First Things First

n Mike Schmoker

Refocus professional development

Improve student learning by
ensuring that every teacher
has a deep understanding
of the fundamentals of
good curriculum and
instruction.
What teachers need to
improve their craft is rarely
what they receive from
professional development.
Yvette Jackson, former
director of professional
development, New York
City Department of
Education

If we simplified professional development and

focused it on the right priorities, educators would be
poised to achieve swift, unprecedented gains in student
learning.
Every year, millions of
teachers and administrators
attend workshops and conferences. They set aside their
instructional and supervisory
duties to attend these often
marathon events, which frequently require travel and its
attendant expenses.

MIKE SCHMOKER (schmoker@

futureone.com) is a writer, speaker,
and consultant. His most recent
book is FOCUS: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning (ASCD, 2011).
68

Kappan

March 2012

Despite this investment

of time and treasure, something is awry. In a recent
Washington Post article, Yvette
Jackson, former director of
professional development
for New York City public
schools, cites two representative studies: One found that
two years of extensive professional development in mathematics in 12 districts had
no effect on student achievement; another found that a
$500-million investment in
professional development
in her own district had no
discernible effect on student
performance (Jackson, 2011).
The explanation for this
lies in the unfocused, haphazard nature of the industry itself. Every year, teachers and
administrators are subjected
to a torrent of artfully marketed, seductive, pedagogic
fads, technology, products,
and programs cooked up
by commercial entities that
promise them the world. And
every year, they succumb to
the pressure to adopt initiatives or programs to impress
their school boards and communities. In this atmosphere,
few educators are able to stop
the parade and simply ask
some fundamental questions:
What structures and
practices would ensure
the largest and fastest
increases in learning for
college, careers, and
citizenship?

Answer: A content-rich curriculum that includes ample

amounts of purposeful reading, writing and discussion,

and sound lessons, taught in
accordance with elements
weve known for decades
(Schmoker, 2011a, 2011b).
Are these currently being
implemented in my school?

Answer: For most schools,

the answer is a resounding not yet. Most educators will admit this. Classroom observations and
research roundly confirm it
(Schmoker, 2011a; DuFour &
Marzano, 2011, pp. 90-91).
Does it make any sense to
pursue new professional development initiatives when
they only postpone the
implementation of the most
powerful, foundational elements of good schooling?
Consider the following
grab bag of professional
development offerings and
initiatives. I collected these
in just a few minutes of scanning the pages of educational
journals and professional development catalogs:
Podcasting as a learning tool; how to teach in
rural schools; blended
learning; using fantasy
football to teach math;
creating a 21st-century
school; using greenscreen technology to
promote active learning; (absurdly elaborate)
vocabulary programs;
culturally responsive
pedagogy; grouping stu-

dents by ability/gender/
interest; using structured play to improve
students executive function; using wikis in the
classroom; concept
mapping across the curriculum; the flipped
classroom
Does good evidence support such stuff? For years,
weve known that many in
the professional development
community are not members of an evidence-based
culture, that in the world
of professional development
popular appeal routinely
trumps proof of effectiveness (Corcoran, Fuhrman, &
Belcher, 2001, p. 79).
But more to the point, does
it make any sense for a school
to attend any new training
before it has implemented
a coherent, teacher-friendly
curriculum and pacing guide
for every course? Even the
current blitz of workshops
focused on the Common
Core State Standards is misguided. These workshops
are seldom designed to help
schools complete a coherent,
literacy-rich curriculum now,
not years from now. Make no
mistake: When we postpone
the implementation of curriculum, we forfeit the benefits
of the most powerful lever for
improvement. And we make
the work of team-based professional learning communities impossible (DuFour &
Marzano, 2011, pp. 90-93).
I often muse that every

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professional development
offering should carry the following warning:
If you or your staff dont
already implement a reasonably coherent, common curriculum that
includes ample amounts
of purposeful reading
and writing that is consistently taught with the
use of the most essential,
well-known elements of
effective lessons, then
please do not sign up for
this conference or workshop. Master the fundamentals first. Then, if
you still need this workshop (and you might
not), we look forward to
seeing you.
Such radical reprioritization could allow us to work a
modern miracle. For a time
perhaps a few years
schools and districts should
devote the lions share of
their professional development time and resources to
courses and workshops with
dull titles like Curriculum
101, Effective Teaching
101, Literacy 101, and
PLCs 101. In offerings like

these, educators would become thoroughly acquainted

with the evidence that demonstrates that these structures
and practices would have

When we postpone
the implementation of
curriculum, we forfeit
the benefits of the
most powerful lever for
improvement.

more effect than all other initiatives combined. And they

would learn with colleagues
about how to take those ideas
and put them into practice.
In Curriculum 101, practitioners would examine exemplary curriculums and
assessments and almost immediately build such curriculums
in school-based teams with
the understanding that these
will be continuously refined
as, say, the Common Core
evolves, and it will evolve.
In Effective Teaching 101,
educators would receive an

in-depth refresher course

on the familiar elements of
an effective lesson. Marzano
insists those elements should
be routine components of
every lesson a clear learning objective, anticipatory
set, teaching and modeling in
small bites or chunks, multiple cycles of guided practice,
and checks for understanding
until students are ready for
independent practice (2007,
p. 176). Effective Teaching
101 also would include time
for teachers to develop and
practice these new effective
lessons. More advanced students of effective teaching
would learn how to examine
the results of each lesson and
refine those lessons to make
them even more effective.
In Literacy 101, teachers would be reacquainted
with the most time-honored,
straightforward elements of
authentic literacy: the need
to review difficult vocabulary
before reading a text; how to
briefly provide background
knowledge for the text; how
to provide purpose in the
form of a question or prompt;
and modeling how to analyze,
underline, annotate, discuss,
and write formally or infor-

mally about a text (Schmoker

2011a, p. 74-89).
And in PLCs 101, they
would explicitly and repeatedly learn their proper role
and focus: to work in teams
to continuously clarify, reinforce, monitor, and improve
the implementation of the
above priorities by using assessment data to ensure that
increasing percentages of students learn essential knowledge and intellectual skills.
Am I saying that most
schools should focus almost
exclusively on the above, at
least for a time? Pretty much.
If the last 30 years have
taught us anything, its that
institutions will neglect even
the most obvious and powerful practices unless we focus
on them and them alone
until theyre truly understood and implemented.K
References
Corcoran, T., Fuhrman, S.H., &
Belcher, C.L. (2001, September).
The district role in instructional
improvement. Phi Delta Kappan,
83 (1), 78-84.
DuFour, R. & Marzano, R. (2011).
Leaders of learning: How district,
school, and classroom leaders
improve student achievement.
Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Jackson, Y. (2011, June 30).
The trouble with professional
development for teachers.
Washington Post. washingtonpost.
com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/
the-trouble-with-professional
development.
Marzano, R. (2007). The art and
science of teaching. Alexandria,
VA: ASCD.
Schmoker, M. (2011a). Focus:
Elevating the essentials to
radically improve student learning.
Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Schmoker M. (2011b, November).
Curriculum NOW. Phi Delta
Kappan, 93 (3), 70-71.

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