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The State Role in School Turnaround: Emerging Best Practices

Planning & Management

The State Role in School Turnaround: Emerging Best Practices

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With chapters written by leading researchers and practitioners actively engaged in the work, this Edited Volume examines the role of the state education agency in school turnaround efforts. An emphasis is placed on practical application of research and best practice related to the State Education Agency’s (SEA’s) critical leadership role in driving and supporting successful school turnaround efforts.

The Edited Volume is organized around the Center on School Turnaround’s four objectives, with sections devoted to each:

  • Create a Pro-Turnaround Statutory and Regulatory Environment
  • Administer and Manage Turnaround Efforts Effectively
  • Provide Targeted and Timely Technical Assistance to Local Educational Agencies and Schools
  • Advocate and Lead to Build Support for Local Turnaround Efforts

Chapters include: a) brief literature review, b) examples from SEAs (and/or concrete examples of proposed SEA practices), and c) action principles for the SEA.

The Missing Link: How States Work with Districts to Support School Turnaround

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Over the last several years federal initiatives have called on states to improve the nation’s lowest performing schools. States’ efforts to turn around these low-performing schools have met with mixed success. Districts may be the missing link between federal and state desires to improve schools and actual, demonstrable changes that improve learning for students. This descriptive, mixed-methods analysis uses survey data from state-level turnaround leaders in all 50 states and interviews with eight intentionally selected state leaders to launch a discussion about how states support districts in school-turnaround efforts.

The CST leadership and evaluators wanted to know more about how SEAs were currently supporting districts in improving their capacity to assist with school turnaround efforts and how that support could be improved. We suspected that systematic district support might be the missing link between federal and state desires to improve schools and actual, demonstrable changes that improve learning outcomes for students. Therefore, this analysis posed the following questions:

  • How do states support districts in turning around low-performing schools?
  • How, if at all, do states work differently with rural versus urban districts on school turnaround, and is this differentiation important?
  • How have federal policies influenced the schools and districts with which states work on school turnaround?

While some of the logistics for school turnaround efforts will be changing in various ways under ESSA, many of the details, insights, and strategies provided by SEAs through these surveys and interviews are still relevant to helping SEAs think about how to provide high-quality support to districts on school turnaround.

School Improvement Grants: Guidance and Tools for the 2015 Amended Regulations: Maximizing the Optional Planning/Pre-Implementation Year

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The purpose of this guide is to provide states, districts, and schools with information and support to prepare applications for 2015–2016 School Improvement Grants (SIGs). The guide includes tools, checklists, and templates aligned with the revised SIG requirements, primarily focused on how LEAs could use the new “planning year” to build a foundation of success for SIG schools.

School Boards Driving Turnaround: Wichita Public Schools

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Many schools are not preparing students for success in the 21st century. Far too many students are dropping out, and many of those who do graduate lack the key skills to succeed in college or the advanced economy. Successfully initiating, implementing, and sustaining the transformation of the lowest-performing public schools is a pressing challenge for policy leaders and practitioners nationwide. Public schools governed by elected local school boards are one of the cornerstones of our nation’s democracy, and local school boards sit at the junction of policy and effective implementation of targeted turnaround efforts. Yet ongoing efforts to improve public education focus primarily on the role of teachers, principals, and superintendents and, to a lesser extent, on state and federal policymakers. Missing from the work is a substantive role for local school boards.

In line with the Center on School Turnaround’s charge to support states’ efforts, we sought to highlight districts engaged in focused turnaround efforts where their respective boards played a key role in catalyzing, shaping, and supporting targeted improvement efforts. Our goal in developing these case studies was to present information-rich cases that can inform state and district efforts to optimize the board’s role in school turnaround. These case studies may be used independently, but they are designed to be part of a year-long training program for local school boards.

School Boards Driving Turnaround: New Haven Public Schools

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Many schools are not preparing students for success in the 21st century. Far too many students are dropping out, and many of those who do graduate lack the key skills to succeed in college or the advanced economy. Successfully initiating, implementing, and sustaining the transformation of the lowest-performing public schools is a pressing challenge for policy leaders and practitioners nationwide. Public schools governed by elected local school boards are one of the cornerstones of our nation’s democracy, and local school boards sit at the junction of policy and effective implementation of targeted turnaround efforts. Yet ongoing efforts to improve public education focus primarily on the role of teachers, principals, and superintendents and, to a lesser extent, on state and federal policymakers. Missing from the work is a substantive role for local school boards.

In line with the Center on School Turnaround’s charge to support states’ efforts, we sought to highlight districts engaged in focused turnaround efforts where their respective boards played a key role in catalyzing, shaping, and supporting targeted improvement efforts. Our goal in developing these case studies was to present information-rich cases that can inform state and district efforts to optimize the board’s role in school turnaround. These case studies may be used independently, but they are designed to be part of a year-long training program for local school boards.

Casting a Statewide Strategic Performance Net: Interlaced Data and Responsive Supports

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The state education agency (SEA) has been shifting its emphasis for decades, from a compliance-focused authority to a change agent equipped with systems, processes, training, and support to heighten the progress of the local district and its schools. This publication highlights a strategic approach to performance management that fits neatly in the new organizational environment. Ideal for organizing people and their work in one entity (SEA, LEA, or school), strategic performance management is equally suited to a multi-organization system where interlaced data and responsive supports are critical.

The publication is presented in four parts:

  • Part I: Casting a Responsive Net
  • Part II: Synopsis of the Modules and Steps for an SEA, LEA, or School to Implement SPM
  • Part III: Interlaced Data and Responsive Supports
  • Part IV: Best Practice, Productivity, and Innovation