PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SCHOOLS:
AN IMPLEMENTATION MANUAL
Superintendents and Deans Committee
Revised Edition, Spring 2003
MARYLAND PARTNERSHIP FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING K-16
Maryland State
Department of Education
Nancy S. Grasmick
Maryland Higher Education Commission
Karen R. Johnson
University System of Maryland
William E. Kirwin
The Maryland State Department of Education does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, or disability in matters affecting employment or in providing access to programs. For inquiries related to Departmental policy please contact:
Equity Assurance and
Compliance Branch
Maryland State Department of
Education
200 West Baltimore Street
Baltimore, Maryland
21201-2595
(410) 767-0433 Voice
(410) 333-3045 TTY/TDD
(410) 767-0431 Fax
For inquiries related to the
content of this document please contact:
Program Approval and
Assessment Branch
Maryland State Department of
Education
200 West Baltimore Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201-2595
(410) 767-0390 Voice
(410) 333-8963 Fax
Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., Governor
MARYLAND PARTNERSHIP FOR TEACHING AND
LEARNING K-16
SUPERINTENDENTS AND DEANS COMMITTEE
|
Jack Dale, Co-Chair |
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Edna Mora Szymanski, Co-Chair |
University of Maryland |
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Jon M. Andes |
Worcester County Public Schools |
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Beth Barnett |
Salisbury State University |
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Julius Chapman Roy Dawson, Jr. |
Coppin State
College Laboratory for Student Success, Temple University |
|
Paula Fitzwater |
Maryland Higher Education Commission |
|
Kimberly Fleming |
Maryland State Department of Education |
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R. Lorraine Fulton |
St. Mary's County Public Schools |
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Barbara Graves |
Charles County Public Schools |
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Jacqueline C. Haas |
Harford County Public Schools |
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Michael Hickey |
Towson University |
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Martha Johnson |
Howard County Public Schools |
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Ellyn McLaughlin |
Anne Arundel Community College |
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Dennis Pataniczek |
Salisbury University |
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Virginia Pilato |
Maryland State Department of Education |
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Kenneth Pool |
McDaniel College |
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Tom Proffitt |
Towson University |
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Carl Roberts |
Cecil County Public Schools |
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Geraldine Rossi |
Salisbury University |
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Bernard Sadusky |
Queen Anne’s County Public Schools |
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Earl Slacum |
Howard County Public Schools |
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Francis Sweeney |
Hood College |
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Louise Wine |
Hagerstown Community College |
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Donna Wiseman |
University of Maryland |
Maryland State Department of Education Staff
Michelle Dunkle
Maggie Madden
Cheri Wittmann
Original document
prepared by Edith Zamostny Budd
2003 Edition edited by
Kim Fleming
Professional Development School
A Professional
Development School (PDS) is a collaboratively planned and implemented
partnership for the academic and clinical preparation of interns and the
continuous professional development of both school system and institution of
higher education (IHE) faculty. The
focus of the PDS partnership is improved student performance through
research-based teaching and learning. A
PDS may involve a single or multiple schools, school systems and IHEs and may
take many forms to reflect specific partnership activities and approaches to
improving both teacher education and PreK-12 schools.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Roles of Superintendents and Deans
Teacher Education Reform in Maryland
Standards Development
Developmental Guidelines
Standards Review and Adoption
Building the Infrastructure
Teacher Preparation Programs
Professional Development
Restructuring Issues
Sustaining a PDS
Support Networks
The Importance of Evaluation
An Evaluation Framework for Maryland
Tailoring Evaluation Studies to Document Impact
Essential Questions
Evaluation and Statewide Capacity Building
References 32
Appendix A: Glossary 34
Appendix C: Standards for Maryland PDSs 40
Appendix D: Developmental Guidelines for Maryland PDSs 42
Appendix E: Alignment Grid for NCATE and Maryland PDS Standards 65
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would be remiss in the second publication of this manual not to acknowledge the work of Dr. Lee Teitel of the University of Massachusetts at Boston in Maryland’s PDS work. Dr. Teitel is an acknowledged national expert in the field of professional development schools, and he has worked for more than four years with MSDE and the practitioners who engage in this work throughout the State. He is a consultant for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and, as such, was part of NCATE’s PDS Standards development. Because NCATE is the national accrediting body for the departments, schools, and colleges of education in Maryland, it has been necessary to align the Maryland PDS Standards with those of NCATE. We are grateful to Lee for his assistance in this endeavor. Additionally, Lee includes in his new book, The Professional Development Schools Handbook, a wonderful graphic in the form of a pyramid which took original shape “from Lee’s mind to a napkin” at the first of three PDS Summer Leadership Academies MSDE was privileged to convene with Dr. Teitel as facilitator. Through his generosity of spirit, we acquired permission to modify this diagram for Maryland use. It appears on the cover of this publication and now becomes the logo for PDS in Maryland. Although this modification was made with the author’s permission and prior to the book’s publication, we nonetheless thank Corwin Press for its use. Many thanks to Lee Teitel for the great support he has given to practitioners and policy makers from all facets of PDS work in Maryland.
PREFACE
In Spring 2001, the Superintendents and Deans Committee of the Maryland Partnership for Teaching and Learning K-16 was proud to present Professional Development Schools: An Implementation Manual. This publication was designed as a tool for practitioners working in Maryland’s Professional Development Schools, school system and local school faculties, and college/university faculties and staff. As a group of educational leaders committed to reform, the Superintendents and Deans Committee was united in encouraging all school system superintendents and deans/directors/chairpersons of colleges or schools of education (hereafter referred to as “deans”) to actively support Professional Development Schools (PDS). The PDS has fundamental implications for educational leadership at both the local school system and institution of higher education (IHE). The relationship between school system superintendents and deans is central to the successful implementation of PDS.
Superintendents and deans, as leaders of their respective organizations, know that the preparation of teachers and their continuing professional development are key to dramatically improving the quality of education in Maryland as well as in the nation. The PDS is in many respects a vehicle for reform, as Levine and Trachtman (1997) point out very succinctly. The PDS is in this strategic position for three reasons:
· PDS embodies fundamental changes in the basic assumptions about teaching and learning;
· PDS supports these new assumptions with organization, roles, and relationships;
· PDS plays a critical role in enabling several other major reform strategies to have an impact.
Since the first publication of this volume in 2001, the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has emerged as the primary force driving all educational activity in all schools and school systems, with far-reaching accountability systems attached to those activities. The need is even greater now than it was two years ago for those who initially train teachers to collaborate with those who ultimately hire, develop and supervise teachers. In the climate of shared responsibility that is the nature of the PDS relationship, PreK-12 student achievement must be the measure of that collaboration.
As the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) moves aside to make room for a new assessment system and reporting requirements that allow no “hiding places” for underachieving students or subgroups of students, the message is clear and unequivocal. Colleges must prepare teachers who are sufficiently grounded in their content areas to teach all students in all different kinds of settings and must share the responsibility for the ultimate success of those students with schools and school systems. Similarly, it is highly advantageous for school systems to share the responsibility for training new generations of teachers with their college counterparts. PDSs become even more strategic in serving local and regional systems as they endeavor to meet the challenges of NCLB.
As more and more IHEs move toward providing a year-long PDS placement for all teacher candidates, some underserved regions of the state are not always able to participate with four-year institutions in providing PDS placements. While school systems in these regions may understand the PDS advantages for teacher recruitment, ongoing professional development and teacher retention, the distances between those systems and four-year providers may be too great for PDS development. As this volume goes to print, conversations about cross-institutional partnerships are beginning among colleges and universities and their school system and community college counterparts. Through continued conversation and careful planning, new partnerships promise to maintain high standards of quality while responding to regional needs.
Just as there are underserved regions of the state, there are underserved children in Maryland. It is abundantly clear that in every region, in every school system, children who belong to minority groups are achieving at a rate substantially below that of their non-minority counterparts. The data are alarming, and the State is committed to closing such gaps with all due haste. PDSs, with their ability to make fundamental changes to the art and practice of teaching on multiple levels, must assume a position front and center to meet this challenge. Practitioners who engaged in discussions over the past two years surrounding the PDS Diversity and Equity standard have wrestled with defining equity, gleaning artifacts, and essentially proving the validity of equity indicators through an objective process. Clearly, where the Diversity and Equity standard meets the Student Achievement component on the grid, the issue most visible and most urgent is eliminating this disparity. No challenge could be more important and more far-reaching in defining who we are as educators in Maryland and in the nation.