Professional Development Audit
Despite shrinking resources, every school district is striving to increase student achievement and faces stringent accountability pressure for doing so. A key element of success is ensuring teacher support in the form of professional development (PD) that helps teachers continually strengthen instructional practices.
Does your district’s PD lead to improving student achievement?
Given the urgency that dollars invested in PD lead to clear improvements in teaching and learning, decision makers are re-examining PD approaches. Effective PD decisions require an analysis of how much money the district spends on PD, where and for what activities it is spent, and with what impact. As decision makers then move to reallocate resources and implement changes in PD approaches for greater impact, they need to monitor results and make adjustments along the way.
CTAC’s PD Audit process helps district leaders to do just that.
How is a PD Audit conducted?
The PD Audit analyzes quantitative and qualitative data to understand the impact of PD on the practices and perceptions of educators as well as on student achievement.
The process is customized to the needs of each district and targeted according to the particular programs or subject areas the district wants to examine. It may include the entire district or a subset of the district’s schools. Information is gathered and analyzed to understand the relationship between student achievement, human resources, finances and professional development activities.
Data that’s collected and analyzed includes:
- Programmatic and financial data. PD allocations are often embedded in departmental or program budgets.
- Protocols, artifacts and curricula materials related to professional development will also be analyzed.
- Perceptual data from individual and group interviews and from teacher and administrator surveys.
- Classroom observational data to better understand the impact of professional development on teacher practice.
CTAC analyzes the impact of PD activities on student achievement, using statistical methodology that makes it possible to construct models that help estimate the variation in impact of PD at the student, classroom teacher, and school levels.
CTAC’s landmark PD Audit study
Our PD Audit process is captured in our landmark analysis of the effectiveness of literacy PD provided to educators by the Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership in Duval County Public Schools (Florida). Focus on Literacy: Professional Development Audit describes CTAC’s process in Duval as well as our findings—in terms of the impact of PD on classroom practices and student achievement.
PD Audit services
CTAC is currently conducting PD Audits in Henrico County Public Schools (VA), Prince William County Public Schools (VA) and the Northern Humboldt Union High School District (CA).
If you are interested in CTAC’s PD Audit services, please contact us at (617) 423-1444.