An October 20 op-ed in Education Weekly cites 2001 research by TC's President Susan Fuhrman, researcher Thomas B. Corcoran, and graduate student Catherine Belcher--all at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education at the time--which found that the problem with teacher preparation programs is that they are not evidence-based.

Quoting the study by Fuhrman, Corcoran and Belcher entitled "The District Role in Instructional Improvement," the EdWeek writer, Mike Schmoker, writes that professional development for teachers is led and conducted by people who "were not members of an evidence-based culture." Instead, it is controlled by a culture in which "whims, fads, opportunism, and ideology" prevailed.

Again quoting Fuhrman, Corcoran and Belcher, Schmoker writes that "[e]mpirical evidence had little to do with the professional-development offerings provided for teachers."

Schmoker's op-ed is about an assessment of teacher professional development released last August by The New Teacher Project (TNTP), a teacher-training and advocacy group. The TNTP report, "The Mirage," found, according to Schmoker, that "[d]espite being an $18 billion industry, with costs for services of up to $18,000 per year, per teacher, professional development doesn't appear to have much effect on teaching quality."

Published Monday, Oct. 26, 2015