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Services
Partnership Zones are clusters of schools operating as mini-districts characterized by model organizational practices, including strong partnerships and more flexible operating conditions.
The School Turnaround Group is in the process of launching a three-state turnaround initiative to pilot the transformation of The Turnaround Challenge framework into practice. Under a two-year, $1.5M grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, we will work selectively with up to three states and a small number of districts that can demonstrate the capacity, leadership consensus, and readiness to reinvent the district model by transforming low performing schools into clusters of turnaround schools. These Partnership Zones will feature increased capacity through a variety of partnerships and more flexible operating conditions.
The Partnership Zone “proof points” initiative is based on the same framework and concepts that were developed through the Meeting the Turnaround Challenge research & development process and are available in the Turnaround Challenge Resource Center. As the Partnership Zone launches, we will continue to share lessons learned and promising practices with the entire turnaround community through the resource center.
Dozens of researchers, policy experts, practitioners, education advocates, and strategic partners assisted in the Meeting the Turnaround Challenge Initiative. Most of these individuals were involved in on-going design groups focusing on state policies, the turnaround partner concept and marketplace, the nature of a zone, and the implementation of turnaround at the school level. Advisory partners who assisted in this work include: Apollo Philanthropy Partners, EducationCounsel, Holland + Knight, and The Parthenon Group, as well as many others. To see the full list of partners and contributors, see our Partners page.
Forthcoming Resources: Stay tuned for our upcoming reports on: state policies to enable turnaround strategies, creating state turnaround offices, designing MOUs for Lead Partners, using 1003(g) School Improvement Grants to turn around schools, sources of Lead Partners, district turnaround offices, HR strategies and staffing needs for turnaround, and the cost of turnaround.
We work closely with selected states to complete the strategic and operational work necessary to transform chronically under-performing schools. We have provided this type of strategic consulting, at varying levels of intensity, in a number of states including California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Texas, and Washington State.
Samples of our consulting work include:
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Mass Insight supported the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices in a multi-year initiative that provided four states with technical assistance and grant resources to develop plans and policies that create the conditions necessary for turnaround. Our work focused on four states: Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi and Colorado. This work is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Prudential Foundation. Read the press release about the selected states and learn more about the initiative.
- Over a seven-month period, Mass Insight worked closely with the Washington State Board of Education, and an array of local stakeholders and partners, to develop a comprehensive, transformative strategy for the state's "Priority" schools.
- The Communities Foundation of Texas (which manages that state's massive High School Redesign Project) is working with Mass Insight to bring the findings of The Turnaround Challenge to policymakers and leading practitioners across the state. We also worked with the Texas Region XIII Education Service Center to train the state's regional intervention teams.
States interested in engaging Mass Insight for strategic consulting services in the field of school turnaround should contact Meredith Liu, Managing Director of the School Turnaround Group, at mliu@massinsight.org.
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