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Will turnarounds work?
CEO Ron Huberman just announced the latest cohort of turnaround schools. Turnarounds, though controversial, are a key component of the federal reform strategies. What is the most important support that will help turnarounds succeed? Also, many turnarounds have young, inexperienced teachers. What are the drawbacks of having novices on board and what are the advantages?
Turnaround can work. However, as we all know, the "devil is in the details." In addition, we have some learnings from our Chicago model of turnarounds, both negative and positive. My experience is that we need schools that intentionally integrate social and behavioral support, not just academic support, directly into the learning environment. In addition, we have also learned that real student success can only occur in a school culture that embodies the knowledge, skills and resources to address the depth of unmet social and academic needs unique to the students in these "turnaround schools".
First, we have to take a deeper look at the question. What does "work" mean? Too often we talk about the how's of reform without first discussing the why's. "Turnaround" is the latest in a long string of business terms and misplaced metaphors that have become school reform buzzwords. Here I'm thinking back a decade or so ago, when we were putting schools on "probation" (a crime metaphor) and "reconstituting" them (an orange juice metaphor?).
So to get back to the question--will turnaround "work"? If turnaround means truly transforming struggling public schools into real communities of teachers and learners, then we have to ask, is there any basis in education research or past educational practice to indicate a strong chance for success? No. There is none. If works means closing the so-called "achievement gap," again there is no evidence to support the turnaround plan. After all, did the previous cycle of top-down interventions by CPS central office work? No. Has the past decade of NCLB testing madness, Renaissance 2010 school closings and privatization worked? No, despite all the hype about a "Chicago Miracle", most current research has shown it to be a myth.
What has worked? There is some evidence to show that the greatest gains in recent years were connected to the more democratic, top-down/bottom-up initiatives of the early 90s. Support for Local School Councils; communities and their organizations at the decision-making table; teacher-led small schools (not privately-managed charters); and lots of built-in supports for teachers and principals. Improving schools by engaging whole school communities, rather than closing them and firing entire staffs. That's what works.
Another question we need to ask is if this model is actually a new model. Many schools in Chicago have gone through a variety of similar transformations, like reconstitution and small school redesign, where staff had to reapply for their jobs. If these types of reforms from the 1980s and beyond have not resulted in the miracle schools that have been promised, perhaps there is something wrong with the model.
There is also the Chicago-based Strategic Learning Initiative at Finkl Elementary, where staff and schools are resourced at a much lower cost than turnarounds and have shown some very positive results. The use of the nuclear option on our neighborhood schools can be devastating, such as in the case of Fenger High.
Schools are living entities with an ecology of adults and community ties that are not easily reproduced. When Duncan and Company push to eliminate everyone in the building, it can wreak unforeseeable havoc. As author Malcolm Gladwell describes in the book "Outliers," people who are considered brilliant at what they do often have spent an inordinate amount of time practicing their craft. Turnarounds are based on the assumption that bringing in primarily inexperienced teachers and replacing the old, forlorn veteran staff will bring positive results. However, the Teach for America approach to staffing urban schools does not provide for a long-term commitment to developing a professional community.
Last, there is the question of discrimination. A disproportionate number of the teachers fired in turnaround schools are veteran black teachers. According to ISBE, Chicago has lost more than 2,000 black teachers since 2002. What is the impact of having fewer black professionals mentoring black youth in low-income communities throughout the city?
I agree/disagree, due to the fact that many educators and administrators are losing their jobs because the school is underperforming. As a student representative on my school's LSC, I realize that many of the parents aren’t involved in the schools at all or the students are just giving up. It's rare that you find many unprofessional educators and administrators, because they are qualified to do the job. But they don't have the community's assistance in the school. Parents rarely come to the school and help bring forth a better environment for their kids' learning. The teens find no interest and come just to get away from home.
Turnaround schools need to have a better plan other than just coming into a facility where attention is paid to various test scores. They should have a certain criteria for all administrators and educators to meet and then fire the ones that don't meet the criteria. A promising future doesn't appear with new staff at the school. Have the staff already there become more acquainted with the school's environment and become real neighbors of the community where their school is located. It takes parents, teachers and administrators to make great-performing schools. We all need to work together and collaborate as one.
Will turn-arounds work? Are they effective answers to failing schools?
Before analyzing the turn-around it is necessary to define the terms of this model. In 2006 Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, embraced this new educational strategy. In this model the school principal and the teachers are replaced (aka "honorably" terminated or fired), but the children are left in place. This model was created in reaction to the increased violence experienced by CPS as a direct result of Renaissance 2010.
As Barbara Radner, head of the Center for Urban Education at DePaul University, has stated, "There has been some good and some bad in Renaissance 2010, but overall it wasn't the game changer that people thought it would be. In some ways it has been more harmful than good because all the attention, all the funding, all the hope was directed at Ren 10 to the detriment of other effective strategies CPS was developing."
The turn-around model removes the staff and adults who have long-standing relationships with students and families. These relationships with trusted teachers and staff are key to the emotional well-being of students. This model, in effect, assigns blame to teachers for the societal ills that are the root cause of low achievement.
This year's turn-around list has been particularly disconcerting. Two of the schools listed for turn-around are Deneen and Gillespie. Both of these schools became members of theTAP, Teacher Advancement Program, program in September 2009. (This research based model for school improvement focuses on professional development opportunities for teachers and principals, along with professional compensation for the entire staff.) The CPS, under the leadership of Arne Duncan, made application to the federal government in November 2006 for a TIF grant of $27.5 million dollars. (This is the largest competitive gant ever received by CPS.) This money was used to implement TAP in Chicago. These 2 schools, Deneen and Gillespie, signed up and voted - with a 75% vote on the part of the faculty - to participate. Tens of thousands of dollars of grant money has already been expended on these schools and they have been give NO opportunity to demonstrate gains. They have not even been in the program for one semester!
Two of the schools slated for consolidation, McCorkle (which will be consolidated with Beethoven) and Wells (being consolidated with Mollison) Elementary, voted to become part of Chicago/ TAP in September 2007; they are now in their third year of implementation. These schools also voted, with at least a 75% buy-in of staff, to participate in this program. They are both slated to be consolidated with schools that are NOT in the program and have not had access to the specialized training that McCorkle and Wells have experienced. Needless to say, the other schools have not voted to be part of this program and have not received the professional development and extra dollars that have been disbursed already.
How sound is this educational policy? Not very. I believe students deserve safeguards and support under the "School Closings Student Bill of Rights".
In terms of what support(s) will help turnarounds succeed, there is no simple answer. The reality is that taking a school that has been failing for a long time (not just in terms of test scores, but in terms of the broader culture and climate for both students and teachers) and finding a way to make it a supportive, stimulating place for all involved is just plain hard.
I agree with Jackson Potter that schools are living entities with their own ecology and cultural norms. When those norms are healthy, they help reinforce strong practices among teachers and more constructive behaviors among kids. When those norms are dysfunctional, however, they can be tough to break, and something significant is required.
There is almost certainly not a single right answer to what that "something" is, but one ingredient in any effort to fundamentally improve a school's culture and the teaching and learning that take place in a building must be the right leadership. Whatever strategy you think best for reclaiming a school that has been poorly serving students, it cannot succeed if there is not a principal at the helm with the ability to identify and support strong teachers, bring together the adults in the building around a common vision, open school doors to creative partnerships with community and resource groups, involve parents and drive instruction.
In addition, it's hard to imagine tackling any turnaround effort - however structured - without making additional resources and flexibiltiy available to schools. The reality is that students come to school with a complex array of issues, and as a system we need to a better job of preparing teachers and principals for this piece of their work, providing them the resources to address students' social and emotional needs, and then find ways to talk about whether this piece of the puzzle is working. Right now, we don't do any of these things well, and if we're serious about educating every child to his or her ability, we need to acknowledge this aspect of the work more directly, provide the resources necessary, give teachers and leaders the room they need to respond to the students in front of them, and then talk honestly about what's working and what's not.
As others have stated here, when it comes to exploring the effectiveness and impact of school turnaround, there is no easy, immediate answer. It’s complex and it’s early – the jury is still out.
What we can speak to today is the need within any reform effort – especially when new staff is pulled in multiple directions during the turnaround process – to ensure continued focus on meeting the social and emotional needs of students. I’m glad to see so many others have highlighted this need here, as well.
My staff relies on relationships with school leaders to identify student priorities and access their unique knowledge of the schools they serve so that we can maximize connections with community partners and best serve students.
Unfortunately, principal turnover is a significant part of our work. Over the course of the last five years (schools years 2004-2005 to 2008-2009), 61 percent of Communities In Schools of Chicago’s partner schools experienced a change in principal. While principal turnover happens regardless, turnaround compounds the challenges we face as external partners of Chicago schools.
Whether it’s principal turnover (a relatively small disruption in this context) or the multitude of changes that come with a school in turnaround (a larger disruption), it is critical that we keep a collective eye on the ball. This means that no matter the level of disruption or change, we continue to empower schools to leverage relationships with strong external partners, and take advantage of programs that effectively address the social, emotional and physical wellbeing of students.
Thanks for all of your comments. Everyone raised good points--about the need to create better learning environments for kids, to be clear about the 'why' before talking about 'how,' to be cognizant of the disruption that turnarounds can cause, the loss of veteran black educators, etc.
I would like to point to the recent book by Anthony Bryk and some of his colleagues who are at the Consortium on Chicago School Research, called Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago. This book, based on years of research, notes the five factors that have been found to be essential for turning around failing schools: strong leadership; parent-community ties to the school; professional capacity, as measured by the values and skills of teachers and staff; a student-centered, welcoming climate; and strength of instruction and curricula. I sat through a presentation on the book and the research behind it, which show how simple, but yet still difficult, it is to fix a bad school. None of these five factors is difficult to understand. But doing them? Ha! That's why I'm a journalist and editor, not a teacher or a principal.
With such strong research pointing the way, it seems to me that school improvement, whether through turnarounds or some other strategy, must take these factors into account. One question I have is whether the Race to the Top reform criteria do an adequate job of this. Any thoughts on that?
Normally functioning school districts do not discard teachers deemed highly qualified by the state, during such an unproven, experimental process as REN2010. After 15 years of mayor control doesn’t it seem strange that the Board of Education is still closing down low-performing schools and firing tenured teachers and replacing them with non-certified inexperienced personnel?
At the Marshall turnaround hearing the lunchroom supervisor testified that she prepares the food for the students and "What does that have to do with test scores." The point is that the whole turnaround process needs to be stopped because it is obvious that student performance is not the goal when you fire lunch ladies and janitors in the quest for higher test scores.
The turnaround process in and of itself, and the announcements of the school closings and turnarounds, are a destruction of the school environment in not only the affected schools but for all those other schools, staff and students who are wondering who is next. Instead of learning, loving and living the Board of Education and Ron Huberman terrorize the entire city by announcing who is next on the chopping block.
The research now after 15 years of mayor control, turnarounds and school closures, states that the REN2010 process is a failure and has not produced the results it promised.
Chicago schools report contradicts Obama and Duncan.
USA Today. July 12, 2009.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-07-12-chicagoschools13_N.htm
New research from a Chicago civic group takes direct aim at the city's "abysmal" public high school performance — and puts a new spin on the academic gains made during the seven years that Arne Duncan led the Chicago schools before he was named U.S. Education secretary.
The Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago, a supporter of Duncan and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's push for more control of city schools, issued the report June 30. It says city schools have made little progress since 2003.
"Performance is very bad, very weak," says Civic Committee president Eden Martin.
"What I find particularly appalling is that Duncan and Obama — supposed champions of transparency and using research rather than ideology — have cited Chicago's inflated test scores, even though they knew the increases were exaggerated."
Is this the turnaround process legal in accordance to
Public Act 096-0803(105 ILCS 5/34-18.37 new)
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=096-0803
Establishing an equitable and effective school facility development process.
Section (a) (5) In order to minimize the negative impact of school facility decisions on the community, these decisions should be implemented according to a clear system-wide criterion and with the significant involvement of local school councils, parents, educators, and the community in decision-making.
Section (b) In order to ensure that school facility-related decisions are made with the input of the community and reflect educationally sound and fiscally responsible criteria, a Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force shall be established within 15 days after the effective date of this Amendatory Act of the 96th General Assembly.
I am interested in understanding if any of the turn around schools can improve results for students with disabilities. At this point I have my doubts. One of the oldest turn around schools is Sherman. The Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) began running the school in 2006. I recently looked at cohort data for this school and I found that at the fourth grade level in 2007 the school tested on the ISAT in reading 10 students with IEPs. That year only one of these students met standards for reading and 9 were below standards, with one disabled student at the warning level. In 2008 at grade five there were again 10 students with IEPs tested in reading and again only 1 student met standards. There were no students with disabilities functioning at the warning level in reading, and 9 below standards. In 2009 there were only 8 students with IEPs at grade 6, again only 1 student met standards. There were 6 students reading below standards and 1 at the warning level.
I would suggest that at Sherman for the subgroup of students with IEPs, this turn around effort is a failure at least on the level of improving reading skills. I would also surmise that it was the same single individual student with a disability who met reading standards each of three years. This also indicates that no real improvement had taken place at this school for the subgroup.
I have not had the time to look at other turn around schools in a similar way, but I would guess I would see similar results for their students with disabilities too. I think that CPS is not turning around special education programs at these schools effectively, and very recently I stated as much to Mr. Huberman himself during the course of a discussion held at CPS.
Rod Estvan