Funding PD

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[ProfessionalDevelopment] State Professional Development Systems
jeff fantine fantine at ohio.edu
Tue Jan 31 09:28:48 EST 2006

In response to David Rosen's question:

What per cent of state and federal resources does your state spend on professional development? What do you think it should spend? Why?

I didn't know the complete answer to this, so I sent the question to our State ABLE Director, Denise Pottmeyer. Her response:

"In FY 2006 we set aside $2,166,793.00 or 12% of our federal grant award for State Leadership. Most of these funds are used for professional development. $488,037 of the state budget or 6% of the state budget supports professional development.
The state can use up to 12.5% for state leadership from the federal budget, so Ohio is very close to that. With state and federal decreases in recent years, the percentage for PD decreased to shift some funds to direct services (local ABLE grants).
I think Ohio is very generous in its support of PD. We support 4 regional resource centers and the state center as well as provide stipends and reimbursements to local professionals for their participation in PD."


Jeff Fantine
Director, Literacy Center
College of Education
Ohio University
338 McCracken Hall
Athens, OH 45701
800-753-1519
fax: 740-593-2834


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