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New York Consortium for Professional Development (NYCPD)
The New York Consortium for Professional Development (NYCPD), a professional development network, increases collaboration and dissemination of knowledge and practice about Diversity and Equity among and between currently-funded Eisenhower projects and institutions that support the placement and professional development of teachers in high-need urban school districts. This consortium has been formed to share effective practices and materials; develop “critical friends” networks and support systems; and, promote and support holistic, systemic approaches to meeting the teaching and learning needs of New York State’s high-need urban schools and districts.
The NYCPD evolved from the Eisenhower Professional Development Network that started in 1997. In the spring of 2000 the group, representing SUNY, CUNY, independent colleges and universities, and a non-profit organization began providing support systems for each other and meeting monthly to discuss strategies for improving teaching and learning in high-need urban schools and districts. The consortium consists of the very successful Eisenhower K-16 Alliance and seven other Eisenhower projects representing City College, Hunter, Lehman, Manhattan, NYU, Pace University, and SUNY Oswego. The resultant NYCPD has on–going collaborative relationships with 26 high-need NYC school districts and over 75 years of combined professional development experience in our collaborations with New York City urban schools. As our consortium began to focus on its effective uses of strategies to ensure that teachers are prepared and supported to meet the needs of a diverse school population, we realized that the need exists to close the gap in equity in student achievement (one which has not been met.) Further, we realized that addressing this challenge would require the efforts of more than one institution. This effort would in fact require a partnership between several projects/institutions in order to implement all of the necessary components that impact such a professional development undertaking. Achieving this vision will require partnerships among schools, higher education institutions, other educators and organizations, and community members to promote inclusive learning communities of everyone who impact students and their learning.
The NYCPD is committed to the renewal and reform of our schools and teacher preparation programs for the purpose of providing and supporting well-qualified teachers for our high-need urban schools and ensuring that all students achieve high standards of learning and development. Our specific focus will be on the assessment of the effects of professional development on strategies for closing the equity gap (e.g. GESA, Data Strategies) in student achievement.
The New York Consortium for Professional Development (NYCPD) represents DDE projects that include professional development sites and Professional Development Schools. This consortium functions as a critical friends network and a professional development group for higher education faculty. Made up of 7 college and university programs – City, Hunter, Lehman, Manhattan, NYU, Pace, SUNY Oswego – and the Eisenhower K-16 Alliance, our projects serve New York City high-need urban school district teachers and their students. While the eight programs differ in terms of focus when we met to share our successes, challenges, and strategies and to critically reflect on our limitations, we realized that we shared common needs and, overall, had goals in common. Out of these needs arose the NYCPD with the mission to implement and nurture professional development teaching and learning communities that serve high-need urban schools, to collaborate to support each others' efforts and to evaluate and disseminate our achievements. Our goals are to:
(1) Deepen and strengthen our K-16 collaborations;
(2) Promote on-going communication between consortium partners to share successes (scale up) and help each other solve problems;
(3) Develop and align resource streams to support Professional Development Schools and Professional Development Networks.
During the past several years, as we have sought to utilize NCATE and other standards to guide our professional development practice, we discovered that the Equity and Diversity Standards were not nearly as comprehensive as they should be for successful, system-wide, effective implementation in NYC high-need schools. We learned, for example, as we participated in the Eisenhower Benchmarking process, that the vague language of the NCATE standard for Equity and Diversity rendered it insufficient and we became concerned that were we to be guided by this NCATE standard we risked not providing the highest level of equitable educational opportunities which every student deserves.
By 2010, four states, California, Florida, Texas and New York will have over one-third of the nation’s youth. The diversity of the student population in New York City, alone, demands that we have equity standards, strategies and protocols for all teachers that will meet the needs of students previously underserved by the system. The enormity of this task requires a new approach and a new paradigm in order to accomplish different results.
The NYCPD proposes a systemwide coordination of DDE grants to improve and integrate all phases of teacher preparation and professional development with a particular eye to closing the equity gap in achievement. The NYCPD proposes to identify, pilot, evaluate, disseminate, and prepare K-16 educators to effectively implement tools, processes, and strategies that will be informed by the best practices that currently exist, nationally and internationally, to increase student achievement and parent leadership, to improve teacher and student attitudes, perceptions and knowledge, and to inform educational policy.