CRESPAR Report #25: Teachers' Appraisals of Talent Development Middle School Training, Materials, and Student Progress: Results from Focus Groups

Abstract

The Talent Development Middle School model is a comprehensive school-changedesign aimed at raising the academic proficiency of all children in schools where large proportions of children are at risk of failure. Thirty-one teachers in two Philadelphia public middle schools where the model has been piloted evaluated the implementation of training and curricular components of the model in six focus groups covering major subject areas (math, science, and Reading and English Language Arts [RELA]). Respondents were asked to appraise the helpfulness of the professional development training and materials in supporting their own teaching proficiency and the achievement level of their students, as well as obstacles they faced, their prediction of future use in the school, their evaluation of their students’ capacity to meet the standards of the curriculum, and their sense of whether they made a difference.