A variety of forces and factors are at work pushing, nudging, and encouraging the practice of continuous improvement in education – at all levels of the system – but primarily at the school and classroom levels.

The positive effects of school improvement have been demonstrated over the past couple decades and reinforced by literature of organizational development in other sectors.

School improvement planning is increasingly mandated and prescribed in LEA and SEA policy. Many states require, encourage, and/or support the submission of improvement plans. Some require annual planning. School improvement plans are a requirement for federal Title I funding. Finally, NCLB requires states to establish criteria for identifying schools in need of improvement.

In many states schools are required to establish school improvement teams and to develop improvement plans. Some states go so far as to specify the structure of SIP teams.

The mandating of school improvement teams and school improvement plans does not assure that all the effort will make a difference. All too often, school improvement planning is viewed as another external requirement. In these cases, engagement is likely limited to a principal reluctantly taking time from an already over-burdened schedule to fill out the required forms that bureaucrats dutifully file away. In the worst-case scenario, so much energy goes into the planning, that when the task is complete there is a collective sigh of relief as everyone returns to business as usual.