Overview

One of the most pressing challenges states face is dealing with schools that are persistently under-performing. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) raises the stakes for states considerably and requires states and districts to quickly scale-up their accountability systems so they can bring all students to proficiency. Governors and other state education leaders understand that now - more than ever - they need a comprehensive and coherent strategy of school improvement, one that effectively assists greater numbers of low-performing schools than ever before.

Efforts to devise and implement accountability systems have helped identify the magnitude of the challenge, and have shown initial promise in improving some schools. However, the number of chronically low-performing schools—schools that have missed federal and/or state growth targets for four or more years—continues to grow. Each year, governors and state education officials release a list of schools that fail to meet federal and/or state performance targets. Five percent of America 's public schools—representing more than 2.5 million students—are expected to receive the most extreme federal designation of Restructuring in 2009-2010.

A new intervention model, developed by Mass Insight Education & Research Institute, calls for states to change operating conditions such as staffing and budgetary authority, build capacity through lead turnaround partners, and cluster schools for efficiency, effectiveness, and to model new kinds of school network design. This promising framework requires considerable political capital to make the changes necessary to both turn around existing schools and to close schools and scale up new models.

Focus of Center Activities

The State Strategies to Improve Chronically Low-Performing Schools initiative will provide four selected states with technical assistance and grant resources to develop state turnaround plans and policies that create the conditions to improve chronically low-performing schools. The NGA Center for Best Practices will host a forum at the Sofitel Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, December 2 -3, 2008. Offered in partnership with MassInsight Education & Research Institute, this forum will help teams from fifteen states to develop innovative solutions that improve chronically low performing schools.

This grant program seeks to identify states with a robust standards- and accountability-based environment, culture of openness to innovation, leadership consensus, and potential funding capability to implement such an initiative. This effort is made possible with the generous support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The ultimate goal of the initiative is to aid four states with proven will and capacity to diagnose the extent of the challenge, and develop an appropriate state-level intervention strategy that provides school leaders with sufficient authority over the operating conditions in low-performing schools to engineer lasting, fundamental change. The RFP for this initiative will be released on December 4, 2008 and states receiving grant awards will be announced in February, 2009.

Reaching New Heights: Turning Around Low-Performing Schools was initiated in August of 2002 by Governor Paul Patton at the start of his tenure as NGA Chair. During this first year of the initiative, the NGA Center assisted governors and their advisors in their efforts to turnaround low-performing schools through:

Knowing the Right Thing to Do: School Improvement and Performance-Based Accountability
Framing Paper. This paper, by Richard Elmore of Harvard University - looks in detail at two schools classified as low-performing in their states and draws lessons from the experiences of these schools for state policies regarding school improvement and accountability.

Reaching New Heights: Turning Around Low-performing Schools - A Guide for Governors
A Guidebook for Governors that provides a policy framework for turning around schools and highlights best practices from states, districts, and schools.

Turning Around Low-Performing Schools: 2003 Institute for Governors' Education Advisors
An Institute for Governors' Education Advisors which brought together governors' advisors and education experts to study states' best practices and implementation strategies.

NGA's 2003 Annual Meeting
The Opening Plenary Session at our Annual Meeting featured a discussion with a teacher and students from an Indianapolis Public School success story, Francis Scott Key School 103, which has made notable academic achievement gains. Following the panel, Richard Elmore presented his findings on school improvement and performance-based accountability.

Related Links:

• The Turnaround Challenge: Why America's best opportunity to dramatically improve student achievement lies in our worst-performing schools (Mass Insight)
• State Systems of Support Under NCLB: Design Components and Quality Considerations (American Institutes for Research)
• Help Wanted: State Capacity for School Improvement (American Institutes for Research)
• A Call to Restructure Restructuring: Lessons from the No Child Left Behind Act in Five States (Center on Education Policy)

In the News:

• Report Finds Troubling Growth in Failed Schools
• Cross-District School Transfers Face Many Roadblocks, Report Finds
• Accountability Systems Benefit Low-Achieving Students, Study Finds
• California Proposes New Accountability Framework for Struggling Schools
• Michigan Governor Proposes Replacing Low-Performing High Schools
• Report Offers Recommendations on Low-Performing Schools