...the impact that the NWP has had on our profession? What equation can come close to illustrating the ongoing crescendo of collegiality, of teacher growth, of teacher empowerment--and how this model of professional development in turn creates communities of learners within our classrooms? How does one describe how our "jobs" become our life calling--of nurturing young people to lead literate, meaningful lives, to look at their worlds with new eyes? How does a group of educators who have learned that teaching is not about following a script or relying on a textbook, but is about giving students voice, choice, and opportunity to become--to imagine what they could be?

If you need numbers, look at the work of countless researchers: Linda Darling-Hammond, Mike Schmoker, Rick DuFour, Robert Marzano, Douglas Reeves. The NWP model embraces the qualities of effective professional development and learning--and results in student achievement: collaboration, reflection, formative assessment, feedback, meaningful discourse, authentic reading and writing, community.

As an administrator in a district of over 6,000 students, I have witnessed the positive influence and energy that just a few teachers who have participated in a summer institute can have on students, staff, and community. These are the teachers who don't sit back and wait for things to happen; they are the ones who ask, "What's possible?" and then they go for it. They transform their classrooms, their peers, and then go on to influence other educators beyond the classroom through writiing, presenting, and consulting.

I have a silly analogy based on a shampoo commercial from my childhood. It was something about telling two friends about this shampoo, "...and they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on..." and with each "so on" the image of the model would double until there was a grid of multiple images across the screen. That's kind of the way I see the way the National Writing Project, but the images would be multi-dimensional, layered, and endless.

How do you quantify? If you need to look at numbers, look at the cost of this program, and read each and every one of these blogs. I guarantee that you will conclude that the NWP is a cost-effective, high-impact model of professional development that should not only be preserved, but expanded.