Despite increasing attention on chronically low-performing schools, the efforts to turn these schools around have not always been met with success. School turnaround requires comprehensive and effective campus interventions. The research purpose of this study was to understand the dynamics of a turnaround intervention. Specifically, through a…

School leaders should not have to choose between personal well-being and professional success. However, as the pressures associated with high-stakes accountability persist, school leaders are often forced to make this difficult choice. In what we label as under-resourced schools, where leaders frequently experience the pressures associated with…

Billions of dollars have been injected to reform turnaround schools over the past decades with minimal tangible positive outcomes related to improving student achievement, if any. In this qualitative study, we investigated how using longitudinal external root cause analyses (RCAs) contributed to enhancing leadership instructional practices in thee…

This project aims to gain insight into the mechanisms by which schools in highly challenging environments avoided learning loss--or even improved--during the pandemic. Using a unique dataset covering multiple levels of school, health, and environmental data, we examine which factors led schools to 'beat the odds' when it comes to learning…

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) with its research partner have developed a system that changes the equation on monitoring. The research-driven approach to monitoring allows DESE, within its existing activities and resources, to use monitoring to improve the state system of support as well as direct…

Low-performing schools are attracting attention in many countries that are looking for ways to turn them around. According to the functional-structural approach, restructuring these schools' organization is imperative, and an organizational consultant can help in this task. In this study, we investigated the perspectives of organizational…

This paper explores school development processes in four schools in challenging circumstances. These schools were selected from a sample of schools in a longitudinal mixed-method study over a five-year period of around 100 schools using a typology of different models of change over time. The paper presents first selected findings from the overall…

In this qualitative collective case study, we investigated how participating in external longitudinal root cause analyses (RCAs) contributed to the enhancement of instructional leadership practices of the leadership teams in three turnaround elementary schools in Texas. We participated with an external team of expert professors in conducting the…

Background: Literature in the field of school leadership substantiates principals' influence on student achievement. There is less clarity about principals' influence on school turnaround or the competencies needed for principals to effectively turn around schools. Research Design: A two-phase, mixed-methods study design analyzed 41 behavioral…

The study used tailored interventions for ten schools which were deemed chronically low performing in Florida. Treatment schools included a majority of students that were minorities, economically disadvantaged and academically struggling or at-risk of failure. The ten schools received a progression of intensive professional development and…

This qualitative study of aspiring and then practicing "turnaround" principals examines how they made sense of turnaround as a policy. We use sensemaking theory to analyze participants' conceptualization and invocation of turnaround. We find that, as aspiring leaders, participants tended to primarily define turnaround as an autocratic…

Full-service community schools (FSCSs) are broadly viewed as a strategy to address the multiple challenges faced by low-income children and families that can create barriers to students' learning. Several studies have investigated the perceptions and experiences of a variety of key stakeholders involved in this reform strategy. However, no studies…

A collective case study methodology is used to explore how high school turnaround principals leveraged the professional development of teachers to raise student achievement. The study also sought to capture the characteristics of the professional development programs principals implemented. Interview data were collected from five turnaround…

This longitudinal (2013-17), exploratory, mixed methods case study of a small, secondary school in a high poverty neighborhood located in a major northeastern city, investigates the changes in leadership practices and essential organizational structures during several phases of an improvement effort, supported by a federal School Improvement Grant…

The purpose of this re-examination is to further study the effectiveness of a 5-year plan to turnaround failing schools. The original study, published in 2013, utilized 16 urban schools to investigate the role of climate and leadership in the transformation process. The authors asserted that utilizing academic gains as the single indicator in…