Effects of the Pacific CHILD Professional Development Program

Abstract

Major federal education initiatives, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, have highlighted the importance of teacher quality in improving student achievement. The federal government has committed significant funding and resources to professional development programs for teachers through Title II of the Act and other initiatives. There is limited evidence, however, of the effectiveness of professional development programs in improving teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and student achievement in reading. This report contributes to the body of research on professional development by presenting the results of an impact study of the Pacific Communities with High Performance in Literacy Development (Pacific CHILD), a professional development program designed and implemented by the Regional Educational Laboratory Pacific (REL Pacific). REL Pacific staff designed the Pacific CHILD program to improve the instruction of reading comprehension by grade 4 and grade 5 teachers and to raise student achievement in reading comprehension in the Pacific Region. REL Pacific studied an earlier version of the program using an observational design (Chesswas et al. 2005). This study is the first rigorous test of the effectiveness of the program.