QUALITY IMPACT TEAMS

INTRODUCTION | GOALS | EVALUATION | COACHING

Clarifying Questions and Answers

How does the QIT project connect to the ODE’s vision and mission?

Quality Impact Teams will lead to student achievement results that will propel Ohio to be recognized as one of the best state education agencies in the nation by the year 2005.
This partnership among schools, communities, Quality Impact Teams and ODE is designed to raise expectations, build capacity and improve results. QIT is guided by the motto: “Commit to Success: Raise the Bar, Close the Gap, Accept No Excuses!”

What is the purpose of QIT?

Quality Impact Teams are assigned to provide technical assistance in Ohio’s lowest performing schools. Responsibilities and services include:

• Conducting a needs assessment
• Surveying the culture of the school
• Assisting with the revision of the continuous improvement plan
• Collaborating with superintendents and/or principals regarding professional growth plans
• Coaching and mentoring teachers and administrators
• Facilitating and/or brokering professional development
• Facilitating group processes (ie. leadership teams, Critical Friends Groups)
• Helping schools review and reorganize schedules to allow for collaboration and collegial work
• Presenting, modeling and coaching research based instructional strategies aligned to state standards
• Facilitating the development of short cycle assessments, data disaggregation and analysis, and curriculum alignment
• Preparing monthly reports on the work of the coaches in the schools and evidence of results of this work on building progress, writing daily/weekly service logs, and producing quarterly reports for evaluation of the program

The clear and constant mission of QIT is improved student achievement through multiple measures of assessment, including Ohio’s statewide tests. An additional expected outcome of the work is to build the internal capacity within each school so that increased student achievement will be sustained. Schools should continue to make well-informed, data driven decisions about curriculum, instruction and assessment.

While the work of QIT coaching is challenging, the central focus of the process is to: articulate the standards, design and/or align assessments to the standards and utilize the assessment data to intentionally inform instruction. In simplest terms, “What should our students know and be able to do?” and “How will teachers know when students have learned what they have been taught?”.

How is the program monitored and evaluated?

Each Quality Impact Team will assist in the development of reports which will be compiled and analyzed for an annual report document that is submitted to the Ohio Department of Education. Reports will share identified needs and challenges, recommendations and levels of cooperation, in addition to data on student achievement.
Both qualitative and quantitative research data are essential to the documentation of the status, progress and impact of QIT work. Evaluation components include the design, collection, and analyses of baseline data on key indicators for the projects, the design of a formative evaluation plan that enables the QIT schools staff and stakeholders to have feedback to improve the quality and quantity of the implementation and the QIT model itself, and the design of a summative evaluation plan that provides data on key indicators over time.

Qualitative data are analyzed by categorizing emerging patterns. These data provide more detailed and in-depth descriptions of processes and outcomes related to the QIT pilot. Quantitative data are analyzed using statistical procedures. Mean, standard deviation, median, mode and frequencies are used to summarize data relative to school building, district and project.