Case Studies: A Closer Look

In 1998, the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory commissioned this study of one private-sector corporation and one school district to compare processes and outcomes of professional development and staff training, and to develop descriptions and explanations of how professional development becomes infused into the culture of an organization. By identifying some of the strengths and weaknesses in the two sectors, the results of the analysis are intended for use in the design of policy recommendations for change in professional development in public education.

Case-study site visits included observation, structured and unstructured interviews, and collecting documents and Web-based information, all of which help describe the local configuration of the corporate staff development model and teacher professional development policy environments in some depth. As with most case-study research, the findings cannot necessarily be generalized across education or the private sector without conducting additional case studies or expanding the data collection techniques to include more examples. However, the purpose was not to compare exemplary professional development in the two sectors but to better understand the organizational and cultural characteristics and the context within which learning in the workplace occurs in both sectors.

METHODOLOGY

In an initial comparison between current policies, practices, and programs, and an analysis of the literature related to profes-sional development and staff training in edu-cation and the private sector, the following three major themes emerged that were used as the basis for organizing the data collected (see Figure 1):

1. Structure and Culture of the Organization
The structure and culture of the organization within which professional development operates was examined. How do business and education leaders build consensus among employees, administrators, clients, and policymakers that professional development is a necessary and effective component in the learning environment? In order to answer this question, data was collected on such topics as the nature of authority structures in an organization, who controls decisionmaking, the allocation of resources for professional development, and the availability of a technological infrastructure.

2. Institutional and Individual Factors Affecting Professional Development
Data pertaining to the institutional and individual factors influencing an individual's commitment to participate in ongoing professional development was collected and analyzed comparatively. Institutional factors such as opportunities for financial and professional promotion, time for interaction with colleagues, evaluation and contract review, relevance of the content of the professional development program to employee work, and internal communication structures were examined to gauge the institution's support for professional development.

Individual factors influencing people's commitment to the value of ongoing professional development, such as opportunities for personal growth and general satisfaction with work, as well as individuals' motivation to learn and work collaboratively, also were studied. A comparative analysis of both types of factors influencing commitment to professional development helped address the questions about what types of leadership, leverage points, and incentive structures are used in private- and public-sector models of professional development to infuse effective training and staff development into the institution's organizational culture.

3. External Factors Related to Change in Professional Development
Data concerning factors that compose the local context of each case study were examined comparatively to better understand how large organizations address issues related to a changing economy, competition, state policy, the influence of professional organizations, and labor contract negotiations when implementing systems for professional development. Studying the local context of each case-study site helped identify the extent to which external factors influence an organization's ability to meet the needs of local employees and business affiliates through systematic, high-quality opportunities for educational improvement.

SELECTING THE SITES

BlueRibbin Corporation¹
The private-sector site was selected from a list of ten companies recommended by education and training experts for their unique approaches to professional development and the similarities of their organizations to education. The final selection criteria for the private-sector site included:

• A well-established staff development program
• Evidence of recent restructuring of staff development programs
• Relevance of staff development and training methods to the education sector
• Willingness to participate as a case-study site

BlueRibbin Corporation, located outside a large urban center in the Midwest, emerged as a leader in providing ongoing, new, and innovative staff development and training programs in the private sector. In addition, BlueRibbin recently restructured its ongoing education programs to better meet the needs of the global marketplace by implementing the latest research on successful organizational change and characteristics of effective adult learning. In addition, BlueRibbin Corporation is engaged in training and staff development activities that share characteristics that an education audience would find relevant.

As a global leader in management and technology consulting, BlueRibbin Corporation maintains the perspective that there is no one answer to a problem—different conditions result in different solutions to seemingly similar problems. Like education, a diverse client base and a constantly changing work environment require BlueRibbin's professional development division, BlueRibbin Education (BRE), to continuously update its training and staff development programs. Unlike public education, BlueRibbin has embraced the challenges posed by its diverse client base and devotes, on average, more than 6 percent of its annual revenues to training. BRE, also based outside a large midwestern urban center, comprises a team of learning professionals responsible for developing and delivering learning products that will engage employees with a wide range of backgrounds, cultural differences, and educational levels. BlueRibbin employees spend an average of 180 hours a year in training that builds their skills and knowledge.

During the 1980s, BlueRibbin changed its focus from providing a single service for clients to enabling consultants to support clients through a range of processes designed to affect the total business. At the same time, BlueRibbin changed the technologies, educational approaches, and classroom management procedures necessary to support the new business strategy. After conducting a Professional Development Needs Assessment Study, BlueRibbin identified a new set of training and education requirements for consultants that resulted in a state-of-the-art, technology-based, self-study training process. The restructuring of BlueRibbin's education and training program entailed a process and resulted in new products that appear to be informative for education leaders undertaking a similar restructuring effort.

Reeching Heights Public Schools
Potential local school district case-study sites originally were selected based on the relevance of their current work in professional development to study goals. The district case study is the basis for comparison with the private sector but, more important, it is an example of exemplary organizational support for staff development in the public-education sector. Recommendations from the U.S. Department of Education on the basis of its Model Professional Development Awards Program as well as recommendations from the leading professional development resource in the country, the National Staff Development Council, helped identify a preliminary listing of schools districts. Initial telephone interviews were based on a set of criteria adapted from the Model Professional Development Awards criteria (Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1999). Districts were evaluated on their suitability for the study based on their responses to the following four questions:

1. How is professional development a part of what all teachers do?
2. What structures support the implementation of professional development at individual, collegial, and organizational levels?
3. What resources and types of sustained support (financial and other) are available for professional development for individuals, groups, and the whole school or district?
4. Is there available evidence that the effectiveness of teachers has improved and student achievement has increased?

The district case-study site selection was not based on a random sample but was similar to the process of elimination used for the private-sector site selection: A district was chosen based on specific characteristics.

Preliminary telephone interviews with a number of school districts within a 300-mile radius of BlueRibbin Corporation resulted in Reeching Heights Public Schools emerging as a leader in the provision of continuing education opportunities for its 930 teachers and administrators. Reeching Heights Public Schools, located outside a large urban center in the Midwest, serves 11,000 students in Grades 9 to 12 in nine different schools.

Another criterion in selecting a district for this study was an assessment of the state policy context in which the district operates. In the state where both BlueRibbin and Reeching Heights are located, the legislature recently passed professional development legislation that will have significant implications for its state-level policy reform as well as ramifications at the local level. The state includes both urban and rural areas and serves approximately 2 million children in K-12 education, in 4,000 schools with 111,000 teachers.

The state education agency has been working since 1995 to address the claim that the state teacher preparation system is "complex and inconsistent," and that continuing professional development is neither "coordinated nor integrated" with the state's education goals (State Framework for Restructuring the Recruitment, Preparation, Licensure, and Continuing Professional Development of Teachers, 1996). As the state begins to define how to implement these policy recommendations, examples of how and what composes training and staff development in the private sector might prove to be helpful to state education leaders. As BlueRibbin shares the same geographic location as Reeching Heights, it is likely to have a primary interest in affecting policy change in education in its home state.

Finally, as BlueRibbin is considered a leader in allocating resources for staff development and employee training opportunities, the validity of the comparison with Reeching Heights is enhanced by the wealth of the school district community. This study looked for exemplary practices in for staff development and training: The goal in the case-study site selection was to identify the "best of the best" in both education and the private sector. This was especially necessary to counter the often-negative comparisons of performance in education with the high performance of private business. Reeching Heights is one of the most competitive learning communities in the country as evidenced by its consistently high performance on state and national standards of student achievement.

¹ We have changed the names of the corporation and school district in this report.

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