How States Can Avoid “Cruel Optimism” in Teacher Professional Learning

Three Ways States Can Provide Systemic Support

Many professional learning efforts for teachers are little more than “cruel optimism”—they treat teacher learning as something to be undertaken alone, in superficial, bite-sized pieces. Any support structures that enable teachers to turn new learning into ongoing classroom practice are absent.

At the Council of Chief State School Officers’ National Conference on Student Assessment last month, I had an opportunity to present this soapbox pitch to several hundred state leaders. The irony of having only five minutes to make that case was not lost on me. But states have a crucial role to play in supporting high-quality teacher learning, so I distilled my message to three essential actions they can take.

(I did have the opportunity to expand on the five-minute pitch in a one-hour session with an outstanding panel of education leaders who are dedicated to supporting teacher learning from their vantage points.)

In my original blog post, I focused on what district and school leaders could do to support ongoing, collaborative and meaningful teacher learning opportunities. In this post, I’ll share the three actions I suggested for state leaders and I’ll provide real-life examples. 

State leaders can:

1.      Use their platform to explain what research says about the nature and structure of effective professional learning. Teacher learning takes time and community, and needs to be connected to the daily work of teaching and the local high-quality curriculum. I urge state leaders to spread the word to as many audiences as often as possible!

2.      Disseminate ideas about how that research can be put into practice. Bring together school and district leaders who are finding ways to create sustainable, school-embedded, learning time. Share those ideas across the state.

One district I work with has realized that starting school five minutes earlier every day allows them to have an early-close day for students once a month so teachers can meet for professional learning. There are other creative approaches that need to be talked about and shared. State leaders can be convenors that facilitate the exchange of school and district ideas.

3.      Invest serious funding in professional learning. In the follow-up session to my short remarks, I was honored to share experiences and lessons learned from leaders in Oregon, Mississippi and Michigan. Below are some highlights.

Integrated Teacher Learning Supports in Mississippi

In Mississippi, the state department of education recognized that student reading results urgently needed improvement. The leaders designed a multi-pronged strategy that included earlier identification of students’ reading issues, high-quality instructional materials, and parent communications. Together, these efforts led to dramatic improvements in reading levels over the last decade.

What struck me as one of the most important factors in the Mississippi story, though, was the coherence across teacher learning supports. One substantial change took place in educator preparation programs, where preservice teachers’ learning about early childhood literacy increased from an average of only 20 minutes on phonics to a four-course sequence on early literacy.

This preservice learning was aligned with intensive in-service learning over two years, and with supports from regional service providers and literacy coaches. This was a major initiative, and not always smooth sailing, but I believe there are key lessons to be learned: the alignment around a core problem and a clear vision of student learning, and relationship-building and communication that helped to align what happens during preservice with induction and in-service learning opportunities.

The Mississippi example shows that greater coherence across support groups can be achieved. How great would it be to see that same alignment applied to supporting teachers’ deepening of their assessment literacy?

Creating a Cadre of Action Researchers in Oregon

In partnership with the Oregon State University’s College of Education, the Oregon Department of Education invested some of its post-COVID American Rescue Plan (ESSER III) funds in supporting approximately 700 teachers as they engaged in action research, with a specific focus on accelerating learning recovery for students with disabilities and English learners in the wake of the COVID pandemic.

While some states devoted a lot of their ESSER funds to supporting student learning through tutoring, Oregon’s leadership recognized that investing in teachers will benefit not just the current cohort of students but future cohorts. Teams had combinations of teachers, EL and SWD specialists, coaches, and school/district leaders.

Each team chose the focus area of its research, and was provided with ongoing learning opportunities and coaching over 18 months. Projects combined learning opportunities for participants and the development of resources to support their work with students. These resources (both material and personnel) will be available to other Oregon educators and institutions.

The resulting learnings from each project to be shared with the field should be transformational. Their 16 projects are detailed on this website.

Outsourcing Professional Learning in Michigan

The last example comes from the Michigan Assessment Consortium (MAC). When I think of state investment in sustained professional learning, I think about the MAC. The largest portion of its annual budget comes from the Michigan Department of Education. It has focused on providing long-term engagements with schools and districts that are serious about examining and improving their assessment practices.

The MAC provides a wide range of professional learning opportunities, ranging from self-paced online modules that are intended to increase awareness of assessment issues, to extensive network and community-based learning opportunities to support the assimilation of knowledge and skills, and intensive year-long or multi-year engagements intended to result in system changes. Many of the resources are available to educators outside of Michigan. Research on change management informs how MAC has structured the different learning opportunities for educators.

All three of these examples of state-level support for teacher learning represent significant investments, collaborative learning, and research-based focus on best practices. Leaders within state departments collaborated with district leaders, regional service providers, and educators to meet educator learning needs, honor their interests and motivations, and provide time and space for learning.

As I ended my short presentation to the state leaders, I said that systemic change and investment in supported teacher learning can improve teachers’ attitudes, effectiveness, and retention—all powerful and positive effects. While each of these efforts will always be reliant on continued funding, learning about the work in supporting teacher learning in concrete and meaningful ways in Mississippi, Oregon, and Michigan gave me real optimism about the future of teacher learning.  

With gratitude to Drs. Paula Vanderford (Mississippi Department of Education), Dan Farley (Oregon Department of Education), and Kathryn Dewsbury-White, Michigan Assessment Consortium for sharing their examples.