Turnaround Schools
Enact comprehensive and bold turnaround strategies for the lowest-achieving 5% of schools as part of a new accountability and intervention framework.
1 | Provide superintendents and principals with authority on staffing, scheduling and funding by removing barriers that inhibit dramatic change.137
2 | Build accountability for transforming schools at district/school leadership levels with clearly articulated commitments from and accountability to the SDE School Turnaround Office.
3 | Grant significant latitude to form charter, magnet and other innovative school models in partnership with external organizations with a demonstrated record of effective school improvement.
Why This Recommendation Is Necessary
Connecticut must be bold and strategic in turning around the lowest-achieving 5% of schools. However, with 120 schools on the federal “In Need of Improvement” list for five years or more,138 it does not have a strong track record.139 There are several reasons for the state’s slow progress. First, many local contracts set conditions that likely hamper significant turnaround efforts.140 Second, many of the strongest legal actions available to the state to intervene in chronically low-achieving schools have not been employed.141 Third, superintendents and school principals have not been granted the autonomy, authority and responsibility to overcome barriers to rapid and dramatic change. Finally, although student performance in charter and magnet schools often exceeds that of other students in the district in which they are located,142 expansion of these models has been slow.
While 14 of the state’s 18 worst achieving schools were recently required to adopt a formal school turnaround model to receive federal School Improvement Grants,143 there are still many low-achieving schools that have been languishing for too long.144 Recent legislation has created a ripe environment for school turnarounds by eliminating some of the barriers to charter expansion, authorizing new or reconstituted “innovation schools” and creating school governance councils made up of parent representatives.145 Connecticut must aggressively use these new opportunities and create others to turnaround the state’s lowest-achieving 5% of schools.
Actions Required
— Legislation is required to provide superintendents and local boards of education the authority required to advance some of these strategies
— Create a multi-tiered intervention and accountability framework as outlined in our recommendations. Align new authority at the superintendent level to this framework
— Financial resources for the turnaround of the lowest-achieving schools should be leveraged to maximize change
Build a new framework for transforming failing schools.
Within the next year, adopt a new multi-tiered accountability and intervention framework to ensure that all schools and districts have the support they need to attain high student achievement.
1 | Classify schools and districts based on student growth and achievement factors as well as attendance, graduation rates and other indicators of student need and success.
2 | Hold both the state and district accountable at each intervention level.
3 | Define increased intervention authority and oversight over districts and schools in the lowest tiers of the framework.
4 | Ensure that there is a clear analysis of what additional student support will be required, including access to in-school and/or community-based social and health services.
Why This Recommendation Is Necessary
Connecticut needs to support all schools and districts based on their needs while holding them accountable for improving student achievement. Other states, including Massachusetts and Maryland, have developed or are piloting multi-tiered intervention and accountability models effective in differentiating school and district achievement and need. The Massachusetts five-tier model differentiates all schools and districts by achievement and outlines interventions in the lower tiers.146
Although SDE employs a professional development and coaching model for school improvement called the Connecticut Accountability for Learning Initiative (CALI), the state does not operate with a multi-tiered intervention framework. Districts participating in CALI must develop data-driven, multi-year district and school improvement plans and set student achievement targets; however, the state does not have a clearly defined action plan to hold schools or districts accountable for demonstrating improvement or achieving these specific achievement goals.147
Actions Required
— SDE must develop and adopt a new intervention and accountability framework
— Allocate funds to implement the new framework beginning with the 2011-2012 school year
Provide new leadership at the state level.
Establish a School Turnaround Office with the authority and the mandate to intervene aggressively in low- achieving schools and districts. Consolidate all SDE activities related to interventions and accountability for the lowest-achieving schools as part of this new office.
1 | Create a new Turnaround Office that reports to the Commissioner. The Turnaround Office will have discretion over hiring decisions and the authority to contract out for staffing and support needs.
3 | Authorize the Turnaround Office to create public-private partnerships to increase capacity, innovation
and financial support for school transformation.
3 | Re-evaluate the effectiveness of the School Turnaround Office every three years.
Why This Recommendation Is Necessary
Connecticut presently lacks a highly placed centralized authority to direct, support and monitor expanding efforts to turn around low-achieving schools. Responsibility for oversight of the 14 federally funded “turnaround schools” is currently combined into a Bureau that is lodged three levels below the Office of the Commissioner. In addition, no senior leader in the agency has been assigned accountability for the cohort of low-achieving students statewide. In recognition of the challenges and complexity of leading school turnarounds, states and cities such as Colorado, Maryland, New York City and Chicago have developed Turnaround Offices to manage this work.148 School turnaround offices can provide the conditions and capacity for rapid school improvement, while maintaining a single focus on improving student achievement.149
Actions Required
— Restructure SDE to create a Turnaround Office and a high-level authority to lead it
— Grant the Turnaround Office the authority and the mandate to work in low-achieving schools and districts
Maximize learning time in school and through extended learning opportunities for low-achieving students.
Maximize instructional time in the existing school day and provide the authority to lengthen the school day and school year for the lowest-achieving 5% of schools.
Why This Recommendation Is Necessary
Maximizing instructional time for low-achieving students is fundamental to improving student achievement. Under state law, public schools must be open for a minimum of just 180 days each school year.150 Some Connecticut superintendents of schools have specifically asked for the authority to expand the school day and school year,151 but only the 14 federal “turnaround schools” must provide for extended learning time for their students. Research has shown that providing extended learning time, including summer learning, can remediate learning deficits for low-income students.152
Additionally, students must attend school to benefit from the school experience. Chronic absences contribute to early reading challenges and eventually lead to secondary school failure.153 Yet Connecticut lacks consistent action around student absences.154
Actions Required
— The Commissioner of Education and the SBOE must act upon their existing authority to extend the school day or year for the lowest-achieving schools
— Provide program support and analysis to superintendents and principals in the lowest-achieving schools about time structure, use and management to enhance instruction
— Provide fiscal support to address the additional costs of extending the school day or school year, after each school has provided a plan for the use of added time
— Identify students who are truants and engage with parents to develop a plan that assures high levels of attendance