PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS: Why Doesn't the Model Change?

Abstract

Introduction Any fully functioning educational system needs a serious approach to the professional development of the teachers who work in its domain. Without improving what Richard F. Elmore has called “the core of educational practice,” (1996)—namely, the teaching and learning that occurs in actual living classrooms—no long term solutions to educational problems are likely to occur (Little, 1993; Darling-Hammond, 1997). Certainly this is true in Jewish education, where the weakness of teachers’ backgrounds and general lack of preparation for the field are well known phenomena (Council for Initiatives in Jewish Education, 1994). Therefore in Jewish education, it could be argued, a focus on professional development is even more important than in general education (Gamoran, Goldring, & Robinson, 1999). In research previously reported upon, we presented the findings of a study of professional development opportunities for teachers in five North American Jewish communities (Holtz, Gamoran, Dorph, Goldring & Robinson, in press). Our goal in this paper is to explore the implications of the findings from our earlier article. In that article we reported on the current situation of professional development in the communities studied and made general recommendations about improving the situation of professional development, both at the school level and at the level of the community. Here we wish to examine possible reasons why most contemporary professional development in Jewish education looks the way that it does. We wish to thank and acknowledge the insights of many participants at the Conference of the Network for Research in Jewish Education in June, 1999 who attended our “Spotlight” session where these data were first presented and who helped us “think outloud” about the problems we wish to address in this paper. Before we turn to interpreting the study, let us first review some of the key findings.