School Improvement Plans in Elementary and Middle Schools on Probation

This article reports on a study of school improvement under conditions of high-stakes accountability. Planning is a key mandate for persistently low-performing schools on probation in many accountability systems. We investigated what kinds of school improvement plans schools wrote under these conditions and what role the plans played in the school improvement process. The study consisted of 2 parts: a content analysis of 46 school improvement plans selected from 1 state accountability system, Maryland, and case study data from 3 elementary and 4 middle schools. This article draws primarily from interviews conducted at the 7 schools. The study showed that schools responded to performance demands of the accountability system with a pattern of external obligation and internal managerialism. School improvement plans were less useful as tools for a broadly based internal development process.