Why do most school improvement initiatives fail to change classroom practice?

Because they rely on what I call "bulk change" — announcing a new initiative and expecting everyone to adopt it at once. This approach maximizes resistance, overwhelms support capacity, and produces something I describe as alignment at a rhetorical level only. Everyone nods, uses the new vocabulary, maybe attends the training — but actual classroom practice barely shifts.

The core insight from diffusion of innovations research is that people adopt change in a predictable social sequence. Innovators try things first. Early adopters watch them succeed and follow. The majority waits for local proof. Resisters go last. You can compress the timeframe, but you can't change the sequence. Trying to skip it — by mandating bulk adoption — doesn't produce faster change. It produces shallower change.