Book excerpt: What is the single, most important event of the school year that affects school improvement? How do you measure school improvement? How can simple tools--already at your fingertips--work more effectively to improve student achievement in reading, math, and more? The Results Fieldbook answers these questions and describes in abundant, practical detail how five school systems overcame obstacles and achieved exceptional results for all their students. These schools focused on the proven core concepts that Mike Schmoker described in both editions of his first ASCD book, Results: The Key to Continuous School Improvement. Supplementing the five case studies, brief vignettes written by practitioners show how core practices--teamwork, the use of achievement data, and planning for measurable goals--made an immediate and profound difference in student learning at their respective schools. A close look at these school systems reveals the simplicity of school improvement efforts built around the still-overlooked and most potent force in improvement--collective, organized teacher intelligence. This book contains easily adapted processes and refinements that result from such teacher collaboration and all but guarantee measurable improvement. Tables, figures, and appendixes illustrate effective data-collection processes; and at the conclusion, a three-part synthesis of the best of these systems provides practical steps toward implementing this radically more effective approach to school improvement, starting with preservice education.