Interesting, but incomplete analysis of Turnaround

Interesting article out of National Education Policy Center, a critique of school turn around efforts.

First - I think it's great that this type of brief is out there - it is thoughtful and reflective and reflects a solid knowledge of the current context. That being said, I think it overstates the focus of school turnaround and doesn't fully acknowledge some of the reasons for the four turnaround models.

- The authors' portrayal of turnaround as a market-based movement is too simplistic and doesn't reflect the complexity of school improvement efforts (and failures) over the past 30 years. My impression is that Title I (and the use of the SIG supplemental funds) has slowly integrated three related movements - the standards movement with its focus on accountability (not markets - but accountability); the choice movement (markets and charters and SES); with Title I's original focus on improving opportunity. Turnaround is definitely more choice/market oriented, but on a continuum. It's not as if Turnaround = Markets. 

- I think that the authors missed an opportunity to discuss the connection of SIG with previous efforts, mainly Comprehensive School Reform. Personally, I think that this is the really interesting story. To that point:

- Among all the reasons that CSR wasn't successful, it's clear to me that the inability of states/districts/schools to fully change the operating conditions (yes, tied to unions) was the real reason for CSR's inability to have success at scale. My impression of Mass Insight's contribution to the emergence of Turnaround (the concept and policy) is that it correctly identified that dramatically CHANGING CONDITIONS was essential/necessary for the successful implementation of whole school reform models. While SIG focused more on changing conditions (and seemingly ignored CSR models and the focus on research), what SIG did do was make sure that districts/schools couldn't make excuses for the failure of turnaround/improvement efforts. I spent a good 8 years studying CSR in multiple states, and it is clear to me that institutionalized state and district policies, in combination with intractable collective bargaining agreements, were the real reason that many hard working leaders and teachers burned out in trying to improve schools. In other words, the point of Turnaround is to guarantee that there are no structural obstacles to the implementation of dramatic improvement efforts (whether they be whole school or a collection of interventions).

Anyway - I really like the brief and I think we need even more of this type of analysis.

And on a final note - I am working with Massachusetts on all things SIG and turnaround, and I would say that MA is definitely implementing the recommendations that you pose at the end of the report. So there are states already addressing the community and social-emotional aspects of school improvement.

Brett

Feds defining District Capacity

It will be interesting to see how the final Race to the Top District initiative will actually play out. Need to do some additional reading, but it looks like there are a variety of pet projects in the specs - such as personal learning plan. http://www.ed.gov/race-top/district-competition

Once again, the federal government is defining what "district capacity" means. And while well-intentioned, this will likely lead to unintended consequences. Especially for states that have already put significant work into defining district standards.

I am pleased to announce that our report on "Emerging Practices in Rapid Achievement Gain Schools" is now available for dissemination. Focusing on the 10 Level 4 schools that demonstrated rapid achievement in student academic achievement between 2010 and 2011, the purpose of this report was to identify and then clearly articulate key practices being used by these "Rapid Achievement Gain" schools. This report is intended to inform the ongoing efforts of districts and schools in Massachusetts engaged in turnaround efforts. Given the importance of turnaround as a part of the national school reform effort, we think that the practices identified in this report will be meaningful and applicable to districts and schools across the country.

A couple of key points to be made about this report:
1 - Because this report looks at schools after only one year of turnaround efforts, the findings must be considered tentative. We don't know if the 10 schools used to develop findings will continue to make rapid gains.
2 - Because many of these schools initiated reform efforts prior to receiving federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) funds, this report should not be used to make judgements about the usefulness or effectiveness of the federal intervention models, or the use of funds, external providers, or other aspects of school turnaround overall.
3 - The practices identified in this report are not new. Rather, what is important is (1) the focus and intensity of each practice and (2) that these practices worked in tandem; they are not isolated practices. To the point, rapid achievement gain schools had each of these practices in place, not just one or two; moreover, they were implementing the practices strategically, intentionally, and with a laser-like focus on improving instruction.

Additional resources on Massachusetts Level 4 Turnaround work:

Memo to the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education

Announcement of Gains Made by Level 4 Schools, 2011

Level 4 District and Schools

Increased federal role in education

At Center for American Progress session on the role of federal government in education.

Very interesting that all of the panelists are strongly in favor of increasing the federal role. Particularly Paul Pastorek from Louisiana. I find it interesting that the panelists: (Cami Anderson, Superintendent, Newark Public Schools; Rayne Martin, Executive Director, Stand for Children-Louisiana; Paul Pastorek, Chief Administrative Officer, Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, EADS North America, and Emeritus Member, Chiefs for Change; and Amy Wilkins, Vice President for Government Affairs and Communications, The Education Trust) all seem to be avoiding the reality of federalism and local control. The fact it, much of federal regulation creates much more noise and fragmentation than actual coherence. Expectations are good - but regulations and "guidelines" represent the an overextension of the federal government that leads to silos and fragmentation.

I guess that I find it hard to extrapolate from the Recovery School District to other districts across the nation. The situation there required such dramatic intervention....

Finally - we get to the role of the district, and Newark in particular. Where there are 20 schools where 70 percent of students are below proficient in ELA. Ah - what Cami Anderson said is that charters are allowed to pick their teachers but traditional schools are not. So Paul says that the answer is to go charter across the district. But no one is mentioning the fact that state legislatures can CHANGE LAWS and create policies that dramatically impact the ability of schools to do what they need to do - so that they have the conditions in place to realize dramatic change.