Research debunks theory and law that teacher development improves student performance

Another study was released this month showing that teacher professional development programs are no guarantor of higher student achievement. The research compared middle school math teachers who were enrolled in an intensive professional development program with teachers who were not and found that students of teachers receiving the extra training failed to perform any better than students of teachers in the control group. This same method was employed by a study a few years ago that found professional development to be just as inept at raising student reading scores.

This research calls into question a Michigan law requiring all teachers to receive a minimum of five days of professional development annually. Many of the activities that qualify as professional development have little to do with improving student performance anyway and are less intensive than the ones used in the aforementioned studies. Additionally, state law allows school districts to count up to 51 hours of teacher professional development as part of 1,098 required hours of pupil instruction, meaning these days often come at the expense of school's limited instructional time.

These studies support the evidence showing that the best predictor of a teacher's ability to raise student achievement is the teachers' own academic ability in the subjects they teach, not how many degrees they've earned or time they logged in professional development training. Unfortunately, this factor contributes very little to determining who becomes a state-certified teacher and which of these are subsequently hired.