The term “professional development” means a comprehensive, sustained, and intensive approach to improving teachers’ and principals’ effectiveness in raising student achievement -- (A) Professional development fosters collective responsibility for improved student performance and must be comprised of professional learning that:
(1) is aligned with rigorous state student academic achievement standards as well as related local educational agency and school improvement goals;
(2) is conducted among educators at the school and facilitated by well-prepared school principals and/or school-based professional development coaches, mentors, master teachers, or other teacher leaders;
(3) primarily occurs several times per week among established teams of teachers, principals, and other instructional staff members where the teams of educators engage in a continuous cycle of improvement that --
(i) evaluates student, teacher, and school learning needs through a thorough review of data on teacher and student performance;
(ii) defines a clear set of educator learning goals based on the rigorous analysis of the data;
(iii) achieves the educator learning goals identified in subsection (A)(3)(ii) by implementing coherent, sustained, and evidenced-based learning strategies, such as lesson study and the development of formative assessments, that improve instructional effectiveness and student achievement;
(iv) provides job-embedded coaching or other forms of assistance to support the transfer of new knowledge and skills to the classroom;
(v) regularly assesses the effectiveness of the professional development in achieving
identified learning goals, improving teaching, and assisting all students in meeting challenging state academic achievement standards;
(vi) informs ongoing improvements in teaching and student learning; and
(vii) that may be supported by external assistance.
(B) The process outlined in (A) may be supported by activities such as courses, workshops, institutes, networks, and conferences that:
(1) must address the learning goals and objectives established for professional development by educators at the school level;
(2) advance the ongoing school-based professional development; and
(3) are provided by for-profit and nonprofit entities outside the school such as universities, education service agencies, technical assistance providers, networks of content-area specialists, and other education organizations and associations.
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