School Leadership, Professional Development, Extended Learning Time and Other Key Elements Are Needed for Successful School Turnaround, Witnesses Tell House Panel
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congress should encourage, incentivize and support the universal elements that research and best practices show are working to turn around the country’s lowest performing schools, witnesses told the House Education and Labor Committee today. Research outlined by witnesses shows that successful school turnaround must include flexibility, shared leadership, professional development, capacity building, extended school and learning time, community involvement and beyond.
The hearing was part of a series the committee is holding as it works in a bipartisan, open and transparent way to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). In the hearing, U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the committee, announced that he will include a new plan for school turnaround success as part of the ESEA legislation, focusing on the elements discussed in the hearing.
“Fixing our lowest performing schools requires flexibility, collaboration, and support at every step along the way,” said Miller. “It means proving, planning and preparing for real success in our schools. If the important elements aren’t in place, if communities aren’t on board, if teachers aren’t included, none of this will happen and our nation will suffer the consequences. In this reauthorization, we will focus on the research-based, proven, core elements of successful turnaround identified today by our witnesses. When coupled with a strong use of data and a rigorous planning process, we can help provide local communities the flexibility to succeed.”
Turning around chronically failing schools can have significant impact on local communities, both in improving academic achievement and economically.
“We have created a new model for turning around schools. In three years, eight schools in which our model was applied turned around their reading test scores and school culture. The taxpayers saved $24 million compared to other turnaround models,” said John Simmons, president of Strategic Learning Initiatives. “The reauthorization of ESEA should allow for a strategy like ours that emphasizes the importance of comprehensive school reform strategies that are grounded in rigorous research and shown to work, using existing staff.”
Think College Now, a public college-prep elementary school in a low-income area of Oakland, California, employs research-based models to help students succeed and to close the achievement gap. Before the school opened, only eight percent of students were considered proficient or advanced in English Language Arts and only 23 percent in math.
“Our entire community -- from teachers to staff to families to students – is united and working toward the same big goal – to go to college,” said David Silver, Principal and Founder of Think College Now Elementary. “If you ask any one of those people at TCN, why are you are here, the answer would be the same: ‘to go to college.’”
In Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District, school officials used innovative reforms like a dual credit high school and early college high school to reduce dropouts by 75 percent in one school and to transform another school from one of the worst in the state to 11th in the country.
Witnesses noted that while research outlines best practices, ultimately flexibility and a comprehensive approach are paramount to successful school turnaround.
“There are elements in the research and our experience that tell us that efforts to improve poor performance work best when we work intensively with school leaders and teachers from a sense of shared accountability rather than demanding accountability on a narrow range of behaviors,” said Jessica Johnson, Chief Program Officer at Learning Point Associates. “We also know that meaningful change is more often sustained when a more comprehensive approach is taken and community and parents as well as educators are involved in the solution. The flexibility to orchestrate these variables is critical to success.”
View witness testimony
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