Schools are in the midst of serious reform as they attempt to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act and make adjustments that will positively impact students? academic lives. Yet, to accomplish these outcomes, schools need help, and state departments of education and local school districts are obligated to provide such assistance. Indeed, these entities want to help schools succeed, but formal and informal needs assessments indicate that some state education agencies and districts have limited capacity to support the efforts of low-performing schools. To address this problem, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) developed an intervention, called the McREL Approach, for assisting schools with their efforts to improve student achievement. This report documents progress in pilot testing of the intervention in two states in the Central Region from January 2002 through April 2004. The audience for this report is McREL?s sponsors and other researchers. The report begins with an overview of the McREL Approach. The remaining chapters provide examples of how elements of the Approach have been pilot-tested with school leadership teams in 12 sites. These examples illustrate the content and nature of the work that occurs in the various stages of the Approach and lessons learned about tools and strategies used in each stage. The report concludes with a chapter on next steps for development and field testing of the Approach.