Changing the Conversation about Teacher Development – Is It, Truly, a “Mirage”? An Analytical Review of The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth about Our Quest for Teacher Development and a Practitioner’s Perspective on Teacher Development

TNTP’s The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth About Our Quest for Teacher Development(TNTP, 2015) was a study released in August 2015.Usingdatacollected from three large, geographically diverse public schools and one mid-sized charter network, the study argues that, despite of tremendous investment of financial resources, time, and good will in teacher development, there are very modest returns on this investment. The authors contend that we do not know how to improve teachers at scale, making the goal of effective professional development a mirage. Recommendations suggested by the authors include redefining teacher development; reevaluatingtheeffectiveness of current supports and programs; and reinventing the way effective teaching is supported at scale. The study’s strength is in the rich descriptive information provided. However, the authors make poor analytic choices, rendering somewhat inaccurate conclusions, and thus limiting the study’s usefulness.