Professional Development: Pennsylvania

Analysis of Pennsylvania's policies

Pennsylvania makes a teacher's evaluation ratings available upon the teacher's request. The state does not have policy that connects professional development to teachers' evaluations.  

Citation

Pennsylvania Code 351.21

Recommendations for Pennsylvania

Require that evaluation systems provide teachers with feedback about their performance.
In order to increase their effectiveness in the classroom, teachers need to receive feedback on strengths and areas that need improvement identified in their evaluations. As such, Pennsylvania should require that evaluation systems provide all teachers with feedback about their classroom performance, whether or not such information has been requested.

Ensure that professional development is aligned with findings from teachers' evaluations.
Professional development that is not informed by evaluation results may be of little value to teachers' professional growth and aim of increasing their effectiveness in the classroom. Pennsylvania should ensure that districts utilize teacher evaluation results in determining professional development needs and activities.

State response to our analysis

Pennsylvania recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis. The state noted that the proposed teacher evaluation system will be linked to the state's Standards Aligned System Portal, which links teacher evaluation responses to professional development opportunities. 

In addition, the state pointed out that data collected indicates that 72 percent of districts report using teacher evaluations to determine professional development needs. 

Last word

The fact that only 72 percent of districts indicate that they connect teacher evaluations to professional development needs is evidence that a statewide policy is necessary.