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12 Tough Questions: A Self-Audit for States Confronting the Challenge of School Turnaround
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Use this self-audit to measure the probable impact of your state's approach to school turnaround currently. This tool is drawn from The Turnaround Challenge, Mass Insight's 2007 report on school turnaround design. A corollary tool for school principals charged with turnaround, probing whether they are being given the supports, flexibility, and authority necessary to lead the work successfully, is available here. |
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The Turnaround Challenge -- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (2007)
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded the Mass Insight Education & Research Institute a grant late in 2005 to produce a framework for states and districts seeking a flexible, systemic approach for swift, significant improvement in schools (particularly high schools) that have clearly failed their mission, producing track records of under-achievement that are indefensibly poor. The Turnaround Challenge and corollary resources available are the result of that grant. This eight-page summary provides an overview of the main points and recommendations in the report. (2007) |
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The Turnaround Challenge -- MAIN REPORT
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded the Mass Insight Education & Research Institute a grant late in 2005 to produce a framework for states and districts seeking a flexible, systemic approach for swift, significant improvement in schools (particularly high schools) that have clearly failed their mission, producing track records of under-achievement that are indefensibly poor. The Turnaround Challenge and corollary resources available are the result of that grant. The full report is available for viewing and for free download as a pdf file. It is 110 pages long. If you download it and print it, do so in "landscape" mode and with two-sided printing for best results. |
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The Turnaround Challenge -- SUPPLEMENT TO THE MAIN REPORT (2007)
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This supplementary report provides more detailed information and profiles of school intervention strategies in ten states and four districts, along with further analysis of high-performing, high-poverty schools. It is 94 pages long. As with the main report, print this document in "landscape" mode and with two-side printing for best results. |
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Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground: How Some High Schools Accelerate Learning for Struggling Students (Nov. 2005)
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This report is the result of a careful, on-the-ground study into the practices of public high schools that serve high concentrations of either low-income or minority children and have a strong track record accelerating learning for students who enter high school below grade level. This study compares and contrasts the practices of these high-impact schools with similar high schools that have only an average impact on student performance. Schools in North Carolina & California are profiled in the Appendix.
Technical Appendix |
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The Power to Change: High Schools that Help All Students Achieve (Nov. 2005)
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This report chronicles the stories of three very different high schools that are getting strong results for minority students and students from low-income families. The report demonstrates clearly that some high schools are succeeding, even under challenging circumstances. Schools profiled are in Elmont, NY, Worcester, MA and Granger, WA. (Nov. 2005) |
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GAO Report: Labor Should Consider Alternative Approaches to Implement New Performance and Reporting Requirements - May 2005
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GAO Report Asserts that Labor Should Consider Alternative Approaches to Implement New Performance and Reporting Requirements (5/05) |
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Expanding the Reach of Education Reforms: What Have We Learned About Scaling Up Educational Interventions? (2004)
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The process of developing and scaling up education reforms is iterative and complex, requiring cooperative interactions among program developers, policymakers, and school authorities. Successful scale-up efforts have four properties: widespread implementation, deep changes in classroom practices, sustainability, and a sense of ownership of new practices and policies among teachers and school leaders. Reform efforts must take into account a set of eight core tasks: developing and providing support for implementation, ensuring high-quality implementation at each school site, evaluating and improving the intervention, obtaining financial support, building organizational capacity, marketing, adapting to local contexts, and sustaining the reform over time. By: Thomas K. Glennan, Jr., Susan J. Bodilly, Jolene Galegher, Kerri A. Kerr, RAND Corporation. (2004) |
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How Pilot Schools Authentically Assess Student Mastery (2004)
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This study documents how member schools of the Boston Pilot Schools Network use authentic assessments to understand what their students know and can do. Against a backdrop of proliferating state-mandated standardized tests, and federal legislation in the form of No Child Left Behind, Pilot Schools use performance-based tasks in which students ask questions that they have formulated on their own and use habits of mind to reflect on their work and thinking. (2004) |
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Telling the Whole Truth (or Not) About High School Graduation: New State Data (Dec. 2003)
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This report highlights the need for states to better report their high school graduation data. Ultimately, this data should result in greater awareness of how many students, particularly low-income and minority students, make it through high school. A state-by-state analysis of graduation rates in all 50 states demonstrates that while some states seem to have seized this opportunity to provide an honest picture of high school graduation among their young people, many other states were lax in reporting complete and useful data. (Dec. 2003) |
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