Queensway and Xinmin, the two government schools that we studied, are set in the same modernizing and traditional context of other,less achieving schools. Nevertheless, in the late-1980s they were rather nondescript and did not stand out as being especially successful. The appointment of new principals to each school in 1991, however, began a five- or six-year process of startling and sustained school improvement.This improvement, we believe, has to be accounted for by the initiatives taken by the new school principals. societal culture, as articulated from above provided them with a cultural and social stock of readily available recipes that were already showing their worth in raising the general standard of Singapore schools (Neville, 1994) But it was how the principals were able to capitalize on, and develop, these preexisting frameworks that account for the outstanding performance of their schools.