Focus on Instruction Turns Around Chicago Schools
Network Gets Results in 5 Schools in Chicago Without 'Drastic' Steps
Talk of “turning around” troubled schools has become synonymous with firing educators, but a nonprofit organization here with a successful track record takes a different approach.
In 2006, Strategic Learning Initiatives signed a contract with the Chicago public schools to help 10 schools serving grades K-8. More than 95 percent of their students were from low-income families. Over a decade, the schools had seen new principals, new teachers, new curricula, and professional-development initiatives. Despite the changes, nine were on a list to be restructured or closed.
What Strategic Learning did with the struggling schools, says its chief executive officer, John Simmons, was “not rocket science.” But it worked, according to
an evaluation
by the Washington-based American Institutes for Research. And the approach the group took offers some lessons as states and districts confront the need to turn around...
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