Summary Of the more than 1,300 studies identi-fied as potentially addressing the effect of teacher professional development on student achievement in three key con-tent areas, nine meet What Works Clear-inghouse evidence standards, attesting to the paucity of rigorous studies that directly examine this link. This report finds that teachers who receive sub-stantial professional development—an average of 49 hours in the nine studies—can boost their students’ achievement by about 21 percentile points. How does teacher professional development affect student achievement? The connection seems intuitive. But demonstrating it is difficult. Examining more than 1,300 studies identified as potentially addressing the effect of teacher professional development on student achieve-ment in three key content areas, this report finds nine that meet What Works Clearing-house evidence standards. That only nine meet standards attests to the paucity of rigorous studies that directly assess the effect of in-service teacher professional development on student achievement in mathematics, science, and reading and English/language arts.But the results of those studies—that average control group students would have increased their achievement by 21 percentile points if their teacher had received substantial profes-sional development—indicates that provid-ing professional development to teachers had a moderate effect on student achievement across the nine studies. The effect size was fairly consistent across the three content areas reviewed. All nine studies focused on elementary school teachers and their students. About half fo-cused on lower elementary grades (kindergar-ten and first grade), and about half on upper elementary grades (fourth and fifth grades).Six studies were published in peer-reviewed journals; three were unpublished doctoral dissertations. The studies were not particularly recent, ranging from 1986 to 2003.Five studies were randomized controlled trials that meet evidence standards without reserva-tions. Four studies meet evidence standards with reservations (one randomized controlled trial with group equivalence problems and three quasi-experimental designs).Four focused on student achievement in read-ing and English/language arts—unsurprising given the large literature in this content area. Two studies focused on mathemat-ics, two on mathematics and reading and
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