In the last 20 years, the United States has spent billions of dollars on policies and programs to turn around, or rapidly improve, its lowest-performing schools. Little consideration has been given to the critical role the school district plays in launching and shaping school turnaround. This case study of one mid-sized urban district's effort to…

Informed by the Social-Emotional and Character Development (SECD) approach to school turnaround, the present study examined the relationship between students' recollection and reflection of their experience in a SECD program and academic achievement and explored the mediating effect of student-teacher relationships. Based on an intervention in an…

Policy makers have struggled to find successful approaches to address concentrated, persistent low school achievement. While NCLB and the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program have devoted significant time and attention to turnaround, very little empirical evidence substantiates whether and how these efforts work. This study employs a comparative…

This research reports upon the impact of two concurrent processes of Special Measures and academisation applied to a primary school in the north of England as a result of an unsatisfactory inspection by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). The aim of the study is to describe how the process of being placed in special measures, coupled…

According to the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, a "promising practice is any technique used that has a positive impact on students and has some data to support the claims made." Sources of this data range from experimental research to district- or state-level data analysis, but they must provide…

What does it take to change a school's mathematics achievement profile from low to one that is proficient and advanced? Is this transformed achievement profile sustainable? Such is the story presented here, in this three-phase case study of a K-8 urban charter school's mathematics program. The first phase discusses the school's…

In 2006, the Weld County School District Re-8 in Fort Lupton, Colorado, was eager to find a way to increase teacher effectiveness and, as a result, improve student achievement. This small, semirural district about 35 miles northeast of Denver grappled with high teacher turnover (34% in 2005) and low scores on state assessments (three out of four…