Archive

• Student Mobility — September 3, 2010
• Class Size — August 27, 2010
• Mixed-Ability Grouping — August 20, 2010
• Performance-Based Assessments— August 13, 2010
• Teacher Preparation for Urban Schools — August 6, 2010
• Teacher Induction Programs — July 30, 2010
• Phonics Instruction — July 23, 2010
• Single-Sex Education — July 16, 2010
• Teacher Candidates' Field Experiences — July 9, 2010
• Kindergarten Entry Age — July 2, 2010
• Equitable Distribution of Teachers — June 25, 2010
• Drug Abuse Prevention Programs — June 18, 2010
• Data Use by Teachers— June 11, 2010
• School Start Time — June 4, 2010
• Balance Balls and Student Attention — May 28, 2010
• Student Mentoring — May 21, 2010
• Alternative Schools — May 14, 2010
• Low-Performing Schools — May 7, 2010
• Extended Learning Time — April 30, 2010
• 21st Century Skills — April 23, 2010
• Dropout Prevention Legislation — April 16, 2010
• High-School Grade Configuration — April 9, 2010
• Middle-Grades Configuration — April 2, 2010
• Music and Infant Development — March 26, 2010
• Homework and Student Achievement — March 19, 2010
• Foreign Language Technology — March 12, 2010
• Standardized Testing — March 5, 2010

The Reference Desk, using available evidence and research, provides quick-turnaround responses to questions submitted by education stakeholders around the Northeast and Islands Region. Every Friday, REL-NEI highlights one or two questions submitted to its Reference Desk.

Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools

Over the past month, the Reference Desk has highlighted questions about supporting struggling learners and students. This week’s question, submitted by an education specialist in Rhode Island, takes a broader perspective: How to support and turnaround chronically low-performing schools. The response focuses on recent work from the Institute of Education Sciences and What Works Clearinghouse.

Question

What are the most effective turnaround strategies (or combination of strategies) for chronically low-performing schools?

Research Synopsis

Reference Desk Researchers found little in the way of multiyear evaluative research assessing the effectiveness of specific turnaround strategies or combinations of strategies. They did, however, find a body of research-based articles and references that provide guidelines, recommendations, and resources to help states and districts support low-performing districts and schools. The research indicates there is no single strategy that is most effective for turning around schools and districts but rather a combination of strategies rooted in the uniqueness of specific situations is needed. 

Publicly Available Resources

1. Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools: A practice guide. Herman, R., Dawson, P., Dee, T., Greene, J., Maynard, R., Redding, S., and Darwin, M.; U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, NCEE 2008-4020; May 2008; 43 pages.
   This guide identifies practices that can improve the performance of chronically low-performing schools—a process commonly referred to as creating “turnaround schools.” The four recommendations work together to help failing schools make adequate yearly progress. Discussion of each recommendation includes a summary of evidence to support the recommendation, suggestions to carry out the recommendation, and potential roadblocks and solutions.
2. Breaking the Habit of Low Performance: Successful School Restructuring Stories. Brinson D., and Rhim, L. M.; Lincoln, IL: Center on Innovation & Improvement; August 2009; 46 pages.
   

   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. 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. The Center on Innovation & Improvement has an entire body of work in this area and is listed as a resource below.

3. School Turnarounds: A Review of the Cross-Sector Evidence on Dramatic Organizational Improvement. Lincoln, IL: Center on Innovation & Improvement; 2007; 62 pages.
   

   The 62-page report synthesizes literature from multiple sectors—business, nonprofit, government, and education—and identifies factors that have been shown to influence turnaround initiatives in schools and other types of organizations. The findings are organized into two broad themes: environmental context and leadership. The section on environmental context looks at five areas that influence turnaround strategies: timetable, freedom to act, support and aligned systems, performance monitoring, and community engagement. In looking at leadership, the authors focus on pre-existing capabilities of leaders and the common set of activities they undertook.

The Reference Desk also found these organizations and their websites to be helpful in learning more about school turnaround:

1. The Doing What Works School Improvement Website
   Doing What Works offers a number of resources intended to be used in conjunction with the IES Practice Guide above. For each recommendation, the site includes three types of content—Learn What Works, See What Works, and Do What Works.
2. The Center on Innovation & Improvement

   The Center on Innovation & Improvement (CII) is a national content center supported by the U.S. Department of Education. It supports regional centers in their work with states to provide districts, schools, and families with the opportunity, information, and skills needed to make wise decisions on behalf of students. CII offers additional publications to support states in their efforts to turn around low-performing schools.

Download the Full Response

If this material brings up questions of your own, please submit a new request here. If you’re interested in learning more about the Reference Desk, read about us here. And finally, share thoughts, experiences, and resources of your own in our Feedback section below.