Effective Professional Practices for the Learning First Alliance Funding Body: Learning First Alliance ($190,680) Dates: 2001-2002 Principal Investigators: Stephen Anderson and Andy Hargreaves RO/GA: Shawn Moore and Nancy Watson Description: An investigation of how professional development policies and practices and other district-level factors contribute to sustained improvement in school districts serving poor communities. The project involved intensive field research in five school districts to show how various stakeholders work together to support on-going professional learning among teachers and principals. The five districts were selected because their record in securing measurable imporvement gains over at least three-years demonstrated a focused energy about improvement, focused on clear learning goals and involved diverse stakeholders in developing and committing to them, gave schools broad discretion and creative latitude in how they met these firmly established goals, provided intensive suport to them as they did, used multiple indicators of accountability to evaluate progress and mandated stability and certainty in leadership throughout the improvement process. Return to Research Projects