The Council on Educational Standards and Accountability supports the notion that excellent schools take professional development seriously.  To ensure that faculty members have the knowledge and skills necessary to provide the highest quality education, CESA supports the notion that faculty must be engaged in in-house, ongoing professional development that stimulates professional and intellectual growth, creativity, and collegiality.  CESA also supports professional engagement through high-quality national conferences, subject-specific workshops, and symposia designed for educators seeking to provide the highest quality learning opportunities for their students.  Therefore, CESA believes hallmarks of a high-quality professional development program should include:

• Grade-alike and subject-alike faculty planning and discussion
• A fully disclosed, rigorous formative and summative performance evaluation process for faculty
• Informal and undocumented classroom observations of young faculty by master teachers
• Observation of master teachers by young faculty members
• Peer mentoring