"It's like somebody died." That's how at Rik Panganiban described the K-12 education community's reaction to the closing of Teen Grid at a recent inworld

Even so, the report found that the intensity of other types of professional development decreased between 2004 and 2008. Training of at least nine to 16 hours on the use of computers for instruction, reading instruction, and student discipline all declined notably, while training of up to eight hours in those areas shot up. That could be a sign that teachers are back in the infamous and much-maligned one-shot workshops.

states have let their infrastructures for professional development dwindle of late.

The percentage of teachers who perceived a culture of "cooperative effort" in their schools dropped from 34 percent in 2000 to just 16 in 2008. But, the percentage of new teachers who said they had common planning time increased from 49 percent in 2004 to 56 percent in 2008. Per this apparent contradiction, the study postulates the mere provision of common planning time is not enough to support collaborative work among teachers.

Imagine that before sending your child to school this year, you could go online and find out how well previous students of your child’s new teacher have performed on standardized tests.