Turning Around the Nation's Worst Schools
 
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) co-sponsored a conference with Mass Insight in 2008 in Washington, D.C. Approximately 250 policymakers, practitioners, school providers, and education reform leaders joined us for the daylong discussion on the need for school turnaround, how it's different from past interventions, how it can be implemented and how policy can help or hinder this targeted form of intervention. The agenda, links to the white papers, audio and video feed, and other handouts from the event can be found at the bottom of this page.

With the nation’s worst schools languishing, there is much talk about the need to turn schools around. But what does a school turnaround actually look like? What obstacles does it face in terms of implementation and policy? What aggressive restructuring efforts have been tried so far, and what impact have they had? 

When a school fails to improve test scores for five straight years, it enters the last-ditch “restructuring” phase of the No Child Left Behind Act. With more than two thousand schools (and counting) planning or implementing school restructuring, the market for turnarounds is ripe.  Recognizing that conventional efforts to restructure schools typically fall short, there has been increasing interest in reconfiguring people, institutions, and support systems to radically improve America’s worst schools.
 

Conference Materials
White Papers (Compilation from all four panels)
   PANEL I:      School Turnaround: What It Is and Why We Need It
                         Andrew Calkins, Mass Insight Education & Research Institute
   PANEL II: A. Effective Turnaround at Scale: A Framework
                         William Guenther, Mass Insight Education & Research Institute
                  B. Turnaround Strategies and Attempts So Far
                         Seth Reynolds, The Parthenon Group
   PANEL III:    Making Turnaround a Reality: Obstacles and Challenges
                         Douglas Sears, Boston University
   PANEL IV:   NCLB’s Impact on Turnarounds: A Policymaker’s Perspective
                         Nancy Grasmick, Maryland State Superintendent of SchoolsPowerpoint

Powepoint Presentations
INTRODUCTION: Frederick Hess
PANEL I: Andrew Calkins
PANEL II: William Guenther & Seth Reynolds

Additional Hand-outs
Transformation High Schools: Lessons from Sacramento High School, St. HOPE Public Schools

Hartford Public Schools Reform Strategy

Panelist Biographies

Please see AEI's website for audio and video feed from the conference.

Click here for a conference summary.