Massachusetts 2001 State Plan for Professional Development

As required by the Education Reform Law of 1993, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education herein presents its 2001 Massachusetts State Plan for Professional Development. This Plan supports the implementation of the state curriculum frameworks through curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices, and promotes professional development as an integral part of Department activities. The Plan is based on the premise that strong classroom teachers, visionary instructional leaders, and high quality professional development are essential to the reform of public education and to the improvement of student learning.

This Plan addresses the following topics:

• Massachusetts Priorities for Educator Professional Development
• Features of Effective Professional Development
• Responsibilities of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
• Responsibilities of School Districts
• Responsibilities of Professional Development Providers

This Plan calls for the alignment of district, regional, and statewide programs to provide a coherent professional development system that will improve educator content knowledge and instruction at every grade level.

Priorities for Educator Professional Development

In this Plan, the Department has identified four priorities for district and statewide professional development. The Plan calls for districts, institutions of higher education, associations, and other professional development providers to focus their staff-development resources, structures, time, and funding on the following priorities:

• Expand teachers' knowledge of the subject matter of the school curriculum.

• Extend teachers' familiarity with, and use of, the Massachusetts learning standards and Curriculum Frameworks in planning classroom curricula.

• Provide educators with opportunities to evaluate a range of common pedagogical practices in their subject areas and to determine when different practices are most effective.

• Raise expectations for student achievement.

Features of Effective Professional Development

The National Governors' Association Report, entitled "Transforming Professional Development for Teachers: A Guide for State Policymakers," identifies certain "critical tests" by which to measure all professional development activities. In particular:

• Are they intellectually challenging?
• Do they add to the participants' repertoire of skills and content knowledge?
• Do they enhance educators' contributions to the school community?
• Do they lead to improvement in teaching practice?

Elements of an Effective District Plan

Plan Development

• Focuses on clearly defined goals and priorities for district-sponsored professional development.
• Aligns professional development resources with district academic goals.
• Allows for the evaluation of professional development activities.
• Ensures that professional development activities are coordinated across the district.

Plan Structure

• Fosters a professional learning community that encourages teachers to work together, not in isolation.
• Encourages educators to solicit feedback from each other to improve their practice.
• Identifies the primary models for delivering professional development in order to accomplish each of the indicated plan priorities.
• Emphasizes content-based offerings.
• Requires individual school-improvement plans to outline how professional development is to be linked to improving student achievement.
• Provides ongoing, yearlong assistance to educators.
• Includes method and procedures for evaluating quality of each offering.

Financial Aspects of Plan

• Includes analysis of current spending.
• Focuses spending on priority areas, such as literacy and math.
• Uses external funding sources to support the overall district plan, rather than implementing separate systems for utilizing each source of funding.
• Ensures that spending is aligned with district goals.

Elements of an Effective Professional Development Offering/Activity

• Aligns with district and school improvement goals.
• Encourages teams of teachers working together.
• Focuses on content knowledge.
• Provides on-the-job, ongoing support throughout the school year.
• Includes follow-up activities in the educator's own classroom.
• Connects professional development to the workplace and encourages teachers to develop curriculum and lesson plans that show students real world applications of their learning.
• Utilizes videotapes of the educators' own teaching for guided discussion, analysis, and review with the educator.
• Utilizes in-class observation of educator by mentors or peers.
• Includes pre- and post-assessments.
• Requires product of some kind from participants, such as a lesson plan or curriculum unit.
• Identifies party responsible for quality of offering.

Responsibilities of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

The Department encourages quality professional development for Massachusetts' educators via the following mechanisms. The Department will:

• Maintain a file of current research on professional development programs and produce concrete summaries of that research for use by districts.

• Publish guidelines to assist districts in forging their professional development plans.

• Publish guidelines to help districts use student test scores to determine areas of greatest need for professional development.

• Design rubrics to assist districts and participants in evaluating professional development programs and providers.

• Continue to sponsor professional development activities of high quality for teachers, administrators, school council members, parents, school committee members, community members, and others, including the Summer Content Institutes, Administrator Institutes, and Mentoring Institutes.

• Prepare an annual calendar of all ESE-sponsored professional development opportunities.

• Award and disseminate professional development grants and funding opportunities to schools and districts.

• Encourage partnerships between school districts and institutions of higher education, associations, and other providers to offer high-quality professional development programs.

• Encourage the development and use of online offerings for professional development.

• Maintain guidelines for providers of professional development.

• Maintain the Provider Registry of professional development providers, which allows registered providers to maintain up-to-date and widely accessible contact information, course offerings, times and dates of classes, and registration information.

• Explore the possibility of implementing an online professional development delivery system which would enable educators to maintain their individual professional development plans in an online database, to receive confirmation of a plan's validity, and to register their professional development points via an online registry of offerings.

• Further clarify, based on educator inquiries, aspects of the Recertification Guidelines for Massachusetts Educators, and evaluate the effectiveness of current methods for points assignment and for educator assessments.

• Distribute this Plan to school districts after approval by the Board of Education.

Responsibilities of School Districts

School districts are required annually to adopt and implement a professional development plan for all principals, teachers, other professional staff employed by the district, and school council members. The Department encourages districts make use of local professional development committees to strengthen the participation of all constituencies and to enhance professional development planning. Further, districts should be sure to recognize within their plans the overlapping and different needs of preservice, beginning-year, and veteran educators. Districts are encouraged to provide a copy of their plan to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 71, Section 38Q)

Districts are strongly encouraged to connect professional development with continuous district- and school-improvement planning. This connection is strengthened by recertification, which requires educators to have professional development plans that are in line with school and/or district improvement plans.

Districts are further responsible for utilizing student learning gains and test scores to identify areas of greatest need in professional development and for selecting providers of professional development that are of high quality and that address the identified learning needs in the district. Districts are encouraged to partner with institutions of higher education, associations, and other providers of professional development, as well as with non-traditional providers (e.g., laboratories or corporations, via work externships) to provide professional development opportunities. Districts are responsible for identifying the data to be collected on professional growth and on the quality and impact of district-sponsored professional development activities.

The recertification regulations outline minimum requirements for professional development. However, the Department encourages educators to participate in professional experiences that support and expand their content and professional skills beyond the minimum requirements. Accordingly, districts may choose to offer additional incentives, through collective bargaining, for educators to go beyond the minimum requirements for recertification and to continue to participate in professionally-relevant and academically-meaningful professional development.

Districts are required to set forth a budget for professional development within the confines of the foundation budget. The proposed FY02 state budget requires districts to spend at least $125 per pupil from state aid funds on professional development. These funds may be used for tuition, conference fees, contracted services, stipends, salaries, and materials.

School Councils

The Education Reform Law requires school councils to annually draft School Improvement Plans, which focus on meeting the identified learning needs of all students. These plans should include professional development to support staff in meeting these needs.

Local Professional Development Committees

Many districts form professional development committees that include administrators, teachers, parents, and community members. The Department encourages the formation of such committees. The collaboration of the different constituencies represented in such a committee is essential to the success of a comprehensive and effective professional development program. Such committees are most effective when they are empowered to make meaningful decisions.

These district-wide committees may be responsible for designing the district's annual professional development plan. The committee ensures that there are strong connections between district and school improvement plans and that professional development provides educators with opportunities to build on their subject-matter knowledge and learn additional effective practices that improve student learning and achievement. This group is often responsible for advising the school community on the professional development process, on local guidelines and policies, and on no-cost options to fulfill recertification requirements.

Responsibilities of Professional Development Providers

Professional development providers are as varied as their offerings. Providers include:

• institutions of higher education;
• educator associations;
• school districts and collaboratives;
• independent contractors;
• the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education;
• other professional development organizations.

The primary mission of professional development providers is to assist educators in enhancing subject-matter knowledge and ways to develop student understanding of that subject through varied standards-oriented instructional and assessment practices. Professional development providers also assist districts in integrating professional development into system-wide and school improvement planning.

All providers are expected to:

• evaluate the effectiveness of professional development offerings and to assess their impact, if any, on classroom practice.
• address the content of the relevant state Curriculum Frameworks;
• conduct professional development with clear objectives, relevant learning activities, and conclusions;
• conduct professional development that recognizes the overlapping and different needs of beginning and veteran educators;
• incorporate technology tools and appropriate media, as warranted;
• build on educators' prior knowledge and experience;
• use principles of adult learning theory to engage educators in professional growth;
• employ a variety of teaching techniques such as direct instruction, practice, discussion, problem-solving, Socratic dialogue, and research projects;
• provide many and varied opportunities for educators to incorporate new knowledge and skills into classroom practice or school and district management; and,
• evaluate teacher learning through an appropriate assessment. This may be a written exam, a lesson plan or a curriculum unit, for example.