The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth About Our Quest for Teacher Development 

Reads and Resources

← Back To Reads and Resources
This report from The New Teacher Project results from an in-depth study on professional development, which was conducted across three large public school districts and one midsize charter school network. The study included more than 10,000 teacher surveys, 500 school administrator surveys, and findings from focus group discussions and interviews with more than 100 staff members involved with professional development. The report concludes with recommendations for improving teacher development, based upon these principles:
  • Redefine the training, conditions, and culture that truly help teachers to engage in continuous improvement-in lieu of simply “layering” discrete development experiences.
  • Inventory and evaluate existing development efforts within the district.
  • Understand that development efforts may have limitations, which means that districts also need to find other methods of scaling effective teaching (such as improving initial training, recruitment, and retention strategies).