Santillana Professional Development

The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is providing the United States educational community with an opportunity and a challenge to make a lasting impact on our future—our children. As part of this initiative, ARRA will make funding available to state educational agencies (SEA), and through them, to local educational agencies (LEA) such as school districts and schools. This is a one-time appropriation to benefit those schools, administrators, teachers, students, and parents who are in most need of assistance.


Why use ARRA funds to purchase Professional Development?

To be effective, professional development must provide teachers with practical strategies to help them apply what they have learned to their teaching. Research has shown that professional development leads to better instruction and improved student learning when it connects to the curriculum materials that teachers use, the district and state academic standards that guide their work, and the assessment and accountability measures that evaluate their success.
Santillana USA’s commitment is to help all students succeed by providing teachers with on-going, year-long, effective product training and professional development opportunities that have a significant impact on the quality of teaching and learning. Santillana’s Professional Development Opportunities:

  • Align with challenging national and state teacher preparation standards
  • Provide strategies to help meet the educational needs of struggling readers, low-achieving students, and migrant students
  • Offer high-quality training to address and close the achievement gap between high-and low-performing students
  • Use best practices and research-based methodologies that are practical and can be used immediately in the classroom
  • Address assessment and offer strategies to measure student progress through academic assessments and “backward” instructional planning
  • Empower parents to participate effectively in their children’s education

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Linking Professional Learning to Teachers’ Real Work

Research supports the advantage of focusing professional development on curriculum and connecting teacher training to instruction. Cohen and Hill (*) found that teachers whose learning focused directly on the curriculum they teach adopt effective practices and approaches to teaching and learning. Cohen and Hill’s research shows that teachers embrace new materials when they are supported by both product training and pedagogical in-service opportunities. Students of teachers who participate in these types of curriculum-focused professional development perform satisfactorily on statewide standardized content area assessments.
(*) Cohen, D.K., Hill, H.C. (2001).
Learning Policy: When State Education Reform Works. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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Meeting the Needs of Teachers of Hispanic Students

Fast Facts about the education of Hispanics in the U.S.:

  • The majority of students, who classified as Limited English Proficient (LEP), as many as 80%, are of Hispanic descent (NCELA 2002).
  • One third of Hispanic students perform below grade level, increasing their chances of dropping out of school from 50% to 87%, depending on how far behind they are (US Senate HELP Committee, 2002).
  • In 2006, the graduation rate among Hispanic students was 22%. (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 2008. The Condition of Education 2008).
  • 56% of all ELLs (a large portion of whom are Hispanic) referred to special education programs are referred because they are thought to have reading difficulties.

Santillana Professional Development offers ongoing, customized in-service sessions and workshops that satisfy the certification and learning needs of schools and school district personnel serving Hispanic ELLs and their parents. Our quality programs provide challenging but achievable curricula that engages participants in critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, hands-on activities, practical applications, and effective communication.

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