Onward to Excellence

Evolves and Grows

Two decades ago, the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory introduced a school improvement process that's been used by more than 1,000 schools to raise student achievement. Today, that process—renamed Onward to Excellence (OTE) II—is being retooled to help schools, especially at the secondary school level, focus quickly and intensively on reaching reading and math standards.

"With No Child Left Behind, there are more and more schools not meeting the requirements in those content areas when you disaggregate their student test data by the required NCLB groupings of poverty, race, limited English proficient, and special education," notes Jim Kushman, OTE II unit director. "We feel we have a service that can help them meet the challenge by using schoolwide data, research-based teaching practices, and profes- sional development. For schools that are using the standard OTE II model—and are comfortable with it— we can renew their relationship with the process and incorporate new content in reading and math. We're calling these new adaptations Focus on Reading and Focus on Math."

The updated OTE II, first used in schools in 1999, emphasizes some core principles of the original model that was developed under the direction of NWREL's Deputy Executive Officer Bob Blum. Those include increased learning success for all students, shared leadership, and the use of high-quality research-based teaching practices. The process also calls for developing a school profile of student performance to set improvement goals and check results.

"OTE II added important new components based on our experience with some shortcomings in the original model," says Kushman. For example, the local board of education must understand, approve, and actively support the process before it's initiated, and an external critical friends team is established to collect and provide information about progress as the school makes improvements.

There's also more emphasis on teachers coming together as a professional learning community and working together to align curriculum to state standards. "We added curriculum alignment back in 1999, recognizing that with the standards movement, that was an important missing piece," says Kushman.

Now, with Focus on Reading and Focus on Math under development, there's even more emphasis on linking OTE II to reading and math performance targets, which have lagged behind in secondary schools while elementary schools have shown improvement. Deborah Davis, a senior advisor at NWREL, is leading a team that's completing a research literature review organized around six central components that will form the backbone for OTE Focus on Reading. The components include providing support to all students to continue developing reading competencies through middle and high school; implementing intensive strategies for struggling readers; using assessments throughout the school year to screen, diagnose, and monitor readers' needs and progress; creating a school organization and family involvement that accommodate high reading performance for all students; addressing student motivation; and designing professional development embedded in teachers' daily work. The research review will be published in November 2004.

Kushman and Davis are seeking Northwest schools where the new reading focus can be tested. These can be middle or high schools that have tried OTE or OTE II in the past and are committed to the process but are looking for a stronger reading/literacy component. Potential test sites can also be schools that simply are feeling the challenge of NCLB in reading and math and are looking for some answers. Schools interested in developing the program should contact Jim Kushman at 503-275-9569 or Deborah Davis at 503-275-9644. The parallel program in math will be ready for testing sometime in 2005.

Kushman believes that OTE II—especially with the new focus on reading and math—offers two main advantages that are lacking in other school improvement models. "Even before the federal mandates, there's been a strong focus on using data. We've been doing this with schools for some years and are very experienced at it," he stresses. "Also, OTE II builds the capacity of staff for self-improvement. We're not prescriptive in the sense of telling teachers exactly what lessons and techniques to use: We treat teachers as a professional learning community; help schools look at data and research to choose best practices; and advise them. With our help, the school implements new curriculum and instruction that they have a role in designing—so there's more ownership that way."

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