Opinion
Special Education Letter to the Editor

Optimistic ‘Turnaround’ Signs, Despite a Lean Research Base

August 24, 2009 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

To the Editor:

As the authors of the 2007 report “The Turnaround Challenge,” we were pleased to see it discussed in your recent article on the emerging field of school turnaround (“Research Doesn’t Offer Much Guidance on Turnarounds,” Aug. 12, 2009).

When the report was released, it was unclear how education practitioners and policymakers would respond. Two years later, more than 150,000 copies have been downloaded, and the ideas in the report have proved influential. Elements of the framework are being implemented by several states, urban districts, and turnaround partner organizations.

Your article correctly points out that because school turnaround is a new field, there are too few longitudinal, “research-tested” recommendations. But the headline suggests a more pessimistic outlook than our research supports. There is a wealth of evidence about what hasn’t worked, a small but growing base of research on individual high-performing high-poverty schools, and promising approaches from a group of entrepreneurial urban districts.

With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, our organization has formulated a set of strategies to guide turnaround and a framework for delivering these strategies at scale, as well as integrated tools to help education leaders make this framework operational. Two recent reports, “Partnership Zones” and “A New Partnership Paradigm,” are available on our Web site (www.massinsight.org). The site also includes case studies on Philadelphia’s Delaplaine McDaniel Elementary School and Pickett Charter Middle School (both mentioned in the article), and on the Academy for Urban School Leadership and Green Dot Public Schools (two organizations influencing turnaround strategies being promoted by the U.S. Department of Education).

With the backing of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, we will soon launch pilot “partnership zones” in a number of states and districts; the effort will include comprehensive evaluation to assess the efficacy of this approach. We see this as a particularly promising framework for turning around chronically low-performing schools, but we hope that other frameworks will emerge as well.

William H. Guenther

Founder and President
Mass Insight Education and Research Institute
Boston, Mass.

A version of this article appeared in the August 26, 2009 edition of Education Week as Optimistic ‘Turnaround’ Signs, Despite a Lean Research Base

Events

Student Well-Being Webinar After-School Learning Top Priority: Academics or Fun?
Join our expert panel to discuss how after-school programs and schools can work together to help students recover from pandemic-related learning loss.
Budget & Finance Webinar Leverage New Funding Sources with Data-Informed Practices
Address the whole child using data-informed practices, gain valuable insights, and learn strategies that can benefit your district.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Classroom Technology Webinar
ChatGPT & Education: 8 Ways AI Improves Student Outcomes
Revolutionize student success! Don't miss our expert-led webinar demonstrating practical ways AI tools will elevate learning experiences.
Content provided by Inzata

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Special Education How Teachers Can Help Students With Dyslexia: What Our Readers Say
EdWeek's social-media followers weigh in on how to support students with dyslexia, a learning disability that interferes with reading.
5 min read
Young school boy writing in a notebook while sitting in a library with an educator.
iStock/Getty
Special Education Explainer How Special Education Funding Actually Works
Special education is among the most complicated and misunderstood facets of America’s sprawling K-12 school landscape.
6 min read
Illustration of a desk with a calculator and budget sheet.
vladwel/iStock/Getty
Special Education Spotlight Spotlight on Special Education Compliance
This Spotlight will help you examine implementation of universal screening for dyslexia and more.
Special Education Opinion Autistic Isn't a Bad Word: The Case for Rethinking Your Language
Educators may want to switch from "child with autism" to "autistic child," writes a special ed. teacher and parent of an autistic son.
Elizabeth Greenwell
4 min read
Illustration of word autistic.
F. Sheehan for Education Week