Author: Ron Millican Title: School Boards Leadership Initiatives Role: University Location: Providence, RI Date: 06-26-02 Districts need to support the Professional development necessary to meet the goals. For instance, one city spent $1 million to provide common planning time for its ninth grade teachers to meet in teams to look at student work and progress together. What made a difference was how well the teachers were prepared to work in teams. That meant having professional development on how to work in teams and how to meet the challenges of forming a new collaborative group. Once that was done, teachers participated in professional development around looking at student work and connecting instruction to the needs of students. But that required more PD for literacy across the curriculum and alignment of curriculum to standards, which were more or less successful, depending on the capacity of the schools' leadership and of the teachers themselves. So the district will need to provide more time over the years as well as during each month. It takes more time and money than one might think.

[Top]