Reviewing the evidence on how teacher professional development affects student achievement

Summary Of the more than 1,300 studies identi-fied as potentially addressing the effect of teacher professional development on student achievement in three key con-tent areas, nine meet What Works Clear-inghouse evidence standards, attesting to the paucity of rigorous studies that directly examine this link. This report finds that teachers who receive sub-stantial professional development—an average of 49 hours in the nine studies—can boost their students’ achievement by about 21 percentile points. How does teacher professional development affect student achievement? The connection seems intuitive. But demonstrating it is difficult. Examining more than 1,300 studies identified as potentially addressing the…