Thompson: A Win-Win Approach to School Turnarounds

The vast majority of school turnarounds use the drastic methods encouraged by the Duncan Administration's School Improvement Grant experiment. 

The Hechinger Ed's "Giving Teachers More Power Helps in Turnaround of Boston Schools" links to ASCD's evidence why those punitive methods are unlikely to work.  For instance, Massachusetts turnarounds that used more generic professional development and teacher support, and struggled to create a safe school environments, produced few gains.

But, Hechinger reports that Boston, in collaboration with Teach Plus, recruited proven teachers to lead the turnaround of six schools.  Boston model provided intensive teacher professional development over the summer, and health and wellness services for students. By the second year, these schools were producing double digit gains in math and reading.  The Boston method thus follows the original turnaround vision of "the Readiness Triangle," In contrast to more typical turnarounds, it does not skip "Readiness to Teach" and "Readiness to Learn." 

 The Boston/Teach Plus model could thus rescue SIG from its tendency to take teacher-bashing shortcuts, as it helps descalate our educational civil war.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.