| "The partner centers are up and running and are building the skills of new trainers who are already making connections with new schools interested in OTE II." |
For nearly 20 years, OTE has been guiding K-12 schools on the path of continuously improved student achievement. The OTE process has been tested in scores of schools, from Alaska’s remote villages, to nearly a third of all schools in Mississippi, to Florida’s Gulf Coast. Its proven method uses research to enhance classroom practice, calls for shared leadership and site-based decisionmaking in schools, and involves students, parents, and community members in key decisions. OTE serves English-language learners as well as Title I, rural, and urban students. Training and technical assistance has been provided to more than 2000 schools as they have implemented the OTE process to estab-lish and achieve improvement goals.
Now OTE is poised to reach even more students across the country. Through a capacity-building grant from the U.S. Department of Education, NWREL is building a system of regional partner centers with other regional educational laboratories and education service providers to prepare and deploy a cadre of OTE II trainers and technical assistants. Each center will work with seven states to implement OTE II in an additional 45 schools in 2000. The new centers include:
WestEd in San Francisco, California—serving Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah
Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL) in Charleston, West Virginia—serving Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia
SouthEastern Regional Vision for Education (SERVE) in Greensboro, North Carolina— serving Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina
Southeast Kansas Educational Service Center—serving Kansas, eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, and other nearby
Western Regional Professional Development Center in Ohio—serving Ohio and parts of Indiana and Pennsylvania
“With these new partner centers, we are building the capacity to develop OTE services to schools in these regions,” notes Bob Blum, Director of NWREL’s School Improvement Program and developer of OTE. NWREL will continue implementing OTE in the Northwest, but will be passing responsibility for OTE in these other states to the new regional centers. The Laboratory will provide central support and training to these five centers.
“The partner centers are up and running and are building the skills of new trainers who are already making connections with new schools interested in OTE II,” adds Jim Kushman, project director for the capacity-building grant. “New trainers will first work under the guidance of experienced NWREL trainers. As new comprehensive school reform dollars are provided to states and local school districts, we will be fully ready to help schools across the country implement OTE II as their comprehensive reform model.”
These new centers come at a time when the demand for OTE is surging. With comprehensive school reform sweeping the country, a growing number of schools are looking for effective, research-based reform models and practices that will lead to improved student achievement. In 1999, 22 school districts nationwide—in Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Montana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arizona—awarded federal Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) grants have elected to implement and are currently incorporating OTE with NWREL’s assistance.
For more information on OTE II, contact Bob Blum by phone at (503) 275-9615 or 1-800-547-6339, ext. 615, or e-mail at blumb@nwrel.org. Extensive information on OTE—including training options, timelines, and prices—is also available on NWREL’s Web site at www.nwrel.org/scpd/ote/.
OTE’s 10-Step Process
Get started. A leadership team from each school manages the planning and implementation of improvements in the school. The principal informs the staff of the improvement effort, introduces the concept of research-based improvement, describes OTE’s 10-step process, and initiates the process for selecting the school leadership team.
Learn about research. The leadership team studies the research base of effective schooling practices and introduces the entire staff to the findings on practices and characteristics associated with measurable improvements in student performance.
Profile student performance. The leadership team, with involvement of staff, collects data about teaching and learning in their school, including student performance, characteristics and practices likely to affect student performance, contextual factors, and resources.
Set a schoolwide goal for improvement. At this step in the process, the leadership team directly involves the entire school staff and selected community members in identifying a schoolwide goal, based on data from the profile, to improve student performance.
Check current instructional practices. The leadership team collects information about practices on a schoolwide basis. They also collect data from all staff through surveys or classroom observations. Students and parents may also be surveyed. The findings are summarized and presented to the entire staff, which reviews the data to identify schoolwide strengths and weaknesses.
Develop a research-based prescription for improvement. The leadership team involves the staff in reviewing research results related to the goal and in selecting instructional methods that can contribute to improved student performance in the goal area. This list of practices becomes the “prescription” for schoolwide improvement.
. Plan for implementation. With staff input, the leadership team creates a plan for putting selected practices into operation. Responsibilities are assigned, materials are developed, resources are identified, and timelines for implementation are developed. Emphasis is placed on designing a staff-development program to build skills related to practice in the goal area.
Implement the prescription. According to the plan, the new practices are implemented in the school. The leadership team manages the implementation, working with staff and sometimes parents and community members.
. Monitor implementation. The leadership team and staff monitor completion of plan activities and changes to classroom and schoolwide practice. As the school moves toward full implementation, the team monitors student performance to identify the impact of the improvements. They also record all results, analyze school progress, and keep staff informed.
Evaluate progress and renew efforts. At the end of the first improvement cycle, the staff reviews results with the leadership team. They identify the plan’s strengths and weaknesses and recommend ways to improve the schoolwide approach. They also decide whether the school should continue to work in the original goal area or move on to a new goal.
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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