Wilmer S. Cody, Commissioner of Education and Co-Chair of PRISM, spoke at PRISM's statewide summit on October 23, 1996. He explained that overall school improvement is not a matter of inventing some new approach. It's a matter of transferring and applying what many Kentucky schools are doing already.
What do we know about these successful schools? What are they doing?

• They focus on goals - academic goals, specific quantifiable, measurable goals - all the time. And they are checking - daily, weekly, monthly - to see if they are making progress toward their goals.
  
  
• They have a leader - or sometimes leaders including teachers - who help keep them focused on those goals, and on the progress - or lack of it.
  
  
• They're obsessed with continuous improvement. It's the same idea as the primary program's "continuous progress" critical attribute. But it's applied to the school as an organization as well as to individual children. . . .
  
  
• Teamwork. Teachers and administrators set goals together, they plan together, they implement together, they evaluate progress together. Teachers share across grade levels and disciplines what's working with students. And what's not working.
  
  
• They focus on individual children who aren't learning and develop strategies to help them succeed.
  
  
• They have learned how to focus all the resources available at the school on reaching the achievement goals for the school and for individual students. They maximize the use of Chapter I, extended school services, family resource centers, technology, professional - especially professional development. They make sure that all of these tools are used in pursuit of school and student learning priorities.
  
  
• They visit other schools - particularly schools that are successful - to see what makes them successful. They join networks and form partnerships to keep abreast. And, of course, they take full advantage of what PRISM has to offer.
  
  
• They work with parents and their communities, particularly business and industries. They share knowledge and resources within their local communities.
  
  
• More than anything else, successful schools seem to have a passion for learning and an obsession with success for their students. They believe all students can learn, and they work hard to prove it.