A study by the prestigious TNTP http://tntp.org/ reported that teacher training doesn’t make the grade.

The study announced on August 5, 2015 reported that investments in ongoing training for teachers usually did not improve their performance and schools should rethink how they bolster teachers’ skills.

The Brooklyn-based organization, formerly known as the New Teacher Project—which trains educators and promotes stringent evaluations—analyzed several years of data from three school districts. The study found the district spent an average of $18,000 per teacher yearly unprofessional development, including coaching in the classroom, formal feedback, vendor contracts for training and staff time.

The analysis found performance improved substantially and only three out of 10 teachers in those districts during two or three years, while two out of 10 teacher saw a decline. The report comes as districts nationwide are struggling to boost teacher quality, which many experts call the most important in school factors affecting how much students learn.

The researcher surveyed more than 10,000 teachers and 500 school leaders in the three districts, analyzed teacher ratings and interviewed staff members.

The districts are not identified, but the authors of the study said they were representative of large public school systems nationwide.

The report stated that schools nationwide should evaluate what helps teachers, innovate to match different needs, and measure what works. The report concluded, “The current approach to teaching development is broken.”

Some reasons that teacher training programs are not effective because they continue to to use counterproductive approaches.