Professional development has long been a source of both teacher and administrator frustration for being costly and unfocused. Now, a study from TNTP, a teacher-training and advocacy group, adds yet another troubling finding: PD doesn鈥檛 seem to factor into why some teachers get better at their jobs while others don鈥檛.
In case studies of three districts, TNTP could not find a link between teachers who improved their performance and the specific professional development they reported receiving. The districts spent an average of $18,000 annually per teacher on classroom coaching, workshops, and other forms of support.
The report also underscores what other scholars have already lamented: Without better information about what teacher-development activities work under what conditions, it will be hard to force improvements in a U.S. PD marketplace estimated to be worth some $18 billion.
鈥淲e鈥檝e known for a long time that a lot of PD is not actually effective at helping teachers improve their craft, but there have not been changes in this sector of the marketplace,鈥� said Heather C. Hill, a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 鈥淧art of it is that we don鈥檛 have good ways of tracking what works and doesn鈥檛 work, so we don鈥檛 point to things that work or don鈥檛 work, and teachers keep signing up for the same things.鈥�
Questionable Efficacy
For the report, TNTP鈥攆ormerly the New Teacher Project鈥攍ooked at three large school districts and one charter-network organization that serve in total some 20,000 teachers and 400,000 students, mostly low-income. The organization would not release the names of the districts.
To find teachers who had improved their skills, TNTP researchers analyzed teacher growth in multiple ways: changes in principal ratings, improvements in 鈥渧alue added鈥� estimates based on student test scores, and scores on particular teaching skills. The group controlled for teacher experience, since research shows teachers generally get better over time.
Then, TNTP connected the results to surveys of the teachers on the types of professional development they engaged in, its frequency, and their feelings as to its efficacy. The surveys had response rates ranging from 26 percent to 53 percent across the districts and the charter-management organization. They were not scientific samples, though, and could contain selection bias.
The group calculated PD spending three different ways: a conservative one that took into account just time, money, supplies, and programming; a second that also included evaluation support and the cost of pay for graduate degrees; and a third, generous estimate. Using those methods, TNTP estimates that the districts鈥� spending on PD ranged from 5 to 11 percent of their fiscal 2014 budgets.
Overall, the data showed few differences in self-reported PD experiences between the teachers who improved and those who didn鈥檛 in each of the three districts.
The charter-management organization that TNTP studied generally had teachers making stronger growth than did the three districts and spent far more on professional development鈥攐n the order of $33,000 a teacher and 15 percent of its budget. But even in the charter network鈥檚 schools, the teachers who improved reported no common PD activities.
鈥淭he takeaway for us is not, 鈥楤ad PD doesn鈥檛 work.鈥� It鈥檚 that we have to start taking a much more critical look at teacher support more generally,鈥� said Daniel Weisberg, the president of TNTP. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know if improving the current system is really feasible. We鈥檙e further away from getting to consistent evidence than we thought we were.鈥�
Hopes for Better Research
Karen Hawley Miles, the president of Education Resource Strategies, a group that consults on school spending with districts, said her organization has found similar levels of spending on PD鈥攂etween 5 and 15 percent of district budgets.
鈥淚 hope [TNTP鈥檚 report] is another opportunity to bring attention to the very huge importance of really looking at what we鈥檙e putting our dollars into,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want it to be read as we should stop doing these things. It means, spend smartly.鈥�
Hill recommended that larger districts start investing in better research methods. For instance, they could try to connect teachers鈥� PD activities, such as time spent in mentoring or grade-level teams, to value-added results and look for patterns that seem promising. And all districts should start trying to vary their PD approaches among schools, scaling up ones with initial results and shuttering programs that don鈥檛 seem to be helping much.
Still, she said, that鈥檚 a heavy lift.
鈥淚鈥檓 pretty despondent about the whole sector,鈥� she said. 鈥淩egardless of the type of study, it just doesn鈥檛 look like we have any purchase on what works.鈥�
