Whenever there is a discussion on closing or bridging the achievement gap in education, one accurately reasons that the "gap" in question is among groups of students from various cultural and/or socioeconomic backgrounds. Stakeholders throughout academia, then, frantically search for solution(s)" to poor student achievement in America's ailing, public education system. A plethora of studies and federal mandates have been proffered to address the myriad problems that have been revealed through research. Experts have identified some of the problems as poor parenting, teacher shortage, poor school leadership, lack of funding, student apathy, and the like. Although these factors do have an adverse impact on student achievement, the author of this study purports that the "gap" between teacher professional development and student achievement is the debilitating crack in the foundation of America's public education system.