Purpose: While previous research has examined the impact of school turnaround models, less is known about the principals who lead these turnaround schools. This study examines the personal demographics, experience, educational background, prior school performance, salaries, and turnover of principals who led two turnaround models in Tennessee's lowest performing schools: a state-run Achievement School District (ASD) that has not yielded positive nor negative effects and local Innovation Zones (iZones) that averaged positive effects on student achievement over six years. Methods: We analyze longitudinal, administrative data from the Tennessee Department of Education from 2006–2007 to 2017–2018 to compare pre- and post-reform means and trends in principal characteristics between ASD, iZone, and similarly low-performing comparison schools. Results: ASD schools had higher principal turnover rates and lost principals whose schools performed higher while iZone schools retained more principals and lost principals whose schools performed lower. Moreover, iZone schools employed more experienced principals, more Black principals, and principals with higher graduate degree attainment and paid their principals more than ASD schools. Salary differences between ASD and iZone schools were not explained by principals’ characteristics, such as years of experience. Implications: Our findings reveal differences in leadership characteristics between iZone and ASD schools that were consistent with differences in the effectiveness of the two turnaround approaches.

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On this 50th-year anniversary of Alexander v. Holmes Board of Education (1969) nationally enforcing school desegregation in fall 1970, Mississippi is being sued for racial disparities in public education between Black students and White students in Williams et al. v. Bryant et al. (2017). Using quantitative and qualitative primary sources, I investigate the extent to which Mississippi administered racial disparities in public education between Black students and White students from its statehood in 1817 through school desegregation. The data show many racial disparities such as a $242 million difference in expenditures for 14 years and the school attrition of more than 1 million Black students, over a 17-year period, of which over 730,000 of those students left school after first grade. In the conclusion, I offer three recommendations for how Mississippi can take present-day responsibility for these racial disparities in public education.