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Meredith Liu describes Mass Insight’s work on turnarounds while Anna Cano Morales of RI-CAN looks on.

Moderator: Sarah Yatsko Research Analyst, Center on Reinventing Public Education Panelists: Melissa Bowen Research Analyst, Center on Reinventing Public Education Paul Herdman President and CEO, Rodel Foundation of Delaware Meredith Liu Consultant, Mass Insight Anna Cano Morales Director of Strategic Partnerships, RI-CAN

Delaware: Turnaround requires more than policy changes

So much more could be accomplished with turnaround efforts if school boards truly knew what was possible, according to Paul Herdman of the Rodel Foundation of Delaware. He said Delaware created a state turnaround office with guidance from Mass Insight, a national consulting firm. “Rodel focused on the top of the pyramid,” said Herdman. “Since the organization had developed good relationships at the state level as a policy and research resource, we felt confident that the state policies were built on national best practice, but as the focus shifted to implementation, we realized that the real work is now at the school and district levels.”

Herdman’s primary suggestions on how advocates can help states support turnaround efforts were:

• Get more aggressive on grassroots advocacy. Help build awareness among parents, school boards and educators about how schools can make real change happen.
• Organize trips to high-performing turnarounds to show people how they work. “Folks don’t know their options,” said Herdman. “If they’ve only seen the kitchen sink approach, where everything is thrown at a problem without a coherent strategy, the federal funding will be spent without knowing what elements might have worked, and which did not.
• Work with districts to help identify a “lead partner” organization, an organization that is empowered to make clear, independent, decisions around funding and personnel. This can be an external lead partner like a charter management organization, e.g. Mastery, or it could be built within a district if the appropriate firewalls on decision-making are in place. Without such an organization, more funding is being invested into a system that has already proven itself incapable of making the needed changes.

What does success look like? Herdman said it requires developing a good plan, getting the best possible people to implement it, and having an oversight structure that is willing to make the courageous decisions needed to implement that plan.

“Delaware has done a decent job from a policy perspective, but there is a lot of work to do at the grassroots level. Once we have momentum at that level, things will really begin to change,” said Herdman. 

Study on SIG shows states need to increase support and accountability

Melissa Bowen of the Center on Reinventing Public Education described a study on turnarounds that focused on one state’s use of federal State Improvement Grants (SIG), which has important lessons for other states (see PowerPoint).

The study focused on district capacity to implement turnaround and found that SIG “inspired marginal changes not likely to result in significant learning gains,” said Bowen. The big takeaway was the state needed to increase both support and accountability.

Bowen said districts focused on whether they were implementing the grant correctly instead of improving schools, wasting many opportunities. For example, weak principals were moved from one failing school to another and there were few outside hires because district officials thought they wouldn’t be able to hold onto new hires after the grant expired.

The interventions were scattershot and districts couldn’t identify how to link them to outcomes, according to Bowen. She also said the kitchen sink approach of throwing programs at problems were used instead on orienting around student achievement and changing the school’s culture of low expectations.

Providing districts with incentives, autonomy, political cover, and capacity

Meredith Liu of Mass Insight explained that her group puts research into practice as it assists states with turnarounds. She said SIGs can produce gains within two to three years and ready a school for the longer process of transformation into a high-performing school.

Liu said states can aid turnaround work by providing incentives, increased autonomy, political cover, and an increase in capacity (see PowerPoint). It can also threaten sanctions such as a state takeover of bad schools. She cited several examples of states which used SIG as an incentive, providing schools with freedom from red tape, decision-making authority for leaders, space to innovate, and removal of compliance burdens.

Liu also talked about the political help states can provide on turnarounds by prioritizing the issue, backing difficult decisions, and providing strong leadership. For example, Delaware withheld Race to the Top money from a failing school district that refused to change. “The state must explicitly emphasize turnaround,” she said.

Rhode Island – two turnaround models

Anna Cano Morales of RI-CAN discussed Central Falls, where the school board fired 89 teachers in the low-performing district. “When I look at the kids in school in Central Falls, I see myself and that is what propels us, the kids” said Morales.

She said Rhode Island’s largest and smallest districts provide contrasting turnaround examples. While teachers were fired at Central Falls, the Providence district seemed to be focused on collaboration. But, in reality, Providence was not on the reform track as compared to Central Falls and, did not have to deal with much of the leadership issues when it came to labor/management. Central Falls did not have many options. “There was no easy way out,” said Morales.

“The minute the federal government released the RFP for SIG, we were knocking on the door asking when can we apply because we had been getting prepared for his all along and because the sense of urgency around student achievement was so palpable,” said Morales. “We were like, let’s go!”

She said capacity is a huge issue both at the district level and the state Department of Education. She said her organization is now pursuing partnerships and is looking at to creating a charter district compact.

“We could have done it without the money if everyone was on the same page,” said Morales. “What we definitely needed was the leadership. Now that the money is here, it isn’t enough because we keep identifying other ways that we can support the turnaround.”

Using SIG funding effectively

An audience member brought up the 26 SIG schools in Colorado, expressing concern about their oversight and how to hold the state accountable for all the money rolling in.

Yatsko said teacher evaluation is an extremely difficult piece of the turnaround process, and states don’t have the first idea of how to do data analysis. Morales said Rhode Island is developing a “gold standard model,” which has taken a lot of time and training.

Liu doesn’t think SIG is going to result in the gains expected in any state, partly due to the speed with which it was rolled out. “What we need with the SIG is time,” she said.