Brief compiles common challenges and lessons learned from early-implementing “Extraordinary authority districts” state leaders.
The Role of Charter Restarts in School Reform
The report examines how charter restarts fit within the larger context of charter school quality and accountability.
Fixing Failing Charters: “Restarts” Offer Student-Focused Option
When a charter school doesn’t uphold its end of the charter bargain—autonomy for accountability—and fails to produce strong student learning, must closing the school be the only option? Scattering its students—especially when they have no other high-quality schools available nearby—may disrupt an already-fragile community unnecessarily, if a better option exists. One promising alternative: Introduce new adults who have the will and skill to help struggling students achieve, and let the students stay.
A new report by Public Impact’s Daniela Doyle and Tim Field, The Role of Charter Restarts in School Reform: Honoring our Commitments to Students and Public Accountability explores a variation on school closure in which a charter school’s operator and board change, while the school continues to serve the same students.
Case Study: How Charlotte Zone Planned Opportunity Culture Schools
In late 2011, Denise Watts, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg zone superintendent, approached Public Impact for help meeting the goals she had as executive director for the new Project L.I.F.T., a $55 million public-private partnership to improve academics at historically low-performing, high-need schools in western Charlotte, N.C.
“If we didn’t try something truly different to change education, many of my students were not going to graduate,” Watts says.
Public Impact’s second Opportunity Culture case study, Charlotte, N.C.’s Project L.I.F.T.: New Teaching Roles Create Culture of Excellence in High-Need Schools, explains the “truly different” things that L.I.F.T. did to redesign four schools using Opportunity Culture models and principles. The study details the steps these schools took and the challenges they faced as they prepared to kick off their Opportunity Culture schools at the beginning of the 2013–14 school year. An accompanying study, Charlotte, N.C.’s Project L.I.F.T.: One Teacher’s View of Becoming a Paid Teacher-Leader, offers a Q&A with an excellent teacher on one design team, now set to take on one of the redesigned jobs as a multi-classroom leader.
Leading Indicators of School Turnarounds: How to Know when Dramatic Change is On Track
Report summarizes the research and experience from other settings in which leaders have long relied on leading indicators to enhance the likelihood of success.
School Turnarounds in Colorado: Untangling a Web of Supports for Struggling Schools
Report examines the recent federal and state policies that affect low-performing schools in Colorado.
New Orleans-Style Education Reform: A Guide for Cities
Guide helps cities interested in dramatically growing their charter school sectors as part of an effort to turn around persistently low-performing urban school systems.
Importing Leaders for School Turnarounds: Lessons and Opportunities
Report explores how organizations in other sectors import leaders to inform efforts by state and local leaders to import talent for failing schools.
Building Family and Community Demand for Dramatic Change in Schools
Report shares lessons learned about the barriers districts face in building community demand for dramatic change.
Using Competencies to Improve School Turnaround Principal Success
Report describes how using competencies that predict performance can improve turnaround principal selection, evaluation, and development.
Starting Fresh in Low-Performing Schools: Engaging Parents and the Community in Starting Fresh
Second report in a series on “starting fresh” highlights strategies for bringing key stakeholders to the table.
Starting Fresh in Low-Performing Schools: A New Option for School District Leaders Under NCLB
First report in a series on “starting fresh” describes the options of initiating a charter school or hiring an outside school manager.