Teachers' Staff Training Deemed Fragmented

Washington

Although American teachers spend more working hours in classrooms than do instructors in some of the top-performing European and Asian countries, U.S. students have scored in the middle of the pack on a number of prominent international exams in recent years.

That paradox appears to stem at least in part from a failing of the United States’ systems for supporting professional learning, concludes a new report released here Feb. 4. American teachers, it finds, are not given as many opportunities for on-the-job training as their international peers, and their effectiveness appears to suffer as a result.

The time U.S. teachers actually spend in professional training largely continues to take place in isolation, rather than in school-based settings that draw on teachers’ collective knowledge and...