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Professional Development: Kentucky

Retaining Effective Teachers Policy

Look at National Findings
Goal

The state should require professional development to be based on needs identified through teacher evaluations.

Nearly meets goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Professional Development: Kentucky results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/KY-Professional-Development-9

Analysis of Kentucky's policies

Kentucky requires that teachers receive feedback from their evaluations during a formative evaluation conference between the evaluator and the teacher as well as a summative evaluation conference at the end of the evaluation cycle. The conferences must include all evaluation data.

The state also specifies that the evaluation system must include a professional growth plan for all teachers, which is aligned with "specific goals and objectives of the school improvement plan or the district improvement plan."

Citation

Recommendations for Kentucky

Ensure that professional development is aligned with findings from teachers' evaluations.
Kentucky has clearly taken steps to make opportunities for professional growth valuable by aligning them with school or district improvement plans. However, the state could strengthen its current policy by requiring that districts also utilize teacher evaluation results in determining professional development needs and activities.

State response to our analysis

Kentucky recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.

    • Best practice
    • Meets goal
    • Nearly Meets goal
    • Meets goal in part
    • Meets a small part of goal
    • Does not meet goal

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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Research rationale

For evidence of the benefits of feedback from evaluation systems, and the potential for professional development surrounding that feedback, see T. Kane et al, "Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness." Education Next. Vol 11, No. 3 (2011); E. Taylor and J. Tyler, "The Effect of Evaluation on Performance: Evidence from Longitudinal Student Achievement Data of Mid-Career Teachers." National Bureau of Economic Research (2011).

Much professional development, particularly those that are not aligned to specific feedback from teacher evaluations, has been found to be ineffective.  For evidence see M. Garet, "Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study: Findings After the Second Year of Implementation." Institute of Education Sciences (2011).

For additional evidence regarding best practices for professional development, see "The Deliver, Financing, and Assessment of Professional Development in Education: Pre-Service Preparation and In-Service Training." The Finance Project (2003).

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