Changes can often bring nasty little surprises, but peer review leads to a number of surprises that are both unanticipated and positive.

Traditionally, teachers take pride in their own work but feel little personal responsibility for a colleague's poor work. That attitude is alien to classic professional cultures such as medicine and law where a sense of community based on standards exists.

The buy-in to standards is triggered when teachers create their own standards of instructional practice. That is the beginning of a community of teachers who take pride in each other's professional competence, and ownership is the key. You should consider this fundamental shift in attitude about one's work in relation to the work of others (individual vs. community) as a building block for all other school improvement or reform efforts. Successful reform depends on common efforts to achieve excellence and mutual pride in ownership of the means to do so.

When teachers own the induction process for their profession, other changes soon follow.

• The union will see a change in its culture. Instead of defending individuals, the union becomes a defender of its members' professional standards of practice.

Traditionally, those of us on the union side spend an inordinate amount of time and dues money defending members whose practice is virtually unknown to us - and that makes no sense at all.

• As the number of former consulting teachers increases, they become a voice for teaching excellence within the union. So do the former interns who were successful and who appreciated the help they received during their intern year. They see their union as a support for their teaching practices and not just a place to go when a problem occurs.
  
  
• Through peer mentoring and review, teachers have an induction process worthy of a classic profession. That realization is reflected in a different attitude about the work teachers do.
  
  
• Union officials begin to hear positive comments from members about teaching excellence to balance the negative events that traditional school governance generates.
  
  
• Administrators change also. It is not uncommon for principals and others to see peer review initially as an invasion of their turf. But that initial reluctance melts away once they see how seriously the standards are taken and the amount of time that is devoted to mentoring. In our case, the management union demanded its own peer evaluation and mentoring program two years after we started The Toledo Plan even though it had blocked peer review for nine years prior to 1981. Both programs thrive today. Almost without exception, principals change their minds once they see peer review in action.
  
  
• Consulting teachers are talented people. We use them to train other teachers in their specialty fields after they return to the classroom. Discovering talent is often a neglected feature of school management. It can't be ignored with peer review.
  
  
• These changes in attitude develop everywhere peer review exists. Peer review transforms traditional school cultures. Teachers see themselves as responsible for overall teaching excellence, and administrators find a workplace culture that is not dominated by negatives.