Duncan floats school turnaround plan

• Tier III: The remaining Title I schools in improvement, corrective action, or restructuring in a state.

In its application to the state, each school district would have to demonstrate its commitment to raising student achievement by implementing, in each Tier I and Tier II school, one of the following rigorous interventions, ED says:

• Turnaround Model: This would include replacing the principal and at least 50 percent of the school’s staff, adopting a new governance structure, and implementing a new or revised instructional program, among other actions.

• Restart Model: School districts would close failing schools and reopen them under the management of a charter school operator, a charter management organization, or an educational management organization selected through a rigorous review process. A restart school would be required to admit, within the grades it serves, any former student who wishes to attend.

• School Closure: The district would close a failing school and enroll the students who attended that school in other high-achieving schools in the district.

• Transformational Model: Districts would address four specific areas under this model: (1) Developing teacher and school leader effectiveness, which includes replacing the principal who led the school before commencement of the transformational model; (2) implementing comprehensive instructional reform strategies, such as using data to improve instruction; (3) extending learning and teacher planning time and creating community-oriented schools; and (4) providing operating flexibility and sustained support.

Districts should choose the strategy that works best for each school, ED says. To make sure districts choose a variety of strategies, any district with nine or more schools in school improvement will not be allowed to use any single strategy in more than half of its schools.

States can seek a waiver to let schools that implement a turnaround or restart model to “start over,” thereby exiting school-improvement status and no longer needing to provide the public school choice option or supplemental educational services to their students. Also, states can request a waiver to allow a Tier I school that operates a targeted assistance program to implement one of the proposed interventions schoolwide instead.

Providing sufficient resources over several years is critical, Duncan says. His proposal would require states to award the maximum per-school amount permitted to each district for each Tier I school where one of the four interventions is approved for implementation.

Duncan also proposes to waive the availability period for school improvement grants beyond Sept. 30, 2011 (the deadline for use of stimulus funds), to make improvement funds available to school districts for three years.

Links:

Fact sheet about School Improvement Fund grants

Examples of successful school improvement efforts

Federal Register notice with new guidelines

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