ABSTRACT
With the end in mind, evaluating the impact of professional development must be at the forefront of planning efforts. Professional development, even in times of budgetary constraints, is a big ticket item with average expenditures ranging from “about 1 percent of operating budgets to more than 8 percent” (Miles, Odden, Fermanich, & Archibald, 2004, p. 1). Noyce (2006) reports similar patterns of spending and states that “we spend $5 billion to $12 billion on professional development each year” (p. 3). In the five school systems that Miles et al. studied, they reported that approximately $4,000 per year was spent on professional development for each teacher in those systems.
