Reviewing the Evidence on How Teacher Professional Development Affects Student Achievement

Of the more than 1300 studies identified as potentially addressing the effect of teacher professional development on student achievement in three key content areas nine meet What Works Clearinghouse evidence standards attesting to the paucity of rigorous studies that directly examine this link. This report finds that teachers who receive substantial professional development-an average of 49 hours in the nine studies-can boost their students achievement by about 21 percentile points