Purpose: This paper explores a district government's role in using school networks to transform turnaround schools in rural Shanghai, China. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative case studies were conducted. Findings: Findings showed that the C District government varied its power in initiating school networks; collaborative networks were…

In recent years, policymakers and scholars argued that state education agencies (SEAs) should move away from simply acting as compliance monitors and take on more prominent roles as providers of technical support to schools and school districts. Scholars find that SEAs have struggled to do so, yet there is little empirical work to explain what…

Whole-school reforms have received widespread attention, but a critical limitation of the current literature is the lack of evidence around whether these extensive and costly interventions improve students' long-term outcomes after they leave reform schools. Leveraging Tennessee's statewide turnaround reforms, we use difference-in-differences…

This article uses elements of narrative and portraiture to acknowledge the voices of four teachers who participated in a 3-year effort to turn around an urban elementary school. Turnaround is a sanctioned reform effort intended to produce rapid, dramatic improvement in student academic achievement in a low-performing school. We present the teacher…

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…

In recent years, arts education has become a focus of some school improvement efforts, with consistent evidence emerging that vibrant arts programs can improve factors commonly listed as goals in school improvement plans, including engagement, attendance, and school climate. Such models mainly make use of arts integration, an approach that marries…

School turnaround in the United Stated has been a focus dating back to the mid 1960s with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act aimed to ensure that children have equal access to excellent educational opportunities. This qualitative study targeted seven Turnaround Principals of…

This study was an autoethnography of the turnaround efforts of a Chicano leader in four low-performing schools in Texas. The U.S. Government and the State of Texas both impose sanctions on schools that fail to meet minimum standards on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exams. The focus in the research was on how life…

The sifting and sorting mechanisms of Australia's education system continue to work to the detriment of groups put at a disadvantage. For mainstream schools serving working-class communities in particular, the rejection of the offers and advantages of schooling continue to result in differential class consequences and inequalities for…

Students in urban turnaround schools often receive subpar education in comparison to their counterparts in suburban schools due to insufficient resources and a lack of quality, experienced teachers. Urban turnaround schools have a higher number of novice teachers who may be unable to provide quality instruction that closes the achievement gap…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there are significant differences in the English/Language Arts proficiency scores of elementary school students who attend a traditional public school or one of two types of turnaround schools in a large metropolitan school district in the southern region of the United States. The goal was to determine…

Purpose: While recognizing networking as a powerful means of school turnaround, most studies focus on governments' and schools' roles in promoting collaborative turnaround rather than the complexity of external providers and their behaviors. This study explores multiple external providers' complex roles in networked school turnaround.…

South Carolina implemented its Read to Succeed (RTS) policy in 2014 in accordance with federal requirements. The problem addressed in this study was that there are many students in South Carolina Title I schools still failing to achieve reading proficiency after 3 years of full implementation of RTS. The purpose of this qualitative study was to…

Background or Context: Although a positive school climate is critical to school effectiveness, little is known about whether a focus on school climate may facilitate successful turnaround in the nation's lowest performing schools. The research suggests two distinct but overlapping ways in which climate may explain a turnaround intervention's…

This paper examines the financial resources allocated to Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) schools under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in the United States. Our analyses demonstrate that CSI schools do receive additional funding and spend more than comparable non-CSI schools. However, we question whether the magnitude of this…