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professional learning in the learning profession a status report on teacher development in the united states and abroad linda darling-hammond ruth chung wei alethea andree nikole richardson and stelios orphanos school redesign network at stanford university national staff development council

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professional learning in the learning profession a status report on teacher development in the united states and abroad linda darling-hammond ruth chung wei alethea andree nikole richardson and stelios orphanos the school redesign network at stanford university published by the national staff development council and the school redesign network at stanford university as part of their multi-year study the status of professional development in the united states © february 2009 national staff development council all rights reserved no part of this may be reproduced in any form except for brief quotation not to exceed 1,000 words in a review or professional work without prior written permission from nsdc or the authors.

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table of contents foreword standards-based reform 2.0 .2 by gov james b hunt jr former four-term governor of north carolina founder national board for professional teaching standards and 10-year chairman national commission on teaching and america s future preface creating effective professional learning systems to bolster teaching quality and student achievement .3 by stephanie hirsh executive director national staff development council key findings .5 introduction .7 chapter 1 effective teacher development what does the research show .9 chapter 2 professional development abroad trends and strategies .15 chapter 3 the status of professional development in the united states .19 conclusion .27 endnotes .28 references .29 sponsor funders and authors .32 professional learning in the learning profession 1

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foreword standards-based reform 2.0 by gov james b hunt jr ecades of standards-based school reform have helped identify what students need to know and be able to do in the words of former ibm ceo louis v gerstner jr these efforts were meant to drive standards [and accountability through the schoolhouse door but educators and policymakers are recognizing that it is time for standards-based reform 2.0 we need to place a greater priority on strengthening the capacity of educators and building learning communities to deliver higher standards for every child d no matter what states and districts do to bolster the education workforce they will need to do more and better with the talent they have enabling educational systems to achieve on a wide scale the kind of teaching that has a substantial impact on student learning requires much more intensive and effective professional learning than has traditionally been available if we want all young people to possess the higher-order thinking skills they need to succeed in the 21st century we need educators who possess higher-order teaching skills and deep content knowledge there are many ways to improve the quality and performance of the nation s education workforce and many are being tested states and districts have restructured the staffs at thousands of failing schools they are seeking to lure better talent into classrooms by recruiting career changers and liberal-arts graduates with rich content knowledge and a willingness to teach they are revamping their personnel departments launching new teacher academies and working to exert greater control over who will teach and in which schools but these efforts essential as they are influence only a small portion of educators and no matter what states and districts do to bolster the education workforce they will need to do more and better with the talent they have this will require a more effective and systematic approach to supporting developing and mobilizing the more than three million educators who will teach in and lead our schools other fields from medicine and management to the military do a far better job of providing ongoing learning opportunities and support for their professionals but as this report shows in education professional learning in its current state is poorly conceived and deeply flawed teachers lack time and opportunities to view each other s classrooms learn from mentors and work collaboratively the support and training they receive is episodic myopic and often meaningless meanwhile states and districts are spending millions of dollars on academic courses disconnected from the realities of classrooms but little on helping educators find solutions to the day-to-day challenges they face it is time for our education workforce to engage in learning the way other professionals do continually collaboratively and on the job to address common problems and crucial challenges where they work the united states is squandering a significant opportunity to leverage improvements in teacher knowledge to improve school and student performance other nations our competitors have made support for teachers and teacher learning a top priority with significant results in these countries students learn and achieve more teachers stay in the field longer and are more satisfied with their work educators take on even more responsibility for improving what happens in their buildings this report identifies what research says works and what states and other nations have done to develop that skilled workforce it tells us what should happen and can lead us to real-world benchmarks against which we will measure progress not least this study is a major first step toward developing a comprehensive set of policies and practices that help better organize the learning of adults in schools to make the hard work of educators more productive as studies have shown the steps we take to improve teacher skills and knowledge will pay off in better results for students but i believe that developing more systematic approaches to professional learning will have added benefits i know of no better way to transform the outmoded factory model of school organization and the egg-crate isolation of teachers than to give teachers the tools and support they need and greater responsibility over what happens in their buildings to ensure that all students achieve this is an effort that will require and is worthy of another decade of school reform 2 national staff development council

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preface creating effective professional learning systems to bolster teaching quality and student achievement by stephanie hirsh f or many years title i of the elementary and secondary education act has required low-performing schools to set aside ten percent of their allocations for schoolwide professional development title ii funding has resulted in the allocation of more than three billion dollars to professional development more than 40 states have adopted standards calling for effective professional development for all educators accountable for results in student learning and several national studies on what distinguishes high-performing high-poverty schools from their lowerperforming counterparts consistently identify effective schoolwide collaborative professional learning as critical to the school s success and yet as a nation we have failed to leverage this support and these examples to ensure that every educator and every student benefits from highly effective professional learning students success learning teams follow a cycle of continuous improvement that begins with examining student data to determine the areas of greatest student need pinpointing areas where additional educator learning is necessary identifying and creating learning experiences to address these adult needs developing powerful lessons and assessments applying new strategies in the classroom refining new learning into more powerful lessons and assessments reflecting on the impact on student learning and repeating the cycle with new goals the system at the school level is supported by state and federal policies that encourage regular teacher collaboration and professional learning closely tied with school improvement priorities and provides needed resources to give teachers time and opportunity to make this happen many states including kansas ohio and oregon most recently have adopted standards to demonstrate expectations that all teachers engage in effective professional development these states are among the 40 that have adopted or adapted nsdc s standards for staff development written in conjunction with 17 other professional associations some states such as florida georgia and kansas have implemented statewide assessment processes to determine the degree to which teachers experience effective professional development and student learning is impacted other states notably arkansas pennsylvania and new jersey invest in capacity-building strategies providing training and resources for principals and teacher leaders ohio enacted sweeping professional learning in the learning profession 3 improving professional learning for educators is a crucial step in transforming schools and improving academic achievement to meet federal requirements and public expectations for school and student performance the nation needs to bolster teacher skills and knowledge to ensure that every teacher is able to teach increasingly diverse learners knowledgeable about student learning competent in complex core academic content and skillful at the craft of teaching to accomplish this schools with the support of school systems and state departments of education need to make sure that professional learning is planned and organized to engage all teachers regularly and to benefit all students this requires high-quality sustained professional learning throughout the school year at every grade level and in every subject in an effective professional learning system school leaders learn from experts mentors and their peers about how to become true instructional leaders they work with staff members to create the culture structures and dispositions for continuous professional learning and create pressure and support to help teachers continuously improve by better understanding students learning needs making data-driven decisions regarding content and pedagogy and assessing students learning within a framework of high expectations teachers meet on a regular schedule in learning teams organized by grade-level or content-area assignments and share responsibility for their

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reforms of its professional development policy stand-out high-poverty school systems like long beach calif hamilton county tenn and carmen-ainsworth mich have made collaborative learning a priority to ensure that every educator and every student learns every day as this report shows such an approach to professional learning has become the norm in many countries that are our competitors but is the exception here the report reveals that much of the professional development available today focuses on educators academic content knowledge and pays growing attention to mentoring support particularly for new teachers but overall the kind of high-intensity job-embedded collaborative learning that is most effective is not a common feature of professional development across most states districts and schools in the united states future reports will i address the degree to which educators experience professional development linked to improved professional practice and student learning along with state-by-state comparison data and i examine policies and contexts that support implementation of more effective professional learning tied to student learning in states and school systems taken as a whole this work will provide the most comprehensive picture and far-reaching analysis of professional learning that has ever been conducted in the united states the overall research effort has been supported by the bill and melinda gates foundation metlife foundation nsdc and the wallace foundation we would like to thank vicki phillips sandra licon and lynn olson from the bill and melinda gates foundation sybil jacobson and a richardson love jr from the metlife foundation and richard laine jessica schwartz and frederick brown from the wallace foundation for their generous support we also wish to acknowledge joellen killion nsdc deputy executive director for managing the research effort our advisors richard elmore michael garet thomas guskey and kwang suk yoon for reviewing and commenting on the research report shep ranbom and rafael heller for their editorial guidance on this document and the staff at communicationworks llc for leading the communications effort we thank the board of trustees of the national staff development council for its vision and advocacy for this study nsdc s national advisors for their guidance and encouragement through the building stages and nsdc consultants hayes mizell and m rené islas for their perspectives and support nsdc has sponsored this initial report to synthesize what we know as a baseline to measure state and district performance we hope that each report in the series will answer key questions about professional learning that will contribute to improved outcomes in teaching and learning in the united states overall the kind of highintensity job-embedded collaborative learning that is most effective is not a common feature of professional development across most states districts and schools in the united states the purpose of this report is to provide policymakers researchers and school leaders with a teacher-development research base that can lead to powerful professional learning instructional improvement and student learning by examining information about the nature of professional development opportunities currently available to teachers across the united states and in a variety of contexts education leaders and policymakers can begin both to evaluate the needs of the systems in which teachers learn and do their work and to consider how teachers learning opportunities can be further supported this volume prepared by linda darlinghammond ruth chung wei alethea andree nikole richardson and stelios orphanos of stanford university summarizes a more in-depth research report the complete version of which can be found at www.nsdc.org/stateproflearning.cfm and at http www.srnleads.org the report is part of a larger study the status of professional development in the united states a multi-year research initiative data and findings drawn from this study will be used to establish benchmarks for assessing progress in professional development over time 4 national staff development council

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key findings t his report examines what research has revealed about professional learning that improves teachers practice and student learning it describes the relative availability of such opportunities in the united states as well as in highachieving nations around the world which have been making substantial and sustained investments in professional learning for teachers over the last two decades among the findings i while teachers typically need substantial professional development in a given area close to 50 hours to improve their skills and their students learning most professional development opportunities in the u.s are much shorter on the 2003-04 national schools and staffing survey sass a majority of teachers 57 percent said they had received no more than 16 hours two days or less of professional development during the previous 12 months on the content of the subjects they taught this was the most frequent area in which teachers identified having had professional development opportunities fewer than one-quarter of teachers 23 percent reported that they had received at least 33 hours more than 4 days of professional development on the content of the subjects they taught i significant variation in both support and opportunity for professional learning exists among schools and states a lower percentage of secondary school teachers reported participating in district-planned professional development than did elementary school teachers among states arkansas connecticut new hampshire and vermont had significantly higher proportions of teachers participating in professional learning than the national average i u.s teachers report little professional collaboration in designing curriculum and sharing practices and the collaboration that occurs tends to be weak and not focused on strengthening teaching and learning i american teachers say that much of the professional development available to them is not useful teachers give relatively high marks to content-related learning opportunities with 6 of 10 teachers 59 percent saying this training was useful or very useful but fewer than half found the professional development they received in other areas to be of much value i sustained and intensive professional development for teachers is related to student achievement gains while this insight is hopeful it derives from a limited pool of rigorous studies on specific kinds of professional development i collaborative approaches to professional learning can promote school change that extends beyond individual classrooms when all teachers in a school learn together all students in the school benefit i effective professional development is intensive ongoing and connected to practice focuses on the teaching and learning of specific academic content is connected to other school initiatives and builds strong working relationships among teachers however most teachers in the united states do not have access to professional development that uniformly meets all these criteria i public schools in the united states have begun to recognize and respond to the need to provide support for new teachers nationally in 200304 more than two-thirds 68 percent of public school teachers with fewer than five years of experience reported participating in a teacher induction program during the first year of teaching and 71 percent reported being assigned some kind of mentor teacher this is a noticeable increase from a decade earlier when only 56 percent of teachers had experienced teacher induction in their first year of teaching i more than 9 out of 10 u.s teachers have participated in professional learning consisting primarily of short-term conferences or workshops fewer teachers participated in other forms of traditional professional development including university courses related to teaching 36 percent and observational visits to other schools 22 percent the percentage of teachers who visited classrooms in other schools dropped from 34 percent to 22 percent from 2000 to 2004 the most recent year for which national data are available professional learning in the learning profession 5

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i teachers say that their top priorities for further professional development are learning more about the content they teach 23 percent classroom management 18 percent teaching students with special needs 15 percent and using technology in the classroom 14 percent i teachers are not getting adequate training in teaching special education or limited english proficiency students more than two-thirds of teachers nationally had not had even one day of training in supporting the learning of special education or lep students during the previous three years and only one-third agreed that they had been given the support they needed to teach students with special needs i u.s teachers unlike many of their colleagues around the world bear much of the cost of their professional development while most teachers were given some time off during the work day to pursue professional learning opportunities fewer than half received reimbursement for travel workshop fees or college expenses i u.s teachers participate in workshops and short-term professional development events at similar levels as teachers in other nations but the united states is far behind in providing public school teachers with opportunities to participate in extended learning opportunities and productive collaborative communities those are the opportunities that allow teachers to work together on issues of instructional planning learn from one another through mentoring or peer coaching conduct research on the outcomes of classroom practices and collectively guide curriculum assessment and professional learning decisions i other nations that outperform the united states on international assessments invest heavily in professional learning and build time for ongoing sustained teacher development and collaboration into teachers work hours i american teachers spend much more time teaching students and have significantly less time to plan and learn together and to develop high quality curriculum and instruction than teachers in other nations u.s teachers spend about 80 percent of their total working time engaged in classroom instruction as compared to about 60 percent for these other nations teachers i u.s teachers have limited influence in crucial areas of school decision-making in many high-achieving nations where teacher collaboration is the norm teachers have substantial influence on school-based decisions especially in the development of curriculum and assessment and in the design of their own professional learning in the united states however fewer than one-fourth of teachers feel they have great influence over school decisions and policies in seven different areas noted in the sass surveys while a scant majority of teachers across the nation feel that they have some influence over curriculum and setting performance standards for students fewer than half perceived that they had some influence over the content of their in-service professional development and very few felt they had influence over school policies and decisions affecting either teacher hiring and evaluation or the allocation of the school budget 6 national staff development council

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introduction e very year virtually all of the nation s three million teachers participate in some form of professional learning these activities can include workshops study groups mentoring experiences opportunities to view other teachers classrooms and numerous other formal and informal learning experiences status of opportunities and supports for professional development available to teachers nationally and across states we sought to determine whether current policies and practices are aligned with what research shows to be effective professional development practices we also explored differences in opportunities and supports for professional development across school contexts e.g grade level location and student subgroup in addition we examined differences in teachers access to professional development opportunities and supports in different types of school communities the sass data set is a nationally representative sample of more than 130,000 public and private school teachers across all 50 states and the district of columbia the data allowed researchers to evaluate the content of and support for professional development conditions fostering teacher collaboration and learning and induction practices nationwide we also examined the nsdc standards assessment inventory sai 2007-08 which measures teachers perceptions regarding their professional development as compared with nsdc s standards for effective professional development it has been administered to more than 150,000 teachers in more than 5,400 schools across 11 states and one canadian province for the purpose of this study researchers closely examined data from the four states alabama arizona georgia and missouri that had administered the survey statewide the report also includes data from other surveys such as the metlife survey of the american teacher and the national education association s survey of america s teachers and support professionals on technology which allowed researchers to compare findings with the sass data set for a complete copy of the report please see www.nsdc.org/stateproflearning.cfm professional learning can have a powerful effect on teacher skills and knowledge and on student learning if it is sustained over time focused on important content and embedded in the work of professional learning communities that support ongoing improvements in teachers practice when well-designed these opportunities help teachers master content hone teaching skills evaluate their own and their students performance and address changes needed in teaching and learning in their schools educators and policymakers increasingly recognize the importance of providing highquality learning opportunities to help transform teaching as students are expected to learn more complex analytical skills in preparation for further education and work in the 21st century teachers must learn to teach in ways that develop higher-order thinking and performance ensuring student success requires a new kind of teaching conducted by teachers who understand learning and pedagogy who can respond to the needs of their students and the demands of their disciplines and who can develop strong connections between students experiences and the goals of the curriculum efforts to improve student achievement can succeed only by building the capacity of teachers to improve their instructional practice and the capacity of school systems to promote teacher learning the following pages provide a comprehensive survey of the existing research on effective professional learning followed by snapshots of the various ways in which professional learning is being redesigned in the rest of the industrialized world strategies that we might consider adopting or expanding in this country using nationally representative data from the national center for education statistics 2003-04 schools and staffing survey sass the most recent available the report also examines the when well-designed professional learning helps teachers master content hone teaching skills evaluate their own and their students performance and address changes needed in teaching and learning in their schools professional learning in the learning profession 7

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effective teacher development what does the research show chapter r igorous research suggests that sustained and intensive professional learning for teachers is related to student-achievement gains an analysis of welldesigned experimental studies found that a set of programs which offered substantial contact hours of professional development ranging from 30 to 100 hours in total spread over six to 12 months showed a positive and significant effect on student achievement gains according to the research these intensive professional development efforts that offered an average of 49 hours in a year boosted student achievement by approximately 21 percentile points other efforts that involved a limited amount of professional development ranging from 5 to 14 hours in total showed no statistically significant effect on student learning.1 day each one focusing on discrete topics such as classroom management computer-based instruction student motivation assessment the teaching of phonics and so on with their connection to the classroom left to teachers imaginations however such episodic workshops disconnected from practice do not allow teachers the time for serious cumulative study of the given subject matter or for trying out ideas in the classroom and reflecting on the results research that finds changes in teacher practice and in some cases student learning supports the conclusion that intensive professional development especially when it includes applications of knowledge to teachers planning and instruction has a greater chance of influencing teaching practices and in turn leading to gains in student learning.6 indeed the duration of professional development appears to be associated with stronger impact on teachers and student learning in part perhaps because such sustained efforts typically include applications to practice often supported by study groups and/or coaching as noted earlier the nine existing experimental research studies of inservice programs found that programs of greater intensity and duration were positively associated with student learning in addition two separate evaluations of a year-long program designed to promote inquiry-based science instruction found that teachers who received 80 or more hours of professional development were significantly more likely to put the given teaching strategies into practice than were teachers who had received many fewer hours further the more intense long-term 1 while these findings are striking they come from a limited pool of rigorous quantitative studies for example the studies described above came from a meta-analysis of 1,300 research studies and evaluation reports from which researchers identified just nine experimental or quasi-experimental studies using control groups with pre and post-test designs that could evaluate impacts of professional development on student achievement.2 other reviews of research on professional development in literacy3 and mathematics4 also found few studies designed to support causal inferences nonetheless the methodologically strong studies that we do have suggest that welldesigned professional development can influence teacher practice and student performance the research base also illustrates the shortcomings of the occasional one-shot workshops that many school systems tend to provide which generations of teachers have derided.5 more importantly this research suggests some general guidelines for the design of effective professional development programs while we stress that causal relationships are not fully established the literature does point to some basic principles for designing professional learning that school and district leaders and policymakers would be well advised to consider rigorous research illustrates the shortcomings of the occasional one-shot workshops that many school systems tend to provide which generations of teachers have derided 1 professional development should be intensive ongoing and connected to practice today as in previous decades most professional development for teachers comes in the form of occasional workshops typically lasting less than a professional learning in the learning profession 9

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professional development teachers have the greater the achievement gains posted by their students during the following year.7 these findings match up well with teachers selfreported beliefs about the value of intensive and ongoing professional development according to results from a national survey teachers view in-service activities as most effective when they are sustained over time.8 average than did a control group of students taught by teachers who had not participated in the summer institute.12 it can be useful also for groups of teachers to analyze and discuss student-performance data and samples of students course work science projects essays math tests and so on in order to identify students most common errors and misunderstandings reach common understanding of what it means for students to master a given concept or skill and find out which instructional strategies are or are not working and for whom.13 notably one study of three high-achieving schools found that high levels of student performance seemed to be associated in part with teachers regular practice of consulting multiple sources of data on student performance and using those data to inform discussions about ways to improve instruction.14 2 professional development should focus on student learning and address the teaching of specific curriculum content research suggests that professional development is most effective when it addresses the concrete everyday challenges involved in teaching and learning specific academic subject matter rather than focusing on abstract educational principles or teaching methods taken out of context professional development is most effective when it addresses the concrete everyday challenges involved in teaching and learning specific academic subject matter for example researchers have found that teachers are more likely to try classroom practices that have been modeled for them in professional development settings.9 likewise teachers themselves judge professional development to be most valuable when it provides opportunities to do hands-on work that builds their knowledge of academic content and how to teach it to their students and when it takes into account the local context including the specifics of local school resources curriculum guidelines accountability systems and so on 10 equally important professional development that leads teachers to define precisely which concepts and skills they want students to learn and to identify the content that is most likely to give students trouble has been found to improve teacher practice and student outcomes.11 to this end it is often useful for teachers to be put in the position of studying the very material that they intend to teach to their own students for example one well-known study focused on elementary science teachers who participated in a 100-hour summer institute during which they actively engaged in a standard learning cycle that involved exploring a phenomenon coming up with a theory that explained what had occurred and applying it to new contexts after going through this process teachers went on to develop their own units and teach them to one another before returning to their classrooms later the researchers tested the reasoning ability of randomly selected students in those classrooms and found they scored 44 percent higher on 3 professional development should align with school improvement priorities and goals research suggests that professional development tends to be more effective when it is an integral part of a larger school reform effort rather than when activities are isolated having little to do with other initiatives or changes underway at the school.15 if teachers sense a disconnect between what they are urged to do in a professional development activity and what they are required to do according to local curriculum guidelines texts assessment practices and so on that is if they cannot easily implement the strategies they learn and the new practices are not supported or reinforced then the professional development tends to have little impact one prominent model of carefully integrated professional development is the national science foundation s discovery program implemented in ohio beginning in 1992 which offered sustained support for teachers as part of a larger statewide effort to improve student achievement in science following intensive sixweek institutes focusing on science content and instruction that matched those outlined in the state standards teachers were given release time to attend a series of six seminars covering curriculum and assessment in addition they were provided on-demand support and site visits from regional staff developers and contact with peers through newsletters and annual conferences according to an independent evaluation this combination of support led to a significant increase in and continued use of inquiry-based instructional practices.16 10 national staff development council

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4 professional development should build strong working relationships among teachers as researchers have shown many times over the past three decades,17 the nation s teachers exhibit a strongly individualistic ethos owing largely to the built-in privacy and isolation of their daily work as it has been organized in most u.s schools given the prevalence of an eggcrate model of instruction whereby each teacher spends most of the day in a single room separated from other adults the american teaching profession has not yet developed a strong tradition of professional collaboration historically schools have been structured so that teachers work alone rarely given time together to plan lessons share instructional practices assess students design curriculum or help make administrative or managerial decisions such cultural norms are not easily changed particularly if school structures and working conditions continue to favor privacy and isolation however research shows that when schools are strategic in creating time and productive working relationships within academic departments or grade levels across them or among teachers schoolwide the benefits can include greater consistency in instruction more willingness to share practices and try new ways of teaching and more success in solving problems of practice.18 for example a comprehensive five-year study of 1,500 schools undergoing major reforms found that in schools where teachers formed active professional learning communities student absenteeism and dropout rates were reduced and achievement increased significantly in math science history and reading further particular aspects of teachers professional communities a shared sense of intellectual purpose and a sense of collective responsibility for student learning were associated with a narrowing of achievement gaps in math and science among low and middle-income students.19 a number of large-scale studies have identified specific ways in which professional community-building can deepen teachers knowledge build their skills and improve instruction.20 perhaps the simplest way to break down professional isolation but one which rarely occurs in most schools is for teachers to observe each other s teaching and to provide constructive feedback in an evaluation of 12 schools implementing critical friends groups a peerobservation system developed by the national school reform faculty employing a set of protocols that teachers use to guide their observations and responses researchers found that teachers instruction became more studentcentered with a focus on ensuring that students gained mastery of the subject as opposed to merely covering the material in survey responses teachers in these schools also reported having more opportunities to learn and a greater desire to continuously develop more effective practices than teachers who did not participate.21 teachers can also use videotapes of teaching to make aspects of their practice public and open to peer critique learn new practices and pedagogical strategies and analyze aspects of teaching practice that may be difficult to capture otherwise recent research on teachers undertaking certification by the national board for professional teaching standards which involves them in producing and analyzing their own classroom videotapes in relation to professional standards and often discussing them with colleagues has found that the experience can lead teachers to change how they teach increase their knowledge of various approaches and enable them to engage in more effective teaching practices in the classroom.22 while efforts to strengthen teachers professional relationships can take many forms a number of researchers have identified specific conditions necessary for their success for example in a study of 900 teachers in 24 elementary and secondary schools across the country researchers found that teachers formed more stable and productive professional communities in smaller schools schools with little staffing complexity i.e where more staff members are classroom teachers and fewer are assigned to specialist and administrative jobs schools where teachers were relatively more involved in educational decisionmaking and especially schools that scheduled regular blocks of time for teachers to meet and plan courses and assignments together.23 when schools are strategic in creating time and productive working relationships within academic departments or grade levels across them or among teachers schoolwide the benefits can include better instruction and more success in solving problems of practice additional promising strategies in recent years many schools and districts across the country have invested in school-based coaching programs one of the fastest growing forms of professional development today typically in such models administrators identify well-regarded veteran educators and assign them to provide ongoing guidance advice and mentoring to a group or groups of teachers to help them improve their instruction professional learning in the learning profession 11

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closely related to school-based coaching is the increasingly common practice of providing mentoring and other forms of formal induction to beginning teachers often serving as the primary source of professional development for teachers in the first few years of their careers various forms of new teacher induction are now required in more than 30 states while both of these strategies can be justified on common-sense grounds their results are not yet confirmed by a solid body of evidence and the jury remains out as to their effectiveness or the conditions under which they are most likely to be effective thus policymakers would be welladvised to keep in mind the following two points none of these studies however employed comparison-group methods with sufficient controls and on a large enough scale to establish a strong association or causal link between coaching and student achievement and more rigorous research is required to confirm these relationships further a major literature review conducted as part of an institute for education sciences evaluation of the reading first program reported mixed findings on the impact of coaching on instructional practice as the authors explained those findings should be read as neither an endorsement nor a criticism of the professional development model since they may reflect variability in the expertise and practices of those assigned as coaches in other words the findings may have as much to do with the content or the uneven implementation of the specific coaching received as with the coaching model itself.31 as in any professional development enterprise it is also critically important that the instructional practices promoted through coaching are themselves more effective for the goals and circumstances in which they are being used than the practices teachers are otherwise using the content of professional learning matters as much as the process by which it is transmitted school-based coaching may enhance professional learning several comparison-group studies have found that teachers who receive coaching are more likely to enact the desired teaching practices and apply them more appropriately than are teachers receiving more traditional professional development.24 however a study conducted in the netherlands found that while teachers who had been coached felt more confident in their teaching they were not rated as more effective than teachers who had not been coached.25 another small-scale study found that teachers who had received coaching on particular strategies did not necessarily know when it was appropriate to select one instructional strategy over another.26 these studies suggest that coaching may need to be embedded in broader efforts to build professional knowledge if it is to be most useful several evaluations have suggested that coaching models of professional development have contributed to positive reforms in literacy instruction for example one study cites the impressive achievement gains of students whose school participated in the alabama reading initiative which utilized a school-based coaching model following an intensive two-week summer institute to provide ongoing support to teachers implementing the new literacy approach.27 another recent evaluation found that as a result of a differentiated literacy program and other interventions that utilized a coaching model the percentage of students meeting benchmark standards in an illinois district increased markedly.28 in a study by the foundation for california early literacy learning teachers reported that the coaching they received had a positive effect on student achievement.29 likewise some researchers have linked achievement gains in reading and writing to literacy coaching.30 12 national staff development council while coaching mentoring and induction can be justified on commonsense grounds the jury remains out as to their effectiveness or the conditions under which they are most likely to be effective mentoring and induction programs for new teachers may support teacher effectiveness in one large-scale literature review researchers found that induction programs tend to be effective in reducing attrition among beginning teachers the strongest retention rates were associated with the assignment of a teacher mentor working in the same subject area and/or grade level common planning time with teachers in the same subject regularly scheduled collaboration with other teachers and participation in a network of teachers.32 one analysis found that when beginning teachers received a combination of such induction supports attrition declined by half.33 some studies suggest also that when teacher mentors receive formal training along with release time to provide one-to-one mentoring the retention and classroom performance of beginning teachers improves.34 further a recent literature review noted that a number of casebased research studies give strong support to induction programs that are collegial and job-embedded as when mentors observe beginning teachers in the classroom while finding that workshops for new teachers tend to be ineffective.35 however these same reviewers

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also note that the research to date has tended to rely on teachers self-reported gains in their knowledge and skills few studies of mentoring and induction have documented observable changes in instructional practice or reported measurable impacts on student achievement an ongoing large-scale research project is currently underway that aims to measure such impacts including effects on classroom practices student achievement and teacher mobility by using a randomized control-group model to study a teacher-induction program the program offers mentoring teacher observations formative assessments and workshops across 17 districts with the districts regular induction programs providing a basis for comparison the first-year report released in october 2008 reported no statistically significant differences in teacher practices student test scores or teacher retention between the two groups of teachers.36 however it is difficult to generalize about induction from these results since the level and intensity of teachers participation varied so much that they cannot be accurately described as having received the same treatment or even as having received a distinctively different treatment from the comparison group the initial results of this study highlight the need for more rigorous research into the impact of induction supports on instruction teacher retention and student achievement as yet such interventions remain promising but not proven professional learning in the learning profession 13

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