PDPolicyUpdate5-4-05
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NIFL-AALPD subscribers offered shared feedback on the April 10 revision of the PD Policy Platform. Below is the revised platform (version 5), based upon their feedback. We have also created a PD Policy Historical Document showing what feedback pertained to which policy. Both the revised platform below and the PD Policy Historical Document were taken to the 5th Annual AALPD Pre-Conference at COABE (Anaheim 2005) where Pre-Conference participants continued the dialogue and offered more feedback in the shaping of these policies.
AALPD Recommended Policies to Support Professional Development for Adult Education Practitioners
Executive Summary Goal:
The adoption of policies at the national, state and local level that adequately support the participation of adult basic education, adult ESOL, and adult secondary education practitioners (including program directors and learner leaders who are staff members) in professional development which will help them be effective teachers, tutors, counselors, and administrators.
Policies:
1. Expectations for Participation in Professional Development: Every state and program should set and publicize the expectation that all teachers, no matter how experienced, must have a relevant professional development plan and are expected to continue learning throughout their careers.
2. Paid Professional Development Release Time: All teachers should have a minimum of 2.5% of their annual working time as paid professional development.
3. Participation in Program Improvement: A minimum of 2% of each program's budget should be set aside for teachers to participate in program improvement [such as designing a new curriculum (not just lesson planning), recruiting, designing a new student orientation, etc.].
4. Professional Development Plans: Each program should be funded at 1% of its annual staff hours to conduct a process for teachers to develop an annual professional development plan that dovetails with the program’s improvement process. All teachers should be required to have PD plans, and programs should be monitored to see that these are real and meaningful to teachers and to the program.
5. Teacher Evaluation: Programs should conduct a teacher performance evaluation that asks teachers to show evidence that they have acquired new skills and knowledge described in the goals of their professional development plans.
6. Professional Development System: Each state should have a funded state literacy resource center or other agency that provides direct professional development to practitioners and technical assistance to help programs organize in-house professional development. A designated person in the program should be identified and funded as coordinator of program and professional development.
7. Relevance of Professional Development Activities: Every state literacy resource center or professional development system/agency and every program must use the professional development plans of the practitioners in their state or program to plan professional development activities relevant to teachers’ and (ultimately) students’ needs.
8. Orientation for New Teachers: All new teachers should have an orientation to teaching in the field of adult basic education within the first 6 months of their teaching.
9. Access to Professional Development Activities: The state literacy resource center or statewide professional development agency should have the mandate and funding to ensure that every practitioner has access to professional development, throughout the year, both inside and outside of his/her program, and every practitioner has access to a variety of types of professional development (conferences, workshops, study circles, courses, teacher research and other forms of more sustained PD, etc.) on a variety of content, organized at a variety of times and locations, including on-line options.
10. Quality of Professional Development: Facilitators of professional development should have completed a comprehensive and on-going plan for preparing them to design, organize and deliver professional development, and should be funded to spend a minimum of 2% of their time each year in the ABE/ESOL classroom, teaching.
11. Teachers’ Working Conditions: In addition to paid professional development release time, programs should have sufficient resources to provide working conditions that will allow teachers to stay in the field, find the work satisfying, and grow professionally, including:
- Adequate teacher pay and salaries
- benefits for all teachers (including part-time),
- paid prep time for all teachers (including part-time),
- access for all teachers to at least one hour a week of sharing time with either colleagues or a coordinator who supports their teaching, and
- at least monthly mechanisms (staff meetings, meetings with director) for voicing their input/decision making within the program.
12. Teachers’ Involvement in the Field of Adult Education: All practitioners should be funded for at least 1% of their annual working time to participate in activities as a member of the field, including:
- providing professional development to other teachers inside or outside of the program,
- working towards addressing students’ needs (transportation, child care, health services, job assistance, etc.) that may prevent students from participating in the program, and
- building community partnerships (with the health care system, K-12 system, libraries, local businesses, career centers, etc.) to improve services to adult learners.
13. Teacher-Driven Professional Development: 50% of the state-supported and program-support professional activities should be the result of needs assessments in which teachers have participated, and/or be directly related to teachers’ and programs’ needs as they define them through professional development plans and program improvement plans. The other 50% could be driven by the needs of the state ABE regulating agency/ies.
14. Tuition reimbursement: Programs should be funded to provide tuition reimbursement at the equivalent of one college course per semester to teachers who have higher education attainment as a part of their professional development plans.
15. Continuing Education/Carnegie Units (CEUs): States should provide to teachers CEUs for hours of professional development in which they have participated through the state literacy resource center or other direct provider of professional development and technical assistance. Teachers should earn pay increases or incentive bonuses proportionate to the number of CEUs they earn towards the objectives defined in their professional development plans.
16. Adult Learner Voice in Professional Development: The state professional development agency and each individual program should have dedicated funding to ensure that the adult learner voice is included in developing professional development policies at the local program, state, and federal levels.
17. Professional Development for Learner Leaders Who Work in the Field: Students who are tutors, administrators, program coordinators, and counselors, should be afforded access to professional development offered by state professional development and technical assistance agencies or granted internships to work and learn within the program.
