Teacher Time Spent on Professional Development Related to Reading in the Past Two Years
In general, teachers did not spend very much time on professional development related to reading. Exhibit 8.4 shows the results for teachers’ reports about how much time they had spent on professional development related to reading in the past two years. Sixteen percent of the fourth grade students had teachers who had spent no time and another 22 percent had teachers who had spent less than 6 hours (38% in total). Twenty-seven percent of the students had teachers who had spent 6 to 15 hours and 36 percent had teachers who had spent 16 hours or more on professional development related to reading. Consistent with considerable research showing little impact from small amounts of time spent on professional development, students had essentially the same average reading achievement for the different amounts of their teachers’ professional development.
