The federal School Improvement Grants led to significant turnover among leaders and teachers in persistently struggling schools, finds the final report in a series of 12 studies on the grants that were conducted by the American Institutes for Research for the Institute of Education Sciences.
Of 25 schools studied in the project, 21 replaced their principals, and nine sought new leaders twice. Only half of the 20 new principals were considered an improvement by staff members.
While teachers at a majority of the schools reported improvements and more job-embedded professional development after three years of the initiative, only two schools were considered to show “strong prospects” of sustaining those improvements after the grant ended. The schools with the most promising outlooks had built up their organizational capacity early in the grant.
