Standards-Aligned Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment: Standards-based learning and the alignment of curriculum, instruction, and assessment form the foundation of SIM. The model builds a collective commitment to systemic improvement by integrating content-area concentrations in math and English language arts (ELA) with a Schoolwide Instructional Focus (SIF) on practices that support students’ development of college and career readiness.

High-Performance Leadership, Management & Organization: SIM trains leadership teams to support the school’s efforts at every level by empowering staff through distributed leadership, balancing support and pressure to help teachers transform their practices, and focusing the organization on schoolwide activities that are proven to positively impact student success.

Data-Driven Culture: SIM helps schools build and maintain an effective data-driven, technology-supported culture. Schools use multiple measures to help teachers improve instructional practices and monitor individual student progress to inform a differentiated and personalized approach to learning.

High-Achievement & Engagement: SIM ensures that all constituents are focused on the same goal of college and career readiness. The model engages staff, parents/guardians, and the community in supporting high achievement for all students. It includes a dropout prevention early warning dashboard system, which identifies at-risk students in middle and high schools so that intervention services can be provided.

Sustainability for Continuous Improvement: SIM incorporates structures and processes for sustaining, monitoring, and adjusting the implementation over time to ensure school-level capacity building and a gradual transfer of responsibility from Pearson staff to school staff. Through our proprietary validated system, the model promotes continuous improvement via distributed leadership and collaboration, as well as through professional development, coaching, and technical assistance.