High-Quality Professional Development for Teachers

Supporting Teacher Training to Improve Student Learning

Professional development in education has gotten a bad reputation, and for good reason. Everyone on all sides of the education reform and improvement debate agrees that what most teachers receive as professional opportunities to learn are thin, sporadic, and of little use when it comes to improving teaching. This paper is the first of a periodic series of reports and briefs by the Center for American Progress looking at professional learning--what states and districts are doing that is working, and what policies are in place to support effective teacher-training activities. The work of improving instruction to help students achieve deserves attention, particularly now when it is an important part of powerful reforms. This report is an attempt to map the landscape of professional learning to prompt ideas that can grow from the foundation--albeit small--that is already in place around professional learning.

The work of improving instruction to help students achieve deserves attention, particularly now when it is an important part of powerful reforms.