New Standards for Professional Development Schools Are Tool to Address Teacher Quality and Shortage Issues

Original broadcast date Tuesday, October 16, 2001

>> Welcome to this briefing to announce new standards for professional development schools, a fairly new entity in teacher preparation in the last dozen years or so. There's a special reason to draw attention to professional development schools now, because they can impact the growing shortage of qualified teachers in the nation's classrooms today.

To talk about that, we have with us today, Dr. Arthur Wise, president of NCATE. Art has directed the implementation of a new system of performance-based accreditation and teacher preparation. He has devoted his career to teacher professionalism, was formerly at the Rand Corporation and helped to create the U.S. Department of Education.

We also have with us Marsha Levine, a senior consultant for professional development schools at NCATE. She directed the development of the standards for professional development schools, and also directed a field test of those standards at 18 pilot sites across the Nation.

We'll hear today from two of the people at those sites.

Not here today in person, but in our memory, is Ellie Churins, associate director of this project along with Marsha. Ellie passed away in April.

We also have Bob Yinger, who will speak after Marsha, who was Dean of the School of Education at Baylor University. He previously directed the Cincinnati Initiative for Teacher Education at the University of Cincinnati. The program was cited as exemplary in the widely distributed report of the National Commission on Teaching in America's Future. He is president of the Holmes Partnership.

Kathy Gagne, who will be joining us via videotape from Massachusetts today, is a
professional development school coordinator and middle school teacher at Chestnut Middle School in Springfield, Massachusetts. She participated in NCATES tests of the PDS standards and is a member of the Massachusetts coalition for teacher quality and student achievement. Kathy was selected by "instructor" magazine as one of the 100 teachers who have made a difference.

We also have Virginia Pilato, chief of program approval and assessment at the
Maryland state department of education. Ginny has directed Maryland's PDS support and policy implementation since 1995. She's also Maryland's Title II director, with lead responsibility for the teacher quality enhancement state grant.

We will have questions and answers after the presenters have finished their presentations. And now I give you Arthur Wise.

>> Good morning, and thank you for joining us here at the press club and in
institutions across the land and at home or wherever you may be as you watch this series of presentations. These are extraordinary times for all of us, and we are here today to strike a blow for normalcy. And it is our intention to help you understand that something very extraordinary and important has been going on in many of our schools, colleges and departments Of education over the last decade or so.

We are here today to talk about professional development schools. They are an innovation of far more widespread significance than has been popularly Perceived, and we will talk about that as the morning proceeds. But they represent a fundamental reform that is being engaged in by large numbers of universities across the country. And a new form of teacher preparation is taking place.

Let me explain the innovation by a very simple analogy. A professional development school is to teacher education as a teaching hospital is to medical education. Very simple idea. Medical education got along for many, many years without the benefit of teaching Hospitals, but they became the norm approximately 100 years ago, just as it is highly probable that over the next period of years, PDS will become the norm in Teacher preparation.

There are numerous benefits that flow from this innovation, documented by the title in a report that will be made available to those who are interested, a review of the research on professional development schools. We have strong indications that they provide better preparation for new teachers. They result in increased teacher retention. And as school districts struggle to staff themselves -- particularly, city schools Struggle to staff themselves -- the fact of increased teacher retention is an Important consideration, for, in fact, we do not have in the nation a teacher Recruitment problem so much as a teacher retention problem. And our ability to increase the retention rate will be highly significant.

Professional development schools increase "p" through 12 student achievement --
Lots of information on that score. One study by the Rand Corporation found significant gains in an elementary school PDS in mathematics. These gains held up, not only through elementary school, but follow these Youngsters all the way through high school, suggesting that the gains which they achieved were real.

Professional development schools provide a successful alternate route to teaching Model. Professional development schools, as you will see, can be used in a wide variety of teacher preparation programs, but they provide one avenue by which college Graduates can make their way to the classroom through a responsible course of Action.

Professional development schools provide for a more effective supervision of
Teacher candidates and even of unlicensed personnel, where school districts must
Hire these to staff their schools. And finally they represent a promising strategy for improving low performing Schools, because as we convert some of these to professional development schools, The children in them and the teachers who pass through them will be far more Effective in dealing with youngsters from the kinds of backgrounds that lead to Schools being low-performing.

NCATE has been very interested in professional development schools now for the last Five or six years. We have followed the innovation informally before that, but we began formal Attention to it around 1995. We have engaged in two sets of activities, the first of which was to develop draft Standards for professional development schools through a broad consultation with the field. We then, in the last three years, have been field testing these standards, and on The basis of this field test, revising the standards. And finally today, we are announcing the publication of these standards, which we hope will receive use by those who are interested in improving teacher preparation.

Surprising to some, I suspect, will be the extent to which this innovation is
Already taking hold. 166 of NCATE's 525 accredited teacher preparation institutions have professional Development schools in varying stages of development, to be sure.

NCATE recently adopted new standards for all of its colleges of education key
Elements of the professional development schools standards have been incorporated Into NCATE's standards, meaning that they are now expectations for all of our Institutions expected to be implementing these over the next several years.

Many states have begun to take notice of this promising innovation, and both Maryland and Louisiana now require all of their colleges of education to Develop professional development schools. Policies in South Carolina, New Jersey and North Carolina -- policies at the state Level encourage and, in the instance of some public institutions, require these Institutions to have professional development schools.

Well, this innovation, the phrase was hardly coined until the late 1980s. To go from that to a place where it is real and a very large number of institutions is quite a remarkable development in our field. And we look upon this day as an occasion to let the broader public become aware of it.

Thank you, and I now will turn to Marsha Levine.

>> Good morning, and thank you for coming. Before I begin, I'd like to say, while you'll hear from a few of us who have been Involved in the design and development and field testing of the PDS standards, the Work we are presenting today is really the work of literally hundreds of people Out in the field -- people in schools, people in universities, people who have Joined with us and joined together to design and develop these standards.

I also would like to mention that someone who worked with us in developing in the Standards, Roberta Trachman, Dr. Trachman, is in the room today, And she was responsible for the research and evaluation in the project, essentially Making sure that we learned what we needed to learn in order to do the revisions Of the standards. And she'll be available if there are questions, as well.

Well, I'd like to start with making sure that there is a shared understanding about what a professional development school is as we move forward in our presentations. We're talking about a special kind of a university school partnership -- one in Which the school and university share responsibility for four very important Functions -- the clinical preparation of new teachers, staff development for both University and school faculty, an agenda jointly developed of practice-based Research and a focus on improving the quality of education for p-12 students.

Now, what I'd like to say is that this is a rich and complex agenda, but it's not pursued in four parallel tracts. What makes it like the teaching hospital and an analogy to the teaching hospital Model is that those four functions are intertwined. In fact, it's the focus on children's learning that brings together the new Teacher, the candidates' learning, staff development and determines the research agenda. So they are blended together in a very special way.

Now, this way of doing things means that there are changes for everybody involved -- new roles, new kinds of work and new ways of working together. Bob and Kathy will give you a view of what it means for the university folks to be involved in this way and the school folks to be involved in this way. And I thought I would just give you a sense of what it means to be a teacher Candidate in a professional development school.

This is not your mother's student teaching. It's not your student teaching, either. Instead of a relatively short-term experience, the goal is for up to a year long Immersion in the school setting. In a more traditional student teaching experience, the focus is on classroom skills and building instructional strategies. In a professional development school, the experience and goals for development for the candidate are school-based much more broadly. The candidate works with not just one cooperating teacher, but with several Faculty. In a traditional experience, often the candidate comes in with an agenda of items and instructional programs that they need to develop that have been determined in the university setting.

In a professional development school, the curriculum is really driven by the needs of the children in that school. A candidate in a PDS is not a guest in the classroom. The candidate becomes a part of the instructional team. And a new culture is created -- a professional culture, where the candidate not Only develops teaching skills and strategies, but learns to work together with Colleagues to use knowledge-based practice and to seek better ways of doing things when instructional strategies are not working. This kind of an environment works to combine the resources of the university and The school on behalf of all learners, as opposed to keeping them apart, which is The unintended, but nevertheless a consequence of a more traditional role.

Professional development schools come in different shapes and sizes. And in the field test, we deliberately sought PDS partnerships with tremendous Variety to see if the standards that we were developing had applicability to that Range. And what we found is that there are successful PDS models that are associated with Four-year teacher education programs, five-year programs and fifth year programs.

Elementary, middle and high schools are all engaged as professional development
schools. Public and private universities are PDS partners, including very large institutions and smaller institutions. And some schools of education work with one professional development school, and some work with many, up to 14 or 15, depending upon the size of the program that they have.

Now, why do we think that professional development schools are so important?
They are important because they respond to two enduring and well-documented
Problems in education. One has to do with the importance of the clinical preparation of a professional Practitioner. This has always been identified as the most highly valued portion of a teacher's Preparation, yet it has always been the most idiosyncratic of the preparation Programs. Professional development schools create serious clinical experiences that are grounded in a professional view of teaching in how professional practitioners Learn. Time, resources, universities, school expertise are all dedicated to the clinical Experience.

The second reason they are so important is that they create a bridge that links
The resources, knowledge and experiences of the school and the university in the
Interests of both professional and -- professional learning and children's
Learning. University programs benefit from the partnership with the schools.
And the schools and the children in them benefit from the partnership with the
University.

How do PDS's make a difference? The $64,000 question. Early research focused on self reports, case studies and anecdotal evidence, but In the last couple of years we're beginning to see studies that focus On outcomes -- outcomes that look at candidate learning, outcomes That look at p-12 student learning and outcomes that look at The effects on the faculty involved in the PDS setting.
Using multiple measures including test scores and Observational data, studies in Kansas, Texas and West Virginia show greater competency in candidates compared with those prepared in traditional programs and significantly higher retention of candidates prepared this way.

In one study in Texas looking at 2,000 candidates, the retention rate for those
Prepared in PDS settings was three times greater than that for the traditionally
Prepared candidates. And as Art mentioned, on studies in West Virginia done by the Rand Corporation and others in Michigan and Texas, also looking at gain scores of students indicate a Significant impact on PDS students. There's a summary of that research in your packet and the monograph prepared by Lee Title is also available in your packet describing these studies and others as well.

So what's important to the professional development school? What do the standards actually talk about? The standards identify five areas that are critical attributes of professional Development schools. The standards represent what we learned in the field test. PDS's are first and foremost learning environments in which both adults and children learn. This is not a new idea. This idea goes back to Dewey, who talked about the importance of maintaining a Learning environment for teachers because the connection
Between teacher learning and children's learning was very significant. And PDS's create that.

There is learning that exists across institutional boundaries between university
And schools, and at some time all candidates and all professionals and children
Play the roles of teachers and learners in a professional development school. PDS's have a very strong role in terms of accountability. They are responsible for learning outcomes and for professional practice, both Standards bearing institutions and a standard of good practice.

Collaboration is another important characteristic. Collaboration -- that means commitment to the partnership. PDS's have a responsibility to prepare candidates to teach all children and ensure that all children have equitable opportunities to learn, and, of course, finally, there are new structures, roles and resources that are needed to support them.

Art talked with you a little about how we went through this process. I would like to say that among those things that we learned that are the most Important and that are found throughout the revised draft standards have To do with the importance of keeping p-12 children's learning at the core Of adult learning in a professional development school. All adult learning is focused around improving children's learning, and I'm going to move along and just say a couple of words about the Uses of the standards.

We believe that the standards are being used to support the development of
Professional development schools at the institutional level. There are many partnerships out there that have used the standards to Guide their work. We also believe that at the state and district level, the standards can be used
To support initiatives that are directed at recruitment, retention and teacher
Quality. The characteristics of a professional development school and the kinds of Outcomes that we are seeing speak very strongly to a significant Role that they can play to both improve student learning and Prepare teachers who are well-equipped to work in schools of high need.

And with that, I am going to ask Bob to talk with you a Little about what it means from the university perspective to be engaged in Professional development school work.

>> Good morning. It's my pleasure to represent the hundreds of colleges and
Universities in this country that are engaged in professional development schools Work and to say a few words about how PDS's make a difference for the work that we do.

PDS's have fundamentally changed three things in our business. One is our ideas about teacher education. Secondly, the way we do business as teacher educators.
And thirdly, how we are organizing ourselves as institutions. Let me just say a few words about each of those.

We now know that, both from cognitive science and educational Research that we need intense reality-driven clinical instruction to prepare the Teachers that we need to prepare. And we also know that the best way to do this is in partnership with Schools and school districts who are concerned in the same way as we are about teacher quality. These ideas have changed the way we do business. Many of our teacher education programs have moved a lot of their course work and Instruction from the campuses into PDS's. And we have lengthened our clinical experiences. Many PDS's are now supporting year-long internships, as Marsha mentioned. We are creating new clinical roles for both teachers and
University-based faculty in PDS's, and we are making our research agendas more
Action-oriented and more policy-oriented as a result of PDS's. Thirdly, PDS's have fundamentally changed many of our teacher preparation Institutions. We have new structures. Many PDS's are both -- are jointly managed and organized and funded by both Universities and school districts.

As I mentioned just a minute ago, we have new roles. We have clinical faculty roles for both university People and school folks. We have new lead teacher mentor and supervision roles that we are creating in PDS's. We have university faculty that are now in residence in PDS's for most of their job responsibilities. We have accomplished teachers who are functioning as teachers and residents on College campuses -- so many different ways of Thinking about the roles for teacher education. And we also are thinking differently about your investments in Teacher education. We are increasing our clinical investments in some major ways in many of our Universities. And just as an example, we are projecting threefold increases in our investments in clinical preparation in Baylor as we move to have all of our Students involved in professional development schools.

The message this morning is that we now know how to create effective Professional development schools. And the new NCATE PDS standards are based on documented Successful practices over the last 10 to 15 years. What's important for schools and colleges of education is that it's clear that good clinical preparation in teacher education is something we should be shooting for. And these standards help communicate these goals clearly to our faculty and to those involved in this work and to our school partners.

The Holmes Partnership, of which I am president, was instrumental in creating the professional development school concept in the mid-1980s. And we have worked since then to develop hundreds of PDS's in over -- in our 80 Local school and university partnerships. The NCATE standards are going to allow us to set more uniform quality Expectations for the work in these 80 partnerships, and they're also Going to allow us to better document the quality of the work that we're doing.

The Holmes Partnership strongly endorses the NCATE PDS standards and looks forward to working with NCATE to make these standards widely accepted benchmarks for Clinical preparation in teaching in this country.

>> And now we're going to hear from Kathy Gagne via videotape
From Massachusetts.

>> I'm Dr. Kathleen Gagne. I'm a PDS site coordinator at Chestnut Accelerated Middle School in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The partnership of the university of Massachusetts and Amherst at Chestnut has affected all levels of the school community. For teachers especially, the influx of energy and researched-based ideas from Student teachers and university faculty has invigorated their own teaching and provided interests to implement new strategies, consider previous ones and strengthen existing successes. Teachers say this model is for prepracticum students who need to observe particular Subject areas and also visualize the school as well as Mentor and supervise student teachers and clinical teachers. Opportunities for teacher research and teacher-generated ideas for school improvement are continual for their school.

This schoolwide model for 180 day program in particular, which is a year-long
Immersion program for graduate students seeking to become teachers thrusts the
Student teachers into the mainstream of the school rather Than making a hit-and-run approach to teacher training. Teacher input on course work offers education students at the university is encouraged. Projects which are after-school programs designed and implemented and guided by 180-day student teachers Involve parents, faculty, community members, school-centered decision making team Members and university resources. With the refocus on student-based teaching and learning, teachers Are struggling to meet public demands for increased student success while Continuing to do be aware of the best teaching methods for their own student Population.

Having the resources at Chestnut and the ability to grow our own urban
Educators sends a powerful message about the work of the Classroom teacher at the school. As the PDS coordinator, I oversee all aspects of the PDS and serve as a liaison to the principal district leaders who all are integral to our efforts at Chestnut. I have a partial teaching schedule and have some time allotted for PDS work.

Other teachers have important roles, as well, for example, coordinating
Prepracticum visits, supervising student teachers. I make the job postings and do the payrolls for those positions. Primarily, I work with student teachers, but especially with those involved In our immersion program, guiding them through the observation Course work days of their year, doing student teaching, clinical teaching and job Hunting. I coordinate and sometimes help develop
Teacher proposals for use their alternative professional time during the clinical Teaching phase of our 180 days program. I teach two university level courses on site. I also work with the teachers union and the personnel department in the district to create opportunities that I mentioned earlier for teachers at the school. I set up any on-site graduate university courses for
Faculty members at the school, and I represent the PDS at the Massachusetts PDS coalition for improving teacher quality and have worked with NCATE on the PDS standards as a site visitor and later on the design team.

The most significant aspect of the PDS-driven change in the teachers' roles at
Chestnut involves new avenues for leadership. The teachers who have often felt that unless they were interested In becoming principals or other administrators, there were no real opportunities For them to advance professionally and to make significant Contributions to the profession outside of the classroom setting. Examples of this type of leadership at Chestnut include teachers designing and
Facilitating workshops, study groups research team, university supervisor,
Presenting at local, regional and national conferences, creating significant
Projects, curriculum models, school improvement activities, using their alternative Professional time, when they have 180 days clinical teacher in the spring, Furthering academic pursuits at the masters and doctoral levels, Taking advantage of their tuition waivers offered to the university at on-site and Campus graduate courses, participating in Action research groups, working with faculty members on-site designing such things As school websites, having their work published.

The PDS partnership has effectively created a framework for the kind of job
Invented professional development that has proved to be meaningful for those in
The profession and those entering it as well. And as always, the prime beneficiary are the students at the school.

>> For those of you listening in the field all around the country, if you
Couldn't hear Kathy well, we will post her talking points on our website.

And now we are going to hear from Virginia Pilato from the Maryland state
Department of education, who is going to talk to us about how PDS's can be
Implemented and supported at the state level.

>> Thank you. Good morning. I represent the state of Maryland and our state superintendent, Nancy Grasmik, and I'm delighted to be with you.

At the end of this series of speakers, you're going to hear a lot of the same
Language over and over and you're going to say, "Well, she just said that,
She just said that, and he just said that." But that may represent to you what professional development schools in the United States -- and I'll speak about Maryland -- are really all about.

We're really coming together as a nation through this NCATE project and the new standards to move teacher education reform forward in ways we have never done before. Marsha had asked me to speak about the place of professional Development schools in the Maryland reform, so I'm going to begin with that.

Maryland views professional development schools as the very best way to prepare
Teachers and to join schools and universities. And that's a rather profound goal we have, isn't it, to join schools and Universities? At the heart of reform in Maryland is our view that all children can learn, and as I am beginning to say in these last few days, each child can learn and can learn rigorous content. And children, all of our students k-12, deserve and must have caring, qualified, Competent teachers who must grow in their profession.

To this commitment to children, we now link teacher education reform. We call the reform in Maryland the redesign of teacher education. And in this, we emphasize strong academic background for our new teachers and our Teachers as they continue to grow professionally, and we also emphasize for our Teacher candidates year-long internships in professional development schools.

At the heart of the redesign of teacher education is that teachers should be very well prepared to teach Maryland students. In fact, they should be more like second and third-year teachers when they complete their programs than the traditionally prepared teachers in short-term student Teacher placements. So we now integrate school reform and teacher education reform through professional Development schools in Maryland.

What's happening in Maryland with respect to professional Development schools and the professional development schools standards? So this is some of the current work that comes straight from a State that's not very far away. And like Bob -- unlike Bob, I didn't fly in, I just drove in from the community.
But here's some things going on in the state of Maryland. Superintendents and deans of education collaborate through a k-16 professional development schools standards committee. They meet regularly. They met this week. They meet regularly using standards, now a common language of school reform Integrated with teacher ed. Reform.

Also, there's a statewide professional development school network which is
Expanding with the goal in sight now of preparing all of our teacher candidates
In year-long internships in professional development schools. Professional development schools performance is being tied to state program Approval, which is directly linked to Title II institutional assessment. There is a strong accountability arm of our PDS movement in Maryland. It's carrots and sticks provide some funding, some supports and so on, and we Link the initiative to state and federal accountability systems.

School districts -- I hope you love this point as much as I do -- School districts are wanting to hire only professional Development school trained new teachers, and they compete with each other. We have local school systems who change their hiring schedule to get out in Front of a neighbor school district. And we have some of the largest school districts in the united states. So I think this is a powerful testimony to the movement in Maryland.

Finally let me just conclude with this. Improvements in teacher education in Maryland are earning accolades primarily Through the PDS initiative. Thank you.

>> Thank you so much, all of our panelists. We will now open the floor to questions. We also have available to answer questions from Boston, Lee Title is listening in to this broadcast and will be available to answer questions as well as Kathy Gagne. We also have Roberta Trachman in our audience, who could answer questions as well. So do we have questions?

>> I actually have two questions. First of all, what does "clinical" mean in this education context, and secondly, To what do you attribute the greater retention rate?

>> There, simply, "clinical" means school-based within the school, and the retention rate, I think, can be attributed to the much greater intensive Preparation of candidates over a longer period of time in which They have the time to develop strategies and approaches to teaching and learning in the process of their teaching that allows them to be more successful. And I think that the net result is that the retention rate is greater.

>> Let me just add a few words about the notion of clinical here. One of the things that we have learned from cognitive science over The last 25 years, that effective learning occurs when teachers can engage directly students' understandings and misunderstandings about the subject matter. And so we know that to deal with the increasing differences that we see within our classrooms that teachers have to be skilled in addressing the needs of individual students to find out what they understand, what they're struggling with, to diagnose that in a clinical way And then to, in effect, prescribe the -- a response, an Instructional response.

So the kind of -- the important thing about PDS's for us is that We have these settings where we can guide and mentor our Candidates through these kinds of interactions with a diverse Student body so that they're prepared not to teach the whole group, But to teach individuals when they are in the classroom.

>> Next question. Another question? Can you come up or -- here, here's a mic for you.

>> My question is on school governance and how the partnership Between the universities and the districts or individual schools Plays itself out, particularly in terms of instructional decisions, how the Superintendent, the principal and university officials collaborate, if you Can talk a little bit about that.

>> Do you want me to answer this one?

>> Sure, go ahead, Kathy.

>> No, I can't see what's going on, so I --

>> Why don't you go, Kathy, and then I can weigh in on it, too?

>> I was just going to explain the way it works here is that we have A steering committee, and participating on that is The principal of the school and certain faculty members as well as university Representatives, and we have university liaisons, which are younger teachers who Have maybe been through the program and who participate in decision making In that way. And it flows into the central office.

We come from a larger district, and they're aware of what's happening and very
Interested in it, and there are occasions across the state where they --participants from the district might be involved as well.

>> I think it's important to say that we're engaged in a new kind Of collaboration between schools and universities. This collaboration has been used for years by university folks, and it's Been kind of a dirty little secret that what it meant was that Universities were coming in the schools to do their research and kind of take Advantage of the field. But now what we're doing is sitting down face to face and some cases Knee to knee and negotiating what's in it for each of us. So joint decision making and negotiation is an important part of this activity. It's set up in a variety of ways with joint councils, with joint committees. But the important part is that there are always -- all the stakeholders are at the table.

In Cincinnati, the union was an important stakeholder in this work, And so we had a three-way partnership between the university, the union and the School district. And all decisions were made by a joint panel with representatives
From all three parties. And that's also the basis for sharing the cost for being sure That all the parties are getting equal benefit. And usually there is some kind of legal framework or structured framework, a Contract, a signed agreement between the universities and even the board of Education.

In many cities, the PDS work is actually negotiated into the Collective bargaining agreement. I know that's true in our work that we did in Cincinnati. So that is a -- we're taking collaboration and joint work to a Very different level so we can structurally set it up so that we're actually Accomplishing all the goals of all the stake holders.

>> I want to add to that that partnering in this new approach of professional
Development schools is now bringing a school and university Partners together to look at where new funds can come from which They'll apply for together, which they can also seek together, but which They can also go into their own funding and look at how they can reallocate the Funds they have. So governance for decision making, but also funding to promote and continue their Efforts. They work together to find the funding.

>> My question really has to do with the funding, and I wondered if as part of the Field testing the cost of professional development schools was also Considered, and with Maryland and other states encouraging or requiring Professional development schools, what kinds of resources are expected from
Districts and states?

>> I will give a Maryland answer to that. The four other members of the panel might want to weigh in on this. The state of Maryland has not received significant state funding Since the early '90s when we started doing the PDS work. We have been bringing in our funding through federal grants which we then administer to the partnerships all over the state. So we have had to find the money. We've written the Eisenhower competitive process and also Title II. We continually work with members of our legislative community in attempts to have
Legislation introduced that then could succeed in bringing State funding from Annapolis. But this is a process. But we've been able to do the catalyst work through these external funds, Diana.

>> I would just add that in many instances, partnerships have been supported by
Federal grants, Title II money, Eisenhower grants in terms of planning and
Implementation, getting started. And there are some costs associated with that, and I think many people talk about A range of about $50,000 to sort of do the front-end work of organizing. But then the actual cost of operating a professional development school Really varies depending largely in part upon the stipends or salaries that Are paid to candidates. And there's real range out there in terms of what folks are doing. In some instances candidates are not getting paid in these positions. In others they get a stipend. In some they get a negotiated salary commensurate with the Teaching responsibilities that they have. And that's where the largest part of the operating costs are.

But school districts and universities have combined their resources in various
Ways, co-funding, for example, coordinator positions so they share the costs of
That particular new role. But at this point I think it's fair to say that there is a range, and the biggest chunk has to do with the costs of intern salaries.

>> Just one other quick point related to funding and costs. An important part of having these standards available to us now is that we now have Some benchmarks to work against. So much of the professional development school work over the last 15 years have Basically been to say, what are the resources we have? How can we implement the PDS in relationship to our resources within the box That's already there? What the standards now have done is set a new level of expectations And interaction, and so now we're going to have the opportunity to Really find out, what should this cost to do it correctly?

And as I mentioned, we know it's going to be multiples of what we're Spending right now in clinical instruction, but I think a key point related To the standards is that though we now have benchmarks to Work against rather than just the boxes and the funding structures that We find ourselves in universities or school districts having, and I think it's Going to make a huge difference in terms of being able to seriously say what does It take to do quality work in PDS's.

>> Thank you, Bob. Yes, we have a question in the back.

>> You mentioned the retention rate. How effective has all of this been toward addressing the problem of teacher Shortages right now?

>> The evidence is that teachers who experience their education in professional
Development schools have a higher probability of remaining in teaching. However, the innovation is not yet widespread enough to have made a huge Difference in terms of solving the shortage issue. We would believe that if the innovation becomes much more widespread and Particularly targets city schools as a goal that we could make a major difference In preparing teachers who will remain in urban teaching. There is some evidence to support that conclusion.
But we do not yet have a widespread enough network of professional development
Schools in cities to make that large quantitative difference.

>> Other questions? Greg?

>> A follow-up on that -- how do you sell something like This to an urban district who does have an immediate shortage and who may Not be thinking about the long term, may be thinking, "we need to fill 2,000 spots this fall or -- "

>> City schools are struggling and in some instances hiring individuals who are
Not prepared for their work and experiencing tremendous turnover. They can stop this, if not on a dime, at least in fairly short order by creating A network of schools for professional development purposes. Some few years ago the university of north Florida began to offer a program of a Year-long internship in Jacksonville for many of its teacher Preparation students. The experience of this was that a very significant fraction of the individuals Who prepared in these schools remained teaching in urban environments. And in fact, the percentage at the end of three years of individuals Who graduated from this program is 86% retention rate for Graduates of those -- of that program out of north Florida who then were employed In the county schools.

>> Let me tell you how we're selling this concept in central Texas. The state of Texas did a statewide survey to try to determine what the cost of Teacher turnover is in the state of Texas, when teachers are hired and then, you Know, quit within a few years and found out that the average cost is 30,000 to $40,000 per teacher to the school district for every Teacher that they hire and then quits within a few years.

All we had to do was talk to our local school districts and show them that data
And then link that to what we know about professional development schools with
Higher rates of entry and higher levels of retention and said to them, "if you can Just hang on to two or three of four more teachers over the next few years, we're Talking about potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in personnel savings To the school district." And so just -- we know that even small changes and even limited Implementation of PDS's can pay off in big returns in real dollars to school Districts right now.

>> Another question? Over here.

>> As was earlier stated, two states I guess currently do mandate PDS's. A few others do recommend -- do yes, encourage, do encourage them. Is the hopes here that the standard that these new standards will sort of send a Wake-up call to some other states to, you know, get on board with this? Is this part of the reasoning with the release of that?

>> Well, we regard this as a service to the field or to the American public.
We think it represents a superior strategy in many instances for preparing
Teachers. The development of these standards means that there is now a set of agreed-upon Expectations for what it takes to run a successful professional development school. Obviously we are in no position to do other than draw people's attention to this Innovation, to provide them with the research that is available on this innovation, And to hope that more school districts and state-level policymakers will make Decisions commensurate with the information that we have available. Yes, we can keep on doing things the old-fashioned way.
That's typically the way we do. Inertia keeps us chugging along in tried-and-true paths. But this is an innovation that makes a difference. And if people will take the time to look at the standards, look at the materials That we have developed, all of which will be available on our Website, and see what it means for them, see what it can mean for them as they Contemplate their problem.

Certainly we know that some cities, new York, Houston, Los Angeles, scramble now
For the last several years, have had to scramble to staff their schools with
Unprepared personnel who last in the school system a year or two. But what we know from this work on professional development schools is that Individuals who receive a proper induction into teaching through this kind of a Structured introduction to teaching have a much higher probability of staying, and That makes a difference. It justifies the investment up front by virtue of the returns which come to the School districts, the schools and the children in those districts.

>> As you know, Maryland is one of the states requiring professional development Schools as a way of preparing teachers, as a way of promoting continuing Development of experienced teachers. Having the standards now ends the ambiguity about what is a PDS. When principals want to be a PDS, it's something they know they want to do. But without standards, they haven't really known what that is. But in some cases, someone else says, "you have to do a PDS," and there is that Feeling of threat and ambiguity. And so there's a lot of discomfort. Having professional development schools standards makes it clear what it is, at What levels, how does a PDS evolve through stages Of development, through practice? So standards in Maryland, one of the states requiring PDS, has taken us from, "this Is a panacea or a great idea, we need to do this, it's important," to, "we Now have the wherewithal that we know how, we know what it looks Like, we know to go with the why."

And to answer really your question about other states, speaking as one of the
States that has this very strong PDS priority, I would say we really do want other States to join with us. Whether it's required or not, I won't say. But Maryland and other states who have this disposition want to be in the company
Of many states with many professional development schools so that in the future,
Teachers are prepared being described this way -- they're described best in the
Standards -- so that this is a common vision of the future in the united states
For what teachers are as they become teachers and the future in their careers as
They continue to develop.

>> Is there one more question before we close the briefing? Okay, one more. Last question.

>> Question for Art Wise. You said that some of these principals have been implementing within the Unit the accreditation standards that all institutions will have to meet if they Have clinical programs. Do you foresee any further use of these standards by your NCATE Accredited institutions? Can they elect to use them? Are they going to be further incorporated, or is this a completely separate set Of standards at this point?

>> Yes, there are -- as I indicated, some of the elements of the professional
development schools standards have been incorporated into our regular standards
that apply to all of our institutions. However, and these standards, as I say, are a normal and expected part of our expectations for all of our institutions. The professional development schools standards, however, at the present time are
Merely a set of recommendations that we offer to those who are interested in
Developing professional development schools. We do not now intend to incorporate them in an official way into our process at The present time.

Now, of course, as this innovation continues to take hold, almost certainly that
Will send messages to us. And very likely, if it continues on the path that it now seems to be, we will Revisit this decision over the next several years and determine what the right Course of action for NCATE will be.

>> Thank you for attending this briefing. We have mentioned several resources.
If you want more information on the research, we do have a monograph by Lee Title who was listening in, and he summarizes the research on professional
Development schools. This will be available through NCATE's website. You may order it through NCATE's website. Also the standards for professional development schools will be available As a publication. You may order that through the website as well. Thank you for attending this briefing.