Meeting the Challenge of School Turnaround: Lessons from the Intersection of Research and Practice

Abstract

Seven recommendations for turning around low-performing schools may help leaders facing this challenge.

“I’ve Never Seen People Work So Hard!” Teachers’ Working Conditions in the Early Stages of School Turnaround

“…For example, the key insights that emerge from our data (i.e., the importance of a well-functioning organizational system, in which priorities are institutionalized and teachers feel respected and valued) do not appear in the Institute for Educational Sciences' report on "what works" in school turnaround (Herman et al, 2008). Work on turnaround has identified teacher "buy in" or commitment to the model as important, but it has treated these factors as a function of school leaders' ability to convince staff change is possible (Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2005;Robinson & Buntrock, 2011;Salmonowicz, 2009). Our findings demonstrate the limits of this approach.…”

“…In this literature, however, teachers are generally treated as objects of the reform, a constituency that must be convinced that change is possible and whose energies turnaround principals must channel in one way or another (Herman et al, 2008;Leithwood, Harris, & Strauss, 2010). Thus, researchers urge leaders to strive for "teacher buy in" and to "show teachers" that success is possible (Salmonowicz, 2009). While such recommendations may be useful, an understanding of teachers as agents in the turnaround process-as the very people doing the hard work of transforming schools-is missing from the conversation.…”

“…This paper contributes to the growing body of research on turnarounds by describing teachers' working conditions in the early stages of the turnaround model. We focus on the early stages because it is during this period that school culture is established; expectations for performance, behavior, and routines are put into place; and staff decide whether or not they think the reform will "work" (Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2005;Mass Insight, 2007;Robinson & Buntrock, 2011;Salmonowicz, 2009). Using interview and focus-group data from teachers at 13 turnaround schools, we ask two related questions.…”

Gamed by the System

“…Adapted from the corporate sector (Murphy & Meyers, 2008;Rhim, Kowal, Hassel, & Hassel, 2007), school turnaround strategies implement a slate of interventions in an attempt to quickly improve student achievement and school performance (Herman et al, 2008;Salmonowicz, 2009). In their review of the literature related to school turnaround, Herman et al (2008) did not discover a collection of interventions that reliably resulted in school turnaround.…”

Research-Practice

“…recent attention to partnerships between researchers and practitioners emphasizes their potential to provide high-quality usable knowledge for improving schools (Salmonowicz, 2009). Such partnerships are conceptually appealing because of their promise for addressing typical challenges in translating research to practice—building practitioner knowledge of research and belief in its value and ensuring that the research is relevant, timely, and actionable.…”