Jackie and others,

Since you have opened up the discussion more broadly to professional  
development and accountability in general, here are my thoughts:

At the risk of offending some people, I'll speak my mind on this  
issue.  I don't think we have good accountability for professional  
development in adult literacy education and I don't see that we soon  
will. I believe what we often have is the worst kind of "make-do"  
accountability.  There are reasons, sad though they are, for this  
predicament.

True professional development accountability would be built on what  
we know about good practice from many classroom studies. This  
research would involve collecting baseline data on what participating  
teachers know and do in the classroom, and how their students  
perform. It would involve a professional development training  
intervention under conditions that would have as few confounding  
variables as possible -- it's not an easy task to arrange such an  
intervention in education. The studies would include control groups  
with teachers who did not have the training. The interventions would  
be specific sets of methods, techniques or approaches, ones for which  
we already have qualitative or other evidence that there is  
likelihood that the change(s) in practice would positively affect  
student learning. The research would have ongoing observations to  
determine how the intervention, the new methods, techniques or  
approaches, was actually being implemented in the classroom, and it  
would require post-assessment of learners and teachers to determine  
changes in teaching and learning practices and learning outcomes.  
There would be many studies of this kind on which to base decisions  
about good practice, and then to hold teachers and administrators  
accountable for providing good practice that leads to positive  
learner outcomes, and professional developers accountable for  
providing effective professional development.

Does this sound like experimental design research? When was the last  
time we had experimental design research in adult literacy education  
professional development? I cannot cite a single example. Can you?   
Why don't we have this research? The simple truth is, it's expensive,  
and Congress has demonstrated, through the elimination of funding for  
a national center for adult literacy research that it does not care  
to spend money on research for adult literacy education.   
Furthermore, even if this were to change with a new administration  
and Congress, the chances of doing these kinds of (expensive)  
professional development studies in adult literacy education are slim.

Meanwhile, we have "make-do" accountability. In way too many states  
professional development providers and/or teachers are asked to keep  
track of and report the number of hours they offer or participate in  
professional development, or practitioners are asked to accumulate  
graduate credits, continuing education units or professional  
development points. I understand why these requirements are in place,  
but I know of no evidence in adult literacy education that shows that  
any of these bean counting strategies result in improved teacher  
performance in the classroom, not to mention improved learner outcomes.

It makes much more sense to me, if we want professional development  
accountability, not to count hours or activities or credits, but  to  
define a set of practitioner standards, including content knowledge  
and teaching skills, and to ask teachers and other practitioners to  
show they are making progress in reaching these standards. Teachers  
would use an individual professional development plan and a variety  
of resources and activities and performance assessments, to meet  
these standards. Professional developers' accountability would be  
linked to their effectiveness in helping teachers reach the  
standards.  It might also make sense to set aside paid professional  
development time to enable teachers to work on attaining these  
standards, however,  as professional development accountability needs  
to be performance-based, not based on participation in activities, a  
better compensation model might instead be to pay for demonstrated  
attainment of new competencies or standards in salary increments. Or  
both.

Some professional developers, doing the best they can with the meager  
resources they have, conscientiously collect baseline teacher and  
student data, provide well-designed interventions, and collect post  
intervention student and teacher data. This is good, the best we can  
do for now, and perhaps over a long period of time we can acquire  
enough evidence to persuade Congress that they should invest in gold  
standard adult literacy education research in areas where there is  
such evidence. We should support more of these heroic professional  
development research efforts instead of mindless requirements to  
count hours, credits, and certificates that at best are annoying and  
at worst take time away from teachers' and professional developers'  
meaningful work.

What do you think? Do agree or disagree? Speak your mind.

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net



On Jan 6, 2008, at 8:52 PM, Taylor, Jackie wrote:


> Good day or evening, all!

>

> Recently, Cristine Smith circulated a survey about “Accountability  

> and Professional Development” – specifically, the survey asks  

> professional development (PD) providers if PD related to assessment  

> and accountability training was required before the advent of the  

> National Reporting System (NRS), in the first two years after the  

> NRS, and now. It asks to what extent PD providers think that the  

> accountability system has affected the types of professional  

> development provided in their state, and to comment on what the  

> effect has been (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx? 

> sm=TseraqLIt9aH5FJ5TV3ENQ_3d_3d).

>

>

>

> These questions have gotten me to thinking about accountability in  

> general, which brings me to a new question for the group.

>

>

>

> As noted a while back on this list (http://wiki.literacytent.org/ 

> index.php/Accountability) accountability might be viewed as a  

> process that starts and ends with learning; a kind of multilane  

> highway where all parties involved have levels of accountability  

> that they should in fact meet – including the learner.

>

>

>

> Adult literacy professional development provides accountability  

> systems training to help some teachers and programs “be  

> accountable” to funders and presumably to learners. In essence, we  

> have accountability in professional development, but do we have  

> accountability _for_ professional development?

>

>

>

> Is professional development accountable for teacher and student  

> learning?

>

>

>

> If so, then to what extent is it (or can it be) practiced? What  

> does it look like? How does accountability for professional  

> development work? After all, professional development is an  

> important party at the table of adult literacy education.

>

>

>

> I look forward to learning your thoughts this week.

>

>

>

> Best, Jackie

>

>

>

> Jackie Taylor, Adult Literacy Professional Development List  

> Moderator, jataylor at utk.edu

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

> ----------------------------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

> Adult Literacy Professional Development mailing list

> professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov

>

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to  

> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/professionaldevelopment

>

> Email delivered to djrosen at comcast.net

>

> Professional Development section of the Adult Literacy Education Wiki

> http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/ 

> Adult_Literacy_Professional_Development


David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net