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The Evolution of Onward to Excellence I to II:
Making Changes
While the fundamentals of Onward to Excellence have been the same since its inception over 20 years ago, certain aspects of the process have been altered to incorporate the learning gained in recent research and to make the training and implementation of OTE II even more effective.
Fundamental Characteristics Remain
- The absolute focus of the process is increased learning success
for all students.
- Shared leadership remains the operational norm throughout
the process.
- A school profile of student performance is instrumental in
setting improvement goals and checking results.
- High-quality educational research is crucial to setting and
meeting goals for increased student performance.
Some Characteristics Strengthened
- Learning success is measured in new ways, e.g., state tests
and performance assessments.
- The process includes new roles for parents, community members
and students, e.g., parents and students (at least in secondary
schools) are members of the leadership team.
- In the profile, schoolwide data is supplemented with detailed
data useful for diagnosing specific weaknesses in performance,
e.g. indications that students are achieving some objectives or
benchmarks, but not others.
- Collaborative learning is strengthened so that schools begin
developing as professional learning communities from the time the
training program is initiated.
- More specific techniques for checking progress of implementation
and impact are incorporated into the process.
New Characteristics Added
- The local board of education must understand, approve and
actively support the OTE II school improvement process before
it is initiated. This is achieved via a 90-minute work session
with the board, superintendent and selected others.
- Each school must document that a discussion about using the
OTE II school improvement process has been conducted with staff
and community members, and that a consensus decision to participate has been made.
- A one-quarter time school improvement coordinator must be
appointed for each school.
- The entire school staff will engage in an inquiry process
to increase understanding of current instructional practice related
to their school improvement goals. Part of this process will be
to match curriculum, instructional and assessment practices at
the school with state standards and other measures of student
performance.
- The OTE II improvement process will be aligned more thoroughly
with content areas and with state standards. A professional development program will be
launched immediately to help the staff learn about best research-based
practices related to their school improvement goal(s).
- An external critical friends team must be established to collect
and provide information about progress to each school. Schools
may serve as critical friends for one another, although it is
important to have central office, educational service district
and/or university staff as members of the team.
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