KEYS Research

In 1990, NEA embarked on a major research effort to define and quantify the critical organizational conditions of school quality. The research led to the development of the NEA KEYS initiative. Understanding the evolution of the NEA KEYS research and the theoretical underpinnings of the development efforts is important because it addresses directly questions of credibility as well as the validity and reliability of the survey instrument and the initiative upon which it is based.

This section traces the development of the KEYS initiative from the original research to the current survey, to the most current efforts to embed KEYS in the continuous improvement process.