SIP is a quality control tool that can be used to evaluate classroom assignments, projects, courses, curricula, even teachers' and administrators' performances. Standards in Practice is a model for the systematic alignment of work assigned to students with the standards. As a consequence of engaging in SIP workshops, teachers choose rigorous activities for students and feel empowered to demand a higher level of achievement from them. An educational reform that produces no change in the classroom is a reform that hasn't happened.
SIP works directly in the classroom, with the everyday work that teachers and students do.
It therefore gets right to the root of reform. SIP can elicit pain and resistance, but because it is a team process, support is built in. The collective expertise and wisdom of teachers enables them to stretch their capacities and challenge both students and themselves. A school district that would like to implement SIP must agree to allow teams of teachers to meet for at least 90 minutes a week, or every two weeks if weekly is impossible. Less often, say once a month, is not effective.