1. Priorities for professional development are significantly influenced by the systemic and collaborative analysis of difference in the performance of different groups of students.
Ideally, professional development is driven by what teachers need to know to address the needs of their students. This means that the content of professional development should be shaped by collaborative problem-solving centered on the analysis of differences in student performance. While this seems obvious enough, it is not common. Issues of race and ethnicity do not often get thoroughly explored for at least three interrelated reasons: (1) such discussions can be awkward and stressful, (2) collective knowledge about how race and ethnicity affect learning is often inadequate, and (3) differences within conventional categories of race and ethnicity are not evident in the way data are collected.
Basing the content of professional development on evidence of student performance is only one of the characteristics of effective professional development.
Read a research-based summary of the characteristics of effective professional development.
