The Nature of Professional Development Schools. ERIC Digest 4-89.

Professional Development Schools can be viewed as both a product of the current educational reform movement and a means to achieve some of its goals. Variously known as Professional Development Schools (Holmes Group, 1986), clinical schools (Carnegie Corp., 1986), and professional-practice schools (Levine, 1988), these exemplary school sites are seen as key components in efforts to improve pupil learning by improving teaching.

Although many projects are underway nationwide to establish clinical schools, it appears that at present there is neither a fully realized Professional Development School in the country nor a consensus about the mission of such schools (Olson, 1989). The American Federation of Teachers has published a monograph on professional practice schools which includes a conceptual model and discusses noteworthy projects that exist (Levine, 1988). Rowell (1988) has identified several essential conditions for successful Implementation of clinical schools: conditions which reflect major adjustments in traditional ways of viewing teaching, teachers, and teacher education.