The purpose of this study was to understand how university-based mentoring facilitates the acquisition of leadership skills in aspiring principals and if aspiring principals are able to make direct connections between authentic leadership responsibilities and what they experienced during their fieldwork. University-based leadership preparation…

The role of principal supervisor has been shifting from a focus on management to one that emphasizes support for principals. External partners can sometimes help with redesigning the role and other aspects of district organization. However, most research focuses on large urban districts with role conceptions and organizational structures that are…

School turnaround initiatives are top-down in nature and tend to relegate students and teachers to passive roles rather than empowering them as central change agents in school improvement. The purpose of this qualitative Action Research study was to investigate and deepen the use of student feedback to improve teaching and learning experiences and…

This report summarizes the findings of MA DESE's 2020 review of the Boston Public Schools, highlighting key findings around the teaching and learning, operational, financial, and enrollment challenges the state identified. It also describes why, according to the report, BPS persistently struggles in these areas and how its struggles negatively…

The topic for this dissertation was the effects arts have on standardized test scores of math. The research problem compared the students who had fine arts integrated into the curriculum and those that did not. This study included six target schools that have primarily African American students. The six-city schools studied were the third through…

For close to a decade, the Jefferson County School District (JCSD) was characterized by failed academic performance and financial instability. Some of the factors that drove these outcomes include school board dysfunction, poor use of financial resources, failure to recruit and retain highly effective teachers, revolving school leaders, and the…

States increasingly lean on charter organizations to take responsibility for their most underperforming turnaround schools. These efforts employ a different constellation of regulation, market forces, and community involvement that constitute more complex environments for charters. This article relates the experience of operators within the…

Without the development and implementation of appropriate reforms directed by school district leaders, struggling schools may continue to achieve low scores on state-wide evaluations. Addressing this issue requires cooperation between administrators to identify areas of need, develop a plan of action for change, and implement and monitor a shared…

Over the past half-century, billions of dollars have been spent across the nation on efforts to transform low-performing public schools -- most of them urban, most of them low-income, and most of them disproportionately enrolled with students of color -- into models of success. It hasn't worked. The failure of attempts to remedy the state of urban…

Recruiting and retaining effective teachers is critical to school turnaround. However, research on how improving educator quality in low-performing schools contributes to school improvement is largely situated in urban settings. This study examines staffing practices through a descriptive analysis of the first cohort of Comprehensive Support and…

On the world stage, youth are using their voices to effect change. Shouldn't we also listen to them in our schools? University of Rochester's Valerie Marsh and Superintendent Shaun Nelms describe what happened when a struggling urban high school, on the brink of closure, put student voice at the center of its turnaround.

Turnaround interventions often require or encourage low-performing schools to replace teachers, assuming that schools will recruit high-performing teachers who remain effective after transferring. However, teacher effectiveness may change after transferring, which could explain why some teacher replacement efforts do not improve student…

The Leadership and Inquiry for Turnaround (LIFT) initiative in Utah supports turnaround leaders' development and builds resilience and capacity of school leadership teams to thrive and lead their schools to improvement, even in the face of major challenges and adversity. This article describes how professional learning can help mitigate the…

Nationally, the number of charter schools opening and the enrollment size at charters is on the rise. But what happens when charter schools are low performing? For most charter schools and their authorizers, closing low-performing schools seems inevitable. However, school closures have dramatic impacts on students, families, and communities --…

In the School Turnaround and Leadership Development program, the Utah State Board of Education (Board) annually identifies low-performing district and charter schools: those that have been in the bottom three percent for two consecutive years. The school board or charter school authorizer of the low-performing school establishes a school…