Description
State Strategies for Turning Around Low-Performing Schools and Districts A Study Guide for Policymakers Based on a Symposium for State Board Chairs and Chief State School Officers.
1
D
espite decades of standards-based reforms,
states continue to struggle with ?nding ways
to turn around low-performing schools and districts.
States encounter barriers at all levels of the system to
implementing coherent responses to the growing number
of schools that are chronically failing to meet performance
requirements. It is estimated that by 2010, about ?ve
percent of the nation’s public schools, many of them
in high-poverty areas, will have moved into the most
extreme NCLB designation—one that calls for school
restructuring. In some states, the ?gure approaches 50
percent of public schools. Te sheer scale of the ongoing
challenges—which now include signi?cant recession-
related belt-tightening for urban schools that already
tend to have fewer resources and less experienced and
less quali?ed teachers than schools in more a? uent
communities—and what is needed to overcome them
have raised a host of issues about how states can create
a viable strategy and the capacity to turn around low
performing schools.
While a great deal is known about the key elements
associated with e?ective schools, much less is known
about how to successfully implement improvement
strategies across large numbers of schools serving high-
poverty, highly challenged students. But one thing is clear:
the vast majority of our urban public education systems
have been unable to bring even half their students to
pro?ciency in academics and readiness for college. Tese
districts account for about 25 percent of dropouts in the
nation and pose one of the gravest social inequities of our
time. A recent report from McKinsey and Company on
the economic impact of the achievement gap states that
“the persistence of these educational achievement gaps
imposes on the United States the economic equivalent
of a permanent national recession.”
1
In another report,
researchers at Johns Hopkins University identi?ed about
2,000 high schools as “dropout factories” that produce 69
percent of all African American dropouts and 63 percent
of all Hispanic dropouts.
2
What’s even more troubling is
that the gap between students from rich and poor families
on measures of educational attainment is much more
pronounced in the United States than in other high-
performing nations around the world. In other words,
the United States fares poorly on a key indicator of equal
opportunity in a society: the degree to which economic
status predicts student achievement. By every measure of
educational achievement, poor and minority students in
this country fare worse than their other American and
international peers.
In March 2009, the National Association of State Boards
of Education (NASBE) and the Council of Chief State
School O? cers (CCSSO) invited Andy Calkins from the
Mass Insight Education and Research Institute and Sam
Redding from the National Center on Innovation and
Improvement to address state board of education chairs
and chief state school o? cers on designing a coherent
strategy to turn around the lowest-performing schools.
Executive directors from NASBE and CCSSO—Brenda
Welburn and Gene Wilhoit—opened the dialogue by
setting the context for state e?orts to turn around low
POLICY UPDATE
Vol. 17, No. 7 Speci al Edi ti on June 2009
State Strategies for Turning Around
Low-Performing Schools and Districts
A Study Guide for Policymakers Based on a Symposium for
State Board Chairs and Chief State School Officers
by Dr. Mariana Haynes
2
performing schools in terms of the opportunity a?orded
through the Obama administration’s priority areas for
federal stimulus funds under the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
3
As public pressure for states
to e?ect change in underperforming schools continues to
increase, there is broad recognition that states must adopt
a more active, strategic role than they’ve had before. State
approaches must move beyond convenience to focus on
addressing the underlying causes of schools’ inability to
meet performance requirements. Welburn and Wilhoit
emphasized that ultimately states would be accountable for
the impact of stimulus spending and cautioned state leaders
to think carefully about the complex factors that impact
turnaround initiatives. In setting the broad parameters for
turnaround strategies, they called for states to:
H Create a framework for school and district intervention
based on research and best practice and develop trans-
parent policy and agency procedures that can be used
to drive improvement across all schools (e.g., through
audits, accreditation processes, and procedures);
H Use longitudinal data systems to monitor student
achievement in content areas and by subgroups,
identify the degree of intervention and support
needed, and design a system that incorporates multiple
tiers or levels that di?er in their nature and intensity;
H Create a set of strategies that leverage resources
and consequences in order to impel districts to act
independently to make improvements before the state
has to intervene to restructure;
H Provide human and ?scal resources to support
turnaround work by developing cadres of specialists,
partners, and teams (e.g., the Virginia School
Turnaround Specialist Program and the Kentucky
Distinguished Educator Program); and
H Implement radically improved management
structures and processes and use community
partnerships and services to transform the most
chronically underperforming districts and schools
serving the most challenged students.
Tis brief outlines the major themes discussed throughout
the symposium for chiefs and state board chairs, outlines
the Mass Insight turnaround framework, and provides
sets of questions states need to consider in creating
innovative solutions for low-performing schools that can
inform large-scale improvement in education.
Leading o? the conversation about how to frame a co-
herent response to high-needs schools, Andy Calkins
outlined a number of critical distinctions and con-
structs that states need to consider to create e?ective
solutions.
4
His remarks were based on the Mass Insight
Education and Research Institute’s report on The Turn-
around Challenge.* Te report chronicles shortcomings
in states’ “light touch” e?orts that focus largely on
programmatic and curricular changes and proposes an
alternate framework for producing dramatic, trans-
formative change in the lowest-performing schools.
5
Calkins called for strong political leadership and com-
mitment in order to design scalable and sustainable
improvements, change conditions and incentives, and
strengthen the systems states establish to train and
support teachers and school leaders. Moreover, he chal-
lenged states to generate solutions with the broader
purpose of integrating evidence-based elements for
turnaround initiatives into systemic improvement ef-
forts for all schools.
THEME 1: UNDERSTAND THE ELEMENTS THAT
SERVE CHALLENGED STUDENTS WELL
C
alkins noted that consistent patterns of perfor-
mance can be seen in all states that show a strong
correlation between poverty and chronic under-perfor-
mance, with the most severe performance de?cits seen
in schools with over 50 percent poverty. He shared data
scatterplots from a number of states that depict the
negative relationship between poverty and achievement:
as the number of students in poverty increases even by a
small degree within schools, achievement declines (see
example in ?g. 1 on page 3). Yet, the data reveals that
while dramatic variability is observed in high-poverty
schools (those with over 50 percent poverty) and that
the majority perform at dire levels, a small number of
*Te Mass Insight Education and Research Institute was founded in 1997 by its current president, William Guenther, with a mission to
help public schools, higher education, business, and state government organize to signi?cantly improve student achievement, with a focus on
closing achievement gaps. A grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation enabled Mass Insight to develop the framework that is at the
heart of Te Turnaround Challenge. Te report is available at www.massinsight.org.
3
schools “beat the odds,” performing above the state me-
dian and proving that poverty and race are not destiny
for low academic attainment.
Calkins said that the good news is that all states have
a handful of these high-performing, high-poverty
(HPHP) schools that can serve as a “new-world” model
of schooling and as an opportunity to understand and
replicate the hallmarks of what contributes to their suc-
cess. Based on an extensive review of research from a
number of ?elds, Calkins and his fellow researchers at-
tributed the high-level performance to a major shift in
organizational mission that moved these schools from
the traditional conveyor belt, teaching-driven model
(what’s taught) to a student-centered, learning-driven
model (what’s learned). “Schools do not achieve high per-
formance by doing one or two things di?erently—they
must do a number of things di?erently, and all at the
same time, to begin to achieve the critical mass that will
make a di?erence in student outcomes,” Calkins said.“In
other words, high-poverty schools that achieve gains in
student performance engage in systemic change.”
6
So how do we understand what those schools actually do
that sets them apart? Te attributes of HPHP schools have
been incorporated into Mass Insight’s “Readiness” Model.
Tis framework delineates a set of conditions, capacities, and
attributes essential to organizing schools around a deep com-
mitment to meeting the individual needs of every learner.
HPHP schools di?er appreciably from others in their will-
ingness to take on the concerns and challenges facing highly
challenged, high-poverty students. What’s striking about
these schools is their overriding mission to serve students
and make decisions in their best interest, as opposed to re-
sponding to structures, contracts, and schedules that pose
barriers to responding to the needs of individual learners.
Figure 1. 2007 Grade 4 Math Results for All Schools in Washington State
High-Performing,
High-Poverty Schools
Percent low income (free/reduced lunch), 2007
P
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r
c
e
n
t
m
e
e
t
i
n
g
s
t
a
t
e
m
a
t
h
s
t
a
n
d
a
r
d
,
2
0
0
7
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
100
80
60
40
20
This scatterplot shows the relationship between school performance and the percentage of low-income stu-
dents (each dot represents one school). While states have slightly different performance standards, the general
trend line (represented by the green diagonal line above) is distressingly similar across the country: the higher
the percentage of low-income students, the lower a school’s performance is likely to be. The very important
good news, however, is that there are always a few high-poverty schools that perform well above the state
median. For policymakers, the question is how to take the lessons from these schools and apply them in a sys-
tematic way to improve all low-performing schools. Data source: Washington State Board of Education. Graph
adapted from presentation by Andy Calkins to the NASBE/CCSSO symposium, March 11, 2009.
4
Te model includes nine elements identi?ed as attributes
of HPHP schools (see textbox above).
Te question for state boards and chiefs, of course, is
how can states replicate the model HPHPs and create
programs for underperforming schools in the context
of a broader state system of supports and interventions?
What’s often missed is that, although many of the bar-
riers and conditions that impede major improvements
also operate in higher-income communities, the limita-
tions of the system and their impact on more a? uent
student groups are obscured. As the bar has risen for all
students to achieve at higher levels of college and career
readiness, states will need to consider how to scale the
HPHP practices highlighted in the Mass Insight Read-
iness Model: their ability to cultivate shared responsibil-
ity for achievement among individuals throughout the
system, the use of frequent assessment to personalize
instruction, and the focus on the cultivation of a profes-
sional, collaborative teaching culture.
Readiness to Learn
1. Safety, Discipline, and Engagement: Students feel secure and inspired to learn
2. Action Against Adversity: Schools directly address their students’ poverty-driven deficits
3. Close Student-Adult Relationships: Students have positive and enduring mentor/teacher
relationships
Readiness to Teach
4. Shared Responsibility for Achievement: Staff feels deep accountability and a missionary
zeal for student achievement
5. Personalization of Instruction: Individualized teaching based on diagnostic assessment
and adjustable time on task
6. Professional Teaching Culture: Continuous improvement through collaboration and job-
embedded learning
Readiness to Act
7. Resource Authority: School leaders can make mission-driven decisions regarding people,
time, money, and program
8. Resource Ingenuity: Leaders are adept at securing additional resources and leveraging
partner relationships
9. Agility in the Face of Turbulence: Leaders, teachers, and systems are flexible and
inventive in responding to constant unrest
Source: The Turnaround Challenge: Why America’s Best Opportunity to Dramatically Improve Student Achieve-
ment Lies in Our Worst-performing Schools, Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, available online at
www.massinsight.org/resourcefiles/TheTurnaroundChallenge_2007.pdf.
Key Characteristics of High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools
5
THEME 2: CONFRONTING BARRIERS AND BUILDING
CAPACITY
H
ow can we organize ourselves to ask the right ques-
tions and transform how we work in schools that
serve challenging students? What’s stopping us from apply-
ing the lessons from HPHP schools and scaling e?ective
practice throughout the broader system? Calkins cautioned
state leaders about the pitfalls of reform strategies that do
little more than add a new program or provide some mini-
mal coaching and training. State e?orts and capacity to turn
around schools run headlong into longstanding concerns
about the fundamental assumptions and impact of stan-
dards-based reform. State reform has set instructional goals
in terms of student outcomes or achievement levels rather
than in terms of what schools do to help students achieve.
Moreover, moving beyond standard approaches to interven-
ing in low-performing schools requires grappling with con-
sistent barriers that undercut the impact of school reform
initiatives. Studies point to insu? cient and unstable re-
sources, insu? cient time for professional development and
teacher collaboration, in?exibility in allocating resources to
higher need areas, lack of coherent systems to recruit, devel-
op, and retain quality educators, and the need for program
coherence among state education agencies.
Why has so little fundamental change occurred nationally
in failing schools to date? One answer is that most school
reform shows up in schools—even in those schools that
have persistently failed—as fairly disconnected, incremen-
tal improvement projects that do not adequately address
root causes. Scaling up what works and leading systemic
change are inherently di? cult because they require changing
the behavior of all individuals at every level of the system.
Ultimately, improving school performance requires signi?-
cant improvements at the classroom level in the quality of
instructional practice and the level of student engagement,
learning, and performance. But this calls for schools to make
mission-driven decisions in accord with students’ needs—
and hence, truly comprehensive, transformational reform
challenges conventional structures, processes, and “turf.”
Unfortunately, an array of political forces, funding problems,
and turnover in school and district leadership have contrib-
uted to a lack of sustained focus and the current paucity of
successful turnaround models.
Te state educational o? cials participating in the sympo-
sium concurred on two major obstacles impeding e?ective
turnaround e?orts: ?rst, the lack of human capacity—the
system does not have the people needed to produce universal
high-quality schools, and second, operating conditions—the
system doesn’t allow its primary organizations to work ef-
Theme 1 Questions for State Leaders
k What have you learned from high-performing, high-poverty (HPHP) schools in your state?
k Does your state recognize that a turnaround strategy for failing schools requires fundamental changes
that are different from an incremental improvement strategy?
k What is the opportunity represented by struggling schools? How can your state replicate a model of
HPHP schools and integrate key elements into the broader system?
k How can a state build and leverage local support for a turnaround effort that catalyzes genuine change
(and will therefore ruffle some feathers)? What are effective tactics that can reduce opposition (from
communities, local school boards, schools, and policy/legislative leaders) to transformative intervention
strategies?
k What are the respective roles for state boards, governors, and state education chiefs in leading the
way on school turnaround?
6
fectively or motivate the people in them to do their best
work. Te implications are that states will need to pilot new
comprehensive approaches that include changes in the way
states work within the state agency and with districts and
schools. To that end, education and policy leaders will need
to create greater program coherence at all levels of the sys-
tem, secure permanence in funding for programs, identify
mechanisms to increase operating ?exibility and autonomy,
and redesign systems that support the entry, development,
and retention of quality teachers and school leaders.
Calkins and Redding
8
urged states to have hard conversa-
tions about what’s at stake, the role of key political leaders,
how to leverage improvements, build su? cient capacity,
and create models that help de?ne what success will look
like. Of critical importance is the notion of reciprocal ac-
countability that must operate at each level so that the roles
and responsibilities of key players enhance the capacity and
performance of others—from the state through the districts
to the schools and students. Te state must do everything
possible to reduce the barriers that impede mission-driven
decisions and use incentives as well as accountability mea-
sures to get districts to turn around their lowest performing
schools. Such e?orts require leading change at all levels to
create a culture of continuous improvement that shifts from
compliance to a service mode on the part of all entities.
States need to consider how to create organizational struc-
tures to coordinate action across divisions within the state
agency, increase coherence and alignment in leveraging ex-
pertise and resources, and build an infrastructure for devel-
oping and providing intervention and support customized
to meet the local context.
9
Finally, capacity for turnaround work rests with the caliber
of people in the system. States must commit to addressing
the longstanding problems with their systems for recruiting,
preparing, supporting, and evaluating teachers and school
leaders. Programs for preparing educators, for example,
continue to be driven by what providers want to o?er—not
by what schools or sta? need; and licensure remains poorly
connected to how well educators impact student achieve-
ment and school performance. Studies show that the train-
ing principals receive across the nation leaves the majority
ill-equipped for the job of promoting powerful teaching and
learning, particularly with those students who need it the
most. A national study of 31 preparation programs by Hess
and Kelly found a critical lack of emphasis on results-orient-
ed management and accountability, hiring quality teachers,
making personnel decisions on the basis of performance, or
using data or technology to manage school improvement.
10
In like fashion, more than two-thirds of teachers in the
United States reported that they had not even had one day
of training during the previous three years in how to support
the learning of special education or LEP students.
11
Theme 2 Questions for State Leaders
k How can changing organizational structures within the state help districts and schools address the
challenge of chronically low-performing schools?
k What organizational issues need to be addressed? What would be the best possible state structure
for leading a turnaround effort (e.g., turnaround zone, new SEA division, P-16 subcommittee, quasi-
independent state authority, other)? Who would it include and how would it be funded?
k Does your state recognize that turnaround success depends primarily on an effective people strategy that
recruits, develops, and retains strong leadership teams and teachers?
k Does your state provide sufficient incentives in pay and working conditions to attract the best possible
staff and encourage them to do their best work?
k Does your state’s turnaround strategy provide school-level leaders with sufficient streamlined authority
over staff, schedule, budget, and programming to implement the turnaround plan?
7
In 2006, the Washington State legislature charged the
Washington State Board of Education with develop-
ing a statewide accountability system that identifies
“schools and districts which are successful, in need of
assistance, and those where students persistently fail
[and where]…improvement measures and appropriate
strategies are needed.” The legislature also asked the
state board to develop a statewide strategy to help the
challenged schools improve. Washington contracted
with Boston-based Mass Insight Education and Research
Institute and Seattle-based Education First Consulting
to assist the state board in developing the plan for state
and local partnerships to help Washington’s lowest-
performing schools improve.
This team convened a broad range of stakeholders in
Washington to deliberate on what can be done for the
schools in highest need, called Priority Schools. The
goal was to prepare recommendations and proposals
for the 2009 legislative session, as well as for the state’s
Joint Basic Education Funding Task Force. While the rec-
ommendations specifically focus on strategies to help the
most challenged schools, they link with the state’s larger
accountability system and assistance plans for all schools.
The proposed plan frames a new kind of state and local
partnership in standards-based reform for Washington
State. It grew directly out of a set of “guiding prin-
ciples” developed by the project’s design team, which
was composed of more than 20 key stakeholder lead-
ers. Based on an examination of the research on barri-
ers to school improvement (both in-state and nation-
ally), as well as on extensive conversations with various
stakeholders, the state board and the design team
developed general consensus around a set of guiding
principles for turnaround in Washington State:
The Seven Guiding Principles
1. The initiative is driven by one mission: student success. Whatever the reason, most students
are not succeeding in Priority Schools. This initiative is our chance to show that they can—and how they
can—so other schools can follow.
2. The solution we develop is collective. Every stakeholder may not agree with every strategy; aspects
of the solution may call for new thinking and new roles for all participants. But this challenge requires
proactive involvement from all of us.
3. There is reciprocal accountability among all stakeholders. This challenge needs a comprehensive
solution that distributes accountability across the key stakeholders: the state, districts, professional
associations, schools, and community leaders.
4. To have meaning, reciprocal accountability is backed by reciprocal consequences. Everyone
lives up to their end of the agreement, or consequences ensue.
5. The solution directly addresses the barriers to reform. As identified by Washington State
stakeholders, these include inadequate resources; inflexible operating conditions; insufficient capacity;
and not enough time.
6. The solution requires a sustained commitment. That includes sufficient time for planning, two
years to demonstrate significant improvement (i.e., leaving the Priority Schools list), and two more years
to show sustained growth.
7. The solution requires absolute clarity on roles—for the state and all of its branches, districts,
schools, and partners.
Source: Serving Every Child Well: Washington State’s Commitment to Help Challenged Schools Succeed. Final Report to the
Washington State Board of Education (Boston, MA: Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, December 2008). Available
online at www.sbe.wa.gov/documents/MassInsightFinalReport12-08.pdf.
Washington State’s Guiding Principles for the Design of Turnaround Strategy
8
Theme 3: Creating a “Turnaround Zone”
C
alkins spoke of the need to change the systemic con-
ditions that actively shape how everyone behaves in
schools. He noted there is evidence that leaders of HPHP
schools succeed largely by circumventing the most dysfunc-
tional obstacles presented by the system. In order to foster
this kind of behavior in more low-performing schools,
Calkins recommended clustering schools (organized
around a common attribute such as school type, reform ap-
proach, or feeder pattern) into Turnaround Zones. Within
such zones, school leaders are given increased autonomy
and ?exibility over such areas as:
H Sta? ng—including more authority over hiring, place-
ment, compensation, and work rules;
H Scheduling—including longer school days, longer year,
or year-round school calendar;
H Funding—including both more resources and more
budgeting ?exibility;
H School program—including more authority to design
the program to speci?cally ?t the needs of the school’s
students, both academically and psycho-socially; and
H Leadership—within this framework, districts need
to establish professional norms for strategic human
capital initiatives that focus on developing the capacity
of school leadership teams to lead school turnaround.
In addition to designing systems for attracting and
retaining quality teachers and leaders, capacity-build-
ing hinges on creating networks and partnerships with
entities that can provide turnaround expertise.
A number a big-city districts, including Chicago, New Or-
leans, New York City, and Philadelphia, have been experi-
menting with Turnaround Zones for several years. Te idea
is to enable local leaders to earn the opportunity to turn
around schools in partnership with the state and through
what Calkins called “the three C’s”: changing conditions,
capacity, and clustering.
Te core strategies include crafting a carrot and stick ap-
proach, creating di?erentiated levels of intervention in dis-
tricts based on the degree of need, and balancing ?exibility
and autonomy for districts to leverage their willingness to
change prior to losing control to the state under the ?nal
NCLB designation—reconstitution.
Districts can opt into a partnership with the state and re-
ceive resources and other supports in exchange for meeting
speci?c criteria and benchmarks. It is essential to provide
countervailing incentives to generate bold action that di?ers
from the standard approaches taken by states to intervene
in low-performing schools. Strong interventions are rare
because they tend to confront established interests and
state and district constraints. In other words, the state must
carefully balance the degree of autonomy over operating
conditions (time, people, money, and resources) with the
accountability for making progress within an agreed upon
timeframe. Te goal is to reduce the compliance burden
and redirect how decisions are made in accord with student
interests and the mission of the school. Te state reserves
the ?nal option to change governance and intervene if in-
su? cient progress is made, but the intent is to give districts
the incentive to opt into a self-designed turnaround strategy
before restructuring or reconstitution is needed.
Theme 3 Questions for State Leaders
k Within the protected Turnaround Zones, does your state collaborate with districts to organize turnaround
work into school clusters (by need, school type, region)?
k How can schools be clustered so reforms can expand systemically, not just taking place in one school at a time?
k Does your state have a strategy to develop lead partner organizations with specific expertise needed to
provide intensive school turnaround support?
k What’s needed to leverage innovation and improvements at the district level to serve, high-poverty students?
k What models already exist in the state that turnaround efforts can build on? These could include charter, pilot,
alternative, or other schools that set aside some normal operating structures in order to give leaders more
freedom to allocate people, time, money, and programs according to their students’ needs.
9
F
ollowing the session with Andy Calkins, panelists
from Massachusetts and Maryland o?ered insights
and examples of how their states were moving beyond tra-
ditional school improvement e?orts to connect and align
major reform strategies at the state, district, and school
levels. Te panel was moderated by Richard Laine, Direc-
tor of Education Programs at Te Wallace Foundation,
who framed the discussion by emphasizing that we know
a great deal about what it takes to turn around schools,
but lack the political will to apply the necessary levers
to build capacity, allocate resources, and alter operating
conditions. Laine asked the states about their e?orts to
build capacity at all levels of the system in order to ensure
strong implementation and sustainability of turnaround
interventions and strategies.
Massachusetts
Maura Banta, chair of the Massachusetts State Board of
Education and Mitchell Chester, state Commissioner of
Education, outlined the evolution of their state-level dis-
trict audit system, which is conducted under the auspices of
an independent agency, the Education Quality Administra-
tion O? ce. Over time, the state created a process to inte-
grate accountability with the assistance and intervention
functions provided through the state education department,
focusing on the district as the point of entry and as the es-
sential unit to scale and sustain turnaround e?orts.
Te resulting framework created ?ve graduated levels of
intervention for districts, depending on the seriousness of
their need for corrective action. Te greatest number of
districts fall into the ?rst designation and receive access to
planning tools and resources based on the “Ten Essential
Conditions” for improving teaching and learning, adopted
in October 2006 and which form the basis of the state’s
turnaround strategy (see www.massinsight.org/resourcefiles/TheTurn-
aroundChallenge_SupplementalReport_2007.pdf). Te Ten Essential Con-
ditions are:
1. Te school’s principal has authority to select and as-
sign sta? to positions in the school without regard to
seniority;
2. Te school’s principal has control over ?nancial
resources necessary to successfully implement the
school improvement plan;
3. Te school is implementing curricula that are aligned
to state frameworks in core academic subjects;
4. Te school systematically implements a program of
interim assessments (four to six times per year) in
English language arts and mathematics that are aligned
to the school curriculum and state frameworks;
5. Te school has a system to provide detailed tracking
and analysis of assessment results and uses those re-
sults to inform curriculum, instruction, and individual
interventions;
6. Te school schedule for student learning provides
adequate time on a daily and weekly basis for the
delivery of instruction and provision of individual-
ized support as needed in English language arts
and math. For students not yet pro?cient, support is
presumed to be at least 90 minutes per day in each
subject;
7. Te school provides daily after-school tutoring and
homework help for students who need supplemental
instruction and focused work on skill development;
8. Te school has a least two full-time subject-area
coaches, one each for English language arts/reading
and for mathematics, who are responsible to provide
faculty at the school with consistent classroom ob-
servation and feedback on the quality and e?ective-
ness of curriculum delivery, instructional practice,
and data use;
9. School administrators periodically evaluate faculty,
including direct evaluation of applicable content
knowledge and annual evaluation of overall perfor-
mance tied in part to solid growth in student learning
and commitment to the school’s culture, educational
model, and improvement strategy; and
State Panel on Turnaround Efforts in
Massachusetts and Maryland
10
10. Te weekly and annual work schedule for teachers
provides adequate time for regular, frequent,
department and/or grade-level faculty meetings to
discuss individual student progress, curriculum issues,
instructional practice, and school-wide improvement
e?orts. As a general rule, no less than one hour per
week should be dedicated to leadership-directed,
collaborative work, and no fewer than ?ve days per
year (or equivalent hours) when teachers are not
responsible for supervising or teaching students,
will be dedicated to professional development and
planning activities directed by school leaders.
Te most severe designation for districts—chronic
underperformance—applies to only a handful in the
state and requires tighter regulation in the form of co-
governance and joint decision-making between the
state and district. In order to motivate districts to act
independently and preempt a state takeover, districts
have the opportunity to use tools to identify root causes,
develop a recovery plan with state guidance and oversight,
and receive resources and support to make progress in
meeting benchmarks.
Chester emphasized the following points about leading
change at the state level:
H Create strategies that di?erentiate need and level of
intervention and supports;
H Build district capacity and expertise;
H Rely on partners to expand work across regions; and
H Exercise the power of the state to leverage attention,
resources, and partnerships to mobilize e?orts and
sustain progress.
Maryland
Robert Glascock, the Executive Director of the Break-
through Center in the Maryland State Department of
Education (MSDE), described his state’s e?orts to work
with districts on turnaround strategies, broker a range of
services and resources in education, business, government,
and research centers; and create cross-district and cross-sec-
tor networks. Te Breakthrough Center represents a shift
for the MSDE from compliance monitoring to providing
strategic direction and services as part of a di?erentiated
accountability system. Glascock outlined the core principles
emanating from the Maryland Commission on Education
Finance, Equity, and Excellence (known as the Tornton
Commission after its chairman, Alvin Tornton).
In 2002, the General Assembly enacted the Bridge to Ex-
cellence in Public Schools Act, based substantially on the
recommendations of the Tornton Commission. Te act
sought to increase state funding for public education and to
ensure that school systems have adequate resources to meet
student performance standards while providing maximum
local ?exibility for the systems to allocate resources. Te
Act signi?cantly enhanced local school system account-
ability for student performance by requiring all local school
More Questions for State Leaders
k How has the state integrated accountability and technical assistance?
k How can the state leverage a coordinated response from districts at all levels to preempt the need for state
intervention and ultimately restructuring?
k What resources, partnerships, and tools are available to help all districts proactively implement well-designed
improvement strategies?
k How can your state build district capacity to sustain improvements following the infusion of resources, funds,
and technical assistance?
11
systems to develop a ?ve-year comprehensive master plan
for student achievement. Te Act increased per pupil fund-
ing across the board and eliminated numerous categorical
programs in favor of providing additional per pupil funding
for students with special needs (including special education
students, those with limited English pro?ciency, and those
su?ering from economic disadvantage).
Consistent with enhancing adequacy, equity, and ?exibility
to advance education, Glascock emphasized increasing
the services and supports needed to meet the unique and
emerging needs of Maryland districts. Key functions of
the Breakthrough Center include:
H Developing greater coherence and customization of
services and solutions for districts and schools;
H Eliminating the overlap between services and
programs delivered by various divisions within the
state agency;
H Providing strategies to ensure high-capacity
teaching and a personalized learning environment
for students;
H Clarifying and formalizing the criteria for district
participation and level of involvement; and
H Establishing uniform standards of quality to measure
the impact of these services.
As the number of schools in improvement increased
under the No Child Left Behind Act, Maryland sought
new ways of working to focus strategically on: 1) how to
build sustainability of improvement and 2) how to pro-
vide more uniquely tailored strategies for improvement.
Maryland applied for and received permission from the
U.S. Department of Education to pilot a di?erentiated
accountability system. Accordingly, the Breakthrough
Center began providing two categories of support servic-
es: Buildup Services—targeted primarily for districts and
schools in the “Comprehensive” category of improvement
and available to those in the “Alert” status to prevent pro-
gression into the more severe categories of improvement;
and Access Services—available to all districts and schools
and required for those in the “Focus” category of school
improvement (see www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/differentiatedac-
countability/mdexsum.doc.).
According to Glascock, the central elements of a
successful turnaround strategy should include clustering
of schools as part of a turnaround zone within and across
districts; using technology and data to communicate
across networks; and increasing coherence in state-level
guidance, program requirements (e.g., special education,
Title I), and funding.
State Levers for Improving Priority Schools
and Districts
Finally, in response to Richard Laine’s question about how
states identify and align key levers to mobilize innovation
and improvements in priority districts and schools, the
panelists identi?ed a number of leverage points:
1. Increasing coherence by ensuring that policy and
program elements are integrated and sustained to
maximize e? ciencies, transparency, and impact;
2. Refocusing attention on the learner as a way to
begin working across multiple systems (e.g., health,
juvenile justice, social services) and coordinating
e?orts to address impacts on challenged populations
(e.g., dropouts, English language learners);
3. Developing regional and collaborative structures to
create networks, expertise, and resources that expand
capacity to scale e?ective practices and strategies;
4. Clustering districts that have been unsuccessful in
signi?cantly improving schools in order to pool
resources, strategies, and personnel around a common
agenda;
5. Identifying the tools and operating conditions
needed for turnaround work and integrating resource
elements such as human resource departments, IT,
and purchasing toward turnaround goals;
6. Balancing ?exibility and autonomy based on the local
context to accelerate change and apply what’s worked
to inform broader systems design; and
7. Addressing union contracts so that the state,
district, and teachers are working in tandem toward
the goal of ameliorating the circumstances of low
performance.
12
Conclusion
Troughout the symposium, the participants were
challenged to think about three broad areas in
considering e?ective turnaround strategies: 1) the
political and communication dimensions of a school
turnaround e?ort; 2) reorganizing state structures,
policies, and processes; and 3) building capacity for
turnaround e?orts. States examined a range of issues
that drive the level of commitment and capacity to
pioneer new approaches to longstanding challenges
in reducing enormous gaps in student attainment.
A number of other themes surfaced, including the
importance of honest and open discussion about the
level of commitment to adopting comprehensive
turnaround strategies; the need for greater coherence
among board policies, agency procedures, and guidance
to districts and schools; creating a culture of mutual
accountability for mission-driven policy development
and decision-making; expanding expertise and
capacity through strategic use of networks, regional
centers, partnerships, and technology; establishing
a cycle of continuous evaluation and re?nement to
scale what works and maximize e? ciencies; and
building a human capital system to ensure that highly
e?ective teachers and school leaders serve in our most
challenged schools.
Foremost, state board members and state education
chiefs recognized the critical window of opportunity
a?orded in the current political and economic
environment. Tey gave voice to the growing sense
of urgency to grapple with longstanding issues about
disparities in education opportunity for di?erent
student groups and to respond to the challenges to
prepare a highly educated workforce for America’s
21st century. Tey discussed the rami?cations and
opportunities pro?ered by the federal American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act and how stimulus
funds could be used to enhance system and human
capacities to accelerate reforms in public education,
particularly in the lowest-performing schools.
Finally, there was agreement that now is the time to
chart a viable state role in providing supports and
interventions to meet the needs of highly challenged
students in the run up to the reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Endnotes
1. McKinsey and Company, Social Sector O? ce, Te Economic Impact
of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools (McKinsey and
Company, 2009).
2. National Governors Association, Council of Chief State School
O? cers, and Achieve, Inc., Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring
U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education (Washington, DC:
International Benchmarking Advisory Group, December 2008).
3. Available online at www.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/index.html.
4. Andy Calkins was formerly the Senior Vice President of Mass
Insight Education and Research Insight and is currently the
Senior Program O? cer of the Learning Community E? cacy
Network of the Stupski Foundation.
5. A. Calkins, W. Guenther, G. Bel?ore, and D. Lash, Te Turnaround
Challenge: Why America’s Best Opportunity To Dramatically
Improve Student Achievement Lies In Our Worst-Performing
Schools (Boston, MA: Mass Insight Education and Research
Institute, 2007). Available online at www.massinsight.org/resourcefiles/
TheTurnaroundChallenge_2007.pdf.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Sam Redding is Executive Director, Academic Development
Institute and Director, National Center on Innovation and
Improvement.
9. M. Haynes, Building the Capacity of State Education Agencies to
Support Schools (Arlington, VA: National Association of State
Boards of Education, February 2009).
10. F. M. Hess and A. P. Kelly, Learning to Lead? What Gets Taught
in Principal Preparation Programs (Washington, DC: American
Enterprise Institute, 2005).
11. L. Darling-Hammond, R.C. Wei, A. Andree, N. Richardson,
and S. Orphanos, Professional Learning in the Learning Profession:
A Status Report on Teacher Development in the United States and
Abroad (Palo Alto, CA: National Sta? Development Council and
Te School Redesign Network at Stanford University, 2009).
Policy Updates are developed
and produced by the National
Association of State Boards of
Education, 2121 Crystal Drive,
Suite 350, Arlington, Virginia
22202. 703-684-4000, www.nasbe.org. For more information
about this topic and other school leadership issues, contact
Dr. Mariana Haynes at [email protected].
Tis Policy Update was produced with support from Te
Wallace Foundation. To learn more about the foundation
and its work in education leadership and other ?elds, please
visit the Knowledge Center at www.wallacefoundation.org.
doc_974916850.pdf
State Strategies for Turning Around Low-Performing Schools and Districts A Study Guide for Policymakers Based on a Symposium for State Board Chairs and Chief State School Officers.
1
D
espite decades of standards-based reforms,
states continue to struggle with ?nding ways
to turn around low-performing schools and districts.
States encounter barriers at all levels of the system to
implementing coherent responses to the growing number
of schools that are chronically failing to meet performance
requirements. It is estimated that by 2010, about ?ve
percent of the nation’s public schools, many of them
in high-poverty areas, will have moved into the most
extreme NCLB designation—one that calls for school
restructuring. In some states, the ?gure approaches 50
percent of public schools. Te sheer scale of the ongoing
challenges—which now include signi?cant recession-
related belt-tightening for urban schools that already
tend to have fewer resources and less experienced and
less quali?ed teachers than schools in more a? uent
communities—and what is needed to overcome them
have raised a host of issues about how states can create
a viable strategy and the capacity to turn around low
performing schools.
While a great deal is known about the key elements
associated with e?ective schools, much less is known
about how to successfully implement improvement
strategies across large numbers of schools serving high-
poverty, highly challenged students. But one thing is clear:
the vast majority of our urban public education systems
have been unable to bring even half their students to
pro?ciency in academics and readiness for college. Tese
districts account for about 25 percent of dropouts in the
nation and pose one of the gravest social inequities of our
time. A recent report from McKinsey and Company on
the economic impact of the achievement gap states that
“the persistence of these educational achievement gaps
imposes on the United States the economic equivalent
of a permanent national recession.”
1
In another report,
researchers at Johns Hopkins University identi?ed about
2,000 high schools as “dropout factories” that produce 69
percent of all African American dropouts and 63 percent
of all Hispanic dropouts.
2
What’s even more troubling is
that the gap between students from rich and poor families
on measures of educational attainment is much more
pronounced in the United States than in other high-
performing nations around the world. In other words,
the United States fares poorly on a key indicator of equal
opportunity in a society: the degree to which economic
status predicts student achievement. By every measure of
educational achievement, poor and minority students in
this country fare worse than their other American and
international peers.
In March 2009, the National Association of State Boards
of Education (NASBE) and the Council of Chief State
School O? cers (CCSSO) invited Andy Calkins from the
Mass Insight Education and Research Institute and Sam
Redding from the National Center on Innovation and
Improvement to address state board of education chairs
and chief state school o? cers on designing a coherent
strategy to turn around the lowest-performing schools.
Executive directors from NASBE and CCSSO—Brenda
Welburn and Gene Wilhoit—opened the dialogue by
setting the context for state e?orts to turn around low
POLICY UPDATE
Vol. 17, No. 7 Speci al Edi ti on June 2009
State Strategies for Turning Around
Low-Performing Schools and Districts
A Study Guide for Policymakers Based on a Symposium for
State Board Chairs and Chief State School Officers
by Dr. Mariana Haynes
2
performing schools in terms of the opportunity a?orded
through the Obama administration’s priority areas for
federal stimulus funds under the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
3
As public pressure for states
to e?ect change in underperforming schools continues to
increase, there is broad recognition that states must adopt
a more active, strategic role than they’ve had before. State
approaches must move beyond convenience to focus on
addressing the underlying causes of schools’ inability to
meet performance requirements. Welburn and Wilhoit
emphasized that ultimately states would be accountable for
the impact of stimulus spending and cautioned state leaders
to think carefully about the complex factors that impact
turnaround initiatives. In setting the broad parameters for
turnaround strategies, they called for states to:
H Create a framework for school and district intervention
based on research and best practice and develop trans-
parent policy and agency procedures that can be used
to drive improvement across all schools (e.g., through
audits, accreditation processes, and procedures);
H Use longitudinal data systems to monitor student
achievement in content areas and by subgroups,
identify the degree of intervention and support
needed, and design a system that incorporates multiple
tiers or levels that di?er in their nature and intensity;
H Create a set of strategies that leverage resources
and consequences in order to impel districts to act
independently to make improvements before the state
has to intervene to restructure;
H Provide human and ?scal resources to support
turnaround work by developing cadres of specialists,
partners, and teams (e.g., the Virginia School
Turnaround Specialist Program and the Kentucky
Distinguished Educator Program); and
H Implement radically improved management
structures and processes and use community
partnerships and services to transform the most
chronically underperforming districts and schools
serving the most challenged students.
Tis brief outlines the major themes discussed throughout
the symposium for chiefs and state board chairs, outlines
the Mass Insight turnaround framework, and provides
sets of questions states need to consider in creating
innovative solutions for low-performing schools that can
inform large-scale improvement in education.
Leading o? the conversation about how to frame a co-
herent response to high-needs schools, Andy Calkins
outlined a number of critical distinctions and con-
structs that states need to consider to create e?ective
solutions.
4
His remarks were based on the Mass Insight
Education and Research Institute’s report on The Turn-
around Challenge.* Te report chronicles shortcomings
in states’ “light touch” e?orts that focus largely on
programmatic and curricular changes and proposes an
alternate framework for producing dramatic, trans-
formative change in the lowest-performing schools.
5
Calkins called for strong political leadership and com-
mitment in order to design scalable and sustainable
improvements, change conditions and incentives, and
strengthen the systems states establish to train and
support teachers and school leaders. Moreover, he chal-
lenged states to generate solutions with the broader
purpose of integrating evidence-based elements for
turnaround initiatives into systemic improvement ef-
forts for all schools.
THEME 1: UNDERSTAND THE ELEMENTS THAT
SERVE CHALLENGED STUDENTS WELL
C
alkins noted that consistent patterns of perfor-
mance can be seen in all states that show a strong
correlation between poverty and chronic under-perfor-
mance, with the most severe performance de?cits seen
in schools with over 50 percent poverty. He shared data
scatterplots from a number of states that depict the
negative relationship between poverty and achievement:
as the number of students in poverty increases even by a
small degree within schools, achievement declines (see
example in ?g. 1 on page 3). Yet, the data reveals that
while dramatic variability is observed in high-poverty
schools (those with over 50 percent poverty) and that
the majority perform at dire levels, a small number of
*Te Mass Insight Education and Research Institute was founded in 1997 by its current president, William Guenther, with a mission to
help public schools, higher education, business, and state government organize to signi?cantly improve student achievement, with a focus on
closing achievement gaps. A grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation enabled Mass Insight to develop the framework that is at the
heart of Te Turnaround Challenge. Te report is available at www.massinsight.org.
3
schools “beat the odds,” performing above the state me-
dian and proving that poverty and race are not destiny
for low academic attainment.
Calkins said that the good news is that all states have
a handful of these high-performing, high-poverty
(HPHP) schools that can serve as a “new-world” model
of schooling and as an opportunity to understand and
replicate the hallmarks of what contributes to their suc-
cess. Based on an extensive review of research from a
number of ?elds, Calkins and his fellow researchers at-
tributed the high-level performance to a major shift in
organizational mission that moved these schools from
the traditional conveyor belt, teaching-driven model
(what’s taught) to a student-centered, learning-driven
model (what’s learned). “Schools do not achieve high per-
formance by doing one or two things di?erently—they
must do a number of things di?erently, and all at the
same time, to begin to achieve the critical mass that will
make a di?erence in student outcomes,” Calkins said.“In
other words, high-poverty schools that achieve gains in
student performance engage in systemic change.”
6
So how do we understand what those schools actually do
that sets them apart? Te attributes of HPHP schools have
been incorporated into Mass Insight’s “Readiness” Model.
Tis framework delineates a set of conditions, capacities, and
attributes essential to organizing schools around a deep com-
mitment to meeting the individual needs of every learner.
HPHP schools di?er appreciably from others in their will-
ingness to take on the concerns and challenges facing highly
challenged, high-poverty students. What’s striking about
these schools is their overriding mission to serve students
and make decisions in their best interest, as opposed to re-
sponding to structures, contracts, and schedules that pose
barriers to responding to the needs of individual learners.
Figure 1. 2007 Grade 4 Math Results for All Schools in Washington State
High-Performing,
High-Poverty Schools
Percent low income (free/reduced lunch), 2007
P
e
r
c
e
n
t
m
e
e
t
i
n
g
s
t
a
t
e
m
a
t
h
s
t
a
n
d
a
r
d
,
2
0
0
7
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
100
80
60
40
20
This scatterplot shows the relationship between school performance and the percentage of low-income stu-
dents (each dot represents one school). While states have slightly different performance standards, the general
trend line (represented by the green diagonal line above) is distressingly similar across the country: the higher
the percentage of low-income students, the lower a school’s performance is likely to be. The very important
good news, however, is that there are always a few high-poverty schools that perform well above the state
median. For policymakers, the question is how to take the lessons from these schools and apply them in a sys-
tematic way to improve all low-performing schools. Data source: Washington State Board of Education. Graph
adapted from presentation by Andy Calkins to the NASBE/CCSSO symposium, March 11, 2009.
4
Te model includes nine elements identi?ed as attributes
of HPHP schools (see textbox above).
Te question for state boards and chiefs, of course, is
how can states replicate the model HPHPs and create
programs for underperforming schools in the context
of a broader state system of supports and interventions?
What’s often missed is that, although many of the bar-
riers and conditions that impede major improvements
also operate in higher-income communities, the limita-
tions of the system and their impact on more a? uent
student groups are obscured. As the bar has risen for all
students to achieve at higher levels of college and career
readiness, states will need to consider how to scale the
HPHP practices highlighted in the Mass Insight Read-
iness Model: their ability to cultivate shared responsibil-
ity for achievement among individuals throughout the
system, the use of frequent assessment to personalize
instruction, and the focus on the cultivation of a profes-
sional, collaborative teaching culture.
Readiness to Learn
1. Safety, Discipline, and Engagement: Students feel secure and inspired to learn
2. Action Against Adversity: Schools directly address their students’ poverty-driven deficits
3. Close Student-Adult Relationships: Students have positive and enduring mentor/teacher
relationships
Readiness to Teach
4. Shared Responsibility for Achievement: Staff feels deep accountability and a missionary
zeal for student achievement
5. Personalization of Instruction: Individualized teaching based on diagnostic assessment
and adjustable time on task
6. Professional Teaching Culture: Continuous improvement through collaboration and job-
embedded learning
Readiness to Act
7. Resource Authority: School leaders can make mission-driven decisions regarding people,
time, money, and program
8. Resource Ingenuity: Leaders are adept at securing additional resources and leveraging
partner relationships
9. Agility in the Face of Turbulence: Leaders, teachers, and systems are flexible and
inventive in responding to constant unrest
Source: The Turnaround Challenge: Why America’s Best Opportunity to Dramatically Improve Student Achieve-
ment Lies in Our Worst-performing Schools, Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, available online at
www.massinsight.org/resourcefiles/TheTurnaroundChallenge_2007.pdf.
Key Characteristics of High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools
5
THEME 2: CONFRONTING BARRIERS AND BUILDING
CAPACITY
H
ow can we organize ourselves to ask the right ques-
tions and transform how we work in schools that
serve challenging students? What’s stopping us from apply-
ing the lessons from HPHP schools and scaling e?ective
practice throughout the broader system? Calkins cautioned
state leaders about the pitfalls of reform strategies that do
little more than add a new program or provide some mini-
mal coaching and training. State e?orts and capacity to turn
around schools run headlong into longstanding concerns
about the fundamental assumptions and impact of stan-
dards-based reform. State reform has set instructional goals
in terms of student outcomes or achievement levels rather
than in terms of what schools do to help students achieve.
Moreover, moving beyond standard approaches to interven-
ing in low-performing schools requires grappling with con-
sistent barriers that undercut the impact of school reform
initiatives. Studies point to insu? cient and unstable re-
sources, insu? cient time for professional development and
teacher collaboration, in?exibility in allocating resources to
higher need areas, lack of coherent systems to recruit, devel-
op, and retain quality educators, and the need for program
coherence among state education agencies.
Why has so little fundamental change occurred nationally
in failing schools to date? One answer is that most school
reform shows up in schools—even in those schools that
have persistently failed—as fairly disconnected, incremen-
tal improvement projects that do not adequately address
root causes. Scaling up what works and leading systemic
change are inherently di? cult because they require changing
the behavior of all individuals at every level of the system.
Ultimately, improving school performance requires signi?-
cant improvements at the classroom level in the quality of
instructional practice and the level of student engagement,
learning, and performance. But this calls for schools to make
mission-driven decisions in accord with students’ needs—
and hence, truly comprehensive, transformational reform
challenges conventional structures, processes, and “turf.”
Unfortunately, an array of political forces, funding problems,
and turnover in school and district leadership have contrib-
uted to a lack of sustained focus and the current paucity of
successful turnaround models.
Te state educational o? cials participating in the sympo-
sium concurred on two major obstacles impeding e?ective
turnaround e?orts: ?rst, the lack of human capacity—the
system does not have the people needed to produce universal
high-quality schools, and second, operating conditions—the
system doesn’t allow its primary organizations to work ef-
Theme 1 Questions for State Leaders
k What have you learned from high-performing, high-poverty (HPHP) schools in your state?
k Does your state recognize that a turnaround strategy for failing schools requires fundamental changes
that are different from an incremental improvement strategy?
k What is the opportunity represented by struggling schools? How can your state replicate a model of
HPHP schools and integrate key elements into the broader system?
k How can a state build and leverage local support for a turnaround effort that catalyzes genuine change
(and will therefore ruffle some feathers)? What are effective tactics that can reduce opposition (from
communities, local school boards, schools, and policy/legislative leaders) to transformative intervention
strategies?
k What are the respective roles for state boards, governors, and state education chiefs in leading the
way on school turnaround?
6
fectively or motivate the people in them to do their best
work. Te implications are that states will need to pilot new
comprehensive approaches that include changes in the way
states work within the state agency and with districts and
schools. To that end, education and policy leaders will need
to create greater program coherence at all levels of the sys-
tem, secure permanence in funding for programs, identify
mechanisms to increase operating ?exibility and autonomy,
and redesign systems that support the entry, development,
and retention of quality teachers and school leaders.
Calkins and Redding
8
urged states to have hard conversa-
tions about what’s at stake, the role of key political leaders,
how to leverage improvements, build su? cient capacity,
and create models that help de?ne what success will look
like. Of critical importance is the notion of reciprocal ac-
countability that must operate at each level so that the roles
and responsibilities of key players enhance the capacity and
performance of others—from the state through the districts
to the schools and students. Te state must do everything
possible to reduce the barriers that impede mission-driven
decisions and use incentives as well as accountability mea-
sures to get districts to turn around their lowest performing
schools. Such e?orts require leading change at all levels to
create a culture of continuous improvement that shifts from
compliance to a service mode on the part of all entities.
States need to consider how to create organizational struc-
tures to coordinate action across divisions within the state
agency, increase coherence and alignment in leveraging ex-
pertise and resources, and build an infrastructure for devel-
oping and providing intervention and support customized
to meet the local context.
9
Finally, capacity for turnaround work rests with the caliber
of people in the system. States must commit to addressing
the longstanding problems with their systems for recruiting,
preparing, supporting, and evaluating teachers and school
leaders. Programs for preparing educators, for example,
continue to be driven by what providers want to o?er—not
by what schools or sta? need; and licensure remains poorly
connected to how well educators impact student achieve-
ment and school performance. Studies show that the train-
ing principals receive across the nation leaves the majority
ill-equipped for the job of promoting powerful teaching and
learning, particularly with those students who need it the
most. A national study of 31 preparation programs by Hess
and Kelly found a critical lack of emphasis on results-orient-
ed management and accountability, hiring quality teachers,
making personnel decisions on the basis of performance, or
using data or technology to manage school improvement.
10
In like fashion, more than two-thirds of teachers in the
United States reported that they had not even had one day
of training during the previous three years in how to support
the learning of special education or LEP students.
11
Theme 2 Questions for State Leaders
k How can changing organizational structures within the state help districts and schools address the
challenge of chronically low-performing schools?
k What organizational issues need to be addressed? What would be the best possible state structure
for leading a turnaround effort (e.g., turnaround zone, new SEA division, P-16 subcommittee, quasi-
independent state authority, other)? Who would it include and how would it be funded?
k Does your state recognize that turnaround success depends primarily on an effective people strategy that
recruits, develops, and retains strong leadership teams and teachers?
k Does your state provide sufficient incentives in pay and working conditions to attract the best possible
staff and encourage them to do their best work?
k Does your state’s turnaround strategy provide school-level leaders with sufficient streamlined authority
over staff, schedule, budget, and programming to implement the turnaround plan?
7
In 2006, the Washington State legislature charged the
Washington State Board of Education with develop-
ing a statewide accountability system that identifies
“schools and districts which are successful, in need of
assistance, and those where students persistently fail
[and where]…improvement measures and appropriate
strategies are needed.” The legislature also asked the
state board to develop a statewide strategy to help the
challenged schools improve. Washington contracted
with Boston-based Mass Insight Education and Research
Institute and Seattle-based Education First Consulting
to assist the state board in developing the plan for state
and local partnerships to help Washington’s lowest-
performing schools improve.
This team convened a broad range of stakeholders in
Washington to deliberate on what can be done for the
schools in highest need, called Priority Schools. The
goal was to prepare recommendations and proposals
for the 2009 legislative session, as well as for the state’s
Joint Basic Education Funding Task Force. While the rec-
ommendations specifically focus on strategies to help the
most challenged schools, they link with the state’s larger
accountability system and assistance plans for all schools.
The proposed plan frames a new kind of state and local
partnership in standards-based reform for Washington
State. It grew directly out of a set of “guiding prin-
ciples” developed by the project’s design team, which
was composed of more than 20 key stakeholder lead-
ers. Based on an examination of the research on barri-
ers to school improvement (both in-state and nation-
ally), as well as on extensive conversations with various
stakeholders, the state board and the design team
developed general consensus around a set of guiding
principles for turnaround in Washington State:
The Seven Guiding Principles
1. The initiative is driven by one mission: student success. Whatever the reason, most students
are not succeeding in Priority Schools. This initiative is our chance to show that they can—and how they
can—so other schools can follow.
2. The solution we develop is collective. Every stakeholder may not agree with every strategy; aspects
of the solution may call for new thinking and new roles for all participants. But this challenge requires
proactive involvement from all of us.
3. There is reciprocal accountability among all stakeholders. This challenge needs a comprehensive
solution that distributes accountability across the key stakeholders: the state, districts, professional
associations, schools, and community leaders.
4. To have meaning, reciprocal accountability is backed by reciprocal consequences. Everyone
lives up to their end of the agreement, or consequences ensue.
5. The solution directly addresses the barriers to reform. As identified by Washington State
stakeholders, these include inadequate resources; inflexible operating conditions; insufficient capacity;
and not enough time.
6. The solution requires a sustained commitment. That includes sufficient time for planning, two
years to demonstrate significant improvement (i.e., leaving the Priority Schools list), and two more years
to show sustained growth.
7. The solution requires absolute clarity on roles—for the state and all of its branches, districts,
schools, and partners.
Source: Serving Every Child Well: Washington State’s Commitment to Help Challenged Schools Succeed. Final Report to the
Washington State Board of Education (Boston, MA: Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, December 2008). Available
online at www.sbe.wa.gov/documents/MassInsightFinalReport12-08.pdf.
Washington State’s Guiding Principles for the Design of Turnaround Strategy
8
Theme 3: Creating a “Turnaround Zone”
C
alkins spoke of the need to change the systemic con-
ditions that actively shape how everyone behaves in
schools. He noted there is evidence that leaders of HPHP
schools succeed largely by circumventing the most dysfunc-
tional obstacles presented by the system. In order to foster
this kind of behavior in more low-performing schools,
Calkins recommended clustering schools (organized
around a common attribute such as school type, reform ap-
proach, or feeder pattern) into Turnaround Zones. Within
such zones, school leaders are given increased autonomy
and ?exibility over such areas as:
H Sta? ng—including more authority over hiring, place-
ment, compensation, and work rules;
H Scheduling—including longer school days, longer year,
or year-round school calendar;
H Funding—including both more resources and more
budgeting ?exibility;
H School program—including more authority to design
the program to speci?cally ?t the needs of the school’s
students, both academically and psycho-socially; and
H Leadership—within this framework, districts need
to establish professional norms for strategic human
capital initiatives that focus on developing the capacity
of school leadership teams to lead school turnaround.
In addition to designing systems for attracting and
retaining quality teachers and leaders, capacity-build-
ing hinges on creating networks and partnerships with
entities that can provide turnaround expertise.
A number a big-city districts, including Chicago, New Or-
leans, New York City, and Philadelphia, have been experi-
menting with Turnaround Zones for several years. Te idea
is to enable local leaders to earn the opportunity to turn
around schools in partnership with the state and through
what Calkins called “the three C’s”: changing conditions,
capacity, and clustering.
Te core strategies include crafting a carrot and stick ap-
proach, creating di?erentiated levels of intervention in dis-
tricts based on the degree of need, and balancing ?exibility
and autonomy for districts to leverage their willingness to
change prior to losing control to the state under the ?nal
NCLB designation—reconstitution.
Districts can opt into a partnership with the state and re-
ceive resources and other supports in exchange for meeting
speci?c criteria and benchmarks. It is essential to provide
countervailing incentives to generate bold action that di?ers
from the standard approaches taken by states to intervene
in low-performing schools. Strong interventions are rare
because they tend to confront established interests and
state and district constraints. In other words, the state must
carefully balance the degree of autonomy over operating
conditions (time, people, money, and resources) with the
accountability for making progress within an agreed upon
timeframe. Te goal is to reduce the compliance burden
and redirect how decisions are made in accord with student
interests and the mission of the school. Te state reserves
the ?nal option to change governance and intervene if in-
su? cient progress is made, but the intent is to give districts
the incentive to opt into a self-designed turnaround strategy
before restructuring or reconstitution is needed.
Theme 3 Questions for State Leaders
k Within the protected Turnaround Zones, does your state collaborate with districts to organize turnaround
work into school clusters (by need, school type, region)?
k How can schools be clustered so reforms can expand systemically, not just taking place in one school at a time?
k Does your state have a strategy to develop lead partner organizations with specific expertise needed to
provide intensive school turnaround support?
k What’s needed to leverage innovation and improvements at the district level to serve, high-poverty students?
k What models already exist in the state that turnaround efforts can build on? These could include charter, pilot,
alternative, or other schools that set aside some normal operating structures in order to give leaders more
freedom to allocate people, time, money, and programs according to their students’ needs.
9
F
ollowing the session with Andy Calkins, panelists
from Massachusetts and Maryland o?ered insights
and examples of how their states were moving beyond tra-
ditional school improvement e?orts to connect and align
major reform strategies at the state, district, and school
levels. Te panel was moderated by Richard Laine, Direc-
tor of Education Programs at Te Wallace Foundation,
who framed the discussion by emphasizing that we know
a great deal about what it takes to turn around schools,
but lack the political will to apply the necessary levers
to build capacity, allocate resources, and alter operating
conditions. Laine asked the states about their e?orts to
build capacity at all levels of the system in order to ensure
strong implementation and sustainability of turnaround
interventions and strategies.
Massachusetts
Maura Banta, chair of the Massachusetts State Board of
Education and Mitchell Chester, state Commissioner of
Education, outlined the evolution of their state-level dis-
trict audit system, which is conducted under the auspices of
an independent agency, the Education Quality Administra-
tion O? ce. Over time, the state created a process to inte-
grate accountability with the assistance and intervention
functions provided through the state education department,
focusing on the district as the point of entry and as the es-
sential unit to scale and sustain turnaround e?orts.
Te resulting framework created ?ve graduated levels of
intervention for districts, depending on the seriousness of
their need for corrective action. Te greatest number of
districts fall into the ?rst designation and receive access to
planning tools and resources based on the “Ten Essential
Conditions” for improving teaching and learning, adopted
in October 2006 and which form the basis of the state’s
turnaround strategy (see www.massinsight.org/resourcefiles/TheTurn-
aroundChallenge_SupplementalReport_2007.pdf). Te Ten Essential Con-
ditions are:
1. Te school’s principal has authority to select and as-
sign sta? to positions in the school without regard to
seniority;
2. Te school’s principal has control over ?nancial
resources necessary to successfully implement the
school improvement plan;
3. Te school is implementing curricula that are aligned
to state frameworks in core academic subjects;
4. Te school systematically implements a program of
interim assessments (four to six times per year) in
English language arts and mathematics that are aligned
to the school curriculum and state frameworks;
5. Te school has a system to provide detailed tracking
and analysis of assessment results and uses those re-
sults to inform curriculum, instruction, and individual
interventions;
6. Te school schedule for student learning provides
adequate time on a daily and weekly basis for the
delivery of instruction and provision of individual-
ized support as needed in English language arts
and math. For students not yet pro?cient, support is
presumed to be at least 90 minutes per day in each
subject;
7. Te school provides daily after-school tutoring and
homework help for students who need supplemental
instruction and focused work on skill development;
8. Te school has a least two full-time subject-area
coaches, one each for English language arts/reading
and for mathematics, who are responsible to provide
faculty at the school with consistent classroom ob-
servation and feedback on the quality and e?ective-
ness of curriculum delivery, instructional practice,
and data use;
9. School administrators periodically evaluate faculty,
including direct evaluation of applicable content
knowledge and annual evaluation of overall perfor-
mance tied in part to solid growth in student learning
and commitment to the school’s culture, educational
model, and improvement strategy; and
State Panel on Turnaround Efforts in
Massachusetts and Maryland
10
10. Te weekly and annual work schedule for teachers
provides adequate time for regular, frequent,
department and/or grade-level faculty meetings to
discuss individual student progress, curriculum issues,
instructional practice, and school-wide improvement
e?orts. As a general rule, no less than one hour per
week should be dedicated to leadership-directed,
collaborative work, and no fewer than ?ve days per
year (or equivalent hours) when teachers are not
responsible for supervising or teaching students,
will be dedicated to professional development and
planning activities directed by school leaders.
Te most severe designation for districts—chronic
underperformance—applies to only a handful in the
state and requires tighter regulation in the form of co-
governance and joint decision-making between the
state and district. In order to motivate districts to act
independently and preempt a state takeover, districts
have the opportunity to use tools to identify root causes,
develop a recovery plan with state guidance and oversight,
and receive resources and support to make progress in
meeting benchmarks.
Chester emphasized the following points about leading
change at the state level:
H Create strategies that di?erentiate need and level of
intervention and supports;
H Build district capacity and expertise;
H Rely on partners to expand work across regions; and
H Exercise the power of the state to leverage attention,
resources, and partnerships to mobilize e?orts and
sustain progress.
Maryland
Robert Glascock, the Executive Director of the Break-
through Center in the Maryland State Department of
Education (MSDE), described his state’s e?orts to work
with districts on turnaround strategies, broker a range of
services and resources in education, business, government,
and research centers; and create cross-district and cross-sec-
tor networks. Te Breakthrough Center represents a shift
for the MSDE from compliance monitoring to providing
strategic direction and services as part of a di?erentiated
accountability system. Glascock outlined the core principles
emanating from the Maryland Commission on Education
Finance, Equity, and Excellence (known as the Tornton
Commission after its chairman, Alvin Tornton).
In 2002, the General Assembly enacted the Bridge to Ex-
cellence in Public Schools Act, based substantially on the
recommendations of the Tornton Commission. Te act
sought to increase state funding for public education and to
ensure that school systems have adequate resources to meet
student performance standards while providing maximum
local ?exibility for the systems to allocate resources. Te
Act signi?cantly enhanced local school system account-
ability for student performance by requiring all local school
More Questions for State Leaders
k How has the state integrated accountability and technical assistance?
k How can the state leverage a coordinated response from districts at all levels to preempt the need for state
intervention and ultimately restructuring?
k What resources, partnerships, and tools are available to help all districts proactively implement well-designed
improvement strategies?
k How can your state build district capacity to sustain improvements following the infusion of resources, funds,
and technical assistance?
11
systems to develop a ?ve-year comprehensive master plan
for student achievement. Te Act increased per pupil fund-
ing across the board and eliminated numerous categorical
programs in favor of providing additional per pupil funding
for students with special needs (including special education
students, those with limited English pro?ciency, and those
su?ering from economic disadvantage).
Consistent with enhancing adequacy, equity, and ?exibility
to advance education, Glascock emphasized increasing
the services and supports needed to meet the unique and
emerging needs of Maryland districts. Key functions of
the Breakthrough Center include:
H Developing greater coherence and customization of
services and solutions for districts and schools;
H Eliminating the overlap between services and
programs delivered by various divisions within the
state agency;
H Providing strategies to ensure high-capacity
teaching and a personalized learning environment
for students;
H Clarifying and formalizing the criteria for district
participation and level of involvement; and
H Establishing uniform standards of quality to measure
the impact of these services.
As the number of schools in improvement increased
under the No Child Left Behind Act, Maryland sought
new ways of working to focus strategically on: 1) how to
build sustainability of improvement and 2) how to pro-
vide more uniquely tailored strategies for improvement.
Maryland applied for and received permission from the
U.S. Department of Education to pilot a di?erentiated
accountability system. Accordingly, the Breakthrough
Center began providing two categories of support servic-
es: Buildup Services—targeted primarily for districts and
schools in the “Comprehensive” category of improvement
and available to those in the “Alert” status to prevent pro-
gression into the more severe categories of improvement;
and Access Services—available to all districts and schools
and required for those in the “Focus” category of school
improvement (see www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/differentiatedac-
countability/mdexsum.doc.).
According to Glascock, the central elements of a
successful turnaround strategy should include clustering
of schools as part of a turnaround zone within and across
districts; using technology and data to communicate
across networks; and increasing coherence in state-level
guidance, program requirements (e.g., special education,
Title I), and funding.
State Levers for Improving Priority Schools
and Districts
Finally, in response to Richard Laine’s question about how
states identify and align key levers to mobilize innovation
and improvements in priority districts and schools, the
panelists identi?ed a number of leverage points:
1. Increasing coherence by ensuring that policy and
program elements are integrated and sustained to
maximize e? ciencies, transparency, and impact;
2. Refocusing attention on the learner as a way to
begin working across multiple systems (e.g., health,
juvenile justice, social services) and coordinating
e?orts to address impacts on challenged populations
(e.g., dropouts, English language learners);
3. Developing regional and collaborative structures to
create networks, expertise, and resources that expand
capacity to scale e?ective practices and strategies;
4. Clustering districts that have been unsuccessful in
signi?cantly improving schools in order to pool
resources, strategies, and personnel around a common
agenda;
5. Identifying the tools and operating conditions
needed for turnaround work and integrating resource
elements such as human resource departments, IT,
and purchasing toward turnaround goals;
6. Balancing ?exibility and autonomy based on the local
context to accelerate change and apply what’s worked
to inform broader systems design; and
7. Addressing union contracts so that the state,
district, and teachers are working in tandem toward
the goal of ameliorating the circumstances of low
performance.
12
Conclusion
Troughout the symposium, the participants were
challenged to think about three broad areas in
considering e?ective turnaround strategies: 1) the
political and communication dimensions of a school
turnaround e?ort; 2) reorganizing state structures,
policies, and processes; and 3) building capacity for
turnaround e?orts. States examined a range of issues
that drive the level of commitment and capacity to
pioneer new approaches to longstanding challenges
in reducing enormous gaps in student attainment.
A number of other themes surfaced, including the
importance of honest and open discussion about the
level of commitment to adopting comprehensive
turnaround strategies; the need for greater coherence
among board policies, agency procedures, and guidance
to districts and schools; creating a culture of mutual
accountability for mission-driven policy development
and decision-making; expanding expertise and
capacity through strategic use of networks, regional
centers, partnerships, and technology; establishing
a cycle of continuous evaluation and re?nement to
scale what works and maximize e? ciencies; and
building a human capital system to ensure that highly
e?ective teachers and school leaders serve in our most
challenged schools.
Foremost, state board members and state education
chiefs recognized the critical window of opportunity
a?orded in the current political and economic
environment. Tey gave voice to the growing sense
of urgency to grapple with longstanding issues about
disparities in education opportunity for di?erent
student groups and to respond to the challenges to
prepare a highly educated workforce for America’s
21st century. Tey discussed the rami?cations and
opportunities pro?ered by the federal American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act and how stimulus
funds could be used to enhance system and human
capacities to accelerate reforms in public education,
particularly in the lowest-performing schools.
Finally, there was agreement that now is the time to
chart a viable state role in providing supports and
interventions to meet the needs of highly challenged
students in the run up to the reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Endnotes
1. McKinsey and Company, Social Sector O? ce, Te Economic Impact
of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools (McKinsey and
Company, 2009).
2. National Governors Association, Council of Chief State School
O? cers, and Achieve, Inc., Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring
U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education (Washington, DC:
International Benchmarking Advisory Group, December 2008).
3. Available online at www.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/index.html.
4. Andy Calkins was formerly the Senior Vice President of Mass
Insight Education and Research Insight and is currently the
Senior Program O? cer of the Learning Community E? cacy
Network of the Stupski Foundation.
5. A. Calkins, W. Guenther, G. Bel?ore, and D. Lash, Te Turnaround
Challenge: Why America’s Best Opportunity To Dramatically
Improve Student Achievement Lies In Our Worst-Performing
Schools (Boston, MA: Mass Insight Education and Research
Institute, 2007). Available online at www.massinsight.org/resourcefiles/
TheTurnaroundChallenge_2007.pdf.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Sam Redding is Executive Director, Academic Development
Institute and Director, National Center on Innovation and
Improvement.
9. M. Haynes, Building the Capacity of State Education Agencies to
Support Schools (Arlington, VA: National Association of State
Boards of Education, February 2009).
10. F. M. Hess and A. P. Kelly, Learning to Lead? What Gets Taught
in Principal Preparation Programs (Washington, DC: American
Enterprise Institute, 2005).
11. L. Darling-Hammond, R.C. Wei, A. Andree, N. Richardson,
and S. Orphanos, Professional Learning in the Learning Profession:
A Status Report on Teacher Development in the United States and
Abroad (Palo Alto, CA: National Sta? Development Council and
Te School Redesign Network at Stanford University, 2009).
Policy Updates are developed
and produced by the National
Association of State Boards of
Education, 2121 Crystal Drive,
Suite 350, Arlington, Virginia
22202. 703-684-4000, www.nasbe.org. For more information
about this topic and other school leadership issues, contact
Dr. Mariana Haynes at [email protected].
Tis Policy Update was produced with support from Te
Wallace Foundation. To learn more about the foundation
and its work in education leadership and other ?elds, please
visit the Knowledge Center at www.wallacefoundation.org.
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