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Learning From Our Critics

For staff development to reach its potential, we must learn from our critics.

By Dennis Sparks
RESULTS - March 1998

One measure of the respect someone holds for us is the degree of honesty with which that person speaks to us. With that premise in mind, the Council asked Hayes Mizell, director for the program for student achievement at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, to express his views in a keynote address at NSDC's 1997 Annual Conference in Nashville. Mizell has overseen Clark's grants of $15 million to 10 urban school districts and the financial support of several Council projects, including the development of NSDC's Standards for Staff Development. He has been a critical friend to staff development for many years.

"Staff development is one of the few positive tools school systems and schools have at their disposal to support educators who must change themselves as well as their schools and classrooms," Mizell said.

MAKE YOUR PURPOSE CLEAR

Reflecting on staff developers' perennial concern about acceptance by local and state policy makers, Mizell observes that the general public doesn't know or care much about staff development. "If staff development is important," he said, "its purpose has to be clear . . . to the diverse publics beyond this room that support staff development and make it possible. This is not yet the case, perhaps because in many school systems staff development has no focus. It is simply unclear what it is seeking to accomplish. Not only can few members of the public articulate the purpose of staff development, but still fewer see its effects on students."

Here are Mizell's toughest words: "[J]udging from the way many schools and school systems conceive and implement staff development, it is questionable whether the intent is to benefit either adults or students. After all, if the intent is to improve the performance of teachers and administrators . . . would so much staff development be so ill-conceived, so hit-or-miss, so ineffective? . . . I am concerned that staff development is a precious resource and that it is unfair to educators, students, and the public at large not to make the best use of it. . . . There are still too many staff developers scrambling during the several weeks before the opening of school to find inspirational speakers. . . . The intentions of education leaders may be good but they may not give the same attention to reforming staff development that they give to accountability systems they hope will improve schools. The result is that staff development stays nestled in the cozy culture of the school system and school operations, largely unexamined and unchanged."

STRONG MEDICINE

Mizell's views may be strong medicine for some, but it is important to note that they were expressed by someone who sees staff development as essential to successful standards-based reform. If staff development is to realize its potential, we must learn from our critics and give them the thoughtful consideration they are due.

"The challenges to staff development are huge, and it is an open question whether it is up to the task," Mizell concluded. "As it currently exists in most schools and school systems, there is little reason to be encouraged."

A good dose of reality now and then can be a marvelous thing. Denial is also a powerful force, though, that must be overcome with a sense of urgency and boldness. Each of us has an important role to play in creating a new system of professional learning that enables all educators to do what has never before been done: To design schools and classrooms in which all students and teachers learn and perform at high levels. If we set our minds to it, I believe that we are up to the task.