Responding to the Chronic Crisis in Education: The Evolution of the School Turnaround Mandate

Stuit, David; Stringfield, Sam

doi:10.1080/10824669.2012.638262

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…This study aims to make a contribution to the limited body of evidence on reconstitution policies and the role this practice plays in the turnaround of school and student success in urban 3 high schools-an area that is currently limited in the literature (Nagle, Yunker, & Malmgren, 2006;Rice & Malen, 2010;Stuit & Stringfield, 2012). The following is a review of the existing literature on the implications of turnaround policies on school and student outcomes.…”

Section: Efficacy Of Turnaroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Nostrum of School Reform? Turning Around Reconstituted Urban Texas High Schools

2013

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A mainstay in NCLB and the Obama administration education plan is turning around low-performing schools. This study utilized surveys and interviews with school leaders from four turnaround urban high schools in Texas to understand student outcomes before and after school restructuring and reconstitution. Although some organizational changes were apparent; overall, respondents cited rapidly changing technical strategies and haphazard adjustments from external sources as a great challenge. Reconstitution also magnified challenges that existed before and after restructuring efforts. Most importantly, the evidence suggests that school reconstitution did not immediately improve student achievement, impact grade retention and decrease student dropout in the study schools.

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Section: Efficacy Of Turnaroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Nostrum of School Reform? Turning Around Reconstituted Urban Texas High Schools

2013

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“…In prioritizing the improvement of the nation's lowest performing schools, the Obama administration sounded Washington's characteristic call for economic growth by way of educational investments. The decision echoed both the economic crisis debates and the educational policy conversations of the moment (Stuit & Stringfield, 2012). Press releases and speeches from President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan reinforced the oft-heard notion that a subset of the public school system was failing to adequately educate children, thereby squelching America's economic hopes.…”

Section: School Turnaround: Another Educational Reform For An Economic Crisismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While there is substantial empirical research on comparable reform efforts (for example, school reconstitution), rigorous, empirical studies of this increasingly widespread practice are as yet in short supply. In our review of the emergent literature on turnarounds, we identified three books on schools and districts with dramatically "turned around" student performance scores (Duke, 2008;Pappano, 2010;zavadsky, 2012), 15 journal articles on turnaround policies and their effectiveness (Berkeley, 2012;Cucchiara, Rooney, & Robertson-Kraft, in press;Duke, 2012;Hamilton, Vasquez Heilig, & Pazey, in press;Hansen, 2012;Herman, 2012;Hochbein, 2012;Johnson, 2012;Marsh, Strunk, & Bush, 2013;McGuinn, 2012;Meyers, Lindsay, Condon, & Wan, 2012;Peck & Reitzug, 2014;Shaffer, Reynolds, & Stringfield, 2012;Stuit, 2012;Stuit & Stringfield, 2012) and 27 non-peerreviewed reports from think tanks, research centers, or advocacy organizations on the subject of school turnaround. 4 To review this literature, we created constructed multiple case-level matrices (Miles & Huberman, 1994) in which we coded each work for both its methodological and conceptual characteristics (both preexisting codes and ones that arose inductively through our analysis).…”

Section: Research On School Turnarounds: Old Wine In New Bottles In 2007 the Mass Insight Education And Research Institute Publishedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Irrational Exuberance for Market-based Reform: How Federal Turnaround Policies Thwart Democratic Schooling

Trujillo

Renée

2015

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background In 2009, the Obama Administration announced its intention to rapidly “turn around” 5,000 of the nation's lowest-performing schools. To do so, it relied on the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program to provide temporary funding for states and schools, and to mandate drastic, school-level reforms. Most of these reforms require massive administrative and teacher layoffs, especially under the “turnaround option.”In the public debate about the SIG program, reforms such as turnarounds have been described as new and innovative. In reality, the nation has significant experience with them, particularly over the past 40 years. Turnaround-style reforms are not only based on unwarranted claims; they ignore contrary research evidence about the potential of mass firings to improve organizational performance. Purpose This paper considers the tensions with democratic education inherent in the federal SIG program's market-based school reforms. It examines the evolution of and intent behind the 2009 federal SIG program. From there, it considers the lessons of forty years of research on educational effectiveness and high-stakes accountability. It builds on this evidence, as well as the growing literature on communities’ engagement in reform, in its analysis of the school turnaround research and practice. The paper culminates in a set of recommendations that are intended to re-center the purposes of public education for low-income students, students of color, and local communities in developing more equitable, democratic school turnarounds. Research Design This article synthesizes forty years of research on school and district effectiveness, high-stakes accountability, and community engagement in school reform to evaluate the federal School Improvement Grant program's potential to cultivate democratic, equitable public schools. It also reviews the small, but rapidly growing literature on school turnarounds, paying particular attention to the ways in which this new field reproduces or departs from earlier literature that examined reform models that are analogous to the current SIG-funded school turnarounds. Conclusions: Based on the provisional lessons that are emerging from current SIG-inspired turnarounds, from research on earlier efforts to improve school and district effectiveness, and from pockets of promising community-based practices that are developing at local and national levels, we propose five steps that federal, state, and local policymakers can take toward fostering more equitable, democratic turnaround processes. First, increase current federal and state spending for public education, particularly as it is allocated for more democratic turnarounds. Second, focus turnaround policies on improving the quality of teaching and learning rather than on technical-structural changes. Third, engage a broad cross-section of schools’ communities—teachers, students, parents, and community organizations—in planning and implementing turnaround strategies that are tailored to each school and district context. Fourth, incorporate multiple indicators of effectiveness—apart from test scores—that reflect the range of purposes for schools. Fifth, support ongoing, systematic research, evaluation, and dissemination examining all aspects of turnaround processes in schools and districts.

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The Overview of the Turnaround Schools in China

Liu

2021

Transforming Turnaround Schools in China

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Responding to the Chronic Crisis in Education: The Evolution of the School Turnaround Mandate

Cited by 5 publications

References 10 publications

A Nostrum of School Reform? Turning Around Reconstituted Urban Texas High Schools

A Nostrum of School Reform? Turning Around Reconstituted Urban Texas High Schools

Irrational Exuberance for Market-based Reform: How Federal Turnaround Policies Thwart Democratic Schooling

The Overview of the Turnaround Schools in China

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