Our History
Mass Insight has been in the business of school turnaround for nearly a decade.
Building Blocks
From 2001 to 2007, Mass Insight sent teams of educators and researchers into schools and districts in Massachusetts that had clearly outperformed the averages (for demographically similar student enrollments, across multiple years). We named these exemplars “Vanguard” schools and districts. This research generated a knowledge base of more than 100 step-by-step strategies for school and district leaders and formed the foundations of our knowledge on how high poverty schools break the mold. These observations gave us early insight into how struggling schools could be turned around.
The Turnaround Challenge
Following this extensive school-level research, in 2005 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation commissioned Mass Insight to examine the burgeoning field of school turnaround and identify promising practices that could be scaled up for broader impact. The result was the The Turnaround Challenge. Released in 2007, this report revealed the urgent need in the education reform community for new strategies to turn around the nation’s poorest-performing schools. The report was downloaded more than 100,000 times in the year after its publication. The Turnaround Challenge has clearly struck a chord.
The School Turnaround Group
In 2009, a window opened that could not be ignored. The Turnaround Challenge was widely declared the foremost resource on school turnaround. At the same time, President Obama had come to office and brought on former Chicago Public Schools superintendent, Arne Duncan, on board as Secretary Education. Together, they declared that “we need everyone who cares about public education to take on the toughest assignment of all--and get in the business of turning around our lowest-performing schools.” Mass Insight was ready to respond.
The School Turnaround Group (STG) was created as a division of Mass Insight Education with the mission of bringing the principles of The Turnaround Challenge to practice.
STG's continued work produces organizational strategies and capacity building for states, large urban districts, and outside funding partners to turn around low-performing schools through a new system of turnaround zones with improved operating conditions, Lead Partners, and other supports. This include the launch of the Partnership Zone Initiative, which has received startup funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, with matching support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.