School turnaround--the rapid improvement of student achievement in low-performing schools--is increasingly a major topic of interest in K-12 public education. Federal legislation has left varying degrees of school improvement-related responsibilities up to states, and policy makers have divergent views about how to realize turnaround. We…

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program received more than $3 billion with the goal of substantially improving student achievement. The SIG program's funding was to help states turn around the nation's persistently lowest-achieving schools using one of four school intervention…

The School Improvement Grants (SIG) program received over $3 billion through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Through grants to states, SIG focused on turning around the nation's persistently lowest-achieving schools using one of four school intervention models, with the aim of substantially improving student achievement. The…

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools in the United States has been notably gloomy. But what is known empirically about whether school improvement works, which policies are most effective, which contexts respond best to intervention, and how long it takes? We meta-analyze 141 estimates from 67 studies of…

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to ascertain effective leadership practices, processes, and strategies utilized by elementary/secondary (K-12) principals that are in the bottom 5% of Title I turnaround schools. Education in the public schools is in a precarious situation because most students in turnaround schools are not…

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools in the U.S. has been notably gloomy. Observers argue that either nothing works or we don't know what works. At the same time, the federal government is asking localities to implement evidence-based interventions. But what is known empirically about whether school…

This study investigated the impact of the transformation and turnaround intervention models and leadership perception on the achievement of students attending Kentucky's priority high schools. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted to show the effect of the chosen model on academic achievement of students with test scores obtained…

The Study of School Turnaround (SST) examines the change process in a diverse, purposive sample of schools receiving federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) from 2010-11 to 2012-13. With the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the SIG program underwent three major shifts. First, ARRA boosted total SIG funding in…

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.…

Thousands of schools across the country are chronically low performing, and they operate within districts and states that are struggling to help them improve. The School Improvement Grants (SIG) program is designed to channel federal funds to states and districts facing the task of turning around struggling schools. SIG, a part of the Elementary…

This report, based on surveys completed by all 50 State Education Agencies (SEAs) and the District of Columbia (DC) and nationally representative samples of districts and schools during spring 2011 and 2012, examines implementation of the key education reform strategies promoted by the Recovery Act in 2011-12, the extent to which implementation…

Race to the Top (RTT), one of the Obama administration's signature programs and one of the largest federal government investments in an education grant program, received $4.35 billion in funding as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Through three rounds of competition in 2010 and 2011, RTT awarded grants to states that…

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 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,…