This paper, written by strategic partner of the CST, Julie Corbett, provides research and examples on England’s approach to turning around its lowest performing schools. The English education system utilizes private vendors to support chronically low-performing schools and districts. The introduction is followed by discussions of each of the three main strategies for private sector involvement, including: school-based management, turning around individual schools and outsourcing the management of districts to private vendors. The paper concludes with lessons learned that could inform the implementation of similar efforts in the U.S.
Culture Shift
New Mexico: State Policy Brief on School Turnaround
The State Policy Brief Series highlights state policies, regulations, practices, laws, or other tools intended to create the necessary conditions for school and/or district turnaround. Each brief includes a tool overview, its development process, its impact, and lessons learned that could assist other education agencies interested in enacting something similar.
The focus of this brief is the New Mexico Public Education Department’s Principals Pursuing Excellence (PPE) program that was launched in 2013. The program was designed to develop a cadre of strong turnaround principals. The brief includes an overview of the program, a description of the program with stakeholder roles and responsibilities, the program’s impact and lessons learned from the program’s implementation.
Mississippi: State Policy Brief on School Turnaround
The State Policy Brief Series highlights state policies, regulations, practices, laws, or other tools intended to create the necessary conditions for school and/or district turnaround. Each brief includes a tool overview, its development process, its impact, and lessons learned that could assist other education agencies interested in enacting something similar.
This brief highlights Mississippi’s Children First Act of 2009, which permitted the creation of a Recovery School District and state takeover of chronically underperforming school districts. The brief includes an overview of the policy, a description of the development process of the policy, explanation of the impact of the policy’s implementation to date, and lessons learned from Mississippi that may support other states interested in implementing similar policies and structures.
Measuring School Turnaround Success
Successful school turnarounds—characterized by quick, strategic changes in school culture and systems that result in dramatic improvement in student achievement in persistently low-performing schools—are hard work and difficult to achieve and sustain. This report sets out an approach to measure turnaround success that states, districts, and schools can adopt in their own contexts.
Innovative Thinking and School Turnaround
CST Associate Director, Sam Redding, gave two keynote addresses and presented at one breakout session at South South Dakota’s Priority and Focus School Summit. The SEA summit had 245 participants.
Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement: A Systems Framework
The Center on School Turnaround at WestEd (CST) has released the Four Domains for Rapid School Improvement. This framework was to assist states, districts, and schools in leading and managing rapid improvement efforts. The framework shares, in practical language, the critical practices of successful school turnaround in four domains, or areas of focus, that research and experience suggest are central to rapid and significant improvement: turnaround leadership, talent development, instructional transformation, and culture shift. At a more fine-grained level, the framework then offers examples of how each practice would be put into action at each level of the system.
The framework reflects the understanding that local context and implementation influence the outcomes of any improvement initiative. It further reflects lessons learned from the federal School Improvement Grants program:
A successful school turnaround requires a systems approach with coherent guidance and support from the state and district to complement the actions of the school; and
A successful school turnaround is more than the initial jolt of bold changes in structure, authority, and personnel; it includes phases in which effective practices and processes are routinized and sustained.
The domains and practices identified in the framework that follows apply across the system of the state education agency, the local education agency, and the school. For each practice, the roles of the state, the district, and the school are briefly outlined, providing examples of their reciprocal roles in successful school improvement efforts. The domains are not meant to be considered in isolation, or to be approached in a step-by-step manner. The domains and practices overlap, with some consistent threads tying them together, including the need for clear goals and expectations, for tailored support, and for accountability to encourage a positive environment that is focused on improving student achievement in the lowest performing schools. Further, the practices are not provided in a suggested order of implementation. A turnaround plan should consider the most appropriate prioritization of the implementation of practices. Ideally, many practices will be implemented simultaneously, but it would be difficult and even counterproductive to focus on too many areas or practices at once.