Introduction
Among educational policy makers, researchers, and
practitioners, there is an emerging consensus that teacher
professional development is vitally important to educational
reform as we approach the next millennium. In fact, it
seems trite to assert that teacher professional development
is critically important to school improvement focussed on
enhanced student learning outcomes. Nevertheless, there
continues to be a need to communicate the importance of
continuous learning and development for educators,
individually and collectively, to people in and out of
schools. Without clearly articulated and documented
evidence of its overall contribution to school success,
professional development can easily become the victim of
capricious budget cutting, or worse, be relegated to the
scrap heap of educational fads and ephemeral educational
elixirs.
The link between teacher professional development and union
contracts is one that has been forged over decades of
collective bargaining between teachers' associations and
local school boards. “After all, unions are
potentially powerful collaborators because they negotiate
the allocation of time in school and define a teacher's
official duty day and psychological work role
relationships” (Kerchner, Koppich, & Weeres, 1997 p.
173). In additional to traditional areas of bargaining
(wages, hours, and conditions of employment), recent school
reforms and new political realities have forced teachers
and school boards to re-examine their contractual
relationships.
Though there are many dimensions of teacher union activities
supporting teacher learning in classrooms, schools, and
beyond, this study focuses only on written teacher contracts
and their administration. I was particularly interested in
knowing if the language in teacher union contracts stated
explicitly, or reflected indirectly, the importance that
schools, administrators, and teachers placed on professional
development. The purpose of this study was to examine
teacher union contracts and the impact of these agreements
on teacher learning. The following questions guided the
study. First, to what degree is teacher professional
development explicitly addressed in the language of local
collective bargaining agreements between school boards and
teachers' unions? Second, in what way(s), if any, does
contract language covering wages, hours, and conditions of
employment influence teaching learning and teachers'
capacity to improve their practice? Third, according to
teachers and administrators, what aspects of contracts and
their administration affect teacher learning and
professional growth?
Background
Teacher Professional
Development
Even the casual reader of educational reform reports,
legislative mandates, and contemporary educational
literature would soon discover one common theme—teacher
professional development is critical to systemic educational
reform and school improvement focussed on enhancing learning
outcomes for all children in public education. These
include calls to: create stable, high quality sources of
professional development for teachers (What matters most:
Teaching for America's future, 1996); incorporate
teachers' learning into the fabric of teachers' daily life
(Bredeson, in press; Tomorrow's Schools of Education,
1995; Teachers take charge of their learning,
1996); establish professional development as a
central component of state and local educational reform
(Houghton & Goren, 1995; Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 1999;
Johansson & Bredeson, 1999); transform professional
development to meet urgent educational needs (Corcoran,
1995; Porter, Smithson, & Osthoff, 1994); consider
alternatives to traditional training models of staff
development (Little, 1993; Sparks, 1994); deal more directly
with issues of racism and inequity in schools (Weissglass,
1997); develop practices that support new conceptions of
teaching, learning, and schooling (Lieberman, 1995; Loucks-
Horsley, Hewson, Love, & Stiles, 1999; Hawley and Valli,
1999); effect behavioral change and improved practice
(Osterman and Kottkamp, 1993; Guskey, 1995); and break the
mold to classroom practices through new professional
development practices (McLaughlin & Oberman, 1996).
There is a large body of evidence that identifies design
principles for effective, high quality professional
development. Developing guidelines for the design,
delivery, and evaluation of outcomes is an important first
step in the development of professional learning cultures
in schools. Examples of these guidelines can be found in
the Standards for Staff Development (NSDC, 1995;
AFT, 1995; Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; and Darling-
Hammond & Sykes, 1999). The National Partnership for
Excellence and Accountability in Teaching (NPEAT, 1998), for
example, identified eight design principles based on current
research and best practices in schools. The most effective
professional development:
- Focuses on analyses of student learning,
especially the examination of differences between actual
student learning outcomes and goals and standards for
student learning
- Involves teachers identifying their own needs and
developing learning experiences to meet those needs
- Is school-based and embedded in teachers' daily work
- Is organized around collaborative problem-solving
- Is continuous and on-going with follow-up and
support for further learning
- Incorporates evaluation of multiple sources of data
detailing student learning and teacher instructional
practices
- Provides opportunities for teacher to link the theory
that underlies knowledge and skills they are learning
- Is connected to a comprehensive change process focused
on improved student learning. (NPEAT, 1998)
Developing lists of design principles is important, but
identifying them is generally much easier than implementing
them effectively. The hard work comes in putting the design
principles into practice with real people in the dynamic and
complex environments of schools. Teacher union contracts
provide an important lens for examining the organizational
structures and dynamics of teacher professional development
and work.
Defining the concept of professional development
The term professional development, ubiquitous in current
literature, is often used interchangeably with such terms as
staff development, in-service, skills training, and
continuing education. I believe there are meaningful
distinctions among these terms as well as conceptual
limitations. To avoid confusion and to clarify the concept
of teacher professional development, I have developed a
definition grounded in research and current literature cited
above. Professional development refers to learning
opportunities that engage teachers' creative and
reflective capacities to strengthen their
practice. In this conceptualization, my intention is
to highlight three critical dimensions of professional
development. First, professional development has to do with
learning opportunities. These may be formal or informal,
individual or group, and be delivered in dozens of different
ways. The important dimension, often assumed but not
explicitly stated by many writers and practitioners, is that
learning, not the activity, is the focus of professional
development experiences. Thus, learning opportunities are
not narrowly limited to discrete activities, events, or days
on the school calendar. Second, if learning opportunities
are designed to make a difference in the way(s) teachers
think about their work and practice what they know, the
learning opportunities must engage teachers' creative and
reflective capacities. By this I mean these learning
opportunities tap into teachers' natural inclination to
reflect on, personalize, and transform new knowledge and
skills in ways that fit their personal style as well as the
context of their work. Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) describe
the relationship between reflection and professional
development. “Reflective practice is viewed as a means
by which practitioners can develop a greater level of self-awareness
about the nature and impact of their performance,
an awareness that creates opportunities for professional
growth and development” (p. 19). The third component
of this definition is to strengthen teachers' practice.
Billions of dollars are spent each year on professional
development in the United States (NCTAF, 1996). This
investment is made primarily because taxpayers, policy
makers, and practitioners believe learning opportunities
that engage teachers' creative and reflective capacities
will deepen teachers' understanding of their work and
ultimately lead to improved teaching practices that benefit
children in schools.
Teacher Unions and Professional Development
“Teaching has become the most unionized occupation in the United
States, and local contracts now create a complex systems of
rules that regulate labor-management relations” (Sykes,
1999, p. 240).
The legacy of industrial unionism.
As the size of schools and school districts in the United
States grew over the past century and half, primarily as the
result of massive consolidation of school districts, it
seemed only natural that the education sector would look to
other sectors, business and industry in particular, for
organizational models and principles that could be used in
managing increasingly complex school systems. Based on
principles of scientific management, educational decision
making became much more centralized with, “power and
authority accrued to school district headquarters (and, not
incidentally, was lodged firmly in the hands of
administrators)” (Koppich and Kerchner, 1999, pp.
317-318). So it was only natural that as teachers experienced
and began to examine their formal working relationships with
local school districts, they too looked to industrial
examples for guidance. “Thus, both the AFT and NEA
modeled their operation on the unions that had served
American factory workers so well in the post-World War II
period” (p. 317). Early on in the developing
relationship among teachers, school boards, administrators
the parties met and conferred on issues of interest to
teachers in what Kerchner and Mitchell (1988) characterized
as first generation unionism. From this first generation of
unionism, we now have 34 states with collective bargaining
laws that govern the relationship between teachers and their
school districts. By the late 1950s the formal relationship
between teachers and school districts entered a second
generation of unionism steeped in “good faith”
collective bargaining where wages, hours, and conditions of
employment became the focus of teachers' interests through
the written contract and management (e.g., school boards and
administrators) retained control of policy and operational
decisions in education. “This presumed bifurcation of
union-management interests is reinforced by the statutorily
restricted scope of bargaining. State laws define those
issues about which union and management can bargaining and
those that are excluded from negotiations” (Koppich and
Kerchner, p. 318).
Various change forces and challenges in education over the
past half century moved teachers and school districts from
first generation unionism to second generation unionism
characterized by distributive negotiations where,
“Bargaining is about dividing up the spoils—money,
rights, power—and carrying them away” (p. 319).
Recently, educational reform initiatives accompanied by
increasing demands for school district/teacher
accountability for student learning outcomes have moved
teachers' unions and school districts to rethink the
traditional boundaries on their working relationships
codified in collective bargaining agreements. In addition
there are a number of exciting, substantive changes in
teacher education and professional development that
challenge teacher unions, administrators, and local school
districts to rethink their relationship to professional
development (Kerchner et al., 1997).
Linda Darling-Hammond (1998) argues for research that more
closely examines connections between educational reform and
teacher professional development. “To build lasting
support for change, research about successful professional
development initiatives needs to be translated into policies
that will penetrate widely and comprehensively. These would
include policies that influence school finance, salaries and
incentives, preparation, recruitment, and retention of well-
qualified teachers” (p. 13). Most likely, the
translation of this research will be formalized in policies
and practices that are closest to teachers and their work.
These clearly include local collective bargaining agreements
between school boards and teachers unions as well as a wide
variety of side agreements, school/policy manuals, and other
written documents governing these relationships.
New Unionism.
So what does this new unionism look like? To begin, there
is substantial evidence that teacher unions have long been
involved in socializing and supporting teachers in local
school district. “Teachers' organizations participate
in teacher socialization through a variety of means. First,
they help set many of the terms for teachers' work and
learning in the larger district through collective
bargaining, including the scope of legitimate teaching
activities within and beyond the school day, the nature of
and expectations for leadership positions, participation in
decision-making, and opportunities for professional
development” (Bascia, 1999, p. 12). She makes the case
that in school systems where teachers do not receive
sufficient support for their teaching, teachers'
organizations through a wide variety of supporting
activities and structures are, “increasingly are
filling in the gaps resulting from educational policies that
assume unrealistically simplistic, technical vies of
teaching and policy implementation” (p.3).
More formally, there are at least three general strategies
teachers' unions and school districts have employed to move
toward more collaborative bargaining in which unions and
management are seeking common ground to deal with issues of
mutual interest and benefit. “The parties treat each
other as professionals and consciously consider the issues
that are important to both and the trade-offs each side can
accept. It is this conception of negotiations that has
given rise to locally based union reforms” (Koppich and
Kerchner, 1999, p. 319). These include: 1) joint
committees that, “expand the portfolio of the
negotiated agreement and move substantive discussions of
education policy and practice beyond the legally restricted
scope of bargaining;” 2) trust agreements,
“legally binding bilateral accords that sit outside the
collectively bargained contract;” and 3)
waivers, specific provisions or requests that allow
school districts and teachers' unions to request relief from
specific provisions or parts of the existing collective
bargaining agreement (p. 320).
Despite the
promise of these locally based efforts, Koppich and Kerchner
(1999) view these as mere tinkering at the margins of
traditional unionism that, “no matter how faithfully
conducted and thoughtfully executed, have failed to move
unions and districts much beyond the education reform
starting gate” (p. 321). They argue that,
“Teacher unions have organized teachers' economic lives
and brought stability to working conditions. Now they have
an opportunity to lead the transformation of education by
embracing a new set of first principles of unionism:
organizing around quality, organizing around schools, and
organizing a flexible teacher labor market” (p.
321).
Though there are a number of positive aspects of the new
spirit of unionism around issues of educational reform and
teacher learning and growth, there are critics especially
when the results in public policy tend to be limited to
bilateral agreements between teacher unions and school
districts. For example, Cibulka (1999) points out how
conservative critics argue that teacher unions already have
an inordinate amount of influence in schools and that their
highly vested special interests may turn negotiated policies
and agreements into documents that, “run public schools
for their own benefit and inculcate their own values”
(p. 173). Joseph Murphy (1999) describes the impact of new
unionism and compacts on consumers of public education.
“Public sector unions in particular are key instruments
in the growth of bureaus and concomitant subordination of
consumer interests to the objectives of the employees
themselves. Ramsey (1987) concludes that when the economic
influence of unions is combined with political muscle,
public sector unions have considerable 'ability to tax the
rest of society'[p. 97]” (p. 411). Finally, Joel
Spring (1993) advises caution in the expansion of language
in teacher union contracts to include such non-economic
policy matters as professional development. He argues that
expanding union contract language into such areas as
professional development may have unintended negative
consequences. For example, union influence in noneconomic
areas often reduces public control, limits administrator
influence (especially that of principals), results in overly
formal and complex governance and practices around teacher
development, and may negatively influence district and
school decisions about resource allocations and educational
policy by supporting the interests of teachers over those of
students and the community.
Methods
Data collection
To address the research questions, I collected and examined
three sources of data: 1) written collective bargaining
agreements; 2) interview data (n=21) from superintendents,
principals, directors of staff development, state teacher
association administrators, and teacher union presidents;
and 3) focus group interview data.
Collective Bargaining Agreements.
There are 427 local school districts in the state, each with
a negotiated master agreement between the local school
board and teachers' association. Teachers are represented
by local affiliates of the National Education Association or
the American Federation of Teachers. School districts
ranged in size from 101,000 students to fewer than 100.
Given this range and because I believed school district size
may significantly influence the history, content, and
administration of contracts, I used a stratified random
sampling procedure consisting of four strata to select 100
school districts. Because small town and rural school
districts represent over 62% of all school districts in the
state, I wanted to make sure that adequate samples of
suburban, small city, and urban districts' contracts were
represented in the study. Accordingly, I defined the four
strata for the selection of contracts based on total student
enrollment for the district. Group 1 (2501 - 101,000);
Group 2 (1001-2500); Group 3 (501-1000) ; and Group 4 (500
or fewer students). Using a random numbers table, 25
districts were selected from each of the four groups. The
equal “N” per strata does over represent
surburban, small city, and urban districts in this
predominantly rural state. This sampling strategy does
introduce a possible source of bias. However, if anything,
the sampling strategy under estimates the generally
traditional unionism in the state and was viewed as an
acceptable trade-off to assure adequate samples of contracts
in surburban, small city, and urban school districts.
Next I collected copies of the latest negotiated contract
for each of the identified school districts. It is
important to note that at the time these contracts were
collected and analyzed not all contracts had been
renegotiated. Because of state imposed revenue caps on
local school districts limiting salary and fringe benefit
for teachers, a number of local collective bargaining
agreements had remained unsettled. However, because the
primary issue contributing to various impasses between
school boards and teacher unions was salary, provisions
related to teacher professional development generally were
not affected. Even though a number of districts were
operating under expired contracts, all contracts examined
during this study were the existing legal agreements that
governed wages, hours, and conditions employment for
teachers.
Structured Interviews.
The second phase of data collection consisted of 21
structured interviews with superintendents (n=5), principals
(n=5), teacher union representatives (n=4), directors of
instruction (n=5), and staff development specialists (n=2).
First, I identified criteria for the selection of
informants. These included 1) expertise and experience in
teacher professional development; 2) leadership position
held in the organization; 3) employment in districts
representing diversity in size, student characteristics, and
location (rural, suburban, and urban); and 4) employees in
districts with exemplary professional development practices
supported in contract language. Key informants were
identified using colleague nomination and purposive
sampling. Using names of individuals identified by teacher
union representatives, teachers, principals, and other
administrators, I used the four criteria to select the 21
respondents.
Based on initial analysis of written contracts, an interview
protocol was developed to gather more detailed information
on the influence of specific contract language and
provisions teacher professional development in local
districts, to describe in detail issues around contract
implementation and professional development, and to ask
respondents to describe any changes they may have
experienced in teacher unionism and opportunities for
professional growth and learning in their schools/districts.
All interviews were taped and transcribed for analysis. To
build trustworthiness in the data, written transcripts were
returned to interviewees for review and editing if needed.
Each respondent was asked to review the transcripts and to
make any changes that he/she thought were necessary for
purposes of clarity or intent. In general their corrections
were editorial in nature. Several respondents, upon seeing
their responses in writing, wrote back that they were
somewhat surprised, and in a few cases embarrassed, about
the lack of clarity in their interview responses. However,
neither offered clarification in their corrected
transcripts.
To enhance credibility, after the first two phases of data
collection and initial analyses of written contracts and
interview data, I conducted a focus group interview with a
second set of key informants (n=5) that included an
assistant superintendent of a large urban district, an urban
middle school principal, a director of research and
professional development for a state teachers' association,
a special education teacher, and a teacher/union
representative. Using a preliminary set of organizers from
these data, the purpose of the group interview process was
to check initial categorizations of data against the
experiences and insights of practitioners, to gain a better
understanding of issues and their implications, and to
identify any areas not adequately addressed in the
examination of union contracts and teacher professional
development.
Data Analysis
Data analysis consisted of two parallel activities. First,
a content analysis of 100 written collective bargaining
agreements was completed. The analysis focussed on an
examination of such areas as specific references to
professional development, structures and decision making
governing teacher development and learning, types of
professional development activities legitimized in
contracts, and resources available to support professional
development. For the purposes of this study, content
analysis focussed exclusively on the formal written
contracts that governed teacher work and professional
development.
To begin the content analysis, I looked for any language
referring to teacher learning opportunities and professional
development. This included such terms as in service, staff
development, training, conferences, and study leaves. This
initial phase of analysis runs counter to my conceptual
definition of professional development detailed in the
background section of this paper. Having said that, this is
my conceptualization of professional development—not
necessarily the one commonly used in schools and enumerated
in written contacts. Also, teachers, administrators, and
school boards members often use a variety of terms
interchangeably when they refer to the concepts of teacher
learning and professional development. For me, it was
important to start with the language that currently existed
in written collective bargaining agreements and in
practitioners' ordinary professional discourse. For
interview data I used a constant comparative method (Strauss
& Corbin, 1990) to code data and identify themes.
Individual and group interview data complemented the
document analysis by providing details and examples of how
various contract provisions affected the context of
teachers' daily work and their professional learning.
Limitations
Focusing on written collective bargaining agreements alone
has limitations. For example, there is more to negotiated
agreements between teachers and school boards than what is
written explicitly in contracts. Trust agreements, waivers,
joint committee work, and district and school policy manuals
are examples of other written documents that describe and
affect these teacher union/school district relationships.
Collection and analysis of these documents were beyond the
scope of this investigation. To mitigate the negative
aspects of this limitation, I believe the collection of
interview data was helpful. A second limitation concerns
the selection of interviewees. Though great care was taken
to define and select a substantively representative sample
of teachers, administrations, and union representatives,
there is always the possibility that the sample does not
adequately represent all parties to teacher/school district
collective bargaining agreements. Notably absent from the
interview sample are school board members. Though important
to the negotiation of contracts, the study focussed on
existing written contracts and their administration which in
most school districts is left to teachers and administrators
in schools.
Findings
I use four organizers to present detailed descriptions of
the links between and implications of union contract
language and teacher professional development. These are 1)
contract language and points of leverage; 2) the inclusion
of professional development in written contracts; 3) the
governance of teacher professional development; and 4)
changing the professional development paradigm: rethinking,
restructuring, and reculturing.
Contract Language and Points of Leverage
Despite the rhetoric in educational reform reports that
teacher professional development is critical to school
improvement and reform efforts, explicit language on
professional development is notably absent in approximately
three fourths of the contracts examined. Using the widest
possible net to capture any language and/or activities
related to teacher professional growth and development, only
28 of the 100 contracts examined contained any direct
reference to teacher professional development. Of these
28, only 3 linked professional development to district goals
and priorities. The finding that teacher contracts are
generally silent on professional development should not be
surprising since it is not a mandatory subject of
collective bargaining. Only recently have examples of
localized reform efforts, waivers and trust agreements,
affecting the contractual relationship between teachers and
school districts emerged. Yet it is difficult to imagine
how language covering wages, hours, and conditions of
employment would be unrelated to teacher professional
development. In general, even teacher collective bargaining
agreements with explicit language governing teacher
professional development tended to remain narrative museums
reflecting a legacy of conflict, mutual mistrust, legalism,
and top-down hierarchies of control over teachers rather
than expressions of a new unionism. The following are
examples of explicit contract provisions describing teacher
professional development primarily under the direct control
of administrators.
- The parties agree to establish an In-Service Educational
Staff Development Committee composed of a representative
appointed by the Association from each school and no more
than an equal number of representatives appointed by the
Superintendent of Schools. The Committee shall assume the
responsibility for the planning and conducting of the in-
service and staff development programs for the professional
teaching staff, subject to the direction and control of the
Superintendent.
- Teachers must fulfill twenty-two and one-half (22 1/2)
hours of staff development each year. The District may
direct up to seven and one-half (7 1/2) hours of specific
staff development for designated teachers or groups of
teachers.
- As required by [... Law], there shall be a regular and
continuing in-service program which shall be formulated by a
standing committee composed of administration and faculty
members.
In a few districts the teachers' union and school board have
negotiated language, in accords or waivers, that recognizes
teachers' responsibility and control over their own growth
and development.
- The parties to this ACCORD recognize the importance of
individual growth and development of professional educators
and the growth and recognition of teaching as a profession.
Professional educators are responsible for continued
professional growth through participation in staff
development activities, formal academic study, and personal
enrichment in their teaching field and in education in
general.
- Acknowledgment is made of the need for professional
growth and the consistent need for all teachers to continue
their formal studies and other related professional
activities toward an improved and up-to-date quality
instruction. It is also recognized that professionalism is
an individual decision for teachers and, therefore, there is
no credit requirement within in any specific time period.
- Teachers are encouraged to continue their professional
growth at their discretion.
Collective bargaining for teachers has been a part of state
statutes since 1959. Reflecting what Kerchner described as
second generation unionism, the emphasis in the early days
of teacher collective bargaining centered on increasing
salaries, broadening benefits, and salary equity. With
regard to salary equity, unions sought to eliminate
capricious, unilateral school board decisions around teacher
pay and benefits. What's clear in an examination of these
written contracts is the legacy of these early bargaining
days when two important principles around teacher
compensation and career advancement were established. The
first was the establishment of a legal process for
negotiating teacher pay. The second was the development of
a salary schedule that recognized years of teaching
experience and advanced educational training as criteria for
salary increases. The latter is particularly important.
Even during years when increases in base salary were small,
teachers could still increase their salaries through
professional training and the accumulation of credits or the
completion of an advanced degree. Thus, linking salary
increases to advanced training provided an extra incentive
supporting on-going professional development for teachers.
This typifies the type of win-win compromise often
negotiated by two parties during collective bargaining.
Advanced training became the solution to satisfy teachers'
demand for higher salaries and school boards' desire to have
highly qualified and better trained teachers.
Leverage Points in Teacher Contracts.
Notwithstanding the silence surrounding teacher professional
development in most union contracts, there are a number of
negotiated provisions, leverage points, that directly affect
teacher learning in the work place. For example, extra
contract days, designated in-service days and times on
school calendars, hiring new staff, the orientation of
probationary teachers, teacher evaluation procedures,
credits for recertification, and extended contracts are
leverage points in contracts that support teachers'
professional development. Interview respondents described
how various provisions covering teachers' hours and work
days at times limited what principals and their professional
staffs were permitted to do contractually, especially as
they worked to develop standards-based school reform.
Many of these limitations must be viewed within the context
of broader political issues at the state level. In
particular, the tension described by interviewees most often
reflected teachers' frustration with currently state-imposed
caps on teachers' salaries and fringe benefits. To control
costs in education, in 1994 the legislature instituted a
revenue cap of 3.8 % of the previous year's budget on all
local school districts. The only way a school district
could exceed the revenue cap was to go to a public
referendum asking to exceed the cap. In effect, teachers'
salaries were severely limited.
Cost controls have also influenced teachers' preferences and
choices of professional development opportunities as well as
its design, delivery and content. With severe limits on
their salaries, teachers tend to view advancement on the
salary schedule through rapid accumulation of graduate
credits as one of the only ways to increase their salaries
significantly. Interestingly, this strategy by teachers has
implications for calculating the total cost of professional
development. When salary increases due to advanced
training are included as costs in annual professional
development budgets, the percentage of the total budget used
to support on-going professional learning increases
dramatically. Additionally, since the revenue caps are on
the total budget, savings in the budget must come from other
expenditures. Analyses of written contracts and interview
data indicated that the resources used to support
professional development activities typically fund a vast
collection of fragmented, individualized experiences with
little evidence of a systemic focus on district or building
goals.
A second leverage point in contracts influencing teacher
professional development is in the area of teacher leaves.
Besides sick leaves and those leaves for emergencies, family
and extenuating circumstances, 72% of the contracts
contained provisions for professional leaves, study leaves
(36%), and personal or sabbatical leaves (52%). In most
cases, these leaves were unpaid. Less than a third of these
contracts required teachers to return to the district after
the leave. Only 13 districts provided any financial support
for professional leaves. The following language illustrates
clearly how this provision in the contract supports teacher
development.
Extended Leaves of Absence: Advanced
Study
Purpose: The underlying philosophy of the leave is to
increase the quality of teaching and
to gain enriching and broadening experience by
professional study and research in areas
that will promote the employee's teaching ability.
Major consideration must be given to
the benefits which will accrue to the pupils and to the
community through the individual
teacher's personal growth.
In 77 contracts, extra days and extended contracts were
another important leverage point that supported teacher
professional growth and development. Administrators, school
board members, and teachers agree that school success and
improvement require on-going training and development
opportunities for teachers. However, teachers' work days
provide little time for extensive training or for school
improvement work. Thus, extra paid days/hours and extended
contracts for summer work have become critical to meeting
the training needs of teachers and professional work beyond
the classroom. Aligning district curriculum to new, state-
mandated curriculum standards and tests, the introduction of
new technologies, sundry educational reform initiatives, and
more diverse students populations, to name a few areas, all
require more teacher training.
Analysis of school calendars attached to these contracts
provides evidence that districts recognize the importance of
time needed for teacher professional development. This
includes inservice days, early release and late starts, and
teacher convention days. Ostensibly these times and days
have been set aside for teacher inservice throughout the
year. Most districts have 1-2 days per year while a few
have schedules with weekly early release giving teachers 2
hours for joint work, planning, and professional
development. At first glance, the number of days and times
suggest that districts through negotiations have taken
seriously the call to provide more time for teacher
professional development. However, on closer examination it
appears that in many districts the days set aside for
teacher in-service and development opportunities have been
hijacked. For example, administrators often convert these
days, especially those scheduled the first day of the year,
into extended faculty meetings to cover district/school
business. These days are what Bredeson and Johansson
(1999) refer to as “information showers” where the
focus is on the dissemination of information, not teacher
learning and growth. Similarly, teachers wanting and
needing more time pirate inservice days and times to work
alone to set up their rooms at the beginning of the school
year, to complete grades at the end of quarters and
semesters, and to clean out their rooms for summer
breaks.
A fourth important leverage point in written contracts is in
the area of supervision and evaluation. In 21 contracts,
teachers and school boards had created alternatives to
traditional classroom observations and written evaluations
of “stand-up” teaching performance. In these
districts, teachers who completed their probationary years,
usually 1-3 years, could choose a self-designed professional
improvement/growth plan as an alternative to traditional
evaluation. In cooperation with principals and supervisors,
teachers submitted professional growth plans and goals that
became the primary basis for their written performance
evaluation required by law once every three years.
The Inclusion of Professional Development in
Contracts
Given the small number of contracts that contained explicit
language on teacher professional development (28%), it was
important to ask respondents their views on whether or not
contracts should contain such provisions. Twenty of the 21
interviewees and all of the focus group interviewees (5)
agreed that teacher professional development should be part
of union contracts. First, opportunities for teacher
learning in school and beyond are linked to wages, hours,
and conditions of employment, all mandatory subjects of
collective bargaining. To these respondents putting explicit
language in contracts about professional growth and
development in contracts was needed to send a powerful
substantive and symbolic message to the whole school
community.
The general agreement among respondents that language on
professional development needed to be put in contracts was
not seen as a silver bullet to improve the design, delivery,
and outcomes of teacher professional development in schools.
As one principal put it, “I mean it's probably ok, what
we have in here, but...umm.... I think when you can
establish the right the culture in a given school and school
district, these things get taken care of ....ah.... far
beyond the letter of what's in the contract.” Another
principal added, that the improvement in learning
opportunities for teachers in schools needs more than just a
line or two in the contract. Establishing strong norms and
beliefs about on-going professional learning in order to
improve student learning was not something, however, that
could be easily specified in contract language. “I
think it [is a matter of being] pertinent to their
[teachers'] reality.” “And I think how you just
embed that in the everyday work, just spills over so
naturally, so that these don't even get looked at us
requirements.” The respondents agreed that teacher
professional development should be included in negotiated
agreements. They also believed that the key to successful
staff development for teachers was instilling the belief
that the time and effort put into the learning activities
would directly benefit their practice and improve student
learning. They believed putting language in contracts would
help to highlight the importance of teacher learning to
school improvement and student learning.
The consensus to include professional development in
contracts was not without some notes of caution. For
example, some respondents worried that teacher growth and
development might fall into grievance processes and thereby
be rendered ineffective. Others worried that by specifying
professional development in the contract some school boards
and teachers' unions might bargain away what should be a
professional responsibility and attitude among teachers, not
forced compliance to the strict letter of the contract. One
director of instruction cautioned, “What you have to
be careful of is not to use that and end up reducing it
[professional development] to, like the lowest ..... lowest
common denominator.” Another respondent echoed the
idea that if teacher professional growth and development
described in contracts became overly prescriptive, such as
traditional district in-service, there would be much less
flexibility and fewer opportunities for teacher learning in
school and beyond the teaching day. In assessing the
benefits of putting explicit language on professional
development in contracts, these educators also acknowledged
the potential downside if contract language resulted in
narrow, prescriptive provisions. Such provisions would
likely lead to minimalism and mere compliance rather than
fostering possibilities for professional learning; this
would be worse than what many districts/schools already
had.
Governance of teacher professional development
Analysis of the contracts and interview data revealed that
professional development for teachers continues to be top-
down and primarily controlled and driven by administrators.
Only 3 of the 100 district contracts examined stipulated a
full-time coordinator for professional development. For
mid-size and larger districts, staff development fell under
the general job duties of curriculum directors and assistant
superintendents. In smaller districts, the superintendent
controlled the budget and was seen as the gatekeeper for
professional development. Regardless of district size,
school principals were most often viewed as the person
primarily responsible for professional development.
Further examination of contracts indicated that only 17
districts had formalized in contract language district
staff/professional development committees composed of
teachers and administrators. Given the general absence of
professional development language in contracts this may not
be surprising. Yet, even in contracts where extra pay for
extra duties was described, staff development committee work
or membership was not included.
In general, the lack of voice for teachers in decisions
around their professional growth and development has
resulted in a type of dependency. As a middle school
principal opined, teachers continue to think others,
administrators in the district, will tell them what to do.
Thus, there is a fair amount of cynicism about the value of
traditional professional development in districts. One
principal saw this type of dependency as professionally
debilitating because it has resulted in some teachers not
even being able to imagine what it might be like to be
responsible for planning, implementing, and evaluating their
own professional growth. Principals believe they have
primary responsibility for teacher professional development,
but in a supportive role not a controlling or limiting one.
Principals believed they had the responsibility and ability
to garner the resources, time, money, space, expertise, and
other resources to support what teachers needed to enhance
their learning and performance. Principals saw their
primary responsibility as helping teachers, individually and
collectively, keep their eyes on the big picture. The
principal's role was to help align individual and
collective teacher needs and interests with school
priorities and goals.
Changing the professional development paradigm: Rethinking,
Restructuring, and Reculturing
When asked to think about changes they had experienced in
the past 10 years in the area of teacher professional
development, the respondents' comments were a mix of
optimism and disappointment. Each respondent could point
to specific examples of positive changes in their schools
and districts in the area of teacher learning and
professional growth on the job. However, most were also
concerned that traditional obstacles remained, many
seemingly intractable. To improve opportunities for teacher
professional development, these educators identified three
broad areas of change that need to occur concurrently. The
first is rethinking the current professional
development paradigm. The second is restructuring
the design, delivery, content, context and expectations for
outcomes of teachers' professional development. The third
is reculturing schools and communities in ways that
create and nurture opportunities for on-going, job-embedded
teacher growth and professional development.
Rethinking the professional development of
teachers.
Changing the paradigm of teacher professional development
requires fundamental shifts in the ways teachers,
administrators, and community members think about its
nature, purposes, and goals. To begin, respondents agreed
that professional development should not be seen as an
add-on to teachers' work but rather an essential part of what
teachers do as professionals. Because training and
development are essential to teachers' professional
practice, the resources that support them should not be easy
targets for budgetary cuts during fiscally tight times. The
constellation of formal and informal opportunities for
teachers to learn and to improve their professional craft is
crucial to school improvement and student success. Thus,
in-service, staff development training, teacher networks,
and collaborative inquiry are not just about teachers, they
are linked tightly to and aligned with school goals and
student learning.
The ways in which teachers and others talk about teacher
professional development also requires some re-thinking.
When in-service days or early releases are described as
“time-off” or “wastes of time” from
teachers' real work, e.g., direct contact with children,
such expressions communicate the limitations and persistence
of the traditional professional development paradigm.
Teacher professional development is legitimate work even
when it occurs during the school day. Staff development is
“time on” not “time off.”
Another change in thinking is conceptualizing on-going
learning and development as a professional responsibility.
Continuous learning is an essential part of one's
professional practice, not just a scheduled event or an
activity to simply attend and endure. The artificial
separation of teaching practice and teacher growth and
development has contributed to the latter. To improve what
they do and how they do it, reflective teachers rely on
their daily teaching experiences to learn more about their
practice. Traditional school structures and cultures,
especially self-contained classrooms, have unfortunately
tended to reinforce teacher isolation and individualism so
that the benefits of reflective practices remain limited to
a few individuals rather than becoming part of
organizational learning and improvement. In addition, the
objectification of professional development as something
“out there” has promoted a type of dependency in
teachers often leaving them voiceless in planning,
implementing, resourcing, and evaluating their own learning.
“It's completely foreign to them [teachers] because
they've really had no opportunity to ever have any input on
anything.” So teachers wait to see, “What's the
principal or learning coordinator going to tell us to do?
What is the district telling us we have to do today?”
(Middle school principal). Though teachers clearly have
preferences and know what would be most helpful to them in
the classroom, traditional designs and delivery of teacher
professional development in schools often reinforce a
dependency model in which teachers cede responsibility for
their own growth and development to others: most often
superintendents, principals, and staff development
personnel.
Rethinking teacher professional development also means
reconsidering the “one size fits all” training and
inservice activities common in many school districts. In
complex school systems there are occasions for system-wide
informational sessions and inservice programs. The key
issue is whether or not these types of activities dominate
staff development activities in schools. Because these
activities are easier to plan, more economical, and more
easily controllable, districts frequently default to
“one size fits all” sessions. Undifferentiated
training sessions rarely provide learning opportunities that
engage individual teachers' creative and reflective
capacities to strengthen their practice.
Restructuring the professional development of
teachers.
“We haven't admitted that we're going to have to blow
the thing up in order to get real fundamental professional
development in the system.” Either metaphorically or
concretely, changes in thinking about teacher professional
development need to be accompanied by fundamental changes in
the structures that support it, including provisions in
contracts. For example, respondents described how schools
and their operations need to be reconfigured to permit more
time within the school day for teacher learning. As one
respondent said, “A couple of things are happening that
I think damage our opportunities to really change things in
a significant way. One is the issue of the structure of the
school day, the school week, and the school year. There is
no collaborative time structure in our work. And, teachers
are too isolated in their work. That we have to really
redesign the system in a way that guarantees that the time
is there for collaboration; and I don't think this society
is willing to pay for that, and that's been our big
problem” (Professional Association Representative).
The issue of restructuring time, with a focus on the use of
time and its impact on conditions of employment, has
important implications for collective bargaining and
opportunities for teacher learning within contract days.
Time was described by respondents as the most important
structural factor that needed to be addressed in order to
change the current professional development paradigm. In a
few written contracts there are appended waivers and side-
agreement that supported changes in the use and structure of
time in the teacher's work day. The interview data
provided ample evidence that a number of schools and
districts were using collaborative informal agreements,
between administrators and teachers, to address teacher
learning in newly configured time-frames. This includes
such practices as 1) providing teachers extended contract
days over the summer; 2) extra pay for committee work that
is beyond ordinary teacher work expectations; 3) hiring
substitute teachers, both permanent and temporary, so that
teachers have time during their the school day to meet and
work together; 4) early releases and late starts for
students; 5) scheduled staff development days; 6) creative
use of class time through block and flexible scheduling; and
7) banking time, e.g. increasing class periods and school
days several minutes a day to bank time for future release
times.
According to these educators, even when time is available
there may not be a place in the building for teachers to
meet and work. Outdated buildings, the proliferation of
programs and specialities to support students beyond the
classroom, and overcrowded schools often leave teachers in
hallways or other cramped spaces, hardly optimal conditions
for professional learning. Clearly this is less of a
problem when students are released, but if professional
development is to be embedded in teacher work, creating
learning spaces for teachers is an important part of
restructuring schools. Providing physical space for
teacher learning in schools also sends a powerful symbolic
message about the importance of continuous growth and
development in schools. Conferences rooms, office space,
work rooms, labs, and basic communication tools (computers,
telephones, and fax machines) are minimal requirements for
any professional, yet these tools are scarce in most
schools. Additionally, the lack of these basic resources to
support teacher engagement, reflection, and growth
reinforces norms of privacy, isolation, and dependency that
threaten the development of an authentic professional
learning community.
The reallocation of resources to support new
conceptualizations and practices in teacher professional
development is also an important element in restructuring.
In some districts, teachers and administrators have
creatively knitted together a mix of local, state, federal,
and private monies to support professional development and
school change processes. In others, however, the patchwork
of traditional development programs and activities, and the
budget lines to support them, are not clearly aligned with
district/school funding priorities. Because of revenues
caps in the state, most districts are actively seeking
external grants to support staff development for teachers.
In some districts, it is unimportant what the focus or goal
of the funding agency is. They become “Christmas tree
districts” where teachers, administrators, and school
boards willingly subordinate local priorities and goals for
high profile programs that send extra dollars to support
teacher development and training opportunities. When the
typical three-year funding cycle ends, so does the
initiative. The district then reinvents itself in order to
respond to new criteria described in another request for
proposal (RFP).
New state mandates, especially the newly adopted model
academic standards linked to legislated testing of all
students, have intensified change efforts and completely
dominated staff development and in-service training across
the state. A union representative from one suburban
district noted, compliance with these state mandates,
especially activities focussed on curriculum alignment and
organizing for testing in four core areas, is robbing
teachers and their schools and districts of what little
time, energy, and resources that had already been set aside
for professional development.
Selecting and hiring teachers with a professional
orientation toward their own growth and development was
cited by principals and superintendents as an important
structural piece that supported teacher professional
development. The administrators believed one of their
primary responsibilities was to establish criteria and
develop processes that enabled their districts/schools to
identify and hire candidates who viewed continuous growth
and development as an essential part of their professional
work and one for which teachers took responsibility.
Restructuring the delivery of teacher professional
development is also critical to changing the current
paradigm. Long dominated by workshops and fragmented in-
service meetings, new forms of professional development have
emerged with “a much deeper and more sophisticated
focus on instruction.” The idea of “one size
fits all” is fading away. In districts with leading
edge practices, teacher professional development tends to be
more localized, more centered on individual teacher needs,
carried out in interactive and participative settings, and
is on-going and long-range in focus as opposed to one-shot
presentations and events. Such practices are beginning to
break down teacher isolation and build learning communities
among professionals seeking to improve their practice, not
simply acquiring a few “nuggets of knowledge” for
easy transfer to classroom teaching. Teachers and
principals are attempting to redesign the school
“Culture, climate...ah...the way we structure our
interactions, so that it's supporting people's learning
everyday.”
Reculturing teacher professional development.
“It's not in the culture of our district to have
the union talking about professional growth and development.
The way of talking about it is through compensation” (
Elementary principal). Rethinking and restructuring teacher
professional development are part of the larger process of
reculturing schools and communities to support teacher
learning. As the preceding quote indicates, the values,
beliefs, and practices that define the current culture of
teacher professional development may be anything but
professional. For example, teacher isolation, work days
with little or no time for professional development,
administrator dominated planning and decision making, and
fragmented staff development and training activities typify
the current culture. “The system needs to be
redesigned for teachers to really become active learners.
Our structure does not facilitate that.” (Teacher union
representative). Typically, teacher work has been defined
as standing up in front of and working directly with
children. Working directly with children is difficult to
argue against since teaching children is the primary mission
of schools. The reculturing efforts described by these
respondents are meant to enhance teachers' work with
students by recognizing and incorporating teacher
professional development “ as professional work”
and “at work”. In recultured professional
learning communities, staff in-service and training days are
not days off, they're days on. The ways in which teachers
and others talk about teacher staff development are
expressions of reculturing that communicate important
values, norms, and practices that characterize high quality,
professionally oriented schools focussed on student
success.
The ways in which school boards and teacher unions address
teacher professional development in collective bargaining
also help to define the culture. With nearly three-fourths
of the contracts silent on teacher professional development,
developing new professional learning cultures will not come
easily. The baggage of traditional unionism, collective
bargaining experiences, and grievance arbitration in schools
has left both parties, teachers and school board, nervous
about asking the other to dance. As one union
representative put it, “Nobody knows how to
behave.” Learning how to “behave” requires
trust between parties to negotiate agreements. In districts
where new professional development cultures have emerged,
values, norms, and practices are simply embedded, “In
the everyday work, [and] just spills over naturally, so
that these don't even get looked at as requirements. I
think when you can establish the right culture in a given
school and school district, these things get taken care
of..ah.. far beyond the letter of what's in the
contract” (Elementary Principal). Establishing norms
of trust requires time and experiences that build on joint
commitment and efforts among teachers, their unions,
administrators, school board members, and the community. To
date, in only a small number of districts have teachers and
school boards redefined and renormed their formal
contractual relationship.
Conclusion
There are numerous challenges confronting stakeholders in
public education at the end of twentieth century. Among
these is whether teachers and local school boards will be
collaborators or combatants as they confront a seemingly
endless array of problems. Perhaps one way to build a
bridge to “new unionism” and leave behind the
baggage of adversarial collective bargaining is through the
development of professional learning communities in schools.
Successfully negotiating the uncharted terrain of these
learning communities for students and teachers requires good
will, trust, and the commitment of teachers, administrators,
and school boards to work together.
Leadership is critically important to the direction and
designs for new unionism and the growth of professional
learning communities in schools. Though not exclusively,
much of the move toward new unionism will come through
formal contract bargaining, as well as policy initiatives,
side agreements, and negotiation of daily work in schools.
The risks involved, the creativity required, and the
mechanics of living these newly forged relationships among
school boards, administrators, teachers, and the people they
serve require leadership at all levels—policy making,
contract bargaining, administration, and teaching and
learning in classrooms. Issues surrounding teacher
professional development, the focus of this study, will be
important ones as teachers, school boards, and other key
educational stakeholders renegotiate formal and informal
relationships in schools.
As the findings in this study indicate, shifts in thinking,
structures, and organizational cultures are the initial
expressions of new unionism and the development of teacher
professional learning communities. These data indicate that
most school districts in this state are still at the
proverbial “starting gate” of new unionism. Local
experiments are beginning to emerge. However, the
transformation to what Koppich and Kerchner (1999) describe
as new unionism centered around such organizers as quality,
localism, and flexibility in the teacher labor market remain
distant. The movement toward a new generation of unionism
and professional relationships in schools, though slow,
continues to advance. The findings from this study on
union contracts and teacher professional development suggest
a number of areas in which teacher unions and school boards
can initiate this collaborative venture, though the legacy
of second generation unionism is deeply rooted in school
districts across the state.
First, the language used to describe teachers' professional
development and their work is important. Based on the
beliefs of respondents in this study, highlighting the
importance of professional learning in negotiated agreements
has both symbolic and substantive power. However, contract
provisions and explicit language are not substitutes for
actions and practices embedded in the daily work of
teachers, principals, and others that nurture and support
authentic professional learning communities. Second, the
current professional development paradigm is not anyone's
the fault. It's the result of a shared history. There are
a few examples of joint committees, trust agreements, and
waivers, developing at what Koppich and Kerchner (1999) call
the margins of union transformation. However, I believe
these early experiences within schools and districts in the
area of teacher professional development provide
opportunities for trust and confidence to develop among
educational stakeholders and parties to collective
bargaining agreements. It is on these experiences that
dramatic changes in unionism and teacher professional
development in schools will occur.
Creating professional learning communities that support and
encourage teacher professional growth and development over a
career will require fundamental shifts in the current
paradigm of teacher professional development. Concurrently
three streams of change, that resonate with the principles
of the most effective professional development practices
need to be negotiated between teachers and local school
districts. First, changing the professional development
paradigm requires rethinking and revisioning the design,
delivery, content, and outcomes of teacher professional
development. Rethinking teacher professional development
requires the collaboration and voice of teachers, school
board members, administrators, and community members.
Rethinking teacher professional development and reframing it
in teacher contracts is not just an issue between teachers
unions and school boards. It is a public issue requiring
the input and understanding of all educational stakeholders.
A second stream of change is restructuring teacher
professional development. This restructuring requires a
new architecture expressed in collaborative, negotiated
agreements that creatively reconfigure time, space,
resources, and materials to provide learning spaces for
teachers in their work and beyond. Finally, a third stream
of change is reculturing schools and teacher professional
development. Reculturing begins with valuing teacher
learning and understanding its link to high quality schools
and student achievement. Teacher unions and school boards
through their collaborative efforts, not confrontational
relations, can help students, parents, and other community
members understand the importance of teacher growth and
development and its link to school/district goals.
References
American Federation of Teachers (1995). Professional
Development Guidelines. Washington, DC: Author.
Bascia, N. (1994). Unions in teachers' professional
lives: Social, intellectual, and practical concerns.
New York: Teachers College Press.
Bascia, N. (1999). The other side of the equation:
Professional development and the organizational capacity of
teacher unions. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of
the American Educational Research Association in Montreal,
Canada.
Bredeson, P.V. (In press). Teacher learning as work and at
work. Journal of In-Service Education, 26(1).
Bredeson, P.V. & Johansson, O. (1999). Leadership for
learning: The school principal's role in teacher
professional development. Paper presented at the Annual
Meeting of the British Educational Management and
Administration Society in Manchester, England.
Cibulka, J.G. (1999). Ideological lenses for interpreting
political and economic changes affecting schooling. Chapter
in The Handbook of Research on Educational
Administration. (Eds.) J. Murphy & K.S. Louis. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Corcoran, T.C. (1995). Transforming professional
development for teachers: A guide of state policy
makers. Washington, DC: National Governors' Association.
Darling-Hammond, L. & Sykes, G. (Eds.) (1999). Teaching
as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and
practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Guskey, T.R. (1995). Professional development in education:
In search of the optimal mix. Chapter in Professional
development in education: New paradigms and practices.
(Eds.) T.R. Guskey & M. Huberman. New York: Teachers College
Press.
Hawley, W.D. & Valli, L. (1999). The essentials of effective
professional development: A new consensus. Chapter in
Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy
and practice. Linda Darling-Hammond & Gary Sykes (Eds.)
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Houghton, M & Goren, P. (1995). Professional development
for educators: New state priorities and models.
Washington, DC: National Governors' Association.
Johansson, O. & Bredeson, P. (1999) ”Value
Orchestration by the Policy Community: Reality and
Myth”, in Begley, P. (ed.) Values and Educational
Leadership. New York: SUNY Press.
Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium: Standards
for School Leaders (1996). Washington, DC: Council of
Chief State School Officers.
Joyce, B. & Showers, B. (1988). Student achievement
through staff development. New York: Longman.
Kerchner, C.T. & Mitchell, D.E. (1988). The changing
idea of a teachers' union. London: The Falmer Press.
Kerchner, C.T., Koppich, J.E., Weeres, J.G. (1997).
United Mind Workers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Publishers.
Koppich, J.E. & Kerchner, C.T. (1999). Organizing the other
half of teaching. Chapter in Darling-Hammond, L. & Sykes,
G. (Eds.) Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook
of policy and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Publishers.
Lieberman, A. (1995). Practices that support teacher
professional development. Phi Delta Kappan, 591-
604.
Little, J.W. (1993). Teachers' professional development in a
climate of educational reform. Educational Evaluation and
Policy Analysis. 15(2), 129-151.
Louck-Horsely, S., Hewson, P.W., Love, N., & Stiles, K.E.
(1999). Designing professional development for teachers
of science and mathematics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press , Inc.
McLaughlin, M.W. & Oberman, I. (1996). Teacher learning:
New policies and practices. New York: Teachers College
Press.
Murphy, J. (1999). New consumerism: Evolving market
dynamics in the institutional dimension of schooling.
Chapter in The Handbook of Research on Educational
Administration. (Eds.) J. Murphy & K.S. Louis. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future
(1996). What matters most: Teaching for America's
future. New York: The National Commission on Teaching
and America's Future.
The National Foundation for the Improvement of Education
(1996).Teachers take charge of their learning.
Washington, DC: The National Foundation for the Improvement
of Education.
National Partnership for Excellence and Accountability in
Teaching (1998). Improving Professional Development: Eight
Research-based Principles. (http://www.npeat.org; 202-463-
0771)
National Staff Development Council. (1995). Standards for
staff development: High School Edition. Oxford, OH:
Author.
Osterman, K. F. & Kottkamp. R.B. (1993). Reflective
practice for educators: Improving schooling through
professional development. Newbury Park, CA: Corwin
Press, Inc.
Porter, A.C., Smithson, J., & Osthoff, E. (1994). Standard
setting as a strategy for upgrading high school mathematics
and science. In R.F. Elmore & S. H. Furman (Eds.). The
governance of curriculum: The 1994 ASCD Yearbook.
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development.
Sparks, D. (1994). A paradigm shift in staff development.
Education Week, 42.
Spring, J. (1993). Conflict of interests: The politics of
American education. New York: Longman Publishing Group.
Sykes, G. (1999). The "new professionalism" in
education: An appraisal. Chapter in The Handbook of
Research on Educational Administration. (Eds.) J.
Murphy & K.S. Louis. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Publishers.
Weissglass, J. (1997). Deepening our dialogue about equity.
Educational Leadership. 54 (7), 78-81.
About the Author
Paul V. Bredeson
School of Education
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Email: bredeson@education.wisc.edu
Paul V. Bredeson is a Professor of Educational
Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where
he teaches courses in Professional Development and
Organizational Learning, Instructional Leadership and
School Improvement, and Research Methods. Prior
to his appointment on the faculty in 1991, Professor
Bredeson was a Professor at Pennsylvania State University
and also served as the Executive Director of the
Pennsylvania School Study Council from 1985-1991. Professor
Bredeson also served three years as a Professor of
Educational Leadership at Ohio University. Prior to
entering higher education, Dr. Bredeson was a high school
principal and high school Spanish teacher in Wisconsin and
Connecticut respectively.
Professor Bredeson received his B.A. (Spanish) from Northern
Illinois University. He earned his M.A. (Spanish) and his
Ph.D. (Educational Administration) from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. He also completed graduate work at the
Universities of Connecticut and Barcelona.
Over the past 19 years, Professor Bredeson's research has
centered on alternative conceptions of leadership,
especially in regard to school principals. Grounded in his
professional work experiences as a Spanish teacher, high
school principal, project director for bilingual
administrator training, and Executive Director of a research
consortium for public schools in Pennsylvania, his research
has two major strands. The first strand focuses on the
impact of alternative conceptualizations of leadership on
the work of school principals and professional development
in education. The second is educational leaders' cognition,
as expressed through metaphoric thinking and its impact on
expert thinking, problem solving processes, and leadership
behaviors. His recent book co-authored with Ann W. Hart,
The Principalship: A Theory of Professional Learning and
Practice, is used in graduate educational leadership and
policy programs across the United States, Canada, Australia,
Russia, and Sweden.
Professor Bredeson has served as President of the National
Council of Professors of Educational Administration,
President of the University Council for Educational
Administration, a Member of the National Policy Board for
Educational Administration, and as a Technical Advisor to
the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium for the
development and assessment of national standards for school
leaders. In 1990 Professor Bredeson received the Jack A.
Culbertson Award given to one recipient nationally as
recognition for outstanding contributions to the field of
educational leadership and policy studies. Dr. Bredeson is
an International Faculty Associate at Umeå University in
Sweden and a member of the Teaching Academy at the
University of Wisconsin. He currently serves on the
editorial boards for several scholarly journals and remains
active in professional associations nationally and
internationally serving as a reviewer, member of governing
boards, and invited presenter in United States, Europe,
Australia, China, and South America.
|
times since July 26, 2001