Instances of substandard performance can also expose public school districts and charter organizations to liability and frequently undermine efforts to increase student achievement. As a result, it is important that all schools - especially those that have been designated as "underperforming" or "non-performing" in the past - have adopted comprehensive and defensible Codes of Employee Conduct and taken adequate steps to ensure that each member of the leadership team is equipped with the tools and strategies needed to meaningfully address performance issues as well.

Because worsening fiscal constraints and reductions in state funding levels have forced many public school districts and charter organizations to re-examine their budget priorities, more school leaders at the state and local levels are focusing their staff development efforts on initiatives that specifically address the goals of federal "stimulus" programs such as the $44 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Program (SFSFP) as authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) in April 2009 and the $4.35 billion in Race to the Top competitive grants announced in July 2009. In a February-March 2009 AASA study entitled "Looking Back, Looking Forward: How the Economic Downturn Continues to Impact School Districts", for example, 47% of school leaders identified staff development spending under such federal programs as a "priority", while 37% viewed mission-critical training as a "high priority."

As a research-supported behavioral modification program that provides an essential backdrop for any school improvement or reform initiative, Employee Discipline in an Education Environment© (EDEV) directly addresses the following common goals of both the ARRA/SFSFP and the Race to the Top competitive grant programs:

	Improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance
	Providing effective support to teachers and principals
	Intervening in the lowest achieving schools and LEAs
	Turning around the lowest achieving schools
	Ensuring successful conditions for high performing charters and other innovative schools