Simple opportunity costs and PDs

If my PD in no way improves my pedagogical skills but takes me out of the classroom for the day, my students lose. PDs about teacher evaluation systems and new Common Core state standards are necessarily losers for students left behind. Learning the new Common Core standards may improve eventual state test scores, but I would counter that a day — or sometimes more — of instruction just went out the window. Even if test scores come in a little higher for the year, overall learning undoubtedly came in lower.

josez