The Looming Danger of a Two-Tiered Professional Development System

Abstract

If development relies on scripts and mandates rather than on learning communities and continuous improvement, it can actually hinder teachers' growth. Mr. Sparks fears that the teachers most likely to receive such inferior training are the ones who work with the student population most in need of high-quality teaching. ADMINISTRATORS who are responsible for development in schools would do well to heed the advice of VISA founder Dee Hock: Have a simple, clear purpose which gives rise to intelligent behavior, rather than complex rules and regulations that give rise to thinking and stupid behavior. Hock's admonition clarifies my concern that this nation is rapidly creating a two-tiered development system that ill serves a significant number of teachers and their students. The first tier is an emerging system that advocates the development of community and the exercise of judgment -- what Hock would label complex, intelligent behavior. Teachers in schools that have embraced this system of development are generally committed to collective school and team goals, use data and other forms of evidence to make decisions, engage in extended study and discussions of educational issues and instructional practices, and enjoy the benefits of supportive, collegial interactions. As a result, these teachers experience growth in judgment and skills, see improvements in student learning, and feel the increased confidence and motivation that these improvements produce. Professional learning of this type engages the intellect, involves all teachers in cycles of action and reflection, and builds relationships, all of which lead to continuous improvements in teaching and learning for all students in all schools. To achieve these ends, teachers work in ongoing teams, examine student work, analyze various types of evidence regarding student learning, set goals for improvement, plan lessons together, and reflect on the effectiveness of those lessons. Conversely, the second tier of development is built on mandates, scripted teaching, and careful monitoring for compliance -- the types of learning that can easily lead to what Hock would call simplistic thinking and stupid behavior. In the schools employing tier-two development, teachers generally are told what to do and when to do it, particularly in high-stakes subject areas such as reading and mathematics. If the benefits of community occur at all under this approach, they are, at best, by- products for a minority of teachers rather than an intended outcome for all. I have several concerns about this second tier of development. Far too many tier-two efforts begin and end with top-down, highly prescriptive approaches, leaving the culture of schools untouched and teachers and students ill prepared to function much beyond the most rudimentary levels of performance. I am also concerned that demeaning and mind-numbing staff development will create a persistent aversion to learning and leave teachers feeling resigned to their fate and dependent on experts as the primary source for their development. And most important, because such forms of development are typically directed at those who teach our most vulnerable students, I believe that this approach will have long-term, deleterious consequences for poor and minority students. Professional Development Apartheid My views have been reinforced by several timely books and articles. In Teaching in the Knowledge Society, Boston College professor Andy Hargreaves uses the term performance training sects to describe tier- two development and the term professional development apartheid to emphasize the profound consequences -- for teachers and students -- of the disparity between tier-one and tier-two approaches. …