The Bold and the Bureaucrat The Top Ten State Education Agency Levers for School Turnaround

Authors | Larry Stanton and Alison Segal

October 2013

Acknowledgements This report is funded in part by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Joyce Foundation. We would like to thank the Federal Education Group and EducationCounsel for partnering with Mass Insight Education on the State Development Network. We would also like to thank the 2013 State Development Network, including the state education agencies of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia. The State Development Network (SDN) is a multistate, performance-based network of forward-thinking state education agencies that are committed to turning around low-performing schools by increasing state-level capacity and transforming the policy framework. Please contact us at [email protected] if your state is interested in joining the SDN.

October 2013

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The Bold and the Bureaucrat: Top Ten State Education Agency Levers for School Turnaround Executive Summary 

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Mass Insight Education identified the top ten bold actions that SEAs can take to maximize the chances that their turnaround efforts will be successful. The foundation of these levers is a strong, coherent theory of action for school turnaround/improvement. The power levers range from funding, to conditions for turnaround, to monitoring progress. This publication includes a discussion protocol for identifying the levers available in your state, and to create an action item list moving forward.

Rationale School turnaround is not for the timid; success requires bold actions at the school, district and state levels. “Lighttouch” programmatic initiatives won’t turn around schools that have underperformed for years. Successful turnaround requires powerful, coherent, well-resourced and well-executed strategies that change the way that students interact with their teachers and the curriculum. These strategies should align to a strong and coherent theory of action for change. Based on our turnaround work with SEAs, districts and schools, we’ve identified 10 bold actions that SEAs can take to maximize the chances that turnaround efforts will be successful. These levers were selected based on diagnostic reviews of SEA turnaround work, Mass Insight’s work to support turnaround in school districts, and the feasibility of successfully pulling these levers. The levers fall under five main categories: planning, funding, staffing, monitoring, and taking action. At the end of this toolkit, we have supplied a discussion protocol and worksheet to encourage thoughtful discussion at the state and district levels around the options available to support bold decisions and encourage school improvement.

Introducing the Top 10 Levers Using a competitive process for awarding SIG and other funds to support turnaround.

Establishing specific turnaround goals and metrics at the SEA level and regularly reporting to the public on progress.

Tying all turnaround grant awards/contracts to specific performance targets.

Requiring that district and teachers union agree to an MOU addressing key turnaround conditions prior to full release of funds.

Basing the amount of grant funding on quality and nature of plan, school size and documented need.

Allowing the districts the authority to select turnaround school staff.

SEA encourages flexible use of all available funds in turnaround schools.

SEA turnaround monitoring process allows for quick identification of failure and taking action.

Requiring from each turnaround school a single, coherent, robust turnaround plan based on an analysis of need.

SEA has the power to take over or close schools that fail to improve.

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Exploring the Top 10 Levers In our experience, no SEA currently uses all ten levers. However, we believe that after reviewing the levers and completing the discussion protocol, every SEA will discover they have the ability to use more turnaround levers than they originally thought possible. For each lever, we describe why it is important to turnaround, then describe the practices we see across states, followed by an exemplar. The exemplars are intended to be general enough so that any state might be able to use them. We also discuss the importance or rationale for including each lever. Throughout the remainder of this publication, we also highlight a series of real-world examples for some of the levers. 1. Using a competitive process for awarding SIG and other funds to support turnaround. Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar Considering a district’s ability to  SEA provides a request for  States award grants to nearly all implement and fulfill plans makes proposals to eligible districts the districts that apply. that investment more likely to pay and evaluates proposals based  At the same time they are off. It also gives SEAs the leverage on a rubric that includes: awarding grants to nearly all the to require stronger, well thought out o district's ability to districts that apply, SEA staff implementation plans. create conditions for report that they have little turnaround; confidence in the ability of the o the districts capacity to districts that were awarded execute its plan; and grants to execute their o the ambition of the turnaround plans. districts goals for turnaround. 2. Tying all turnaround grant awards/contracts to specific performance targets. Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar School plans should be based on  Every contract includes specific  General confusion among both specific—and realistic—performance performance targets that district and SEA staff regarding targets. These targets should be include leading and lagging expectations for turnaround measurable, including both leading performance indicators and school success. and lagging indicators and measures of fidelity of  Common performance targets outcomes. Armed with clear implementation. (i.e. escape from Priority status) performance targets, districts and  SEA collects data on the across all SIG schools are schools can better understand the performance measures and unrelated to the school’s work that lies ahead, and the SEA regularly engages district staff starting point or turnaround can make decisions to renew regarding progress on both strategy. funding based on progress toward implementation and leading  SEAs renew funding for schools the goals. indicators. that neither implement their plans with fidelity nor meet performance targets.

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3. Basing the amount of grant funding on quality and nature of plan, school size and documented need. Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar Along with awarding grants through  SEA’s School Turnaround Office  SEA staff report that they do not a competitive process, basing the (STO) differentiates funding have the authority to determine amount of the grant on the quality awards based on the strength the size of the schools grant and nature of the proposed plan, the of LEAs’ applications, the award. size of the school, and documented expense of the strategy.  The same amount of funding is school need allows SEAs to be more provided to all turnaround intentional in funding school schools in some states improvement. In a state using this regardless of enrollment, need lever, a school with 99% free- and or the specific improvement reduced-lunch students and a strategy. proven strong leadership team will  District and school leaders are receive more money than a school unclear about criteria for grant that is 25% free- and reduced-lunch awards or amounts. whose plan does not include strong actionable steps to improve outcomes for students. 4. Encouraging flexible use of all available funds in turnaround schools. Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar As many schools begin to consider  The SEA requires districts to  District turnaround activities are what will happen once their three consider all options for funding limited to those that can be years of SIG funding end, SEAs school turnaround, including funded with SIG dollars. should require schools and districts repurposing federal Title I and II  Little attention is paid to how to examine their use of Title I funds funds by adapting the SDN turnaround activities can be and encourage shifts to support guidance describing the sustained after SIG funds run critical turnaround activities. flexibility available in the out. Schoolwide Program Model, as  Schools and districts act as explained in the July 2013 though federal Title grant publication by the Federal supported activities are Education Group and Mass permanent and fixed regardless Insight Education, The Money of their impact on school You Don’t Know You Have for performance. School Turnaround. This  SEA Turnaround Offices are document clarifies the reluctant to push other SEA spending rules that apply to departments, e.g., federal supporting schoolwide programs, to encourage close improvement programs with examination of the impact of Title I dollars, allowing states, Title funds. districts, and schools to rethink the way they use Title I funding.1

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See our previous SDN publication, The Money You Don’t Know You Have for School Turnaround (2013).

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5. Requiring from each turnaround school a single, coherent, robust turnaround plan based on an analysis of need. Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar Requiring a single consolidated  The SEA either provides or  School improvement plans focus school improvement plan to clarify requires a diagnostic process on compliance rather than a priorities and integrate activities will that engages the school’s comprehensive analysis of the reduce confusion and encourage community in identifying the school's performance on what coherence. School improvement root causes of the school’s low the district or SEA has plans should be based on an analysis performance, which leads to a determined will really make a of need and root causes of single, coherent school difference. problems. Too often, the improvement plan and  SEA support for the school turnaround plan is an amalgam of supporting budget. diagnostic and planning function disconnected plans to fund  The plan encourages focus on a is separate from turnaround programs unrelated to analysis of limited number of priorities resulting in a lack of alignment. why the school is failing. that address the identified root  Improvement plans identify causes of low performance, and more priorities than the school identifies a limited number of could possibly address given the performance outcomes and available time and resources. leading indicators of progress. 6. Establishing specific turnaround goals and metrics at the SEA level and regularly reporting to the public on progress.2 Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar Setting goals and reporting to the  Establishing goals and metrics:  Meeting AYP is the measure of public helps accomplish several o SEA is publicly school success. objectives at once: first, it can be committed to moving  Lack of clarity about the goals used to build political will and schools from the and expectations for turnaround support for the difficult decisions to bottom 5 percent to statewide. be made by school and district the top 25 percent.  Little media attention or public leaders; second, it keeps the public  Reporting: discourse about turnaround. informed and issues transparency; o SEA publicly reports on  Lack of accountability to the and third, it gives education within progress of turnaround public for turnaround success or the state a common goal to aim for schools. failure. and sets standards for turnaround.

Real World Examples Establishing goals and metrics: Tennessee’s Achievement School District publicly committed to moving schools from the bottom 5 percent to the top 25 percent, both stating the metric publicly and posting it boldly on the front page of the ASD’s website. Reporting: Advance Illinois, in collaboration with the Illinois State Board of Education and Mass Insight Education, produced a 2012 report on the progress of Illinois’ turnaround schools. The report was made available to the public and was designed in an easy-to-understand manner. 2

See our previous publication, Setting the Bar for School Turnaround: How Ambitious Public Goals Can Drive School Turnaround (2013).

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7. Requiring that district and teachers union agree to an MOU addressing key turnaround conditions prior to full release of funds. Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar Changing conditions for students at  SEA strategy requires LEAs to  The overwhelming majority of an underperforming school will address autonomy for school turnaround schools use the often rely on changing people and leaders in their applications. transformation model that programs. This includes giving the  The SEA withholds RTT funding includes few substantial changes district the ability to extend the until districts reach agreement in learning conditions or school day or school year, or to with their local teachers union personnel to avoid changes to change the staff at a school. on a new evaluation system. collective bargaining Oftentimes, these changes require a agreements. Memorandum of Understanding  Collective bargaining (MOU) with the local union. SEAs agreements prevent the district can provide districts with leverage to from considering using the negotiate improved conditions for “turnaround” model and learning by using its authority to removing/replacing a substantial make grants, including Title I, number of school staff. contingent on changes in specific  SEAs fail to use its power to conditions. make extra funding contingent on changes in conditions.

8. Providing districts with the power to select turnaround school staff. Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar Although a change in staff is no  State legislation allows LEA to  Districts submit proposals that guarantee of turnaround success, it re-staff turnaround schools; describe ambitious changes to does provide the school leader with teachers who are not hired by the way that schools are staffed, an opportunity to assemble a team other schools lose their but fail to reach agreement with that is committed to turning around positions after a predetermined unions for the CBA modifications the school. In most districts, it is time in a candidate pool necessary to execute the impossible to get union agreement change. that all staff need to reapply for  Principals don’t have the power their jobs in turnaround schools. to select their faculty/staff.

Real World Examples Requiring an MOU: The New York State Department of Education required districts to come to an agreement with their local unions regarding the newly implemented teacher evaluation system as a condition for receiving Race to the Top funds. Authority to select turnaround staff: Illinois legislation allowed Chicago Public Schools to re-staff turnaround schools.

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9. SEA turnaround monitoring is designed to quickly identify failure so that actions can be taken. Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar SEAs and districts can’t wait for  The SEA maintains a dashboard  SEA monitoring process focuses years to determine whether of leading indicators on on compliance rather than turnaround will be successful. turnaround schools and performance so that schools Instead, it needs to closely monitor intervenes when there is failure to improve is not progress and intervene when the evidence of either a failure to recognized for years. turnaround is off course. In some implement the school  SEA renews SIG grant even with cases, this may mean requiring improvement plan or lack of poor performance. changes in key personnel, strategy, progress on leading indicators.  SEA staff recognize that that or partners. In the most extreme some SIG schools are not making cases, it may require a complete progress, but don't believe that restart of the turnaround effort. they can do anything about it. 10. SEA has the power to take over or close schools that fail to improve. Importance/Rationale What We See Exemplar Takeover or closing is the lever that  The SEA closes or restarts  SEAs have the power to close many schools and districts don’t schools that fail to improve schools for poor performance believe their SEAs will ever use. This after three years. under existing legislation but belief that the SEA lacks either the  The SEA shifts responsibility for have never utilized the power. authority or the will to close or turnaround schools from the  SEAs have limited the use of takeover persistently failing schools local district to a state– their authority to close schools makes it possible for school and managed district or charter to cases of financial distress. district leaders, teachers and even school authorizer.  The SEA's failure to close low parents to take a “this too will pass” performing schools creates a attitude toward turnaround. When perception in other schools and an SEA closes or takes over a school districts that there are no for persistent failure, it sends a consequences of failure for powerful signal to other schools that adults. failing to address the needs of students can also have serious consequences for adults.

Real World Examples Quickly identifying failure: The Connecticut State Department of Education’s Commissioner’s Network targets bold turnaround in a subset of the State’s lowest-performing schools. On a quarterly basis, Network schools come together for NetStat sessions to review progress relative to a set of universal leading and lagging indicators. School teams work collaboratively to analyze data, celebrate success, diagnose challenges, and establish action plans to target improvements. Taking over or closing schools: Both Tennessee (Achievement School District) and Louisiana (Recovery School District) created state-run networks of schools when said schools face severe underperformance. While some states may not have the authority to take over schools, such as New Jersey, they instead take over entire districts in the face of repeated failure to improve.

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Using the Top 10 Levers To use this tool, the team should discuss and answer the following questions for each lever. Once your team completes the questions, fill out the accompanying worksheet to document your final decisions and next steps for each lever. At the SEA level, this discussion should include the Turnaround or School Improvement staff and the Accountability and Budget Offices. The last page of this toolkit supplies you with a summary of the ten levers.

Top 10 SEA Levers for School Turnaround Discussion Protocol 1. Does the SEA have this power? 2. Does the SEA use the power? How? How often? 3. If the SEA does not have the power, how would it be used? What is/could be the source of this power (law, regulation, policy)? 4. If the SEA does not have the power, why not? What does it do instead? 5. If the SEA does not have the power, can it get the power? How? If the SEA does not wish to seek this power, why not? 6. If the SEA has used this power, how much leverage (low, medium, high) did it provide? If the SEA doesn’t have this power, how much leverage might it provide if it had it? Top Ten SEA Power Levers for School Turnaround SEA Has the Power Power Lever Uses

EXAMPLE: 1. Using a competitive process for awarding SIG and other funds to support turnaround.

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Does not use

SEA Does Not Have the Power Wants

Does not want

…What’s Next?

Example: SEA awards equal funds to all schools that apply. In order to encourage stronger plans, we will institute a new system for 2014-2015 funding, requiring an interview in addition to the proposal. We will base grant amounts on the strength of the plans and the schools’ capacity to follow through with their plans. We will meet with other departments across the SEA that work closely with these schools to receive feedback as we build the new competitive process.

X

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Top Ten SEA Power Levers for School Turnaround SEA Does Not SEA Has the Power Lever Have the Power Power

1. Using a competitive process for awarding SIG and other funds to support turnaround.

2. Tying all turnaround grant awards/contracts to specific performance targets.

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…What’s Next?

3. Basing the amount of grant funding on quality and nature of plan, school size and documented need.

4. Encouraging flexible use of all available funds in turnaround schools.

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5. Requiring from each turnaround school a single, coherent, robust turnaround plan based on an analysis of need.

6. Establishing specific turnaround goals and metrics at the SEA level and regularly reporting to the public on progress.

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7. Requiring that district and teachers union agree to an MOU addressing key turnaround conditions prior to full release of funds.

8. Providing districts with the power to select turnaround school staff.

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9. SEA turnaround monitoring is designed to quickly identify failure so that actions can be taken.

10. SEA has the power to take over or close schools that fail to improve.

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Mass Insight Education is a nonprofit organization, founded in 1997, that has been a state and national leader in strengthening public school systems. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called its 2007 study “the bible of school turnaround,” and Mass Insight Education’s national work has been recognized for its research, advocacy, and state and district initiatives to transform the country’s lowest-performing schools and rethink traditional district structures. Within Massachusetts, a Mass Insight Education program remains the state’s largest for academic high school math and science interventions aimed at underserved students. Since its incorporation in 2008, this program has seen increased enrollment in math, English, and science AP courses; and more students starting and graduating from college. Currently, Mass Insight Education is leveraging both its initiative and programmatic strategies to promote college preparedness and career success. Mass Insight Education 18 Tremont Street Suite 1010 Boston, Massachusetts 02108

(617) 778-1500 www.massinsight.org blog: www.turnaroundzone.org email: [email protected]

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