Evaluating the long‐term impact of professional development

The requirement in the USA of the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) that every classroom has a highly qualified teacher, coupled with the current high‐stakes testing environment, creates the need for all principals to be knowledgeable about quality staff development systems. One aspect of effective staff development is whether teachers adopt the principles, ideas and approaches presented. The purpose of this research was to examine the impact in terms of teacher use of professional development provided over a five‐year period at four individual campuses in a large urban school district.