ER&D and professional development

With a record 270 educators from around the country attending this year's AFT Educational Research and Dissemination (ER&D) Summer Institute, it's clear that members are hungry for professional development opportunities and for information that will keep them on top of the latest education research and its classroom applications.

The growing interest among members--both new and veteran teachers and paraprofessionals--as well as ER&D's unprecedented 20 successful years of offering the best and most current classroom research have been indicators that it's time to take stock. To do that, AFT president Sandra Feldman recently appointed the task force on union-sponsored professional development, which will look at the AFT's role in providing quality professional development and at ER&D's continuing role and expansion.

"It's time to take stock about where ER&D has been and where the AFT is going with professional development," AFT educational issues department director Ruth Wattenberg told those at the July summer institute, held in Linthicum Heights, Md.

The task force includes people who run ER&D programs and teacher centers at the local level, she noted.

Twenty years ago, the Educational Research and Dissemination Program started out in three sites--New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Now, thousands of people are ER&D trained and there are close to 120 active sites, Wattenberg pointed out. "It was a landmark effort on the part of the union... to make sure members have a role in providing quality education." The AFT members who found ways to make the program work, communicate it to members and get school districts to cooperate were "pioneers," she said.

The newly established task force represents a great opportunity to expand the work of the union's ER&D program, Wattenberg said. While ER&D programs may exist at more than 115 different sites, the AFT has 2,200 locals, she points out. Nevertheless, "a huge beachhead has been developed... and the task force will look at how to build on this, how to reach out to all teachers."

The 1.5 million to 2 million new teachers expected to be hired during the next decade will be among the chief beneficiaries of an increased focus on professional development. "We know that new members want professional development and help to be the best teachers they can be," Wattenberg said.

Another reason to take stock: The standards movement across the country has meant new, more rigorous state and district standards. "We know that our colleagues are not getting the support they need to teach to these standards, and they say they need help," said Wattenberg. Additionally, there is a huge interest at the policy level in professional development--national figures and groups talk about its necessity on a regular basis.

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