Rethinking Professional Learning: What We’ve Missed—Until Now

INTRODUCTION

Across five major bodies of research—Learning Forward’s Standards, Student Achievement Partners’ Principles for High-Quality, Standards-Aligned Professional Learning, NCEL’s teacher preparation report, Carnegie’s Elements, LPI’s Effective Teacher Professional Development, and TNTP’s Mirage—a powerful message emerges:

Professional learning (PL) only improves teaching when it is coherent, curriculum-anchored, practice-based, and centered on equity.

But these reports also reveal an urgent truth: PL cannot be considered “high-quality” unless it directly and intentionally strengthens outcomes for multilingual learners (MLLs).

MLLs now comprise one of the fastest-growing student groups in U.S. public schools. Yet most professional learning systems were not built with them in mind. As Student Achievement Partners (SAP) notes, too much PL remains incoherent, misaligned, and divorced from daily instructional priorities. NCEL finds that teacher preparation rarely equips educators with the multilingual literacy and linguistic expertise foundational to equitable instruction.

This blog synthesizes the strongest findings across all sources and reframes them through one essential question:

What must professional learning look like if we want multilingual learners to thrive?

KEY FINDINGS

The research converges on three major principles: PL must be content-focused, teacher- and student-centered, and instructionally relevant, as articulated by SAP.

1. High-quality PL is content-focused and curriculum-anchored.

PL must build both content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge within the actual instructional materials teachers use daily. Carnegie reinforces this: curriculum functions as the center of the instructional vision, shaping what teachers learn and how they practice it.

For MLLs, this requires:

• analyzing language demands embedded in curriculum
• supporting cross-linguistic transfer
• planning scaffolds for vocabulary, syntax, and discourse
• integrating home languages as assets

2. High-quality PL is active, collaborative, and practice-based.

LPI finds that PL succeeds when teachers rehearse, receive feedback, and apply new learning in iterative cycles. SAP reinforces this through its requirement for “collaborative planning, observation, feedback, and continuous cycles of inquiry”.

For MLLs, this includes:

• modeling language-rich routines
• rehearsing scaffolds for complex texts
• analyzing student work to refine linguistic supports

3. High-quality PL exists within coherent systems.

Learning Forward and SAP warn that fragmented PD pulls teachers “in various directions—at times contradictory” with little sustained support. TNTP’s Mirage adds that districts often grossly overestimate the impact of PD investments.

For MLLs, coherence means:

• aligning teacher prep, induction, coaching, and curriculum
• setting shared expectations for high-quality multilingual instruction
• monitoring progress through evidence of teacher AND student learning

CHALLENGES

Despite strong consensus on what works, major barriers remain.

1. PL still assumes monolingual norms.

NCEL reports that most preparation programs lack coursework in bilingual development, cross-linguistic transfer, and language acquisition.

2. PL is often disconnected from curriculum and instructional materials.

Carnegie finds that PD regularly occurs in isolation, failing to equip teachers to use standards-aligned materials effectively.

3. Systems confuse activity with improvement.

TNTP found districts spend nearly $18,000 per teacher annually with little evidence of instructional growth.

4. PL rarely includes explicit linguistic analysis.

SAP states that language demands are inseparable from content and must be intentionally addressed—but most PL avoids this work.

OPPORTUNITIES

The convergence across these research efforts creates a rare moment of alignment—and a clear blueprint for improvement.

1. Use curriculum as the anchor.

Carnegie shows that curriculum-based PL transforms instruction by giving teachers structured opportunities to study content and practice implementation.

2. Make PL practice-based.

LPI identifies rehearsal and coaching as non-negotiables.

3. Build MLL expertise across the system—not just in EL departments.

NCEL clarifies that every teacher is a language teacher and must be prepared accordingly.

4. Apply SAP’s three professional learning principles with a multilingual lens.

These principles already align with best practices for MLLs. When implemented well, they become equity levers.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Adopt SAP’s principles district-wide—and explicitly integrate multilingual learner expectations.

This includes:

• Anchoring PL in instructional materials
• Requiring analysis of linguistic demands
• Ensuring PL builds both content and language pedagogy

2. Redesign PL around modeling, rehearsal, feedback, and application.

Teachers must practice:

• discourse scaffolds
• complex text routines
• syntax and morphology instruction
• translanguaging strategies

3. Build a coherent teacher-learning system.

This requires:

• aligning teacher prep, induction, coaching, and evaluation
• establishing shared expectations for MLL instruction
• using evidence of student learning—not hours logged—to measure PL impact

4. Treat multilingual learners as the foundation for PL, not an add-on.

MLLs’ linguistic demands are not peripheral—they shape instruction across all disciplines.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MULTILINGUAL LEARNERS

When these principles come together, multilingual learners experience:

• Consistent access to grade-level content with robust scaffolds
• Instruction that affirms linguistic and cultural assets
• Teachers who deeply understand language development
• Classrooms where talk, writing, and discourse are central
• Systems that believe in their potential and design for their success

This is not incremental change.
It is transformational.

CONCLUSION: A CALL TO ACTION

The research no longer leaves room for ambiguity:

High-quality professional learning must be multilingual by design—not by exception.

If districts continue to offer disconnected workshops, monolingual teaching models, and siloed EL support, inequities will persist. But when systems adopt SAP’s principles—content-focused, teacher- and student-centered, and instructionally relevant—and apply them with the intentionality multilingual learners deserve, everything changes:

• Teachers gain confidence and clarity.
• Students experience rigorous, empowering instruction.
• Curriculum, coaching, and assessment finally align.
• Equity becomes operational—not aspirational.

Multilingual learners are already doing the remarkable work of learning across languages. It’s time for our professional learning systems to rise to the level of their brilliance.

• The blueprint is here.
• The research is aligned.
• The urgency is real.

The question now is simple: Will we build the systems our multilingual learners deserve?

REFERENCES

Carnegie Corporation of New York. (2020). The Elements: Transforming Teaching Through Curriculum-Based Professional Learning.

Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M., & Gardner, M. (2017). Effective Teacher Professional Development. Learning Policy Institute.

Learning Forward. (2022). Standards for Professional Learning.

National Committee for Effective Literacy (NCEL). (2022). Teacher Preparation for the Literacy Development of Multilingual Learners.

TNTP. (2015). The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth About Our Quest for Teacher Development.

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