AIS Narrative Guide

This narrative provides a guide to the video and web postings for the Academy of International Studies (AIS) at Woodburn, OR on their journey toward proficiency-based education in 2009-10.

Key Messages:

•    Significantly raising the expertise of classroom teachers results in an immediate and parallel increase in student performance.
•    To implement and sustain that, you need skilled instructional leadership support by principals and districts.
•    The collection of practices that describe proficiency-based education is a powerful vehicle for improving teacher effectiveness and student outcomes.

Introduction of the video and the project:

In every state, including Oregon, there are new expectations for public schools. We want all students to reach high academic standards which graduate them career and college ready. This means much higher academic standards are in place and expectations for much higher high school graduation rates. The best current education thinking appears to be strongly in agreement that effective teaching is at the heart of meeting these goals. It is what happens in the classroom with teachers and students that determines how well prepared students will be. This underscores the need to increase the level of expertise of teachers. 

The Oregon Proficiency Project, carried out by the Oregon Business Council (OBC) and Employers for Education Excellence (E3), partnered with the Center for Educational Leadership (CEL) at the College of Education at the University of Washington to provide technical assistance to AIS with the purpose of testing the effectiveness of proficiency-based education in a school committed to improving student outcomes by developing greater expertise in instruction and instructional leadership. (for a full report on the overall project, see Defining Practice, Informing Policy: The Oregon Proficiency Project Report for 2009-10)

This video tells the story of the Academy of International Studies in Woodburn Oregon as they adopted proficiency-based education during the 2009-10 school year. (See pages 5-6 of Defining Practice, Informing Policy)

To view the complete Narrative Guide, click here.