Research > Professional Development

A report based on a January 2001 invitational conference on professional development organized by the Partnership for Kentucky Schools

A research study conducted by the Partnership for Kentucky Schools as part of its ongoing professional development research. The study is based on interviews with providers and coordinators of state and district professional development for Kentucky's public schools. The study outlines the barriers to effective professional development including competing agendas, inadequate time, lack of good opportunities, and turf battles. It also documents successes and promising new initiatives.

In 1999, the Partnership and the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence hosted a "Successful Schools Forum" which brought together representatives from schools that had reached the highest level of rewards in three assessment cycles. This report discusses what these schools did to achieve — and maintain — this success.

As accountability systems spread rapidly across the country, policy makers and educators alike were frustrated by the seemingly limited options available for improving low-performing schools. One option offered by the state was assistance in the form of Distinguished Educators (now called Highly Skilled Educators) who would spend as long as two years in the low-performing schools, working with faculty to strengthen their educational program. This report summarizes the issues that were raised when the Partnership Research Team invited a small group of researchers looking at different types of school interventions to spend a day discussing their insights with each other and with a group representing the Kentucky policy community.

This paper examines why relatively few teachers in Kentucky pursue learning focused on subject matter. It also provides an overview of the policies and programs devised by some policy makers and educators to stimulate demand and increase opportunities for teachers to increase their knowledge of subject matter so they can effectively help students learn what the new content standards require.

Prepared by the 1999 Education Ambassadors, this report explains how teacher quality has changed and discusses ways to maintain continued improvement.

With a detailed description of the research and preliminary findings, this document shows how Kentucky's financial investment in professional development, coupled with decentralizing its planning and decision making to schools, has paid significant dividends, and how professional development opportunities for teachers have expanded greatly, become more focused on student outcomes, and improved in their utility. The publication also offers an assessment of the next steps to be taken in future research and policy.

Just after Kentucky completed the implementation phase of its school reforms, policy makers had to shift gears for a new phase that would focus on making improvements in curriculum and instruction to ensure that all Kentucky students had the opportunity to reach the state's high standards. This publication examines recommended ways that Kentucky's elected and appointed officials could meet those challenges.