The Texas Education Agency offers grants for districts to implement school turnaround strategies at low-performing schools. Districts that receive these grants can implement a school turnaround strategy (referred to as a district-managed restart strategy) that includes replacing most of the principals and teachers at schools that the district…

The Texas Education Agency offers grants for districts to implement school turnaround strategies at low-performing schools. Districts that receive these grants can implement a school turnaround strategy (referred to as a district-managed restart strategy) that includes replacing principals and teachers at schools that the district identifies as…

The Texas Education Agency offers grants for districts to implement school turnaround strategies at low-performing schools. Districts that receive these grants can implement a school turnaround strategy (referred to as a district-managed restart strategy) that includes replacing principals and teachers at schools that the district identifies as…

Persistently low-performing schools have been repeatedly targeted for comprehensive reform for more than two decades, usually with poor results. These efforts have suffered, however, because they were often poorly implemented or insufficiently grounded in rigorous research. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), enacted in 2015, provides a…

Low-performing schools in rural settings can face challenges common to all struggling schools, such as low student motivation and maintaining a qualified teaching staff. However, aspects of rural schools' settings, such as the distance from urban areas and the commute between the schools and the students' and teachers' homes, can exacerbate the…

School Improvement Grants (SIGs) are authorized under section 1003(g) of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The grants are made to state education agencies (SEAs), and the SEAs award competitive subgrants to local education agencies (LEAs) that demonstrate: (1) the greatest need for the funds; and (2) the strongest…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of School Improvement Grants (SIGs) in the state of California (CA) in increasing student achievement using the turnaround implementation model. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) included educational priorities focused on fixing America's lowest achieving schools.…

School reform and turnaround efforts have been in the public eye since the signing of the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA) into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1965. Research has been focused on the School Improvement Grant, as well as the essential components that improve performance of schools. This qualitative case examines one…

The purpose of this guide is to provide states, districts, and schools with information and support to prepare applications for 2015-2016 School Improvement Grants (SIGs). The guide includes tools, checklists, and questions for SEAs and LEAs aligned with the revised SIG requirements, primarily focused on how to leverage the "planning…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 injected $7 billion into two of the Obama administration's signature competitive education grant programs: Race to the Top (RTT) and School Improvement Grants (SIG). While RTT focused on state policies and SIG focused on school practices, both programs promoted related policies and practices,…

New regulations attached to ARRA funding of federal School Improvement Fund grants aimed at producing rapid turnaround of low performing schools were highly criticized as unsuitable for rural schools. This mixed-methods study looked at the implementation of the School Improvement Fund Transformation Model in two rural Maine high schools during the…

The School Improvement Grants (SIG) program was first authorized in 2001 under Title I section 1003(g) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and provides formula-based federal funds to states that then competitively award these funds to districts applying for SIG on behalf of their low-performing schools. These schools use the funds…

In 2009, the federal government committed over $3 billion nationwide to help states and districts turn around their worst-performing schools. The U.S. Department of Education intended for the School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to spur dramatic change. This report looks at the results of a field study of the first-year implementation of those grants…

The Study of School Turnaround examines the improvement process in a purposive sample of 35 case study schools receiving federal funds through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program over a three-year period (2010-11 to 2012-13 school years). This evaluation brief focuses on 11 of these SIG schools with high proportions of English Language…

The federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) program, to which $3 billion were allocated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), supports schools attempting to turn around a history of low performance. School turnaround also is a focus of Race to the Top (RTT), another ARRA-supported initiative, which involved a roughly $4…