Helping Teachers Through High-Quality Professional Development

Teachers need on-going, sustained opportunities to develop knowledge and skills to teach all children effectively. New education goals and tougher standards, more rigorous assessments, site-based management, greater interest in parental involvement, greater student diversity, and expanded use of technology all increase the knowledge and skills that teaching demands.

• Building Bridges: The Mission and Principles of Professional Development

A brochure that identifies the ten principles of high-quality professional development derived from the best available research and exemplary practice. These principles are intended to help inform practitioners and policymakers and guide the Department's work in professional development.
• National Awards Program for Model Professional Development

An awards program intended to recognize public and private (pre-K-12) schools and school districts that engage their staffs in high-quality professional development that exemplifies the Department's ten Principles of Professional Development and results in increased teacher effectiveness and student achievement. The Department has profiled schools and districts that have won this prestigious award for 1999-2000, 1998-99, 1997-98 and 1996-97. The new application information is now available at: http://www.ed.gov/inits/TeachersWeb/

• National Awards Program for Effective Teacher Preparation
  An awards program intended to recognize all programs that prepare elementary elementary teachers or middle and/or high school mathematics teachers for initial certification, including alternative certification. The new application information is now available.
• Eisenhower Professional Development Federal Activities

Discretionary grants to projects of national significance that contribute to the design and implementation of high-quality professional development. (The projects currently supported under this program include the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse, a teaching standards project, and nine initial teacher professional development projects.)
• Eisenhower Professional Development State Grants

Formula grants to states and local school districts to support high-quality professional development. A portion of the funds is reserved for competitive subgrants to institutions of higher education and non-profit organizations to conduct similar activities.
• Class Size Reduction Program

Formula grants to states to help local schools reduce class size in grades 1-3 to a nationwide average of 18 students per class. Up to 15 percent of district allocations may be used to support professional development activities to promote high quality teaching, including helping teachers learn new instructional techniques for smaller classes.
• Reading Excellence Program

Discretionary grants to states to help improve reading instruction and help all children read well and independently by the end of third grade.
• Bilingual Education Professional Development

Three discretionary grant programs designed to meet the critical need for fully certified bilingual ESL teachers and other educational personnel to provide services to limited English proficient students.
• Telecommunications Demonstration Project for Mathematics

A national telecommunications-based project designed to help elementary and secondary teachers in preparing all students to achieve state content standards in mathematics. Approximately 2,100 teachers of grades K-5 participate through 69 public television stations in 34 states.
• National Writing Project (NWP)

A non-profit organization that contracts with local sites to operate professional development programs that improve student writing by improving the teaching of writing in our nation?s schools.
• New Skills for New Schools: Preparing Teachers in Family Involvement

A discussion by the Harvard Family Research Project on why finding promising ways to prepare teachers to involve families in education is critical and how this can be accomplished.
• Helping Teachers Teach Well: Transforming Professional Development

CPRE Policy Brief—1995
• Prisoners of Time

A report by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning (NECTL) that explores the uses of time in American schools and includes 8 recommendations to the nation on how to better structure time in school to improve teaching and learning.
• Ideas that Work: Mathematics Professional Development

Fifteen core professional development strategies for mathematics teachers and examples of successful programs that use the strategies.

Recruiting | So You Want To Be a Teacher? | Preparing New Teachers |
Raising New Standards for Teachers | Professional Development | Research and Dissemination |
Teachers Share Their Wisdom | Speeches and Studies | Classroom Resources | Funding

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