A Self-Audit for States Confronting the Challenge of School Turnaround

Use this self-audit to measure the probable impact of your state’s approach to school turnaround currently. This tool is drawn from The Turnaround Challenge, Mass Insight’s 2007 report on school turnaround design. A corollary tool for school principals charged with turnaround, probing whether they are being given the supports, flexibility, and authority necessary to lead the work successfully, is available here.

Evaluating Your State’s Commitment

1) Has your state visibly focused on its lowest-performing five percent of schools and set specific, two-year turnaround goals, such as bringing achievement at least to the current high-poverty school averages in the state?

2) Does your state have a plan in place that gives you confidence that your state can deliver on these goals?

3) If not: Is there any evidence that the state is taking steps to accept its responsibility to ensure that students in the lowest-performing schools have access to the same quality of education found in high-performing, high-poverty schools?

Evaluating Your State’s Strategy

4) Does your state recognize that a turnaround strategy for failing schools requires fundamental changes that are different from an incremental improvement strategy?

5) Have you presented districts and schools with:

• a sufficiently attractive set of turnaround services and policies, collected within a protected turnaround “zone,” so that schools actively want to gain access to required new operating conditions, streamlined regulations, and resources; and
• alternative consequences (such as chronically underperforming status and a change in school governance) that encourage schools and districts to volunteer?

6) Does your state provide the student information and data analysis systems all schools – but particularly turnaround schools – need to assess learning and individualize teaching?

7) Changing Conditions: Does your state’s turnaround strategy provide school-level leaders with sufficient authority over staff, schedule, budget and program to implement the turnaround plan? Does it provide for sufficient incentives in pay and working conditions to attract the best possible staff and encourage them to do their best work?

8) Building Capacity – Internal: Does your state recognize that turnaround success depends primarily on an effective “people strategy” that recruits, develops, and retains strong school leadership teams and staff?

9) Building Capacity – External: Does your state have a strategy to develop lead partner organizations with specific expertise needed to support school turnaround?

10) Clustering for Support: Within the protected turnaround zone, does your state collaborate with districts to organize turnaround work into school clusters (by need, school type, region, or feeder pattern) that have a lead partner providing effective network support?

State Leadership and Funding

11) Is there a distinct and visible state entity that, like the schools in the turnaround zone, has the necessary flexibility to act, as well as the required authority, resources, and accountability to lead the turnaround effort?

12) To the extent that your state is funding the turnaround strategy, is that commitment a) adequate and b) at the school level, contingent on fulfilling requirements for participation in the turnaround zone?