“Inside the Black Box: School District Spending on Professional Development in Education” is available online from The Finance Project. ()
A new paper aims to help districts marshal the information they need to make sound judgments about professional-development spending for teachers.
Drawing lessons from five large urban districts, the report lays out a framework and coding scheme for determining whether existing district resources are being matched to priorities. Researchers Karen Hawley Miles, Allan Odden, Mark Fermanich, and Sarah Archibald conclude that districts have more resources for professional development than they think, even if they could use more. They also note that a complete road map for professional development requires sound estimates of school-level spending.
