Professional development and closing the achievement gap

Theory Into Practice, Wntr, 2005 by Stephanie Hirsh

A significant challenge to schools is selecting the staff development approach that aligns most clearly with the assumptions and beliefs of staff members and produces the results desired for students. When beliefs are in alignment, change in behavior accelerates; when beliefs underlying a new staff development program contradict long-held beliefs of participants change can come much slower or not at all. To expedite the change process and successfully close the achievement gap, educators might begin the process by ensuring a thorough understanding of the assumptions and beliefs underlying staff development programs. According to Sparks (2003), effective professional development will deepen participant understanding, transform beliefs and assumptions, and create a stream of continuous actions that change habits and affect practice. Four powerful approaches advanced by four successful educators (Kati Haycock, Ron Ferguson, Jerry and Monique Sternin, and Glenn Singleton) focus toward this goal and are grounded in varying underlying guiding principles that offer educators substantive choices and direction for their work.

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CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP by ensuring that all students achieve high levels of performance is a primary goal of No Child Left Behind, as well as state legislatures, local school boards, and school improvement councils. These same groups struggle to find the means to achieve their goals. According to research, no single ingredient has greater impact on student achievement than the quality of the teacher in the classroom (Haycock, 1998). However not all teachers are adequately prepared to meet the diverse needs of today's students. And it is impossible to think about replacing every ineffective teacher with a more competent one. Instead attention must be given to finding strategies to assist less successful teachers to improve. Quality professional development employs these strategies, improves teaching, and closes achievement gaps.

Policymakers and educators strive to find the "right" professional development approach to ensuring that all teachers have the knowledge and skills essential to produce high levels of learning and performance for students. Countless staff development providers claim to have the answer to their dilemmas. And while their solutions may have helped in certain situations, there is never any guarantee that others will experience similar Success.

According to Sparks (2003), effective professional development will deepen participant understanding, transform beliefs and assumptions, and create a stream of continuous actions that change habits and affect practice. The National Staff Development Council (2001) asserted that professional development that improves student learning focuses on the results we want for adults and students, is aligned with standards that define quality practice, and is focused on the daily work of teaching. Schools make important decisions when it comes to professional development.

Assumptions and beliefs regarding how adults and students learn and the affect of new learning on their behaviors underlie most professional development designs. A significant challenge to schools is selecting the staff development approach that aligns most clearly with the assumptions and beliefs of staff members and produces the results desired for students. When beliefs are in alignment, change in behavior accelerates; when beliefs underlying a new staff development program contradict long-held beliefs of participants, change can come much slower or not at all. To expedite the change process and successfully close the achievement gap, educators might begin the process by ensuring a thorough understanding of the assumptions and beliefs of staff development programs. In their desire to close the achievement gap, four powerful approaches with varying underlying guiding principles can offer substantive choices and direction for the work.

Glenn Singleton, Kati Haycock, Ron Ferguson, and Jerry Sternin offer powerful approaches to professional development that improve teaching and learning. Each approach is based on some similar and some very different assumptions and processes. Careful consideration of these and other models by system and school leadership team members can offer valuable options for professional learning and potentially closing the achievement gap.

Kati Haycock and Strengthening Teaching

Kati Haycock is the executive director of the Education Trust, an advocacy organization for the rights of poor and minority students. Haycock believes that good teaching is characterized by teachers having the necessary knowledge and skills to assist all students to achieve at high levels. She is passionate about students, particularly poor and minority, having teachers who possess the knowledge and skills to facilitate their success. Haycock (1998) asserted that

   poor and minority children depend on their teachers
   like no others. In the hands of our best teachers,
   the effects of poverty and institutional racism melt
   away, allowing these students to soar to the same
   heights as young Americans from more advantaged
   homes. (p. 2)