State Policy on Professional Development: Rethinking the Linkages to Student Outcomes: Appendix

Appendix

Professional Development Programs in Ohio and Indiana

Ohio's Comprehensive Approach

The state of Ohio initiated a comprehensive approach to professional development during the 1990s. It included an integrated approach to teacher education and licensure standards, a regional approach to the delivery of professional development, and a comprehensive set of professional development opportunities for teachers and schools. Ohio's comprehensive professional development approach developed as a result of leadership by the Ohio Department of Education. It provides opportunities for schools to develop local approaches to professional development. We summarize these features of the new approach in Ohio, then briefly consider the results of initial evaluations.

Comprehensive Design

Perhaps the centerpiece of the professional development strategy implemented in Ohio is a comprehensive approach to teacher education and professional development standards. Indeed, the state has collaborated with university schools of education, businesses, and educators to develop a coordinated and cohesive approach to teacher professional development. A state publication describes this new strategy as follows:

The State Board of Education initiated a new era of professional development with the 1996 adoption of Ohio's Teacher Education and Licensure Standards. These standards, effective January 1, 1998, are based on the belief that educators must continue to learn, grow, and develop throughout their careers. The foundation of the new standards is a professional development continuum spanning recruitment through retire ment. At each phase, accountability for performance is emphasized. (Ohio Department of Education, n.d., p. 1)

The continuum for professional development processes that are coordinated through state policy include:

Recruitment
Teacher Education Program
Paper-and-Pencil Test Over Content and Pedagogy
Provisional License
Entry-Year and Performance Assessment
Professional License
Ongoing Professional Development
Voluntary National Board Certification

Each school district in Ohio establishes a “Local Professional Development Committee.” These committees are responsible for developing a plan that identifies professional development opportunities within and outside of the district that are aligned with the district's “Continuous Improvement Plan.” The state's goal for this process of linking local planning and professional development is to achieve a tighter linkage between professional development activities and student achievement.

The local professional development committees also are responsible for coordinating individual planning for professional development. The committees establish procedures for “Individual Professional Development Plans” by educators in the district or school, review these plans, and develop a format for using them to secure licensure. Individual educators must follow the process to renew their licenses. Thus, the professional development planning process formally links the professional development activities of teachers both to the licensure renewal process and to planning for educational improvement in school districts.

Another feature of this comprehensive approach to professional development has involved transformations in the teacher preparation curriculum. For example, the new process requires that prospective elementary teachers take course work on phonics, consistent with the new, balanced approach to literacy instruction that is emerging across the states. It changes the master's degree requirements for educators, placing more emphasis on subject matter related to the courses teachers actually teach. In the wake of these new developments, schools of education across the state are reviewing and revising their undergraduate and graduate curricula.

Networking

The state of Ohio has invested in building a series of professional networks that support a regional approach to professional development. The state has six major professional development providers that emphasize the regional approach. These include:

Regional Professional Development Centers (RPDCs)—The 12 RPDCs serve as brokers in providing long-term, ongoing, meaningful professional development for educators and school support staff. The RPDCs provide professional development to implement Ohio's curriculum models, network through technology, and provide assistance to schools moving toward site-based management.
Special Education Regional Resource Centers (SERRCs)—The 16 SERRCs provide services to all school districts, county boards of mental retardation and developmental disabilities, and institutions in Ohio. Each SERRC has the following four components: Identification and Program Development, Educational Assessment Project, Instructional Resource Center, and Early Childhood Services Project.
Regional Professional Development Centers—The five Professional Development Centers prepare teachers recruited from business and industry, provide inservice to educate and upgrade all vocational education teachers, and conduct research.
County Educational Service Centers—Ohio has 80 county educational service centers that provide professional development, planning, purchasing, and coordination of effort. The service centers provide a wide range of services from assistance with new technology to instructional support.
SchoolNet—Ohio provides training in the use of new technologies through 12 SchoolNet regions. The training focuses on using technology tools, developing lesson labs, and accessing and using Netscape.
North Central Regional Education Laboratory— this research and development group enhances teaching and learning through the use of technology.

(BEST, 1997, p. 20)

Thus, the state of Ohio has pulled together a comprehensive network of regional resources to support teachers, schools, and school districts in pursuit of their individualized plans. This approach puts the means to acquire professional development opportunities closer to those who are attempting to navigate a course toward their own professional development goals. However, there was limited information available on the relative effectiveness of the different types of professional development service providers in the state.

Direct Funding for Professional Development

Ohio puts substantial funding behind its commitment to professional development in the state. A list of state programs that are focused on professional development is provided in Table 3. Not only are the regional professional development centers funded at more than $6.7 million, but a set of urban centers are funded at $6 million. Further, there are two programs funded at even higher levels: a local professional development block grant program (funded at $8.6 million) and the Venture Capital grants (funded at $15.5 million).

The Venture Capital grants provide opportunities to schools to initiate multiyear restructuring processes. Schools receive five-year grants (funded at $25,000 per year for five years) aimed at supporting a school-based restructuring process. Schools can choose from an approved list of professional development processes or develop their own plans. In fact, the Venture Capital program, which has been in effect for more than five years, has many features similar to the new Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration program now being implemented nationally.

Finally, many of these developments are too new to have been comprehensively evaluated. However, an evaluation of the regional professional development centers was inconclusive. In addition, there are a couple of studies on the Venture Capital Program. The first evaluation of the Venture Capital program did not find any discernable effects on student test scores (Nussbaum, 1999). However, a second qualitative study is being conducted by Michael Fullan.

table

**Table 3**
**State Professional Development (PD) Funds in Ohio**
Program Title	% of Total Award Allowable for PD	Total Award in Ohio
Local PD Block Grants	100	$8,559,713
Regional PD Centers	100	$6,675,077
Urban PD Centers	100	$6,000,000
Teacher Recruitment	100	$1,289,067
School Improvement Models (Venture Capital)	100	$15,500,000
Peer Review	100	$1,075,000
Entry-Year Program	100	$2,396,205
Reading Improvement	100	$1,666,000
Parental Improvement Grants	100	$750,000
School Conflict Management	100	$393,575
DPIA Improve. Reading Grants	100	$1,000,000
Financial Literacy	100	$850,000
Source: Ohio Department of Education

Indiana's Incremental Approach

Indiana's approach to professional development has been characterized as incremental (Usher, 1999). It also remains somewhat disjointed because of the division of responsibilities between the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana Professional Standards Board. The incremental aspect can best be portrayed by the ongoing efforts to embed ongoing professional development into schools through systematic planning and funding processes. The disjointed aspect is due to the multiple agendas being pursued within the state, which are not highly coordinated. However, there is an underlying rationale in the ongoing professional development efforts being coordinated by the Department of Education that merit attention. In this review, we examine three aspects of professional development in Indiana:

Efforts to secure support for teacher release time for professional development
Efforts to develop a coordinated, incremental approach to ongoing professional development
Efforts to transform teacher preparation and licensure

Release Time for Teachers

First, the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) and the Board of Education have pursued the goal of securing release time for teachers through the 1990s. IDOE asked the Indiana Education Policy Center to study this in the early 1990s (Bull, 1999). In response, the Policy Center examined a range of issues related to state-level policy development in Indiana and selected other states (Bull, Buechler, Didley, & Krehiel, 1994). The recommendations of this initial study for a systematic approach to professional development included the following features:

A mandate that schools allocate a specific number of personal days each year per FTE teacher for school-oriented professional development, perhaps five days for schools in their Performance-Based Accreditation (PBA) year or on probation, and three days for other schools
State-dedicated funding to fully support this mandate, calculated perhaps as a multiple of the average daily salary of teachers in the state
A requirement that schools in their PBA school improvement plan develop a written five-year strategic plan for professional development that involves teacher participation; focuses teacher time on projects that meet the school's highest priorities for improvement; schedules time for professional development to permit effective teamwork on those projects and to maintain instructional continuity for students; provides sustained and supportive training to involved teachers; modifies projects on the basis of their effects on student learning; and explains how other resources to support the effective use of teacher time will be obtained
Submission of brief annual fiscal and performance reports, as part of the state-man-dated report card, accounting for the use of state funds and the extent and purpose of professional development time utilized in each school year
The provision of state start-up assistance to schools and the maintenance of state infrastructure services to support the effective use of teacher time
The provisions of state as well as local funding to help individual schools obtain specific additional resources needed for staff development

(Bull et al., 1994, p. 67)

The cornerstone of this proposed comprehensive system of professional development was the securing of mandated release time for teachers. Based on a review of this and related documents, the IDOE recommended and the State Board of Education approved a plan for five days of release time for teachers, a mandate that would have an estimated annual cost of $100 million. This proposal has been put forward to the legislature annually for the past three years. Efforts to secure funds for this comprehensive and systematic approach to professional development in Indiana have not been successful. However, recent legislation requires schools to develop site-based plans that could coordinate site based planning with professional development.

Incremental Approach to Policy Development

Second, the IDOE has pursued an incremental approach to promoting professional development in spite of the lack of funding. In subsequent years, the Indiana Education Policy Center conducted a set of studies (Bull & Buechler, 1996, 1998) for the IDOE that identified a set of principles to guide the development of state policy on professional development. Based on a review of research on professional development, a set of five principles was identified. The research base suggests that successful professional development is:

School-based, that is, focused on particular problems of each school and selected by the teachers and principal to help address those problems.
Followed up in teachers' classrooms by such means as peer coaching or school-based research and evaluation teams.
Collaborative, so that groups of professionals at schools can work together to solve the school problems most critical to student learning.
Embedded in the daily lives of teachers, so that they undertake continual professional growth as a central responsibility of teaching.
Focused on student learning, so that teams of teachers at the school attend to the actual effects of professional development on the performance of the students for whom they are responsible.

(Bull & Buechler, 1998, p. 5)

The IDOE has worked to embed these principles into the practices and processes used in schools, in spite of the delays in the funding proposals. The major report promoting this principle-based approach to ongoing professional development, Learning Together: Professional Development for Better Schools, was widely disseminated in Indiana schools and is
being marketed nationally by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

The IDOE has taken steps during the past two years to encourage schools to develop an ongoing approach to professional development (Usher, 1999). Using their federal and state grant resources for professional development, the IDOE has encouraged schools to develop plans that are coordinated with the school development process. Further, in their review of proposals for state and federal programs, they look for evidence of ongoing professional development. Two of the state programs with this emphasis merit special attention:

Technology - Indiana uses its revenue from the state lottery to support technology integration in the schools. The IDOE requires schools to devote at least 30 percent of their revenue for professional development. This program is funded at about $4.5 million annually.
Early Literacy - The Early Literacy Intervention Grant Program has funded professional development aimed at improving early literacy. This program was funded at $3.9 million.

Currently, there is an evaluation study under way of the Early Literacy Intervention program. The first-year study indicates that projects do include an extensive emphasis on professional development and most schools have selected a research-based approach (St. John et al., 1998). However, most schools did not have an adequate site-based evaluation, which is an integral part of the professional development process outlined above. Therefore, it is unclear from this initial review how well the principles of ongoing professional development were implemented.⁴ However, the second-year study is using a version of the framework outlined earlier to assess whether the interventions have had an influence on improvements in early literacy.

Teacher Preparation and Licensure

Third, there is an effort under way in Indiana to develop a new set of professional standards. In addition, the Indiana Advisory Council for the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future (1999) issued a report in June 1999 and is holding hearings on the proposed recommendations. The five areas of recommendations include:

Getting serious about standards for students, teachers, administrators, and school services personnel. Following a four-year process that involved more than 2,000 practicing K-12 teachers and representatives from higher education and the Indiana Department of Education, the Indiana Professional Standards Board approved 17 sets of performance-based standards for Indiana educators in August 1998. The recommended strategies include an emphasis on student proficiencies aligned with student and teaching standards, a three-tiered licensing and assessment system for teachers, and using the National Board standards in teaching.
Reinventing teacher preparation and professional development. Recommendations focused on strategies for organizing teacher education and professional development around the new standards for students and teachers; strengthening the first two years of the teacher internship process; creating stable and high-quality sources of professional development; and securing funding for these developments.
Overhauling teacher recruitment and putting qualified teachers in every classroom. Recommendations focused on recruiting the best and brightest teachers, building a sufficient supply of qualified teachers, and increasing the number and percentages of minorities and highneed populations entering the teaching profession.
Encouraging and rewarding knowledge and skill in teaching. Recommendations focused on encouraging teachers and administrators to improve their knowledge and skills, as well as on developing a teacher continuum linked to compensation.
Organizing schools for teacher and student success. Recommendations focused on encouraging the restructuring of schools, engaging families and communities as active participants in student learning, and using professional development processes to promote high-performance schools.

These plans set up a new blueprint in Indiana— one that has many of the same features as the comprehensive approach recently implemented in Ohio. In Indiana, however, the efforts to promote this new comprehensive approach are not yet closely linked to other professional development initiatives in the state.

⁴The program was funded late in the legislative session in 1997. Therefore, there was not ample time to develop a set of funding criteria that was tightly linked to the principles of professional development. This may explain the loose linkages to these principles noted above.

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