“This is a blockbuster report. It provides the insight we need to bring the turnaround of low performing schools to scale. It is also dead-on in its appraisal of the challenges that must be overcome and the types of resources, organizations, partnerships, turnaround specialists that will be needed to get the job done.”
- Robert Balfanz, Associate Research Scientist
Center for Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University
“This report is an important contribution to understanding how under-performing schools can be helped to improve.”
- Jack Jennings, President and CEO
Center on Education Policy
“One of the most pressing issues facing chief state school officers and their agencies is the need to build the capacity to transform low achieving schools. The Turnaround Challenge provides us with a welcome framework to help states transform what is now a major dilemma into a lever to bring about genuine reform.”
- Gene Wilhoit, Executive Director
Council of Chief State School Officers
“The Turnaround Challenge has sparked much richer discussion about the need for school turnaround in our state. The ideas in the report's proposed framework are exciting, far-reaching – and practical. We will use them to help craft our approaches to our state's underperforming schools.”
- MaryJean Ryan, Chair
Washington State Board of Education
“Had von Clausewitz turned his attention to education instead of war, he might have spoken of the fog of reform. Mass Insight’s The Turnaround Challenge helps pierce the fog of our earnest efforts to fix underperforming schools. By defining strategies and benchmarks for turnaround initiatives, this report will help us achieve the end of offering genuine equality of opportunity in our society.”
- Doug Sears, Former Dean of the School of Education, Boston University;
Former Superintendent Chelsea High School
“For too long, efforts to tackle school improvement and restructuring have been hampered by the conviction that we can transform low-performing schools if we only care enough, try hard enough, and devise enough "best practices." With compelling logic, Mass Insight gives lie to those happy aspirations while illuminating a more promising course. The authors provide a no-nonsense guide to the tough political, organizational, and education work that reformers must tackle if they are to deliver on the promise of turning around troubled schools.”
- Frederick M. Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies
American Enterprise Institute
“Mass Insight has produced a very readable, accessible document that should give anyone committed to turning around low-performing schools a roadmap of actions to undertake. Their framework for action is certain to win converts across the nation.”
- Christopher Cross, Chairman, Cross & Joftus; formerly President,
Maryland State Board of Education and Assistant Secretary, U.S. Dept. Education
“As the number of failing schools, largely serving low-income students, continues to grow, so too does the urgency for a turnaround plan. By examining high performance, high poverty schools and distilling out best practices, this report will help provide a framework states and districts can use to prepare all their students for college, career, and life.”
- Vicki Phillips, Director of Education
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
“This is the best report I have seen in ages. It is truly a ‘how-to’ for organizations that want to address low-performing schools.”
- Susan Sclafani, Managing Director
Chartwell Education Group
“While we’ve got proof points to establish that persistently low-performing schools can become high achieving schools, we don’t yet have systems that make this transformation very likely. Getting to scale on school improvement efforts will take a new approach that includes higher levels of support in policy and resources. This report articulates both the challenges and opportunities, and lays out a game plan for getting to scale on educational improvement in our lowest-performing schools.”
- Kati Haycock, President
The Education Trust
“Given the complexities involved in turning around our most chronically underperforming schools, Mass Insight's turnaround framework offers tremendous perspective into the levers that can both develop turnaround leadership capacity and accelerate sustainable student achievement. The Turnaround Challenge provides a comprehensive assessment of the landscape and the integral role that stakeholders at the state and local levels must play in leading schools and districts to long-term renewal.”
- Tierney Temple-Fairchild, Founding Executive Director
Virginia Turnaround Specialist Program
“The Turnaround Challenge may offer the only real opportunity for the fundamental change that is so sorely needed in our failing schools. This report outlines a very different formula for success than current policy efforts. The difference is that these steps, supported by research, result in sustained improvement over time. As educational professionals, we must use what we know and have learned to make certain that every student in our public schools receives a high-quality education that results in all students meeting a reasonable set of standards, instead of poorly thought out strategies that have us flying toward the sun with waxed wings.”
- Anthony P. Cavanna, School Reform Scientist
American Institutes of Research
“I have used [The Turnaround Challenge] report as the framework for our work in Michigan, and it has gained a lot of traction. [The report] is simple and salient. Conversations about school reform can quickly devolve into hundreds of emotional and overwhelming arguments. But I have been singing from your hymnal for almost a month now in my new position, and everybody is singing the same tune because the points are simple and true.”
- Michael F. Tenbusch
Senior Director for Education Preparedness
United Way for Southeastern Michigan