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Ed. Magazine

Turnaround Time

Illustration by Robert Neubecker

Since 2010, federal School Improvement Grants have given some of the nation's lowest-performing schools and districts significant funds and flexibilities to shake things up — and many have. But what happens when the clock strikes three years and the grant ends? A look at what some of our graduates are doing to answer that question.

[caption id="attachment_11690" align="alignleft" width="252" caption="Illustration by Robert Neubecker"]Illustration by Robert Neubecker[/caption]

Four third-grade reading teachers are sitting around a table in Principal Mairead Nolan's office at the Trotter School in Boston. It's 2:15 p.m., a gray afternoon, with newly fallen snow blanketing the streets. The team is gathered for their weekly progress meeting. Each teacher has come prepared to talk about a student who is struggling.

The first girl they discuss has improved a bit in the past few months. Her guided reading level moved from a J to a K, but her teacher says she's working so hard to decode the words that it's affecting her comprehension. Nolan, Ed.M.'97, listens patiently, and then starts asking questions: Is she stuck on sight words? Are you doing repeated reading? Is it mostly multisyllable words? The other teachers ask questions, too: Can she find a word within a word? How are her words per minute?

And then the girl's teacher throws out one more thing, something he recently noticed that may not mean anything: The girl stopped wearing glasses.

For the next 10 minutes, the team talks about options for this teacher, such as finding a pair of free glasses if the student needs them, downloading books on tape if she has an iPod, and increasing her listening center time. They set goals and agree to talk again about this third-grader in six weeks. For the next hour, the other teachers present their students and get similar feedback.

This level of intense monitoring of struggling students didn't happen at the Trotter a few years ago, at least to the extent it's happening now. But ever since becoming a federally funded turnaround school in 2010, these meetings have become cherished time for the teachers and, according to Nolan, one of the key reasons their elementary school — once one of the lowest achieving in Boston — has seen significant gains on test scores. Teacher morale is up, too, along with parent participation and a host of other markers of "success."

But there's a potential problem.

The Trotter was in the first group of schools back in 2010 to receive the funding — called a School Improvement Grant (SIG) — under the Obama administration. The administration's thinking was that the grants, given to states to distribute to schools, would be temporary, a way to jumpstart thousands of the nation's lowest-performing schools by infusing an initial $3.5 billion. And this wouldn't be a light-touch approach to reform. Schools had to be willing to dramatically shake things up and follow one of four tough models: turnaround, transformation, restart, or shutdown. As Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a crowd at the Building a Grad Nation Summit in March 2012, "We could not continue to tinker. Children only get one chance at an education."

The first year, out of 15,277 eligible schools across the country, 1,228 schools received funding. With the grant came good things: extra cash — as much as $2 million per school per year — as well as the flexibility to try new things often restricted under union rules, like an extended school year.

But there was also a time limit: three years. For the Trotter, this is the final year. Like other administrators in her position, Nolan is now faced with a dilemma: How do you keep the school's positive momentum going without the added funding and flexibilities? How do you not backslide?

"That is the $3 billion question," Diane Rentner, deputy director at the Center on Education Policy, told District Administration magazine. Ultimately, writes Rick Hess, Ed.M.'90, in his Straight Up blog at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, the answer lies in thinking of the SIG grant as a "springboard, not a crutch."

But where does a struggling school start? How do you not repeat the mistakes of the past? As author Laura Pappano writes in her 2010 book, Inside School Turnarounds, "Turnaround … is not a result but a process." Across the country, Ed School alumni are involved in that process. Here's a look at five of them.

MAIREAD NOLAN, ED.M.'97

One area that many involved in school turnarounds say is critical to success in turning around a persistently failing school is changing the culture. As President Obama told students at SIG-funded Miami Central High School in 2011, money alone isn't going to do the job. "We also have to reform how things are done. It isn't easy to turn around an expectation of failure and make that into an expectation of excellence. In fact, it's one of the hardest things you can do."

At the Trotter, Nolan, with 65 percent new staff under the turnaround model, was determined to change the negative school culture, which regularly included fights in the classroom and the fire alarm being pulled.

"It was a chaotic place," she says. "Something out of a movie."

The old way of dealing was to focus on infractions and impose consequences. Instead, they realized that if a kid is acting out, he or she has an unmet need.

"Our job is to figure out what the need is," she says. Now they follow a new plan called the Peaceful Schools Climate Initiative, focused on students and staff developing social skills and creating respectful relationships.

During that first year, the school moved quickly on other changes, too. The rarely followed dress policy was enforced. (Nolan even wears the uniform every day.) Teachers created detailed routines for the classrooms. And the front office found a stable groove: When they started year two of the turnaround, it was the first time in nearly a decade that the front office had no turnover.

"People noticed that we were no longer fly-by-night," Nolan says. As a result, "there was a real shift. The kids felt like they were in a learning community."

Teachers felt the shift, too. Professional development time jumped from 30 hours per year to 130. Nolan also brought in experienced teachers and coaches.

"The funding was enormously helpful, but I think as important was the ability to hire anybody I wanted," she says. "That can't be underestimated." In many districts, principals have limited input in the hiring process.

Some teachers came through an initiative run by a nonprofit, Teach Plus. Called Turnaround Teacher Teams, or T3, the initiative places experienced teachers in turnaround schools in Massachusetts. Karen Loughran, Ed.M.'98, a 10-year classroom veteran, is a T3 coach in her second year at the Trotter. She works with other teachers on curriculum decisions and in figuring out how to effectively use data. The collaboration seems to be paying off. In 2011, T3 schools as a group outperformed 89 percent of all schools in the state in elementary math.

Nolan stresses that for the Trotter, the first year was crucial — something Jesse Dixon, Ed.M.'08, a consultant with the Office of District and School Turnaround under the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, has been seeing in other turnaround schools.

"In three years, you can do a lot. You may not have the school completely turned around, but you now have the right people on the bus, you have new systems in place," he says. "A lot of this is done in the first year. By the third year, you're humming."

In Massachusetts, about two-thirds of schools in turnaround adapted significant changes in the first year and then used years two and three to imbed those changes. The other third saw the first year as transition time and "they're not as far along in their journey," Dixon says.

Before her SIG grant ended, Nolan, in her foresight, applied to become an innovation school — a public school in Massachusetts that has more autonomy and flexibility than a traditional public school. The school will operate as an innovation school for five years, starting with the 2013–2014 school year.

"It's not that we want to do anything dramatically different as an innovation school," Nolan says. "We made those changes as a turnaround, but we want to maintain what we're now doing."

ASHTON WHEELER CLEMMONS, ED.M.'09

Like the Trotter, Oak Hill Elementary in High Point, N.C., was also in the first group of schools approved for the SIG grant. Principal Ashton Wheeler Clemmons knew that one of the first things she had do was reach out to families.

"When I first came to Oak Hill, we canvassed the neighborhood in small groups of staff members to ensure we spoke to every family," she says. "We made sure families knew when school started and how much we care about student success. This was key in transitioning the relationship between school and families."

Nowadays, teachers at the school are expected to communicate with parents about something positive at least once a month. When discussing a concern with families, they must provide strategies parents can use. Teachers hold high expectations for all students and confront every excuse. The school also got a facelift, with more lights added and murals painted on the walls.

"These things cost little or no money," Clemmons says.

They also approached the process strategically, focusing their efforts not on the unproven, but on research-based ideas that have proven to improve student outcomes, she says. "The three key ones for us are focused planning time, quality teachers, and an extended day and year," she says. "We thought, we have an opportunity to get funding, what does the research show makes the most sense?"

With teacher quality, specifically, she says it helped that they followed the turnaround model. Under this model (followed by 20 percent of schools in the first round of funding), the principal had to be replaced and the entire staff released with the option to reapply. The new principal could hire back no more than 50 percent of the prior staff. Clemmons initially started as assistant principal and was able to help hire 85 percent of the staff — something she saw as a positive.

"From the start, we had a staff that knew what was expected," she says. "For us, it wasn't so much changing the culture, but re-establishing the culture. Most people coming in were not part of the past culture, where parents didn't trust the school."

And parents had good reason — Oak Hill had the distinction of being the lowest-performing school in the district, with only 24 percent of students scoring proficient on state reading exams in 2008 and 39 percent testing proficient in math.

Having a dynamic, positive principal on board also helps. "The leader has to be able to say, 'This is where we're going and if you're not on board, this may not be for you,'" Clemmons says. "We're all in this together, but having a strong leader is critical."

JEFF RILEY, ED.M.'99

In January 2012, Jeff Riley was brought in as receiver of the beleaguered Lawrence Public School district in Massachusetts. Just a few months earlier, the district was designated by the state as a level 5 — the most severe accountability level. Riley had a past record of helping troubled schools, including a Boston middle school that went from almost being shut down to one of the top performers in the city. With Lawrence, however, the challenge was greater: He was being asked to fix an entire low-performing district, not just one or two schools.

"Most people I talked to told me not to come, not to do it, that it was too far gone," Riley told CommonWealth magazine in 2012.

But he came, with a plan. Instead of doing what had been done (unsuccessfully) in the past with state takeovers, with the state imposing district-wide rules, he was going to give each school, including the five receiving SIG grants, significant responsibility for getting themselves back on track. For example, he wanted every school to extend learning time, but he let them decide how that gets done.

"It could be a longer school day, a longer year, or summer time," Riley said at a panel discussion on turnaround schools held at the Ed School last December. "I'm giving them options, not just a set check list."

Of course, Riley knows that even the best-prepared school might need extra help, so one of the hallmarks of his turnaround effort has been to partner schools with community groups and education experts. Referred to as "lead partners" in the SIG world, outsiders can bring in fresh ideas or cost-effective programming. Lead partners can be nonprofits, for-profits, or charter management organizations. Some states, like Illinois, require all SIG schools to work with a lead partner. Most make it optional.

Riley brought in several nonprofits. Community Day Charter and Up Academy each oversee a school. MATCH Charter School provides 50 tutors to two of the city's high schools. Phoenix Charter Academy started an alternative high school targeting Lawrence dropouts.

Nationwide, partnerships at turnaround schools have not come without controversy. Will progress last only as long as outside groups are involved? Is too much money going to consultants? The federal government does not stipulate how much districts can spend in this area, but one investigation last year by The Denver Post found that in Colorado, for example, consultants took home 35 percent of the state's $26.6 million SIG kitty.

In Lawrence, with only a year under his belt, Riley isn't ready to talk about results — he suspects the process will take five to seven years. But he's confident. "I am more optimistic now than when I took the job," Riley said in an interview to the Lawrence Eagle Tribune in January. "Lawrence Public Schools are laying a foundation and coming back."

GARA FIELD, ED.M.'04

Gara Field, principal of Pleasant View Elementary School in Providence, R.I., is not only optimistic, she's really excited. Her school is finishing its first year under the transformation model, and she can already see change.

"This is, by far, the most challenging thing I've done," she says, noting that this is also her first job as a principal, "but we've got the pieces of the puzzle."

Is she worried that the three years will go by too quickly?

"Time alone isn't the answer," she says. "It's how you use it."

So far, a big chunk of time has been spent, like for Clemmons, in engaging parents. And it seems to be working.

"There were three PTO members when I arrived at the school in the fall of 2011," she says. "Currently, there are 15. When we were in the process of writing our school improvement plan for transformation, hundreds of parents attended the planning meetings." They knew, she says, that the stakes were high.

She also used the flexibility of the transformation model to "help teachers get back their craft," she says. "Teachers often feel they're held back. We need to stop thinking like that."

The school has added time to the school day (a requirement for all turnaround and transformation schools), including 70 additional minutes for teachers, which allows more time for prep, meetings, and teaching. Field also created "dream teams," where teachers help one another. One example was to change the schedules for preK teachers. Initially, preK teachers came in late morning and taught just preK students. Now, they come in at 8 a.m. and help K–5 teachers until their younger students arrive. The result, Field says, is that there's a different feeling in the building.

"All the kids see the preK teachers in the hallways, and they've gotten to know those teachers," she says. "It was a whole faculty investment. We've placed value in relationships. No significant learning occurs without significant relationships. Our faculty now comes early and stays late. We're here with a shared purpose and a shared vision."

Already, she has seen how improved relationships have positively affected students.

"In grades three to five, I have not had a single suspension. That's a significant change," she says. "The kids are more engaged. There's still misbehavior, but in terms of the severity, it has lessened. Attendance has also improved, especially in the older grades."

Field also decided to focus on improving technology, but the SIG money wasn't enough so she applied for a significant technology grant from the state (slightly more than one year of her SIG grant). They now they have iPads and SMART Boards in every classroom.

"We didn't even have wireless in the building," she says. "Now, teachers can reach kids in new ways. This gives students the opportunity to connect to data, have multimedia experiences, and allows for targeted, small-group learning. If we didn't have this extra money, we could have made cultural changes, but we would never have had the funding for infrastructure to do the work."

DENISE JUNEAU, ED.M.'94

In Montana, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau has approached turnaround differently. For starters, the state closely partners with individual schools receiving SIG grants. It started by reaching out to all the stakeholders — parents, unions, school administrators, students, and teachers — and letting them know they were not alone.

"We created a unique model," she says. "I went out and constantly met with the stakeholders and told them that we're in this together. That we're here to celebrate their successes and that we'll also be there for the tough times. It helped develop trust. It said we are not here to take over or shut you down. We're here to work with you."

Reaching out to parents in new ways was particularly critical in isolated, remote areas of the state, one of the least populated in the country. This included having school members go into the community and using SIG money to hire liaisons — positions that didn't previously exist.

"At one school, every teacher has gone on a home visit," she says. "At another, as a result of the community liaison person now assigned to each school, a PTA was started. It was the first time at that school that parents got together to talk about issues."

Because of the great distance between cities and towns, focusing on the local is critical, Juneau says.

"In terms of sustainability, one strength for us is that we've hired people to work with the schools who are from the community, so they'll continue to be there, even after the grant ends," Juneau says. "They'll continue to understand the importance of this work."

There have been challenges. Finding qualified principals to replace the ones who had to leave under the transformation model was tough. Juneau says she would have preferred to work with the existing principals. Shutting down schools (the least utilized of the four models) was not an option. Not only can it be demoralizing for a community, but in rural areas, there would be no place to move displaced students. Juneau says even having access to nonprofit groups like City Year is impossible.

"We're lucky if there's a Boys & Girls Club near a community," she says.

Like many others, Juneau decided to look for additional funds beyond the federal money, particularly for a critical need not covered by the SIG grant: mental health issues. She was able to secure an additional $600,000 state grant.

"These are high-poverty areas that need a lot of assistance," she says. "Mental health has to be a piece of these reforms. It's basic student needs. You can do all you want with instruction and curriculum, but if you don't address these issues, that other stuff isn't going to work. Here, there are students attempting suicide. There are a lot of heavy issues that kids are dealing with."

Teachers, too, need help.

"Remember, these communities are really small, isolated, and rural," Juneau says. "Teachers are dealing with secondary trauma every day."

RESULTS

Last November, the Obama administration released what they called an "early snapshot" of the first-year data. It showed that two-thirds of schools receiving SIG funding saw gains in math and in reading, with the biggest gains at elementary schools. A third of SIG schools had declines in achievement.

Duncan said of the results, "There's dramatic change happening in these schools, and in the long-term process of turning around the nation's lowest-performing schools, one year of test results only tells a small piece of the puzzle."

In February, the Trotter received good news. In 2012, third-grade students in warning on the state's standardized test in reading dropped to 15 percent, compared with 24 percent last year and 39 percent in 2008. Fifty-two percent of thirdgraders were proficient or proficient plus (the highest level) in reading, up from 20 percent in 2011 and 6 percent in 2008.

In North Carolina, Oak Hill Elementary was named High Progress School of the Year in 2012 by the state. State test scores also jumped: 86.9 percent were proficient in math last year, compared with 39 percent in 2008. In reading, 49.9 percent were proficient last year, compared with 24 percent five years ago.

Fields also celebrated in February when their state's test scores came in. Although they were shooting for 3- to 4-percent gains each year of the SIG grant, schoolwide, math proficiency went up 6 percent and reading went up seven. Fifth-grade writing proficiency increased 14 percent.

Schools in Montana have progressed less quickly and still lag behind state numbers but are improving. The percentage of 10th-graders in four SIG schools scoring proficient or above on state tests in 2011 was 12.5 percent, compared to 0 percent in 2010. The percentage in the lowest category, novice, dropped from 50.7 in 2010 to 38.8 the next year. Juneau says moving ahead will be difficult, and she has asked the federal government for a one-year extension for schools. Still, she sees progress.

"These communities have held together and some things can't be measured," she says. "People are starting to feel good about their schools. That's success. A school board member being able to reach out to a school board liaison and ask a question. That's success. The barriers between parents and schools breaking down. That's success."

Nolan, too, defines success in other ways. One afternoon, for example, she was observing a fifth-grade room. The students were bent over their books, a story called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.

"It was one of those moments when you wish someone was with you," she says. "All of the kids were marking the pages with Post-it notes, with a thought on each page. They were having conversations without the teacher being there. I was flashing back to when I first came to the Trotter, and this just didn't occur. Children engaging in meaningful conversations about books is really powerful for me. This doesn't show up on test scores, but it's exciting."

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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