Dear Colleague:

Almost 20 years ago, long before "school improvement" became a buzzword in education reform, members of the National Education Association mandated that the Association develop a mechanism for assessing teaching and learning conditions in schools. That call made by NEA members in the early 1990s launched a major program called Keys to Excellence for Your Schools (KEYS). Today, this research-based, field-tested, and systemic process for school reform has served as a catalyst for change in more than 2,000 public schools.

Your KEYS journey will begin with members of your school community taking the landmark KEYS surveys. These assessment tools – involving staff, families, students, and community members – will reveal the strengths and areas where improvement is needed in your school; indicate the level to which teaching and learning conditions shown by research to exist in high-performing schools are present in your school; and show how your school results on 42 indicators of school quality compare with the average score of all schools that have taken the KEYS surveys.

To help you move forward with an integrated approach to whole system change, NEA is providing you with a toolbox of resources. Within this toolbox are the KEYS 2.0 Action Guide, KEYS 2.0 Facilitation Guide, a KEYS DVD, and additional materials and references downloadable from the KEYS website at www.keysonline.org. The facilitation guide and DVD will assist you in presenting KEYS to all stakeholders, motivating members of your school community to participate, and facilitating the KEYS implementation. NEA staff members are also available to assist you with the KEYS continuous school improvement process.

This Action Guide – the result of five years of additional research and input from users of the original KEYS – provides guidance for analyzing survey results and for initiating the development of an effective school improvement plan.

I congratulate you for your efforts to improve teaching and learning conditions in your community. Let us work together to ensure that every school is a great public school.

Sincerely,

Dennis Van Roekel

President, National Education Association