Released January 2012.

The ISM International Model Schools Project ran for six years, from 1989 to 1995, and entailed ISM onsite data collection expeditions (usually three per year) to eight to nine private-independent schools annually. The project focused upon relevant factors in student performance, satisfaction, and enthusiasm, and, secondarily, on teacher performance, satisfaction, and enthusiasm. That project's outcomes produced two books, numerous articles for ISM's periodicals, and ISM's Meaningful Faculty Evaluation system. Those building blocks served, in turn, as the foundation for later ISM studies of School Head leadership and Board President leadership. Finally, the original outcomes and subsequent research projects were layered systematically into the several iterations of the ISM Stability Markers® and, more recently, the 20 ISM Success Predictors for the 21st Century.

In the school year 2010-11, ISM conducted a one-year partial replication of the original project, this time with eight private-independent schools. The mix of schools, as with the original project, included the full range of possible grade configurations, religiously affiliated and secular, single-sex and coed, and boarding and day. Because of the results of the survey, ISM has revised its Student Culture Profile, Faculty Culture Profile, and Characteristics of Professional Excellence instruments-all included in this report.