Many teachers and administrators are required or expected by their districts to regularly participate in professional development —  or they seek out training to improve their knowledge and skills, voluntarily. That training can either be provided by districts themselves, or by vendors who are delivering products to schools and districts.

It’s a complex landscape, and many K-12 companies struggle to make sense of what districts really want and expect.

A new special report from EdWeek Market Brief, Professional Development Problems & Proposed Solutions, is designed to help.

In the report, available exclusively to EdWeek Market Brief enterprise members, we draw from a nationally representative survey we conducted of K-12 administrators to provide vendors with critical insights about what districts want from PD – and what they don’t. We asked nearly 500 district officials about the biggest problems they face in PD – and what they need from companies that they’re not getting now.

The administrators we surveyed wrote in responses to those two open-ended questions, and we give our readers the opportunity to hear from those district officials in their own words.

In addition, the special report also includes other, critical insights on the following points:

• Which particular PD strategies – from instructional coaching to PD targeting school and district administrators to PD that uses microcredentialing – K-12 leaders intend to invest in over the next two years;
• How administrators expect their district’s budgets for PD to change over the next two years;
• Which specific companies/organizations districts see as best in solving their PD problems;
• Results broken down to show districts’ PD preferences by district size, poverty level, and region of the country.

In addition, the report includes stories written by EdWeek Market Brief Associate Editor Michele Molnar, who interviewed school district PD directors and other experts around the country to get their insights on the findings, and how PD challenges play out in their districts.

The PD report is the third in a series a series of special reports produced by EdWeek Market Brief this year, all of them focused on district officials’ biggest unmet needs, and their proposed solutions. The first installment focused on curriculum. The second delved into K-12 assessment needs. And PD rounds up our deep dive into K-12 market needs.

For more information on how to access our new special report, go here.