Balancing Teacher-Driven and State-Driven PD

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Subject:[ProfessionalDevelopment] Brief answers from MA to PD questions 1, 2, & 4 From:Stephen Reuys Steve.Reuys at umb.edu Date:Wed Feb 1 13:35:03 EST 2006

2. What per cent of your PD work is driven by requests from practitioners and what per cent is driven by your funders? What, from your perspective, would be the ideal ratio? 50/50 60/40 20/80 ? And why?

The answer to this question would probably vary, depending on whether this is figured based on number of activities offered, amount of funds invested, amount of SABES staff time allocated, amount of program staff time devoted to attending certain activities, or some other measure. At this point, I would say that that the ratio is probably roughly 60% funder-driven and 40% practitioner/field-driven. In an ideal world I would like to see a much higher percentage devoted to working at the program level on issues of curriculum and instruction.

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment] Brief Answers for PD Question 2
From: Wendi Maxwell WMaxwell at cde.ca.gov
Date: Wed Feb 1 16:43:07 EST 2006

Question: "What per cent of your PD work is driven by requests from practitioners and what per cent is driven by your funders?"

As one of "the funders," I'd like to explain how state agencies frequently decide what priorities to address. I'll also touch on how we determine PD priorities in California.

State agencies by definition have a different view than teachers or local administrators. The job of a state agency is to identify the trends and priorities on the horizon and to look at the overarching needs within all local agencies in the state. Local administrators and teachers know what PD is appropriate for their agency, but frequently do not recognize statewide PD issues, primarily because they have limited exposure to national discussions, and limited exposure to practices in other schools or local agencies.

The process for determining PD priorities therefore must include both state and locally identified needs. State needs are generally regulatory items or topics that will generate systemic change. Local needs are generally more developmental, improving on the existing skills or practcies of the teachers in the local agency. Our initial decision to focus on learning disabilities and our statewide Research to Practice Initiative were both examples of "top-down" priorities. Both now show up as local priorities.

California tries to combine state and local priorities. Our annual online PD needs assessment collects information from teachers and administrators. We also look at emerging trends, national priorities, and information from dozens of site visits to local agencies. We use a PD advisory board, a partnership team composed of administrators from throughout the state, and local needs assesments from each Professional Development Center. Over the past few years, the priorities from the state (funder) and the local practitioners have been surprisingly close.

Wendi Maxwell

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment] Striking a balance: field and funder-driven needs
From: jataylor jataylor at utk.edu
Date: Tue Feb 7 08:41:22 EST 2006

Hello All,
This question pertains to a topic that's been mentioned on a few occasions: striking a balance of needs.

Something Ira shared has stood out to me. Ira, you mentioned that the State Education Department (SED) "...allows up to 20% of the RAEN's ativities to be based on local needs identified by the advisory board that fall outside the SED-identified priority areas. "

Is there anything more you might add to help others wrestling with issues of balancing state/teacher needs? For example, how does this shared decision-making work between the RAENs and the SED? In your experience, does that 80/20 balance seem to work well for your RAEN? How is that balance measured?

As a second example, see Connecticut's adult education PD pilot model (p. 5): http://www.crec.org/cetes/atdn/catalog/ATDN%20Catalog05_06.pdf

In this instance, the professional development model seems to be divided roughly into thirds: site-based, practitioner-requested, and core or "PD basics". Would someone from Connecticut share a bit about your model, and what you are learning through Connecticut's pilot -- both in the content provided but esp. how you are striking this balance?

For others (guests/subscribers):
Do you feel your state has found a comfortable balance in addressing state/federal priorities with teacher and program needs? What are some major challenges of PD systems in this regard? What are you learning in working to achieve that balance?

Somehow I feel as though this just scratches the surface...But perhaps its a start. Thanks so much, Jackie

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment] Striking a balance: field and funder-driven needs
From: Ira Yankwitt iray at lacnyc.org
Date: Fri Feb 10 10:05:32 EST 2006

Hi All,

I know that the list has moved on to other questions, but I did want to take a moment to respond to Jackie's question from Tuesday about balancing state and local needs.

In New York, the SED has identified five primary responsibilities for the RAENs:

1) "Network Building," which includes serving as a liasion between SED and the SED-funded adult literacy programs, as well as intiating efforts to better align adult literacy with the One Stop system and postsecondary education;
2) "Technical Assistance," which involves devoting 30%-40% of our work effort to onsite technical assistance to programs deemed in need of improvement, as well as participating in K12 school improvement efforts;
3) "Accountability," which focuses on providing workshops on NRS, the ALIES data collection system, TABE and BEST Plus;
4) "Staff Development," which includes workshops, institutes and study circles on learning disabilities, EL-Civics, and distance learning, as well as other curricular or instructional practices that support our state adult education standards and are grounded in research or evidence-based literature; and
5) "Local Activities," which are designed to address professional development, technical assistance or network-building needs identified by our local advisory board that do not fit into one of the categories above. Up to 20% of our work effort can be devoted to local activities.

In reality, there are very few professional development needs identified by our RAEN advisory boards that don't fit into the "staff development" category as its defined by SED. When there are (as when the NYC RAEN board identified student leadership development as a need), we are able to incorporate them into our workplan as a local activity. The SED gives us sufficient latitude to be responsive to the field. The challenge is that the SED-mandated activities are so time-consuming and labor-intensive that we often have very little time or money left over to devote to PD projects that go beyond those mandates. In NYC we are fortunate. The NYC RAEN is part of the Literacy Assistance Center (LAC). Because the LAC has been been providing PD and technical assistance to the NYC literacy community for over 20 years, we are able to leverage private funds for projects that enhance the work of the RAEN. (Two prime examples of this are our three-year-old health literacy initiative, and our more recent arts and literacy project, which includes a partnership with the Museum of Modern Art.) Unfortunately, because the other six RAENs are not affiliated with similar organizations, they neither have the staff nor the additional resources to go much beyond the "core" work the SED funds them to provide.

Ira

Can you speak to the rationale behind your participation in K12 improvement?

thanks

Janet

2) "Technical Assistance," which involves devoting 30%-40% of our work effort to onsite technical assistance to programs deemed in need of improvement, as well as participating in K12 school improvement efforts;
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