District Administration - September 2009 - (Page 57)

Turning Around Schools in Need I A new president and secretary of education bring a new urgency to the task of turning around failing schools nationwide. By Victor riVero N DecemBer, PresiDeNtelect Barack obama selected chicago’s Dodge renaissance Academy, a 400-student pre-K8 school, as the backdrop for choosing Arne Duncan, the chicago Public schools’ ceo, as the nation’s new secretary of education. touted as a “turnaround school,” Dodge represented the idea that if change could come to a high-poverty, failing school with low test scores and most students on free or reduced-price lunches, then there was hope for all schools. A school turnaround is “a dramatic and comprehensive intervention in a low-performing school that produces significant gains in student achievement within two academic years,” according to mass insight education & research institute, a Bostonbased nonprofit education reform organization. The term has been used for decades in the business world. in his 1991 book The Turnaround Experience: Real-World Lessons in Revitalizing Corporations, Frederick m. Zimmerman extracted strategies from a study of 16 companies that had been distressed for 20 years or more. Joseph murphy and coby meyers drew heavily from Zimmerman’s work in their book Turning Around Failing Schools: Leadership Lessons from the Organizational Sciences (corwin Press, 2007), although mass insight had regularly used the term in its comprehensive and more-widely disseminated research starting in 2005. The turnaround model is a careful approach in which either the existing district or an outside partner provides step-by-step strategic oversight and tight operational support, says Julie corbett, program manager of mass insight’s school turnaround strategy Group. on the surface, the idea of a turnaround school is simple: Got a consistently failing school? Fire everyone and start over. And, oh yeah, the students can stay. Nonetheless, “you’ve got to have a model, a vision of what you want that school to look like,” says Paul Vallas, the former ceo of chicago Public schools and the school District of Philadelphia and current superintendent of Louisiana’s recovery school District. Vallas is working on the simultaneous turnaround of 112 low-performing schools across the state. “The key is having a strong leadership team that can implement that model,” he says. “After 15 or 20 years of reform, we know what works and what doesn’t, but i think there is more than one turnaround approach.” Four Turnaround Models Duncan suggested four basic turnaround models in his speech at the National Alliance for Public charter schools conference last June. They include: 1. Students stay and adults leave. This is similar to Duncan’s work in chicago, where new principals and lead teachers can develop the curriculum for students, followed by spring teacher recruitment in preparation for a June takeover. teachers can reapply, and some get rehired, but most go elsewhere. 2. Replace the staff and turn the school over to a charter or management organization, such as Green Dot Public schools, mastery charter schools, or Academy of Urban school Leadership (AUsL). 3. Keep the staff but drastically change the school culture. establish rigorous performance evaluation systems; increase support, training and teacher mentoring; strengthen the curriculum and instructional programs; and increase student learning in outside regular school hours. This is more suitable for smaller communities with limited staff. These schools must show measurable attendance, parental involvement and achievement results quickly. 4. Everyone goes. Underperforming schools are simply closed. students reenroll in better schools. This turnaround model brings a failing school to “a swift and thorough conclusion,” Duncan said. closure is a state and local responsibility, as there is no federal authority to do this. some will work better in big cities, while others are more suited for smaller communities, Duncan stated. “We’re still working this through,” he said. corbett adds that operations are an “incredibly huge piece” of the program. Principals shouldn’t have to figure out professional development needs, or deal with students’ behavioral issues or even fund raising, she says. “When you have an efficient district office, it actually lets the principal really be the leader of that environment and change it.” September 2009 57 www.DistrictAdministration.com http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - September 2009

District Administration - September 2009
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Health Update
Curriculum Update
Stimulus Monitor
Conversations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Administrator Roles Shift with the Times
Turning Around Schools in Need
Global Learning
Managing Generational Diversity
New Products
Professional Opinion
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
New Books
Tech Disruptions
Online Edge

District Administration - September 2009