Who Leads Turnaround Schools? Characteristics of Principals in Tennessee's Achievement School District and Innovation Zones

Abstract

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.

School Leader Apprenticeships: Assessing the Characteristics of Interns, Internship Schools, and Mentor Principals

“…Specifically, interns of color are disproportionately placed with mentor principals of color, even within principal preparation programs. Perhaps it is for this reason that we find that interns of color have mentors with lower licensure exam scores and lower measures of prior-year performance, as research finds that licensure exams have been shown to be biased against non-White test takers (Grissom et al, 2017b) and principals of color are often tapped to serve in lowerperforming schools (Dixon et al, 2022). Of course, there may be important benefits to assigning interns of color to a mentor principal of color.…”

Is Teacher Effectiveness Stable Across School Contexts? An Examination of Teachers Who Transfer Into Turnaround Schools

“…Mistrust from local communities, along with the disruptive ASD interventions that required schools to close and reopen under the management of CMOs with little prior experience in the local context, meant that ASD schools had difficulty hiring teachers and principals locally. Prior research has found that these difficulties led ASD schools to hire principals who were inexperienced and unfamiliar with the schools they were hired to lead (Dixon et al, 2021). The difficulty with recruiting experienced principals led to high rates of principal turnover, which researchers have documented as a suppressor of potentially positive ASD effects (Henry et al, 2020).…”

Teachers Are Not Lemons: An Examination of Spillover Effects When Teachers Transfer Away From Turnaround Schools

“…Two recent meta-analyses of the school reform literature find that turnaround effects vary widely, which can be partly explained by different interventions (Redding & Nguyen, 2020; Schueler et al, 2022). Common turnaround interventions include replacing principals (Dixon et al, 2022), extending the school day (Zimmer et al, 2017), state takeover (Schueler & Bleiberg, 2022), and charter conversion (Harris & Larsen, 2018), but one of the most common turnaround interventions involves replacing at least 50% of teachers (Strunk et al, 2016a). Because effective teachers are integral to school improvement (Bryk et al, 2010), this intervention rests on the theory that principals should be allowed to dismiss teachers to hire more effective replacements.…”

“…This perspective aligns with a rich literature finding that school context strongly influences teachers’ sense of self-efficacy, satisfaction, and returns to experience (Kraft & Papay, 2014). Peers in the new school (Jackson & Bruegmann, 2009), professional development (Hill et al, 2022), and school leadership (Dixon et al, 2022; Papay et al, 2022) can also influence teachers’ effectiveness after they transfer. Overall, existing literature suggests that spillover effects may vary depending on the characteristics of transferring teachers, the characteristics of receiving schools, and how teachers fare in their new environment.…”