Formation and Development of School Improvement Movement　－Focussed on Studies in America－

The term "School Improvement" is an extremely normative term, and the literature is overflowing with divergent statement about what counts as School Improvement. So, I have pushed foward with the study, by defining School Improvement as a sustained administrative activity effort, at which each school, as an inherent, autonomous social organization, aims improve administrative internal or external conditions in it, through an amount of open collaborations, seeking some support systems outside the school, so that it may enhance school effectiveness. The purpose of this study is, through demonstrating the above definition, to clarify educational implication and the necessity of school Improvement Movement, and moreover to draw some nature and targets from typical R & D projects of School effectiveness, in America. In 1990, I have already tried to make clear some practical strarigies and new paradism of School Improvement in America and Britain, in the paper edited by The Japanese Association for the Study of Educational Administration, This paper is, however, the first time to publish some theoretical topics of School Improvement from a short historical view of America