We have learned that these Seven Disciplines are not a buffet, where a district can choose one or two for implementation without regard to the others. Rather, they represent an interdependent systems approach to the improvement of instruction. While not all may be implemented at once, none can be skipped, and some must come before others. For example, few educators may feel the need to define good teaching, if the need for change is not well- established. And definitions of good teaching are incomplete if they do not include data about student work. Effective supervision requires a shared vision of good teaching and standards for student work and is driven by a variety of informative data. The same data also inform planning for effective professional development and the content of school and district meetings.

We must understand clearly all of the elements of a more systematic approach to strengthening teaching.We have also come to understand that these disciplines must be imbedded in a larger, districtwide transformation effort that includes attention to what we call the "arenas of change," or the "4 C's."

In addition to developing the competencies of educators to do this new work, creating a school and district culture that supports active engagement and collaboration for continuous improvement is essential. It is also vital to attend to the classroom, school, and district conditions that support the improvement of teaching and learning, such as having adequate quality time for meetings and professional development, and to know and work with students individually. All of this work must, in turn, be informed by a deeper knowledge of the context of our work: a better understanding of the worlds from which our students come and those for which they must be prepared.

We support the idea that shared accountability for improving student achievement is a powerful tool for increasing educational equity. But we observe that our profession's developing knowledge of how to achieve this new goal has not kept pace with the imposition of new accountability measures.

Rather than arguing the merits of more testing, we believe that the real conversation among educators should be around questions such as these: What does good teaching look like, and how do we create systems of schools and districts where every teacher has the opportunity and the support needed for continued improvement?