The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement invited Ann Chafin to share her thoughts and ideas about sustaining school reform. Chafin, chief of Program Improvement and Family Support Branch of the Maryland State Department of Education, was a speaker at the annual Institute for CSR State Coordinators held May 9-10 in Washington, D.C. The Center sponsored the two-day event for coordinators to explore ways to create and maintain high-quality CSR programs as well as sustain comprehensive reform over time, and to make connections with other school improvement efforts. The nine hard things to do in order to sustain school reform identified are: (1) It is easy to gather data; hard to use data; (2) It is easy to have volunteers; hard to have real parent involvement; (3) It is easy to do staff development; hard to develop staff; (4) It is easy to focus on teaching; hard to focus on learning; (5) It is easy to remediate; hard to accelerate; (6) It is easy to direct and manage; hard to lead; (7) It is easy to make a testimonial; hard to conduct an evaluation; (8) It is easy to assign blame; hard to solve problems; and (9) It is easy to talk about "those kids;" hard to talk about "our kids." [This document was produced by The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, administered by Learning Point Associates in partnership with the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) and WestEd, under contract with the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education of the U.S. Department of Education.]