Reflections on Professional Development: Toward High-Quality Teaching and Learning

Based on his years as chair of the Education Commission of the States and as governor of Wyoming, Gov. Geringer offers numerous recommendations for improving the quality of teaching. The task is complicated and requires the efforts of schools of teacher education, teachers, school administrators, certification boards, state governments, district administrators, and business leaders. I STILL remember Miss Olson, my first-grade teacher. She was new to teaching, but not new to what she wanted us to learn. She challenged us to learn on our own, not to expect her to be the source of all knowledge. Our good teachers come to mind quickly. The bad ones just fade away. Unfortunately, the effect of poor teaching is compounding and lingering. Research has clearly shown that a good teacher is the single most important factor affecting student learning -- more important than standards, class size, or money. Business and political leaders, parents, teachers, and researchers know that the future of our nation depends on how well students learn and apply knowledge. We are not doing the job that we should do in teaching our children to understand and use ideas. Heeding the bad news has to involve something more than just wringing our hands and raising a polite rallying cry for improvement. As a member of the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, I joined with its chairman, then-Sen. John Glenn of Ohio, to call for a sense of urgency, to press our nation's education system to action, as the title of the commission's report says, Before It's Too Late.1 We are not instructing our children to the level of competence they will need to live their lives fruitfully and to work at their jobs productively. We are not challenging their imaginations deeply enough. The way to interest children in learning is to give them teachers who are enthusiastic about their subjects, who are steeped in their disciplines, and who have professional training as teachers and leaders. Who is responsible for professional development? Teacher-prep institutions? Teachers? School administrators? Certification boards? Governors? Others? The answer is that we all are. And who is to blame for today's state of affairs? That doesn't matter. We need to work to lay a foundation, not to lay blame. I once heard a teacher say, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is today. " Arguing over how a tree should grow doesn't matter if it hasn't been planted in the first place. During 1999-2000, my years as chair of the Education Commission of the States (ECS), we focused on teacher quality. We examined the major trends in policy, practice, and research to describe high-quality teaching that enables student achievement. The Glenn Commission Report departed from the typical report format and outlined a specific action plan based on three broad goals and 14 strategies that assign a role to every person in a community: Goal 1. Establish an ongoing system to improve the quality of math and science teaching in K-12 education. Strategies for states and districts to employ to achieve this goal: * undertake a needs assessment to determine what teachers need physically and professionally; * establish summer institutes to deliver professional development; * provide district- and building-level inquiry groups to foster in- class research and to sharpen teaching skills; * enhance leadership training to foster teacher leaders; * establish a dedicated Internet portal to exchange best practices and update content knowledge; * set up a nongovernmental coordinating council to coordinate state and local initiatives; and * initiate state and local incentive and reward programs to foster individual teacher achievement and to recognize enhanced student learning. Goal 2. Increase the number of math and science teachers and improve the quality of their preparation. …