Our goal has been to distill the daunting task of supporting system-wide improvement of teaching and learning into a manageable number of actions. And yet we realize that what we have offered is not unlike the lists we have all seen of how to improve our health. The simply articulated steps of eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, reducing stress, and getting enough sleep can be thoroughly understood and still exceedingly difficult to accomplish. While the sustained effort required may lead many of us to minimize the importance of taking these steps, many who have a serious health scare suddenly find the time and the will to act on this advice. Those who are able to follow through on taking these steps without having had a health scare do so by establishing routines and by making healthy choices easier to execute (e.g., joining a class at the gym or increasing the ratio of fruits and vegetables to packaged goods in the grocery cart). And once the routines are in place long enough, the feeling of well-being is its own reward. 

Improving teaching and learning system-wide, as with improving our personal health, can be accomplished more effectively by establishing structures and routines. Investing in teams that meet routinely, are facilitated effectively, and have access to the necessary expertise, creating pathways for communication that work bi-directionally, and using the language of a system-wide, shared instructional vision will become self-reinforcing so that, over time, the work becomes second nature. And there is no more powerful force for continuous improvement than experiencing the success of one’s own efforts.