For more than a decade, professional learning communities have been an important component of school improvement efforts across the country. Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker write in their groundbreaking 1998 book Professional Learning Communities at Work: "The most promising strategy for sustained, substantive school improvement is developing that ability of school personnel to function as professional learning communities." Schools the use the strategy focus on building teacher teams that work together on four on four key questions:

1) What do we want students to know and be able to do?

2) How will we know if they have learned?

3) What do we do if they don't learn?

4) What do we do if they have already leaned? 

Willamette Curriculum Coalition offers a way to understand if a school's professional learning communities are high functioning, and track improvement over months or years. Willamette ESD staff work with the school to build a staff survey that asks  the difficult questions about PLC performance.  The feedback is used to make adjustments to the process and determine if a school's PLC's are functioning in a way likely to improve student learning.  All Performance Audits for Collaborative Teams are custom designed to meet the unique needs of each school or district. Tracking this information over time has helped numerous schools improve their PLC practices and in turn improve student outcomes.