THE FINDINGS

Although both sites are unique in their approach to providing opportunities for continuing education in the workplace, the purpose of sorting the school-district and private-sector experiences into the same framework categories is to allow for comparison between the two. Summarized below are the major points identified according to each framework category in each site, some analysis of how they are the same or different, and highlights of lessons learned to improve the effectiveness of professional development in education.

Structure of the Organization

Authority and Control

The learning that occurs in the workplace is affected by how individuals are supported in the microculture of their immediate work environments and in particular by their immediate managers. A manager plays two very important roles: giving direct support and facilitating a climate for learning. Offering support to individuals, particularly at critical junctures, leads them to developing confidence in their capabilities. The manager can create workplace learning by changing the patterns of work allocation, the assignment of responsibilities, and the composition of the working group. The manager or school principal may also be the gatekeeper to formal education, whether in-house or externally provided.

Both BlueRibbin and Reeching Heights have a centralized professional development office that plans, develops, implements, and evaluates continuing education opportunities for employees. Decisions about the content of staff development and training, however, are a matter of negotiation between the Reeching Heights's Staff Support Services (SSS) office, school leadership, and the individual. By contrast, the "what and how" of training are company mandates at BlueRibbin.

There are few formal opportunities for BlueRibbin consultants to pursue noncareer-related learning experiences because professional development is highly centralized: BlueRibbin controls the goals and the content, especially for new employees. While Reeching Heights is characterized by central coordination of professional development activities, it has little centralized control over participant decisions. However, the centralization of staff development and training in both cases appears to reduce the institutional fragmentation so often characteristic of large organizations. Professional development continues to take place through a variety of channels in Reeching Heights (e.g., special education, compensatory education, curriculum services), but all those efforts are coordinated and centrally communicated at the SSS office.

Individual choice in a continuing education option is limited to well-defined steps on the career ladder at BlueRibbin and to school or district improvement goals at Reeching Heights. Reeching Heights' main goal is to strengthen institutional capacity by encouraging teachers to think of professional development as an integral part of an overall school or district improvement program. The need for a coordinated response to a school or district issue or challenge forces staff to come together to seek a solution, and this is where continuous learning takes place. The result is that individual growth and development is almost always tied to organizational goals. There is a little more flexibility in Reeching Heights than in BlueRibbin, because of the historical and ongoing negotiations between the district and the union, as well as district compliance with state-mandated programs for teachers. In addition, participation in professional development activities is not mandatory in Reeching Heights as it is in BlueRibbin, where staff development and training is considered part of the job.

Time

Time is at a premium in any profession, but time for continuing education is especially difficult to justify to the public in both education and the private sector. In addition, the organization may have standard procedures and work assignment processes that encourage and enable workplace learning, such as management development programs, apprenticeship schemes, induction programs, and work rotation systems. In contrast to the norm of several days a year or a few hours per week for staff development and training in schools, the National Staff Development Council recommends that 20 percent of the teacher work year be devoted to teachers' professional learning (Powell, 1998).

The amount of time for professional development that is institutionalized into the workday and work year of the teacher in Reeching Heights and the employee in BlueRibbin is vastly different. The school district makes available to teachers four institute days, two hours every two weeks, and up to three days of release time for subsidized professional development. All other professional development occurs outside the school day on the teacher's time. However, unlike many other school districts, Reeching Heights compensates teachers for their time in summer institutes or in the technology professional development program. At BlueRibbin, time is set aside for employees to participate in staff development and training. The total amount of time available is 10 percent of an employee's contract annually.

In Reeching Heights, any time out of the classroom is negotiated between teachers, school leadership, district administrators, and union officials, when appropriate. At BlueRibbin, there is an ongoing and unquestioned commitment to a consistent number of hours for professional development. Another difference is the emphasis on more structured support for new employees in the first five years at BlueRibbin. New employees are very deliberately guided through the BRE program to build skills and to learn the company culture. Aside from a one- or two-day induction program in Reeching Heights, there is no difference in the content or quantity of professional development made available to new and more senior employees.

Funding

Several studies have attempted to estimate the cost of professional development and training in both education and the private sector without much success. In this study, funding data will help provide insight into what the key policy and leverage points are in support of professional development.

Like time, funding for professional development at BlueRibbin is a given. The level of funding may fluctuate with the company's gross revenue, but the commitment to support ongoing staff development and training is a constant. To a lesser degree, the same commitment to funding is characteristic of the Reeching Heights Public Schools, since professional development is a shared value of the school board, district administration, and the union. Neither organization would be able to maintain a centralized continuing education function without some continuous funding. However, maintaining consistent levels of funding in Reeching Heights is more frequently negotiated between the various leadership groups than in BlueRibbin. In addition, funding levels in Reeching Heights are influenced by external factors such as changes in the state's funding formula, property tax values, demographic growth, and local politics.

Technology

The use of technology for the delivery of staff development and training is in line with more general workplace trends concerning the use of technology. However, few organizations have conducted cost-to-benefit analyses to determine whether training delivered in this way is more efficient or more effective. We examine how education and the private sector use technology for professional development and whether there is any evidence of increased access, efficiency, or effectiveness.

The Reeching Heights district uses professional development heavily to improve staff capacity to both use technology effectively and to integrate technology into student learning. But, unlike BlueRibbin Corportion, they use little technology for the delivery of professional development. Due to BlueRibbin's rapid growth, technology-based delivery systems became a more cost-efficient and -effective method to deliver training. As K-12 and higher education institutions make more courses available online, delivering professional development likely will become increasingly technology based.

It is interesting to note that the best evaluation data available in both case-study sites is on the more recently implemented technology-based professional development programs. There are two possible arguments for why this is the case: (1) the use of technology facilitates program evaluation, and (2) the increase in the use of technology-based professional development coincides with a heavier emphasis on accountability for expenditures in every industry.

 

FINDING TIME It was considered revolutionary when Saturn introduced a process for building cars that pro-vides 92 hours of reeducation per year for each employee as part of an employee's normal work year. In response to Saturn's reeducation policy, Albert Shanker noted: "It is ironic that a bunch of people whose business is building cars understand so well the importance of educating their employees, whereas people in education seem to assume that teachers and other school staff will be able to step right into a new way of doing things with little or no help." Source: Stigler & Hiebart, 1999, p. 143

Institutional Factors Affecting Professional Development

Leverage Points

The message sent by incentives in an organization play a significant role in shaping a learning context. For example, if pay increments are tied to graduate courses or professional development credits, teachers have little incentive to participate in school improvement planning that might generate tangible results for students but will do little to advance their careers. Thus, while many in the educational community may call for changes in professional development, the rewards for teacher development have not aligned with advances in the research.

In both cases, organizational leaders believe professional development participation depends on external motivation, such as salary increases, access to new skills development, access to professional resources, and professional expense reimbursement. However, teachers considering professional development options at Reeching Heights have more flexibility than employees at BlueRibbin. As a result, it is possible to characterize the array of professional development options in Reeching Heights as more complex and therefore more confusing to employees. If employees choose to study for advanced degrees while working at BlueRibbin, they do so with no guarantee of a return on their investments. At Reeching Heights, however, pursuing advanced degrees or experiences outside those sponsored and paid for by the district continues to be supported—due to contract provisions—despite the heavy emphasis on integrating professional development into the school's or district's improvement process.

Both case-study sites have a set salary schedule, but what qualifies individuals for advancement on the career ladder is different in each organization:

• Advancement at BlueRibbin is based on the number of years of experience and performance. Participation in professional development is not a factor in salary increases as it is simply considered part of the individual's job. Salary adjustments are made every three or four years based on performance, with an annual percentage increase given to everyone.
• Advancement on the salary schedule at Reeching Heights is based on the number of years of experience and the number of hours attained toward an advanced degree. Advancement on the salary schedule is also attained through moving into an administrative position in the school or district.

Both organizations offer a range of continuing education experiences for the duration of an individual's career. However, the number and flexibility of options for a BlueRibbin employee increase with the level of experience, with a heavy emphasis on prescribed training and staff development during the first five years. Reeching Heights employees enjoy the same range of options at every stage of the teacher's career, but teachers must take the initiative. Performance is more systematically evaluated at BlueRibbin and therefore may provide an indirect incentive for participating in professional development.

Finally, although not an individual incentive to participate in professional development, access to a centrally coordinated information infrastructure to get questions answered or to address concerns with training is associated with greater ease of participation and can be considered an institutional factor that affects professional development.

Employee Interaction and Communication

Professional communities can be characterized by the engagement of individuals around a common vision, the development of a shared portfolio of methods and resources, and a common language. However, strong professional communities have been shown to constrain workplace learning as well as promote it. What makes the difference is whether the work culture—beliefs, norms, and organizational policies—encourages or discourages continuous learning and collective responsibility. In education, research using the 1988 National Longitudinal Survey data found significant positive effects of "collective responsibility for learning," a core facet of strong professional communities, on student achievement gains in math and science (Lee & Smith, 1996). Support for ongoing education and training might also include organization of an employee's workload to create opportunities for ongoing collaboration.

Both organizations have invested in some form of Web-based employee communication system. Although Reeching Heights's system is not very interactive, since it functions primarily as a Web-based catalogue of teacher work, the BlueRibbin Knowledge Exchange is meant to foster internal and informal interaction and communication. According to BlueRibbin interviews, people use the Knowledge Exchange to varying degrees based on how technologically savvy they are and whether it is relevant to their work. In addition, the BlueRibbin culture encourages collaboration through a team approach to work whereas teachers continue to be fairly isolated in their classroom environments.

Content Determination and Evaluation

McTaggart (1989) outlines a further set of working conditions that stifle teacher initiative and act as disincentives to collaborate. These include centralized systems of accountability and evaluation, and district-level decisions about curriculum development and textbooks. Similarly, Little (1984) writes that teacher evaluation has not traditionally been viewed as professional development, but more as a "perfunctory, supervisor-initiated, rite-of-practice" (p. 13).

At BlueRibbin, course content and curriculum are prescribed, especially at the beginning, because courses are taught by company managers who learn of the curriculum two or three days before teaching it. Therefore, instructors rely on the BRE office to provide materials that will be easy to follow and can be enhanced by their practical experience. In addition, course content is prescriptive because staff development and training are viewed as a primary vehicle for inducting employees into the BlueRibbin corporate culture.

There seems to be greater movement toward prescribing course content in professional development activities in Reeching Heights as well, but this trend is currently only evident in the technology program where the instructors and SSS office personnel collaboratively develop course syllabi. The Summer Institute and Internal University courses have to be approved by the SSS office or a cooperating university, but only a few courses are actually completely designed by the SSS office. At BlueRibbin, professional staff in the BRE office designs the entire basic curriculum. A significant difference, of course, is that the District SSS office employs fewer than five full-time staff while the BRE office at BlueRibbin employs 350 people (5 percent of total BlueRibbin staff). In both organizations, well-organized routines of activity, clear instructional goals, and the sequencing of skills from simpler to more complex are important to designing learning opportunities. Finally, BlueRibbin has a much more formal process for determining course content, beginning with a broad-based needs assessment. Courses are then developed with significant input and direction from the company's industry groups.

One of the case-study selection criteria was the extent to which data exist that can link investment in professional development to improved performance. In the prevailing model of staff development in education, teachers make the major consumption decisions and the costs of those decisions are passed on to the public without accountability for how they relate to improvement. In Reeching Heights, decisions about content, cost, and delivery are more centralized, with increasing consideration for the underlying question of expected return.

Although both case-study sites are significantly ahead of their competitors in the quantity and quality of evaluation data collected, the link to improved performance is still tenuous. Both sites rely on evaluation data that indicate an immediate response to improve the content of future professional development offerings, but data on employee or client performance are not used to make decisions about participants or cost, or to determine whether the investment yielded a return in performance or profits. Better evaluation data were collected with the implementation of goal-based scenarios at BlueRibbin and the technology program at Reeching Heights. In both case-study sites, participating in professional development was not a formal component of annual personnel evaluations. Nonparticipation would result in termination of employment at BlueRibbin and eventually would freeze a teacher's salary at Reeching Heights, but how a person performs in a professional development activity is not taken into account.

Individual Factors Affecting Professional Development

Personal Growth

Intrinsic motivation for seeking formal learning in the workplace might include seeking a promotion, trying out new procedures, and participating in new ventures. March and Simon's (1958) influence model rests on a theory that individual behavior and change are motivated by opportunities to achieve valued rewards in the workplace. Recent work on self-efficacy (Bandura, 1995) argues that psychological well-being is important and the affective dimension of learning should be recognized.

Reeching Heights case study participants spoke enthusiastically about the many opportunities for personal professional growth. The opportunity to take advantage of professional development is a contributing factor for selecting Reeching Heights as a place of employment. Participants interviewed in the private-sector case study also said they chose BlueRibbin partly because of its heavy emphasis on continuing education. According to Robert Stout (1996), at least four motives underlie teacher motivation to participate in professional development: (1) salary enhancement, (2) certificate maintenance, (3) career mobility, and (4) gaining new skills or knowledge to enhance classroom practice. Although a formal survey of case-study participants' ranking of these four motives was not conducted, interviews and observations in Reeching Heights conclude that although most teachers who participate in professional development are motivated by salary enhancement, many teachers pursue personal growth opportunities to enhance their classroom practice. Because salary increases at BlueRibbin are based so heavily on individual performance, case-study participants were more likely to identify skill and knowledge enhancement as primary motivators for professional development.

Satisfaction With Work

One of the best examples of a long-term commitment to implementing professional development is found in New York's District 2. In addition to the benefits that were documented for student learning, Elmore (1996) found that many teachers throughout the district report feeling that they are held to much higher expectations than peers in other districts, and usually did not see these expectations as negative. Rather than an additional burden, the emphasis on professional development was seen as a form of empowerment for teachers. The Teaching Firm (Education Development Center, 1998) found that in the private sector the alignment of individual goals with those of the organization increases an employee's satisfaction with work and feeling of self-worth.

There was little difference between how interviewees responded to questions about their level of satisfaction with work in both case-study sites. Professional development opportunities are an important factor in participants' work satisfaction. However, there is some difference in the relative importance of professional development compared to other work environment characteristics as a source of an individual's satisfaction. At Reeching Heights, for example, the salary schedule is among the highest in the state, yet the working conditions are similar to other districts in the surrounding area. Therefore, differences in the opportunities for continued professional growth are an important factor to what sets Reeching Heights apart from its competitors.

BlueRibbin's working conditions and benefits, on the other hand, are similar to other Fortune 100 companies, so the commitment to provide opportunities for continuing education is a significant reason for choosing employment at BlueRibbin. Companies are moving away from thinking about training as something done to or for employees; rather, training must become a continuous process where all critical links of an employee-customer supply chain develop a coherent view of the company's vision and values (Meister, 1998). BlueRibbin participants cited opportunities for advancement as more important to an individual's satisfaction with work than opportunities for continuing education; but since the two characteristics are inextricably linked, employees were hard-pressed to describe how to get one without the other. Satisfaction with work at BlueRibbin appears to depend on whether employees accept the company culture, placing a heavy emphasis on mandatory professional development.

Collaboration

In Kentucky, some studies have found that teachers had few opportunities to collaborate with colleagues as they attempted to change their practice. In a study of three districts, Keane (1995) reported that "all the groups interviewed implied a need for a system in which teachers could plan together and, in some cases, teach together in order to connect lessons across disciplines and garner support from their colleagues" (p. 163).

This category was intended to address individual motivation to collaborate informally as a result of professional development, but participants at both sites were hard pressed to give examples that were unrelated to a formal activity. BlueRibbin employees were a little puzzled by the question because 80 percent of their work is conducted through group problem solving or teamwork with clients. Their staff development and training activities, both in-classroom and technology based, require individuals to participate in a group process.

Reeching Heights professional development is much more individualized. Because the district must attract employees to participate, it must be flexible and provide multiple options. Also, professional development is not a significant part of the workday or year, so most educators participate on their own time. Stigler and Hiebert's (1999) study of Japanese classroom teaching reform found that, similar to BlueRibbin's approach, participation in school-based professional development groups is considered part of a teacher's job in Japan. In the United States, however, the culture fostered by teachers' unions and embraced by many teachers is that professional development is an add-on to their full teaching load, and it often infringes on teachers' time with students or with their families.

External Factors Related to Change in Professional Development

Economy

The challenge to formal workplace learning may also stem from an organizational policy change or problem. Some examples might include (1) increasing the emphasis on quality, cost savings, and productivity; (2) the need to respond to externally imposed conditions or market forces; and (3) a reduction in staffing levels. An example specific to education is that schools and districts generally have little control over the percentage of state and local funding earmarked for public education. As a result, an unsuccessful levy to raise the local property tax might result in the need for budget cuts that translate into choices about how to allocate scarce resources.

Changes in the economy have a distinct effect on "business as usual" in both case-study sites. In the private-sector case study, the researcher expected to see the biggest change in funding levels for professional development as the result of a downturn in the economy. Case-study participants consistently refuted the researcher's expectation and explained that changes in the marketplace certainly affect company priorities for professional development, but the opportunity to participate in continuing education remains stable. In fact, a slow economy may translate into more employees participating in staff development and training because it is more difficult for consultants to find time away from clients during periods of strong economic growth.

Although school district administrators also claim that economic changes do not affect funding levels for professional development, that assertion may be more difficult to sustain when community members balk at high property tax rates and state coffers are unable to make up the difference. However, in both instances, the clear determinant for sustaining professional development funding levels was a commitment by leadership to the importance for sustaining professional growth in the workplace.

State Policy

A 1998 study of trends affecting professional development in four districts showed that state policy was frequently a major force for generating professional development (National Foundation for the Improvement of Education). However, according to a study of district leaders' perceptions of teacher learning, state policies are understood by teachers only at a surface level and involve only minor changes in their existing conceptions of teaching, learning, and subject matter (Spillane, 2000). Nevertheless, arguing for more prescriptive policies that outline the details of local implementation is still viewed as an infringement of local control. In addition, state timelines for compliance set on the basis of political priorities rather than effective practice often complicate the district's ability to implement meaningful reform in professional development.

In the private sector, tax policy can act as an incentive for companies to invest resources in staff development and training. To attract large companies to areas of economic growth, state governments offer a variety of tax incentives including rebates for investments made by companies in providing new skill training for local employees. In addition, it has become increasingly common for the federal and state governments to provide companies with tax incentives for hiring and training individuals who heretofore received some sort of government subsidy.

Questions about the role of state policy in influencing professional development activities in this research study were intended primarily to further illuminate the school district experience. However, in neither case did state policy have much or any effect on the content or delivery of professional development. Reeching Heights Public Schools will be required to readjust how it reports professional development activities to the state, but in most instances it already exceeds new state requirements for teacher recertification. In fact, exemplary districts, such as Reeching Heights, would be an important source of ideas for policymakers who seek new rules for statewide application. Including Reeching Heights in state policy discussions also would ensure greater buy-in from that top-tier of school districts that are ahead of the rest of the state in identifying and implementing reform efforts.

Professional Organizations and Labor Contracts and Practices

Other disincentives might include specific occupational boundaries drawn by professions or union agreements. In addition, practices in the workplace environment that force highly skilled staff to engage in nonprofessional work, such as using teachers for hall monitors and replacing employee skills in the private sector with computerized systems, can dampen motivation to learn. De-skilling results from a lack of opportunity to practice and use skills on a regular basis.

Neither case-study site was hampered in its commitment to deliver professional development by a trade organization. Reeching Heights engages in collective bargaining and the union sets some guidelines for how teachers must be reimbursed for time not covered in their contract, but the district's labor contract is not a barrier to professional development. The only noticeable difference between the two case-study sites—aside from the existence of a trade organization at Reeching Heights—are the additional negotiations between groups that share responsibility for the teachers' welfare in the district (e.g., school board, union, district administration). However, all responsible parties appear to support new resources for professional development, with occasional disagreement from the school board over spending priorities. The union and district administration agree on the need for professional development and a stable budget but will periodically disagree on how resources should be allocated.

Competition

Public perception about the value of education in this country can influence support for teacher preparation as well as the continuing education of teachers. "Schooling is valued by many Americans, but the social and economic supports for instructional effort—from parents' involvement with students' schooling to universities' and business firms' attention to students' records—are relatively weak" (Cohen & Ball, 1999, p. 14). Similarly, com-panies are dependent to a large extent on the public's view of the value and quality of their products. The success or failure of a company's product or service to generate a market share can heavily influence formal opportunities to engage in workplace learning.

While the interview questions originally were not intended to elicit responses that addressed competition for new employees, it was the primary competitive issue for managers in both sites. BlueRibbin made it clear that their investment in training and staff development was meant to differentiate them from competitors, and case-study participants said access to continuing education was a factor in their decision to work for BlueRibbin. Reeching Heights also saw competition with neighboring districts for new recruits as an ongoing challenge; however, salaries and working conditions continued to be more important to potential new hires than opportunities for professional development.

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