School improvement plans in schools on probation: A comparative content analysis across three accountability systems

This article explores school improvement planning under conditions of high- stakes accountability by means of a content analysis of school improvement plans. The schools examined here were identified by their accountability ag encies as low performing and were put on probation to reverse their decline . Schools in three accountability systems are compared. Content analyses in dicated that school improvement plans across the three jurisdictions were v ery similar suggesting institutional isomorphism. However certain policy de sign features prompted variation in the levels of internalization of extern al demands by school sites.