The Echo

Survey Finds Limited Familiarity, Success With Turnarounds

By Dakarai Aarons on August 31, 2010 7:09 AM
A new survey released today finds that few school districts are familiar with the four federal models for turning around low-performing schools and even fewer have implemented them.

More than a third of school districts reported they had no familiarity with the models that are part of the federal School Improvement Grants heading to school districts this fall in a bid by the Obama administration to change the fortunes of the bottom five percent of America's schools, according to the report from the Washington-based Center on Education Policy. And fewer than 12 percent had implemented any of the models in their schools.

"This really is a grand experiment to take the 5,000 lowest-performing schools in the country, tell them they have to follow four specific models of reform and putting a lot of money behind the reform," said Jack Jennings, CEP's president, in an interview.

His group's survey was done this spring, when states and school districts were waiting on the federal government, which is not known for moving quickly, to pass along the money from the $3.5 billion Title 1 School Improvement Grants...

Read more here:  http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/