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Center on Innovation and Improvement Reports on Turnaround Schools The Center on Innovation and Improvement recently released three reports on the topic of turnaround schools. Breaking the Habit of Low Performance: Successful School Restructuring Stories This report examines five schools that successfully restructured. By current accountability standards, these schools had long-documented histories of poor performance and failed efforts to improve. At each of these schools, multiple factors enabled them to kick the low-performance habit. The report looks at what these schools have done differently from the thousands of schools that languish in improvement status as well as what actors intervened to catalyze, change, or create an environment conducive to improvement. Performance-Based Dismissals: Cross-Sector Lessons for School Turnarounds This report examines the research on performance-based dismissals outside education—where the experience base is much richer—to inform strategies for turnaround leaders in public education. The ways in which state and district policies enable—or more often impede—targeted staff replacement and provide policy recommendations for local and state education leaders are also examined. Tough Decisions: Closing Persistently Low-Performing Schools The report describes why and how four urban districts—Denver Public Schools, Chicago Public Schools, Hartford Public Schools, and Pittsburgh Public Schools—closed schools for low performance. It focuses on two distinct closure strategies: 1) closing school buildings and dispersing students to other schools; and 2) closing and then reopening the schools with new leadership and staff.
Enabling School Turnaround through State Policy A number of groundbreaking changes in the federal environment, most notably the introduction of Race to the Top, have led to dramatic changes in the state policy landscape for school turnaround. This recent publication by Mass Insight Education analyzes these major changes and offers advice on how state policy can create optimal conditions for school turnaround.
Exploring the Pathway to Rapid District Improvement The Center on Innovation and Improvement's report describing a framework for district capacity building and improvement is now available. Through the use of two illustrative case stories, the publication explores how districts can engage in rapid and sustainable improvement efforts. Included in the report is a summary of issues for consideration by states and districts focused on creating the conditions necessary to catalyze rapid and sustainable district improvement.
Handbook on Statewide Systems of Support The purposes of this Handbook are to survey the research related to statewide systems of support, to present the experience and insights of educational leaders in how such support can best be conducted, and to derive actionable principles for improving schools. It is intended for use not only by the staff of the U.S. Department of Education-sponsored Regional Centers that serve state department staff, but also by the staff of school districts and schools.
Performance-Based Dismissals: Cross-Sector Lessons for School Turnarounds This report examines the research on performance-based dismissals outside education—where the experience base is much richer—to inform strategies for turnaround leaders in public education. The ways in which state and district policies enable—or more often impede—targeted staff replacement and provide policy recommendations for local and state education leaders are also examined.
PREL's Focus on Professional Development This publication from Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL) examines what research tells us about effective professional development in early reading and its role in improving student achievement.
Principal Effectiveness: A New Principalship to Drive Student Achievement, Teacher Effectiveness, and School Turnarounds with Key Insights from the UEF This report from New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS) highlights a new analysis of student data in New Leaders-led schools by the RAND Corporation. as well as presenting policy recommendations for states, school systems, and philanthropic funders on principal effectiveness and turnaround schools.
School Improvement Grants - LEA Webinars on the Intervention Models - Turnaround Model Turnaround Model Webinar Turnaround Model Power Point Slides
School turnaround leaders: Competencies for success Public Impact (2008). School turnaround leaders: Competencies for success.
School turnaround leaders: Selection toolkit Public Impact (2008). School turnaround leaders: Selection toolkit.
School turnaround teachers: Competencies for success Public Impact (2008). School turnaround teachers: Competencies for success.
School turnaround teachers: Selection toolkit Public Impact (2008). School turnaround teachers: Selection toolkit.
School Turnarounds: A Review of the Cross-Sector Evidence on Dramatic Organizational Improvement This report updates and expands Public Impact's 2005 paper reviewing the considerable literature from the business, nonprofit, government, and education sectors on what factors make turnarounds most likely to succeed, including the actions turnaround leaders take and the environment in which they work.
School Turnarounds: Action and Results The Center on Innovation and Improvement recently published a report identifying and explaining 14 leader actions associated with a successful school turnaround. Drawing on case studies, the report includes real-world vignettes of actions that successful school leaders have taken to turn around low-performing schools. An annotated bibliography is also provided.
Selecting the Intervention Model and Partners/Providers for a Low-Achieving School A Decision-Making and Planning Tool for the Local Education Agency In response to the School Improvement Grants (SIG), the Center on Innovation and Improvement has released a tool aiding local education agencies (LEA) in assembling the necessary information and considering the essential questions to select an intervention model that has the greatest potential to dramatically improve outcomes for students attending a low-achieving school. The tool also helps the LEA select the strongest partners and service providers and take the first steps in setting performance expectations and implementing the intervention.
State Turnaround Office: The Foundation of a Statewide School Turnaround Strategy Mass Insights' School Turnaround Group released a publication describing the structure and functions of the State Turnaround Office, an office of the State Education Agency responsible for all turnaround efforts within the state. The publication outlines strategies for building, staffing, and managing a State Turnaround Office.
Successful School Turnarounds: Seven Steps for District Leaders The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement has released an issues brief drawing from the cross-sector research base on successful turnarounds. It offers seven steps for district leaders to support turnaround principals and maximize their chances of success. accompanying webcast is available at: http://www.centerforcsri.org/webcasts/school-turnarounds/
The Turnaround Challenge Mass Insight Education
Toolkit for Implementing the School Improvement Grant Transformation Model The Center on Innovation and Improvement (CII) has released a toolkit for local education agencies (LEA) to use once they have determined that the Transformation Model is the best fit for a school. The document outlines action items involved in implementing the School Improvement Grant (SIG) Transformation Model and provides tools and resources to help districts and schools implement the model.
Try, Try Again: How to Triple the Number of Fixed Failing Schools Without Getting Any Better at Fixing Schools This slide show from Public Impact outlines how education leaders can triple (or possibly quadruple) the number of failing schools fixed within five years by shortening the time that passes before recognizing failure and retrying major change.

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