Realizing that teachers have more power over student achievement than any program is a recent development in the history of education.    Up to this point it was thought that an increase in student achievement could be reach, by simply providing teachers with a better program.  For decades, teachers had new concepts and methods thrown at them with the expectation that they incorporate them into the classroom with little or no training.  Most studies show that this approach to professional development results in teachers adapting new programs and initiative to fit their needs, thus defeating the purpose and undermining the new program’s effectiveness (Supovitz & Turner, 2000). In the book Results Now, Schmoker (2006) cited a recent study based on 1,500 classroom observations which found: “Classrooms in which high-yield strategies were being used = 0.2%, Classrooms in which there was evidence of higher-order thinking = 3%, Classrooms in which fewer than one-half of students were paying attention = 85%.”  Such statistics point to how even fairly obvious research strategies fail to impact the actions of teachers.  Johnson, Kahle, and Fargo (2006), in a three year study, found that students with effective teacher performed significantly better on achievement tests than students in classrooms with neutral or ineffective teachers.  While students are often blamed for poor achievement on state assessments, it is possible that the teacher may not have the training required to teach the necessary subject material effectively.

            Many nations focus their educational reforms on improving teacher education.  These nations realize that the economic and political survival of their country depends on their ability to produce teachers who effectively teach a wide array of learners to meet a high standard.  Many European and Asian nations, for example, routinely prepare teachers more extensively, pay them more compared to other competing occupations, and provide them with time for joint planning and professional development.  In the last two decades, many countries moved teacher education to the graduate level, adding in-depth pedagogical study and an intensive internship in schools to a base of strong undergraduate preparation in the discipline (Darling, 2005).  Entrance into teacher education programs in these countries is also highly competitive, making well trained teachers more widely available.  By contrast, the United States spent the last two decades lowering requirements for teacher certification and many states face a teacher shortage.  Many alternative certification programs do not require participants to work in a classroom before certification.  As a result, the public believes anyone can teach.

According to Elmore (2005), the logic of NCLB seems to be: “If schools are threatened with closure and other sanctions, they will figure out how to improve themselves.  Schools that are unable to meet state standards are aware of their deficiencies; however, virtually no infrastructure exists to provide support to these failing schools.”  Elmore goes on to argue, “if we don’t provide school staffs with what is necessary to make these leaps, that is, the knowledge and tools they need to raise student achievement, we will not only assure that schools don’t improve substantially, we will increasingly sow cynicism and resistance toward the law.”             Additionally, NCLB requires a much greater amount of data collection and disaggregation than ever before.  Unfortunately, the demand for data evaluation created by NCLB did not lead state governments to train teachers in data disaggregation so they could effective use the data they have now.  Nelson and Eddy (2008) conducted a case study focusing on improving teachers’ skills in data-driven decision making.  They analyzed student work and the teachers’ own professional practice and found that once teachers understood how to examine student work and plan on the basis of that examination, they maximize their effectiveness as teachers.  Only after a collaborative teacher group masters these skills can they develop meaningful interventions to improve Annual Yearly Progress as required by NCLB. 

            In the United States very little time in the standard teaching year is dedicated to training teachers.  Teachers often seek training at night and on weekends: whenever they can work them around busy family schedules.  Yet this system does not effectively provide teachers the training they need to handle day-to-day problems in their classroom.  A study by Supovitz and Turner (2000) shows that teachers require at least eighty hours of professional development before they use inquiry-based teaching practices more frequently.  Additional blocks of professional development result in a more investigative classroom culture (Supovitz & Turner).  Johnson, Kalhe, and Fargo’s (2007) study confirms that the time teachers have for professional development directly impacts student achievement.         

Johnson, Kalhe, and Fargo (2007) established a system of whole-school, sustained professional development which provided opportunity for collaboration between teachers over time, within community.  The school that received the professional development time in the study did not experience any turn over in their science teaching staff in over six years.  This speaks to the power of professional development, collaboration, and camaraderie to retain teachers.  Considering the enormous cost of teacher attrition – an estimated $300 million to $2 billion per year in Texas alone – the value any type of professional development that significantly reduces the number of teachers is tremendous (Darling, 2006).  Mike Schmoker (2004) points out professional learning communities are arguably the best, most agreed-upon means by which to continuously improve instruction and student performance.  They succeed where typical staff development and workshops fail due to the ability of such groups to respond to current classroom issues.  More stunning yet is how rare such learning communities are in our schools and districts, although this concept is now embraced in virtually every other industry and profession.