Turning around failing organizations: Insights for educational leaders

Abstract

Purpose In this article, we review the literature from the organizational sciences to develop a grounded narrative of turnaround in education. Approach The approach is a review of literature. We employ an integrated process to unpack and make sense of the turnaround literature from the organizational sciences. We rely on strategies appropriate for document analysis, and borrow analytic strategies (e.g., memoing, coding) employed with interview data. Findings We examine seven defining themes that flow from our review of empirical and theoretical work on organizational recovery in firms, non-educational public agencies, and not-for-profit organizations: (1) not all failing schools are worth saving; (2) focus on leadership; (3) act quickly; (4) diagnose first; (5) emphasize efficiency moves; (6) create a sense of hope; and (7) backward map from the customer and focus on core activities linked to valued outcomes. Implications We posit that the literature on turning around failing organizations in sectors outside of education provides blueprints for recovery activity in failing schools. The implications for turnaround leadership are particularly strong. Originality This is the first systematic effort to mine research in the corporate, not-for-profit, and public sectors to develop insights for turning around failing schools.Keywords School turnaround Á School reform Á Failing schools Over the last decade, the notion of turning around failing schools has exploded onto the educational landscape in various countries throughout the world. Fueled by government accountability systems and an expanding body of knowledge about productive schooling for all students, educators, policymakers, and actors in the general community have been calling for dramatic action to turnaround schools that fail to effectively educate significant numbers of students (Chapman 2002;Hassel and Steiner 2003;Levin 2006;Malen and

Organizational Learning in Schools under Sanction

“…In fact, Marks and Printy [36] found that the response to state accountability policies in Ohio undermined organizational learning capacity in schools by reducing participative decision making, collaborative activity, and the transfer of knowledge and skills. Similarly, two recent reviews of the organizational sciences literature [37,38] note the critical aspect of school leadership in successful turnaround systems.…”

Making Waves in Riverside: A Superintendent/Principal Partnership for Dramatic School Turnaround

“…In the literature, terms such as “school improvement” or “school reform” often refer to incremental improvement over long periods of time (Herman et al, 2008). The term “turnaround,” however, has been more distinctly defined as improvement that is quick and dramatic (Duke, 2012) and marked by drastic disruption (Meyers & Smylie, 2017) and a sense of urgency (Murphy, 2010). Although large-scale reviews of turnaround literature indicate varied measures of what constitutes “turnaround” in education (Hochbein, 2012; Meyers & Hambrick Hitt, 2017), the term most often refers to rapid improvement in student outcomes, specifically increases in standardized test scores (Herman et al, 2008; Meyers & Hambrick Hitt, 2017; Peck & Reitzug, 2014).…”

“…There are few empirical studies of turnaround as related specifically to education. Much of the current research consists of qualitative studies and interviews (Meyers & Hambrick Hitt, 2017) or is borrowed from organizational and business literature (Murphy, 2010). However, review of the existing research does indicate some common features of successful turnarounds.…”

Sustaining organisational change: Teacher education in the Solomon Islands

“…Building leadership capacity is crucial to the sustainability of organisational change (Murphy, 2010), within the Solomon Islands context, but this goes hand in hand with respect for, and inclusion of, indigenous cultural considerations.…”

“…At the start of the Partnership, the SOE programmes were out of date, facilities and resources very poor, staff morale low and there was a lack of strategic planning (NZAID, 2006). The SOE could thus be described as a failing organisation (Murphy, 2010). This is commonplace in fragile states, where "… these concepts [fragile states and fragility] incorporate ideas that underline a government's weak capacity to provide social services such as education" (Mosselson, Wheaton, & St. John Frisoli, 2009).…”