cultures of individual schools. Only teachers,principals, and other professionals at each school are truly capableof doing that.

The idea is to bring teachers and administrators at each schooltogether to plan and implement a coherent set of professionaldevelopment activities based on a vision for overall school im-

4 Principles of Effective Professional Development 17

SCHO L BASED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

..

SHIFTS PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO THE SCHOOL SITE.

4.*Iti

ADDRESSES THE SPECIFIC NEEDS, PROBLEMS, AND POSSIBILITIES OF INDIVIDUAL SCHOOLS.

4"t

MAKES PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PART OF AN OVERALL SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN.

4.,-

INVOLVES TEACHERS IN THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

.`

,

ADDS COHERENCE TO WHAT TOO OFTEN HAS BEEN A GRAB BAG OF PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES.

i ADDS CONTINUITY TO WHAT TOO OFTEN HAS BEEN AN ON-AGAIN, OFF-AGAIN PROCESS.

CONCENTRATES LIMITED RESOURCES WHERE THEY CAN BE OF MOST BENEFIT.

provement. (The process of formulating such a vision is itself aform of professional development.) Professional developmentinitiatives for individual teachers, groups of teachers, and thefaculty as a whole are carefully integrated in support of the overallvision.

One major advantage of this approach is that it gets teachersinvolved in the design of their own professional developmentactivities. Such involvement gives teachers the opportunity to thinkabout and discuss their own strengths and weaknesses, the needs ofthe students, and the direction of the school as a whole. It givesthem ownership of whatever activities they eventually choose topursue. And it helps foster the practice of collaboration in the questfor professional growth and school improvement.

This kind of school-based planning can keep schools fromtaking on too many initiatives at any given time or flitting frominitiative to initiative over time, both of which can lead to fragmen-tation and superficiality. And instead of scattering professionaldevelopment resources so widely that they end up having littlelasting impact on anyone, a school-based approach makes it pos-sible to concentrate resources where they might do considerablegood.

Finally, school-based professional development helps ensurecontinuity in formulating and implementing professional develop-ment activities. Instead of asking each other, "What are they goingto lay on us this year," teachers will be asking, "What can we learnover the next two or three years to help this school improve?"

.REE Principles of Effective Professional Development 5

& A

CI: Some individual workshops I've attended have helped megrow professionally. Does school-based professional developmentmean that I'll have fewer such opportunities?

Not necessarily. Many teachers will go to more workshops, ifthat's what they and their colleagues decide is best for the school.As long as individual growth opportunities are part of a more far-reaching plan for school improvement, they are a welcome

an essentialpart of school-based professional develop-ment. In fact, teachers will probably be joined bycolleagues and engage in follow-up activities, so thatthe techniques they are exposed to at workshops andconferences can be digested, discussed, practiced,revised, mastered, and shared, rather than just filedaway for future use, as is so often the case today.

To be sure, resources are finite and priorities mustbe set, so there's always the chance that certainactivities that are meaningful personally to some

teachers may have to be sacrificed. Such are the risks of shareddecision making, of considering the progress of the entire schoolalong with the progress of individual teachers. But these are notdecisions that will be imposed upon teachers from above; teacherswill help make these decisions based on their own vision forschool improvement.

indeed

As LONG AS INDIVIDUAL GROWTH

OPPORTUNITIES ARE PART OF A MORE FAR

REACHING PLAN FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT,

THEY ARE A WELCOMEINDEED ANESSENTIAL PART OF SCHOOLBASED

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

CP: Some of my best professional development experiences havebeen with colleagues from other schools. Does school-basedprofessional development mean that we'll no longer have theopportunity to share across schools and school districts?

Certainly not. School-based professional development does notrule out individual growth or broader connections among teachersand schools. Rather, all sorts of collaboration from small groupswithin schools to national networksare encouraged, dependingupon the needs of particular schools. If teachers at a school decidethat subject matter expertise is the avenue to school improvement,then active participation of teachers in subject matter networks andprofessional associations would probably be one of the highestpriorities at that school. Similarly, if several schools have the sameconcerns and the same school improvement focus, they can col-laborate in any number of ways, from (Continued on page 9.)

6 Principles of Effective Professional Development , t. 9

THIS GAVE TEACHERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO

HAVE SOME SORT OF STRUCTURED TIME DURING

THE DAY TO GET TOGETHER.

Kann KNAPPPRINCIPAL, CHARLES ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

0 'caElM(gOrr)1[10 Ufl F7C2noCgUng

CHARLES ELEMENTARY SCHOOLWEEKLY TIME FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Corporation: Richmond Community School CorporationPrincipal: Kristi KnappAddress: 2400 Reeveston Road, Richmond, IN 47374Phone: 317-973-3441

By law, elementaryschools in Indiana

must conduct at least 180student instructional daysper school year. Each daymust consist of at least 5hours of instructional time,for a minimum of 900instructional hours peryear. Schools may notdeviate from this schedulewithout a waiver from thestate, even if they compen-sate by providing morethan 900 total hours ofinstruction over the courseof the school year.

One school that hasrequested and receivedsuch a waiver is CharlesElementary School inRichmond. Five years ago,Charles undertook a major

restructuring project. Tohelp the teachers plan andadjust and innovate, theschool adopted a nontradi-tional calendar: extendedinstructional days onMondays, Tuesdays,Thursdays, and Fridaysand a half-day on Wednes-day. "This gave teachersthe opportunity to havesome sort of structuredtime during the day to gettogether," said principalKristi Knapp. They haveused this time for a varietyof collaborative profes-sional developmentactivities, includingplanning, curriculumwriting, theme building,sessions with outsideexperts, and study and

discussion of educationalapproaches and pressingschool problems.

"We bring people inthat we wouldn't normallybe able to without havingto provide substitutes,"said Knapp. "Also, wechanged over to an inclu-sion model for specialeducation, and it was somuch easier because ourteachers were available todo the kind of planningthey needed to do to makethose adjustments."

There's also a moregeneral reward. "It'smore contact time withone another," said Knapp,something that's in shortsupply at most schools.

While teachers worktogether, students have theoption of staying at schoolor going home. "We haveactivities available forstudents," said Knapp. The

local museum works withthe school to provideprograms, as do artsgroups and other commu-nity organizations.

Somewhat surprising-lygiven all the talk thesedays about how busyparents aremany parentswant their kids at home."Some parents haveadjusted their own workweek so that they get tospend time with theirchildren," Knapp said."Some have told us thatbecause they have kids inmiddle schools and highschools that don't followthis schedule, that's theirspecial time with theirelementary children. Andsome grandparents haveadjusted their schedule sothey get to spend timewith the kids."

Overall, Knapp said,"Parents seem to be

1...c Principles of Effective Professional Development 7

overwhelmingly in sup-port of it." This impressionwas confirmed by a surveythe school sent out toparents: 143 parents votedin favor of the scheduleand 10 were opposed.

The local schoolcommittee (Charles is asite-based school), theschool board, and theRichmond EducationAssociation also supportthe schedule, which iswritten into the teachers'contract. But local supportis not enough to secure awaiver. The school mustconvince the 1DOE thatthe non-instructional timeis serving the needs ofstudents, not just of

WE CHANGED OVER TO AN INCLUSION MODEL FOR

SPECIAL EDUCATION, AND IT WAS SO MUCH EASIER BECAUSE

OUR TEACHERS WERE AVAILABLE TO DO THE KIND OF PLANNING

THEY NEEDED TO DO TO MAKE THOSE ADJUSTMENTS.

teachers. "We have todemonstrate that educa-tionally it's sound," Knappsaid, "that it's beneficialfor students and not justfeel-good stuff." Inaddition to the parentsurveys, Charles providesportfolios, test scores, andother data.

So far, the data appar-ently have borne out thevalue of the schedule.


Although the percentageof students from poor andsingle-parent families hasrisen considerably over thepast five yearsthepercentage of students inthe free-lunch programjumped from 4% to 31%,for exampletest scoreshave remained stable."Factoring all those thingsin, we're doing real well,"said Knapp.

21

KRISI'l KNAPP

The annual waiverprocess is demanding,usually requiring anappeal after the initialapplication. That can bediscouraging, Knapp said,but so far it has beenworth the effort. "Teachersneed that time so desper-ately," she said. "It'ssomething everybodyshould be able to do."

mutual visitation to cost-saving purchase of resources administeredby school districts or educational service centers.

The point of school-based professional development is that theneeds of each school, as defined by the staff at that school, play amajor role in determining the form that professional developmentwill take. The school is the starting point for professional develop-ment planning, not a fortress with unbreachable walls.

0: What about outside consultants?

Letting teachers determine their own road to growth does notpreclude the use of outside expertise. It simply means that teachersare involved in selecting the activities and consultants they need,

rather than being forced to sit through sessionsimposed upon them by someone else.

It is true, however, that professional developmentprograms often fail to capitalize on the expertise ofmaster teachers on the staff of most schools. As ateacher in one of the focus groups put it, "You haveto go at least 15 miles away to be considered an

expert." Greater recognition and use of this on-site expertise isencouraged.

But there are plenty of effective consultants out there, andschools may need to capitalize on their expertise as wellas longas it serves the overall professional development and improvementplans of the school.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

OFTEN FAIL TO CAPITALIZE ON THE EXPERTISE

OF MASTER TEACHERS ON THE STAFF OF

MOST SCHOOLS.

0: We are subject to a number of state and district mandates.How do we reconcile those with school-based plans for profes-sional development?

Schools often have to implement reforms that have been passeddown from above. Even these cases, however, need not precludeteacher involvement in professional development. As Sparks andfellow professional development expert Susan Loucks-Horsleywrote in 1990, "When teachers cannot be involved in initial deci-sions regarding staff development (e.g., when it is mandated bystate legislation or when it supports the use of district-wide cur-riculum), their involvement in decisions about the 'hows' and'whens' of implementation can be important to success."

Still, the trend in state policy in Indiana over the past five or sixy4rs has been to decentralize, to offer schools more and more


opportunities for self-determination. The Indiana School AcademicImprovement Program (formerly called Indiana 2000) and FreewaySchools are but two examples. School-based professional develop-ment complements this trend, and state and local officials can takesteps to facilitate such an approach.

Principle #2Effective professional developmentuses coaching and other follow-upprocedures.

- COMPONENTS OF EFFECTIVE TRAINING

tIrt '

*

DURATION: A SERIES OF ACTIVITIES SPACED OVER TIME.

SCHEME: THEORY/DEMONSTRATION/PRACTICE &FEEDBACK/COACHING.

FOLLOW-UP: SOME FORM OF COACHING OR OTHER STRUCTURED INTERACTION AMONGPARTICIPATING TEACHERS.

fi

,

CADRE: A GROUP OF TEACHERS WHO RECEIVE ADDITIONAL TRAINING AND WHO CAN CONTINUETRAINING OTHER TEACHERS WHEN OUTSIDE CONSULTANTS DEPART.

UNDER A SCHOOLBASED APPROACH to professional develop-ment, skills training is no longer considered the single path toteacher growth. However, it will often form a part of a schoolimprovement plan, and when it does, it needs to be conducted inthe most effective manner.

As mentioned several times earlier, single training sessions withno follow-up are largely ineffective. Professional developmentactivities that deploy sessions spaced over time have better results.If skills training is to have any lasting effect on teachers' behaviorin the classroom, however, follow-up procedures, especiallycoaching, are vital.

Bruce Joyce, Beverly Showers, and their colleagues have identi-fied a combination of training procedures that yield impressivechanges in teachers' knowledge, skills, and actual classroombehavior. The procedures, which need not be followed in strictorder, are as follbws:

10 Principles of Effective Professional Development f 2 3

THEORY: lecture, reading, discussion, presentation ofresearch, and other activities for understanding the rationaleunderlying new teaching skills;

DEMONSTRATION: modeling skills (live or on video) soteachers can observe them in action;

PRACTICE AND FEEDBACK: opportunities to practice undersimulated conditions and obtain input on one's progress;and

COACHING: structured assistance, observation, feedback,discussion, and support as teachers begin to incorporatenew skills into their classroom repertoire.

As the table below suggests, the first three procedures haveproven reasonably successful in increasing teachers' knowledgeand skills. Unfortunately, the mere development of new teachingskills does not guarantee they will be used in the classroom. As the

TRAINING PROCEDURES AND THEIR EFFECT ON TEACHERS

TRAINING PROCEDURES

THEORY

THEORY/DEMONSTRATION

THEORY/DEMONSTRATION/PRACTICE & FEEDBACK

*12,RY/P4M9NSTR.oNTION/R4e(oieeftv,,FEEtiii4k/CoAtHING

EFFECT ON TEACHERS (MEASURED BY EFFECT SIZESI

KNOWLEDGE

0.15

0.66

1.31 1.18 0.39

2.71 1.25 1.68

SKILL USE OF SKILL

IN THE CLASSROOM

0.50 0.00

0.86 0.00

a Effect siig.is a statistical caleulatiori used to measure the magnitude of the effect of a :liven procedurein this case, theefrect of various training procedures on teachers' knowledue, skill, and actual use of the skill in the classroom. Techni-cally, el-Met size is the difference between the mean of the experimental and control Ltroups divided by the standarddeviation of the control group. Hence, an effect size of 1.00 means that subjects in the experimental group scored 1standard deviation higher than subjects in the control group.

SOURCE: Adaptedirom Joyce & Showery. 1995. p. 112.

Principles of Effective Professional Development 1 I

third column in the table shows, none of these three procedures,alone or in combination, had any significant effect on teachers' useof the skill in the classroom. However, when coaching is included,significant increases in classroom use occur.

There are two main types of coaching: coaching by experts(trainers, for example) and coaching by peers, that is, givingteachers the opportunity to observe one another, offer feedback and

support, develop curricula together, share lessonsand materials, and discuss ideas and problems.

FOLLOWUP ACTIVITIES ARE AN ESSENTIAL Interestingly, some research suggests that, despitePART OF SUCCESSFUL PROFESSIONAL the greater expertise that trainers bring to the coach-DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS. ing situation, peer coaching may actually be more

effective in changing teachers' behavior than coach-ing by experts. In fact, simply scheduling opportunities for groupsof teachers to interact, even if the interactions do not take the formof classroom observation, may enhance the effectiveness of profes-sional development workshops.

If outside consultants are used, it may also be advisable to forma cadre of especially talented and motivated teachers who receiveadditional training. That way, when the consultants leave, trainingcan continue with teachers now assuming the role of experts.Teachers also tend to be more favorably disposed to training thatcomes from fellow teachers rather than from consultants.

Whatever form they take, follow-up activities are an essentialpart of successful professional development programs. Teachersneed time to absorb new knowledge, practice new techniques,adapt what they have learned to their particular classroom situa-tions, and continue working with experts or peers to consolidategains.

O & A

0: How can peer coaching be more effective than coaching byexperts?

In a small but suggestive study reported in 1986, researcherGeorgea Mohlman Sparks compared the effects of three types ofprofessional development activities on the performance of teach-ers: (a) workshops alone, (b) workshops plus coaching by thetrainer, and (c) workshops plus peer coaching. She found thatteachers in the third group improved more than those who werecoached by experts (and that both improved more than teachers cutadrift after the workshops). Sparks offered three reasons for thisfinding:


25

Teachers rarely get to see one another in action. "Justwatching a colleague teach may have been a powerfullearning experience," she writes.The peer coaches had to analyze the behavior of otherteachers, which may have helped them analyze theirown behavior more accurately.Structured interactions with other teachers may haveled to a heightened sense of trust and esprit de corps.

fa: Some teachers feel uncomfortable when other teachersobserve and comment on their performance. Can teachers benefitfrom forms of peer coaching other than in-class observation andfeedback?

As a matter of fact, in their latest book (published in 1995), Joyceand Showers explain that they no longer include formal feedbackas a component of peer coaching. Too many teachers were tellingthem that when they observed other teachers and offered feedback,they found themselves slipping into the mode of clinical supervi-sion and evaluation, despite their efforts not to do so.

Indeed, Joyce and Showers have now reversed the meaning ofthe word "coach." When one teacher observes another, the coach isno longer the person observing, but the person being observed. Theobserver is learning from the teacher, not scrutinizing his or herperformance for the purpose of offering advice.

Joyce and Showers also redouble their emphasis on other as-pects of peer coaching. "The primary activity of peer-coachingstudy teams," they write, "is the collaborative planning and devel-opment of curriculum and instruction in pursuit of their sharedgoals." So interactions of all different sorts between teachersfrom discussion sessions to sharing of materialsassume as muchimportance as observation.

Now, many schools will not want to throw out feedback entirely,whether from a peer or an expert. If teachers are comfortable beingobserved, and if they understand that no one will be rendering averdict on their abilities, then those sorts of interactions can bequite beneficial as well.

0: What percentage of training funds should be reserved forfollow-up activities?

The National Staff Development Council suggests that as much as50% of training funds be devoted to follow-up activities.


Principle #3

Effective professional developmentis collaborative.

f *

ACTIVITIES THAT PROMOTECOLLABORAMION IN SCHOOLS

d: COMMON PLANNING TIME

o DISCUSSION GROUPS

e PEER STUDY GROUPS

, PEER COACHING

4 COMMITTEES WITH DECISION-MAKING POWER OVERISSUES OF REAL IMPORT

TEACHER INVOLVEMENT IN DESIGNING ANDIMPLEMENTING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES

, LEADERSHIP TEAMS

TEACHER NETWORKS

COMPUTER NETWORKS

AT PRESENT, MOST SCHOOLS are organized in ways that isolateteachers from their peers. Teachers spend most of the day enclosedwithin the walls of their classrooms. When they do interact withother teachers, it is too often on the most superficial level, over aquick sandwich during a half-hour lunch break, before they're offto their own classrooms again.

However, professional development, like school improvement ingeneral, works best as collaborative effort. Each school needs tobecome a community in which teachers have structured opportuni-ties to participate in decision making, see each other in action,solve problems together, and share ideas in an atmosphere ofmutual trust and respect. Even the most motivated individualteachers are unlikely to sustain innovations in their own class-


rooms without the support and participation of colleagues. Theschool as a whole is even less likely to improve without productiveinteractions among all, or at least most, teachers.

Unfortunately, breaking down isolation and fostering genuinecollaboration is never easy. Norms of isolation run deep in manyschools. As Michael Fullan, Dean of Education at the University ofToronto, pointed out in a 1990 article, "One person's isolation isanother person's autonomy; one person's collaboration is anotherperson's conspiracy." Teachers may cherish their solitude becauseit gives them a territory to call their own, provides them with anopportunity to get work done, or shields them from unwantedscrutiny. Researchers Andy Hargreaves and Ruth Dawe havecautioned against what they call "contrived collegiality," in whichsuperficial forms of collaboration are imposed by administratorsupon a school culture that is still isolationist at heart. Schools needto foster genuine collaboration that stems from a commitment toshared goals and a recognition of the necessity to work together toachieve them.

The first step in fostering such collaboration might be arrangingfor common planning time for grade-level teachers to share lessonsor develop a team-taught unit. It might begin with a group oflike-minded teachers who read an article or book in common and gettogether to discuss it. It might start through the formation of smallcommittees with real decision-making power on important issues,such as how to spend school-improvement award money or how tocoordinate curriculum across grades. It might be spurred by anattempt to discuss a genuine educational issue at a faculty meeting,

instead of the usual administrative minutia. It mightrequire bolder steps, such as adding an extra periodto the day for collaborative professional develop-ment efforts, as has happened at Marion High School(see profile on pages 33-34).

Two types of collaborative activity mentionedearlier have shown particular promise in encouragingteachers to work productively together, especially ifthey are invited rather than forced to participate:(a) teacher involvement in designing and implement-

ing professional development and (b) peer coaching. Teachers andadministrators may also profit from learning skills that promotecollaboration: group facilitation, conflict management, and thelike.

Whatever course of action is taken at a particular school, theimportant thing is for school leaders (both principals and teachers)to acknowledge the significance of collaborative work, take stepsto overcome isolation, and nurture the relationships that begin to

THE IMPORTANT THING IS FOR SCHOOL

LEADERS (BOTH PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS)

TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF

COLLABORATIVE WORK, TAKE STEPS TO

OVERCOME ISOLATION, AND NURTURE

THE RELATIONSHIPS THAT BEGIN

TO FORM

IL 2 Principles of Effective Professional Development 15

form. Genuine collaboration is not easy, but as many of the schoolsprofiled in these pages demonstrate, it is possible, and it is fruitful.

Although collaboration within individual schools is essential toschool-based professional development, teachers can also benefitfrom collaboration that extends beyond school boundaries. Onewell-regarded form of collaboration is the collegial network,through which groups of teachers from across the district, state, ornation join together in studying, developing, implementing, and

discussing new approaches, often working togetherwith university faculty members and representatives

THE EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNET of the private sector. Some networks, such as theMAKES CORRESPONDENCE AMONG TEACHERS National Writing Project, the Collaboratives forFAR REMOVED FROM ONE ANOTHER MUCH Humanities and the Arts (CHART), and the UrbanFASTER AND EASIER THAN Mathematics Collaboratives, are devoted to subjectEVER BEFORE, matter content and the instructional strategies that

accompany such content. Others, such as the Coali-tion of Essential Schools and the Foxfire Teacher Outreach Net-work, focus on particular educational philosophies or instructionalmethods. Members of collegial networks attend conferences,publish newsletters, and exchange information through correspon-dence and computer networks.

The evolution of the Internet makes correspondence amongteachers far removed from one another much faster and easier thanever before, whether it's part of an established teacher network ornot. Through listservs, newsgroups, and other formats, users caninteract with hundreds or thousands of experts and peers from allover the world at the touch of a button, asking questions, sharingexperiences, discussing issues. According to a 1992 article byNational Education Association researchers Gary Watts and ShariCastle, such networks can "reduce . . . teacher isolation by buildingcommunities of learners without regard to location."

42 lit A

CI: Should we address the issue of interpersonal relationships atour school before we begin collaborating?

There's no need to deal with interpersonal relationships outside thecontext of collaborative professional development activities. Theideal approach is to set the school improvement process in motionand address interpersonal problems if they arise. Addressing suchproblems may involve the mediation of a trusted leader within theschool or an external facilitator or change agent from without.

(Continued on page 19.)


DON'T BELIEVE FOLKS CAN DO WHAT THEY

NEED TO DO IN THE CLASSROOM IF THEY DON'T GETOUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM.

PHYLLIS COEPRINCIPAL, COLD SPRING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

0 c-,loagopape, C;Dan.,gifo2

COLD SPRING ELEMENTARYSCHOOL

AND THE INDIANA CENTERFOR COLLABORATIVE EDUCATION

Corporation: Indianapolis Public SchoolsPrincipal: Phyllis CoeAddress: 3650 Cold Spring Road, Indianapolis, IN 46222Phone: 317-226-4155

Lke teachers in only ahandful of other

Indiana schools, teachersat Cold Spring Elementaryin Indianapolis had theopportunity to discusswhat they wanted theirschool to be like before itever opened.

"One of the reasonswhy the school is soexcellentby that I meaneverybody seems to be onthe same page, focused onthe same philosophy andmissionis because thecore of teachers started offtogether, and they had thetime to come together andplan and write curricu-

Ituri," said Cold Springprincipal Phyllis Coe.Thanks to a federalMagnet Options grant,teachers were paid astipend to begin planningsix months before theschool opened in 1990.They also received train-ing in the democraticprocess at the Institute forDemocracy in Ohio.

The grant continued tosupport professionaldevelopment effortsthrough the first threeyears of the school's life.Some of these fundsprovided release time soteachers could visit other

schools, attend confer-ences, or meet during theschool day. Most of thefunding was used, how-ever, to pay teachersstipends to work togetherfor five and a half hoursper week outside ofregular class hours.

After the federal moneydried up, Cold Springvigorously pursued othergrants to fund professionaldevelopment activities. ARe:Learning grant enabledteachers to participate inTREK sessions, includingan intensive week-longsession over the summerand follow-up activitieswith partner schools. Agrant from the Indiana-polis-based C.L.A.S.Sorganization (CommunityLeaders Allied for Supe-

rior Schools) supportedteachers' participation inSPARCS training andfollow-up activities withan advisor. In fact, severalCold Spring teachers havethemselves becomeadvisors for SPARCS, aprogram based on Piaget'sdevelopmental levels oflearning. "The amount ofprofessional traininginvested in by staff hasempowered the teachers tobecome teachers ofteachers," said Coe.

An Indiana 2000 grant,a restructuring-with-technology grant, and IPSstaff development moneyhave covered additionalprofessional developmentopportunities.

Finally, Cold Springwas one of five Indiana


schools who togetherreceived a $50,000 grantfrom the Center forCollaborative Education inNew York to help establishthe Indiana Center forCollaborative Education.The other four schools areGosport Elementary,Indian Creek Elementary(Lawrence Township),Maplewood Elementary(Connersville), and Har-mony School (a privateschool in Bloomington)."The purpose is to bringschools together to haveconversations aroundcommon beliefs aboutwhat should occur in theclassroom, what shouldoccur in teaching andlearning," said Coe. Theconversation centers on

THE AMOUNT OF PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

INVESTED IN BY STAFF HAS EMPOWERED THE TEACHERS

TO BECOME TEACHERS OF TEACHERS.

....PHYLLIS COE

the nine common prin-ciples championed by theCoalition for EssentialSchools (which is alsoinvolved in the Re:Learn-ing effort).

Each of the five schoolsdoes a "climate audit," anintense self-examinationof educational philosophyand practice involving allstaff members. Then teamsof teachers, students,parents, and communitymembers from each


school visit all the otherschoolsduring schoolhoursand compare whatthey see with the way theschools have describedthemselves. So eachschool benefits in threeways: from self-scrutiny,from scrutiny by teamsfrom four other schools,and from the opportunityto observe these schools inaction.

According to Coe,ongoing professional

31

development will continueto be a top priority at theschool. "I don't believefolks can do what theyneed to do in the class-room if they don't getoutside of the classroom,"she said. "The philosophyof lifelong learning is aliveand well and modeled bythe teachers and passed onto the students here atCold Spring School."

CI: Won't collaboration require a large degree of trust amongteachers, administrators, and parents?

The issue of trust loomed large in all three of the focus groupswith teachers. Teachers have to trust administrators to offer contin-ued support for their efforts, not change direction every year orreassert authority in areas they had promised to entrust to teachers.Teachers have to earn the trust of parents, who sometimes feel thatunless teachers are in the classroom, they're not doing their job."The public needs to understand better why we need professionaldevelopment," said one teacher.

Perhaps most importantly, teachers have to trust each other to becoaches and fellow travelers, not judges. "You've got to trust thatperson, trust the feedback," said one. "You must take the fearelement out of it," said another.

Ultimately, said a third, "Teachers have to believe that theirvision will be realized," and this belief is built in large measure onthe trust people have in each other's integrity and commitment.Like collaboration, trust must be nurtured step by step and rein-forced constantly by leaders at the school and district level.

ta: How do we gain the trust of parents?

The most effective way to gain the trust of parents is to communi-cate with themthrough personal conversations, school newslet-ters, articles in the township weekly, public meetings, and so forth.Let parents know what changes are under consideration and solicit

their feedback. Teachers and administrators in manyschools have successfully made the following case to

TRUST MUST BE NURTURED STEP BY STEP parents that professional development is vital:AND REINFORCED CONSTANTLY BY LEADERS

AT THE SCHOOL AND DISTRICT LEVEL.Doctors, lawyers, engineersindeed, people in

every professionhave to retool constantly to keepup with changing times and expanding knowledge.

Parents wouldn't want a surgeon who got his or her medical degreein the 1960s and hadn't learned anything since to operate on theirchild. It's the same with their child's teachers:

Considerable advances have been made in technology,in instructional strategies, and in the knowledge ofhow children learn; teachers need to bring thoseadvances to bear in the classroom.

Significant changes have taken place in the studentpopulation; teachers need to respond to those changes.

3Z Principles of Effective Professional Development 19

New demands have been placed on schools and onfuture workers; teachers need to help children besmarter than ever to compete in the economy of the2 1 st century.

The only way teachers can do the above is by continuing tolearn. Occasionally they may have to leave the classroom to ob-serve other teachers or to attend a series of workshops. But theschool has made arrangements for children to continue learningwhile their regular classroom teacher is gone. And the advancesteachers make in their intellectual growth ultimately will benefitchi ldren.

ta: Can you tell me in a little more detail about computernetworks?

This isn't the place to go into a detailed explanation of the Internet.To give some indication of its potential for linking teachers elec-tronically, however, one particularly promising aspect for teach-ersthe listservis described below.

A listserv is a computer program that automatically manages anelectronic mailing list (e-mail for short). Once someone subscribes(by e-mailing a short message to the listserv's computer), any e-mail message sent to the mailing list address automatically goes toeveryone else who is subscribedand that may be hundreds oreven thousands of people around the world. Any e-mail messageany other subscriber sends to the list automatically appears ineveryone else's mailbox as well. It is a marvelousand rapidmeans for people with common interests to share information andideas. What's more, listservs do not charge for their services.

A brief search for listservs of interest to K-12 teachers yieldssites that focus on art education, at-risk children, early childhoodeducation, geography education, music education, science educa-tion, social studies, teachers of English as a second language, anddozens of other topics of direct interest to teachers.

20 Principles of Effective Professional Development:

3

Principle #4Effective professional developmentis embedded in the daily lives ofteachers, providing for continuousgrowth.

CONVINUOIPS LEARNING FOR TEACHERS-,,/A4 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDS TO BE SCHEDULED APPROPRIATELY IN THE SCHOOL DAY

t AND YEAR OF TEACHERS.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDS TO BE ONGOING.4

LAI PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDS TO BE INSTITUTIONALIZED IN SCHOOL DISTRICT POLICIES

AND BUDGETS AND IN SCHOOL PROCEDURES.

41:47

'.e

TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS MUST DEVELOP AN ETHOS OF INQUIRY, CONSTANTLY

REFLECTING ON THEIR OWN PRACTICE, SEEKING NEW KNOWLEDGE, SOLVING PROBLEMS, TRYING

NEW APPROACHES, AND ASSESSING THE RESULTS.

417 42 SCHOOLS MUST PROVIDE ADEQUATE TIME AND RESOURCES FOR EXTENDED LEARNING

OPPORTUNITIES FOR TEACHERS, INCLUDING MULTIPLE WORKSHOPS, PEER COACHING,

DISCUSSION, AND RESEARCH.

A NEW CONCEPT OF THE PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEE is emerging insome American business corporations. As layers of middle man-agement evaporate, many frontline workers are being given moredecision-making authority along with more responsibility forresults. Workers accustomed to performing a single task over andover again for years may now be working in teams, making sched-ules, solving problems, and monitoring results.

Of course, this approach requires continuous training and re-training for workers. "High-performance work organizationsrequire very large corporate investments in continuing educationand training," wrote Ray Marshall and Marc Tucker in Thinkingfor a Living (1992). "The successful firm is the firm that organizesitself as a learning system in which every part is designed topromote and accelerate both individual learning and collectivelearningand to put that learning to productive use." The Saturncompany, for example, provided its original employees with morethan 400 hours of training over their first few months, and every


employee is still expected to devote at least 92 hours to trainingevery yearalmost 5% of their total hours, year after year.

If continuous learning is important for workers in organizationsthat deal in things (such as cars or refrigerators), it is surely evenmore important for workers in organizations that deal in knowl-edge, especially for teachers in schools.

However, teachers aren't required to learn continuously in anysignificant way; indeed, most do not even have the opportunity todo so. Indiana teachers do have to take six hours of approvedcollege coursework (typically two courses) every five years or theequivalent in certification renewal units to renew their teaching

licenses, and they generally get small salary in-creases for progress toward graduate degrees. Insome districts, they may attend a day or two ofinservice training each year. If funding and releasetime are available, a few may have the opportunity toattend an occasional workshop. For the most part,

however, it is a catch-as-catch-can system, left largely to themotivation of individual teachers. Considering that teachers spend25 to 30 hours a week in their classrooms, and many more hourspreparing and grading, it is a wonder that they have the energy,much less the time, to continue learning.

If school improvement is to have any chance of success, thepatchwork nature of professional development will have to change.Continuous learning opportunities must become part of teachers'everyday working lives and part of every school's institutionalpriorities. Administrators and teachers will have to develop anethos of inquiry:

IF THE ADULTS IN A SCHOOL AREN'T EXCITED

ABOUT LEARNING, THE STUDENTS AREN'T

LIKELY TO BE VERY EXCITED EITHER.

EXAMINING their own practices and trying new ones;

LEARNING about subject matter, instructional methods, andstudent development;

QUESTIONING what they learn in light of their own experi-ence;

THINKING deeply about overall school improvement; and

WORKING TOGETHER to enact that improvement.

As professional development experts Bruce Joyce, James Wolf,and Emily Calhoun put it in their 1993 book, The Self RenewingSchool, "Teachers become reflective practitioners who continuallyexpand their repertoire of tools and study the effects of thesestrategies on students." In fact, teachers are being encouraged tobecome researchers in their own right: "to act not only as consum-ers of research but also as critics and producers of researchto be

22 Principles of Effective Professional Development ')

participants in a more visible and consequential manner," asUniversity of California-Berkeley professor Judith Warren Littlewrote in 1993.

Teachers become visible not just to each other, but to students aswell. If the adults in a school aren't excited about learning, thestudents aren't likely to be very excited either. But if the adults aretaking risks, striving to grow, and working together to solve prob-lems, students will be more inclined to do the same. They justmight begin to understand that learning isn't something one does topass a test or get a diploma; it is a way to live.

CI Art A

as Is it practical to call for continuous learning, given thealready unrelenting demands on teachers' time?

In most schools, changes will have to be made to carve out time inteachers' schedules for the types of learning activities proposedhere. In the section on time at the end of this chapter (pages 32, 35-37) and in chapters 3 and 4, specific suggestions are offered to helpmake that possible.

Ce: Most teachers are intrinsically motivated to keep learning,but shouldn't there be some external rewards for professionalgrowth as well?

According to many teachers in the focus groups, what teacherswant for their professional development efforts, more than any-thing else, is recognition and respect: some form of acknowledg-ment from school or school district administrators that the workthey are doing is valuable. "It's not so much money that we wantas it is time and appreciation," said one participant. "Just treatteachers as professionals." Even little things, like providing a mealwhen teachers attend an evening session, can let them know thattheir efforts are appreciated.

Now, there are programs in Indiana where teachers receivematerial awards for continued learning. In the Penn-Harris-Madi-son School Corporation, for example, teachers accumulate pointsfor training, practicing new skills, and incorporating the skills intotheir classroom repertoire. The points can be redeemed for stipendsor the equivalent in professional development expenses. In otherdistricts, teachers who complete a computer training program getto keep the computers.

3E; Principles of Effective Professional Development 23

But the greatest incentive would be to build time for qualityprofessional development into teachers' workdays and to recognizeteachers publicly for their professional development efforts. Thiskind of commitment to continued learning and school improve-ment legitimizes professional learning in both teachers' and par-ents' eyes.

a: What are some ways teachers can become researchers?

One form of teacher research is called action research, defined in a1993 article by Emily Calhoun as disciplined inquiry conducted byteachers and administrators in an effort to improve the performanceof schools. As action researchers, individual teachers, groups ofteachers, or entire faculties:

DIAGNOSE problems in student learning or overall schoolperformance;

SEARCH for solutions (e.g., new teaching strategies), seek-ing information and technical assistance from the literatureor from outside experts such as university personnel;

TRY OUT promising possibilities in the classroom;

MONITOR the results of the new approaches; and

Discuss the results with each other, with outside experts,with parents, even with students.

If the new teaching strategy is not having the desired effects,teachers can modify it or try something else and begin the cycleagain.

Teachers at some of the Indiana schools profiled in these pagesare conducting action research on reforms at their schools. Indi-vidual teachers at other Indiana schools are also conducting actionresearch on their own, and some have already published theirresults.

According to many who have studied action research, this formof inquiry can revitalize a school, especially if done collaborative-ly. It can instill habits of reflection, problem solving, and collegial-ity among teachers. It can enhance teacher professionalism andmorale by giving teachers the satisfaction of actively producingknowledge rather than passively consuming it. Andto emphasizethis point againaction research can serve as a model for students,as they see their teachers taking risks, working together to solveproblems, and learning continuously. (Continued on page 27.)


AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS NEW WAY

OF DOING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT BECAUSE IT'S

A WINNWIN SITUATION FOR EVERYBODY: THE TEACHERS AND

ADMINISTRATORS, THE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND PROFESSORS,

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, THE STUDENTS.

PELLICO

PRINCIPAL, LYNWOOD ELEMENTARY

EaDIMOITDIE0 nrin E1.6:VO(n

LYNWOOD ELEMENTARY SCHOOLBEYOND THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SCHOOL

Corporation: MSD Decatur TownshipPrincipal: Gary PellicoAddress: 4640 Sante Fe Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46241

Phone: 317-243-7559

Aprofessional devel-opment school is an

elementary or secondaryschool where teachers anduniversity professors worktogether to train teachereducation students fromthe university, try outinnovations in the class-room, and conduct re-search. Lynwood Elemen-tary School and MSDDecatur Township areworking together with theUniversity of Indianapolis(U of I) to create profes-sional developmentschools that meet theneeds of both learningcommunities.

At the school wherehe was principal beforecoming to Lynwood, Gary

Pellico and U of I profes-sor Nancy Steffel hadworked together on aprofessional developmentschool project of sorts."Nancy would haveprojects for her students,"Pellico said, "and theywould come in to ourschool and do theirprojects. I would also haveprojects that 1 wanted tohave done with ourstudents, and we would dothose projects and theuniversity students wouldparticipate. In addition,our staff would go over tothe university for profes-sional developmentopportunities on ourprofessional developmentor PBA half-days."

Lynwood's currentcollaboration with U of Igoes beyond this kind of aproject. "That was the oldmodel," Pellico said."What we've created herewith the help and supportof both our institutions is aproject coordinatedthrough similar goals andphilosophies. Our goalwas to help teachers makechanges in what they doevery day in the class-room. The universitystudents as well as theirprofessors are in theclassroom on a regularbasis with our teachers.All of us are growingtogether, with the bottomline being the improve-ment of instruction for ourstudents."

The professionaldevelopment focus atLynwood during the 1995-96 school year was

literacy, with an emphasison literature-based readingstrategies and the reading/writing process. A steeringcommittee composed ofthe dean of the U of ICollege of Education, U ofI professors, and MSDDecatur Township admin-istrators and teachers metseveral times to helpdesign the program, whichmet both the university'sneed for preserviceteachers to work in realschool settings and theschool district's need toalign instruction withcurriculum.

During the fall semes-ter, 13 of Lynwood's 35(FTE) teachers signedup for a three-hour grad-uate course on literacy,which was taught on siteduring the school day byU of I professor MaryLynn Woods. (A second


section of the course wasoffered to other teachersfrom the district and otherdistricts in the evening.)Meanwhile, Steffel wasconducting her under-graduate methods courseon site at Lynwood.

While the Lynwoodteachers were attendingthe graduate course, theundergraduates subbed forthem, under the supervi-sion of Steffel and RickBreault (another U of Iprofessor). Both Steffeland Breault becameknown throughout thebuilding and worked withalmost every teacher thereat some point during theyear. They also attendedand presented at staffmeetings. The preserviceteachers, who weredistrict-approved substi-tute teachers (but were notpaid), also became in-volved in various activitiesaround the school throughcommunity service time.

Between meetings ofthe graduate class,Woods was available forfollow-up training. "Afterwe talked about strategiesin class, the professorwould then demonstrateand model those strategiesin teachers' classrooms,"

AFTER WE TALKED ABOUT STRATEGIES IN CLASS,

THE PROFESSOR WOULD THEN DEMONSTRATE AND MODEL

THOSE STRATEGIES IN TEACHERS' CLASSROOMS.

said Pellico. "In this way,we could see the strategiesput into place with ourown students. And theprofessor could also bewith the teachers in theclassroom to providefeedback and clarificationas well as see firsthandhow the strategies wereworking."

A side benefit was thepeer coaching that devel-oped. "Teachers would goback and talk with eachother and other colleaguesabout how the strategiesworked," said Pellico."This was a great way ofreinforcing and encourag-ing people to take risks.Teachers felt supportedand could get immediatefeedback."

During the secondsemester the two sessionsof the graduate coursewere combined into afollow-up three hourcourse on literacy, whichwas offered in the evening.


The class broke into smallstudy groups, each focus-ing on a particular idea orapproach that interestedthem. The goal of eachgroup was to put togethera notebook that showedothers how a literature-based approach might beimplemented in theclassroom.

"I am very excitedabout this new way ofdoing professional devel-opment," said Pellico,"because it's a win-winsituation for everybody:the teachers and adminis-trators, the universitystudents and professors,and most importantly, thestudents." The Lynwoodteachers were given re-lease time and graduatecredit for study, demon-stration, practice, feed-back, coaching, anddiscussion right in theirown school. The design ofthe project was all basedon identified district and

39

GARY PELLICO

university priorities. TheU of I education studentsgot practical experience.The U of I professors wereable to reconnect theirteaching to the dailyexigencies of actual publicschool practice and tailortheir lessons accordingly.And Lynwood students arebeneficiaries of newteaching strategies put intopractice by teachers whohave learned how to usethem. What's more, theprogram cost little morethan classroom space atthe elementary school forthe courses to be taught.

"This program has justfar outdistanced the dreamthat we had for it," saidPellico. "I see a differencein our instructionalpractices on a daily basis.It has just been wonderfulto see the difference we'remaking in kids."

Principle #5Effective professional developmentfocuses on student performance andis evaluated at least in part on thatbasis.

EVALUATION OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

EVALUATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SCHOOL REFORM SHOULD:

DOCUMENT EFFECTS ON STUDENT PERFORMANCE.

DOCUMENT EFFECTS ON TEACHERS.

BEGIN IN THE EARLY STAGES OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND CONTINUE AFTER THE

ACTIVITY HAS ENDED.

PROVIDE CONTINUOUS FEEDBACK TO TEACHERS.

USE A VARIETY OF DATA SOURCES SUCH AS ACHIEVEMENT TEST SCORES, STUDENT PORTFOLIOS,

QUESTIONNAIRES, INTERVIEWS, AND SURVEYS.

ALL THE RHETORIC ABOUT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT andschool improvement, all the theories about program design andpeer coaching, all the action research and collaboration in theworld ultimately give way to a single question: Is professionaldevelopment working?

To be more specific: Is professional development reinvigoratingteachers? Is it expanding their repertoire and improving theirability to teach? Is it leading to new roles and responsibilities forteachers within the school organization? Is it contributing to aricher, more positive school culture?

Most importantly, is professional development leadingto improved student performance?

Unless student performance improves, professional developmentcannot be considered a complete success.

The only way to answer these questions with rigor is to conductsome sort of evaluationnot simply the standard five-point scale

4 0Principles of Effective Professional Development 27

questionnaire used after so many inservice sessions, asking partici-pants if the speaker was interesting and the visual aids useful, but amultifaceted, long-term evaluation that examines professionaldevelopment in some depth and tries to determine its effects onteachers and students.

The most helpful evaluations begin early in the professionaldevelopment planning process and continue after the particular

professional development activity is completed,serving two related purposes: (1) they help informand improve the implementation process, and (2)they document effects, particularly on students.

Not only do evaluations provide invaluablefeedback for teachers, but they may also help con-vince skeptical parents and school boards thatprofessional development is more than just a vaca-tion from the classroom. The promise of a rigorousevaluation that focuses on student performance says,

"We are not simply interested in our own growth. We are inter-ested, as always, in the growth of children's minds. And we intendto provide concrete evidence that our new approach is helpingthem learn more. If the evidence suggests otherwise, then we willalter or abandon our approach, using what we've learned in ourongoing attempts to improve the education children are receiving."

NOT ONLY DO EVALUATIONS PROVIDE

INVALUABLE FEEDBACK FOR TEACHERS, BUT

THEY MAY ALSO HELP CONVINCE SKEPTICAL

PARENTS AND SCHOOL BOARDS THAT

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IS MORE

THAN JUST A VACATION FROM

THE CLASSROOM.

aft A

Ch How in-depth should an evaluation be?

An ideal evaluation would include baseline data on students (e.g.,test scores, grades, attendance rates, discipline referrals), teachers(e.g., current knowledge and teaching skills), and the school as awhole (e.g., policies, procedures, role of teachers in decisionmaking, degree of collaboration among teachers). It would gatherdata on the implementation process, such as teacher involvement,types of training, and extent of follow-up. It would assess changesin teacher behavior and in the operation of the entire school. Mostimportantly, an evaluation would attempt to determine if studentperformance (e.g., achievement, discipline, attendance, etc.) hadimproved. This kind of in-depth evaluation would require the useof many different sources, such as questionnaires, observations,school records, achievement tests, and student portfolios.

Now, very few schools have the time, money, or technicalexpertise to conduct an evaluation of this sort, particularly when


41

whole schools are involved rather than just a handful of teachers.Indeed, systematic evaluation is the one component that seems tobe missing even in the Indiana schools with the best professionaldevelopment programs.

Still, some sort of evaluation process that (a) provides continu-ous feedback to teachers, (b) uses data, and (c) focuses in part onstudent outcomes is important to the success of professional devel-opment activities, especially if the evaluation is conducted by theteachers themselves. Indeed, involvement in an evaluation servesas another opportunity for observation, reflection, and self-analy-sis. At the very least, school professionals need to begin thinkingin terms of results when they begin framing professional develop-ment proposals. Instead of buying into reform ideas because theysound exciting, teachers need to ask up front how they will im-prove student achievement and how that improvement could bedemonstrated.

Ca: What if we evaluate our professional development and findout that it isn't working very well? Will we be penalized?

No one should ever be penalized for taking risks to improve learn-ing opportunities for students. As a teacher in one of the focusgroups said, "If you try something and it doesn't work, thereshouldn't be repercussions. It shouldn't be a negative thing. Failureprovides valuable information too." That's exactly right: failed

attempts at reform can advance our knowledge ofwhat works and what doesn't work in schools as

No ONE SHOULD EVER BE PENALIZED surely as successful ones do.FOR TAKING RISKS TO IMPROVE LEARNING According to an oft-cited 1982 article by JudithOPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS. Warren Little, one of the hallmarks of a successful

school is precisely a commitment to risk-taking andcontinuous improvement. Teachers in such schools regularlyexamine their teaching, try new practices, and evaluate the results.And they are confident that, succeed or fail, they will be supportedby colleagues and the administration. Nothing could kill this spiritof risk-taking faster than punishing pioneers if their efforts are notimmediately successful.

Given a positive approach to evaluationfor helping answerquestions and guide practice, not for meting out punishmentalmost all of the teachers in the focus groups approved of evalua-tion in professional development. As one said, "By evaluating, youmake professional development work."


CONDITIONS FOR EFFECTIVEPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

WITHOUT THE PROPER SETTING AND SUPPORT, even the bestprofessional development initiatives undertaken by the brightestand most motivated school professionals are in danger of witheringon the vine. On the other hand, in a school where the principal is astrong advocate of continuous learning, where district policies andresources support school improvement efforts, and where time isbuilt into the schedule, the odds are much better that teachers willparticipate in and profit from professional development, to theultimate benefit of the students.

The three most important conditions for effective professionaldevelopment are:

a

LEADERSHIP

POLICY AND RESOURCE SUPPORT

TIME

Leadership

Capable, active leadership is vital to the success of professionaldevelopment projectsor of any school improvement projects, forthat matter. On the other hand, indifference (or worse, outrighthostility) on the part of leaders makes it difficult for professionaldevelopment initiatives to get under way, much less to be sustainedduring the first trying months of implementation or to be institu-tionalized after the initial enthusiasm fades away.

What does it mean for leadersparticularly principals, but alsoschool board members, superintendents, and teachers in leadershippositionsto support professional development? The most impor-tant characteristics of top-notch leadership are:

ADVOCACY: Good leaders place a high priority on con-tinuous professional growth. According to a 1991 article byMilbrey McLaughlin, co-director of the Center for Re-search on the Context of Teaching at Stanford University,leaders are responsible "for establishing the norms, values,and expectations essential to consequential professionaldevelopment. . . . One way leaders accomplish this is byestablishing professional growth and problem solving as apriority for the school, and by making it 'safe' for teachersto critically examine their practice and take risks."


4

PARTICIPATION: Principals who participate in professionaldevelopment activities alongside teachers lead by exampleand help break down hierarchies that may inhibit communi-cation.

ASSISTANCE: Good leaders try to remove administrativeobstacles to professional development and seek resourcesfor teachers in the form of money, materials, andespe-ciallytime.

PROBLEM SOLVING: As Joyce, Wolf, and Calhoun put it,"The most effective leaders do not simply follow estab-lished formulas for getting things done, but are effectivediagnosticians, problem solvers, and leaders of others tofind needs and create solutions."

PRESSURE: Good leaders do not operate exclusively in therealm of sweetness and light, but may have occasion toapply a little pressure to move complacent teachers for-ward. A teacher quoted approvingly by Judith Warren Littledescribes it as follows: "I'm not enough of a dreamer tothink you're going to get a whole faculty behind somethingwithout a little coercion, a little polite coercion. And if youdon't do that you don't ever have any growth in yourfaculty."

COLLEGIALITY: "Administrators exercise strong leadershipby promoting a 'norm of collegiality," write Dennis Sparksand Susan Loucks-Horsley, "minimizing status differencesbetween themselves and their staff members, promotinginformal communication, and reducing their own need touse formal controls to achieve coordination." This does notmean they do not exercise power when necessary, but thatthey respect the expertise of teachers, seek consensus whenpossible, discuss teaching and learning alternatives withteachers, and establish planning committees and otherformal structures for promoting teacher communication andinput.

44Principles of Effective Professional Development 31

Resource and Policy Support

One of the most important forms of support has already beenmentioned: leaders on the school and district level who showthrough their words, priorities, and actions that they champion thecause of continuous professional development for teachers.

Other forms of support are vital as well. One is the provision ofadequate resources. Teachers in a school are well placed to under-stand the problems of the students they teach; they also havetalents important in overcoming those problems. Nevertheless,people and ideas from outside the school can play a critical role inschool improvement as well. Thus, teachers need access to other

resources such as research, examples of effectivepractice in other schools, the assistance of accom-plished practitioners, and the creative ideas ofexperts in subject matter, instructional methods, andschool organization.

Finally, just as professional development activi-ties at the school level need to be integrated within

the framework of a coherent school mission, so do policies andpractices need to be coordinated at higher levels. "Only if staffdevelopment is embedded in the philosophy and organizationalstructure of schools and districts can a culture of continuousgrowth thrive," write Susan Loucks-Horsley and her colleagues.Policy coherence can keep schools from being inundated withconflicting demands.

Ideally, then, school and district (and state) improvement plansare coordinated into a seamless whole targeted at increasing stu-dent learning, and the district has an infrastructure of policies andresources in place that support continued professional developmentfor teachers.

TEACHERS NEED ACCESS TO RESOURCES

SUCH AS RESEARCH, EXAMPLES OF EFFECTIVE

PRACTICE IN OTHER SCHOOLS, AND THE

CREATIVE IDEAS OF EXPERTS.

Time

"Reforms conducted on the fringes of the school day will neverbecome an integral part of the school," wrote RAND researchersSusan Purnell and Paul Hill in Time for Reform (1992), reflectingthe belief of just about everyone who has given serious thought tothe subject of time and professional development. Without ade-quate time built into the regular school schedule for involvement indecision making, follow-up, collaboration, continuous study, andevaluation, the odds that any professional development initiativewill benefit teachers and students are low. (Continued on page 35.)


AT MARION, ALL TEACHERS GET AN EXTRA PERIOD

EVERY DAY FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN ADDITION TO

THEIR PREP PERIOD. No MINUTES HAVE BEEN ADDED TO

THE SCHOOL DAY OR THE TEACHERS' CONTRACT DAY.

No MINUTES HAVE BEEN SUBTRACTED

FROM INSTRUCTIONAL TIME.

Ea.0 KKg n Ramo El ED cat;\,- 11 0

MARION HIGH SCHOOLDAILY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PERIOD

Corporation: Marion Community SchoolsPrincipal: Marjorie RecordAddress: 750 W. 26th, Marion, IN 46953Phone: 317-664-9051

We've all got one ofhose friends who

seem to be able to packmore into a single lifetimethan most people could inthree or four: the owner ofa successful small busi-ness who's getting her lawdegree at night whileraising two children, or thesurgeon who qualified forthe Olympic trials inkayakingand just hadhis first novel accepted forpublication.

How do they do it?That was the initial

response of teachers inone of our focus groupswhen Anne Moudy ofMarion High Schoolbegan describing Marion'sreallocation of time to free

teachers for professionaldevelopment during theschool day. At Marion, shesaid, all teachers get anextra period every day forprofessional developmentin addition to their prepperiod. No minutes havebeen added to the schoolday or the teachers'contract day. No minuteshave been subtracted frominstructional time. It didn'tcost the district a penny.And teachers from differ-ent departments weregetting together andtalking seriously aboutwhole-school improve-ment for the first time.

Here's how they did it,according to Moudy andAssistant Principal Jerry

McVicker. Marion origi-nally had a standard highschool day: six academicperiods plus a 52-minutelunch period. Of that 52minutes, teachers had ahalf hour for lunch plus a22-minute lunch duty.They also had an extra 20minutes of non-instruc-tional time on theircontracts every day.

Lunch was cut from 52to 30 minutes, eliminatinglunch duty for teachers.That 22 minutes wasadded to the 20 minutes ofcontract time to come upwith an extra 45-minuteperiod each day. NowMarion has what might becalled a staggered six-period day. There areseven class periods plus a30-minute lunch. Somestudents attend class fromperiods one through six,others from periods two

through seven. (And ahandful of highly moti-vated youngsters takeseven classes.) Thisschedule frees about onefourth of the school'steachers for professionaldevelopment during thefirst period and aboutthree fourths during thelast period of the day.

The primary motivebehind the restructuredschool day was to let theentire teaching staffprepare for block schedul-ing, slated to begin in the1997-98 school year.Instead of simply imple-menting block schedulingand letting teachers wingit, Marion decided to giveteachers two years toexplore this new approach,visit other schools, con-sider teaching strategiesfor longer periods, writecurriculum, discuss


interdisciplinary projects,and so forth. Occasionallyan outside expert isbrought in; most of thetime, though, staff sharetheir knowledge andexpertise with each other.Some of the sessions arealso used for other profes-sional developmentpurposes, such as learn-ing to use new technology.

Whatever the focus ofthe sessions, it's almostalways the teachers whodecide, not the administra-tors. "There has not been asingle administrator-driven staff developmentso far this year," saidMoudy in November.

One major benefit ofMarion's restructured

ONE OF THE THINGS WE HAVE SEEN IN THIS DIALOGUE

IS THAT PEOPLE ARE SEEING SCHOOL AS BEING SOMETHING

MORE THAN THEIR DEPARTMENT.

scheduled is a significantincrease in interdepart-mental communication."We have people who havebeen in that building eightto ten years who havenever had a conversationwith each other until thisyear," Moudy said. "Oneof the things we have seenin this dialogue is thatpeople are seeing schoolas being something morethan their department and


beginning to have a littleunderstanding that if onearea does something, ithas an impact over hereand that the kids are theconnecting part."

Although the benefitshave been considerable,Moudy noted that teachersmay need a break fromthis schedule. "Our folksare tired," she said."Having to examine on aconstant basis your

ANNE MOODYTEACHER, MARION HIGH SCHOOL

professional practice isvery, very tiring." Onceevery four years might beabout right, she said.

However often theschedule is used, it isdefinitely worthwhile, saidAssistant PrincipalMcVicker. "Teachersappreciate the additionaltime. They put a lot into itand they get a lot out ofit."

But how can teachers find the time to engage in this kind ofcontinuous learning when their workdays are almost completelyabsorbed by teaching responsibilities? High school teachers gener-ally get one period per day (50 to 55 minutes) outside the class-room for planning time, elementary teachers 30 to 45 minutes.Considering that high school teachers generally have three or fourpreps per day and 150 or more students, and that elementaryteachers may have even more preps, this planning time is morethan absorbed by classroom responsibilities. Seldom is time sched-uled to give teachers opportunities to plan or work together.

There are the summer months, of course, and many teachers usethese months to take college classes or attend intensive, week-longinstitutes on some aspect of teaching. Valuable as these experi-ences may be, they are still discrete activities for individual teach-ers, and they place the onus on teachers to give up their own timerather than on the schools to build time into the regular schoolcalendar.

Essentially, there are two options for increasing professionaldevelopment time. One is to add time to the school calendaranexpensive proposition that has not yet won favor among statelegislators. The other option is to reallocate time within the exist-ing school calendar. Below are some suggestions for reallocatingtime, taken from research and from the practice of various schoolsin Indiana:

EXPANDED STAFFING: Schools can use substitute teachersto fill in for regular teachers engaged in professional devel-opment activities. Substitutes may be drawn from thedistrict's substitute pool. Administrators also can serve assubstitutes.

Better practices include (a) hiring full-time floatingsubstitutes who move from class to class or school toschool on a regular basis, as the Anderson CommunitySchool Corporation has done (see pages 87-88), or (b)scheduling part-time teachers into the regular school week,thus freeing full-time teachers for professional developmentactivities. These approacheswith qualified substituteswho can provide appropriate expertise and continuitycanhelp ease teachers', parents', and school boards' concernsover student learning when the teacher is away from theclassroom.

ALTERNATIVE GROUPING: Schools can bring studentstogether in groups larger than a single class, thus freeing


one or more teachers. Team teaching or joint presentationsmay free one teacher; regular schoolwide assemblies orcommunity service by students can free an entire faculty.

ALTERNATIVE SCHEDULING: Schools can adjust the masterschedule to give groups of teachers common planning timefor collaborative efforts. Block scheduling in combinationwith teacher teams can be used to free teachers for profes-sional development. Secondary schools can add an extraperiod for professional development during the school day.If teachers have lunch duty and non-instructional time intheir teaching contracts, as was the case at Marion HighSchool (see profile on pages 33-34), an extra period can beadded without extending the day or reducing instructionaltime.

ACCUMULATED TIME: If granted a waiver from the IDOE,schools can accumulate release time for professional devel-opment if their calendar exceeds 105% of the requiredminimum number of instructional hours per year. Studentsmay be dismissed early on as many as six different occa-sions for up to 2I/2 hours per occasion.

SCHOOL/UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS: As part of morecomprehensive professional development initiatives,schools and universities can arrange for undergraduateeducation students to cover teachers' classrooms while theteachers participate in professional development activitieswith each other and faculty from the university (see theprofile of Lynwood Elementary on pages 25-26). Thisapproach can benefit not only the teachers, but the educa-tion students and university faculty as well.

These are a few of the options that imaginative administratorsand school improvement teams can use, alone or in combination, tofree teachers for professional development. Some options, such ascommon planning time or school/university partnerships, arevirtually cost free. Others, such as expanded staffing, can be rela-tively expensive. Some of the options can be carried out withoutviolating current state policy, district policy, or teachers' bargain-ing contracts. Others, such as accumulated time, may requirewaivers from the state, district, or union (or changes in policy orthe bargaining contract).


4 9

The particular strategies a school uses will depend, of course, onits overall vision for school improvement and on constraintsimposed by state law, district policies, and the bargaining agree-ment. Whatever those strategies turn out to be, however, it isimportant to bear in mind the principles of effective professionaldevelopment that have been discussed in this chapter. An extrainservice day once a year will probably have little or no effect onthe growth of teachers. A half-day once a week, or even once amonth, together with regular time for coaching, discussion, plan-ning, and research, may help transform an entire school into acenter of continuous learning for all.

50Principles of Effective Professional Development 37

THIS CHAPTER HAS INCLUDED PROFILES OF SCHOOLS

THAT EMBODY AT LEAST SOME OF THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF

EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT. THE CHAPTER CLOSES

WITH AN EXAMPLE OF A STATEWIDE PROGRAM THAT

FOSTERS EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

IN A HOST OF INDIANA SCHOOLS.

0 'CcaDG:9,01;:>1130. 0a9 I2n,40,Q] 0

THE CLASS PROGRAMTRANSFORMING SCHOOLS THROUGH

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

ince 1990, the IndianaDepartment of Educa-

tion (IDOE) has funded aprofessional developmentproject called CLASS(Connecting LearningAssures SuccessfulStudents). Developed byformer elementary teacherBarbara Pedersen, CLASSsynthesizes cooperativelearning, social skillsdevelopment, integratedinstruction, and an en-riched learning environ-ment in an attempt totransform schools intocommunities of lifelonglearners.

Over 200 schools havebeen involved withCLASS over the past fiveyears. Participatingschools receive $75 perteacher per year for threeyears to help cover thecost of materials and

release time for ongoingtraining sessions.

The content of CLASSis of less interest here thanits approach to profes-sional development. Inmost schools whereCLASS is adopted,teachers are heavilyinvolved in the adoptiondecision. Thus, they havean opportunity to discussthe merits of the project,reflect on their own needsas individual teachers andas a faculty, and considerthe vision of the wholeschool. In some cases,only a portion of thefaculty ultimately decidesto participate in CLASS.In other schools, CLASSis adopted schoolwide,and the entire faculty mayattend training sessionstogether. Signs expressingthe CLASS philosophy

51

appear in the halls,cafeteria, and gym. Musicand art teachers mayintegrate their subjectsinto regular teachers'themes or develop theirown themes. In short, theentire school is infusedwith the CLASS approach.

New participants areintroduced to the theoryand practice of CLASSthrough a series of sixday-long training sessions,held intermittentlythroughout the school'sfirst three years of partici-pation in the program.Between these sessions,follow-up coachingsessions are provided by acadre of 32 coaches, eachan experienced CLASSparticipant who continuesto teach in the classroomas well as coach. There aresix full-time regional

trainers, also drawn fromthe pool of experiencedCLASS teachers.Throughout the year,teachers have opportuni-ties to witness formaldemonstrations of teach-ing methods given bycoaches and to observeexperienced CLASSteachers in other schools.There are also week-longsessions during thesummer. Second- andthird-year CLASS teach-ers have opportunities foradvanced training.

During the training andcoaching sessions,CLASS staff membersencourage participatingteachers to explore theideas they are presenting,try them in the classroom,discuss them with otherteachers, and modify oreven discard them where


necessary. The purpose isnot to give teachers a setof ready-made practices,but to provide them with aflexible set of strategies toadapt to their own needs,becoming more thoughtfulabout their practice in theprocess.

As teachers get deeperinto the project, manybegin to notice areaswhere they need additionalprofessional development,such as authentic assess-ment or the multiple-intelligences approach.Many CLASS schoolsmake funds available forteachers to continuelearning on their own. Asteachers develop themes toknit the various strands oftheir curricula together,they recognize gaps intheir own subject matterknowledge and begindoing research to fill thosegaps.

Teachers also begintalking to one anothermore often, not just instructured discussionsessions but in the cafete-ria and the teachers'lounge. One teacher said,"I actually love going tothe teachers' lounge now"because teachers aretalking about exciting new

ONE TEACHER SAID, "I ACTUALLY LOVE GOING TO THETEACHERS' LOUNGE NOW" BECAUSE TEACHERS ARE TALKING

ABOUT EXCITING NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND NEW IDEAS

FOR THEMES RATHER THAN ABOUT THE

BEHAVIOR OF CHILDREN.

developments and newideas for themes ratherthan about the behavior ofchildren. Conversationsare made easier by thelanguage that CLASSparticipants share (thelanguage of themes,lifeskills, lifelong guide-lines, and other termsfamiliar to anyorie whohas ever been in a CLASSschool).

To encourage commu-nication among teachersacross schools, theCLASS staff sends out amonthly newsletter andalso holds networkingdays for teachers from thesame grade level acrossthe state.

In 1992, the IDOErequested a study/evalua-tion of the first two yearsof the CLASS program,which was conducted byresearchers at the IndianaEducation Policy Center.The study focused on theimplementation of the


program, the effectivenessof training, and theperceived effect of CLASSon student achievement,motivation, and discipline.A number of changes weremade in CLASS trainingand implementationstrategies as a result of theevaluation.

In short, the CLASSapproach embodies anumber of the principlesof effective professionaldevelopment discussedabove. Particularly whereit is adopted schoolwide,CLASS:

Is school-based;Involves teachers in

decision making;Is integrated into a

coherent school improve-ment plan that avoidsfragmentation;

Follows the theory/demonstration/practice &feedback/coachingscheme;

Provides opportunitiesfor classroom observation;

52

Provides continuousfollow-up, coaching, andsupport;

Presents theory andresearch as something totry, assess, and adapt,rather than merely toimplement;

Prompts teachers tobecome reflective practi-tioners as they try out newapproaches and do re-search for their themes;

Forms a cadre ofexperienced CLASSteachers who coach newparticipants while continu-ing to teach in the class-room;

Fosters collaborationwithin and across schools;

Is modified based on theresults of evaluation; and

Promotes the ultimategoal of turning schoolsinto centers of continuouslearning for all.

0 CgDOnGYVEM 22 0

A FRAMEWORKFOR EFFECTIVE


THE PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT make one thing obvious:

The people at each school, learning and working together to improve students'performance, are crucial for effective professional development.

The schools profiled throughout this document teach a similar lessoneffective learning, by professionalsand students, depends on the initiative of a school's faculty, principal, parents, and community.

This chapter lays out one framework for enabling the school to implement the principles of effectiveprofessional development. The next chapter suggests what the various actors at the school can do once thatframework is in place.

The premise of these chapters is not, however, that schools operating in pristine isolation are the onlyimportant actors in professional development. The improving school inevitably generates a demand forresearch, models, advice, consultation, and assistance from colleagues at other schools, educational ser-vice centers, the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE), and universities. Moreover, as Chapter 4explains in some detail, central school district actorsschool board members, central office administra-tors, and union officialshave a special role to play in authorizing, recognizing, and supporting profes-sional development at each school. Finally, state authorities and universities have obvious responsibilitiesto provide for the formal preservice and graduate education not addressed in this report but that researchand common sense suggest are important to the effectiveness of schools.

Nevertheless, school-based, collaborative learning is the aspect of professional development that is,paradoxically enough, most neglectept and most promising for school improvement. In fact, the way that

1.4

5 A Framework for Effective Professional Development 41

FIGURE 1

school improvement and school-based learning are connected isthe insight often overlooked in traditional ideas of professionaldevelopment. Those ideas usually assume that if professionaldevelopment is conducted first, school improvement will follow asa matter of course. School-based learning portrays the relationshipbetween school improvement and professional development inprecisely the opposite way:

By focusing on school improvement, indeed particu-lar improvements as determined at each school, theneed for learning will become apparent to the schoolpersonnel most immediately involved, and theirwillingness to commit themselves to the rigors of reallearning will be strengthened.

TRUST

TIME

RECOGNITION

AFRAMEWORK

FOREFFECTIVE

PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENT

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENTPRIORITIES

RESERVOIR OF

RESOURCES

DESIGNATED

I MPROVEMENT TEAMS

Effective professional development arises from a commitment toschool improvement projects rather than a commitment to profes-sional development itself. The teachers, for example, who havedevised a way of making their school more successful in theteaching of reading are likely to have learned more than those whoset out to develop themselves without a specific and collective aimfor their learning.

The teachers and principals in the statewide focus groups dem-onstrated almost unanimous enthusiasm for the principles ofeffective professional development. At the same time, they ex-pressed some concern that the conditions in their schools and

42 A Framework for Effective Professional Development

"5 4 BEST COPY AVAILABLE

school corporations were not always fully conducive to carryingout the principles.

Among teachers' and principals' greatest concerns were therelated issues of trust, time, and recognition, issues also raised inChapter 1. The framework suggested in this chapter, whichemerged from focus group members' thoughtful suggestions forresponding to these concerns, is one way to address these issues.This is obviously not the only path to effective professional devel-opment. Indeed, some of the schools profiled in this documenthave used other approaches. Nevertheless, this framework offersone promising approach to making effective professional develop-ment possible.

TRUSTSNARED PURPOSES,

DISCRETION, ANDMEANINGFUL ACCOUNTABILITY

THE VERY PREMISE OF EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

is potentially threatening to all parties involved in the education ofa community's children, for it requires a frank admission that thoseengaged in an activity do not already know everything necessary toperform at optimum effectiveness. Such an admissionby school

board members, administrators, teachers, orother school professionalscan and will be

TRUST made only under conditions of mutual respectand trust. The trust necessary for effectiveNEEDED FOR SCHOOLIBASED

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: professional development takes manyformsbetween school personnel and district

IS BASED ON SHARED PURPOSES FOR SCHOOLauthorities, between parents and teachers,

IMPROVEMENT, between teachers and principals, and amongteachers themselves. Traditional forms of

GIVES TEACHERS THE DISCRETION THEY NEED professional development often assume

TO ACHIEVE THOSE PURPOSES, strictly hierarchical relationships among thesevarious constituencies, with officials in the

ALLOWS TEACHERS TO BE MEANINGFULLY central office determining what teachers andACCOUNTABLE FOR IMPROVEMENT, principals need to know and teachers and

principals submitting themselves to thatdetermination. At the same time, traditional

professional development, with its specific focus on changingindividual teachers' subject matter knowledge and instructionaltechniques, often assumes that teachers' professional responsibili-ties end at the walls of their individual classrooms. In the eyes of

J.:01 A Framework for Effective Professional Development 43

most practitioners consulted for this report, these assumptions areinconsistent with the full implementation of the principles ofeffective professional development.

Those principles imply a change in the relationships amongschool board members, central administrators, parents, principals,and teacherschanges that replace the traditional chain of com-mand and teacher isolation with relationships of acknowledgedtrust and mutual responsibility. Schools need to be trusted to assessand change their approaches to student learning. Teachers need tobe trusted to share their insights, knowledge, and concerns aboutthe workings of their own schools. And they need to trust oneanother in the process of intelligent exploration that improvementinevitably requires.

To foster this trust, professional development shouldbe founded upon an ongoing and participatory pro-cess of identifying and responding to concrete needsfor school improvement at each school site.

School improvement priorities enhance trust among teachers,principals, and central school district actors, first, by providingcommunity acknowledgment that the professional development tobe undertaken is in fact important to the school and the district. Inother words, these priorities represent shared purposes for profes-sional development, purposes to which the affected parties haveconsented. If, for instance, improvement of students' mathematicslearning has emerged as an important need at a school, the commu-nity has already recognized that meeting that need serves a valideducational concern of the school rather than just advances theeducational vision or the professional interests of a select fewindividuals.

Second, the school improvement priorities provide a soundrationale for granting those involved in professional developmentthe discretion needed to consider new approaches, to explore themintelligently, and to adapt these approaches thoughtfully to meetthese shared purposes. Teachers and others can thus be freed fromthe traditional forms of moment-to-moment supervision in theknowledge that they are working on issues of concern to the entirecommunity.

Finally, school improvement priorities provide a publicly recog-nized criterion for those engaged in professional development toevaluate their work and for them to report to others in the commu-nity on their progress. In essence, priorities provide the grounds formeaningful accountability in pursuing professional development.


56

The trust needed to implement the principles of effective profes-sional development is not blind. It is based on these three elementsof shared purposes, discretion, and meaningful accountability.Teachers, principals, and central actors trust one another to ana-lyze, learn about, change, and evaluate their activities in the secureknowledge that they are working for common aims and that theirwork will be judged according to standards that they have acceptedin advance. At the same time, trust does not require perfection,only a willingness to work toward and be judged according tothese standards.

TIMESUFFICIENT, FLEXIBLE,

AND SUSTAINED

THE NEED FOR TEACHER TIME for effective professional develop-ment is obvious. However, parents, in particular, and other mem-bers of the community as well expect teachers to devote all theirtime to children. To be sure, professional development conductedin the context of school improvement does mean that teachers and

principals will be doing things to meet theneeds of children more effectively. Neverthe-less, that time will not necessarily be spentwith children. Therefore, the work time ofteachers simply must be reorganized to makemore of it available for work on the school'simprovement priorities and for the profes-sional learning that accompanies that work.And that reorganization of time must beformally recognized by the school and districtas legitimate, even necessary, for the properfunctioning of the school's educationalprocess.

Some of the necessary time can undoubt-edly be provided by scheduling the time of

,4p

-f

TIMENEEDED FOR SCNOOLBASEDPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:

,..

IS SUFFICIENT TO ALLOW CONCENTRATED

WORK ON SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT.

,

IS FLEXIBLE ENOUGH TO SUPPORT A WIDE

RANGE OF ACTIVITIES.

If IS SUSTAINED TO ALLOW LONG-TERM

COMMITMENT.

-5!C:;!.

teachers and other school professionalsappropriately. But rescheduling existing time, as important as thatis for enabling teachers to work together on school improvementprojects, is inevitably not enough. Additional time, and thereforeadditional resources, should be allocated to professional develop-ment.

A Framework for Effective Professional Development 45

To make this time available, each school should placeall of its resources for professional development into areservoir to be used exclusively to support work on itspriorities for improvement.

Such a reservoir of resources, effectively a reservoir of teachertime, is important in several different ways. First, as already noted,it represents a commitment to make sufficient time available for

understanding the needs of the school and for devel-oping the capacity to meet those needs.

Just as important, the idea of a reservoir is espe-cially appropriate given the many different uses oftime required for effective professional development.The time provided for professional developmentshould be flexible enough to meet the particular

needs of an individual school's efforts at improvement. On occa-sion, time is best used for defining in detail the nature of students'and the school's needs. Other times, teachers will review researchrelated to those needs, visit other schools that have succeeded insolving similar problems, confer with consultants who have appro-priate expertise, plan new programs, practice new skills, or giveand receive feedback on their performance. And sometimes,teachers will need to evaluate the results of their new approachesand report on those results.

Finally, a reservoir of teacher time represents a sustainedcommitment to the tasks of school improvement and professionaldevelopment. Making schools better is steady work, especiallywhen the social and intellectual conditions that schools face are incontinual flux. Last decade's successful science program will soonbe hopelessly outmoded in part because science has changed butequally because students have changed as well.

MAKING SCHOOLS BETTER IS STEADY

WORK, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE SOCIAL AND

INTELLECTUAL CONDITIONS THAT SCHOOLS

FACE ARE IN CONTINUAL FLUX.

RECOGNITIONAUTHORIZATION, SUPPORT, AND

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

IN THE FOCUS GROUPS, TEACHERS AND PRINCIPALS consistentlyexpressed their willingness to spend their time in the ways thateffective professional development requires. What they worryabout, however, is whether their communities are in fact willing toallow them to change what they do and to give them credit for theirefforts to do so.

46 A Framework for Effective Professional Development 58

The public clamor for change, combined with the perceivedexpectations that teachers will spend their time in the same oldways, produces confusion among teachers. To help end this confu-sion, schools and districts need to redefine their expectations ofteachers to recognize their efforts at school improvement andprofessional development.

To provide this recognition, each school should desig-nate teachers and other relevant individuals to workin teams formally charged with achieving the school'simprovement priorities.

Everything that teachers do in schools except for their work inthe classroom with children is often viewed by the public and evenby teachers themselves as, at worst, an evasion of their real dutiesand, at best, a necessary evil. But school improvement and effective

professional development go to the very heartof teachers' responsibilitiesthe enhance-

, 1

'i

RECOGNITIONNEEDED FOR SCHOOLBASEDPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:

te,7z

AUTHORIZES TEACHERS TO SPEND THEIR TIME

ON SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT.

4 IS SUPPORTED BY FUNDING AND ASSISTANCE.

V ACKNOWLEDGES THE ACTIONS ANDACHIEVEMENTS OF TEACHERS.

ment of student learning. Because of currentpublic expectations, however, schools anddistricts must authorize teachers to spendtheir time and energies to meet these funda-mental responsibilities, especially becausethey must spend some time out of the regularclassroom to do so effectively. The formaldesignation of school teams charged publiclywith these tasks gives the members of theteams the authority to improve the entireschool and not just their own classrooms.

But the recognition that teachers need forwork on school improvement and school-

based professional development goes beyond words and expecta-tions to real action by the school community. By analogy, asimportant as high teacher expectations are for improved studentlearning, those expectations will inevitably be frustrated unlessteachers also provide the opportunities and resources children needfor learning. Teacher learning is no different; authorization must beaccompanied by support for teachers to see that schools take theexpectations for school improvement seriously. The reservoir ofresources described above is one critical element of support. Theymust also be helped to deploy those resources effectively.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge the work of the schoolimprovement teams. Teachers find very early in their careers that asa rule the rewards of teaching are implicit and uncertaina more


engaging school environment, for example, or the long-termenhancement of students' lives. The rewards of school improve-ment will probably be substantially of this kind. These subtlerewards will eventually be an important source of continuingmotivation for those engaged in the hard work of school improve-ment. But at the beginning especially, these rewards may beentirely obscured in the day-to-day and often agonizingly difficultbusiness of rethinking and reformulating the school's approach tostudent learning. As a result, the school and district should ac-knowledge explicitly the efforts and progress of school improve-ment teams.

6 048 A Framework for Effective Professional Development

OUR TEACHERS ARE REALLY EXCITED. THEY'VE BEEN VERY

WILLING TO SHARE. I THINK CLASS HAS PULLED THE STAFFTOGETHER IN A WAY THAT CHANGING CURRICULUM OR ANY

OTHER KIND OF CHANGE MAY NOT HAVE DONE.

-.FRANCES FITZGERALDPRINCIPAL, BEARDSLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

0 GDEIn pRao Dn [P[2an,vo 0

BEARDSLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLA CLASS SCHOOL

Corporation: Elkhart Community SchoolsPrincipal: Frances FitzgeraldAddress: 1027 McPherson Street, Elkhart, IN 46514Phone: 219-262-5575

Amany principalsand teachers around

the state can attest, it'shard to hear BarbaraPedersen talk about theCLASS program withoutgetting excited. Pedersen,a former teacher fromCentral Elementary inLebanon and now thedirector of CLASS (Con-necting Learning AssuresSuccessful Students),speaks with such enthusi-asm and brings such awealth of practical ex-perience to her words thatover 200 schools acrossIndiana have participatedin the program.

One of those schools isBeardsley Elementary inElkhart. Beardsley princi-

pal Frances Fitzgeraldheard Pedersen speakabout CLASS at a confer-ence in the spring of 1992.Her curiosity piqued,Fitzgerald visited CentralElementary, one of theoriginal CLASS schoolsand also site of theCLASS office. She thenbrought up CLASS at afull-staff meeting. "Theteachers were wantingchange," she said, "andCLASS had a lot ofcomponents we werelooking for. It was alsoplaced on a volunteerbasis. If you chose not toget involved in the train-ing, that was all right."

Eight of Beardsley's 22teachers agreed to partici-

..)ti P,

pate in CLASS the firstyear, taking the week-longsummer session that wasone of the training optionsat that time. Fitzgeraldattended that session withher teachers and alsoattended the workshop forprincipals.

Over the next threeyears, more and moreteachers got involved, andby the 1995-96 schoolyear, all but five Beardsleyteachers had gone throughtraining. Even those fivewere using some aspectsof the CLASS approach intheir classrooms. "Also,"said Fitzgerald, "in the lastfour years we have put thelife goals and the lifelongguidelines into our disci-pline policy. So everyoneis required to participate inthat part of CLASS."

In fact, Beardsleygot so involved with

CLASS that it became atraining site for theprogram, that is, a placewhere teachers from newCLASS schools come toreceive their training andobserve CLASS in action.And one of Beardsley'steachers, Sue Price,became a CLASS coach in1994. When her two yearstint as coach ends afterthe 1995-96 school year,she will move back intothe classroom atBeardsley and become amodel CLASS teacher.

In addition to thestandard CLASS train-ingthe workshops, thefollow-up coaching, theopportunities to observeFitzgerald holds monthlyafter-school meetings withCLASS teachers. Thesesessions are used to sharenew ideas and to keepspirits high. "You think


many times as a teacherthat you're the only onewho's struggling," saidFitzgerald. "Well, thosemeetings became a placewhere teachers could ventany kind of frustration thatthey were having. Theycould work together tosupport each other andsay, 'You know, I had thesame problem, and Ibacked off and looked atit,' or 'You're trying to dotoo much. Take one step ata time."

This kind of support isespecially importantat a school like Beardsley,an inner city schoolwith a fairly high staffturnover rate. "If you giveteachers something anddon't have them bondtogether as new teacherscome on board, theneverybody kind of feelslike they're just out therewith no support," saidFitzgerald. "The meetings

BEARDSLEY TEACHERS HAVE UNDERTAKEN AN ACTION

RESEARCH PROJECT THAT IS EXAMINING WHETHER THE LIFE

GOALS AND THE LIFELONG GUIDELINES ARE

IMPROVING STUDENT CONDUCT.

have really kept the groupcohesive."

The benefits of themeetings are not restrictedto Beardsley teachers. "Asteachers from otherschools came on board, weinvited them to come overhere and share," she said."We've also done trainingwith parents so they knowwhere we're comingfrom."

The bottom line, ofcourse, is not simply theeffect of CLASS onteachers and parents, buton students. To assess thateffect, three Beardsleyteachers have undertakenan action research project


one of several in theElkhart districtthat isexamining whether the lifegoals and the lifelongguidelines are improvingstudent conduct. "We tooka survey of 5th and 6thgrade teachers," explainedFitzgerald, "and we areworking with that rightnow to see if having thosegoals and guidelines in theclassroom has made adifference in the behaviorof the child." The resultswill be reported to thestaff and will also bepublished by the districtalong with all the otheraction research projects.

Even before the results

62

are in, however, Fitzgeraldhas noticed significantdifferences in the school."Our teachers are reallyexcited," she said."They've been verywilling to share. I thinkCLASS has pulled thestaff together in a way thatchanging curriculum orany other kind of changemay not have done. And Isee a lot of positive thingshappening for children, forfamilies. The wholeenvironment of BeardsleySchool has taken on a newlook."

0 @DacapriDca 3 0

AN ACTION PLANFOR EFFECTIVE


TRUST, TIME, AND RECOGNITION ARE THE KEY CONCERNS of teachers and principals who wish toestablish a system of effective professional development in Indiana schools. Several elements of such asystem provide a framework for meeting these concerns.

Through a participatory process for identifying improvement priorities, school professionals can begranted the community's trust to improve their schools, based on an understanding of what needs to beimproved and how schools can be held meaningfully accountable to the public for making those improve-ments. By having a reservoir of resources at each school, professionals can be allowed the time to makeimprovements thoughtfully, including the time they need to learn what and how to improve. And throughformal designation of school improvement teams, professionals can be recognized for what they do toimprove the school as well as for performing their current classroom duties.

This chapter considers in more detail a process for putting these elements in place. That process isoutlined in Figure 2, on the next page.

Each section below focuses on one phase of this process, suggesting general guidelines and moreconcrete advice for accomplishing that phase. This advice is based on what was learned in the focusgroups of teachers and principals as well as on the state policies under which Indiana schools operate.

Unique circumstances, choices to pursue other approaches to effective professional development, andwork already under way at particular schools may make some of this advice inapplicable or unfeasible.These sections, therefore, are intended only as one alternative for the creative talents of the teachers andprincipals who undertake effectiveprofessional development in the interests of school improvement.

6 1 An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development 51

FIGURE 2

AN ACTION PLANFOR E FFECTIVE


IDENTIFYING THE SCHOOL'S IMPROVEMENT NEEDS AND PRIORITIES

PARTICIPATION SCOPE cf DELIBERATION

ESTABLISHING A RESERVOIR OF RESOURCES

REALLOCATION REVISION

IN ESTABLISHING THE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT TEAMS

SELECTING PRIORITIES DESIGNATING TEAMS

PROVIDING INITIAL SUPPORT FOR THE TEAMS

LEARNING TO WORK EFFECTIVELY ACCESS TO TIME AND HELP

OPERATING THE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT TEAMS

BE DATA DRIVEN SEEK HELP IMPLEMENT THOUGHTFULLY

MAINTAINING COMMUNICATION AND MEANINGFUL ACCOUNTABILITY

ESTABLISHING NEW PRIORITIES

52 An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development

BESTCOPYAVAILABLE

6 4

IDENTIFYING THE SCHOOL'SI MP ROVE ME NT

NEEDS AND PRIORITIES

ALL INDIANA SCHOOLS ARE REQUIRED TO DEVELOP PLANS forschool improvement and professional development as part of

Performance-Based Accreditation (PBA). It,

- A SCHOOL'S PRIORITIES FORIMPROVEMENT SHOULD:

,

4' BE IDENTIFIED BY TEACHERS AND PARENTS ATTHE SCHOOL.

1's

BE ENDORSED BY PARENTS, TEACHERS,

ADMINISTRATORS, THE SCHOOL BOARD, ANDUNION OFFICIALS.

14 REFLECT THE MOST IMPORTANT CONCERNS OFEACH SCHOOL'S COMMUNITY.

'

VfREFLECT HARD EVIDENCE ABOUT THE SCHOOLAND ITS STUDENTS.

would be foolish to duplicate or ignore theseplans in the process of redesigning schoolsfor effective professional development. Often,however, PBA plans are treated as little morethan an exercise in compliance with staterules, leading to documents that gather dustbetween five-year accreditation periods. Thecrucial role that improvement priorities playin establishing an environment of trust foreffective professional development impliesthat much more is at stake than simple com-pliance with the letter of the law. It requires,rather, a sense of commitment to the spirit ofschool improvement planning, something thatnearly 10 years of experience with PBAshows cannot be mandated. School-basedprofessional development can use PBA plans

more participatory, wider in scope, and more delibera-tive than is frequently the case.if they are

PARTICIPATION

Priorities for improvement at each school should be,first, developed through a process that includesteachers, parents, and staff at the school and, second,formally endorsed by the school faculty, parents,union officials, central office administrators, andschool board members.

Unless the process for establishing school improvement prioritiesincludes (a) active involvement of those closest to the action and(b) formal approval by all parties, it cannot foster the trust neces-sary for effective professional development. If, for example, theteachers at the school do not collectively and consciously acceptthose priorities, they are less likely to serve on school improve-ment teams, agree to the use of resources for that purpose, or

An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development 53

algipmigc0

accept the teams' recommendations. If parents at the school are notinvolved in and informed about those priorities, they are less likelyto accept the time that their children's teachers must spend outsidethe classroom to work on the school improvement teams. Simi-larly, if school board members are not informed about the prioritiesand their rationale or about the accomplishments of the schoolimprovement teams, they are less likely to recognize teachers fortheir work on the teams or to revise the district budget to permit areservoir of professional development resources at each school.

& A

CIP: Won't this participatory process at each school consume alot of time, energy, and effort of most if not all of the school'sprofessionals? How can they fit this activity into their schedules?

The reservoir of resources for professional development at eachschool should be used to pay these professionals for time spent outof school or to release them during school hours to accomplish theresearch, discussion, and deliberation needed. Spending this moneyshould not be seen as simply a matter of expedience, to giveteachers and others an incentive to work on priority identification.Rather, the identification of priorities is an important form ofprofessional development in itselfin which professionals at theschool learn about their students and communities, the results ofthe school's instructional program, and the adequacy of thoseresults.

CI: Are improvement priorities just a matter of people's opin-ions about the school?

Not at all. Seeing priority identification as part of professionaldevelopment is likely to make it appropriately data driven, notsimply a matter of shared hunches and prejudices about what isright and wrong at the school. Teachers who see priority identifica-tion as a learning experience are likely to seek evidence for theirconclusions, rather than simply relying on hearsay and suspicion.Those involved in priority identification should obtain relevantevidence as their work proceeds, and school and district adminis-trators should facilitate their efforts. Often this evidence can begathered from existing school and district records, but specialefforts to arrange the evidence in (Continued on page 57.)

54 An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development 66

TEACHERS COME IN ON A REGULAR BASIS

AND ASK EACH OTHER WHAT ARTICLES AND BOOKS

THEY'VE BEEN READING.

-.DEBBIE CAINCROSSPRINCIPAL, GOSPORT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

0 [7[330aXgOPI1E20 Elag [7G2n,'UDE °

GOSPORT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLBECOMING THEIR OWN EXPERTS

Corporation: Spencer-Owen Community SchoolsPrincipal: Debbie CaincrossAddress: P.O. Box 159, Gosport, IN 47433

Phone: 812-879-4694

Aat most schools,teachers at Gosport

Elementary carry on theirshare of conversationsabout problem studentsand social lives. But theyalso have something elseon their minds: educa-tional innovation. "Teach-ers come in on a regularbasis," said Gosportprincipal Debbie Cain-cross, "and ask each otherwhat articles and booksthey've been reading."

For the past eight years,Gosport has been engagedin a process of continuousschool improvement, andteacher growth, research,and collaboration havebeen an integral part ofthat process. It all started

shortly after Irene Brocktook over as principal in1987. Brock, who hadtaught in a nontraditionalclassroom earlier in hercareer, was looking forsome new educationalideas. "Intuitively I had asense that what was donetraditionally didn't reallymake a lot of sense," shesaid. But she wasn'texactly sure where shewanted to take the school.

After listening forseveral months toteachers talk informallyaround the lunch tableabout new ideas forteaching and learning, shedecided it was time to getserious about schoolrestructuring. She and the

67

staff asked Lee Wiggam,the technology coordinatorfor Spencer-Owen Com-munity Schools, to betheir outside facilitator,and the heretofore casualconversations becamemore structured, moreserious, and more vision-ary. "Then professionaldevelopment in variousforms began to increase,and people just wanted totalk and share more," saidBrock.

Along the way, every-one's attitude towardschool improvement beganto change. "Previously,"she said, "school improve-ment just meant doingsomething improved inyour own classroom. Butwhen questions emergeabout what school is andwhat it could be, you haveto talk to one another. Youcan't just go in your own

room and do your ownthing exclusively any-more."

Definitions of profes-sional developmentchanged as well. "Thedefinition that they finallycame to give professionaldevelopment was muchdifferent than it was in thebeginning," explainedBrock. "The thing that wasso different was when theydiscovered that they knewmore about what they weretalking about than the'experts' did. They beganto see that they needed tobecome their own experts.That was just a revelation."

Over a period of threeyears, Gosport trans-formed itself from atraditional elementaryschool, where time wasconstant and learningvaried from child to child,into a restructured school,


where (in theory at least)learning is constant andtime is the variable.Among the many innova-tive approaches used atGosport are multi-agegrouping, integratedcurricula, and variousforms of authentic assess-ment. Gosport became aRe:Learning pilot site in1992 and an Indiana 2000school during the 1992-93school year, one of thefirst schools in Indiana toreceive that designation.

In all too many cases,when educational leadersdepart, many of thechanges initiated undertheir tenure soon disappearas well. But the habits ofcollaboration, inquiry, andcontinuous learning wereso deeply ingrained atGosport that when Brockleft after the 1992-93school year, schoolimprovement and profes-

sional developmentcontinued apace undernew principal DebbieCaincross:

The entire staff meetsevery other week todiscuss educationalissuesa rarity in theworld of school staffmeetings.

Smaller groups ofteachers, or inquirygroups, also meet fre-quently to ask and answerspecific questions, oftenbringing their classestogether so they cancollaborate on educationalchange in practice as wellas in theory.


TEACHERS BEGAN TO SEE THAT THEY

NEEDED TO BECOME THEIR OWN EXPERTS.

THAT WAS JUST A REVELATION.

IRENE BROCKFORMER PRINCIPAL, GOSPORT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Gosport is one of fivefounding members of theIndiana Center for Col-laborative Education. Assuch, teachers, parents,students, and administra-tors from the school areundergoing a period ofintense self-scrutinyduring which they havethe opportunity to visitother schools as well. (Seethe profile of Cold SpringElementary, on pages 17-18, for a more detaileddescription of the IndianaCenter for CollaborativeEducation.)

Gosport teachers alsoparticipate in profes-

68

sional developmentworkshops around thecountry, but sometimesreturn frustrated with theattitudes of some of theother teachers they meet,according to Caincross:"Some teachers want THEANSWER, some want lotsof handouts, others are justforced to come." Whatthey need to realize, shesaid, is that school im-provement is not someeasy-to-follow recipe, buta never-ending process.

One that will continuethis week and the next andthe next . . .

relevant ways or even to conduct new data gathering activities maybe required. This evidence is important not only at this stage tomake accurate judgments about the improvement needs of theschool but also later as the school improvement teams seek waysof meeting the needs identified.

Q: How should parents be involved in this process?

It is crucial for some parents to be involved fully in the process ofinvestigating and recommending improvement priorities. First,because of their understanding of the community, parents areinvaluable sources of information to be considered in formulatingthe school's priorities. Second, involving some parents in the nittygritty of priority identification will give the priorities that emergegreater credibility in the eyes of other parents. This does not meanthat the larger community of parents should be neglected in theprocess, however. Indeed, the final versions of the recommendedpriorities must be shared with all parents for their reaction, input,and endorsement through information sent to them, special hear-ings at the school, or regular PTA meetings.

Q: What about others?

In addition to parent groups, it is particularly important that theentire school faculty have a chance in formal meetings called forthat purpose, first, to review the recommended priorities and theevidence for them and, second, to modify and approve thosepriorities. After all, the teachers at the school will have the task of

developing strategies to address those priorities. Inthis light, they must have the chance to accept the

THE ROLE OF CENTRAL ACTORS priorities as their own. A total consensus on theIN SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT IS TO ENSURE priorities is, of course, not feasible, but during theTHAT SCHOOL EFFORTS ARE THOUGHTFUL AND faculty endorsement process, teachers must have theHONEST AND TO RECOGNIZE AND chance to understand the reasons for the choices theirSUPPORT THEM WHEN colleagues and their students' parents have made.THEY ARE. School board members, union officials, and

central administrators must have a similar opportu-nity for input and endorsement. This step should not be representedor conducted in an adversarial manner. Its purpose is above all tokeep these central actors informed about the serious thought thathas taken place at each school and the hard work of improvementon which the school is embarking. Again, the first principle ofeffective professional development is that it is school based.


Therefore, the role of central actors is not to second-guess thought-ful and honest efforts by the schools to identify their priorities;rather it is to ensure that those efforts have been thoughtful andhonest and to recognize and support them when they are.

SCOPE

The process for identifying school improvementpriorities should be wide-ranging enough to ascertainthe most salient needs of the school, whether or notthey implicate PBA standards.

Inevitably, PBA and the school plans developed for it focus on theperformance criteria the state has identified as most important tothe state and most applicable to all schoolslegal requirements,attendance rates, ISTEP scores, and graduation rates. Obviously,these criteria do not capture anything like all of the issues ofconcern to local teachers, parents, and community members, norwere they intended to. These local constituencies also deeply careabout students' performance in the full range of subjects in theschool curriculum, students' attitudes toward learning, the charac-

ter that children develop, the security and humane-ness of the school environment, the success of

TOO NARROW A FOCUS IN IDENTIFYINGstudents when they complete school, and a great deal

PRIORITIES CAN UNDERMINE TRUST IN SCHOOL more. Too narrow a focus in identifying prioritiesIMPROVEMENT TEAMS. means inevitably that some of teachers' and parents'

greatest concerns will be omitted from consideration,an omission that can undermine confidence in the resulting priori-ties and trust that school improvement teams are working on theschool's most important shared purposes.

Q It A

a: How can a school organize this process?

A steering committee of teachers, other professionals, and parentsat the school might be designated to manage the priority identifica-tion process. This process requires focused time and attention; it isnot something that the principal or other school administrators canreasonably be expected to manage alone in addition to their manyother responsibilities, although it is important for the principal tokeep in regular contact with the committee. In fact, the stimulus


7 0

and support for this committee is an important aspect of the leader-ship that the principal provides for the entire school improvementand professional development process. Moreover, this committeeallows an obvious opportunity to involve some teachers and par-ents deeply in the priority identification process from the very

beginning. Since work on this committee is sodemanding and time consuming, resources from theschool's reservoir should be used to free or compen-sate the time of the involved teachers. Otherwise,those teachers may not be able to devote the energythat the steering committee will require. This com-mittee can be constituted in a variety of waystheuse of an existing school council, election by variousconstituent groups, or designation by the principal.

The crucial consideration here is that the members of the commit-tee have a reputation for good judgment and fairness that willcommand the respect of the school community.

THOSE IN CHARGE OF IDENTIFYING

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PRIORITIES SHOULD

HAVE A REPUTATION FOR GOOD JUDGMENT

AND FAIRNESS THAT WILL COMMAND

THE RESPECT OF THE SCHOOL

COMMUNITY.

CI: How can the steering committee be sure that it has capturedall of the school community's most important concerns?

First, the steering committee might develop a framework forpriority identification designed initially to be comprehensive. Thatframework might be constructed from many different perspec-tivesthe outcomes of schooling (intellectual, social, vocational,etc.), the learning needs of children (problem solving, learning tolearn, cooperation, etc.), the arenas of school activities (the curricu-lum, discipline, extracurricular activities, etc.), the responsibilitiesthat students will have as adults (family member, citizen, worker,etc.), state proficiencies, and so on. The only real requirements ofthis framework are that it be credible in the local school commu-nity and that it be designed to capture the range of potential con-cerns.

Next, the steering committee might use that framework tosurvey the initial concerns of the school community. This surveycan be conducted in several different ways, depending on therealities of the school communityits size, cohesiveness, accessi-bility, and so on. In some communities or neighborhoods, needsidentification meetings at which attendees are given the chanceorally or in writing to express their concerns might be sufficient. Inothers, a paper survey might be most effective. Sometimes, severaldifferent strategies will be needed. Here, the only real issue is thatthe method of survey be designed to reach all those who haveconcerns.


DELIBERATION

The school's final priorities should be developedonthe basis of relevant evidence and thoughtful delib-eration on the meaning and relevance of that evi-dence.

As already noted, the priority identification process is itself animportant form of professional learning for teachers and others atthe school. Without evidence, this learning will be incomplete.And the priority identification process will be inadequate in at least

two additional ways. First, opinion alone is a shakyfoundation for the trust that school-based profes-sional development requires. Opinions are inevitablydivided on important issues such as what childrenshould accomplish in schools. Evidence to backopinions provides those with opposing beliefs anunderstanding of why their colleagues or why other

parents and community members have reached their conclusions.This understanding at the very least promotes acceptance of schoolimprovement and professional development efforts that are toachieve the priorities; at best, it may even promote active coopera-tion in those efforts. Second, evidence for school improvementpriorities collected at the beginning of the process provides guid-ance for evaluation by suggesting criteria against which the teamsmay judge the success of their efforts.

EVIDENCE TO BACK OPINIONS PROMOTES

ACCEPTANCE OF SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT AND


EFFORTS.

GP aft A

faz Who should gather and use the needed evidence?

Gathering evidence may be a task that the steering committee canaccomplish entirely on its own. But if the potential needs and therelevant evidence to assess them are complex, the committee maywish to ask the help of others in the school or district, either indi-vidually or in the form of subcommittees. Such a strategy not onlygives the steering committee access to needed expertise but alsobroadens the base of the priority identification process.

However it chooses to proceed, the steering committee will needto meet to deliberate about the final recommendations to be madeto the various school constituencies so that they can develop theschoolwide perspective that those recommendations are to reflect.This deep understanding of the recommendations will be necessary


for the committee's final taskthe presentation, explanation, andjustification of the recommended priorities to teachers, parents, andcentral actors for discussion, debate, modification, and acceptance.

ESTABLISHING A RESERVOIROF RESOURCES

As MAY BE OBVIOUS, establishing a reservoir of resources forprofessional development should occur simultaneously with the

process of priority identification. After all,those resources will be needed to supportpriority identification, notably to release thetime of the teachers involved. As a result,preparation for this reservoir of resources isan urgent task from the very beginning,especially for the school principal. Alongwith establishing the process for identifyingschool improvement priorities, it is at theheart of critical and supportive leadership.

To a large extent, funding decisions falloutside the authority of individual schools.Thus, the discussion of most budgetary issueswill be postponed until Chapter 4, where therole of central school district actors in en-abling effective professional development isconsidered. Nevertheless, schools can requestcentral actors to consider changes in districtbudgets to support the reservoir of resources.And they can reallocate, revise, and attemptto expand the funding that they do currentlycontrol.

A SCHOOL'S RESERVOIROF RESOURCES FORPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENTSHOULD:

41.9

. ,

REALLOCATE CURRENT SCHOOL PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT FUNDING TO PRIORITY

IDENTIFICATION AND WORK ON MEETING

THE PRIORITIES.

Psr1

.

EMPLOY APPROPRIATE FEDERAL AND STATE

CATEGORICAL FUNDING AVAILABLE TO THE

SCHOOL.

' te

I

UTILIZE FUNDING FROM LESS EFFECTIVE

ACTIVITIES IN THE CURRENT SCHOOL BUDGET.

INCLUDE EXTERNAL GRANTS WHEN

APPROPRIATE.

BUDGET REALLOCATION

The first step in creating a reservoir of resources forprofessional development is for schools to identifyfunds for professional development in the currentschool budget and reallocate all that possibly can beto the school reservoirs.

Many schools, perhaps most, have individual school budgets thatinclude funding for teacher inservice. Much of this funding, despite


s: 7 3

PBA professional development plans, is currently spent on activi-ties that are generally considered ineffective for school improve-mentshort-term workshops with little or no follow-up, individu-ally requested teacher attendance at out-of-school meetings, and soon. Even though these funds are likely to be insufficient to supportthe full range of priority identification and school improvementactivities, they might permit schools to start that process.

& A

Qs Won't there be a lot of resistance to this reallocation?

These funds often represent one of the only perquisites enjoyed byteachers, and their reallocation may, therefore, be controversial.Yet, according to the testimony of focus group participants, teach-ers often do not highly value the opportunities that these fundssecure. Also, teachers rarely feel in control of these funds. Thesefindings suggest that the reallocation of school funds to supportactivities that prove to be of real value in enhancing the effective-ness of schools may not be as controversial as it initially seems.

Ce: What can be done if the school does not have a local budgetfor professional development?

One real possibility for reallocation at the school level may liewith federal and state categorical funds. For example, Title I isnow placing even greater emphasis on the use of professional

development to enhance the learning of economi-cally disadvantaged children. Other possibilitiesinclude funds currently allocated to the school for at-risk programs, ISTEP remediation, and even specialeducation. Because administrators of these programsare familiar with the research that connects theprinciples of effective professional development toimproved student performance, well-designed

professional development is more likely than ever to meet the stateand federal requirements.

THE REALLOCATION OF SCHOOL FUNDS

TO SUPPORT ACTIVITIES OF REAL VALUE IN

ENHANCING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SCHOOLS

MAY NOT BE AS CONTROVERSIAL AS

IT INITIALLY SEEMS.


BUDGET REVISION

Principals and teachers at each school should con-sider amending the current school budget and search-ing for outside funding for the professional develop-ment reservoirs.

The real work of budget revision occurs at the district level, whichis discussed in Chapter 4. Nevertheless, there are funds in indi-vidual school budgets that might advance the cause of schoolimprovement and school-based professional development. At thevery least, individual schools might consider whether some fundsmight be moved out of current budget categories and into theschool reservoirs. On careful examination, budget revision maypromote student learning more effectively than current patterns ofexpenditure. And schools can seek additional funds to supplementtheir current budgets.

Q & A

Ct: How should a school decide whether to revise its budget?

The question that principals and teachers should ask as they con-sider revising the school budget is whether supporting the reser-voirs is more likely to improve their work and learning than tradi-tional uses of school funds. Once school professionals have someexperience with effective professional development paid forthrough budget reallocation, they will probably come to see thereservoirs as a high priority for the school budget.

0: What if the school has too little in its budget to make revi-sion worthwhile?

The real difficulty in revising school budgets will probably not bethe motivation of school personnel but the simple shortage offunds. Those in schools with individual budgets know, for ex-ample, that the demands for classroom and library instructionalmaterials and supplies inevitably exceeds the capacity of thosebudgets. Therefore, the tradeoffs between various school-budgetexpenditures are often excruciatingly difficult. Nevertheless,principals and teachers should consider whether those demands canbe curtailed or funded in other ways in the interests of supporting


the professional development teams. And they should work withdistrict administrators to secure the flexibility to reshape theirbudgets to support school improvement projects.

One way of easing the shortage of school-level funding, at leastin the short run, is for teachers and principals to apply for externalsupport for their school-based professional development activities.In fact, IDOE administers some federal funding for professional

developmentEisenhower and Educate Indianagrants, for exampleand has begun to use theprinciples of effective professional development ascriteria in selecting the proposals it will support. Inaddition, several state programssuch as the varioustechnology initiatives, Re:Learning, CLASS, and theIndiana School Academic Improvement Program

(formerly Indiana 2000)offer assistance that can be used tosupport professional development. Obviously, a range of otherphilanthropic and government support may also be applicable toschools' improvement efforts. Schools should consider pursuingexternally funded opportunities to help initiate and maintain theirschool improvement and school-based professional developmentprojects. One activity of the school improvement teams may be tolocate and apply for this support when it is found relevant to theschool's priorities. These priorities make it possible to coordinateseveral of these funding sources under one plan.

CREDIBLE EVALUATIONS OF SCHOOLBASED

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CAN

ENCOURAGE THE DISTRICT TO PROVIDE

MORE FUNDING.

Q: What can a school do to encourage the school district tomake more funding available for school-based professional devel-opment?

Evidence of the effect of professional development on schoolimprovement will encourage districts to change the budget. Therole of teachers and principals in providing this evidence is toconduct credible evaluations of the progress of school improve-ment/professional development projects at their schools and topresent those results to school boards, central administrators, andunion officials.

7 664 An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development

(Continued on page 67.)

MY THEORY IS THAT STAFF

DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS IS A PART

OF THEIR JOB.

MARCIA CAPUANOPRINCIPAL, HARSHMAN MIDDLE SCHOOL

0 ILiO [AgoPri.ao. Dag l]Dcazavom

HARSHMAN MIDDLE SCHOOLWORKING THEIR WAY OUT OF A HOLE THROUGH


Corporation: Indianapolis Public SchoolsPrincipal: Marcia CapuanoAddress: 1501 E. 10th Street, Indianapolis, IN 46201Phone: 317-226-4101

In 1990, Harshman

Middle School was "indire need of repair," in thewords of principal MarciaCapuano. Its attendance

rate was 79% and itsISTEP scores were among

the lowest, if not thelowest, in the state.

By 1994-95, Harshmanhad an attendance rate of93%. Its ISTEP totalbattery had risen from 38to 51. Its math t-scoreshad jumped from 16 to 39and its language t-scoresfrom 7 to 35. Althoughthese numbers were still

below statewide averages,the improvement wasnothing short of amazing.

And Capuano attributesthis improvement in largepart to professionaldevelopment. "We just hada lot of things that neededto be done," said Capuano."One of the most criticalthings was to retoolteachers so that they coulddo the best job of meetingthe needs of the students."The top priority: readinginstruction! "One of themajor things we identifiedas we assessed the school

was that kids couldn'tread. But the other thingwas that our teachers at

the secondary level did notcome from college with alarge background in

teaching reading. So we'vedone a tremendous amounton reading and writingstrategies, and we do itacross the curriculum.They can't be readingteachers, but they have tobe teachers of reading."

Over the years,

Harshman teachers also

have focused on a numberof other areas, among

them study skills, class-room management skills,learning styles, integratedthematic instruction, co-operative learning, andstudent assistance pro-

grams. Professionaldevelopment in these areas

has taken a number offorms. In some cases,

selected teachers attended

workshops and thenbrought what they learnedback to fellow staffmembers. "If it was

something directly relatedto language arts teachers,

then it was done in thelanguage arts department,or if it was directly relatedto all our staff then it wasdone at faculty meetings,"said Capuano.

Two Harshman teachers

were involved in theMiddle Grades WritingNetwork and three othersin the Middle GradesReading Network. Two ofthe school's teams (a

common middle schoolfeature whereby groups ofsix or so teachers teach thesame 140-150 students

and share planning time)participated in ProjectInsight, a constructivistproject with technologysponsored by the NationalScience Foundation andthe Indiana Department ofEducation. Every summer


there is a two-day staffretreat, usually the weekbefore school starts, thatfocuses on professionaldevelopment and teambuilding.

Harshman teachers alsobenefitted from what wasknown as the IPS staffdevelopment cadre. "Ateam of 10-12 teacherswould come out to thebuilding and do veryintensive staff develop-ment with the teachers inthe classroom with thestudents so that they wereactually applying whatthey were learning in thesetting in which theywould be doing it,"Capuano explained. TheIPS cadre was funded bythe Lilly Endowment."Unfortunately," she said,"when the funding ran out

SUPPORTING TEACHERS INSIDE THE BUILDING AS

THEY TAKE RISKS TO MAKE CHANGES IN THEIR TEACHING

STRATEGIES OR IN THEIR CLASSROOM

MANAGEMENT IS CRITICAL.

so did the cadre."In addition to the

formal workshops andprograms, there are alsomany informal profes-sional developmentopportunities at Harsh-man. Common planningtimes are often used forcollaboration among teammembers. "As teachersunderstand that in order tosupport the needs ofadolescents there has to bea lot of good communica-tion, they use that time todevelop activities and to


discuss the academicachievement, the reme-diation needs, and theenrichment needs of thekids," Capuano said. Also,faculty meetings andcommittees usuallyinvolve some type ofprofessional development.And it is crucial, sheadded, to help teachersfollow through on whatthey are learning: "Staffdevelopment isn't watch-ing a one-shot deal. It'songoing. So supportingteachers inside the build-

7 3

MARCIA CAPUANO

ing as they take risks tomake changes in theirteaching strategies or intheir classroom manage-ment is critical."

"My theory," Capuanocontinued, "is that staffdevelopment for teachersis a part of their job. It ispart of their job. There's amassive amount of changegoing on in education, andI don't know how educa-tors can keep up-to-dateanymore unless they arecontinually refining andretooling."

ESTABLISHING THE SCHOOLIMPROVEMENT TEAMS

ONCE IMPROVEMENT PRIORITIES HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED forthe school, the principal and faculty will need to organize them-

;10

,

iN DESIGNATING SCHICDOLIMPROVEMENT TEAMS,THE SCHOOL SHOULD:

Focus ON A SCHOOL'S ONE OR TWOHIGHEST PRIORITIES.

I NITIALLY DESIGNATE A SMALL CADRE OF TH E

MOST QUALIFIED AND INVOLVED PROFESSION-ALS AT THE SCHOOL TO EACH TEAM.

EXPECT TEAMS EVENTUALLY TO PROVIDE

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES TO OTHER

PROFESSIONALS AT THE SCHOOL.

selves to tackle those priorities. One reasonwhy school improvement plans languish isthat often no one in particular is assigned tocarry them out. Formal designation of particu-lar teachers and other relevant personnel atthe school to teams charged with developingand implementing such plans can solve thisproblem. In designating the teams, the schooland district acknowledge the legitimacy oftheir work and create an expectation that itsresults will have a place in the future func-tioning of the school. Just as important,formal constitution implies that schools mustmake a definite decision about which priori-ties are to receive attention and who is towork on them.

FOCUSING RESOURCES INSELECTING PRIORITIES FOR ACTION

In establishing the school improvement teams,schools should focus on a few top priorities, perhapsjust one or two, that they realistically have the re-sources to support.

The priority identification process already described usuallygenerates a long list of needs. By prioritizing those needs, how-ever, the school community indicates which particular needsdeserve immediate attention. The obvious temptation is to work oneverything important all at once. However, the principal andteachers at the school must be practical about the school's capacityto support meaningful change. Because the reservoir of resourcesat any school is inevitably limited, the school should take to heartTed Sizer's basic principle that less is more. Distributing limitedresources to every worthy school improvement endeavor may leadto frustration and burnout. Thus, the school will be better offchoosing one or two improvement priorities and appointing foreach chosen priority a team with the wherewithal to succeed, rather


than having a multitude of teams that will have to spend their timehunting for and discouraged about resources.

Q A

CP: Who should make the decision about which priorities shouldbe acted on?

The need to focus school improvement in this way requires that theselection of the action priorities be a public decision at eachschool. The school faculty and parents in particular need to beinvolved in making this decision so that the reasons for the deci-sion are out in the open. The trust needed for school-based profes-sional development to succeed demands this openness. Again, noteveryone will necessarily agree with this decision, but an opendebate and a public commitment will promote broad and publiclyarticulated ownership in the decision and cooperation.

FOCUSING RESOURCESIN DESIGNATING THE TEAMS

Schools should designate the members of the im-provement teams on the basis of their qualificationsfor the task at handtheir motivation, expertise, andstake in the priority that they are to address.

A definite focus for school improvement and school-based profes-sional development is crucial for success, but it also generates aneed to limit participation in the teams themselves, at least at thebeginning. Just as attempting to address too many priorities at oncecan dissipate resources, so too can attempting to involve everyonein the entire school in the initial research and exploration thatschool improvement requires. The idea here is that the initial teamsshould be of a size and constitution to optimize their chances forsuccess.

Q at A

Qs Who are the most likely candidates for the improvementteams?


The initial improvement team should be designated from amongthose individual teachers whose backgrounds, interests, or assign-ments suggest that they can make a contribution to the work of theteam. As the priority identification process takes place, it is likelythat individual members of the school faculty will demonstrateparticular commitment to and knowledge of the action prioritiesthat emerge. At the same time, the specific priorities selected mayhave special relevance to particular members of the school's staff.lf, for example, the inclusion of children with disabilities is chosenas an action priority, at least some of the school's special educationteachers are likely to be directly affected by the improvementteam's work.

al: Should anyone besides school professionals work on or withthe teams?

Schools should seriously consider involving parents and othercommunity members in the work of the teams, either as regularteam members or as participants on particular occasions, such asvisits to other schools. These individuals often possess skills andknowledge that apply directly to the teams' charge. They also canbe ambassadors for the teams' work to other members of thecommunity.

0: Doesn't this team-based and focused approach to profes-sional development contradict the idea that all teachers at theschool deserve professional development opportunities?

Definitely not. All school personnel will benefit from the work ofthe teams in one way or another. School improvement is a continu-

ous process that will provide opportunities for otherteachers to become directly involved in the work ofimprovement as old teams complete their projectsand new teams are established to address additionalimprovement priorities.

Also, teams are addressing priorities that theentire school community has chosen as most impor-

tant; thus, their success is to the collective benefit of the entireschool staff, whether or not others are directly involved in theparticular learning activities that the team conducts. For instance,adopting new measures for the safety of students in the schoolindirectly improves the learning environment of every classroom,

SCHOOLS SHOULD SERIOUSLY CONSIDER

INVOLVING PARENTS AND OTHER COMMUNITY

MEMBERS IN THE WORK OF THE SCHOOL

IMPROVEMENT TEAMS.


even for teachers who are not directly involved in the research intothe measures adopted for that purpose.

Many teachers beyond the membership of the original improve-ment team may also become involved later in training, practice,coaching, and other follow-up to which the team's investigationslead. For example, a team working on the improvement of math-ematics teaching in the school may initially explore new ap-proaches to learning in their own classrooms, approaches that maybe adopted schoolwide and that will in the long run involve manyother teachers in the school in the professional development theyneed to use the new approaches effectively.

By reporting on the results of their efforts to the school andcommunity, the teams will be sharing at least some of the knowl-edge they have gained with their colleagues who are less directlyinvolved. As already noted, this new knowledge is itself an impor-tant form of professional development.

PROVIDING INITIAL SUPPORTFOR THE SCHOOL

IMPROVEMENT TEAMS

ONCE THE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT TEAMS have been designated,the school needs to make initial provisions for the teams to operateeffectively. Among the initial support that teams may need isknowledge of effective professional development and collabora-tion, a clear idea of just what resources are available to facilitatetheir work, and administrative assistance in securing the specifictime, expertise, and assistance that their work will require.

To GET STARTED, SCHOOLIMPROVEMENT TEAMSSHOULD:

; LEARN ABOUT EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL

,s DEVELOPMENT AND COLLABORATION.,

4 BE INFORMED OF THE FUNDING AVAILABLE TO

SUPPORT THEIR WORK.

,

BE HELPED TO SCHEDULE THEIR WORK TIME

AND FIND ASSISTANCE.


LEARNING ABOUTMOW TO WORK EFFECTIVELY

At the beginning of their work,school improvement teams shouldhave a chance to learn about theconcepts and research involved ineffective professional developmentand to develop the skills of produc-tive collaboration.

Many teachers' knowledge of professionaldevelopment may be limited to what they

have experiencedoften short-term, fragmented, and occasionalinservice workshops and presentations. As a result, when teachersare given the chance to specify what sort of professional develop-ment they want, they may end up choosing traditional activities.Similarly, since teachers rarely have the opportunity to work withone another on joint projects, they may need help to organize theirwork to take advantage of their complementary interests andtalents.

& A

Q: Who should arrange for this initial help?

A critical function of principal leadership lies in providing for thisstart-up assistance, either directly or by making arrangements forothers to do so. Of course, the extent or even the necessity of thisinitial assistance will depend upon the background and experienceof the teachers involved. Because so much of the responsibility forinitial assistance to the teams falls to the principal, education inthese responsibilities and how to meet them may be of particularimportance to the success of school-based professional develop-ment.

CP: Where can the principal look for assistance?

This document may be of real use to the teams in summarizing thatinformation and pointing teachers to other books and articles inwhich these ideas are reported and explained at greater length. Butmore important, the principal may need to make arrangements forteams to consult with others at the school, the central office, IDOE,educational service centers, universities, or unions who havefirsthand knowledge of and experience with professional develop-ment conducted in this way.

DISCLOSURE OF AVAILABLE RESOURCES

It is important early in the work of the teams for theprincipal to specify the size of the resource poolavailable for school improvement so that the teamscan plan effectively for its use.


The reservoir of resources to support the work of the school im-provement teams is not only substantively important for the workitself but also symbolically important as a token that the school anddistrict take that work seriously. Resources can, however, bedispensed in ways that may undermine the trust that is to existbetween administrators and the teams.

& A

ces. Does this disclosure contradict principals' duties as fiscalagents for their schools?

Not at all. Certainly, principals necessarily exercise final authorityover the funds that support the teams, but that should not prohibit

disclosure. Besides, principals must not be perceivedas using this fiscal authority to constrain the thought-

THE RESERVOIR OF RESOURCES

TO SUPPORT THE WORK OF THE SCHOOL

IMPROVEMENT TEAMS IS IMPORTANT BOTH

SUBSTANTIVELY AND SYMBOLICALLY.

ful and creative work of the teams. As a result,frankness about the amount of available support andthe full range of legitimate uses allowed by theschool district is important for encouraging andmaintaining the professional standing of the teams.

Of course, initial disclosure does not necessarily mean either thatadditional resources may not be made available for particular needsas they arise or that all of those funds must be spent by each team.

HELP IN GAINING ACCESSTo TIME AND OTHER ASSISTANCE

A special role for the principal lies in planning withthe teams well in advance a schedule to make ad-equate time available during the school year for themto work together and in locating other resources.

Beyond the trusting atmosphere within which school-based profes-sional development is conducted, time to be involved in schoolimprovement activities is probably the most important form ofsupport. Indeed, most of the principles of effective professionaldevelopment speak in one way or another to the proper configura-tion and use of teacher time. FIowever, teachers rarely have theauthority or opportunity to regulate or schedule their own time.And they often do not have the contacts to find other resourcesthey need,' .


CI & A

az Why does advance planning for time enhance the work of theteams?

One reason for advance scheduling is to ensure that school im-provement work is built into the team members' calendars and notsimply left to the exigencies of last minute schedule changes.Advance planning permits team members to plan confidently fortheir work, knowing that arrangements have already been made forthem to be available for the team's meetings and other activities. Inscheduling this time, the principal has the opportunity to providethe combined support and pressure that leadership requires.

CP: Don 't substitutes disrupt instruction?

Teachers, parents, and students often experience the use of ad hocsubstitutes as a significant loss of instructional time and continuity.Planning allows the employment of part-time teachers, teachersshared with other schools, and regular substitutes who becomefully involved in their students' ongoing program of instruction.Making these more permanent arrangements may also ease thedifficulty that some schools have in finding substitutes on an adhoc basis.

CI: Will all the teams needs be met by regularly scheduledtime?

Teams are almost certain to require some flexibility in the use oftheir time for special occasions, such as visits to other schools,research in college libraries, and extended sessions with consult-ants. As projects mature, teachers may need release time to observeand coach one another's efforts. The principal's role is to free teammembers on these special occasions. Even in this case, conferringwith the teams in advance can allow for the selection of substituteswho can be fully briefed about planned class work.

,55)


OPERATING THE SCHOOLIMPROVEMENT TEAMS

As SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT TEAMS enter into their projects,conditions have been established that promote focused applicationof their energies to particular problems of student engagement andlearning in the school:

As THEY WORK, SCHOOLIMPROVEMENT TEAMSSHOULD:

,

.

ANALYZE DATA RELEVANT TO THE PRIORITYTHEY ARE ADDRESSING.

4

TRY OUT SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS THEYHAVE FOUND.

SEEK EVIDENCE ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF THEIREFFORTS.

ASK FOR OUTSIDE HELP IN UNDERSTANDINGTHEIR PROBLEMS AND IN IDENTIFYING ANDTESTING SOLUTIONS.

,PROVIDE CHANCES FOR EFFECTIVE LEARNINGTO COLLEAGUES AT THE SCHOOL.

a clear definition of the problem to beaddressed;an assurance that the problem is ofreal importance to the school commu-nity;knowledge that resources are avail-able to assist teams in their work on theproblem;background information and train-ing on effective working procedures; andregularly scheduled time on the jobto conduct their work.

The specific details of each team's activitieswill obviously depend on the nature of theparticular problem to be addressed and theintellectual, professional, and creative talentsof team members. Nevertheless, some generalguidance for addressing school problems canbe useful.

BE DATA DRIVEN AND EXPLORATORY

School improvement teams should gather data toclarify the problem and to evaluate their tentativesolutions.

Data gathered during priority identification form the improvementteam's initial understanding of the problem. However, data suffi-cient to see that a problem exists often do not reveal much aboutthe precise nature of that problem. For example, school disciplinerecords may reveal an unacceptably high rate of violent interac-tions among students at a school. Data at that level of aggregationare sufficient to alert the school community to a problem thatneeds attention. But developing solutions to that problem requires


86

a much more detailed analysis of the data. Do the interactions takeplace between older and younger students or between age peers?Do violent incidents take place on the playground or in classrooms?Answers to detailed questions such as these are crucial to an under-standing of the problem and, therefore, to an intelligent response toit.

& A

Ct: Where does evaluation fit into the work of the teams?

As tentative solutions to the problem are developed and tried, datashould be monitored for signs of constructive change. There aretwo aspects to this monitoring process. To take the example ofstudent violence mentioned above, it may turn out that a pattern of

violent interactions between older and youngerstudents seemed apparent. Obviously, the team that

THE ONGOING EVALUATION SHOULD has implemented reforms in the school's disciplineENCOMPASS THE DETAILS AND THE OVERALL procedures to reverse this pattern should observe theEFFECTS OF CHANGES IN PRACTICE. incidence of these particular interactions. At the

same time, however, the team should also keep aneye on the overall incidence of violence. It may turn out that thechanges adopted have had the unanticipated consequence of in-creasing violent interactions between age peers at the same timethat they have discouraged those interactions between older andyounger students. Thus, the ongoing evaluation of changes shouldencompass the details and the overall effects of the change.

SEEK OUTSIDE HELP

Teams should seek assistance in understanding andaddressing their school improvement priorities frompractitioners, researchers, and administrators outsidethe school.

Team members learn through seeking, analyzing, and monitoringdata about school problems and through devising and testing newor revised procedures for the school. In both cases, outsidersbethey from the school district, other schools, professional associa-tions, IDOE, educational service centers, or universitiescan makevaluable contributions. Effective professional development is not,above all, the sharing of ignorance.

.3An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development 75

Outsiders offer school improvement teams several importantadvantages. Since they are uninvolved in the day-to-day complexityof the school, outsiders can help a team focus on the particularpriority it is to address and develop the detached view of the schoolnecessary for productive change to occur. They may possess skillsin data generation and analysis and in evaluation and research thatteachers have not had a chance to develop. Outsiders may bring anacquaintance with subject matter, practice, and research unfamiliarto the teams. They may introduce to teachers the skills needed tocoach their colleagues.

Hasn't traditional professional development relied too muchon outsiders?

Yes, but the role of outsiders in the sort of professional develop-ment described here is entirely different. Their task is to contributeto the work on a problem that the school has defined, not to delivera prepackaged presentation; outsiders in this process share in thework of the teams. It is imperative that outsiders have the capacityto listen and observe as well as to explain their own thoughts andexperience. In addition, since the point of school improvement is tobuild the capacity of the school, outsiders should be expected toleave something of themselves behind. Effective outsiders are notonly good listeners and collaborators but also good teachers of theskills that they bring to the teams.

Not only will schools make different use of outsiders thantraditional professional development does, they may make a lotmore use of them. As is obvious from the catalog of skills thatoutsiders may bring to the school improvement team, it would berare to find all these skills in a single person. Teams might seekassistance from several outsiders with different areas of provenexpertise.

Q: Won't it be hard to find this sort of help?

Maybe, but some current providers already are alert to these emerg-ing needs. And it is important to make clear to potential providersthat those engaged in school-based professional development needa different sort of assistance. Describing one's needs clearly is acrucial first step in having them met. And teams should ask for helpin locating this assistance.


88

INIPLEMEIMIT CHANGES THOUGH7FM.11.7

The aim of implementation beyond the members ofthe team should be for colleagues at the school tobecome full partners in making the change.

Improvement teams work for the school, not for themselves. Thus,their task is only half done when they develop effective ways totackle the school's priorities in their own classrooms. The secondhalf of their job is to help their colleagues make use of their workin other classrooms. At this point in the school improvementprocess, it is critical that the teams utilize effective methods ofprofessional development.

CI: What will these colleagues need?

They need everything that team members themselves hadlearn-ing the theory behind the change, a chance to observe new ap-proaches and to practice them in their own classrooms, feedbackabout their progress, and, most important, an opportunity to reflectupon and make modifications in the approaches based on their ownexperience and the concrete results of their practice.

CP: Won't that cost money?

Yes, and, at this point, the focus of the school's reservoir of re-sources shifts from supporting the team itself to supporting thework of their colleagues who are to take advantage of the team'swork. The reservoir most particularly must be devoted to givingthese colleagues the time necessary to engage in the full range ofthese activities. As a result, the principal once again has a specialrole in freeing and scheduling these individuals' time.

aaAn Action Plan for Effective Professional Development 77

MAINTAINING COMMUNICATIONAND MEANINGFUL ACCOUNTABILITY

BECAUSE THE WORK OF THE TEAMS is itself so demanding andabsorbing, there is a natural temptation to focus only on that workitself. But such an exclusive focus erodes trust and neglects anopportunity for the school community to recognize the work of theschool improvement teams. As a result, reporting is a crucial stepin effective professional development. These reports can take a

variety of forms, but they should be made bythe teams themselves, not just the schoolprincipal. After all, it is important to remindthe school community precisely who isinvolved in these activities so that they can berecognized and saluted for their efforts.

,

To INFORM OTHERS ABOUTTHEIR WORKp SCHOOLIMPROVEMENT TEAMSSHOULD:

,

i

REPORT TO PARENTS AND COLLEAGUES AT THESCHOOL SEVERAL TIMES A YEAR.

, ANNUALLY REPORT TO SCHOOL BOARDS,

ADMINISTRATORS, AND UNION OFFICIALS.

IT"

i

INCLUDE IN THEIR REPORTS THEIR ANALYSIS OFTHE PROBLEMS, WHAT ACTION IS BEING

TAKEN TO REMEDY THEM, AND WHAT THERESULTS ARE.

CP 14 A

Ot: When and how should reports to par-ents be made?

Parent reports need to be frequent becausechildren are immediately affected by thereallocation and rescheduling of teacher time.If the school publishes a regular newsletter,columns written by a member of each teamshould be included in each issue. If no such

communication vehicle exists, the principal must ensure that aspecial publication on the school improvement teams is sent homethree or four times a year. The reports need not be elaborate; theyshould simply update parents on the work of the teams and perhapsalert them to any departures from the school's procedures that thework will involve in the near future. It may also be appropriate toinclude brief oral reports at meetings of the school's parent teacherassociation.

0: How should the faculty be kept informed?

Of course teachers at the school should also receive these reports toparents. Other reports to teachers at the school are just as importantbut need not be particularly formal; they may very well take placeat regular meetings in the school either of the entire faculty or ofdepartments p4ticularly affected by the projects. However, two

78 An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development9 0

things must be kept in mind in scheduling such reports. First, sinceall teachers have a stake in the work of the teams even if they arenot directly affected by them, the entire faculty should be given anupdate on the teams' progress at least once a year. Second, teachersshould be invited to make comments or ask questions about thereports. Since the teams work for the entire school, the faculty hasa reasonable expectation of responsiveness from the teams. Theintent of these exchanges is to promote in the wider faculty the sortof collegiality that develops within the teams themselves.

0: How often should reports be made to school boards, centraloffice administrators, and union officials?

At least annually. These reports should be both written and oral,with the written part of the report provided as background receivedin advance. Depending on the size of the school district, it maymake the most sense to schedule a common session at a schoolboard meeting for all of the schools in the district to report at once.Such an event gives central actors an overall picture of schoolimprovement, allows teams from other schools to hear about theprogress at peer institutions, and emphasizes the seriousness withwhich the school district takes the work of the teams.

Ca: What should these reports include?

Reports should include the procedures the teams are following,their analysis of the problem and potential solutions, and what theyknow about the results of their efforts, although their length andelaborateness will vary with the audience. Obviously at the begin-ning, the reports will be heavily weighted to procedureswhat theteam has done. But even at a relatively early stage, the team canshare its analysis of data on the problem. Somewhat later, the teammembers can share the alternative solutions they are consideringand the criteria they will use in choosing among them. As teammembers begin to try out solutions, they can report on the newapproaches and how they work in practice. Finally, as the projectmatures, teams can outline the evaluation data they are collectingand how the teams are responding to those data.

21An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development 79

ESTABLISH1 G NEW PRIORNYMES

THE IDEAL OF EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT is con-tinuous learning for teachers and students alike. Members ofindividual teams and the other teachers who become involved inthe implementation of their work engage in continuous learning

through developing, refining, and testing newapproaches. But the completion of improve-

As TEAMS CONICELUDE THERM ment projects must not mark the end of

WORK, THE SCHOOL SHOULD: professional learning in the school.Rather, completion of one task is a signal

.4" ASCERTAIN NEW PRIORITIES FOR CONTINUED to begin work on other improvement priori-WORK. ties. The sense of success that completing an

improvement project generates among all aV/ DESIGNATE NEW SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT school's professionals is further stimulus to

TEAMS. renewed attention to improvement of theschool.

Art A

az Won't the new priorities be obvious, based on a previousidentification process?

In many cases. When the previously identified priorities still seemto apply, the school should at the very least confirm in faculty andparent meetings the continued importance of the task to be assignedto a new improvement team.

0: Why would the priorities ever be any different?

Sometimes, the work of the improvement teams will change thecommunity's understanding of the school significantly. After all,their analysis of the problem they are addressing will bring to lightinformation about the school not previously available. And theirefforts at solving the problem may reveal potentials among theschool's students and faculty not considered before. At other times,the circumstances of the school may have changed dramatically.Then the school should engage in yet another round of priorityidentification so that the assignment given to a new improvementteam will reflect a shared purpose of the school community.

80 An Action Plan for Effective Professional Development02

4S 10"0. l't?

o I]pmak9oc;)11:32, pa9

PEER COACHING IS A GOOD OPPORTUNITY

FOR TEACHERS TO SEE WHAT COLLEAGUES ARE

DOING IN THEIR CLASSROOMS.

PATRICIA BURTONPRINCIPAL, HARCOURT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Ean..7o,[3 0

HARCOURT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLFINDING THE TIME

Corporation: MSD Washington TownshipPrincipal: Patricia BurtonAddress: 7535 Harcourt Road, Indianapolis, IN 46260

Phone: 317-259-5458

I f Harcourt teachersneed time or money for

something important,principal Patricia Burtonusually sees that they getit. And three of the activi-ties she deems mostimportant are collaborativedecision making, gradelevel planning, and peercoaching.

Almost all teachers aremembers of at least onecommittee: the curriculumcontinuity committee, theschool climate committee,the staff developmentcommittee, or the studentenrichment committee, forexample. Through thesecommittees, teachers notonly have the opportunityto discuss key aspects of

school improvement; theyalso have a voice in manyof the major decisionsmade at the school.

Committees meet afterschool but on contracttime, said Burton. If theymeet outside contracttime, the teachers gener-ally get stipends for theextra time they put in.

Same-grade teachersalso have the opportu-nity for half-day or evenwhole-day discussion andplanning sessions, Burtonsaid. She will figure outsome way to provide classcover for them, usually inthe form of substitutes orinstructional aides. Shealso supports innovationsthat emerge from these

sessions. For example,Harcourt's three third-grade teachers wanted toteach certain skills tosmall groups of studentsrather than to wholeclasses. So one day aweek for five weeksrunning, Burton hired asubstitute teacher. Shealso arranged for thesesessions to fall on a daywhen the Title One co-ordinator and Title Oneassistant would be in thebuilding to provideadditional cover. Thisfreed the third gradeteachers to teach groups of10 to 12 students insteadof regular-size classes of25 or more.

Burton also supportspeer observation andcoaching. If teachers wantto observe one another,Burton will make everyeffort to provide cover for

them. "Peer coaching is agood opportunity forteachers to see whatcolleagues are doing intheir classrooms," shesaid. "They have found itto be very beneficial. Theyhave picked up a lot ofgood ideas from theircounterparts here in thebuilding."

These types of profes-sional developmentactivities are helping toensure that Harcourtteachers stay on thecutting edge of educa-tional innovation.


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THINKINGTHE OLE OF CENTRAL

SCHOOL DISTRICT ACTORSSCHOOL BOARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND UNIONS

EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SHIFTS RESPONSIBILITY for the improvement of student perfor-mance from the school district to the school. That shift does not imply, however, that central schooldistrict actors are irrelevant to school-based professional development. Quite the contrary, it means thatthose actors must be more deliberate than ever in formulating their policies and executing them, for theirrole is to activate and facilitate improvement.

In thinking about the role of central actors, it is important to maintain a broad definition of the actorswho matter. School boards, central office administrators, and union officials all have different roles increating an environment conducive to effective professional development. As will become plain, manyfeatures of this environment can be established by means of school board policy, contract provisions, andadministrative practice. Therefore, this chapter is addressed to all these actors in their various roles.

As Figure 3, on the following page, suggests, this chapter considers ways in which central actorscanuse the resources at their disposalpolicy, funding, and assistanceto promote effective professionaldevelopment in every school. These approaches are particularly relevant to schools using the processdiscussed in Chapter 3, although they also support other promising alternatives. Again, unique circum-stances in particular school districts may make some of this advice inapplicable; it is offered only as astarting point for discussion and deliberation. Moreover, following this advice caimot ensure that effectiveprofessional development will automatically occur. Just as with school improvement, thoughtful adapta-tion of these approaches will be necessary to determine the precise policies, funding, and assistance thatoptimize school improvement and effective professional development in a particular district.

95 Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 83

FIGURE 3

DECENTRALIZATION

WiENTORY

CONSULTATION BROKERING- OORDINATION

POLICY

IN THE MOST GENERAL TERMS, THE TASK OF CENTRAL ACTORS

in promoting effective professional development is to pursuepolicies that facilitate school-based improvement and to changepolicies that impose barriers to it. To facilitate this process, theschool district should authorize individual schools to undertake the

improvement of student performance. Toeliminate barriers, the district should enhance

CENTRAL ACTORS SHOULD schools' decision-making authority overREVISE POLICIES TO: critical elements of the schooling process.

Just as important as the specific policiesAUTHORIZE SCHOOLS TO IDENTIFY AND adopted or changed, central actors shouldADDRESS THEIR OWN IMPROVEMENT approach these tasks with the awareness thatPRIORITIES, their action fosters the trust that effective

professional development requires. OnceDELEGATE TO SCHOOLS THE AUTHORITY TO again, trust rests on three foundationsCHANGE THEIR PRACTICES. shared purposes, discretion, and meaningful

accountability. Shared purposes require thatENABLE SCHOOLS TO SEEK OTHER POLICY the policies are the result of widely participa-CHANGES THEY MAY NEED TO IMPROVE

tory and consultative processes. DiscretionSTUDENT PERFORMANCE.

requires that those who undertake school

84 Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors

improvement and effective professional development have reason-able control over decisions necessary to their work. Meaningfulaccountability requires that expectations are realistic and known inadvance. Thus, the policies to be modified or adopted shouldestablish these foundations.

IMPROVEMENT

School district policies toward the improvement ofstudent performance should create clear expectationsfor the active involvement of each school's teachers,principals, and other staff in establishing and pursu-ing their own plans for improvement.

There are as many theories about the improvement of schoolsasthere are school board members, central administrators, and unionofficials in a school district. Some find student discipline to be thekey. Others want more work on student problem-solving skills.Still others believe more attention to basic skills is needed. But thetask of central actors in promoting effective professional develop-ment is not to opt for any particular theory of improvement and toenforce it on all the schools; it is, rather, to establish the conditionsunder which schools can become actively engaged in the work ofschool improvement.

Q & A

CI: Doesn't PBA prevent districts from putting schools in chargeof their own improvement?

No, it doesn't. Though the state's PBA system requires eachdistrict to plan to improve its schools, school districts have flexibil-ity in meeting that requirement. The district might, on the onehand, adopt a detailed districtwide action plan that each school isto follow. On the other hand, it may create a process that enableseach school to construct its own individual action plan withinbroad guidelines for participation and for the focus of that plan onstudent performance. This second alternative is far more consistentwith the principles of effective professional development in that itrecognizes that improvement and professional development areschool based and encourages collaboration in identifying prioritiesand developing strategies to meet them.

97Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 85

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

0: Is this approach consistent with the supervisory responsibili-ties of school boards and administrators?

Completely. In the first place, the guidelines for the process do notleave schools free to construct their improvement plans in any waythat the principal or others at the school might choose; they estab-lish clear expectations about who is to be involved and for thecentrality of student learning. Second, this approach can andshould provide for endorsement of the school improvement priori-ties by appropriate authorities. But most important, the schoolpriorities, once endorsed, become a basis for meaningful schoolaccountability to the district; those priorities identify conditions atthe school that are to be addressed and create expectations foraction by school staff that can and should be monitored and recog-nized by the district. In a very real way, this approach will providethese authorities with greater assurance that the schools are work-ing to better themselves and more knowledge of their accomplish-ments.

DECENTRALIZATION

To the extent possible, the school district's policiesshould delegate to schools and their school improve-ment teams the authority to make the decisions onwhich school improvement is likely to depend.

Such a school-based approach to improvement can, however, leadto more frustration than constructive action if other district policiesunduly limit the changes that schools may make in the pursuit oftheir improvement priorities. If, for example, a district dictates theparticular instructional materials that all schools are to use, oneimportant resource for improving instruction has been denied toschool improvement teams. Admittedly, each district must operatewithin a particular framework of laws and regulations promulgatedby the state. But two factors permit school districts the authority todelegate at least some responsibilities to individual schools. First,districts now enjoy home rule, which gives them authority overmatters not specifically regulated by the state. Second, even inthose arenas covered by state law, districts have some room forlocal decision making, which at least in some areas state authori-ties have expanded (for instance, the State Board of Education haschanged the minutes of instruction in various subjects from re-quirements to recommendations). (Continued on page 89.)


THE SCHOOL ON WHEELS HAS ITS

OWN PRINCIPAL, ITS OWN BUS, AND A SENSE OFTOGETHERNESS AND COLLEGIALITY THAT SOME

REGULAR SCHOOLS MIGHT ENVY.

0 C7mo1inp1 ao DG

THE SCHOOL ON WHEELSEXPANDED STAFFING FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Corporation: Anderson Community School CorporationContact: Ingrid Carney, Assistant Superintendent for

Human ResourcesAddress: 30 W. 1Ith St., Anderson, IN 46016

Phone: 317-641-2021

providing release timefor professional

developmentthe bane ofall school districts! It'shard enough to send oneor two teachers to aconference. What's to bedone when a group ofteachers or even an entirestaff needs release time toparticipate in professionaldevelopment?

The Anderson Commu-nity School Corporationhas devised an ingenioussolution to the perennialproblem of release time:the School on Wheels(SW), a cadre of 25permanent substituteteachers who travel as ateam from school to

school freeing regularteachers for professionaldevelopment. The Schoolon Wheels has its ownprincipal, its own bus, anda sense of togethernessand collegiality that someregular schools mightenvy. It is large enough tofill in for the entire staff atall but three elementaryschools in the corporation.It can cover middle schoolstaffs over a two-dayperiod and high schoolstaffs over three.

The School on Wheelsoperates on Tuesdays,Wednesdays, and Thurs-days, and SW teachers arepaid a higher rate on thosedays than regular subs

4)2

($60 vs. $45). On Mon-days and Fridays, SWteachers become part ofthe regular substitute pool.Overall, the districtallocates about $250,000per year for the program,said Ingrid Carney,Assistant Superintendentfor Human Resources,who brought the idea withher when she came toAnderson from Chicago.The School on Wheels is amodified version ofChicago's ProjectCANAL's instructionalcadre. The concept of aninstructional cadre,combined with AndersonSuperintendent JaneKendrick's vision of astaff development planthat would retool teachersand provide demonstrationlessons for students,resulted in the School onWheels.

Teachers hired for theSchool on Wheels musthave at least a collegedegree, although manyhave teaching licenses,said Carney. Beforeentering the classroom toteach, they undergo threedays of training at thebeginning of the schoolyear; they visit eachschool in the corporation;they shadow regularteachers; and they developlesson plans of their own.When they actually beginsubstituting for regularteachers, they alwayscontact the regular teach-ers in advance to shareplans and request input.

When the School onWheels returns to a schoolfor the second and thirdtime, the same SWteachers are assigned tothe same classrooms."That way," said Carney,

Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 87

"there is continuity ofinstruction, and thechildren and the teachersbecome comfortable witheach other."

This practice also helpswith parent perceptions ofthe program, said Carney."We've had no complaintsfrom parents," she said,"and overwhelminglypositive support fromteachers."

Not only does theSchool on Wheels increaseprofessional developmentopportunities for regular

NOT ONLY DOES THE SCHOOL ON WHEELS

INCREASE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR

REGULAR TEACHERS WHILE CONTINUING QUALITY INSTRUCTION

FOR STUDENTS, BUT IT ALSO SERVES AS A WONDERFUL

TRAINING GROUND FOR FUTURE TEACHERS.

teachers while continuingquality instruction forstudents, but it also servesas a wonderful trainingground for future teachers.SW teachers get todevelop lesson plans,teach in a number of


different grades, and servein a number of differentschools. Indeed, manywho begin teaching in theSchool on Wheels pro-gram end up being hiredby the corporation asregular teachers. "Every

.100

elementary school hirethis year was from theSchool on Wheels," saidCarney. "It's a greatinternship for them."

0 & A12: What authority should be delegated to schools and why?

At the very least, scheduling, discipline, curriculum, instructionalmaterials and technology, instructional procedures, and studentassessment are the basic instruments that schools use to influencestudent performance; policies about these matters should be con-

sidered for delegation. These policies are likely to beimportant in the improvement efforts of schools. To

DISTRICTS HAVE MUCH LATITUDE TO take only one example, the state's ISTEP programDELEGATE THE AUTHORITY SCHOOLS NEED clearly defines some instruments and occasions forTO IMPROVE THEMSELVES. student assessment; however, districts usually have

additional testing policies. These additional policiesmay very well constrain the choices that schools might make toadapt student assessment to their priorities for school improve-ment. District authorities should consider whether these studentassessment policies might be eliminated or at least treated asrequirements that schools may modify to implement a schoolimprovement project.

FLEXIBILITY

When delegating authority to schools is not possible,school district policies should authorize districtofficials to adapt district regulations to the needs ofindividual schools' improvement efforts.

There are likely to be some district policies that central actorseither do not believe appropriate to delegate or do not initiallyconsider to have an important connection to school improvement.As the focus groups emphasized, however, the conditions ofinstruction are, to a surprising extent, set by seemingly non-in-structional policies or practices. For example, suppose a promisinginstructional program requires a revision in the length of the schoolday, but the district's scheduling of transportation is alreadydetermined by contract. In this case, the necessity for students toarrive at a specified time in the morning and to leave at a specifiedtime in the afternoon makes the desired revision unworkable.

I al Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 89

e02 Won't allowing exceptions create a lot more work for theboard?

Not necessarily. In fact, a blanket policy might be negotiated thatallows individual schools to ask district administrators in consulta-tion with union officials to make an exception to a particular policyor alternative arrangements to facilitate the work of school im-provement teams. This blanket policy should, at the very least,provide the authority to grant agreed exceptions or make theneeded arrangements, with perhaps a report to the board. It mightprovide that these accommodations be made unless, say, adminis-trators or union officials deem the fiscal or educational impact onthe district to be substantial, in which case the request would beautomatically directed to the board for a negotiated resolution.

Ch. Won't these policies of delegation and flexibility in theinterests of school improvement run the risk that various schools inthe district may end up with quite different programs?

Possibly, but that is not necessarily bad. Students at these schoolsand their teachers are likely to bring considerably different talents,backgrounds, and aspirations to the process of schooling. As aresult, what works at one school may often be entirely ineffectiveat another. Moreover, these different programs are enacted in theinterest of improved student learning, not for the sake of variation

itself. Thus, while programs may vary, they do sowith the common aim of student excellence.

THE PRESENCE OF ENTHUSIASTIC Finally, even if some of these programs might beTEACHERS AND SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS appropriate elsewhere in the district, it is importantAT A LOCAL SCHOOL MAKES EFFECTIVE that they get started somewhere, preferably at aPROGRAMS ATTRACTIVE TO school where the teachers, parents, and students areOTHER SCHOOLS, willing to give them an honest try. The presence of

enthusiastic teachers and successful students at alocal school makes effective programs attractive to other schools,particularly if those schools are working on similar school im-provement priorities. Thus, this school-based approach to improve-ment and professional development may in the long run be themost effective way to implement widely the programs that prove tobe appropriate for different schools within the same district.

90 Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 1 02

FUNDING

ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENT QUESTIONS in the teacher andprincipal focus groups was, "Just where will funding for the reser-voir of resources come from?" Many who asked this question quiteproperly sought help from state policymakers, including additional

state revenue. Indeed, Indiana has goodreason to change its policies to facilitateschool-based professional development.

Such a change was proposed in Profes-sional Development and Teacher Time:

,

' IT

CENTRAL ACTORS SHOULDALLOW EACH SCHOOL TOESTABLISH A RESERVOIR OFRESOURCES FOR SCHOOLIMPROVEMENT BY:

It.

, A

INVENTORYING ALL CURRENT FUNDING FORPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SCHOOLIMPROVEMENT.

'Iner ASSIGNING AS MUCH OF THAT CURRENT

FUNDING AS POSSIBLE TO THE SCHOOLRESERVOIRS.

vfor

'

LONSIDERING THE USE OF OTHER FUNDS FORTHE SCHOOL RESERVOIRS.

10 DISTRIBUTING THE FUNDS TO SCHOOLS ONTHE BASIS OF SIZE AND NEED.

Principles, Guidelines, and Policy Optionsfor Indiana (Bull et al., 1994). That reportrecommended that the General Assemblyappropriate approximately $40 million annu-ally to fund a reservoir of five person-daysper full-time equivalent teacher in schools inthe PBA year or on probation and threeperson-days in all other schools. The reportalso asked the General Assembly and theIndiana Department of Education (IDOE) toconsider establishing start-up services and asupportive infrastructure to help schoolsmake effective use of this reservoir of teachertime.

The State Board of Education has made abudget request for professional developmentand has established a subcommittee to con-tinue its work. The IDOE has created an

Office of School and Professional Development and reorganizedvarious programs that support professional development. Similarly,in 1995 the Indiana Association of Colleges of Teacher Educationcalled for more financial support and especially for more inter-agency coordination in state professional development policies.Despite these and other efforts, the General Assembly has not yetacted.

Even though these changes have not been made, a good deal canbe done on the local level to establish the requisite reservoir ofresources. At present, funds for the reservoir must come frombudget reallocation or revision. Funding from these sources isprobably not entirely sufficient, but it may allow schools to getstarted on the tasks of effective professional development and,thus, to develop evidence that may encourage legislators to providemore adequate funding.

1 a Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 91

tialivarawironv

The first step in making a reservoir of resources forprofessional development available to each school isfor the school district to conduct as complete a surveyas possible of the funding currently used to supportprofessional development and school improvement inall their various forms.

If schools in Indiana are at all like those in other states, a surprisingamount is already allocated to and spent on professional develop-ment. A study of California schools conducted by Judith WarrenLittle and her colleagues in 1987 estimated that 1.8% of schoolfunding was spent on personnel and materials for professionaldevelopment ($1,360 per teacher). In a 1994 study of four largeschool districts, researchers at Boston's Educational DevelopmentCenter found that such outlays varied from 1.8% to 2.8% of armualoperating expenditures (Miller, et al.). When other expendituresrelated to professional developmentsuch as salary increments forgraduate courses and personnel supervision and evaluationareadded, the total cost of current professional development rangesfrom 3% to 7% of the local operating budget for schools, accordingto a 1995 estimate by researcher Thomas Corcoran. As reporterDavid Lindsay wrote in 1996, the Flint, Michigan, school districtfound nearly $2 million devoted explicitly to professional develop-ment in the budgets of its various programs; over $12 million ayearabout 6% of the operating budgetwas spent when salaryincrements and other personnel costs were taken into account.

Obviously, there is considerable variation from oneschool district to another, but the lesson here is that

THERE MAY BE SUBSTANTIAL, IF NOT

COMPLETELY SUFFICIENT, FUNDING CURRENTLY

WITHIN LOCAL BUDGETS TO BE REALLOCATED

FROM TRADITIONAL TO SCHOOLBASED

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

there may be substantial, if not completely sufficient,funding currently within local budgets to be reallo-cated from traditional to school-based professionaldevelopment.

Not all of this funding should necessarily bedevoted to school-based professional development.

As economist David Monk argued in 1994, a good case can bemade for encouraging teachers to continue their formal education,particularly in the subjects they teach and the pedagogical methodsrelevant to those subjects. Nevertheless, central actors cannot get aclear idea of their ability to support effective professional develop-ment without understanding what is now spent for the encourage-ment of teacher learning and for school improvement.

92 Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 0 4

& A

et: How should this inventory be conducted?

Central actors should cast as wide a net as they can. Some itemsare obviousexpenditures for consultants, workshops, teachertravel to conferences, and so on. But the inventory also shouldinclude such items as relevant central office salaries, salaries atteacher resource centers in schools or central facilities, expendi-tures for professional subscriptions or other materials, and eventeacher salaries for inservice days and formal education salaryincrements earned by teachers. The intent of this inventory is tomake visible as much of the current spending for professionaldevelopment and school improvement as possible, so that its usefor the schools' reservoirs can at least be considered.

LIQUIDATION

The next step in creating a reservoir of resources ateach school is to consider how much of the currentfunding for professional development, for schoolimprovement, and even for other purposes can beconverted into undesignated funds from which thereservoirs can be created.

Once a reasonably good idea of the funding now expended forprofessional development and school improvement is achieved,central actors should consider the advantage of each expenditure incomparison to the potential value it will have in support of school-based improvement and professional development efforts. As thisconsideration takes place, it is inevitable that the relative value ofother expenditures will also come under scrutiny.

Q if& A

CI: Won't the reallocation and revision of the budget be contro-versial?

Certainly. Inservice education days, for example, are such fixturesof school life that considering a redeployment of those resources islikely to meet resistance. Nevertheless, the teachers consulted inthe focus groups were generally dissatisfied with what happens onthose days and suggested that they and their colleagues might be

# 105 Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 93

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willing to entertain a change that represents a more productive useof their time. Moreover, there is no formula to simplify the task; itinevitably requires the risks and uncertainties of human judgmentand honest negotiation.

CV: How should this task be approached?

Central actors can ask themselves at least two questions as theyreview these expenditures. The first is, "Will this expenditure belikely to help schools identify their priorities or school improve-ment teams meet those priorities?" For example, some contractsfor professional development with educational service centersalready enable those centers to provide flexible, on-demand con-sultative and training services to individual schools. As such, theymay be easily adapted to school-based improvement efforts. Or, bycontrast, some centrally managed workshops on predeterminedsubjects may be either poorly adapted to the needs of individualschools or conducted without sufficient follow-up. Expenditures ofthe first kind might remain in place; those of the second kind couldbe converted in the future into funding for the school reservoirs.

A second question is, "Can the district make an incrementalchange in these expenditures that might eventually provide theevidence needed to evaluate a more substantial change in thefuture?" Before considering, for example, whether to eliminatecontractual inservice days altogether and to place the teachersalaries they represent into the school reservoirs, certain incremen-tal steps might be attempted. For one, the inservice days might beretained, but schools might be allowed to plan for them individu-ally as part of their priority identification process. For another,perhaps only the negotiated salary increase for those days might beplaced in school reservoirs. Anyway, these steps might be initiallya lot more feasible, provide at least some resources for school-based efforts, and possibly pave the way for more dramaticchanges if they prove successful.

42: How often should this review of expenditures for profes-sional development occur?

The review should be ongoing from year to year. While establish-ing an initial reservoir of resources at each school is critical,schools' and the district's continuing experience with school-basedprofessional development should be considered as future budgets


106

'-er1

are established. If schools demonstrate the success of this approachfor student learning, central actors will have good reason to expandthe size of the reservoirs, perhaps even considering whether somedistrict expenditures for purposes other than professional develop-ment might be more effectively used for school-based improve-ment.

DISTRIBUTION AND AUTHORIZATION

The final step in creating a reservoir of resources ateach school is to distribute the pool of undesignatedfunds fairly to each school and to delegate to theschools the authority to disburse those funds forschool improvement.

The issue of fair distribution is especially critical to maintainingthe atmosphere of trust needed for effective professional develop-ment; individual schools must see themselves as treated on thesame basis as other schools for their parents, teachers, and otherstaff to be willing to cooperate fully in the demanding work of self-criticism and revision that school improvement involves. To thisend, school districts should establish an explicit policy for distrib-uting those funds, a policy that has received public deliberationand whose eventual rationale is publicized to the affected schoolcommunities.

Q & A

az What factors might be considered in drafting this policy?

One is that all schools deserve some share of the district's funds.This factor might initially lead a district to set each school's reser-voir in proportion to the number of teachers or students at eachschool. A second factor is the need of particular schools for re-sources to support improvement. For example, past difficulties instudent performance at a school (particularly those that have led toPBA probation) or current imbalances in the proportion of aschool's children from socioeconomically or educationally disad-vantaged backgrounds might suggest that certain schools havemore need for improvement resources than others. This consider-ation might lead a district, in addition to the initial reservoir basedon school size, to provide supplemental funding that depends onrelevant circumstances at the school.

107Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 95

CI: What guidelines should there be for using these funds?

A school district should make it clear that the funds are to be usedonly to support the identification of school improvement prioritiesand the activities of the school improvement teams, with a priorityon making teacher time available. But beyond this, few, if any,restrictions on the use of these funds should be established sincethe needs of the school improvement teams are likely to vary,depending on the particular priorities they are addressing and theprogress of their work. Moreover, effective professional develop-ment engages the teams in such a wide range of legitimate activi-tiesanalysis, research, consultation, training, follow-up, andevaluationthat additional restraints on their authority to use thereservoir of resources would almost certainly hamper the work ofimprovement.

ASSISTANCE

BEYOND THE MATERIAL SUPPORT FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

that funding the reservoirs at each school provides, schools requirea variety of intellectual and practical help for effective professionaldevelopment. After all, teachers will undertake activities withwhich they are unlikely to have much experience. The support theyneed includes assistance in understanding their new roles, indeveloping new skills in working as school improvement teams,and in efficiently locating the resources required in their efforts at

improvement. Thus, district personnel haveimportant responsibilities in effective profes-sional development, responsibilities that maybe different from those assigned in the past.

rf-IN

.

CENTRAL ACTORS SHOULDASSIST THE SCHOOLS'EFFORTS AT IMPROVEMENTAND PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENT BY:

..:PROVIDING THE BACKGROUND TRAINING ANDINFORMATION THEY NEED.

\

flsi

ENABLING SCHOOLS TO LOCATE AND OBTAINOUTSIDE HELP.

KEEPING SCHOOLS INFORMED ABOUT THE

IMPROVEMENT EFFORTS AT OTHER SCHOOLS

IN THE DISTRICT.


INFORMATION, CONSULTATION,AND TRAINING

A significant proportion of theprofessional developmentresources retained at the schooldistrict level should be used toeducate school communities aboutthe school improvement process,to supply schools with the datathey need, and to assist schoolimprovement teams to understandand carry out their roles.

to

School-based improvement and professional development imposenew intellectual demands on teachers, principals, and others at theschool level. They begin to understand their school communitiesand to conceive their own responsibilities toward those communi-ties in ways that have rarely, if ever, been expected of them.Especially at the beginning of their work, they are likely to needhelp in meeting these new intellectual challenges, help that centraloffice and other personnel can provide.

at A

0: Shouldn't all a district's resources for professional develop-ment be provided to schools?

A majority, but not all. For example, the district will need to meetthe common needs that teachers, principals, and others at theschool are likely to have in becoming familiar with and undertak-ing their new responsibilities in the school improvement process.Educational service centers and the IDOE may also have a signifi-cant role in meeting these needs. In fact, some service centersaround the state already offer this type of training, and the IDOEhas conducted regional workshops to foster knowledge of andplanning for effective professional development. Help for princi-pals in particular is available from the Indiana Principal LeadershipAcademy. Thus, school districts, particularly smaller ones, maywant to call upon these agencies for help in carrying out thisfunction.

0: What role should district personnel have in evaluatingschool-based professional development?

Basically that of facilitating schools' evaluation efforts. If theconversations with focus groups of teachers and principals are anyindication of needs across the state, assistance in the ongoingevaluation of school improvement projects is likely to be essential.Although teachers are experts in assessing the progress of indi-vidual students, they rarely have had the chance to design strate-gies for measuring progress across the entire school.

The data used in identifying the priorities and in analyzing theproblems that underlie those priorities are key to school improve-ment teams' evaluation of their work. Central actors, then, must beespecially diligent in their efforts to help schools identify, collect,

109 Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 97

and understand these data. Moreover, complex technical issues areoften involved in determining the effect of school improvementteams' actions to change the school. Central actors can provideteams with consultation and assistance on these technical issues asthey develop methods and acquire skills to determine these effects.The intent of this assistance is to enable school improvement teamsto become effective researchers into their own practice.

BROKERING RESOURCES

Most of the remainder of the school district's centralresources for professional development should beused to help school improvement teams gain access torelevant research, examples of relevant programs atother schools, and appropriately qualified consult-ants.

As improvement teams attempt to find solutions to the schoolproblems they have identified and analyzed, they will inevitablyseek outside assistance from those with appropriate knowledge andexperience. Yet teachers often lack the connections and knowledgeto locate the outside help they need. As a result, central actors havea particular role in brokering these resources.

42 lit A

a: How directive should those who broker resources be?

Not very. The most vital characteristic of this assistance is that itbe fully responsive to the express needs of the school improvementteams. These personnel can, of course, and probably should makesuggestions about resources the teams might find useful, as long asthose suggestions are not intended or perceived as dictates indisguise. Finally, they should arrange for outside help in closeconsultation with the teams so that the teams feel a commitment tomaking the best use of that help.

CP: Where might a district seek help in locating resources?

Educational service centers, IDOE personnel, and universities maybe especially effective in this role, for large and small districtsalike. Their work with several school districts often gives them a


1 1 0

knowledge of a variety of schools with programs that may beinformative for school improvement teams' work.

az What sort of outside assistance will be most useful forschool-based professional development?

Consultants are key, but the consultants useful to school improve-ment teams will be different from those involved in more tradi-tional inservice training. School improvement teams will oftenneed to establish a long-term relationship with consultants thatinvolves facilitation of their work and coaching, for example.Teams also will be modifying consultants' suggestions and evalu-ating the effects on student performance. Thus, a different set ofqualifications may be more appropriate hereacquaintance withresearch, availability, ability to listen and observe, flexibility inthinking, ability to give constructive feedback, and so on. There-fore, those who broker resources for school improvement teamswill need to reconsider their criteria for effective consultants.Teachers at other schools, union staff, IDOE program and subjectmatter personnel, service center employees, and local university

faculty may meet these criteria more readily thanindividuals on the national or regional workshopcircuit. These individuals may not only have therequired service orientation and skills, but they alsomay be available at less cost, sometimes (as withIDOE personnel) none at all.

Finally, using computer technology or givingmembers of improvement teams access to it may bea particularly appropriate way to serve some of theteams' needs for outside assistance. For example,

recent research is now easily accessible through ERIC and otherdatabases. IDEAnet maintains bulletin boards that may helpteachers (a) become aware of teacher networks that focus on theschool's priorities, (b) locate other schools with appropriate pro-grams, or (c) find locally available consultants who have provenhelpful to other schools.

QUALIFICATIONS OF EFFECTIVE OUTSIDE

CONSULTANTS INCLUDE ACQUAINTANCE WITH

RESEARCH, AVAILABILITY, ABILITY TO LISTEN

AND OBSERVE, FLEXIBILITY IN THINKING,

AND ABILITY TO GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE

FEEDBACK.

COORDINATION

School districts should keep schools apprised of theschool improvement activities and resources at otherschools in the district and assist those schools to takeadvantage of common resources when possible.

Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors 99

If individual teachers have had few opportunities to pay attentionto and work collaboratively with their colleagues at the sameschool, they have had even fewer chances to learn about andbenefit from the work of their counterparts at other schools in thedistrict. Yet the school improvement efforts of sister schoolssometimes have a constructive application at their own schools.Moreover, similar school improvement efforts at other schools inthe district may make possible increased efficiencies in the use ofthe school reservoirs.

at A

CI: How much work does this coordination involve?

Not a lot. Much of this awareness of other schools' activities willoccur naturally as a result of teams' reporting their progress to thelocal school board. These reports in small and medium size schooldistricts could be accomplished at a single meeting of the board.Because these reports take place only once a year and because asingle session for all reports may not be feasible in larger districts,personnel responsible for brokering resources can provide morecurrent information and coordination when the teams' activitieswould seem to benefit from cross-fertilization.

100 Rethinking the Role of Central School District Actors,Er,,

112

0 Ocaricgri-oo CsD) 1-X1 0

THE PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Open up possibilities and present chal-lenges for all involved in Indiana's schools. The challenges are obvious. Parents, teachers, principals,central administrators, school board members, and union officials need to reassess the priority they attachto professional development and, even more basic, how they understand it. All need the conviction to actconsistently with these ideas:

TEACHERS AND PRINCIPALS need to question their current practices, to seek help insideand outside the school, to risk making changes, and to be consciously self-critical of thechanges they make.

PARENTS, SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS, CENTRAL ADMINISTRATORS, AND UNION

OFFICIALS need to foster reasonable trust toward and among school personnel, to freeresources for professional development determined at the school level, and to supportprofessional learning in policy and practice.

The potential payoff, however, makes these challenges worth undertaking. Schools can build their owncapacity to stimulate and improve student learning. They can develop the ability to adapt continuously tochanging student potential, social circumstances, and public expectations. And they can become account-able to the public in a truly meaningful way, based on criteria that are accepted as important and measuresof performance that genuinely reflect those criteria. In short, they can become institutions that are and areknown to be centers of continuous learning for students and teachers alike.

Conclusion 101

A. 3

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U.S. Department of EducationOffice of Educational Research and Improvement (0ERI)

National Library of Education (NLE)Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC)

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