Standards must be at the center of continuous school improvement. The planning process is driven by standards.
Standards focus a school's goals.
To make a school's vision come true, a school must understand where it wants to go, where it is, and how resources must be redistributed to build a continuously improving system. School improvement planning must be based on a realistic and detailed understanding of how a school is performing now and why that is the case. That understanding must be balanced by an equally thorough understanding of where it needs to be and how large the gap is that needs to be closed. Informed decisions to close that gap will be based on the best available data about student performance, curriculum and school resources, staff capacity, and community support. ISAT data are one clear place to start, although other data are necessary and, in some cases, will be more critical.