Barnett Berry, Laura Turchi, and Dylan Johnson, Southeast Center for Teaching Quality, Inc.; Dwight Hare and Deborah Duncan Owens, Mississippi State University; and Steve Clements, Kentucky Professional Standards BoardNovember 2003
This report provides a series of case studies around the South to illuminate the influence of state accountability systems on teachers and their professional development. The authors' hope was that accountability might "promote effective professional development," but instead they find that there is so much confusion and frustration that even well-meaning teachers have little clue how to seek or use any training that might help them be better teachers (and help their students perform better). Yet there are glimmers of hope. Teachers generally support the theory of accountability (though it's hard to pin down how stringent an accountability system they'd like), and the case studies reveal a few teachers who actually met regularly to discuss students' progress. But these positive accounts are rare. The fundamental problem: teachers don't know how to interpret standardized test results, so they can't change their teaching. Nor do they know which professional development courses might aid in this challenge. One might conclude that the problem lies with the accountability system itself, but the finding that "across the six states and various low to high-performing schools visited, we found little evidence of teachers receiving high quality professional development" points to another answer. The report is tough going but if you'd care to know more about these teachers and the mess that is professional development, visit http://www.teachingquality.org/resources/pdfs/Spencer_FinalReport.pdf.
