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S. HRG. 111–1113 

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: SCHOOL TURNAROUND 

HEARING 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, 

LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

ON

EXAMINING ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY ACT (ESEA) 

REAUTHORIZATION, FOCUSING ON SCHOOL TURNAROUND 

APRIL 13, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

DANIEL SMITH, Staff Director 

FRANK MACCHIAROLA, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010 

Page 

Harkin, Hon. Tom, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 

Pensions, opening statement ............................................................................... 1 

Enzi, Hon. Michael B., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming, opening 

statement .............................................................................................................. 2 

Klein, Joel I., Chancellor, New York City Public Schools, New York, NY .......... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

Donohue, Beverly, Vice President of Policy and Research, New Visions for 

Public Schools, New York, NY ............................................................................ 13 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 15 

Balfanz, Robert, Ph.D., Associate Research Scientist, Center for Social Organization of Schools and Associate Director of the Talent Development Middle and High School Project, Baltimore, MD ..................................................... 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21 

Mitchell, Timothy, Ed.D, Superintendent of Schools, Chamberlain School District 7–1, Chamberlain, SD ................................................................................. 26 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 28 

Petruzzi, Marco, Chief Executive Officer, Green Dot Public Schools, Los Angeles, CA ................................................................................................................... 33 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 35 

Alexandar, Hon. Lamar, a U.S. Senator from the State of Tennessee ................ 45 

Murray, Hon. Patty, a U.S. Senator from the State of Washington ................... 51 

Isakson, Hon. Johnny, a U.S. Senator from the State of Georgia ....................... 54 

Franken, Hon. Al, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota .......................... 56 

Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alaska ........................ 58 

Bennet, Hon. Michael F., a U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado ................. 60 

Hagan, Hon. Kay R., a U.S. Senator from the State of North Carolina ............. 65 

Merkley, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Oregon ............................. 67 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.: 

American Institute for Research (AIR) ........................................................... 74 

(III) 

(1) 

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: SCHOOL 

TURNAROUND 

TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:12 p.m. in Room 

SD–430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin, Chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Harkin, Dodd, Bingaman, Murray, Casey, 

Hagan, Merkley, Franken, Bennet, Enzi, Alexander, Burr, Isakson, 

and Murkowski. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARKIN

The CHAIRMAN. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, 

Labor, and Pensions will please come to order. 

I would like to thank all of you for being here today as we continue to discuss reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act. 

In our two previous hearings, we gained valuable insight into the 

need for education reform in order for our country to remain globally competitive. We heard from Education Secretary Arne Duncan 

about the Obama administration’s views on how to best meet this 

challenge. 

This afternoon we will hear from experts on turning around 

under-performing schools. Without question, turning around chronically under-performing schools, schools that consistently fail to 

educate the children entrusted to their care, is one of the great 

moral economic and civil rights imperatives of our day. 

The Department of Education estimates that there are approximately 5,000 of these chronically under-performing schools across 

the country. That is about 5 percent of our total public schools. 

These schools are attended largely by minority and low-income students. Mr. Bob Balfanz of Johns Hopkins, who is one of our witnesses, has identified almost 2,000 high schools with graduation 

rates of less than 60 percent. Sixty-nine percent of all AfricanAmerican and 63 percent of all Hispanic dropouts come from these 

2,000 schools. 

Turning around chronically low-performing schools is a daunting 

challenge for States, school districts, administrators, and teachers. 

These schools are often the most under-resourced and, as a consequence, often lack the capacity to implement reform strategies. 

They are often also filled with students who face major challenges 

2 

to success, including poverty or limited English proficiency. These 

schools need more resources than the average school, yet typically 

have fewer resources. 

Despite these challenges, a number of schools, and in some cases 

entire school districts, have had remarkable success in improving 

student achievement. We need to learn from these powerful turnaround examples. For example, in 2006, the Harvard School of Excellence in Chicago ranked among the 10 worst elementary schools 

in the State of Illinois. After implementing a reform strategy focused on strong leadership, highly trained and effective teachers, 

curriculum changes, improved accountability measures, and school 

cultural transformation, the number of students meeting State 

testing standards increased by 25 percent in just 2 years. Now, this 

is just one example of how school turnaround has been done. We 

need to scale these up and implement this all over the country, and 

it will be a priority focus in our ESEA reauthorization. 

Our witnesses today will share their experiences in implementing school improvement strategies that have resulted in sustainable student achievement. Their testimony will be extremely 

valuable to us as we work together on a bipartisan basis to craft 

an ESEA reauthorization designed to get America’s lowest performing schools back on track. 

I will now turn to my very capable partner in this reauthorization, Senator Enzi, for his opening statement, and then we will introduce our witnesses. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ENZI

Senator ENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

you for your diligent work in moving us along on fixing No Child 

Left Behind, which we are calling the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act. It is an old version of the name, and I am sure we 

are going to have a new name here before long. 

We have worked to create a diverse witness list to share best 

practices and research with this committee, and I look forward to 

learning more from each of you this afternoon. The knowledge and 

practice that you bring to the table will help us, as we move forward, to develop legislation that builds upon what we have learned 

from No Child Left Behind and fixes what has not been working. 

There are two issues I will focus on as we reauthorize ESEA related to school improvement and turnaround activities. First and 

foremost is the impact these mandated Federal turnaround models 

could have on rural and frontier schools and school districts. The 

second is the research base used to determine whether these models have been proven to be effective at turning around low-performing schools. 

Rural and frontier schools and school districts are unique and 

often need unique solutions to their unique problems. To illustrate 

the size of Wyoming, I often tell people it is one of the big States, 

but we only have 14 cities in the State of Wyoming where the people exceeds the elevation. 

[Laughter.] 

This means that we have a lot of families and students spread 

out over a very large area. Wyoming is lucky to have many superVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
3 

intendents, principals, and teachers like Dr. Mitchell who are dedicated to serving students in small and rural areas across my State. 

Now, why are these students so spread out? It is because our 

towns are a long way apart. We do have a policy in Wyoming that 

grade school students should not have to travel more than 40 miles 

by bus each way and junior high students should not have to travel 

more than 60 miles each way. That means we have schools with 

as few as one student and some of them as big as 15 students that 

are out in the very frontier areas. 

I am very concerned that requiring school districts to use one of 

the four school turnaround models for schools identified for school 

improvement will adversely affect rural or frontier schools. I support accountability and believe it is important to identify the poorest performing title I schools and require specific actions to spur 

dramatic improvement in those schools. 

That said, some flexibility needs to be given to rural and frontier 

schools that simply cannot meet these strict Federal requirements. 

Rural and frontier schools need to identify and adopt turnaround 

strategies that will have a dramatic impact and increase student 

achievement, but I do not believe that all of these strategies can 

be identified or mandated from Washington. 

Many schools in Wyoming do not have access to turnaround partners such as the New Visions for Public Schools and do not have 

charter operators, such as Green Dot, that are either willing or 

able to open schools in remote areas. It is often difficult to recruit 

principals and teachers to rural areas who will stay for an extended period of time. 

Let me be clear that I am not proposing to give rural and frontier 

schools a free pass. Strategies mandated from Washington will simply not solve the problems facing these schools. I believe it is incumbent upon us to work with State and local superintendents, 

principals, and teachers from the rural States, school districts, and 

schools to find options that would work when balanced with an appropriate amount of flexibility from the Federal level. 

I also believe it is important for Congress to understand the research behind each of the turnaround models. It is my understanding from the research community that the knowledge base for 

how to turn around low-performing schools is pretty shallow. The 

scientific evidence or research for the four interventions proposed 

by school improvement grants is, at best, sketchy. Again, this 

causes me concern because there is no research on turnaround efforts in rural schools and school districts. If we are going to mandate interventions from the Federal level, we need to be clear about 

why we are mandating such reforms and what evidence we have 

for our actions. Otherwise, I worry we will not be learning from No 

Child Left Behind and are just repeating our mistakes. 

I want to welcome all of our witnesses and thank them for being 

with us today to share your experiences. I look forward to learning 

more from each of you today and the efforts you have undertaken 

to improve academic achievement outcomes for children across the 

country. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

4 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Enzi. We will 

leave the record open at this point for any statements by any other 

Senators. 

Now I will introduce our witnesses so we can get going. First, we 

have, starting from my left, working to the right, Joel Klein, the 

Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools, the largest school 

district in the entire United States. Mr. Klein became New York 

City Schools Chancellor in July 2002 after serving in a variety of 

high-level positions in both government and business, including the 

Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. 

Department of Justice where I first met Mr. Klein. As Chancellor, 

he oversees over 1,600 schools with 1.1 million students, 136,000 

employees, and a $21 billion operating budget. Mr. Klein will share 

the school turnaround approaches he has used and provide lessons 

learned at the district level. 

Next we have Beverly Donohue, Vice President of Policy and Research at New Visions for Public Schools in New York City. Ms. 

Donohue has extensive experience from New York City government 

where she held positions as Chief Financial Officer for the public 

school system and as Deputy Director of the New York City Office 

of Management and Budget. She will discuss the work she has 

done with New Visions, a school turnaround partner to more than 

76 public schools serving more than 34,000 students in New York 

City. 

Next we will hear from Mr. Robert Balfanz, who I mentioned earlier, the Co-Director of the Talent Development middle grades and 

high schools programs and co-operator of Baltimore Talent Development High School, an innovation high school operated in partnership with the Baltimore City Public Schools. Dr. Balfanz has 

published widely on secondary school reform, high school dropouts, 

early warning systems, and instructional interventions in highpoverty schools. Dr. Balfanz will share his expertise on implementing reform in high-poverty schools and on addressing the 

problems of dropouts in middle and high schools. 

Next we will hear from Timothy Mitchell, Superintendent of 

Schools in Chamberlain School District 7-1, located in Chamberlain, SD. Dr. Mitchell has both researched and practiced innovative 

leadership in rural school districts. He was one of nine rural superintendents selected by the American Association of School Administrators to meet with Secretary Duncan to provide feedback on improvement strategies in rural areas. Dr. Mitchell will speak to the 

unique challenges faced by rural schools in implementing school 

turnaround strategies. 

Not to be outdone by my friend from Wyoming, I went to a grade 

school where in one room we had kindergarten, first, second. In the 

next room, we had the third, fourth, and fifth, and in the next 

room, the ‘‘big room,’’ as we called it, was sixth, seventh and 

eighth. In my eighth grade class, there were six of us. That is pretty darned rural. 

Finally, Marco Petruzzi will wrap up our testimony, the CEO of 

Green Dot Public Schools in Los Angeles, CA. Green Dot has 

opened 18 successful charter high schools in the highest-need areas 

of Los Angeles, including eight as part of its turnaround of Locke 

High School in Watts. Prior to joining Green Dot, Mr. Petruzzi was 

5 

a partner at Bain and Company where he led a pro bono consulting 

project to develop a model for the transformation of overcrowded, 

under-performing urban public schools. He will speak about district 

improvement models that involve charter schools and the conditions that are necessary for such efforts to be successful. 

I thank all of you for your history of involvement in education. 

I thank you all for being here today from long distances away and 

for your being willing to get involved in this most important bill 

that we are doing, that is the reauthorization of the Elementary 

and Secondary Education Act. 

Again, let me start with my longtime friend and the Chancellor 

of the New York City Schools, Mr. Joel Klein. Welcome back, Mr. 

Klein. 

STATEMENT OF JOEL I. KLEIN, CHANCELLOR, NEW YORK CITY 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS, NEW YORK, NY 

Mr. KLEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a privilege to be 

here. Senator Enzi, members of the committee, I want to thank you 

for the opportunity to discuss the reauthorization of the ESEA and 

to talk about New York City’s approach to school turnaround, 

something we have been engaged in—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Klein, before you start, would you reset that 

for 7? We will set it for about 7 minutes, but if you go over, do not 

worry about it. I will say at the outset, all your statements will be 

made a part of the record in their entirety. If you could sum it up 

in 5, 6, 7, 8. If you go over 8 or 9 minutes, I will get a little nervous. 

Mr. KLEIN. It will not be the first time you have done this to me. 

So go right ahead. You are familiar with my history. 

In New York City, we have no school that is where the people 

are higher than the altitude, or vice versa. 

Over the past 8 years, we have been engaged, in New York City, 

in a very rigorous turnaround strategy, and I commend the President for setting out this challenge. No Child Left Behind brought 

long overdue accountability to public education and it cast a spotlight, an important spotlight, on the shameful achievement gap between our African-American and Latino students on the one hand 

and our White students on the other that really has gone 

unaddressed for generations. The law rightfully demanded that all 

children, regardless of background and demographics, have access 

to a high quality education. I believe the Senate, as well as the 

other elected officials who brought us together in a bipartisan fashion to get NCLB done, deserve great credit. 

That said, as Senator Enzi said, there is widespread consensus 

that NCLB can and must be improved. Its focus on absolute 

achievement instead of on student progress labeled many schools 

as failing even when students were making significant gains. Moreover, it takes years under NCLB before interventions are mandated 

in struggling schools, and even longer before real restructuring is 

required. Sometimes as many as 6 or 7 years can go by with missing annual yearly progress, years when a student’s future is on the 

line. NCLB requires very little to be done about it. This has allowed districts like mine to implement so-called restructuring iniVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
6 

tiatives that amount to tinkering around the edges while our students are falling through the cracks. 

The U.S. Department of Education’s Blueprint for ESEA addresses some of these shortcomings, and I commend Secretary Duncan. 

I believe this is a step in the right direction. 

The proposed changes would require schools to show that they 

are helping students gain ground rather than holding all schools to 

the same uniform expectations. We have used a system like that 

in New York City for the past several years, and it has allowed us 

really to compare apples to apples and recognize schools doing excellent work while serving challenging populations. 

I am happy to say I worked closely with Senator Bennet when 

he was the Denver Superintendent to implement a similar system 

in Denver, and he was an extraordinary national leader as superintendent in Denver. 

It also enables us to identify, when we compare apples to apples, 

those schools that are persistently low-performing and requires us 

to make the difficult decision to replace those failing schools with 

better options. 

As part of our overall strategy, replacing failing schools has 

helped us to get real results in New York City. In 2009, our graduation rate, while still too low, reached an historic high of 63 percent after a decade of stagnation when it was flat. The graduation 

rate has increased for 8 consecutive years under Mayor Bloomberg. 

In the past 4 years, from 2005 to 2009, it has gone up by 12.5 

points. In New York City, when you are talking about something 

like that, you are really talking about thousands and thousands of 

kids. During the same 4-year period, our dropout rate has gone 

from over 22 percent down to just under 12 percent. These gains 

have been achieved across all our demographic groups, with our African-American and Latino students making the greatest progress. 

Much of the progress reflects the efforts of talented educators 

who share our belief that the status quo is not good enough in public education. It also demonstrates the commitment of our students 

and their families who know that when it comes to education, hard 

work brings great rewards. 

Some of the progress, however, reflects effective initiatives to 

turn around failing schools. And I want to be candid. Those are always more controversial. When we see that a school is not meeting 

standards in New York, we intervene to support improved outcomes. We have used a variety of strategies, strategies well known 

to my colleagues, including putting in a new highly trained principal, organizing a large school into small learning communities, 

providing extensive professional development for our teachers, and 

introducing mentoring and tutoring services. 

Yet, sometimes in some schools, the outcomes do not change or 

sometimes, unfortunately, conditions deteriorate. As a city and a 

country, we must then ask—and this is a question I want to ask 

the committee—when should we stop sending children to a place 

that is unlikely to prepare them for life beyond high school? When 

is it simply too immoral to consign students to the prospect of failure by sending them to schools where none of us would ever send 

our own children? Those are the questions I have asked myself as 

Chancellor over the past 8 years. 

7 

When our best efforts are not working to turn around these failing schools, we must take more dramatic steps, even though they 

will prove controversial. In New York, we have a solid track 

record—and there is evidence and there is research to support our 

work—of replacing low-performing schools with better options. We 

have worked with New Visions, who you will hear from shortly 

from Beverly, but with other groups as well. 

Our approach to closing schools differs from many other parts of 

the country. We do not padlock buildings or immediately transfer 

current students elsewhere. Instead, we gradually phase out school 

organizations without adding new students until the final class 

graduates. Simultaneously, we begin to introduce replacement 

school organizations into the building. That strategy has fundamentally improved the opportunities for our kids. 

Since 2002, we phased out 91 schools and replaced them with 

400 new schools that are out-performing our other schools citywide. 

Our new schools have an average graduation rate of 75 percent 

even though they serve some of the city’s highest-need students. 

That is better than our city average. They often have new leaders, 

many new teachers, and so forth. 

Let me give you a concrete example before I wrap up. In September 2003, we began to phase out the Bushwick High School in 

Brooklyn, which had a historic under-performance and an abysmal 

23 percent graduation rate. Today there are four new schools thriving in that same building with an average graduation rate of 72 

percent. 

As I have said, there will always be resistance to change at this 

scale, but sometimes when a school has experienced sustained failure, the only way to transform it is through real and fundamental 

transformational change. We believe, therefore, that ESEA must 

include explicit consequences for persistently low-performing 

schools. Real reform will not occur without this committee’s leadership. There are powerful groups that will advocate for the status 

quo despite abundant evidence that the current system is not getting the job done for too many students. 

Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for the opportunity to present 

to you today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Klein follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOEL I. KLEIN

SUMMARY

Good afternoon Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and committee members. 

Thank you for inviting me to discuss the reauthorization of the Elementary and 

Secondary Education Act (‘‘ESEA’’) and New York City’s approach to school turnaround. We hope lessons learned from our experience can guide other districts as 

they take up the President’s challenge to turn around America’s lowest-performing 

schools. 

No Child Left Behind (‘‘NCLB’’) brought long-overdue accountability to public education and cast a spotlight on a shameful achievement gap that had gone 

unaddressed for generations. The law rightfully demanded that all children, regardless of background, have access to a high-quality education. You and your colleagues 

deserve praise for these essential reforms. 

That said, there is widespread consensus that NCLB can be improved. Its focus 

on absolute achievement, instead of progress, labeled many schools as ‘‘failing’’ even 

when students made significant gains. Moreover, it takes years before interventions 

are mandated in struggling schools, and even longer before dramatic restructuring 

is required. Even after 6 years of missing Annual Yearly Progress—years when stuVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
8 

dents’ futures are on the line—NCLB is vague about required turnaround strategies. 

This has allowed districts to implement so-called restructuring initiatives that 

amount to tinkering around the edges while students fall through the cracks. 

The U.S. Department of Education’s Blueprint for ESEA addresses some of these 

shortcomings and is a step in the right direction. Proposed changes would require 

schools to show that they are helping students gain ground rather than holding 

schools to uniform expectations. We have used such a system in New York for years. 

It allows us to recognize schools doing excellent work while serving challenging populations. It also enables us to identify schools where persistent low performance necessitates significant interventions, including—in some cases—making the difficult 

decision to replace failing schools with better options. 

As part of our overall strategy, replacing failing schools has helped us get real 

results. In 2009, the city’s graduation rate reached a historic high of 63 percent. 

After a decade of stagnation, the graduation rate has increased for 8 consecutive 

years since Mayor Bloomberg assumed responsibility for the city’s schools, rising by 

12.5 points since 2005 alone. Similarly, the dropout rate has been cut in half since 

2005, falling to 11.8 percent. These gains have been achieved across all demographic 

groups, with African-American and Latino students making the greatest progress. 

Much of this progress reflects the efforts of talented educators who share our belief that the status quo is not good enough. It also demonstrates the commitment 

of students and families, who know that when it comes to education, hard work 

brings great rewards. 

Some of the progress, however, reflects effective initiatives to turn around failing 

schools. When we see that a school is not meeting student needs, we quickly intervene to support improved outcomes. Various strategies include putting a highly 

trained new principal in place, organizing the school into small learning communities, providing extensive professional development or introducing mentoring and 

tutoring services. 

Yet at some schools, outcomes do not change or conditions even deteriorate. As 

a city and a country, we must then ask: When should we stop sending children to 

a place unlikely to prepare them for life beyond high school? When is it simply immoral to consign students to the prospect of failure by sending them to schools 

where we would never send our own children? 

When our best efforts are not turning around failing schools, we must take more 

radical steps, even if they prove controversial. 

In New York, we have a solid track record of replacing low-performing schools 

with better options. Our approach to closing schools differs from many other parts 

of the country. We don’t padlock school buildings or immediately transfer current 

students elsewhere. Instead, we gradually phase out school organizations, without 

adding new students, until the final class graduates. Simultaneously, we gradually 

introduce replacement school organizations into the building. This strategy has fundamentally improved opportunities for our students. 

Since 2002, we have phased out 91 schools. We replaced them with 400 new 

schools that are outperforming other schools citywide. Our new high schools have 

an average graduation rate of 75 percent even though they serve some of the city’s 

highest-need students. These schools have new leaders, many new teachers, distinctive themes and usually a much smaller size—allowing them to provide individualized student supports and build new cultures that are a precondition for turnaround. 

I want to give you a concrete example of what this approach means. 

In September 2003, we began to phase out Bushwick High School, which had a 

history of underperformance and an abysmal 23 percent graduation rate. Today, 

there are four new small schools thriving in that building, with an average graduation rate of 72 percent. 

There is always resistance associated with change of this scale. But sometimes, 

when a school has experienced sustained failure, the only way to transform conditions is through fundamental change. Based on our experience, ESEA must therefore include explicit consequences for persistently low-performing schools, including 

closing schools after other improvement strategies have failed. 

Real reform cannot occur without your leadership. Powerful interest groups continually advocate for the status quo, despite abundant evidence that the current system is not getting the job done for too many students. As you revisit ESEA, I urge 

you to make lasting and significant change that—if done right—will transform student lives and advance the future of our Nation. 

Thank you again for inviting me to testify. I am happy to answer your questions. 

Good afternoon Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and members of the committee. 

9 

Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (‘‘ESEA’’) and New York City’s approach to 

school turnarounds. We hope that our experience can serve as a model for other districts nationwide as they take up President Obama’s challenge to turnaround the 

bottom 5 percent of America’s schools. 

Fifteen years ago, the iconic teacher’s union leader, Al Shanker, made a point 

about public schools that we are still working to realize today. 

‘‘The key is that unless there is accountability, we will never get the right system,’’ he said. ‘‘As long as there are no consequences if kids or adults don’t perform, 

as long as the discussion is not about education and student outcomes, then we’re 

playing a game as to who has the power.’’ 

No Child Left Behind (‘‘NCLB’’) brought long-overdue accountability to public education and cast a spotlight on a shameful achievement gap that had gone 

unadressed for generations. The law rightfully demanded that all children, regardless of their background, have access to a high-quality education that allows them 

to achieve their full potential. You and your colleagues deserve praise for bringing 

these difficult but essential reforms to the education landscape. 

That said, there is widespread consensus that NCLB can be improved. Its focus 

on absolute achievement instead of growth put many schools in the category of ‘‘failing’’ even if students made significant gains. Moreover, it takes years before interventions are first mandated in struggling schools, and even longer before more dramatic restructuring efforts are required for chronically low-performing schools. Even 

after 6 years of missing Annual Yearly Progress—years during which students lives 

and futures are on the line—NCLB is vague about what types of turnaround strategies are necessary to achieve fundamental change. This has allowed schools and districts to implement so-called restructuring initiatives that amount to mere tinkering 

around the edges while students are falling through the cracks. 

The Department of Education’s Blueprint for changes in ESEA addresses some of 

these shortcomings and is a step in the right direction. Their proposed changes 

would require schools to show that they are responsible for helping all students 

make progress rather than holding every single school to uniform expectations regardless of student achievement levels upon enrollment. 

In New York City, we have focused on this type of accountability model, measuring schools not just on where they stand, but on how much ground their students 

gain from year-to-year. This system recognizes schools making great progress even 

while serving challenging student populations and it enables us to provide supports 

when schools are failing to meet student needs. Perhaps most importantly, it allows 

us to quickly identify schools where persistent patterns of low performance necessitate more significant interventions, including—in some cases—making the difficult 

decision to replace failing schools with better options for our students and their families. 

When Mayor Bloomberg and I assumed responsibility for our school system, we 

made a commitment to ensuring that all of our children have access to excellent 

schools, schools that help them graduate prepared for success in college and careers. 

While much work remains, our efforts—along with the hard work of our teachers, 

administrators, parents, and students—are paying off. 

In our elementary and middle schools, the percentage of city students meeting or 

exceeding grade-level standards on annual State Math and English Language Arts 

exams has risen dramatically since 2002—from 38 percent to 69 percent in English 

and from 41 percent to 82 percent in math. In fact, New York City’s five boroughs 

made more progress than any other county statewide from 2002 to 2009—that’s 

measured against other students taking the exact same tests. 

These gains are mirrored at the high school level. Just last month, New York 

State education officials announced that the city’s progress in improving graduation 

rates had continued unabated, with our 4-year graduation rate reaching a historic 

high of 63 percent in 2009 with gains across every demographic group. We recognize 

that we still have a long way to go, but after a decade of stagnation, we are proud 

that the city’s graduation rate has increased for 8 consecutive years. Since 2005 

alone, the graduation rate has risen by 12.5 points. The dropout rate has been cut 

nearly in half since 2005, falling to a historic low of 11.8 percent. This is true even 

though New York State is increasing graduation requirements. 

So how did this happen? 

Much of this progress reflects the efforts of diligent and talented educators who 

share our belief that the status quo is not good enough and who know that if they 

set goals and stick to their plans, they can change lives. It also demonstrates the 

commitment of students and families, who know that when it comes to education, 

hard work brings great rewards. 

10 

Some of the progress also reflects structural reform and a significant investment 

in initiatives designed to turn around failing schools. When the Department sees 

that a school is not providing students with the education they need, we quickly intervene to try to change those conditions, and our efforts have been effective in improving outcomes at many city schools. 

Take, for example, Hillcrest High School in Queens. Hillcrest is a large school, enrolling over 3,000 students. In September 2006, we transformed Hillcrest into seven 

small learning communities or SLCs. Each of the SLCs is organized around a theme 

that engages student interests, and each enrolls approximately 450 students. A core 

group of teachers and staff work closely and consistently with those students, allowing them to develop academic and social supports tailored to meet individual student needs. 

This initiative already appears to be making a difference at Hillcrest. In June 

2007, the school’s graduation rate was 62 percent. By 2009, it had climbed to 68 

percent. While there is obviously still much room for improvement, Hillcrest presents an excellent example of a restructuring program that has put a low-performing school on the path toward success. 

Another key strategy that can jump-start school improvement is appointing a 

highly trained new principal. While some of our schools have experienced remarkable gains under a new principal, others only experienced incremental improvements insufficient to yield a dramatic turnaround. 

Small learning communities and leadership changes are among the more significant interventions the Department introduces to transform outcomes at our lowerperforming schools. We also provide extensive professional development for teachers 

and administrators and introduce enrichment programs or mentoring and tutoring 

services in struggling schools. Where appropriate, we help schools to phase down 

total enrollment or reconfigure grades and classes. Low-performing teachers are 

given evaluations and support in an effort to boost their effectiveness. Teams of 

teachers across the city have been organized to improve outcomes among targeted 

groups of students. 

Yet at some schools, despite these efforts, the outcomes have not changed. In some 

cases, conditions have even deteriorated. As a city, and as a country, we must then 

ask ourselves: When should we stop sending children to a place unlikely to prepare 

them for life beyond high school? When is it simply immoral to consign students to 

the prospect of failure by sending them to schools where we would never send our 

own children? 

When our efforts are not turning around failing schools and we know we are capable of doing better by our kids, we must be prepared to take more radical steps, 

even when those efforts prove controversial. 

In issuing the Blueprint for revising ESEA, President Obama and the U.S. Department of Education have called upon State and local education officials to ‘‘turn 

around’’ the bottom 5 percent of schools nationwide. They recognize that turning 

failing schools around is difficult and often controversial work, and they have therefore outlined four permissible strategies designed to support schools in achieving 

that goal. They are: 

1. Turnaround Model—Redesign or replace a school, including replacing the principal and at least half of the staff. 

2. Restart Model—Convert a district public school to a public charter school. 

3. Transformation Model—This is similar to the Turnaround Model, but requires 

rigorous evaluation of teachers and the principal, rewarding those who increase student achievement and removing those who fail to achieve that goal. 

4. School Closure—Immediately close the school and re-enroll current students in 

other, more successful district schools. 

As mentioned, New York City has a solid track record of improving achievement 

through a combination of rigorous accountability, structural reform, customized supports to schools and students, and leadership change. When those efforts are not 

good enough, however, we have implemented an approach to closing and replacing 

schools that the Department of Education would classify as the ‘‘turnaround model.’’ 

Our approach to closing schools differs from that used in many other parts of the 

country. We don’t padlock the school doors immediately or transfer current students 

elsewhere in the district. Instead, we phase schools out gradually, without adding 

new incoming classes, until the final group of students graduate. Simultaneously, 

we gradually introduce replacement schools into the building, typically adding one 

class per year until they reach full enrollment. These replacement schools have new 

principals, and while they are required to interview 50 percent of highly qualified 

staff from the pre-existing school, they can also bring in new teachers matched to 

11 

the new school’s mission and theme. Unlike similar efforts in many other parts of 

the country, this turnaround strategy has a solid track record of success. 

Since 2002, New York City has announced the phase out of 91 schools. We have 

replaced these schools with more than 400 new schools that are outperforming other 

schools citywide. Our new high schools, for example, have an average graduation 

rate of 75 percent even though they serve some of the city’s highest-need students. 

In fact, MDRC—one of the Nation’s most-respected education policy research institutions—recently reported that students enrolled in our new schools tend to be more 

disadvantaged than their peers in other schools citywide across a number of socioeconomic and academic indicators. 

I want to be clear that we do not arrive at the decision to phase out a school without careful consideration. We have a comprehensive process for identifying our lowest performing schools and then determining which turnaround strategies will be 

used in them. There is simply no excuse for keeping a school open when it is not 

giving students the education they need and when our best efforts have failed to 

change those conditions. 

Our accountability system ensures that all schools are held to clear and fair 

standards. Every city school receives an annual Progress Report grade, which is 

shared with the school community and the broader public. These grades range from 

an ‘‘A’’ to ‘‘F’’ and take into consideration student performance, student progress, 

and school environment. Each school is compared against all schools serving the 

same grades, and also against a ‘‘peer group’’ of the 40 most similar schools citywide. Schools can earn extra credit for exemplary progress among high-need students. 

Any school that earns a ‘‘D’’ or ‘‘F’’ grade on its most recent progress report, or 

that earns a ‘‘C’’ grade for 3 consecutive years, is automatically considered as a candidate for restructuring, leadership change, or possible closure. 

That is not the only criteria we look at, and we also contemplate significant interventions at a handful of other schools based on a broader set of considerations. 

Another important factor we consider is a school’s performance on its annual 

Quality Review. These on-site evaluations of a school’s culture and teaching practices help us assess the school’s capacity to turn around. In evaluating Quality Reviews, we look closely at a school’s strengths and weaknesses to see how they might 

impact its capacity to achieve a dramatic turnaround. When we have concerns about 

a school based on its Quality Review, we initiate additional conversations with the 

Superintendents and other Department staffers that have first-hand experience 

working with the school to determine whether it has the capacity to show significant 

improvement in the near future. 

Finally, we weigh community indicators at each school. This includes annual 

school survey results from parents, students, and teachers. It also includes demand 

for seats to assess whether or not families feel that the school is a good option for 

their children. When schools are not working, students and parents vote with their 

feet, and most of the schools we have decided to phase out have experienced low 

and declining demand. 

We remain steadfastly focused on helping phase-out schools to improve during 

their final years of operation, and we provide intensive support to the students enrolled in those schools. Indeed, our experience shows that outcomes for students in 

phase out schools tend to get better as those schools move toward closure. Any students that are still working to earn their diplomas when a school closes receive 

guidance and the opportunity to transfer to another school or program that better 

meets their needs. 

Many faculty and staff members continue working in our phase-out schools for 

several years as those schools move toward closure. As I mentioned earlier, our new 

schools are also required to hire 50 percent of highly qualified faculty from schools 

they replace, and any teachers who do not seek or obtain positions in the replacement schools can apply for other vacancies citywide. Our new schools have new 

leaders, many new teachers, and distinctive themes—all of which allow them to 

build the new school cultures that are a precondition for truly turning around a failing school. 

We believe that our approach to school turnaround is effective because our new 

small schools allow teachers, school leaders, and other staff to get to know every 

student very well, ensuring that academic and social supports are in place to meet 

individual student needs. The smaller size of the staff also makes it easier for educators to collaborate and plan collectively to design a coherent curriculum. School 

leaders are better able to plan schoolwide professional development so that students 

make continuous progress. All of these characteristics are found in high-quality, 

large- and medium-sized schools as well, but we believe that the personal attention 

afforded by a much smaller school makes a particularly powerful difference for our 

12 

highest-need students. That belief is borne out in the results that these small 

schools have achieved to date. 

I want to take a moment to provide a concrete example illustrating what this approach can mean for students and communities. 

In September 2003, we initiated the phase out of Bushwick High School in Brooklyn. That school had a longstanding history of academic struggles. The 4-year graduation rate for the Class of 2002 was 23 percent. Today, there are four small schools 

thriving on the campus. Collectively, they enroll a very high-need student population—roughly 14 percent of Bushwick students are English language learners and 

17 percent are special education students, and most students come from low-income 

families. The overwhelming majority of incoming ninth-graders are performing wellbelow grade level upon enrollment. Nonetheless, the average 4-year graduation rate 

for the three schools we opened in September 2003 is 72 percent. 

There are many examples of large, successful high schools in the city, and those 

schools are a valued part of our diverse system of 1,600 schools. But we also know 

that some of our schools—large and small alike—have been underperforming for 

years. We have high schools, for example, that have sustained graduation rates ator-below 50 percent for a decade or longer. We cannot stand by and watch such 

schools fail another generation of students when a host of interventions and supports have not yielded meaningful improvements, especially when we have similar 

schools serving similar students that are achieving significantly better results. 

There is always anxiety associated with change of this scale. But sometimes, 

when a school has experienced sustained failure, the only way to transform those 

conditions is through fundamental change—change that offers increased support for 

current students and better learning environments for future ones. 

For this reason, I believe ESEA needs to be explicit about what should happen 

to persistently failing schools. While Race to the Top gives States incentives to close 

schools after all other school improvement strategies have failed, the Blueprint is 

more ambiguous about this issue. Our experience in New York shows that replacing 

failing schools can transform entire districts, so it is essential that the legislation 

does not permit States to shy away from making tough choices when necessary. As 

you revisit ESEA, I urge you not to waste this historic opportunity to make lasting 

change that—if done right—will enrich students’ lives and advance the future of our 

Nation. 

At the outset of my testimony, I noted that graduation rates have risen steadily 

in New York City over the last 6 years, and I asked how this had been achieved. 

Much of the work, I explained, has to do with the determination of educators, parents, and students. 

The other reason it has happened is that our city has been honest with itself in 

cases where those efforts were not good enough. There are many stories like Hillcrest High School, where planning and support changed outcomes. And there are 

others like Bushwick where more radical steps were required to turnaround a school 

that had failed its students for years. When we talk about a school with a graduation rate at or below 50 percent, that means that every year we take a ‘‘wait and 

see approach,’’ half of its students are falling through the cracks. 

Unlike many other districts across the country, the Mayor and I have been willing 

to make tough choices and take on powerful interest groups to ensure that our students have access to the excellent schools they need and deserve. While much work 

remains, we have achieved progress, and learned important lessons along the way 

that can guide nationwide school turnaround efforts. 

First and foremost, you must establish clear and fair accountability systems that 

account for where students are when they first enter a school and how they progress 

along the way. We support the introduction of a growth model as proposed in the 

Blueprint, and we also support a continued focus on boosting achievement among 

the highest-need students. 

Secondly, you must demand that States are honest in identifying schools that are 

persistently failing students. Some low-performing schools will benefit from restructuring interventions, leadership change, or other support such as intensive professional development. When those interventions are insufficient to reverse chronic 

underperformance, you must be fearless in establishing explicit restructuring strategies that prevent States and districts from evading the tough choices necessary to 

give all students the education they deserve. We believe our approach of gradually 

phasing out failing schools maximizes stability for current students while creating 

better options for their younger peers. New schools also grow gradually, allowing 

them to build a culture of high expectations for students and a community that supports student success. 

Real education reform cannot occur without your leadership and support. Powerful interest groups continually advocate in favor of the status quo, despite abundant 

13 

evidence that the public education system is not getting the job done for far too 

many of our students. We are therefore counting on you to strengthen ESEA, so 

that all of our students have access to the high-quality education they need and deserve. 

Thank you again for inviting me to testify today. I am happy to answer any questions you have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Klein. I will note 

right now that twice you mentioned, at least in summarizing and 

in your statement, you took the bigger schools and made them into 

smaller schools. I want to come back to that at the end of this 

panel. 

Ms. Donohue, welcome. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF BEVERLY DONOHUE, VICE PRESIDENT OF 

POLICY AND RESEARCH, NEW VISIONS FOR PUBLIC 

SCHOOLS, NEW YORK, NY 

Ms. DONOHUE. Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and members of 

the committee, thank you for this opportunity to appear before you. 

At New Visions for Public Schools, we have focused on school reform work in New York City for the last 20 years. For the last 10 

of those years, we have been closely engaged in turnaround work 

of a variety of different kinds that I will go into in a little bit of 

detail. Most of our work has been at the high school level, and I 

will focus on that in my remarks as well. 

Our experience has led us to think in terms of a continuum of 

school transformation possibilities with different levers for change 

viable at schools with different levels of student performance and 

different levels of human capacity. 

For the persistently lowest performing high schools in New York, 

the only approach to turnaround that has been successful is, as the 

Chancellor described, school closure through phase-out over time. 

This approach was pioneered in the Chancellor’s district in the late 

1990s and has been continued under mayoral control since then. 

New Visions in about 2002 to 2003 tried to reform two large failing high schools without closing them down and restructuring them 

and found that that turnaround effort ended in failure. I think it 

is important to note that the history of turnaround efforts nationally has a lot of failures and they are to be learned from. What 

happened in this instance was that without a strong group of leaders and teachers within the school, they were unable to create a 

viable plan for turnaround and they were defunded as a result. 

A few years later than that, about 2005, we undertook again a 

turnaround effort with large schools that were in a little bit better 

shape. They had graduation rates between 50 percent and 60 percent, strong principals, and a number of very committed teachers 

to the turnaround model. We divided those schools into small 

learning communities, New Dorp in Staten Island and Hillcrest in 

Queens, and since that point in time, they have been immensely 

successful. 

We credit the turnaround in these two schools to not the division 

into small learning communities, but to an implementation of an 

inquiry team model called the scaffolded apprenticeship model, 

which was for building teacher capacity and new school leaders. In 

this model, teams of educators work together to identify a small 

group of struggling students who become the focus of ongoing acVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
14 

tion research aimed at addressing specific skill gaps and moving 

these students into the school’s sphere of success. Through this 

work, teachers iteratively change their classroom practice to make 

it more effective and share the results. Our experience here confirmed our sense that reform that is structural only and that stops 

at the classroom door has no continued impact on student performance. The two schools I mentioned here have now about 60 inquiry 

teams between them of teachers who are doing this work and moving the school forward. 

This model has been extended throughout other schools in New 

York and is currently being piloted in Boston and in Oakland as 

well. 

Low-performing schools need to focus their efforts on a few critical problems at any one time in order to make headway. Schools 

with higher capacity or startup schools without a culture that has 

the friction against the status quo can take advantage of broader 

based reform models. The 99 small schools that New Visions helped 

create through the New Century High School initiative that replaced large, failing schools, as the Chancellor’s testimony outlined, 

inform our conclusion here. The New Century High Schools were 

required to adhere to 10 principles of effective schools that were 

built into their initial design. The design was carried out in a competitive nature by school teams vying for limited numbers of school 

approvals, and it became a rigorous process that was a learning experience for those who participated in it and it helped build capacity across New York City for folks interested in new school creation. 

Each New Century High School signed on for a target of 80 percent graduation rate and 92 percent average daily attendance. That 

target, we believe, helped to focus the team on student data and 

gave an urgency to the work that they were doing. 

Each school received support from a variety of the partners in 

the New Century initiative, which included unions, the Department 

of Education in New York, and the various funders who supported 

the initiative. Parents and community groups were involved in the 

planning, and each school had one community-based partner at a 

minimum to provide their own unique experience and opportunities 

for young people. 

New Century is a young initiative. Its first schools opened in 

2002, and evaluations of it are still forthcoming. So we have no 

long-term view on how successful these schools will be, but the 99 

schools we were involved with had a 10 percent higher graduation 

rate as of last spring than other schools on average in New York 

City. 

With the limited body of research on effective strategies for lowperforming schools, particularly at the high school level, I would 

urge the committee to support an approach fostering continued 

local innovation and close evaluation of turnaround programs. Assessing school capacity to implement change is critical to guide the 

choice of an effective strategy. And finally, focusing exclusively on 

the school level neglects the important role that networks, community organizations, and other external supports play in creating 

and sustaining the preconditions for success. 

15 

1 New Visions partnered with Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs to create the Scaffolded 

Apprenticeship Model (SAM), a capacity building program to develop distributed leadership in 

schools and develop a culture of continuous improvement through the sharing of results by multiple inquiry teams. 2 New Century is a partnership of New Visions with the NYC Department of Education, the 

United Federation of Teachers and the NYC Council of Supervisors and Administrators. The initiative was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and 

the Open Society Institute. The 2009 New Century High School average graduation rate was 

72.6 percent, as compared to New York’s city-wide graduation rate of 62.7 percent. 3The 10 principles are: Clear Focus and High Expectations; Rigorous Instruction; Personalized Learning Environment; Instructional Leadership; School-based Professional Development; 

Meaningful Assessment; Partnerships; Parent/Caregiver Engagement; Student Voice and Participation; and Integration of Technology. 

In New York, the department, through its Office of Small 

Schools, was immensely supportive of this work. In addition, the 

great wealth of nonprofit organizations that exist in New York City 

lent their expertise, their social capital, and their knowledge of 

communities throughout the city. 

So I thank you for this opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Donohue follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BEVERLY DONOHUE

SUMMARY

Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi and members of the committee, thank you for the 

opportunity to appear before you. My name is Beverly Donohue and I am vice president for Policy and Research at New Visions for Public Schools, a non-profit organization that has focused on school reform in New York City for the last 20 years. 

For the last 10 years, we have been closely engaged in school turnaround work, almost entirely at the high school level, focusing on schools in the highest poverty 

neighborhoods in NYC. Our experience has led us to think in terms of a continuum 

of school transformation, with different levers for change viable for schools at different levels of student performance. 

For the persistently lowest-performing high schools, the only approach to turnaround that has been successful in NYC is school closure. The Chancellor’s District 

of the late 1990’s used closure and replacement with small schools as its only strategy for failing high schools. New Visions’ effort in 2002–2003 to reform three large 

failing high schools with existing school leaders and staff ended in failure. However, 

struggling high schools at somewhat higher levels of performance with a strong 

leader and a cadre of committed teachers, can, with support, dramatically accelerate 

student performance. New Visions has worked with two such large high schools 

since 2005, helping the two principals and their staffs restructure into small learning communities. We believe that the marked improvement of these two schools depended more on their implementing strategies that directly impacted what teachers 

do in the classroom than on the underlying restructuring into multiple academies. 

The strategy they used was an inquiry team model called ‘‘SAM’’ to build teacher 

capacity and certify new school leaders.1 In this model, teams of educators work together to identify a small group of struggling students who become the focus of ongoing action research aimed at addressing specific skill gaps and moving these students into the school’s ‘‘sphere of success.’’ Through this work, teachers iteratively 

change their classroom practice to make it more effective and share the results. 

These two schools currently have about 60 inquiry teams of teachers doing this 

work. 

In our experience, low-performing schools need to focus their efforts on a few critical problems at any one time to make headway. Schools with higher capacity or 

start-up schools without the friction of a status quo culture can take advantage of 

broader-based reform models. The 99 small high schools created through the New 

Century High School Initiative 2 inform this conclusion. The New Century High 

Schools were required to adhere to 10 principles of effective schools that were built 

into their initial design.3 Each New Century High School signed on for a target of 

an 80 percent graduation rate and 92 percent average daily attendance, received 

support from all New Century Initiative partners, included parents in the planning 

phase, and partnered with at least one community-based not-for-profit organization. 

With a limited body of research on effective strategies for low-performing schools, 

particularly high schools, I would urge the committee to support an approach that 

fosters continued local innovation and close evaluation of turnaround programs. AsVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
16 

4Phenix, Deinya; Siegel, Dorothy; Zaltsman, Ariel; Fruchter, Norm, Virtual District, Real Improvement; Institute for Education and Social Policy, New York University. 5 Both New Dorp High School in Staten Island and Hillcrest High School in Queens restructured starting in 2005 while remaining under the leadership of a single principal. Both schools 

have since seen significant increases in both attendance and graduation rates. On their annual 

NYC Progress Reports, the schools have moved over 3 years from a ‘‘C’’ grade to an ‘‘A’’ and 

a high ‘‘B’’ respectively. 6 New Visions partnered with Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs to create the Scaffolded 

Apprenticeship Model (SAM), a capacity building program to create distributed leadership in 

schools and develop a culture of continuous improvement through the sharing of results by multiple inquiry teams. One version of this 18-month program provides a principal’s certification 

upon successful completion and has certified 115 educators as principals to date. Over a dozen 

sessing school capacity to implement change is critical to guide the choice of an effective strategy. Finally, focusing exclusively on the school level neglects the important role that networks, community organizations and other external supports play 

in creating and sustaining the preconditions for success. 

Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi and members of the committee, thank you for the 

opportunity to appear before you. I applaud your purpose today of addressing the 

critical issue of failing schools in our Nation. 

My name is Beverly Donohue and I am Vice President for Policy and Research 

at New Visions for Public Schools, a non-profit organization that has focused on 

school reform in New York City for the last 20 years. Under contract to the New 

York City Department of Education, New Visions currently serves as a Partner 

Service Organization accountable for improving student performance for 35,000 students in 76 schools. 

For the last 10 years we have been closely engaged in school turnaround work, 

almost entirely at the high school level, focusing on schools in the highest poverty 

neighborhoods in NYC. During that time we have created 99 new small high 

schools, tried and failed to turnaround three large, low-performing high schools, and 

successfully guided two large high schools with mid-level performance to restructure 

into small learning communities. These experiences have led us to think in terms 

of a continuum of school transformation, with different levers for change viable for 

schools at different levels of student performance. 

For the persistently lowest performing high schools, the only approach to turnaround that has been successful in NYC is school closure, implemented gradually 

over a 4-year phase-out period. The pioneering experiment in school turnaround was 

the Chancellor’s district, which operated from 1996 until 2003, when it was folded 

into the broad-based reforms implemented by Chancellor Klein with the advent of 

Mayoral Control. While elementary and middle schools in the Chancellor’s District 

showed improvement after implementing a ‘‘tight’’ model of reforms,4 all five large 

high schools brought into the program were shut down with campuses of new small 

schools created in their place. 

New Visions, with the support of the NYC Department of Education, undertook 

turnaround efforts in three large failing high schools from 2002 to 2003. School-level 

teams spent months developing turnaround plans using promising, research-based 

models. Despite heavy facilitation by New Visions and other partners, these plans 

were judged inadequate to produce significant improvement in student outcomes; 

the initiative was then terminated. Without changes in leadership, staff, and context, the preconditions for turnaround did not exist. These three attempts shared 

a ‘‘one-off ’’ quality. There was no network or district structure to protect a clear 

focus on change against the daily distractions that derail progress. The embedded 

culture of these schools appeared too likely to reject the transplant of even the most 

promising school reform model. 

High schools at mid-levels of performance have other options for improvement. In 

a New York context, this group included schools with 4-year graduation rates between about 55 percent and 65 percent in the mid-2000s. New Visions supported 

two such large high schools in transforming themselves into small learning communities.5 Each school started its improvement effort with a strong leader and a cadre 

of dedicated staff willing to take risks and participate in the hard work of change; 

each school has shown sustained, significant improvement in student outcomes. 

By the time we began working with these two schools in 2005, our experience had 

led us to this conclusion: without changing what classroom teachers do, modifying 

structure or curriculum does little to improve student outcomes. As a way to avoid 

‘‘change that stops at the classroom door,’’ New Visions co-developed an inquiry 

team model called ‘‘SAM’’ to build teacher capacity and certify new school leaders.6

17 

of these graduates have stepped into principal or assistant principal roles within their own 

schools. 7 New Century is a partnership of New Visions with the NYC Department of Education, the 

United Federation of Teachers and the NYC Council of Supervisors and Administrators. The initiative was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and 

the Open Society Institute. The 2009 New Century High School average graduation rate was 

72.6 percent, as compared to New York’s city-wide graduation rate of 62.7 percent. 8The 10 principles are: Clear focus and High Expectations; Rigorous Instruction; Personalized 

Learning Environment; Instructional Leadership; School-based professional development; Meaningful Assessment; Partnerships; Parent/Caregiver Engagement; Student Voice and Participation; and Integration of Technology. 9 Reforming High Schools, Lessons from the New Century High Schools Initiative, 2001–2006, 

New Visions for Public Schools, http://www.newvisions.org/node/313/10/1/49. 

In this model, teams of educators work together to identify a small group of struggling students who become the focus of on-going action research aimed at addressing specific skill gaps, accelerating the pace of learning, and moving these students 

into the school’s ‘‘sphere of success.’’ Through this work, teachers iteratively change 

their classroom practice to make it more effective and share the results. There are 

now about 60 inquiry teams functioning in the small learning communities of Hillcrest and New Dorp High Schools, meeting to review student data and drive improved teaching and learning. This model has now been spread throughout New 

York City, is being piloted in Boston and Oakland, and has become the core professional development strategy in New Visions schools. In every program and every 

interaction we have with schools, we base our work on the fundamental questions 

of SAM’s cycle of inquiry: What do we know about what our students can and cannot do? And, what are we going to do about it? 

In our experience, low-performing schools need to focus their efforts on a few critical problems at any one time to make headway. Schools with higher capacity or 

start-up schools without the friction of a status quo culture can take advantage of 

broader-based reform models. The small high schools created through the New Century High School Initiative 7 inform this conclusion. The New Visions’ New Century 

schools and similar schools developed by other non-profit organizations played an 

essential role in New York City’s high school reform work; they created the replacement seats needed to implement a broad ‘‘school closure’’ strategy. The New Century 

High Schools were required to adhere to 10 principles of effective schools that were 

built into their initial design.8 These principles comprised a ‘‘loose’’ model that resulted in huge variation across the first 89 schools. More recently, ‘‘tighter’’ school 

models for former drop-out students and for career and technical education schools 

have also resulted in schools that are unique and varied. Research-based models 

have provided the first draft; local adaptation and innovation have sustained the 

continuous learning necessary to a high performing school. 

I would also point to several other features that have contributed to the strength 

of the New Century results. First, each New Century High School signed on for a 

target of ‘‘80/92’’—an 80 percent graduation rate and 92 percent average daily attendance. That commitment created urgency and a focus on individual student data. 

Accountability to a specific goal has proved to be a powerful driver of improvement. 

Second, all New Century High Schools were approved for opening by the unanimous 

consent of a ‘‘Core Group’’ comprised of New Visions, the Department of Education, 

the United Federation of Teachers, the Principals’ Union and the foundation 

funders. All these stakeholders were committed to solve problems at the local level. 

Parents and students, along with educators, helped to plan each school in a competition for a limited number of grants. Many planning groups failed to meet the high 

standards required to open a school. The broad base of support and emphasis on 

quality, along with an extensive community outreach strategy, helped to defuse tensions as neighborhoods watched historic high schools begin to shut their doors. 

Third, all New Century High Schools were formed with non-profit partner organizations at the planning table. The strongest partnerships continue to contribute engaging classroom and out-of-school experiences, such as internships, to provide students with workplace skills and to connect them to their communities. Community 

Partnerships in many of these schools have expanded the toolkit of strategies to 

make students career and college ready.9 There are several completed evaluation 

studies of the New Century High School Initiative available on the New Visions 

Web site (www.newvisions.org) and others will be forthcoming in the near future. 

As these relatively young schools mature, we will continue to learn from their experience and challenges. 

There is a limited body of research on what approaches are effective in turning 

around low-performing schools, particularly at the high school level. I would urge 

the committee to support an approach to reauthorization that fosters continued local 

18 

innovation and close evaluation of turnaround programs to deepen existing knowledge. Many districts and States have initiated turnaround programs and policies 

that could experience setbacks from too rigid an application of a set of models. Assessing school capacity to implement change is critical to guide the choice of an effective strategy. Finally, focusing exclusively on what must be done at the school 

level risks neglecting the important role that networks, community organizations 

and other external supports play in creating and sustaining the preconditions for 

success. Again, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Donohue. Now we turn to Dr. 

Balfanz. Dr. Balfanz, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT BALFANZ, Ph.D., ASSOCIATE RESEARCH SCIENTIST, CENTER FOR SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

OF SCHOOLS AND ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE TALENT 

DEVELOPMENT MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL PROJECT, BALTIMORE, MD 

Mr. BALFANZ. Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, members of the 

HELP Committee, thank you for inviting me here to testify today 

on this vital national challenge of turning around our low-performing secondary schools. I am going to focus today on middle and 

high schools. 

In the 21st century, we have to provide all of our students pathways from secondary school to post-secondary success in college, 

the military, or through job training. The reason for this is simple. 

There is no work to support a family if you do not graduate high 

school and have the ability to receive further training. We cannot 

have a society in which whole communities are essentially cut off 

from the 21st century because they do not have the opportunity to 

attend schoolings to prepare them for this success. 

The reason we find ourselves in this troubling situation is that 

far too many of our middle and high schools that serve high-poverty populations, if we are honest about it, are designed and operated to fail. As Chairman Harkin has pointed out, there are 2,000 

high schools where graduation is not the norm when it needs to be 

a necessity. These high schools are found in every State in rural 

and urban areas. They educate primarily low-income and minority 

students, and as such, they produce half the Nation’s dropouts and 

are essentially the engines of the underclass. 

Each of these high schools, in turn, are typically supported or fed 

by one or two middle schools where as many as half or more of the 

students who drop out become disengaged from schooling. It is in 

the middle grades that students make the independent decision, is 

schooling for me? Will I put the work forward that is necessary to 

succeed or is it something simply to be endured? And when we lose 

these students in middle school, they stop attending regularly, they 

get in trouble, they fail their courses, and by the time they get to 

high school, they have half a foot out the door. 

This creates a level of educational challenge that we do not fully 

comprehend, and let me just paint this picture a little based on the 

15 years of experience working in and with these schools. 

In a high-challenge high school—and this is an urban school. I 

can give a rural example later, but in an urban school, you might 

have 1,200 students and you might have 400 or 500 of them in the 

ninth grade. Of those 400 or 500, 100 or 200 are repeating ninth 

grade for the second or third time because they did not succeed the 

19 

first time, and they are now, many of them, at the age at which 

they can drop out. Of the students that enter, only about a quarter 

are within grade level, not even on grade level, but close. Fifty percent are reading or doing math at the fifth to seventh grade level, 

and a quarter have skills below the fifth grade level. Maybe a third 

of these kids missed a month or more of schooling in eighth grade. 

They already have a habit of missing lots of school. Fifteen to twenty percent might be in special education. The whole population 

lives in poverty. 

So do we meet this high educational challenge with the equivalent of the Marine Corps, the best trained, the best equipped, the 

most motivated teachers and administrators? No. Often this is 

training ground for the young and the inexperienced. Principals 

turn over almost every year, teachers every 5 years. So we have 

the highest need and offer them the weakest answer. And if we are 

honest, that is a recipe for failure. 

It does not have to be this way. We have had many examples in 

the past decade of middle and high schools that only educate highneed students that have succeeded. Let me just give you a couple 

of examples from our work. 

Our Baltimore Talent Development High School that you heard 

about is located in west Baltimore. In spite of the open-air drug 

markets shown on the HBO show, The Wire, all our students enter, 

like we said, multiple years below grade level, some with declining 

attendance, and yet we manage to graduate over 80 percent and 

every one of them have some sort of post-secondary placement, be 

it job training, college, or the military. 

Most recently we put together a new model called Diplomas Now, 

which combines our whole school reform efforts with national service corps members, in this case from City Year, which lets us put 

a team of 10 to 15 idealistic 18- to 24-year-olds in the building. 

Each one has basically a group of 15 to 20 students to shepherd 

who have early warning indicators of being off track of having that 

low attendance in middle grades, of having failed in the middle 

grades. They sort of quietly ask every day, are you in school? If not, 

I will call you. Did you get your homework done? If not, let us meet 

at lunch. You’re giving Chairman Harkin a hard time. Now, I know 

he could be tough sometimes, but sarcasm does not work. That sort 

of continually nagging and nurturing is often needed by hundreds 

of students at a time to stay on track. Teachers cannot do that 

alone. They may be able to support a handful of kids. They cannot 

do hundreds. 

And finally, we add on communities and schools case-managed 

social workers because there is also a subset of kids, the highestneed kids, where the effects of poverty are so strong, until you have 

an answer, you cannot educate them. If a student who is being 

raised by his grandma is staying home to give her an insulin shot 

because they trust no one else, until we solve that, no haranguing 

is going to get that kid into school. 

So the schools need all these tools together, the whole-school reforms, the person power to reach every kid that needs nagging and 

nurturing, and solving the toughest cases of poverty. 

The real answer to all this is the teacher team. If you ask me, 

what’s the answer, it is not structural change, which can be imporVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
20 

tant. It is not getting high-quality teachers, which can be important. It is that team of four teachers working with 75 kids so they 

can know them well, they can know their stories, who are then 

supported by good instructional materials, by a second shift of 

adults who can help them get the kids motivated in school, by early 

warning indicator data, by a leadership team which supports them. 

That should be the fundamental unit we build everything up from. 

To bring this to scale and how the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act can help, we need to think about two things. First 

of all, it is not just simply who, but how. So, yes, I have seen closeand-replace work well. I have seen it work poorly. I have seen charter school operators take schools that were essentially a national 

disgrace and make a success story. I have seen charter schools that 

should be closed down. I have seen schools that knowledgeable people have said has no hope of recreating itself. 

So it is possible through all these different ways of who to succeed or not. What really matters is the how, the strategy to use to 

turn the school around. Here we just have to keep, I think, three 

key points in mind. 

First, as we heard before, you really need an accurate diagnosis 

of what the educational challenge is because too often we say, ‘‘hey, 

I know the answer.’’ It is a failed school. So nothing must have 

worked. Anything new is better. That guarantees big change. It 

does not guarantee big improvement. So we really have to say, 

what is your educational challenge? Do you have 20 kids 2 years 

below level or 200? Those are two different challenges. Do you have 

100 kids that missed a month or more of middle school or no kids? 

Those are different stories. Do you have many kids impacted by 

poverty or only a handful? Each of those would be a different strategy that you need to figure out. 

Once you have your design to meet your challenge, then the 

question is, do I have the know-how to put it in place? Do I actually have a good strategy for students that are 3 years behind 

grade level in reading in ninth grade? Does my strategy have evidence of effect? Does it reach those 200 kids? Do I have the capacity to implement it? Do I have people trained? Do they have the 

time to do it? Do they have the support? 

Third, do we have the will? Right? Do we really believe if we 

work harder this will work or are we just sort of trying to get 

through a tough situation? 

And finally, are we protected from turbulence—right—that we do 

not get started 1 day and a new district policy the next day or new 

Federal policy the third day and we have to stop? 

So once we put all these things together, we have a design that 

meets the challenge. We have the know-how, the will, the capacity, 

and the protection from turbulence, now we have a recipe for success. 

In closing, I would just want to say that the HELP Committee 

is literally at the forefront of secondary school improvement and 

that many of the things that need to help us out are in the legislation that members have proposed, from Chairman Harkin’s Every 

Student Counts Graduation Rate Act to Senator Bingaman’s Graduation for All, Senator Reed’s Success in the Middle, the Keeping 

PACE Act, Senator Franken’s principal effectiveness bill. Much of 

21 

the answer is in there. It just needs to be brought together in a 

comprehensive whole. 

I look forward to working with you to make sure that we can find 

a solution to fundamentally improve the Nation for the better. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Balfanz follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT BALFANZ, PH.D. 

SUMMARY

We find ourselves in a troublesome situation: Too many of our low-income and minority students are concentrated in middle and high schools that are designed and 

operated to fail. In 2,000 of our Nation’s high schools, which produce half of the 

country’s dropouts, graduation is often a 50/50 proposition. 

It does not have to be this way. It cannot be this way. We cannot have a country 

in which entire communities are cut off from the only real avenue to prosperity— 

a good education. Over the past decade we have amassed enough proof points to 

show that turnaround is possible. 

For instance, in three high schools in the Recovery District of New Orleans, an 

innovative turnaround model, Diplomas Now, is having dramatic effects on the attendance, behavior and achievement of students. This collaboration of Talent Development, City Year and Communities in Schools both transforms the whole school 

and, using an early warning and intervention system, matches the individual needs 

of students with targeted interventions. 

Similarly, in our own Baltimore Talent Development High School in one of the 

city’s most impoverished neighborhoods, the graduation rate is more than 80 percent and each graduate has a placement for continued education and training, despite the fact that most students enter with skills 2 or more years below grade level. 

So it is possible to draw essential lessons from our own work and the larger body 

of research on school turnaround and improvement. 

First, it is not simply about how the school is governed and operated or who it 

employs. 

Second, there are at least a dozen things one needs to get right to successfully 

turn around a school. This is why turnaround is difficult and our success rate low. 

What we need to do is make school turnaround a professional effort grounded in 

analysis and knowledge—one in which evidence-based reforms are matched to the 

challenges faced. 

With a thorough understanding of the educational challenge—academic, engagement and poverty challenges combined—a school faces and its current capabilities, 

it is then possible to create an educational design that can turn the school around. 

For the design to work, however, it must be implemented with the needed knowhow, capacity, and will, as well as protected from turbulence in policy and practice. 

It is in these areas that ESEA Reauthorization can help. Members of the Senate 

HELP committee have been at the forefront of secondary school improvement. Much 

of what is needed in ESEA Reauthorization to enable successful secondary school 

turnaround exists in the legislation members of the committee have advanced. The 

bottom line is that the time is now to make reforming the Nation’s low-performing 

secondary schools a vital national mission. A Federal-State-local partnership designed to accomplish this, guided and supported by ESEA reauthorization, can fundamentally make this a better Nation. 

Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the HELP committee, 

thank you for inviting me to testify today. 

In the 21st century all students need to be provided a pathway from secondary 

school to post-secondary success, via college, job training, or the military. To put it 

simply, there is no work that can support a family for students who fail to graduate 

from high school or do so unprepared for further learning. Yet for far too many of 

our students, in particular low-income and minority students, such pathways do not 

exist. In an era dominated by human capital this not only weakens our Nation’s 

competitiveness, but also, as both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and U.S. Army 

have noted, threatens its social fabric. We cannot have a country in which entire 

communities are cut off from the only real avenue to prosperity—a good education. 

We find ourselves in this troublesome situation, in good part, because too many 

of our low-income and minority students are concentrated in middle and high 

schools that are designed and operated to fail. In 2,000 of our Nation’s high schools, 

graduation is not the norm, in an era when it is a necessity. These schools, which 

22 

can be found in every State, in both urban and rural areas, are almost exclusively 

attended by low-income and minority students. As such, they are the Nation’s dropout factories and engines of the underclass. 

Each of these high schools, in turn, is linked with one or more middle schools, 

where at least half of eventual dropouts begin the process of disengaging from 

school, and achievement gaps become achievement chasms. Thus, by the time they 

get to high school, many students already have one foot out the door, as witnessed 

by their declining attendance, poor behavior, and course failure during the middle 

grades. As a result, high schools face an intense educational challenge they were 

not designed to meet. 

What do I mean when I say these schools have been designed and are operated 

to fail? Let me paint a picture based on my 15 years of research and direct experience working in and with these schools. 

These are schools in which less than a quarter of the students enter with even 

near grade-level skills. In a high school you can find half of the entering ninth-graders with reading and mathematics skills at the fifth-to seventh-grade levels, and another quarter with skills below those expected of fifth-graders. The ninth grade may 

have from 300 to 500 students, with perhaps 20 percent or more repeating the grade 

for a second time. Half or more of the entering students fell off the path to high 

school graduation as early as sixth grade, and during their middle grades missed 

a month or more of school each year. These same students were cited for demonstrating poor behavior, and/or failed their math and English classes. In addition, 

15 percent to 20 percent of the students could be special education students and 

nearly 100 percent live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. 

Do we respond to this extremely high degree of educational challenge with the 

educational equivalent of the Marine Corps—the best trained, best equipped and 

motivated teachers and administrators? No. In fact, it is often just the opposite: 

These schools are the training grounds for the young and inexperienced; they often 

see at least half of their staff turn over every few years. In some, principals change 

as frequently as every year. A considerable number receive no title I funding, even 

though they face some of the greatest impacts of poverty of any school in the Nation. 

As a result, they cannot provide the level and intensity of support required for students to enter their classrooms ready to learn or the teacher supports and training 

required to effectively deliver standards-based courses to underprepared students. 

There is shared responsibility for this failure. At the Federal level, there has been 

a lack of accountability and support for low-performing secondary schools. At the 

State level, there has been a failure to develop the capacity needed to support improvements in these schools, and the perpetuation of funding systems that make it 

difficult for dollars to be matched with student needs. At the local level, reform efforts have often focused elsewhere and simply re-arranging the deck chairs by 

changing principals or staff without addressing the underlying challenges has too 

often been seen as enough reform (a mistake that we must avoid repeating at the 

Federal level). Within the schools themselves, improvement is often stymied by the 

blame game with teachers, parents, and students (who must support one another 

for success to occur) too often saying nothing can be done until someone else works 

harder or better. 

It does not have to be this way. Over the past decade we have amassed enough 

proof points to show that turnaround is possible. Middle and high schools can be 

designed and operated to succeed even when they exclusively serve high-needs students. It is possible to combine whole school reform with the teacher, administrator, 

and students supports needed to ensure that students can stay on track to graduate 

prepared for college, career and civic life, even when they enter middle and high 

school significantly off-track. More significantly, from these successes, as well as 

from our failures, we can deduce what is essential for turnaround to work. 

In our own experience through our Talent Development Middle Grades and High 

Schools programs and most recently our collaborative Diplomas Now Secondary 

School Transformation model (a partnership of Talent Development, City Year, a 

national service program, and Communities in Schools, using early warning indicators to identify students as they begin to stray from the graduation path and to 

apply the right intervention to the right student at the right time), we have witnessed first-hand how this can be done. Our results have been validated by thirdparty research and by the Federal What Works Clearinghouse. 

At our Baltimore Talent Development High School, located in one of the highest 

poverty communities in America, in sight of an open air drug corner, we take students who fit the profile described above—with below grade level skills and declining attachment to school—and graduate more than 80 percent of them with all graduates having a post-secondary schooling or job training placement. For those of you, 

like me, who believe the proof is in the pudding, we invite you to come up the road 

23 

and visit the school. At our three Diplomas Now high schools in the Recovery School 

District of New Orleans, we have been able to get ninth-grade attendance and passing rates to levels not seen in decades. At our Chicago Talent Development High 

School, which is operated in partnership with local, State, and national service employees and teachers’ unions, we are recording ninth-grade success rates of 90 percent. This is critical because the evidence is clear: Students who make it to tenth 

grade on time and on track have three to four times the graduation rates of students who do not. 

Fundamental to the success of all these schools is the teacher team—four to six 

teachers working with 75 to 100 students. The teacher teams, in turn, need to be 

supported by research- and evidence-based acceleration instructional programs for 

students who enter with below-grade-level skills. They also need strong State standards linked to benchmark assessments; good and consistent early warning data to 

let teachers respond to the first signs that a student is falling off track; time in their 

schedules for the teacher teams to meet and work collaboratively to improve their 

practice and to collectively meet student challenges, and assistance from a second 

shift of adults—national service corps members, counselors, and wrap-around student support providers—so that every student can get the assistance he or she 

needs to succeed. The teacher team also needs support from a school leadership 

team. And here too teamwork is essential. As important as they are in large middle 

or high schools, good principals cannot do it alone. With staffs of 100 or more there 

are too many adults to coordinate, support, encourage and guide. Thus, turnaround 

middle and high schools need leadership teams composed of principals, assistant 

principals, and teacher leaders that are trained together, guide the school, and are 

held jointly accountable for school progress. 

Thus, we applaud the Obama administration’s efforts through ARRA and School 

Improvement Grants to elevate turning around high schools with graduation rates 

below 60 percent and their feeder middle schools into an urgent national priority 

by holding States and districts accountable for their transformation, as well as providing sufficient Federal support. 

The work that remains through ESEA re-authorization is to create a FederalState-local-community partnership to turn these schools around. Here, it is possible 

to draw several essential lessons from our own work and the larger body of research 

on school turnaround and improvement. 

The first lesson is that it is not simply about how the school is governed and 

operated or who it employs. In the three examples I cited above, one school is a 

startup, three others were existing schools that are being turned around, and the 

last is a contract school. I have seen the strategy of closing low-performing schools 

and replacing them with new schools work well and poorly. I have seen schools that 

thoughtful and informed educators considered beyond repair, transform themselves. 

I have seen charter operators turn national disgraces into schools that succeed, but 

I have also seen charter schools that need to be shut down. I have seen schools come 

alive under the guidance of a new and invigorating leadership team. I have also 

seen highly skilled and committed principals chewed up by intransigent faculties. 

I have seen schools that replaced the faculty twice and were no better off. Governance and staff changes are a means to an end not an end in themselves. 

The second lesson is that there are at least a dozen things one needs to get 

right to successfully turn around a school. This is why turnaround is difficult and 

our success rate has been low. If you look at prior efforts, you also see that in the 

main we have approached turnaround as an amateur endeavor via instinct trial and 

error, usually in ignorance of prior efforts and often without even an attempt to address the full range of challenges in turnaround schools. Thus, the low success rate 

to date is not surprising. What we need to do is make school turnaround a professional effort grounded in analysis and knowledge—one in which evidence-based reforms are matched to the challenges faced, and we strategically deduce the quickest 

way to implement them well and quickly. 

In short, schools do not succeed and are organized for failure when their implemented design does not match their educational challenge. 

Educational challenge in turn has three inter-related components: 

Academic challenge: How far away from required standards of performance are 

students when they enter a school? It matters greatly whether there are 20 or 200 

students who are 2 or more years below grade level. 

Engagement challenge: The greatest teachers and instructional program in the 

world will have little impact if students do not attend, behave, and try. Yet in many 

high-poverty middle and high schools, especially in urban areas, chronic absenteeism is rampant. In one city we examined, 40 percent of middle and high school students missed in total a year of schooling over 5 years, 20 percent of their educational time. This is how achievement gaps grow. 

24 

Poverty challenge: It is often hard for policymakers and others who do not live 

in poverty to comprehend its impact on school success. Poverty taxes student and 

school success through a number of means. It keeps some students out of school to 

provide emergency day care for younger siblings, so parents can keep their job; others stay home to give the grandparents who are raising them their daily insulin 

shots. It pushes some students to drop out to help earn money to pay the utility 

bill or keep food on the table. It engulfs others in continual exposure to violence and 

the grief of losing family members. Others are consumed by the stress of parents 

losing jobs and homes or succumbing to drug and alcohol addiction. In our innovation high school in West Baltimore, faculty members estimate that 15 percent to 20 

percent of our students are essentially raising themselves. Schools can mobilize 

when a handful of students are in these situations. They become overwhelmed 

when, as is often the case in middle and high schools in high-poverty neighborhoods, 

it is dozens to more than 100 students. 

While schools in need of turnaround are often similar in terms of facing high academic, engagement and poverty challenges, they also differ in the contours, magnitude, and intensity of these challenges, as well as in their existing capacities to 

meet them. Thus, it is essential that each be analyzed on its own, so that reforms 

can be matched to needs. We also have to keep in mind that every school in need 

of a turnaround likely has been attempting to reform and improve for a decade or 

more. So it is also important to analyze why prior reform efforts have failed and 

what pockets of capacity may remain. The quickest way to doom a school turnaround effort is to impose a reform that most adults and students in the building 

believe was already tried and failed. 

With a thorough understanding of the educational challenge a school faces and 

its current capabilities, it is then possible to create an educational design that can 

turn the school around. For the design to work, however, it must navigate four hurdles: It needs to be based on appropriate know-how; the school needs the capacity 

to put it into place; the adults and students in the building need to have the will 

to implement it with fidelity and speed, and finally, the effort needs to be protected 

from the policy and practice turbulence that can derail it. 

Before we get too depressed and ask how it will be possible to accomplish this 

at the scale we need, it helps to look at some other sectors of society, the level of 

complexity they handle and how they succeed. If we look at medicine, the military, 

and business, we see that problems with this level of complexity are routinely 

solved. 

To close this testimony, I will try to advance a case for a Federal role in enabling 

school turnaround to succeed at scale by looking at how we can increase the Nation’s ability to apply the lessons of other sectors and create the know-how, capacity, 

will, and ability to mitigate turbulence we need. 

INCREASE THE KNOW-HOW TO MEET ACADEMIC, ENGAGEMENT, AND POVERTY

CHALLENGES IN LOW PERFORMING SCHOOLS

The military, medicine and business all invest much more in applied research and 

development, or how to solve problems of practice. Moreover, what is known is widely disseminated and turned into protocols or standards of practice. Using such 

standards is viewed as essential for practitioners in the field, and lack of use, absent 

compelling circumstances, is sanctioned. The military and medicine routinely study 

instances in which standard practices fail and use this knowledge to improve and 

innovate. In terms of turning around low-performing middle and high schools, we 

have learned enough in the past decade to begin formulating standards of practice. 

What is required to move this forward is a public-private partnership along the 

lines of the Data Quality Campaign and the State Common Standards, supported 

by Federal policy. For areas where current understanding is less clear, we need an 

aggressive federally supported applied research and development effort. 

One clear candidate for this is extended learning time. Most successful turnaround efforts have found one way or another to extend student learning time. We 

do not know enough, however, to say how this should be done and how it will vary 

by circumstances. Is it better to extend the school day, the school week, or the 

school year? How should the extra time best be used? What is the most effective 

balance between more time on core academics and experiences that deeply engage 

students in school and learning like drama, debate, and robotics? The answer is we 

don’t know. We could find out quickly, and in so doing, save ourselves from making 

expensive investments that don’t pay off. The question of how best to extend learning time lends itself to rapid analytic study. By randomizing four or so different approaches to extending learning time across enough schools, within a few years we 

would know the effectiveness and the costs and benefits of the different approaches. 

25 

INCREASE OUR CAPACITY TO IMPLEMENT EFFECTIVE TURNAROUND STRATEGIES

Building our capacity to turn around schools is in my view our current No. 1 

weakness and greatest need. We need to invest in capacity building efforts at the 

State, district, and school levels. Schools in need of turnaround should be paired 

with external partners or school district or State support teams with proven track 

records. We need to make sure that sufficient funds are set aside in school improvement grants or by other means so that this assistance can be hands-on, in the 

school, and continuous. We also need to provide turnaround teams and external support partners with the conditions needed for success such as control over staffing, 

budget, and scheduling. There is also a new role for national non-profits that can 

inject capacity into schools by providing high-quality student supports and management strategies that needs to be developed and supported. Organizations such as 

City Year, Communities in Schools, the Boys and Girls Club, the U.S. Army through 

JROTC, and College Summit, among others, are rapidly developing the ability to 

project high-quality student supports nationwide, and need to become tightly integrated into turnaround efforts. 

Next, we need to greatly increase the intensity of training we provide to educators. When you compare typical on-the-job training in education to that of medicine, military or industry, you see how light it is. Short days and short weeks, 

crammed in when opportunity allows, uncoordinated and often of low quality compared to the high-intensity, dawn-to-dusk, mandatory attendance, training with accountability for implementation one can find in other sectors. 

BUILD ACCOUNTABILITY AND ON-TRACK INDICATOR SYSTEMS THAT ENCOURAGE AND

SUSTAIN THE WILL TO IMPLEMENT NEEDED REFORMS WITH SPEED AND FIDELITY

To develop the will to implement needed reforms quickly and with skill takes accountability systems that send the right signals. At the high school level this means 

counting graduation rates equally with test scores as essential outcomes. We need 

every student to graduate prepared for post-secondary success. It also means establishing a national baseline for continuous and substantial progress in raising graduation rates. If each of the 5,000 high schools with graduation rates below the current national average (of approximately 75 percent) increased its rate, on average, 

2 percentage points per year for 10 years, the national graduation rate would hit 

90 percent. This is an attainable goal and should become the minimum progress 

viewed as acceptable. 

For us to monitor turnaround efforts and be able to change those that are not 

working, we need to adopt on-track to success indicators. The emerging science of 

on- and off-track indicators for high school graduation and college readiness, as well 

as benchmark tests tied to the new common State standards, can be used to create 

indicators for school progress that will let us know if schools are on track to meet 

their achievement and graduation improvement targets, and will keep schools focused on essential actions. We also need to support turnaround options that build 

teachers’ beliefs that large scale improvement is possible. One way to do this is to 

create and enable teacher-led school turnaround efforts. Turnaround should not be 

seen as something done to teachers, but rather an effort that they lead, and hence, 

are responsible for. 

WORK TO MITIGATE TURBULENCE, IN POLICY AND PRACTICE

For turnaround to work, we need to insist on high-intensity and rapid implementations of school reform efforts designed to meet a school’s educational challenge. We 

also need to provide the stability for these efforts to take root and bear fruit. This 

means that the Federal Government, in partnership with States, should insist that 

effective reforms supported by Federal and State dollars are not changed simply because a new school superintendent with a new vision for district improvement arrives or a new principal takes charge. 

The Federal Government also needs to insure that schools that have successfully 

turned around can still gain access to the resources necessary to meet their educational challenges and overcome the achievement and engagement drains brought 

by poverty. This means we need to think flexibly and creatively about how title I 

resources or dedicated secondary school success funds can be targeted and available 

for all high-poverty middle and high schools that meet continuing performance criteria. Recall our Baltimore Talent Development High School. Its success does not 

negate that fact that almost all its students live in poverty, 15 percent to 20 percent 

are functionally raising themselves, many are essentially caring for younger siblings 

and family members, and three-fourths enter with skills 2 or more years below 

grade level. To meet these needs and overcome the additional educational challenges 

26 

they bring, resources are required, over and above the funding provided to schools 

with far fewer challenges. At its heart, the purpose of title 1 funds is to help schools 

overcome the impact of poverty. Secondary schools that face these challenges need 

to have full access to this support. 

IN CONCLUSION

Members of the Senate HELP committee have been at the forefront of the effort 

to create a Federal-State-local partnership to transform the Nation’s low-performing 

secondary schools. Much of what is needed in ESEA Reauthorization to enable successful secondary school turnaround exists in the legislation members of this committee have advanced. Chairman Harkin’s Every Student Counts Act, Senator 

Bingaman’s Graduation Promise Act, Senator Reed’s Success in the Middle, The 

Keeping PACE Act, Senators Franken’s and Hatch’s School Principal and Training 

Act, and the Serve America Act, among others, contain essential elements of what 

is needed. We also need to support the widespread adoption and use of early warning and intervention systems in conjunction with school transformation and turnaround. I have offered a few additional ideas and suggestions based on our on-theground experience and existing evidence and research The bottom line is that the 

time is now to make reforming the Nation’s low-performing secondary schools a vital 

national mission. A Federal-State-local partnership designed to accomplish this, 

guided and supported by ESEA reauthorization, can fundamentally transform the 

Nation for the better. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Balfanz, thank you very much. That was 

very enlightening. I have a lot of questions I have got to ask now 

based on that. 

Now we turn to Dr. Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell, welcome, and please 

proceed. 

STATEMENT OF TIM MITCHELL, Ed.D, SUPERINTENDENT OF 

SCHOOLS, CHAMBERLAIN SCHOOL DISTRICT 7–1, CHAMBERLAIN, SD 

Mr. MITCHELL. Good afternoon, Chairman Harkin and Ranking 

Member Enzi and members of the committee. It is certainly an 

honor to come before you today and share some thoughts about 

rural school turnaround, specifically the unique challenges faced by 

rural schools when implementing school improvement strategies, as 

well as some of the conditions I feel are necessary so rural school 

reforms can be successful. 

Let me tell you a little bit about Chamberlain School District. 

This fall we had 858 students. We are 30 out of 161 in enrollment 

in South Dakota. We are a large school in South Dakota. Of the 

131 that are smaller than us, many of them have fewer than 300 

students, K–12, in their entire facility. Many of them still run oneroom schoolhouses, just as Senator Harkin made reference to in his 

opening remarks. 

In Chamberlain, 46 percent of economically disadvantaged students are part of our student body. Thirty-six percent are Native 

American. They come from the Crow Creek Sioux and Lower Brule 

Sioux. They have dual enrollment privileges either coming to the 

public school, which we serve them, and then the tribal school, 

which they have a choice to go to. Seventeen percent of the students qualify for special education. Fifty-nine percent of the students are identified as title I, and we employ about 140 full- and 

part-time staff. 

OK. Where were we? Before No Child Left Behind, when I took 

over the reins of Chamberlain School District—we have three 

school sites. Two of them were identified as 13 in the State that 

had not met Federal standards under title I. We went into No 

27 

Child Left Behind. We were immediately put on alert because of 

not making AYP with the Native American students, the economically disadvantaged students, and the students with disabilities. 

In the spring of 2008, the Native American economically disadvantaged, the students with disabilities, and all schools and all 

subgroups made AYP. And we had our first clean NCLB report 

card. The Native American students, the economically disadvantaged students, and the students with disabilities continued to exceed the State average for proficiency in both reading and math. 

So what did we do? If I have to identify it, if we look at our turnaround process, we had to become a school district that has a relentless focus on instruction and professional development. We had 

to cultivate teacher and principal support. We had to implement 

and use research-based instructional practices and strategies and 

then make a conscious effort and encourage all staff to act collegially and collaboratively among those staff members. 

The major theme of our story, as I talk to other districts that ask 

me how we did it, is all about capacity building, and the best way 

to build capacity in a school district is to transform them into a 

true professional learning community, which we see in the literature. 

Those fundamentals are, first, to make learning the purpose of 

your organization. You must establish a focus on learning, not just 

teaching. It is not good enough to just teach in my district. You 

must promote high levels of learning. 

Second, you will not achieve a true focus on learning when teachers are working in isolation. You can have a teacher of the year 

working right next to a first-year teacher in the same school, and 

if they are not allowed to share back and forth, you will definitely 

affect your quality in a negative way. So you want to make sure 

that isolation is brought into collaboration. 

Then you must create systems and structures to build those collaborative structures on a regular basis. 

And finally, our third major focus is you must know if students 

are learning or not. So you must have a system to monitor student 

learning and to be governed by results. 

The most pressing issues we see in rural schools: isolation, the 

amount of capacity, the recruitment and retention of administrative teaching staff, the lack of quality preschools, the NCLB punitive consequences that are designed more for urban schools, and 

the adequate financial resources here in these troubled times. Add 

lack of parental involvement, low graduation rates, the impact of 

drugs, gangs, poverty on many of the low-performing rural reservation schools, and we have some real issues. 

With all the issues, there is a terrible stigma about being a failed 

school in a small rural and isolated community. Many of these 

school districts have administrators and teachers who are dedicated. They are working hard every day to try to improve that 

learning situation. Many of these schools currently have trouble 

holding onto administrators for more than 1 or 2 years. In many 

rural schools, the superintendent is the principal. He is the coach. 

He is the janitor. He is the bus driver. And so the entire administration is lost and they simply move a short distance to another 

school district if a turnaround process is put in place. 

28 

In these situations, the principals and staff need to stay. Threatening to fire administrators and teachers and closing schools in isolated rural areas does not make any common sense. 

If we look at the conditions that are needed, as we start to flesh 

out what the next reauthorization is going to look like, we would 

hope that you would look at making sure that we provide adequate 

resources, that we support operating conditions, and we support 

administrator and teacher training to being about that cultural 

change that is needed. 

We promoted our school turnaround process in a mixture of local, 

State, and Federal revenue sources, and we utilized those effectively to build capacity so that we could implement research-based 

instructional strategies. Most schools like Chamberlain have a limited capacity. So make sure to understand that if you are going to 

shift new Federal dollars to competitive grants, it would be inherently unfair for us to compete with other districts because of a lack 

of capacity, and we certainly want to make sure that we see the 

increased funding for title I because the current proposal is for 

level funding. 

As we look at accountability, we know it is not helping our 

schools in rural South Dakota and rural areas, and measures are 

too narrow and imprecise and consequences are too severe. The 

four turnaround models are not appropriate for a majority of rural 

and small schools. I support a recommendation to add a fifth option. This is to be able to implement a research-based intervention 

model that is reserved in the Blueprint for simply Reward districts. 

Consider the distinction between positive accountability where low 

scores trigger an effort to help schools and punitive accountability 

where we focus on firing staff and closing schools. In a strategy of 

positive accountability, consistent research-based, proven steps can 

be taken to improve low-performing schools. 

Thank you for your time today, and I will be happy to answer 

any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mitchell follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TIM MITCHELL, Ed.D. 

SUMMARY

CHAMBERLAIN SCHOOL DISTRICT 7–1

Chamberlain School District 7–1 is located in Chamberlain, SD. Fall Enrollment 

was 858 students. Economically Disadvantaged students make up 46 percent of the 

student body, Native American students make up 36 percent of the student population, 17 percent of the students qualify for Special Education services and 59 percent of the students are identified as title I. The district employs 140 full and parttime staff. 

ACHIEVEMENT GAINS

In the spring 2008 the Native American, Economically Disadvantaged, and Students with Disabilities subgroups made Adequate Yearly Progress and the Chamberlain School District 7–1 had the first clean NCLB Report Card. Native American, 

Economically Disadvantaged, and Students with Disabilities subgroups continue to 

exceed the State average for proficiency in both math and reading. 

THE CHAMBERLAIN TURNAROUND STORY

To identify what has helped Chamberlain School District 7–1 in the turnaround 

process has been a relentless focus on instruction and professional development; the 

cultivation of teacher and principal support; the use of researched-based instrucVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
29 

tional practices and strategies; and the conscious encouragement of collegiality and 

collaboration among all staff members. 

THE CHALLENGES FOR RURAL SCHOOLS

The most pressing issues that are currently affecting small rural schools are isolation, capacity, the recruitment and retention of administrative and teaching staff, 

lack of quality pre-schools, NCLB punitive consequences that are designed more for 

urban schools and adequate financial resources in these troubling economic times. 

Add the lack of parental involvement, low graduation rates, the impact of drugs and 

gangs and poverty to many of the low performing rural reservation schools in South 

Dakota and the most pressing issues significantly increase. 

THE CONDITION NEEDED FOR SUCCESS

The turnaround process requires adequate funding, supporting operating conditions, and administrator and teacher training to bring about cultural change. 

ESEA RECOMMENDATIONS

Accountability as we know it now is not helping our schools. Its measures are too 

narrow and imprecise and the consequences are too severe. The four turnaround 

models are not appropriate for a majority of rural and small schools. I support the 

recommendation of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) that 

proposes a 5th option for school turnaround. This is to be able to implement a research-based intervention model, reserved in the blueprint for Reward districts. 

Good Afternoon Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi and members of the 

committee, my name is Tim Mitchell and I am the Superintendent of Schools for 

the Chamberlain School District 7–1 in Chamberlain, SD. It is an honor to come 

before you today and share some thoughts on rural school turnaround. Specifically, 

the unique challenges faced by rural schools when implementing school improvement strategies as well as some of the conditions I feel are necessary so rural school 

reform efforts can be successful. I would also like to share some recommendations 

for how a reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act can support and 

promote successful school turnaround in rural areas. 

CHAMBERLAIN SCHOOL DISTRICT 7–1

Located along Interstate 90, in south-central South Dakota along the Missouri 

River, the Chamberlain School District 7–1 is made up of parts of three counties, 

Brule, Buffalo and Lyman. The district covers 853 square miles. Part of the Crow 

Creek Indian Reservation lies within the district (Buffalo County-referred to as one 

of the poorest counties in the Nation). The city of Chamberlain, population approximately 2,400, is the area’s primary trade center. Chamberlain is the site of the 

school district’s administration building, a senior high/middle school (Grade 7–12), 

and an elementary school (Grade K–6). The 2009–2010 fall enrollment was 858 students. Economically disadvantaged students make up 46 percent of the student 

body, Native American students make up 36 percent of the student population, 17 

percent of the students qualify for special education services and 59 percent of the 

students are identified as title I. The elementary school supports a schoolwide title 

I program and in 2010–2011 the middle school will be a schoolwide title I program. 

The district employs 140 full and part-time staff. About 95 are certified teachers, 

who bring to Chamberlain School District 7–1 a wide range of experiences and educational backgrounds (average experience level 16.2 years). Including special service 

staff members, such as speech therapists, music teachers, guidance counselors and 

physical education instructors, the average pupil-teacher ratio in the district is 11.2 

to 1. Class sizes are small which provides for more one-on-one contact between 

teachers and students. The school district’s administrative staff is made up of the 

superintendent, business manager, and two building principals. In the fall of 2008 

a part-time assistant grade 7–12 principal was added. A special education director, 

transportation director, title I director, buildings and grounds supervisor, technology 

director, special education social worker, and activities director serve in supervisory 

roles in the district. 

ACHIEVEMENT GAINS

In the spring of 2003 in the Chamberlain School District 7–1, 27 percent of Native 

American students tested were Advanced/Proficient in Math and 45 percent were 

Advanced/Proficient in Reading, only 49 percent of the Economically Disadvantaged 

30 

student population were Advanced/Proficient in Math and 62 percent were Advanced/Proficient in Reading, only 7 percent of Students with Disabilities were Advanced/Proficient in Math and only 22 percent were Advanced/Proficient in Reading. 

The Native American, Economically Disadvantaged, and Students with Disabilities 

subgroups did not make Adequate Yearly Progress and the Elementary and Middle 

School were identified as being on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Alert. 

In the spring of 2009, 63 percent of Native American students tested were Advanced/Proficient in Math and 61 percent of Native American students tested were 

Advanced/Proficient in Reading, 62 percent of Economically Disadvantaged students 

were Advanced/Proficient in Math and 74 percent of Economically Disadvantaged 

students were Advanced/Proficient in Reading, 43 percent of Students with Disabilities were Advanced/Proficient, and 51 percent of Students with Disabilities were 

Advanced/Proficient in Reading. In the spring 2008 the Native American, Economically Disadvantaged, and Students with Disabilities subgroups made Adequate 

Yearly Progress and the Chamberlain School District 7–1 had the first clean NCLB 

Report Card. Native American, Economically Disadvantaged, and Students with 

Disabilities subgroups continue to exceed the State average for proficiency in both 

math and reading. These types of achievement gains continue to be recorded as the 

district celebrates some of the highest student achievement gains in the history of 

the district. 

THE CHAMBERLAIN TURNAROUND STORY

To identify what has helped Chamberlain School District 7–1 in the turnaround 

process has been a relentless focus on instruction and professional development; the 

cultivation of teacher and principal support; the use of researched-based instructional practices and strategies; and the conscious encouragement of collegiality and 

collaboration among all staff members. This has created a culture that encourages 

professionals to take risks and to take responsibility for themselves, their students 

and for each other. 

The major theme of our story is centered on capacity building. Michael Fullan defines capacity building as an action-based and powerful policy or strategy that increases the collective efficacy of a group to improve student learning through new 

knowledge, enhanced resources, and greater motivation on the part of the people 

working individually and together. You need to create conditions for people to succeed by helping people find meaning, increasing their skill development and their 

personal satisfaction while they make contributions that simultaneously fulfill their 

own goals and the goals of the organization. My own research in South Dakota 

found that the most innovative school districts are those that have the ability to 

sustain school reform, organizational change and increased student achievement 

have a greater professional capacity. 

The best way to build the capacity of a school district is to transform it into a 

professional learning community. This is the work of Richard DuFour, Rebecca 

DuFour, and Robert Eaker. First, you need to make learning the fundamental purpose of the organization. You must establish a focus on learning not on teaching. 

Second, schools will not achieve a true focus on learning when teachers are working 

in isolation. You must create systems and structures that build a collaborative 

structure. Third, you must know if students are learning or not. You must have a 

system to monitor student learning and be governed by results. 

A focus on learning means that the district has systems and structures in place 

to make sure students learn what they need to learn to be successful. We have created an intensive focus on learning by clarifying exactly what students are to learn 

by establishing an aligned curriculum. Once we established an aligned curriculum 

we provided support through an extensive professional development program to support teachers in their utilization of researched-based instructional strategies to deliver the curriculum. The next step was to establish a robust assessment system. 

Teachers have been trained in the creation and use of common formative assessment procedures to get instant feedback from students on how well they are doing. 

This feedback guides decisions as to appropriate remediation or enrichment that 

must be provided to ensure the learning occurs. 

The next thing we recognized as a critical issue was that a district can not accomplish a high level of learning for all students unless all staff members work together 

collaboratively. The collaborative team has become one of the fundamental building 

blocks of our culture. Staff need to be organized into structures that allow them to 

engage in meaningful collaboration that is beneficial to them and their students. Extensive professional development was required to make the collaboration effective. 

Collaborative time can be squandered if educators do not use the time to focus on 

issues most related to teaching and learning. 

31 

To be governed by results means that teachers need to continually assess their 

effectiveness on the basis of results. They need instant, tangible evidence that their 

students are acquiring the knowledge and skills that are essential to their success. 

We have created a data system where curriculum and achievement data are stored 

together so teachers can get instant feedback to help them provide remediation and 

enrichment as needed. We have found that all students can learn if given the time 

they need. Our data analysis has helped us to design extended learning opportunities for various students so remediation and enrichment are provided in a variety 

of ways. 

In the Chamberlain School District 7–1 we ask all the members of our organization to come to school each day and make the following commitments: 

• Align and utilize the South Dakota Content Standards to provide a guaranteed 

and viable curriculum for all students; 

• Develop, implement, and evaluate on a regular basis a School Improvement 

Plan that targets specific instructional areas and students identified by data analysis; 

• Engage in meaningful, job-embedded staff development to enhance professional 

skills; 

• Initiate individual and small group instructional programs to provide additional 

learning time for students; 

• Provide families with resources, strategies, and information to help children 

succeed academically; 

• Utilize a variety of researched-based instructional strategies to promote success 

for all students; and 

• Develop and implement effective local assessments and administer State assessments as directed. 

THE CHALLENGES FOR RURAL SCHOOLS

The most pressing issues that are currently affecting small rural schools are isolation, capacity, the recruitment and retention of administrative and teaching staff, 

lack of quality pre-schools, NCLB punitive consequences that are designed more for 

urban schools and adequate financial resources in these troubling economic times. 

Add the lack of parental involvement, low graduation rates, the impact of drugs and 

gangs and poverty to many of the low-performing rural reservation schools in South 

Dakota and the most pressing issues significantly increase. 

The isolation geographically from large urban areas creates a continued shortage 

of high quality instructional learning opportunities for staff that are just not available in isolated rural areas. The lack of access to these capacity building activities 

seriously hampers the ability to support high quality instruction if the teachers are 

not supported. Any opportunities to network with others in their field are also limited. In a small rural school it is not unusual to see the superintendent hold many 

roles in the organization. They can also be the principal, grant writer, staff development coordinator, curriculum coordinator, coach, and then drive the bus. Can one 

person hold all these jobs and have time to build the capacity of the organization 

let alone build their own capacity to lead a high quality learning organization? This 

is why rural schools are asking that the proposal of making new Federal dollars, 

with the exception of title I that will remain formula-driven, available only through 

competitive grants be reconsidered. The time and capacity are not available in rural 

schools to complete and submit competitive grants. Rural schools are at a great disadvantage in this type of competition with larger urban schools. In South Dakota, 

the lack of funding and an inability of the State legislature to pass standards have 

severely limited pre-school opportunities to make sure students are prepared for 

school. In some low performing districts Head Start can only serve 25 percent of the 

eligible students. If funding and standards were available in South Dakota to provide effective and quality pre-schools more students would be ready and prepared 

to enter school. NCLB consequences will also not work in small rural areas for 

many reasons. Threatening to close schools, fire administrators and teachers in 

areas that get few applicants is not a viable turnaround strategy. 

It is hard to imagine how different a school district is when they serve 90–100 

percent Native American students on a reservation in South Dakota. The history 

of distrust that native people have for educational institutions is still prevalent. 

Many of these districts are at a loss as to how to overcome the lack of parental involvement. It is hard to explain the impact of politics of the reservation schools. 

Many students see that it is possible to survive on the reservation at poverty level 

and it is hard to convince them they need to graduate when 80 percent of the adults 

they know do not have a high school diploma. Many of these schools do not have 

the resources to provide a safe environment for learning. Gangs and drugs have 

32 

taken hold in these communities and continue to affect the overall learning in these 

situations. It has become almost impossible to provide a safe and secure learning 

environment. 

With all these issues the stigma of being a failed school really has a negative impact on these small, rural, and isolated communities. Many of these school districts 

have administrators and teachers who are dedicated and working very hard everyday to try to improve the learning in these situations. Many of these school districts 

currently have trouble holding onto administrators for more than 1 or 2 years. In 

many rural schools the superintendent is the principal so then the entire administration is lost or they simply move a short distance to another school district. With 

all the hard work they are making progress and show growth but they know that 

they will never be able to reach the bar. In these situations the principals and staff 

need to stay as the turnaround process may be slow but growth is being realized. 

Threatening to fire administrators and teachers and close the school in isolated 

rural areas does not make common sense. We need to give State Education Agencies 

the flexibility in working with these small, rural situations. 

THE CONDITION NEEDED FOR SUCCESS

The turnaround process in the Chamberlain School District 7–1 was funded 

through the use of a mixture of local, State and Federal revenue sources. Federal 

revenue sources (title I, title II Part A & D, title IV, title VI and Impact Aide) provided by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act have provided much-needed 

funding for capacity building activities as well as to implement researched-based 

educational programming that have significantly helped to increase student achievement for Native American, Economically Disadvantaged, and Students with Disabilities. These funds were provided under the current formula grant program. I would 

hope that additional dollars can be found to increase funding for title I because the 

current proposal is for level funding. Most rural schools like Chamberlain also have 

a limited capacity and shifting to more competitive grants for new Federal dollars 

I believe would be inherently unfair to rural school districts. Relying on competitive 

grants could take the much-needed funding from small rural schools. It would be 

very difficult for us to compete with school districts that have a greater capacity and 

expertise in this area. I would recommend that Congress continue to grow formula 

grants to support a more reliable stream of funding to support turnaround efforts 

in rural schools. I do want to mention that The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds were also utilized for the 2009–2010 school year. I would 

certainly like to thank the committee and Congress for the strong investment they 

have made in education through this program. Capacity building, which is an essential component to our turnaround success, is resource intensive and adequate funding is critical. 

To engineer a successful school turnaround you need to create a structure of supporting operating conditions. The Federal Government has to be flexible and allow 

rural school leaders to make decisions regarding staff, schedules, budget and program based upon the mission, strategy and data for each unique rural school. The 

turnaround process must be locally controlled. 

External efforts to improve schools invariably focus on structural changes. Meaningful, substantive, sustainable improvement can only occur if it becomes anchored 

in the culture of the organization. Bringing about cultural change in any organization is a complex and challenging task. The challenge facing educational leaders and 

teachers is to become skillful in the change process. That is why I support Federal 

resources targeted to provide training to improve the effectiveness of teachers and 

leaders in high-needs schools especially in rural areas as outlined in the blueprint. 

ESEA RECOMMENDATIONS

Accountability as we know it now is not helping our schools. Its measures are too 

narrow and imprecise and the consequences are too severe. NCLB assumes that accountability based solely on test scores will reform schools. I believe this is a mistake. A good accountability system must include not just a simple test score but 

other measures of student achievement. It should also include a review of the resources being provided to schools to assess their ability to build capacity to be successful. 

Consider the distinction between positive accountability, where low scores trigger 

an effort to help schools and punitive accountability where we focus on firing staff 

and closing schools. In a strategy of positive accountability consistent, researchedbased, proven steps are taken to improve low performing schools. There are many 

examples across the Nation that point to this strategy as being very productive. 

33 

This is something that small rural schools can do if given the resources to make 

it happen. 

In the NCLB era and included in the new ‘‘Blueprint for Reform’’ you will find 

recommended turnaround models that are very prescriptive and propose consequences that include firing of principals and staff and even closing schools. This 

is punitive accountability where low scores simply provide reasons to trigger dire 

consequences for staff, students, parents and communities. The four turnaround 

models are not appropriate for a majority of rural and small schools. It would be 

very difficult for a small rural community in our Nation to implement any of the 

four prescribed models. I support the recommendation of the American Association 

of School Administrators (AASA) that proposes a 5th option for school turnaround. 

This is to be able to implement a research-based intervention model, reserved in the 

blueprint for Reward districts. This should be available for the lowestperforming districts. This would be an example of a positive versus punitive nature 

that would allow schools and districts to receive a school turnaround grant to implement a researched-based capacity building option. They would need to supply information as to how they are going to implement a turnaround process that is a replication of what other successful turnaround schools have implemented and how it 

is appropriate to their situation based upon a thorough data analysis. 

We have known for years that we need to improve schools but I have some grave 

concerns about some of the school reform efforts in vogue today. Efforts that set out 

to improve schools by applying more and more severe sanctions. The problems confronting quality rural school development have never been the result of lack of effort 

or lack of caring among educators. We have taken good people and put them in 

struggling systems. It is time to quit blaming the people and to transform the system. Educators are ready to play a key role in this transformation. If there is one 

thing educators know, and many studies have confirmed, there is no single answer 

or silver bullet. We simply must turn our attention to the research behind what 

makes a great school in rural areas and replicate the successful practices already 

in place in those schools. We must turn our attention to improving schools by focusing on learning and reviving the conditions that make learning possible. 

Thank you for your time today and I would be happy to answer any questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. That is great. Thank you very much, 

Dr. Mitchell. 

Now we turn to close out our panel. Mr. Petruzzi, welcome again. 

Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MARCO PETRUZZI, CHIEF EXECUTIVE 

OFFICER, GREEN DOT PUBLIC SCHOOLS, LOS ANGELES, CA 

Mr. PETRUZZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

committee. 

I will go to the other extreme in Los Angeles. I am here to testify 

on behalf of Green Dot Public Schools and our work to turn around 

Locke High School in Watts, one of the most chronically under-performing schools in the State of California and in the Nation. This 

is a school that had only a 25 percent graduation rate of its entering freshman class 4 years later, and we are on the path to moving 

that graduation rate to 60 to 80 percent by the end of the first 4 

years. 

I am going to start a little bit with the history of Green Dot and 

where we started. We operate in a district, LAUSD, that is the second largest in the Nation, second only to New York. It is larger 

than 25 States in the Nation. It is larger than a lot of European 

nations in terms of number of students, and the size of our high 

schools averaged 3,500 students just 3 years ago. So actually probably a single high school like Locke is actually larger than most 

districts, than 50 percent of the districts in the Nation. The problems are tremendous. 

Green Dot started with a mission to reform education in Los Angeles, which was a very ambitious mission, and to make sure and 

34 

ensure that all students have access to an education that ensures 

them success in college, leadership, and life. 

We started like many charter management organizations by 

building independent charter schools, and we built 10 at first in 

the most poverty-stricken areas in Los Angeles, and we had great 

success. These are areas where students were having a 60–70 percent dropout rate, and we were actually sending 60 to 80 percent 

of our students to college. So we had a 5 to 8 times effect on those 

student populations. 

Having said that, when we looked at the magnitude of the problem in Los Angeles and the size of the issue, we realized that we 

needed to get into the world of turnarounds of these chronic performing schools because with 700,000 students—700 schools in Los 

Angeles, of which 250 were failing—we felt that that was the imperative, to actually intervene in those large failing schools. 

A group of teachers at Locke High School, which was the lowestperforming school in Los Angeles—nobody will accuse us to go into 

an easy first school. This is a school that is in a very difficult 

neighborhood. It is 100 percent minority. It is about 35 percent African-American, 65 percent Latino. It is a gateway community for 

recent immigrants. There are a lot of gang tension. It is at the 

intersection of the Bloods and the Crypts and several Latino gangs 

and was basically a very toxic school in every possible way you can 

imagine. Gangs were controlling classrooms. There were race riots. 

And the students—when you walked it, you couldn’t tell if it was 

passing period or it was class time. The basic infrastructure of the 

school had just failed. 

The teachers signed for Green Dot to take over. We had a core 

group of teachers, young teachers who were idealistic who wanted 

to change the school, and frankly a bunch of teachers who had 

given up and they just felt that it could not be done and they were 

happy to leave us the school. We asked everybody to reapply to the 

school. We are 2 years into it. 

Our basic tenet was to use the learnings that we had from our 

independent charter schools. So make small schools first. We guaranteed our students that every one of our adults knows every student’s name. We do not believe that anybody can learn more than 

500 names. We cap our schools at around 500. So we broke down 

Locke, which is now 3,200 students, into eight schools. We started 

with ninth grade academies that capture the incoming ninth-graders, and we kept them very separate from the tenth to twelfth 

graders to create a new culture at the school. A lot of personalization in the student plans. 

We also brought in a lot of feeling of safety at the school by 

bringing adults and training all adults on having respectful conversations with the students and actually really turning the student into a haven from the ultra-violence that was around them in 

the community. 

The culture of the school has improved dramatically in over just 

1 year. First of all, the students are attending class. The school is 

graffiti-free. The attendance has gone up 12 percent, and in just 

the first year, we basically stopped the dropout rate. We retained 

over 40 percent more students than the year before, and we had 

a huge cultural shift where the students are now thinking about 

35 

college in positive terms compared to a statistic before where only 

5 percent of the kids went to college. 

Now, clearly, we are humbled by the difficulty of this task. These 

are students that come into ninth grade reading and doing math 

at about a third and fourth grade level, and we absolutely put everybody on a college track. We do not believe that adults should be 

making decisions for students about going to college. We believe 

the students need to make that decision. So everybody is in a college prep track. We offer a lot of intervention for the students that 

are farthest behind, but we believe that everybody should be there. 

We think this is good work, and I appreciate the committee’s 

work on turnarounds. We need to create the conditions for more 

turnarounds like this to happen, which are not easy, but they are 

absolutely essential. I do not believe that there is a choice of not 

doing turnarounds. Some of them will fail, but even if we have a 

50 percent failure rate, what is the other option? Not trying to do 

something for those kids is impossible. 

So I would ask and I would recommend to the committee that we 

create the conditions for the flexibility that we enjoyed as a charter 

conversion in terms of staffing—every staff member had to reapply 

for the school—for the ability that we have to actually move funds 

around across schools. We created eight different schools with eight 

different principals with different budgets. Those flexibilities were 

extremely important for creating a culture of accountability and an 

ownership by the adults on the campus and also, frankly, the students regarding where they belong. This is important work that we 

would love to repeat and we would hope that the conditions are set 

by this committee so that this can be repeated across the Nation. 

Thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Petruzzi follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARCO PETRUZZI

SUMMARY

Marco Petruzzi will testify before the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and 

Pensions Committee on Green Dot’s successful charter schools and its transformation of the 3,000 student Locke High School. In 2007 Locke High School was 

in such poor condition that teachers working in the school petitioned the Los Angeles Unified School District of California to transfer school management to Green Dot 

Public Schools. As a result, over the last year Green Dot has worked to transform 

Locke High School, create a safe learning environment for students, raise graduation rates and increase student achievement. To do this Green Dot has implemented 

a series of school turnaround strategies including: 

• Implementing a new governance structure focused on small personalized academies. 

• Creating a culture of excellent education with high expectations for student success. 

• Training and supporting highly effective teachers and leaders. 

• Providing a safe and respectful learning environment for students, staff and 

parents. 

Locke High School is in the middle of its second academic year under Green Dot 

management. Student achievement results for this year are not yet available. However, there are strong indications that the transformation will have a significant, 

positive effect on student achievement. Some early indicators include: 

• Green Dot retained approximately 500 more students than LAUSD had the previous year (2008) at Locke. 

• Attendance increased by 12 percent. 

• Suspensions involving drugs or violence have shrunk from 21 percent of all suspensions to only 5 percent. 

36 

1 California students can graduate with two types of High School Degrees: the ‘‘traditional’’ 

High School Diploma and the A–G High School Diploma, which allows students to apply for admission into the UC/CSU system. This second degree is much more rigorous and it is the min-

• Graduation rate rose by 15 percentage points. • Parent and student surveys indicate that stakeholders feel safer and more supported. 

Turning around persistently low-performing schools is extremely challenging. 

Green Dot’s work has proven that it can be done, but only with flexibility in school 

governance, strong student supports and committed, talented teachers and school 

leaders. As such, Green Dot proposes the following recommendations for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary School Act: 

• Provide local flexibility for school administrators to restructure failing schools 

to more effectively meet the needs of the community. This must include authority 

to use and implement the four elements of reform that Green Dot implemented in 

Locke High School (new school governance, personalized instruction, effective teachers and leaders, safe and healthy schools). 

• Increase the level of student supports, including academic and nonacademic 

supports that meet the comprehensive needs of struggling students and accelerate 

the learning and achievement of all students. This may include wraparound health 

and wellness services and afterschool programs. 

• Provide resources for appropriate, scientifically valid instructional interventions 

or other academic support services, specifically for reading and math. This may include extended learning time for struggling students. 

• Incentivize strategies aligning academic standards, curricula, and assessments 

with college-readiness requirements. 

• Provide funding for high-quality teacher and leader residency programs to recruit and train highly effective teachers and leaders. 

• Provide high-quality job-embedded professional development for teachers and 

leaders. This must include built-in time to share best practices and evaluate peer 

performance. 

INTRODUCTION

Thank you Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and all the members of the Health, 

Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for the opportunity to speak today on 

behalf of Green Dot Public Schools. It is my hope that our efforts to effectively turn 

around Locke High School and the strategies we used to do so can be replicated to 

help improve schools across the country. We share the committee’s goal to provide 

quality education for every child. We need a world-class education system to meet 

the demands of a global economy. As members of this committee, you have a tremendous challenge and an amazing opportunity to transform the Nation’s education 

system through the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary School Act. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to share our experience to date and the challenges 

and opportunities we see ahead. 

GREEN DOT CHARTER SCHOOLS

Thirty years ago, California schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District 

(LAUSD) in particular, were considered models of kindergarten through university 

education. Since then, California has dropped to 46th nationally in per pupil funding and LAUSD has one of the highest dropout rates in the country. Faced with 

the unacceptable prospect of losing another generation of students to illiteracy, delinquency, and a life of poverty, Green Dot Public Schools was created to help reform and transform LAUSD schools. It has been a daunting task, but 10 years of 

experience and some compelling data have proven that positive transformation is 

possible. 

Green Dot opened its first school in the fall of 2000 with 140 students. The organization has since grown to serve over 8,300 students in the most impoverished 

areas of Los Angeles. Prior to Locke, Green Dot operated 10 schools in Los Angeles. 

These schools consistently outperform neighboring public schools. For example, on 

California State tests Green Dot’s average scores are over 130 points higher than 

other public schools in the same district. In Green Dot schools: 80 percent of entering ninth-grade students graduate within 4 years; 76 percent of graduating seniors 

have been admitted to 4-year universities; and nearly all other graduates attend 2- 

year colleges or enter the military. In Green Dot schools graduation rates for students receiving a College Preparatory High School diploma.1 We achieve this while 

37 

imum standard that high schools should be offering for college preparedness. All Green Dot 

Schools only offer the A–G diploma. 

serving a 99 percent minority population. In contrast, LAUSD’s graduation rate is 

12 percent overall and drops to 8–9 percent for African-Americans and Latinos. Our 

core mission is to graduate students and prepare them for college, leadership, and 

life. 

Green Dot was not founded to replace the public school system, but to catalyze 

school reform. Our vision is to prove there is a more effective way to provide public 

education to young adults in the Los Angeles area and achieve real results. Running 

small successful charter schools in which low-income, high-risk youth succeed not 

only provides quality education for students, but influences LAUSD and other school 

districts in the area to adopt more effective school governing and academic strategies. 

THE LOCKE HIGH SCHOOL TURNAROUND

The Alain Leroy Locke Senior High School was created as a response to the Watts 

riots of 1967 to provide students in South Los Angeles and the Watts community 

a safe and secure place to learn. Forty years later Locke High School earned the 

unenviable distinction as one of the worst performing schools in California. The 

school serves a 99 percent minority student population with 95 percent qualifying 

for free and reduced lunch.1 Before the Green Dot takeover no student was offered 

a quality education. Here are some of Locke’s statistics prior to the transformation: 

• In 2004–2005, nearly 40 percent of Locke’s teachers were under-credentialed. • Ninety percent of Locke’s students performed below basic, or far below basic, 

on California Standards Tests in both mathematics and English language arts. • Fifty-seven percent of students failed Algebra 1A. • Fewer than one-third of students passed the California High School Exit Exam, 

required for high school graduation. • In 2007, graduation rates were only 28 percent. 

With more students on the streets than in the classroom, the school culture had 

become one of violence and chaos. In May 2008, nearby street violence led to riots 

inside of Locke, which had to be quelled by the police. 

In early 2007, teachers took matters into their own hands. Teachers who had left 

Locke to work in new flagship Green Dot Schools joined hands with the remaining 

Locke teachers and the Watt community to petition LAUSD for a change in school 

management. In July 2008, all 2,700 students at Locke began to be served by the 

Green Dot organization. 

Known as the Locke Transformation Project, this radical restructuring was made 

possible through a one-of-a-kind partnership between a non-profit charter operator 

(Green Dot), the stakeholders of a public high school (teachers, parents, community 

leaders), and a school district (LAUSD). Unlike previous charter schools run by 

Green Dot where enrollment is controlled and students and parents sign up to enroll from across the district, at Locke High School Green Dot took responsibility for 

every student within the existing attendance boundary. 

Before the school could reopen in the fall of 2008, Green Dot identified over 150 

issues that needed to be addressed to ensure minimum operating standards. These 

issues ranged from hiring effective school leaders and teachers to addressing the 

needs of the students returning from juvenile correctional facilities. Decisions as 

basic as uniform colors and as complicated as gang intervention strategies all had 

to be made before the doors opened on July 8th for the first day of summer school. 

Over the last 2 years Green Dot has made great progress transforming Locke 

High School by: 

• Implementing a new governance structure focused on small personalized academies. 

• Creating a culture of excellent education with high expectations for student success. 

• Training and supporting highly effective teachers and leaders. 

• Providing a safe and respectful learning environment for students and staff. 

A NEW SCHOOL STRUCTURE AND GOVERNANCE

Based on Green Dot’s principle of small, personalized schools, Locke re-opened in 

the fall of 2008 as the new Locke Family of High Schools, restructured into eight 

small academies. Each academy has its own principal, its own set of classrooms 

with clear boundaries, and its own County-District-School (CDS) code for individual 

school accountability. All academies are college-focused; students are required to 

38 

take the 13 courses necessary for admission to California State Universities, known 

as A–G classes. College readiness is a basic tenet of all Green Dot schools and Locke 

is no exception. 

To meet the needs of diverse learners, some of Green Dot’s academies have additional interventions. The goal is for the smaller academies to meet the individual 

needs of all students in the larger community. For instance, there are specific academy programs for English Language Learners and students with special needs. 

Other academies pair college preparation with career technical education. The ACE 

Academy in particular is an example of one innovative school model within the 

Locke Family of High Schools that provides students with an opportunity to explore 

pathways in architecture, construction and engineering integrated with an A–G college preparatory curriculum. 

The original Green Dot charter school model uses an incubation period to phase 

in new students. Every year, each academy takes on a new 9th grade class of 150 

students. This model continues until they establish a full 9th–12th grade academy 

with approximately 500–600 students. Since Locke was already an established 

school with 2,700 students, Green Dot created two transition academies, known as 

Locke Launch to College Academies (LLCA’s), for the existing 10th–12th grade students. Green Dot then created five small academies using the original incubation 

model for all incoming 9th grade students. The LLCAs have been a challenge as 

teachers have had to work hard to incorporate older students into the curriculum, 

make up for years lost, and break entrenched habits. Green Dot has seen the most 

dramatic impact from the students who attended Locke before the transition. Our 

initial results are positive, particularly in terms of attendance and disciplinary 

issues. Under Green Dot, Locke’s average daily attendance rose from 77.8 percent 

to 89.3 percent. Additionally, 85 percent of parents surveyed said Green Dot provided a safe environment and offered better access to education than LAUSD. 

A CULTURE OF EXCELLENT EDUCATION

Green Dot emphasizes differentiated, personalized learning based on student 

growth and specific benchmarks for achievement. Frequent and multiple student assessments measure growth and inform instruction. Through these assessments, 

teachers offer differentiated instruction to ensure all students are achieving academically. Also, Green Dot’s curriculum skills course focuses on study skills development at each grade level: 

• 9th Grade Curriculum Skills: The curriculum is focused on the individual as a 

student learner and community participant. Students are taught study skill strategies, test taking strategies, and communication tools to enable them to succeed academically. 

• 10th Grade Curriculum Skills: The curriculum is focused on adequately preparing students for the California High School Exit Exam. Students work with content teachers, use an online component and receive continual feedback on areas of 

strengths and weaknesses. 

• 11th & 12th Grade Curriculum Skills: There are three pathways for 11th graders designed to accommodate students that are on track to graduate, students who 

still need to pass the California exit exam (CAHSEE) and students who need intensive credit recovery assistance. 

Green Dot uses data from State assessments, diagnostic assessments, e.g., Read 

180, Math Diagnostic, and classroom assessments on an ongoing basis to inform instruction and student placement. Given that the majority of students entering Locke 

are reading at the third grade level, specific student interventions (such as Read 

180 and Math Diagnostic) are necessarily built into the school day. The staff analyzes student achievement data to determine the areas of highest need and to develop specific goals and steps necessary to increase individual student achievement. 

Each department sets goals at the beginning of the year and determines specific 

steps that will be taken to achieve agreed-upon goals. For example, after reviewing 

State test data, the math department may set a goal to increase the number of students in the ‘‘Advanced’’ category in Algebra by 16 percent. The department then 

establishes the necessary steps each teacher will need to take in order to reach the 

goal. The department is responsible for determining resource allocation for each 

goal. Green Dot has also launched a comprehensive effort to improve writing skills, 

as writing is a fundamental skill needed for college success. 

Student grades are reviewed each quarter to ensure that assessments are determined appropriately based on student growth and individual student needs. Assessments are designed, reviewed, and evaluated based on their accuracy in monitoring 

student growth. Tests are not intended as punitive measures for students but rather 

as guidelines for improvement. 

39 

2LA Times Editorial Staff, ‘‘Locke High School’s Progress,’’ The Los Angeles Times, December 

1, 2008. 3 Comment from student stakeholder feedback. 

In the first year, even with a 38 percent increase of students tested, Green Dot 

has been able to maintain a consistent percentage of students achieving proficiency 

in English and Math. Already, first year students interviewed about the changes in 

Locke High School stated, ‘‘The teachers care a lot more—they ask you things, like 

whether you’re OK, and do you understand what they taught.’’ 2 ‘‘Teachers do not 

ask if we are going to college; they ask us which college we will be attending.’’ 3 Seventy percent of students surveyed noted positive impressions of Locke’s discipline 

policy, school spirit, and access to an adult when in need of assistance. In 2007– 

2008, Locke reported 924 suspensions. Under Green Dot management this number 

shrank by 50 percent. 

EFFECTIVE TEACHERS AND SCHOOL LEADERS

To achieve its ultimate goal of dramatically raising student achievement, Green 

Dot is focused on ensuring students at Locke have access to highly effective teachers 

and school leaders. 

Green Dot’s ‘‘Administrator in Residence Program’’ is a cornerstone of its effort 

to recruit, train, and induct effective leaders. The program provides ongoing support 

for the aspiring leaders as they develop their philosophy of education, leadership, 

and other key foundational elements prior to the opening of a school. The program 

inducts and trains future principals and assistant principals in six key areas: 

• Green Dot philosophy, core values, and education model 

• Building Culture 

• Instructional Leadership 

• People and Resource Management 

• Community Leadership 

• Problem Solving 

The principal training program is a 1-year fellowship program rotating through 

Green Dot’s highest performing schools. Over half of Locke’s new principals were 

identified through the residency program. 

A critical component of academic success is ensuring that our teachers are well 

prepared. Therefore, job-embedded professional development for teachers and school 

site leaders is a critical component of Green Dot’s school model and program. Green 

Dot believes strongly in reflective practice, which occurs in an environment where 

there is collaboration, use of meaningful data, and thoughtful discussion regarding 

instruction. Each teacher receives 144 hours of professional development per year. 

Some specific activities include: 

• Peer Observation: Periodic observations of a colleague to observe and debrief on 

best practices in the classroom. 

• PD Days: Ten full days of professional development for school staff to plan for 

the year, reflect on best practices, and analyze data. 

• Weekly staff development: A late start is provided 1 day each week in order to 

establish a 90-minute professional development period. 

• Intensive Teacher Support and Observations: New and struggling teachers are 

pulled out of class every other month or as needed for one on one reflection and 

planning sessions (with administrator and or department chairs) to address their individual staff development needs. They are observed by their department chairs and 

provided with peer support in monthly department meetings. 

Implicit in our teacher professional development efforts is a core element of the 

Green Dot mission: all staff must be dedicated and fully committed to providing the 

best education possible for all students. For this reason, Green Dot required all 

former Locke staff to reapply for their jobs with renewed commitment to the classrooms and a dedication to high-quality, rigorous instruction. Nearly a third of the 

original Locke teachers were rehired under Green Dot’s management. Refuting the 

notion that bold human capital initiatives cannot be accomplished within the collective bargaining framework, Green Dot’s teachers are all union certified. 

SAFE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT FOR STUDENTS AND STAFF

In perhaps the biggest push to raise attendance rates, increase student participation, and lower the dropout rate, Green Dot has implemented an extensive effort 

to change the culture of Locke High School. This effort has included several specific 

strategies including: a significant investment in safety and conflict management 

40 

4Data obtained by comparing number of active students in LAUSD’s student information system in 2000–2008 and Green Dot’s student information system in 2008–2009. 

practices; extended school hours; and parental involvement and wraparound services. 

Green Dot invested aggressively in improving safety in a school that was overrun 

by gang problems. There are numerous individuals dedicated to very visibly monitor 

the school at different times during the day to make sure that students feel the 

school is safe and not open to external influences. Some areas of the campus have 

been fenced in to increase security and Green Dot has developed a series of techniques to create ‘‘safe passage’’ to and from school. There are bus services to protect 

students traversing gang territory and there are security and parent volunteers 

posted around a 2-block perimeter from the campus. These measures have helped 

to eliminate fights, reduce graffiti and other forms of vandalism. 

Green Dot has also put in place a comprehensive ‘‘Safe and Civil’’ program to help 

build conflict management skills for incoming freshman students, as well as for existing students. The main program starts during the summer ‘‘bridge session’’ to 

transition students from their 8th grade schools into the 9th grade Locke Academies. The program includes strategies to: 

• Develop better behavior management strategies. • Learn effective classroom management procedures. • Implement schoolwide Positive Behavior Support and Response-to-Intervention 

for Behavior. 

The goal of this program and others at Locke is to instill respect and responsibility in the students and for staff to improve school climate and school culture. All 

our staff, including non-teaching personnel, is trained to address students respectfully and on how to de-escalate potentially volatile situations. We strive to turn any 

issue into a ‘‘teachable moment.’’ 

Green Dot school facilities are kept open until at least 5 p.m. daily to provide students with safe, enriching afterschool programs and to allow community groups offering quality services to use the facilities. Keeping schools open later accommodates 

the schedules of working families. Allowing community groups to use school facilities helps ensure that the local neighborhood takes ownership and responsibility for 

the school. 

At Locke, the Watts Willowbrook Boys & Girls Club and the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC) are the service providers for the afterschool programs. Students who are not achieving a satisfactory grade within a particular class 

or who need more support in a subject can attend tutoring, which is offered for an 

hour every day after school and run by a credentialed teacher. Academic programs 

such as SAT preparation, academic focused groups such as calculus and algebra 

clubs are also available afterschool. 

Green Dot is committed to actively integrating parents/guardians into all aspects 

of their students’ education experiences. At all Green Dot schools parents are required to give at least 35 hours of service annually. A wide variety of service opportunities are available including, attending PTA meetings, volunteering to provide 

safe passage, taking students to museums or participating in cultural events. Education programs are provided to new parents to help them learn the best ways to 

support their children’s educations. Research has proven that increased parental involvement can directly affect student achievement and we believe engaging parents 

is key to creating a safe and healthy learning environment for everyone. 

Next year Green Dot plans to open a community health and wellness center in 

the neighborhood. The Locke Wellness Center will address students and parent’s 

emotional and social needs. Specifically, the Center will provide health and vision 

screenings, mental health services, parenting classes, and exercise classes as needed. 

While there is still a long way to go to improve the neighborhood as a whole, a 

protected healthy learning environment is the first step to reducing violence in the 

community and raising student achievement at the school. Some of the early indications of success include: 

• Green Dot retained approximately 500 more students than LAUSD had the previous year (2008) at Locke 4; 

• Attendance increased by 12 percent; 

• Parent and student surveys indicate that stakeholders feel safer and more supported; 

• Suspensions involving drugs or violence have shrunk from 21 percent of all suspensions to only 5 percent; and 

• Graduation rate rose by 15 percentage points. 

41 

RECOMMENDATIONS TO CONGRESS

To conclude, Green Dot’s efforts to turn around Locke High School have been and 

will continue to be successful because we learn from our environment, hone our 

practices, and focus on the specific needs of our students and community. 

We hope that Green Dot’s experience at Locke High School will be instructive to 

educators and policymakers striving to turn around low-performing schools. To this 

end, we recommend Congress reauthorize ESEA to: 

• Provide local flexibility for school administrators to restructure failing schools 

to more effectively meet the needs of the community. This must include authority 

to use and implement the four elements of reform that Green Dot implemented in 

Locke High School (new school governance, personalized instruction, effective teachers and leaders, safe and healthy schools). 

• Increase the level of student supports, including academic and nonacademic 

supports that meet the comprehensive needs of struggling students and accelerate 

the learning and achievement of all students. This may include wraparound health 

and wellness services and afterschool programs. 

• Provide resources for appropriate, scientifically valid instructional interventions 

or other academic support services, specifically for reading and math. This may include extended learning time for struggling students. 

• Incentivize strategies aligning academic standards, curricula, and assessments 

with college-readiness requirements. 

• Provide funding for high-quality teacher and leader residency programs to recruit and train highly effective teachers and leaders. 

• Provide high-quality job-embedded professional development for teachers and 

leaders. This must include built-in time to share best practices and evaluate peer 

performance. 

Green Dot’s core value is an unwavering belief in all students potential. Evidenced by our early results at Locke, students will strive to meet the expectations 

of their teachers and mentors—if given the chance. Although Locke still faces significant challenges, we are confident that Green Dot has already begun to transform 

the lives of our Locke students and the community we serve. 

I am happy to answer any questions you may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Petruzzi. Thank you 

again, all, for excellent testimonies both verbal and written. 

We will start a round of 5-minute questions. I am told that, Mr. 

Klein, you have to leave at 3:30. If any of you have other commitments like that, please let us know. 

From my reading of your testimonies last evening and listening 

to you today, it is becoming clear, at least to me, that there is no 

one thing. There is no single silver bullet, if only we do this one 

thing, that will solve everything. It is a lot of different things. 

One thing that keeps coming through in almost all of your testimonies, but for yours, Dr. Mitchell, is that it seems to me that you 

have to have more manageable school sizes. You mentioned that, 

Mr. Klein. Ms. Donohue, you mentioned that. Mr. Petruzzi, you 

mentioned that. You kind of touched on it a little bit, Dr. Balfanz. 

Yet, when Andreas Schleicher, who is from the OECD, was testifying about some of his findings and research, I asked him the 

question about smaller sizes, and he said there was no correlation 

between doing well and sizes of classes. I did not ask him about 

sizes of the schools. I asked about class size, which kind of went 

against everything that I have ever thought or believed or observed, and that is, that the fewer kids you have to teach, the better they are going to learn, all other things being equal. 

Elementary school teachers who are leaving after 2 or 3 years— 

I have talked to many of them. The ones that have 12 or 13 kids— 

they love it. Those that have 20 and 25 kids—they cannot stand 

it. 

42 

You all talk about smaller schools, but how about class size? Is 

that an important factor that we should consider, what is the size 

of the class that the teacher is teaching? Mr. Klein, is that an important factor? 

Mr. KLEIN. As you said, Mr. Chairman, you have to hold all the 

other factors equal. The most important factor—and I am convinced of this—is the effectiveness of the teacher. I have never met 

a parent who would not rather have her kid in a class of 25 with 

a great teacher than a class of 20 with an ordinary teacher. That 

is why you have to control all of the variables. 

The reason school size matters, certainly in a city like mine, is 

precisely because of the kind of things that Marco just testified to. 

We have lots of kids who get to high school woefully under-prepared. When those kids get to high school, if you do not have personalization, if you do not know who those children are, you do not 

have a faculty that is committed to them collectively like my colleagues have said, you will not succeed. 

Now, I run schools in New York like Stuyvesant High School, 

and those schools have thousands and thousands of kids in them. 

So they are a very different set of challenges. What we need to do 

is understand that there is no uniform solution to the problem. In 

fact, if you can lower class size, while preserving the effectiveness 

and the quality of your teachers, that is a great solution. 

In the course of trying to do things—for example, in New York, 

we have raised teachers’ salaries 43 percent. We now have six, 

seven candidates for every vacancy in our city, and it has attracted 

people to want to come there. So that differential matters. Now, we 

could have kept the salary the same and hired more teachers, but 

I think we would have paid a price for that, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Which again, raises the whole issue of cost. All 

of these changes that are being made—New Visions, for example. 

How have you factored in the cost of these changes and how are 

these absorbed by the city of New York? 

Mr. KLEIN. This is a great question for us, and obviously, Beverly 

will want to comment. 

What we did is 2 years ago we took our $250 million from our 

bureaucracy, just downsized it, and what we said to all of our 

schools is instead of having a mandatory bureaucracy, you can 

have a thing called a school support organization. We created five 

of them internally and six of them, including New Visions, 

partnered with us. The schools now pay New Visions somewhere 

around $40,000 or $50,000 a year to partner with them. Our 1,600 

schools, each one of them, took that money that we returned to 

them from the bureaucracy and created partnerships. New Visions, 

City University, Fordham, and other groups, as well as internal 

groups that we have created. 

One of the things we have got to stop thinking, Mr. Chairman, 

is that inside the school district or inside the school system we 

have the solutions. There are people like New Visions, Green Dot, 

and others who we want to create in New York. So I invited Green 

Dot to New York. I am proud to say they opened up a school with 

us in New York City. They are doing extraordinary work. New Visions partners with us in some 75, 80, 90 different schools, and I 

want to expand their role. So we have to stop thinking of this as 

43 

somehow an hermetically sealed endeavor and bring all the hands 

and talent. How do we fund them? I can hire the people internally 

or I can partner with her. I would rather partner with her. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that raises the question of why. If it is the 

same amount of money, why can you not do it internally, as well 

as externally? 

Mr. KLEIN. Because there are organizations out there like hers 

who have a longstanding commitment, who operate under very different rules, and who bring talent and passion to an enterprise 

that is largely talent-less and oftentimes passion-less. 

It is not just New Visions. I have the Asia Society. I have Outward Bound. I have the College Board. I have community groups, 

all of them partnering with our schools. I cannot hire all of those 

people inside the system, but there is no reason not to partner with 

them. 

Take these guys from Green Dot. I happen to know them quite 

well. What they are doing at Locke is nationally historic, and anybody who knows things about Locke High School knows this is as 

steep of a hill to climb as you can possibly find in public education. 

Let me just finish the point. They do not want to come work for 

me inside the school system. They would feel that they were smothered by the rules. What they want to do is go take a school. They 

let me hold them accountable till their teeth hurt. Go take a school 

and do what they are doing at Locke High School, and if they want 

to do it that way, I know how to dance with people like that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. 

Senator Enzi. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been extremely helpful. I see some common thread among all of the witnesses. 

I am going to concentrate a little bit on the rural aspect that I 

mentioned to begin with and will start with Dr. Mitchell. 

You mentioned the fifth option that might work as being research-based. Could you give me more information on that? You 

went over that pretty fast. 

Mr. MITCHELL. I think in the smaller rural situations, what we 

are looking at is trying to take a look at some other options other 

than closing the schools and turnaround and transformation models that they are talking about. For example, in South Dakota right 

now, there is a very low-performing reservation school, and their 

superintendent and their staff is working very hard. So we have 

partnered with them, and we have done some staff exchanges and 

we have done some professional development together. And they 

are very interested in taking a look at least replicating something 

that another school that has had some success is doing. 

I know you have mentioned that there is not a tremendous 

amount of real hardy research in this particular area, but it also 

gives us some caution as to: should we totally eliminate this from 

a Federal law when we are starting to see some little springs of 

success with this work amongst a district like myself; can we come 

together with other districts; can we share; and can we try to replicate some of the different things. 

Dr. Reeves, with the leadership and lead institute, has the 90– 

90 study about turnaround schools that is giving us some informaVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
44 

tion. I mentioned a little bit about professional learning communities, which is the DuFour, DuFour, and Eaker work of Solution 

Tree. We are starting to see some things. When it looks into leadership turnaround in our particular region, we have seen some work 

from Robert Marzano and Tim Waters with the Mid-continental 

Educational Laboratory with school district leadership that works 

and school leadership that works. 

So we are starting to flesh out some research here that I think 

could be applied if we at least would allow, in the Federal law, 

States to have some flexibility in these rural areas to offer the positive instead of the punitive type of accountability. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you. I hope you will keep us posted on that. 

In fact, I want to thank all the members of the panel for being willing to do this. I do have some rather specific accounting type questions that probably Mrs. Donohue can answer the best. I would appreciate answers from all of you in your area. 

Dr. Mitchell, I want to thank you for your comments about how 

these rural schools are rather isolated. So a lot of those options are 

not available. Yet, there is that same stigma on the school that creates a problem. 

Dr. Balfanz, little of the Federal funding ever makes it to the 

high schools. As you stated in your testimony, turnaround efforts 

at this level are difficult and rarely successful. Are there elements 

that should be required by school districts if Federal funding were 

provided specifically to high school reform activities, or should the 

school districts be allowed flexibility to do what they want? 

Mr. BALFANZ. I think there is a middle ground. I think that if 

you look at organizations that handle complexity better like the 

military and medicine, even business, they do two things. They invest more in applied R&D or solving problems of practice, and once 

they do that, they turn those into standards of practice or protocols 

which you are expected to use. If you do not, it is malpractice or 

you get court marshaled. So I think we need to think about a system where we can start learning key things that matter that are 

fundamentally necessary to turn these schools around and, as we 

do, say this becomes part of our emerging body or standards of 

practices. 

It is behooving on you to show that you are using the standards 

of practice. We are not going to federally say exactly what they are, 

but we are going to ask you to show evidence that you are using 

an evidence-based standards of practice and that you have fully 

thought out your full challenge, that you have really analyzed what 

is my academic challenge, what is my engagement challenge, what 

is my poverty challenge, and I have a design that meets those. So 

that level of requirement I think is important. 

I would say that we do not know enough yet to be able to say 

you should do this specific reform in this situation. 

Senator ENZI. I appreciate that, and I appreciated the outline 

you gave of the different size problems that require different solutions. That was very helpful. And your phrase, ‘‘protection from 

turbulence,’’ of this legislative rule, that if it is worth reacting to, 

it is worth overreacting to, and I am sure that provides a lot of turbulence. 

45 

If I could get a quick answer on this one, that will be my final 

question. I am almost out of time. 

Ms. Donohue, Mr. Klein mentioned that you can operate under 

some different rules and regulations, so you are not smothered by 

the rules. What kind of rules would those be? 

Ms. DONOHUE. As a nonprofit, we are not bound by the rules 

around hiring and other issues that a school system would face 

working in the public sector. So we look for the people who work 

with us. We work with retirees who have been educators who are 

available on a part-time basis. We find talent where we can. And 

I think it is the human talent, the commitment that people have 

and the flexibility that we can give them around their work that 

attracts them to continue to work with us. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you. My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Enzi. 

I just might ask—I know Chancellor Klein has to leave at 3:30— 

does anyone have any specific questions for Chancellor Klein before 

he has to leave? I would be willing to recognize anyone who has 

a specific question. 

Senator FRANKEN. I have just one more question. 

The CHAIRMAN. Just for Chancellor Klein. 

Senator FRANKEN. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Senator FRANKEN. Well, this is a short one, I think. 

You stopped social promotion in New York. Right? So I think this 

is really probably an obvious answer to a simple question. If you 

stopped social promotion, why do kids in higher grades still have 

these gaps? 

Mr. KLEIN. The answer is because it has not been in effect long 

enough. So as the system works its way through, we started at the 

third grade, but over time, they will not have the gaps. 

The second reason is even as we stop social promotion, increasingly we are raising standards because we are finding that our students need to be really college-ready, not just simply high school 

graduates. 

Senator FRANKEN. I knew it would be a simple matter. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Alexander. 

SENATOR ALEXANDER

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Klein, your comment says powerful interest groups continually advocate for the status quo, and our Blueprint that we are 

working on says we would basically be giving you, for example, four 

choices about how to turn around schools. 

My question is why should we be telling you how to do it? You 

know more about how to do it than we do. You are on the spot. 

You have been doing it. Why would it not be better for us, if we 

are just going to—and for a former Governor, this is a very strange 

thing to say. Why would we not just empower you to do it by overriding all the union rules, local rules, Federal rules, and State 

rules that keep you from doing what you need to do in these failing 

schools? 

46 

Mr. KLEIN. Well, if you can get a majority for that, then I think 

we should move toward that. 

I think fundamentally the answer to your question is if you hold 

cities and States and school districts accountable for results and 

make sure that Federal funding follows those results, then I think 

you will get what you want. 

It is very hard to close down schools. It is very hard to change 

in a dramatic way the way a school operates. The kind of thing 

that you see with Green Dot is very rare in America. 

So I believe that the Federal Government can take a leadership 

role, and that is why I think Secretary Duncan basically learning 

from his experience in Chicago—that if the Federal Government 

puts its finger on the scale here and says these are the fundamental models and then holds you accountable, it helps you get 

done some of the tough political work locally. As far as I am concerned, I think that’s a positive thing. If this committee or the 

country were prepared to go further in empowering us, I am all for 

it, as long as it is tied to rigorous accountability and performance. 

I think for too long Federal moneys flowed without real accountability in the system, and I think when you do not have accountability, you do not get a good return on your investment. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Dodd, you are next. 

Senator DODD. Joel, let me follow up on Lamar’s question because it is a good question. As a chancellor of a system-wide program, who should make that decision within your system about 

which turnaround model may work best? Put aside for a second 

whether or not you are limited by what we decide in a bill here. 

Should that be a decision you make? Should the school district 

make it? Should the individual school decide? How does that really 

work? If we are going to get down to the point where that school 

and people in it really have a better understanding, know the families, know the whole culture of that community, are they in a better position to make that choice, or should it be made at the—— 

Mr. KLEIN. My preference is to make it at the district level because I think we are accountable to the entire community. So basically it is very hard. 

I want to be brutally candid. I have known you a long time. Closing down schools is very tough stuff and there is enormous pushback. I can see from the corner of my eye Senator Bennet smiling 

because he and I have had this discussion. He had to do a little 

of it. People have a deep attachment to a school, and the people 

who are there at the time, obviously, are very emotionally affected, 

both the faculty and students. 

However, I am convinced—and I have now seen it, and I will give 

an example in Bushwick, but there are many others, Avanda Child 

where my mother went to school; Morris High School where my father went to school. These places were broken. Now, the people 

who were there worked hard, but they did not succeed. Sometimes 

you need to be—similar to being accountable for running a school 

district, you need to do the tough medicine. 

47 

That is why I think Secretary Duncan proposed what he did, because I think he saw it firsthand in Chicago. What you are likely 

to see, which is understandable, the people who are unhappy about 

it will push back naturally. 

I have often said to people in a private conversation, would you 

send your own child to that school? No. 

Senator DODD. I understand that and I am not disagreeing with 

your point except in a lot of cases, we often wonder what the options are. I think people are under this illusion that there is a nice 

little St. Aloysius around the corner where everyone is going to go 

to school because PS150 closed down. There is not a little St. Aloysius around the corner. It is not just the attachment to the school 

that closes. It is what are the options for that family and that 

child. That has got to be as large a preoccupation as the choice of 

losing the old famous neighborhood school. 

Mr. KLEIN. Absolutely, but in every one of these instances—we 

have closed down some 90 schools and opened up some 400 schools, 

about 20 percent of them charter schools, the rest public schools. 

We work with New Visions. We work with College Board. So if you 

shut down a 2,000-person school and as you are phasing it out, you 

put in 400- or 500-kid schools, you theme those schools. You give 

them a real partner. You get New Visions. Then you create the options. All of our data show that we are getting 10-, 12-, 15-point 

better graduation rates as a result of that. But you are right. You 

cannot just shut it down if you do not have an alternative. 

Senator DODD. Too often that is what it comes across as. If Jack 

Reed were sitting here—and he may show up at any minute. He 

went through a dreadful experience where, again, just the cursory 

information-sharing with people about what was likely to happen 

or going to happen caused as much of a problem as the fact they 

were closing down the school. How it is handled can have a huge 

impact. 

Mr. KLEIN. Absolutely. 

Senator DODD. Joel, good to see you. I do not know if anybody 

else has any questions, but Joel, I will defer for a minute. Michael 

or anybody else, do you want to raise anything? No? 

Nice to see you again. 

Mr. KLEIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate 

the opportunity. 

Senator DODD. Let me jump in on this question, if I can, just to 

finish up on my line. I guess all of us have this experience. I come 

from a family of educators, of public school teachers. My father’s 

three sisters taught for 40 years a piece in three separate public 

schools in Connecticut. My sister just finished 41 years, the last 20 

of which were in the inner city of Hartford as an early childhood 

development teacher. Forty-one years was enough anyway. I was 

just saying to Tom, the chairman, that she began to see just the 

job of being a teacher, taking on so many different roles. It was just 

overwhelming. These kids showing up—these were early childhood 

programs in public schools—with so many problems, just staggering the number of problems they were walking into that school 

with them, way beyond her capacity as a teacher to deal with all 

of them, as well as be an educator. 

48 

I was just curious. In looking at these issues—anyone who wants 

to respond to this, but Mr. Petruzzi, let me start with you since you 

are a large school district, obviously, in Los Angeles. How do you 

deal with this? Did you have after-school programs? Are there support staff for teachers? What are the pieces? It is not just a teacher, 

obviously. That’s critically important. What Mr. Mitchell said I so 

identify with. It is not just a question of how teachers teach, but 

teachers have an obligation to learn how children learn, and too 

often it is more focused on teachers’ teaching capacity than understanding how each child learns, and it is different. The capacity to 

learn is so affected by so many outside influences before that class 

day begins, and to what extent do you involve these external elements in helping you turn that school around? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. Yes. The level of issues of the population we had, 

probably about 20 percent of our kids in foster care, we have drug 

issues, gang-related issues. I think 25 percent of our kids have 

post-traumatic stress syndrome. It is amazing what they face. I 

think 20 percent of our kids do not have eyeglasses and they cannot see the blackboard, but they have never had a vision check. 

Forty percent of our kids have cavities and they have never been 

to a dentist. They are overwhelming issues. We have been working 

with partnership groups, and we brought free dental and vision 

care to the schools through other nonprofits because you cannot 

teach a kid who is in pain. 

We are trying to build with the district a health facility right 

next door that can serve the entire school community and also 

teach around pregnancy and gang-related issues. We brought in a 

team of mental health care workers. 

When you were asking before about the cost of doing these turnarounds, these costs are real. We have spent a lot of money that 

is beyond the poor, little money that we get from California at this 

stage of the game. We had to raise and fundraise a lot of money 

for those issues because as we looked at the problem, it was so beyond just effective teachers, as you pointed out. And it is important 

that those funds are available for this. 

We also have to build two new buildings for this because when 

we looked at the capacity in terms of classrooms—would that capacity work with 40 kids per class and a 60 percent dropout rate? 

It does not work with 25 kids in a class and less than 10 percent— 

20 percent retention. So we have to build two new buildings. So 

when you look at the factors that affect the cost of these turnarounds, they are very specific to the area, very specific to the conditions, and frankly, the issues around what the students need just 

to get them in class and be able to be in a learning environment 

where they are not worried about other things are very important. 

Senator DODD. If someone else wants to comment. 

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes. We see a lot of discrepancy of what comes 

in as our product. In kindergarten, you have those that have had 

a couple of years of parent-supported preschool. You have those 

that have had Head Start, and then you have some that have had 

no formal kind of preschool training. They just show up at your 

door in kindergarten, and what are you going to do? 

One of the things that I talk a lot about is—think about this. It 

is the first day of school. You take your kindergarten class down 

49 

to the gym. You tell them, I want you to run from one end of the 

gym to other end of the gym. One rule: you run as fast as you can 

but you all have to get there at the same time. A kindergartner 

will raise their hand and wonder what you are talking about. 

Sometimes you have to get that engrained into your teachers that 

there is that aspect of what their product is, and there are differentiated instructional things that we can do to try to approach that. 

But certainly as part of that, we have to find time within the day 

and outside of the day, and we have used a lot of resources that 

we thank you for, stimulus resources, a 21st Century Learning 

Communities grant. So we do have a before-school program. We 

have an after-school program. We have a Saturday school program. 

We have a summer school program. So we are doing lots of different things because not everybody can learn at the same time 

based upon we do not have all the same product. 

As soon as I gave that analogy to my teachers in our district, we 

started to understand at a higher level what we needed to do. 

It is very important that we put the resources capable for turnarounds, that they have the opportunities to do some different sorts 

of things that allow for that extended learning time because not everybody learns in the same amount of time. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Just really quick. I think a point I would add is, 

we really have to think strategically how we can create the second 

shift of adults to help teachers which begins with parents but it 

needs to extend beyond them. I think there are ways to leverage 

existing Federal investments, things like the Serve America Act 

and National Service Volunteers from groups like Experience 

Corps, which brings retired folks in, the City Year, which brings 

in young adults, also college work study students. And then national nonprofits really develop their ability to give high-quality 

students support, groups like Communities and Schools and the 

Boys and Girls Clubs have actually all recently rebuilt themselves 

to focus on keeping kids in school and on track. We need to integrate those efforts into school turnaround efforts. We are providing 

the schools with a second shift of adults. So every student can get 

these range of services and supports. So it is not just all on a 

teacher. 

If you ask a high school teacher traditionally scheduled—you 

have 125 kids you share with no one. There is no way you can give 

additional support beyond a handful of kids, which leads to triage, 

which leads to burnout, which leads to frustration. So we really 

have to create ways that we have empowered teacher team with a 

second shift of adults helping them. 

Senator DODD. A great concept. 

Thanks, Tom. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Dodd. 

Senator Alexander. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Petruzzi, I would like to go back to the question that I asked 

to get a little perspective on it. In 1991—this whole question about 

how to help schools is not so new. The first President Bush came 

up with the idea of new American schools. Charter schools were 

just getting started, a lot of excitement about it. David Kearns. I 

helped him raise $50 million, and we talked about new models for 

50 

new American schools, start-from-scratch schools. Albert Shanker 

said if you can have a master—well, he supported the idea. Design 

teams. There was the idea of $1 million of startup money, recognizing extra money is needed for a startup, and flexibility. Now, 

that was not sustained. 

The question I am coming to for you is, I support the Secretary’s 

notion that we really ought to focus on the 5 percent of schools that 

are the worst. We all, from our own experience, know that even in 

the areas where those schools are, there are some enormously successful schools. We have failing schools in Memphis. Yet, there is 

a math and science charter school there where the ninth graders 

are taking AP biology. And we all have these stories about what 

people are able to do in their own communities. 

My question is, what can we do here to help you succeed there? 

My bias over the years is not by telling you what to do but by empowering you to do it. As Governor, I did not know many people 

in the State Department of Education who could be of any help at 

all in helping Memphis turn around a failing school. As Education 

Secretary, I did not know many people in the U.S. Department of 

Education who could go help you do anything much about Locke 

School, and I do not think even our staff, as smart as they are, or 

we, as smart as we think we are, could do much to help you—— 

[Laughter.] 

Senator ALEXANDER [continuing]. Turn around Locke School by 

saying here are four things we have thought of, now pick one of 

them. 

It looks to me like the most important thing we could do is, if 

we want to be really radical, just override the union rules, override 

the local rules, override the State rules, override the Federal rules, 

and hand it to you with some bit of accountability and say, ‘‘take 

it and report to us and we hope you succeed. ’’ 

Now that, as Mr. Klein said, may be fanciful to think of, but is 

that not the real problem? Do you not run into too many rules, too 

many regulations from all directions, too many interest groups who 

are in your way and keeping you from doing the things you need 

to do to help succeed? If that is or if that is not, what can we do 

to help you and others succeed in your own school districts rather 

than say here are four ways to turn around Locke School, pick one 

of them, and we will watch and make sure that you follow the 

ideas that we have come up with? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. First of all, I would say the fatal flaw, in my opinion, of No Child Left Behind was this loophole around failing 

schools. In California, it got translated as that a failing school, 

after 5 years, you either close it down, reconstitute it, turn it into 

a charter or other. Ninety-nine percent of schools chose other, 

which was a plan that gave them a check, and they just continued 

to fail forever. And that was it. There was no teeth to No Child 

Left Behind. The one thing that I think this committee can do is 

to actually put teeth on accountability. You only get to fail for so 

many years, and then it is over. 

Senator ALEXANDER. What happens when it is over? What are 

the teeth? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. Well, the teeth is you need to do one of those 

things. I agree with you. At that point, you need to close that entity 

51 

and start a new one whether that is with a charter or—I actually 

do not think charters have the capacity to take on 5,000 schools 

anyway. I think we should be part of the solution. I do not see why 

not. You need to throw the kitchen sink at this. I also do not think 

we have the capacity to do 5,000 turnarounds in a short period of 

time. I think those schools that are closed and restarted need to 

start with a level of flexibility around budget allocation, money, 

people they hire, how they hire. We have got to abolish seniority 

rules around that. So it needs to be—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. So the teeth would be you would require 

closing the school, period, by a Federal law. 

Mr. PETRUZZI. Or a reconstitution or some way of starting over 

that allows you full flexibility of rethinking that school. I think we 

need to put an end to failure at a certain point. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Flexibility means freedom from union rules, 

freedom from local rules, freedom from State rules, freedom from 

Federal rules, and sometimes freedom from court orders. Is that 

the kind of flexibility you mean? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. We are unionized. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Well, I am not—— 

Mr. PETRUZZI. No. I am just pointing out that it is not just 

about—it is about good union rules. 

Senator ALEXANDER. State, union, Federal, local—— 

Mr. PETRUZZI. That is correct. For example, budget flexibility is 

No. 1 on my list. Right now there are so many categoricals that kill 

schools, schools that cannot spend money on this, but they have $1 

million for uniforms. 

Senator ALEXANDER. My time is up. Would you think about that 

and send to us exactly what you think the teeth should be? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. I have sent it to Secretary Duncan, and I will send 

it to you. 

Senator ALEXANDER. I would appreciate it. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Murray. 

SENATOR MURRAY

Senator MURRAY. Mr. Chairman, thank you so very much, and 

to all of our panelists today, it has been very interesting. 

Dr. Mitchell, I wanted to single you out personally because I 

wanted you to share your experience as a rural district superintendent. I know that the rural districts in my home State of 

Washington are facing some serious barriers when they have to 

turn around lowest-performing schools. At the same time, we know 

that in many schools where student achievement has not improved 

for some amount of time, major changes in instruction are needed 

and tough decisions have to be made. 

There is not just one right way to do this, and I wanted you to 

talk to us a little bit about what some of the options are in rural 

districts and what some of the challenges are that you have. 

Mr. MITCHELL. As I talked earlier about some of those challenges, one of the things that I firmly believe in—and I did some 

research in South Dakota. For South Dakota, we found very specifically that those school districts that were able to have the resources and had prioritized building the capacity of their own orgaVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
52 

nization and had done that in an aligned and focused way, which 

looked at the three things that I talked about, focusing on instruction, collaboration, being governed by results, in every case those 

were the districts in rural areas that were being very successful. 

So we have tried to—at least in the central part of the United 

States, we have talked a lot about that. 

As I mentioned earlier, we are trying to share with other districts our story about—I want to be very careful because sometimes 

a lot of people come in and say, ‘‘well, could you give me a copy 

of your school improvement plan?’’ It is like, well, our plan worked 

for us because of the specifics of our particular unique situation. So 

in that unique situation because of the population that we serve, 

we went out and we basically looked at specific strategies that we 

needed to be in that had a research base to them and then also 

took a look at our curriculum to make sure that we were aligned 

and focused in the right directions, to make sure that when students went from one grade to the next grade, they knew what they 

were supposed to do. 

As we said, before we started building capacity of the organization, we had to start making a ‘‘stop doing’’ list. In public schools, 

we do not do that. As part of the improvement process, you have 

to take a look very drastically at things that you are doing in the 

organization to stop doing that. 

So there certainly is a struggle in rural America, because of the 

isolation, to build capacity and to build the networks, and that is 

what we are working on at this particular time because if we can 

share stories and we can share research and we can work with one 

another, that is our only option. When we are talking about South 

Dakota, if you have a rural school of 200 students and it is the only 

school in a 100-mile radius of anybody, there has got to be some 

way that we could provide some sort of positive—— 

Senator MURRAY. You cannot exactly fire all your teachers. 

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, absolutely. It would be disastrous and no one 

would go there. So we have to be careful about making sure that 

in those particular situations, is there an option that is positive, 

that builds the capacity of organizations that we have found in 

rural schools—there is some research that we are starting to flesh 

out—is very successful in helping to build the capacity and make 

that organization be more successful. 

Senator MURRAY. OK, thank you. 

I wanted to ask anybody who wanted to comment about our lowperforming high schools. I think we all know our kids need a 

strong high school degree to get a job in today’s job market. I think 

that an important part of preparing a student in high school that 

has been neglected is giving students a chance to really experience 

what it is like in some of the career fields and the career pathways 

programs that help them connect actually what they are doing in 

the classroom to something real when they get out. 

Can any of you comment in your experience what role career 

pathways have played in your success? 

Mr. BALFANZ. Sure. Actually in our Talent Development model— 

it is actually called Talent Development High Schools with Career 

Academies. The way we reorganized the high schools, we created 

a ninth grade academy to have a high intensity introduction to 

53 

high school where we give you lots of supports and personalization. 

Then in the ninth grade, we have a class called Freshman Seminar 

where part of that is career awareness, and you actually do a personality inventory. Do you like working with people, data, things? 

What interests you? And from that, we ask you then to select one 

of two or three or four upper-grade career academies which are 

broad themes. It is not narrow vocational, but it is like engineering 

or—— 

Senator MURRAY. Health care. 

Mr. BALFANZ [continuing]. Health care or public service. The 

whole theory and the truth is the kids make a choice. I feel an affiliation to that. I am choosing my upper-grade experience. Those 

academies then market to the kids. Come to the public service 

academy. Help change the world. Within those academies, then 

they take three linked career electives, to tenth, eleventh, and 

twelfth grade. So they actually get a coherent exploration. It is not 

just scattershot. 

The actual evidence shows the kids that do best are kids that 

graduate high school with a college preparatory curriculum and a 

CTE concentration. Those are the kids that actually have the absolute best outcomes. Only about 5 percent of our students nationwide have that combination. So I think it is a very—for both engaging kids but also—— 

Senator MURRAY. Do you engage with your business community 

about the careers that they need? 

Mr. BALFANZ. Yes, right. You have to establish business partners, a council. You come in. You look at local labor markets. All 

those things are sort of factored in. 

Senator MURRAY. Anybody else want to comment on that? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. At Locke, we have experimented with this over 

time with just a mild flavor of the career thing, and at Locke right 

now, one of our academies is an ACE academy, architecture, construction, and engineering. It is a full career tech and college prep 

academy where algebra I is taught with an emphasis on architectural issues and construction issues and engineering issues, the 

same for geometry. You are actually building a house from designing it and building it. 

Senator MURRAY. Are you seeing academic success? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. It is too early to say. We just started it. We really 

definitely see the engagement of the kids and frankly also our 

teachers in that model. We will get back to you in 2 or 3 years. 

We hope that we are very successful with that. 

Senator MURRAY. Ms. Donohue. 

Ms. DONOHUE. Yes. The last four schools that we have created 

have been CTE schools in an effort to revitalize the CTE model for 

high schools, and they are in somewhat nontraditional areas such 

as advertising and media, careers in TV and film, medical careers, 

and so forth. The notion is that each such school will have industry 

council representation, internships for students, and move students 

to a clear understanding of what that particular career may offer 

at a variety of different entry points. So it is not just the sort of 

junior college aspects of having a medical career as an EMT but 

perhaps a nursing or doctor’s degree down the road. We find that 

54 

multiple entry-point kinds of careers make very good themes for 

schools. 

Senator MURRAY. Thank you. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Isakson. 

SENATOR ISAKSON

Senator ISAKSON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 

very much for this. This has been a terrific panel and everybody 

has been great. I really want to focus on Dr. Mitchell and Mr. 

Petruzzi for a second. 

I am sitting here just marveling at the consistency between your 

responses coming from two totally different environments: No. 1, a 

heavily populated population; No. 2, a very rural population. If I 

listened right and heard right, the magic word of both of you was 

‘‘flexibility.’’ When you gave the answer, ‘‘well, it worked for us,’’ 

meaning it might not work for you, what we did in Chamberlain, 

and then what you did with the academies by taking a big school 

and making it a small school within the confines of the same environment you were in, I think is a real testimony to one of the 

things we need to look to. 

I know Senator Harkin and Senator Enzi and I were all on the 

conference committee on No Child Left Behind. When you were 

talking about the fatal flaw, Mr. Petruzzi, which was that it had 

no teeth in the end, a lot of the reason it did not have any teeth 

is we could not have passed it with teeth. By that I mean, there 

was a lot of pressure toward giving too much flexibility. 

You talked about the two keys being flexibility in budgeting and 

flexibility in hiring, and I would echo that. When I was chairman 

of the State Board of Education in Georgia, we gave flexibility to 

the systems that were our top systems. We gave them flexibility on 

State spending. Those that were not our best systems—we did not 

give them any flexibility, which was backwards from what both of 

your testimony really has been. 

I did want to ask one question about a special interest I have, 

and that is special education and special needs children. What is 

your experience with the disaggregation of special needs children 

and meeting AYP in Los Angeles in your charter schools? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. We are full inclusion. So we serve an entire needs 

from mild and moderate severity to high severity issues. So we 

have a huge number of special needs kids. It is very expensive and 

it is very difficult, but it is a must-have in those districts. 

I think right now those students in LAUSD, in my opinion, are 

being over-identified. What we have noticed, taking over Locke, is 

that probably easily 40 to 50 percent of those students had been 

put into too restrictive of an environment and we have shifted. 

They are serving them in a more classroom-integrated environment, which we think will better serve those kids over time. You 

tend to see that a lot in poor communities. There tends to be an 

over-identification in African-American males and Latino males 

particularly, which is sad and, frankly, actually takes away from 

the actual issue. Poor classroom management sometimes is translated into a special ed rating, and I think that is sad. 

55 

Senator ISAKSON. It also happens in rural systems because, Dr. 

Mitchell, I think you said 17 percent of Chamberlain was identified 

as special needs. Is that correct? 

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes. 

Just going back to your first comment about flexibility here 

quickly, the rubber is going to hit the road for me here pretty soon. 

I just accepted a position in Rapid City, SD, which is our second 

largest school district, and they have 13,000 students. One of the 

things they are banking on is that what I did in Chamberlain is 

going to work for 13,000 students. I feel very confident that it is 

because I’ve seen it also work in larger school districts than that. 

So the focus on instruction, collaboration, and so forth I think is 

something that is not limited just to rural schools. 

I run a $1.5 million special ed program with $1 million of revenue. A very difficult issue for us. In No Child Left Behind, we 

used to identify some students as what we call triple threats. They 

are economically disadvantaged. They are Native American, and 

they are special ed. Because we see a large amount of our Native 

American students being over-identified. 

Senator ISAKSON. They are counted three times. 

Mr. MITCHELL. They are counted against me three times. So we 

have had to really focus on that. So they are a major part of everything that we do when it comes to providing extended learning opportunities. 

We have also found that in rural communities the thing that was 

high priced and was not a big bang for the buck was a lot of outof-district placements and seeing a lot of kids being farmed to special institutions. What we have done is we have tried to decide to 

train our people in-house, bring them back, and try to provide 

high-quality instruction in an inclusion area environment. That has 

been very successful for us. It does continue to be a certain difficult 

task for us in rural communities to provide what is needed for special education students to achieve what they need to achieve. 

Senator ISAKSON. Is it also difficult in meeting AYP? Is that the 

most difficult group of all for you? 

Mr. MITCHELL. I would say, yes. It is probably one of the most 

difficult groups, trying to make sure that—for example, right now 

I have a special education opening. I have had the same opening 

for 5 years. I cannot get an applicant. It is a very difficult position 

to find people that are qualified and want to do the job. So that 

becomes part of it and making sure you have a highly qualified 

teacher. Certainly those students’ needs are simply severe at times 

and really burn out people. 

Senator ISAKSON. Mr. Chairman, at the risk of taking too much 

time, could I get to my punch line? 

Here is my punch line. You both have testified to the value of 

flexibility in budgeting, flexibility in hiring, flexibility in policymaking. The rigidity of the assessment model in special education 

appears to me to be a particular problem because there is a diversity of special needs, but with the exception of a 1 percent waiver 

of capability for cognitive disability, you have got to have the same 

paper and pencil examination for all. I have proposed for a long 

time that what we ought to do is let the special needs assessment 

56 

be determined by the IEP and not by a single-size-fits-all. I would 

like your response to that, what you think about that. 

Mr. PETRUZZI. I am not an educator, and so I do not think I 

would actually serve the panel by offering an opinion on that. So 

probably I will just leave it up to you. 

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, because I have an opinion. 

[Laughter.] 

It is inherently unfair what we are doing to special education 

students right now. Everybody knows it. We go in and we have IEP 

meeting, and even as a superintendent when those IEP get really 

conflict—they want to bring me in, and I go—I really do not know 

what is going on here. You have a number of very caring people. 

You have the parents involved. You have the providers involved. 

You have the teachers involved. They are all working to determine 

what should be the adequate educational plan for that student. So 

why should that group not also decide what is adequate for 

progress for that particular student? 

I would fully support based upon what we see now as failing our 

special education kids by holding them accountable through this 

type of testing situation. The flexibility is not there for us. We have 

some highly cognitive kids that we have to force to take standardized testing, that if you watched it happen, you would just believe 

it is inherently unfair. We certainly need to move forward to take 

a look at some other way to hold those students accountable because they can be accountable for their learning, and they want to 

be held accountable for their learning. We just need to look and 

find the appropriate method to do that. 

Senator ISAKSON. Well, thank you very much to all of you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Franken. 

SENATOR FRANKEN

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing, 

and thank you to all the panelists. 

One of the themes I have heard today, among others, is leadership, and whether it is about teaching or collaboration or results, 

as Dr. Mitchell kind of laid out—or Dr. Balfanz, you were kind 

enough to mention the school principal recruitment and training 

act that I have authored with Senator Hatch. 

I want to ask you about principals. To what extent is—what is 

the role of the principal in a turnaround? 

Mr. BALFANZ. It is a multifaceted role, and I think even just saying that, we put too much of the burden on them. We still have this 

image lots of times if we can just find the right principal, they can 

heroically come in and turn the school around. If they do not do 

it in a year, well, let us get rid of them and try somebody else. The 

truth is—and especially in a big middle and high school, you are 

talking about a staff of 100 people easily, and for one person to be 

able to come in to say, ‘‘I am going to mold you to my vision or the 

vision of the school without any help’’ does not work. We often put 

a gung-ho principal on top of a dysfunctional leadership team, and 

it is actually the assistant principals and the counselor and the 

person who schedules the high school. Those are the operators of 

the school day to day. 

57 

Senator FRANKEN. I see Dr. Mitchell going like, oh, I wish we 

had an assistant principal. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Right. 

[Laughter.] 

I really think we need to think about, especially in the middle 

and high schools, developing leadership teams and having them be 

the leaders. They can be trained together so they have time to plan 

together. One mistake we make is we try to do turnaround over the 

summer. You are the new principal. You are going to take the 

school over. But the school is still running. It is actually not a very 

hospitable place to you right now because they think they are all 

going to be fired. So you are off-site and you have got to pull a 

team together. We need to say let us have a leadership team. Let 

us give them 6 months to plan and train and prep and be ready 

and have a design and be up and ready to go. 

Senator FRANKEN. Mr. Petruzzi, in Blue Dot—I am sorry. What 

is the name? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. Green Dot. 

Senator FRANKEN. Green Dot. Blue, green. 

[Laughter.] 

Anyway, you do a residential thing where basically a principal is 

with a mentor for a year. Is that correct? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. Well, we have a principal residency program 

where we train the principals on turnarounds for a year before 

they do it, and they spend time with people that are doing it already. So right now we are training principals based on the Locke 

experience, basically shadowing some of the best principals, also 

doing the assistant principal job for a month and a half. So they 

are learning the job and that is very important. 

We would love to keep funding it, but we do not have the money 

right now because of the budget cuts in California. 

Senator FRANKEN. I want to get back to money review in a second. 

Dr. Mitchell, you said that in rural schools the superintendent 

can be the principal, the bus driver, the grant writer, teacher, and 

a coach and more. I was just in Finlayson, MN at the end of last 

week, and I had a roundtable of principals, teachers, school bus 

drivers, coaches who were the same person in many cases. 

[Laughter.] 

It really is a different deal for rural schools. You do not have the 

flexibility at all to fire teachers. You talk about building capacity. 

How do you build capacity when you really do not have the resources, when you do not have the teachers around there, when 

you do not have those resources? 

Mr. MITCHELL. Building capacity is resource-intensive not only in 

dollars but in time and in lots of different things, and there are lots 

of ways you have got to look at doing it. But when it looks at leadership, just like I had to have a discussion with my school board 

the other day. I am leaving the district, what is going to happen 

next, well, it is not the Tim Mitchell show. It is the fact that one 

of the things that I learned in my career very early is you have to 

be a leader of leaders. So I have tried to make sure that we built 

the capacity of all the leaders, not just principals, but also teachers, so that there is a leadership amongst them. There are many 

58 

efforts that in our district are very successful because I finally got 

smart enough to quit being the dictator of the district and got 

groups of teachers together and put a teacher leadership team in 

charge of it. I just facilitated for them to do the right things that 

needed to be done. 

I also have seen that the most important thing that I want in 

a principal today is someone who is good and trained in instructional leadership, and we have some stuff out of the North Dakota 

lead that has gone through the central part of the United States, 

which is good practice, to get principals so they understand and 

can prioritize the instruction of what they need to do. 

The second thing we are looking at now is a lot of research with 

Marzano with school leadership that works and district leadership 

that works. I like that research because there are about 26 or 27 

things that a principal has to do effectively, but there are only six 

that a superintendent has to do. So I can do those six. That is why 

I do not want to be a principal anymore. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator FRANKEN. I want to pull an Isakson and just ask one 

real short question of Mr. Petruzzi because I was sitting there just 

in awe of what you have done. I heard you talk about resources 

and I heard you talking about fund-raising. I know you are from 

Bain, and I know you know people. Right? I am thinking how scalable is this? And then you spoke to that. I just want to make sure 

that—because I have seen successful charter schools that have 

wonderful fund-raising arms. 

Mr. PETRUZZI. Our model is actually to break even on public dollars after the first 4 years. The reason we needed to fundraise is 

we actually have to build two extra school buildings to support the 

student retention that we were achieving. The first 3 years, we are 

basically building ninth grade academies that are growing, and we 

have an overstaffed model in the first year to connect with the 

kids. 

Senator FRANKEN. But you had the flexibility to do that because—— 

Mr. PETRUZZI. Because we fundraise. Absolutely. Not from people 

I know, but from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the 

Dell Foundation. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Franken. 

Senator Murkowski. 

SENATOR MURKOWSKI

Senator MURKOWSKI. Thank you. I am sorry I missed the testimony. I was at another hearing, but I did have a chance to read 

all of your submitted testimony, and I appreciate your advocacy. I 

appreciate your work in trying to understand how we can really be 

making a difference with some of our schools. 

Mr. Mitchell, I was interested in just hearing some of the comments that you had in response to Senator Franken. We have got 

some very serious challenges, as you know, in the State of Alaska 

as we try to reach out to our students in our very, very remote and 

very rural communities. I would be curious. You kind of joked 

59 

about, ‘‘that is why I do not want to be a principal anymore.’’ One 

of the challenges that we face in our State is we just cannot get 

the administrators. We are doing a little bit better with our teacher 

recruitment and retention, although that is a serious challenge in 

some areas. If all of these turnaround models really revolve around 

getting a new principal, what do we do in finding these new principals, particularly if they are looking at it and saying, ‘‘OK, well, 

I am going to be the first one on the boat out of here?’’ How difficult is this going to be in rural States? 

Mr. MITCHELL. Well, as you probably know, it was difficult before 

we started this process. 

Senator MURKOWSKI. True. 

Mr. MITCHELL. Now you have people who can certainly check report cards and see where a school is at before they would even 

apply for the job. In South Dakota, we will do a national search for 

a superintendency of a very large school district and maybe get six 

people that are interested in even attempting the position. So certainly you could be creating some sort of a problem area here that 

is just going to get worse and worse. 

I started as a superintendent when I was 35 years old. In South 

Dakota for a period of time, the Governor threw all the rules out 

and anybody could be a superintendent. So that is how I got the 

job. I have since went on and got my full certification and degrees 

to back up because I felt that was important. 

The problem is trying to get the people to do that hard work and 

get those people to understand that even once they get those particular jobs, once they put the models in place, there is still a possibility that even though they are supporting growth, they are not 

going to be able to reach the bar. So they are going to force some 

sort of transformation which is going to send them down the road 

and put a blip on their record. So the recruitment and the retaining of people right now is getting to be at a very critical age, especially as many of the administrators are aging and leaving the profession. 

Senator MURKOWSKI. I appreciate that. 

Mr. Balfanz, you had noted in your testimony that the research 

is being focused primarily on the middle and high school students, 

when you are talking about those dropout indicators. We all recognize that there are factors that come into play that certainly are 

contributors, whether it is poor vocabulary development or social 

indicators that are out there. Should we be looking earlier? If so, 

how early? 

I look at kids that get so frustrated so early on and that level 

of frustration never abates. If anything, it just gets worse. I think 

that then inhibits their ability. Are we waiting too late on this? 

Mr. BALFANZ. I think the answer is we need to have a continuum 

of supports at all the key transitions, and the first key—— 

Senator MURKOWSKI. What are the key transitions? 

Mr. BALFANZ. The first key transition is pre-K to second grade. 

It’s really that good start. Two things, basically learning the basic 

reading skills and also math. The math gap is the smallest in kindergarten and gets bigger over time. So staying on top of that, 

making sure it does not grow. 

60 

Also socializing kids into the joy of schooling. You need to learn 

early on that schooling is joyful. If you socialize them it is a chore, 

there is so much tension, we have all got to pass our tests, that 

builds over time. 

The next key transition is in the middle schools. To focus on any 

one time is not enough because there are kids that do really well 

in elementary school, but in early adolescence, they are making an 

independent decision—is schooling for me again—and their relationship to their peers is changing, to their neighborhood is changing, to their school is changing. You can have a great elementary 

experience and still get tripped up. 

Then the transition into high school, the same thing. Twenty-five 

percent of kids that struggle in the ninth grade get by in eighth 

grade. They had good test scores. They came to school every day. 

They would be on nobody’s radar screen, but for them it was that 

older transition. 

And finally, we have got to have a transition out of high school. 

We have got to have pathways to post-secondary success because, 

again, we have learned how kids succeed in high-needs places. We 

put tons of structures in high school, three levels of extra help, and 

that is necessary. That does not mean you are prepared for a community college where suddenly you have got to figure out everything yourself and there is no support. 

So I think it is really at those four points that we need those. 

Senator MURKOWSKI. Is any one more important than the other, 

would you say? 

Mr. BALFANZ. I do not think so. I think that is where we get into 

trouble. We want to pick and choose. If you make all those four 

transitions, you are good to go. You miss one of them. You are not. 

Senator MURKOWSKI. I am not sure that we are focused on the 

initial one yet, the pre-K to 2. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Bennet. 

SENATOR BENNET

Senator BENNET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing and thank you for your testimony. It has been fascinating. 

On the flexibility question we were talking about earlier, I think 

maybe one way to think about that is there is a difference between 

giving people the flexibility to do something and giving people the 

flexibility to do nothing, which has been the outcome in too many 

places I think. 

Having said that, I would say the most turbulent thing I ever did 

when I was superintendent of schools was close schools and turn 

around schools. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way probably 

and learned how to do it better, but there are always ways of doing 

it better. 

I think one of the things that keeps people from doing this work 

is that turbulence. The problem with that is that kids end up in 

institutions where they are not learning anything year after year 

after year, and they just fall farther and farther behind. 

I know New Visions has done a lot of work in this area, and I 

wonder if you would share a little bit about what you have learned 

61 

over the years about how to diminish the level of turbulence that 

this kind of change comes with. 

And then the other panelists maybe—also, what the reaction of 

kids actually is, which is often forgotten, when they see the new 

versus the old. 

Ms. DONOHUE. It is a very great question. I think what we have 

tried to do, positioned as a nonprofit with lots of connections into 

neighborhood groups across the city, is to work very closely with 

the community to help them understand what the choices are, to 

help them understand why things are happening, what options are 

out there for individual students to, as we started new schools in 

new neighborhoods, bus parents to see small schools that were 

functioning well so they could view and understand and have a vision of what it was that we were talking about, and to create an 

atmosphere where that dialogue had a place in the community and 

in and among the parents that were going to be impacted. I think 

that was a hugely important thing, and it is something that you 

need to—if you are engaged in turnaround work—do is spend a lot 

more time on than many districts actually think. 

Senator BENNET. This may be an unfair question to ask you instead of the Chancellor, but do you have a sense that demand for 

the new is beginning to replace defense of the old? Are you seeing 

that tip at all in New York or Baltimore or Los Angeles? 

Ms. DONOHUE. I think the small schools that were created by 

New Visions and a number of other nonprofit intermediaries are, 

in the main, heavily oversubscribed. The choice process that students in New York go through to select a high school is one of computer matches, and we see that the number of students who are 

actually positively desirous of getting into these schools vastly exceeds the number of seats that we have. That does not help a situation where a parent in a school that is being closed—and as the 

Chancellor mentioned, the philosophy of closure in New York is 

gradual. You simply stop taking students in and you serve, as best 

you can, the students who are there—usually with extra and additional resources to help blunt the sense of have and have-not. But 

for a parent whose student is in one of those closing schools, it is 

still very traumatic, and there is really, I think, no way to sugarcoat that. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Baltimore is an interesting example because it is 

one of the few places, I think, where this is finally getting to scale. 

I think this year there are more high school kids in new schools 

or schools that were started in the past decade or so than are in 

schools that have been around for a long time. What is happening 

is that people are now voting with their feet and you can see the 

enrollments going down in the schools that were historically there 

and sort of going up in the newer starts or the restarts. So I think 

you do see that tide turning when the sense is that there are 

enough good spaces for a lot of people. It is not just a few. 

From the kids’ point of view, no one understands better that the 

school is going nowhere than the kids, and they react accordingly. 

If they see that they are getting teachers that are struggling to 

teach and people are roaming the hallways, they get a sense, not 

much is going on. I can miss a few days and nothing is going to 

happen, whereas the reason you can sometimes get dramatic turnVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
62 

around results is because the kids will respond to the improved environment and they will come. They will put forth effort because 

they see that it is now an engaging place to be that is organized, 

it is going somewhere. So I think keeping the kids’ point of view 

is important because they can vote with their feet and with their 

effort. 

Senator BENNET. Did you have anything on this, Mr. Petruzzi? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. I was going to say you cannot under-communicate 

this with the students and the community. You have to engage 

them really early on, particularly in that turnaround situation. I 

think most kids actually recognize that. They had been told that 

they were not college material, and we had to actually take them 

to some or our schools to show them that. Then we let them own 

a lot of decisions. For example, we insisted on uniforms. So that 

was the number one student cry. They did not want to wear uniforms. So the student body actually did a fashion show with uniforms. That kind of broke, a little bit, the ice around uniforms. 

Ninety-eight percent of students showed up with uniforms the first 

day. 

Senator BENNET. I had a principal say to me once that they had 

a rule about no gum chewing, and he would catch kids every now 

and then chewing gum. He said, ‘‘do I really care? Am I really worried about it?’’ And he said, ‘‘no, but the fact that they are worrying 

about actually following the rule is important stuff.’’ 

I just had one last question for Mr. Mitchell, if I might. Mr. Superintendent, I used to hate when people asked me these questions, 

but—— 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BENNET [continuing]. On the human capital question 

that you were raising at the end about finding administrators, finding teachers in rural areas, we face this in my State of Colorado 

as well. If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change 

that you think might have an impact on your ability to be able to 

fill these positions that you were talking about? 

Mr. MITCHELL. I think sometimes inadvertently we do a tremendous disservice to our profession. My wife is a teacher. She is a 

great teacher, but with her experience over the last 28 years, the 

thing she told her three daughters was go get a degree and do 

something other than teaching because of the frustrations. 

Right now one of the things that I just saw in some latest research is that what teachers want most is supportive leadership. 

So if we could put supportive leadership in there and then leaders 

like myself who go out and tell people and champion it is great to 

be a superintendent of schools, yes, it is hard work. It is great to 

be a principal. There is a calling here. It is something you can be 

passionate about. I think sometimes we do our own profession a 

disservice by talking that way and not being good role models for 

students that we could ignite that passion in if we really put our 

minds to it. 

Senator BENNET. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hagan, Senator Reed, and then Senator 

Murray. I am sorry. Senator Reed has to leave. 

63 

Senator REED. I am going to thank Senator Hagan for her gracious hospitality. This is payback for not leaving you in Afghanistan. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. Balfanz, there is a lot of discussion around the different 

turnaround models. From your sense, what kind of empirical evidence do we have for any one of these models? It might be a function of just—we have not tried them a lot, but can you give us sort 

of a perspective? 

Mr. BALFANZ. Yes. I think the honest answer is right now we 

have mixed evidence. You can point to successes and failures for 

every one of those models. In truth, maybe we have not done them 

in 200 places, enough to know how that average breaks out. So on 

average, will it be generally successful or not? 

I really think that gets back to what I said, about the idea that 

we really need to analyze each school’s challenges and get a design 

that fits that. In some places it is a capacity challenge and you do 

need fresh capacity, but in other places, it is just simply they have 

not been exposed to the right know-how to know what is a good 

program for kids that are 2 years behind in reading. That is the 

key part of the answer. 

Senator REED. I wonder, from your perspective—and I will ask 

your colleagues—do we have an ongoing research plan to try to 

validate these models rather than having three items on the menu, 

pick one, it is your choice? 

Mr. Balfanz. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Yes. I do not think there is need, if this is going 

to be the big investment strategy, to have that. Part of the challenge is that it is big-scale research, and how do you know, if you 

are doing eight things as part of the change, which parts matter? 

It is a big-scale project to study that well. 

Senator REED. Ms. Donohue or Superintendent or would anyone 

like to comment? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. We have a lot of people studying us. I think the 

beauty about the Locke High School is that we basically took over 

an entire tenants area. There was a before and an after that were 

clearly mapable. The community has not changed. Actually, if anything, with this second great depression, it has actually gotten 

tougher. There are tougher issues than before. So I think we will 

likely have really good evidence by external evaluators in the next 

2 or 3 years that will validate all this. 

Senator REED. But in the interim, we are really pushing schools 

very hard to pick one and do it. A lot of it is just kind of gut rather 

than empirical evidence. 

Another aspect of this issue—and it came up in the context of the 

‘‘Race to the Top’’—of picking out a percentage of teachers’ evaluation based on the performance of students. I think we all understand that outcomes are important. You can have the best intentions in the world, but if the class is not performing, we have got 

to make changes. 

There is also a consequence, again, Mr. Balfanz, as people are 

thinking through this. The consequences in terms of gaming the 

classroom of the best teachers who in some cases take the children 

who are the most challenging saying, ‘‘wait a second. If my pay deVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
64 

pends upon getting the best grades out of the kids, I want the best 

kids,’’—overlaying systems with seniority in which you can, in fact, 

choose your class, etc. Just this consequence of gaming. Has anyone 

thought through that? 

Mr. BALFANZ. Yes. I think people are really struggling with that 

because we know that we do want to have some evidence that you 

are making an impact in your classroom that matters, but when 

you get down to the practicalities of how to measure it, a lot of 

these problems come up. At least moving to some sort of growth 

modeling, but even at the technical level, there are lots of problems 

with the growth modeling because you have to usually average it 

over several years to get a valid measure and then teachers are 

changing assignments. So how many of your teachers are you actually going to have who taught the same class for 3 years? So there 

are a lot of technical challenges that still need to be worked out. 

Senator REED. Superintendent, you are right there, right at the 

point of the spear, as they say, in the military context. Your impressions about the potential—and this is sort of any human endeavor with new rules to try to play the rules and some of these 

rules, taking teachers—every teacher out of the school, putting new 

teachers in, giving them basically a year to make the grade. What 

does that do in terms of unintended consequences? I know this is 

a question that is cosmic, but any response I would appreciate. 

Mr. MITCHELL. I just recently got an e-mail from back home that 

said the day went well, congratulations, because today is testing 

day. This week in Chamberlain, SD, we are doing the Dakota 

STEP test which is going to determine our accountability. As I 

mentioned, my wife is a teacher, and I have seen all the tension 

building as we get to this high-stakes test. Everybody understands 

they have worked very hard, but everything can be determined on 

this next couple weeks. So that is a major concern. 

I also have a concern about one of the things that I really think 

is a key block to our success in Chamberlain, which is collaboration. If you start putting in the competitiveness of the pay program—I’ve looked at the possibility of maybe looking at some group 

compensation so that collaboration continues. I am sure I can find 

and track because we know that some of the measurements here, 

the metrics, are a little unreliable, not valid. I might have a great 

teacher this year. She might be a great teacher next year, but for 

some reason all of a sudden, she was not a great teacher the third 

year. So what happened? 

Senator REED. I was in her class. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MITCHELL. Those things can happen, and what is that going 

to do to the system? 

There is some new research out about motivation, and motivation is not always carrots and sticks. It is autonomy. It is mastery. 

There are some other things. For example, now as I mentioned earlier, some teachers we are talking about—the most important thing 

for them for staying in a school is supportive leadership, not the 

amount of money they are being paid. 

Senator REED. I would ask—esteem, the sense of purpose, are 

very difficult things to define. 

65 

Thank you all very much for your testimony today and your leadership for many, many years. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Senator Hagan. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Reed. 

Senator Hagan. 

SENATOR HAGAN

Senator HAGAN. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, for one, holding 

this hearing today and also thank you to the witnesses for your testimony. It has certainly been excellent. 

I think as the committee moves forward in our efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, I think it is 

critical that we understand and look at helping to turn around our 

lowest performing schools. We can no longer continue to allow 

chronically under-performing schools to get away with improperly 

serving our students. We have got to do better. As we strive to ensure that our students are career- and college-ready, I think that 

we can all agree that this effort is not going to be an easy one. But 

we can certainly agree that we can no longer afford to wait and 

that the time is now. 

Dr. Balfanz, in your testimony, you talked about the Nation’s 

2,000 dropout factories, and you note that each of these dropout 

factory high schools are linked with one or more middle schools 

where at least half of the eventual dropouts begin the process of 

disengaging from school. 

I believe that our middle school students are overlooked, and to 

that end, I have introduced legislation titled the Student Attendance and Success Act that acknowledges that truancy at the middle 

school grade level is one of the biggest indicators that students are 

on their way to being a high school dropout. I strongly believe that 

we need to do a better job at acknowledging that while our students are in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, we need to acknowledge that before it is too late. 

I understand that research has demonstrated that by creating 

safe learning environments and better engaging parents and their 

communities and schools and helping students get back on track 

academically, that students are much more likely to succeed. 

Can you share your thoughts on the contribution of problems at 

the middle school level that leads to the ultimate problem of dropouts? 

Mr. BALFANZ. Yes. It is on two levels. One is that if students are 

disengaged in the middle grades, they have had 3 years of developing those bad habits. So it is that much more challenging, when 

they get to ninth grade, to turn it around. 

And I totally agree. The chronic absenteeism in the middle 

grades is a vast under-acknowledged problem. Any place that has 

a dropout problem has an unacknowledged middle grades chronic 

absentee problem in general. 

Then second, it is on the achievement side, and they are related. 

We followed the city. We found that 40 percent of the kids between 

the sixth grade, going 5 years out, missed a year or more of schooling. So it is not surprising. Right? If you have missed a year cumulative out of 5 years, how are you ready for high school? 

66 

The other thing that is so troubling is it is different kids on different days for the teacher. So they have a no-win situation. Either 

I can say let me remind you what we did yesterday and lose the 

kids that were there or forge ahead and lose the kids that were 

not. So the chronic absenteeism affects the kid but it affects the 

whole school which affects the amount of learning that happens. 

So those things, the achievement gap and the engagement gap, 

in the middle grades really do present overwhelming problems 

when they come to high school, and that is why I really agree with 

the idea that it is the 6 through 14, almost, that we have to focus 

on, really that high school and its feeder middle schools and then 

pathways to college and career as a block, as well as elementary 

is an important block too, but that is sort of a unit. 

Senator HAGAN. Have you seen successful models that solve that 

truancy problem in middle schools? 

Mr. BALFANZ. Yes, because a lot of this is just attention to the 

problem. These are 12-year-olds. Right? You can work with a 12- 

year-old to get to school. You have a better chance than with a 16- 

year-old. A big part is just from the lack of attention. Then there 

are positive recognition programs, parental involvement programs, 

all sorts of tools. 

Senator HAGAN. Good. Thank you. 

I understand that in year 3 of a school that does not meet adequate yearly progress, those schools are required to use title I 

funds to help with tutoring by hiring private tutoring companies. 

Dr. Mitchell, talk about the quality of those private tutors. 

Mr. MITCHELL. We have a real difficult time getting anybody to 

provide that service in the rural isolated areas. There are just no 

providers. I sit in the middle of a State where it is either a 2- or 

3-hour drive to any of the face-to-face providers, and we have 

played around with and had mixed results with some of the online 

providers. So it has been a mixed bag for us. But technically we 

put more stock in our own work in our own school working with 

extended learning opportunities, the Saturday school, the beforeschool, the after-school, the summer school with our certified people, hopefully, to provide the remediation that is necessary for 

those students. 

Senator HAGAN. I have heard mixed statements that, depending 

on where you are, the quality and the expertise in some of the private tutoring differs. 

I know we have talked a lot about rural schools. In North Carolina, we have quite a few rural schools, and it is always a problem 

finding teachers who are qualified and committed. I think in many 

cases, Teach for America students are doing a great job. When we 

talk about rural areas, not only do we need teachers, we need the 

school psychologists, we need the school social workers. How do we 

structure this so that we make a great attempt at figuring out how 

we are going to solve this problem? 

Mr. MITCHELL. It is a difficult issue to find these people. One of 

the things that we have tried to do is we took a look at some of 

the research in Chamberlain. In our building of capacity and providing the skill training and the mastery and some different things 

like tuition credits for the recertification, the chance to go to a national convention and network with their peers, we put all that 

67 

stuff out there. It allows us to provide—that they know they are 

going to come to a supportive environment that is going to build 

their capacity. So we have helped teachers become nationally board 

certified. We have used Federal resources to let them get their 

master’s degrees. We have tried to provide all kinds of building capacity once we get them there. Getting them there is the difficult 

point. 

But one of the things that we have done is there are two things 

right now that are going on that we are having some success with. 

There is, I think it is, a Federal grant. It is administered by our 

State right now. It is called Project Select. If you have a degree in 

anything, you can come in and you will be put with a teacher, and 

for the whole year, you will teach under the tutelage of a certified 

staff member while taking all your classes to become a certified 

teacher. At the end of that 1 year, you will be a certified teacher 

and then be able to go in the classroom. So we have been looking 

at that traditional route. We have three people that are in that 

right now. 

Then the people that retain the best—we grow them locally. We 

have some people in our community. We are doing it now also with 

the Foundation for Health Care because rural health care is having 

the same problem. So we partnered in the same thing. It is finding 

those kids in our community that are interested in that, invest in 

them, build their capacity, and continue to make them understand 

that this is where their family is, this is where they have a connection. If we give you some support, will you stay in our community? 

We have had some success with that effort also. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you. 

I had just one last question, for Mr. Petruzzi from Green Dot 

Schools. You said that students wear school uniforms. How did you 

pay for those? Did the students actually pay for those? 

Mr. PETRUZZI. We bought about 1,000 extras and washing and 

dryer machines, so everybody who shows up without a uniform has 

to change and take a uniform. But yes, it is actually a much cheaper way. We actually talked to parents and kids that they should 

save their money for the weekend and not for buying—basically our 

uniforms are khaki pants, which is the cheapest type of pants that 

you can buy, and anything with a collar and the school colors, so 

black or blue or white, whatever gang-neutral colors for the school. 

So it is very cheap for the families. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Merkley. 

SENATOR MERKLEY

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank 

you all for your testimony. 

I just came back from doing six town halls traveling around Oregon, rural Oregon. As I went to each community, I either talked 

to teachers at the town hall or held a separate meeting with educators. The concern that came up most often was that the vision 

for rewriting this program misses the mark in terms of its emphasis on grant applications, just rural schools saying, ‘‘I am the superintendent, I am also the principal. I am the only administrator, 

and I am writing some grants now,’’ but when there is only a small 

68 

chance of getting them, I can only afford to do that once or twice. 

We know that if there is a limited number, we are going to be outcompeted by professional grant writers and administrators, administrative teams at larger school districts. We are just going to have 

to give up, if you will. 

They talked about an alternative model where essentially a goal 

is laid out. For example, maybe it is better data management of 

testing so that you can track a student’s progress year to year. If 

a school wants to sign up to do it, they get formula funds to do it. 

They would have to lay out their plan, but it is not a question of 

writing grant after grant after grant and getting turned down or 

losing out to larger schools time after time after time. 

So I just wanted, first, to share that with the committee and, second, to see if that makes sense, if anyone wants to comment on 

that challenge. 

Mr. MITCHELL. As I mentioned in my testimony, it is a real concern for us and the competitive nature—there are a lot of grant opportunities that I know in our district we miss out on because we 

just do not have the capacity to apply for. We have to weigh what 

are we going to get out of it versus the capacity. What are we going 

to have to give away to do it? So it is a give or take in that particular situation. 

I also agree with—I would be very supportive of the formula 

grant, but I want you to understand. I am all for accountability too. 

I do not think any formula grant should be delivering lots of money 

to a school that is not putting forth some results. So if we continue 

with formula grants, I hope we will attach the accountability with 

it and people will do that. 

We used to have an education service agency that had a grant 

writer. Tough economic times. What is the first thing that the 

State had to cut? They provided that. The State has cut those educational service agencies, and they brought in a lot of our major 

grants. So now our grant writer is gone. 

So it is a huge concern for us if large parts of new educational 

dollars are competitive in the rural situation. 

Senator MERKLEY. Yes, go ahead. 

Mr. BALFANZ. One thought I have is, I wonder if there is a middle ground here for some of this, which is participation in a learning network, so not just get your money, do your own thing, good 

luck, or compete for this, but if you get this money and you agree 

to do certain things, you also have to participate in the learning 

network of sharing what you learn. So he is doing great stuff in 

South Dakota, and it is really hard for that to get to rural Oregon. 

It just is. But if you were linked together in a learning network 

and there was some obligation that he is sharing what he has 

learned over here, as part of his grant, he has to actually help organize the technical assistance, that might create sort of a way 

that we can learn and not just compete or just get money and not 

have to do anything. 

Senator MERKLEY. I will tell you my impression was that these 

school districts would be happy to share what their learning is, if 

you will, the accountability, do an evaluation afterwards, lay out a 

proposal in advance, but it is the notion that if only a few grants 

are available, we are going to get out-competed, and just feeling 

69 

like the system is not designed to help small rural schools. But I 

think being able to go to a Web site where other schools are reporting on their results, that is an incredibly powerful learning forum, 

if you will, for schools to share their strategies and their experiences. I think that is a good idea. 

Dr. Mitchell, another thing I wanted to ask because of your experience in a more rural area is it seems like some of the features 

in the Blueprint are based on an urban school model, the turnaround strategies. The idea of firing a principal and 50 percent of 

the teachers—try making that work in a place where the next 

school is 60 minutes away. Are there strategies that make sense 

in an urban setting that we have to be careful to recognize that the 

rural setting is different? 

Mr. MITCHELL. I would agree with exactly what you are saying. 

We are very concerned out in the rural setting when we look at the 

Blueprint and we look at those turnaround models and just do not 

see any options really viable for us. 

Once again, I want to make sure you understand that there is 

no one out in the rural setting that does not want to be held accountable. There is no one out in the rural setting that thinks that 

rural schools that are persistently performing—something needs to 

be done. So hopefully, we are looking for some sort of option. 

As we talked about earlier, maybe not all the research is there, 

but there is some research that is coming forward, and we do have 

pockets of success. One of the things that we found is performing— 

in my little school district, we have a learning community and that 

has helped build our capacity. Can we do that at the State level? 

Can we do that at a national level? One of the things that I found 

in my research was the one thing about a leader that is more successful, they have more networks. They collaborate more. They 

work with others. They share experiences and so forth. 

We would hope that when you come down to reauthorizing ESEA 

and you get to the point of the turnarounds, that there is some sort 

of way that we are not closing the door that certain school districts 

that get to a certain point do not have any option that is viable for 

them. We need to figure out that option that still holds people accountable that does not allow persistent failure in rural schools but 

there is something there that allows them to reconstitute themselves and do something more than firing the principal and firing 

the staff and starting over because it is just not doable. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Merkley. 

Well, I want to again thank the panel for all of your testimonies 

and for being here today, but more than that, just for your total 

involvement in education. 

First of all, let me just say that listening to this whole thing 

today and as I have had more and more hearings on this—I have 

sat on this committee now for 22 years—it just seems that all we 

are talking about is fixing problems here. Why do we not try to answer the question of what is causing the problem? 

It reminds me of the apocryphal story of a community that was 

situated on the shores of a lake. The lake had a beautiful beach 

and recreational facilities. One day they noticed that the beach was 

70 

filling up with all kinds of junk and refuse and things like that. 

So that cut down on the people visiting the beach and the lake. The 

city council met and they passed an ordinance and they raised the 

levy and raised some money to clean it all up. They cleaned it all 

up and made it beautiful again. 

The people came back to the beach, back to the lake. A couple 

of years went by, a few years went by. The beach got refuse again, 

got dirty again. People stopped coming. So the town council met 

again. They raised another levy, raised the money, cleaned it all 

up, fixed it up. People came back again. 

This happened three or four times. Finally, at one of these meetings, somebody got up and said, ‘‘where is all that stuff coming 

from?’’ And someone said, ‘‘well, you know, the lake is fed by one 

river.’’ ‘‘Well, where is that stuff coming from?’’ ‘‘It is coming down 

the river.’’ ‘‘What is up the river?’’ 

So they went up the river and found out where all the stuff was 

coming from and stopped it there, prevented it from coming down. 

Well, it seems to me a lot of times we do this in education. We 

are always patching and fixing and mending, trying to clean up a 

problem, and we are not quite getting to the essence of it. 

In 1991, this book came out, The Unfinished Agenda: A New Vision for Child Development and Education. I remembered that back 

in the mid-1980s, about the first time I came on this committee, 

then-President Reagan wanted to have a study done on education, 

about why we were not having a better education system meeting 

the challenges of the future. He did not want any of the soft-headed, pointy-headed liberals and people like that and school administrators and people like you involved in all this. 

He wanted the business community. He wanted the business 

community to do a study on education and what we needed for the 

future. So that was established. 

Some years went by. It is now 1991. I find myself not as the 

chair of this committee. Senator Kennedy was, but I was chair of 

the appropriations subcommittee for this committee at that time. 

A man came to see me by the name of James Renier. He was then 

the President of Honeywell. He wanted to see me. Fine. I assumed 

he wanted to talk to me about education. He delivered this book 

to me. He was the chair of that committee. If you read the board 

list, there are people like head of Ciba-Geigy, Sun Company, Pacific 

Mutual, Arco Chemical, Smuckers, Northwestern Mutual, Texas 

Instruments. You get the idea. Right? 

They did all this study over a few years’ period of time. I think 

it lasted through the Reagan administration and into the Bush administration. So they ended their studies about 1990. They came 

out with their findings. And he wanted to deliver this to me. Jim 

Renier came in to see me. 

You know what their executive summary was? The Nation must 

redefine education as a process that begins at birth and recognizes 

that the potential for learning begins even earlier and encompasses 

the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development of children. That was their executive summary. Education begins at birth 

and the preparation for education begins before birth. This whole 

thing. This is the hard-headed business community of America that 

said we have to pay more attention to early childhood development. 

71 

We have to put more emphasis on early childhood learning. They 

went so far as to say we have to put more emphasis on maternal 

and child health care programs so that children are born healthy 

with good minds. 

That is what this is all about. It is about preschool because they 

said by the time—as we all know, brain development during early 

years—that is the best time for brain development. By the time 

these kids get to kindergarten and first grade, they are so far behind, we are always trying to play catch-up. You are talking about 

middle school? They have been behind since before that. 

Now, yes, you can do some things. You can change structures. 

You can do structural changes. You can do all kinds of things like 

that and you will make some progress. 

But it seems to me that if we really want to get to the crux of 

the problem, we have to focus on early childhood education. 

You are all in elementary and secondary education. That is what 

we are talking about, the Elementary and Secondary Education 

Act. Well, maybe we have to change the way we think about 

things. I challenge you to think about this. You are all thinkers. 

You are all brilliant and bright people. Your thinking is way above 

mine. But it seems to me we ought to, just maybe, think that elementary education does not start at kindergarten. Maybe we need 

to redefine elementary education as starting at birth, and therefore, elementary education encompasses preschool. That might 

change a whole different way that we look at things if we redefine 

that. So I ask you to consider that kind of a change. 

I also ask you to consider structural changes. Society in general 

on a broad scope has changed immeasurably in the last 400 years. 

Think about that. Think about how our society and the structures 

and everything we do—how much it has changed in 400 years, let 

alone the last 50. 

Yet, there seems to be one structure that has not changed in almost 400 years, the structure of the school. Think about it. You 

have a schoolhouse. You have a classroom. You have a teacher in 

front of the class. You have one teacher and you have the class. 

That is the instructional methodology. It has been that way forever. Is that the right structure for teaching? 

Now, what am I getting at here? Some of you talked about this. 

And that is that—and Senator Dodd touched on it—a lot of these 

kids in school have a lot of problems that have nothing to do with 

their brain power but it has to do with their emotional well-being, 

what is going on at home. Mr. Balfanz, you talked about that. 

These kids come from homes that the safest place they have in the 

day is school, even one that may have been like the Locke school 

before you got a hold of them. They see violence. They have bad 

diets, bad health. Some of them are even lucky if they have a single parent around. Many of them do not even have that. They bring 

in a lot of baggage with them to school. They see violence, drugs, 

all kinds of things like that and they act that out. And they wind 

up being truant, absent, disciplined, and yet there is no one counseling them. 

You have a teacher who has learned how to teach. They go to a 

teaching school. They go to school to learn how to teach. They become teachers or they come through Teach for America, or other 

72 

things like that. But they are trained to teach, to educate, hopefully to provide learning, not just teaching but learning. But they 

are not trained child psychologists. They do not understand child 

development. Oh, maybe some do a little bit, but that is not their 

forte. That is not why they are there. They are there to impart 

learning, to get kids to learn. 

Well, maybe we ought to reconsider the structure of a classroom 

and the role of a teacher. Maybe we also need a good child development/child psychologist in that classroom to handle the emotional 

and other problems of these kids. 

We had a project that I was involved in 20-some years ago. 

McDonald’s Corporation put up some money. I got them some 

money through appropriations, a little project in which we reduced 

the ratio of trained child psychologists—there are people at least 

with a master’s degree—down to about one to—and I am a little 

hazy here. I could be off, but maybe 100 to 200 kids. 

Right now the national average is about 1 in 3,000 elementary 

school kids. There is about one trained child psychologist in a 

school system for every 3,000 kids in America. I could be off a little 

bit, but I do not think I am off that much. 

We got it down to a couple hundred, which means we had a 

trained child psychologist at a school every day all day interacting 

with the classrooms, interacting with the teachers, interacting with 

the kids. They paid home visits with the kids, found out what their 

family situation was like, found out what their health situation 

was like. You were talking about that, Mr. Petruzzi, about looking 

at their health, getting them the kind of dental assistance they 

need, the kind of eyeglasses they need, things like that. 

Why, in 3 years’ time, teachers were amazed. The kids were not 

fighting anymore. They were not acting out. They were not truant. 

They were starting to behave and act differently. 

Now, we could not continue that. That was just a little pilot program. 

Why do we not do this all over America? It costs money. It costs 

lots of money. It costs money to do that. 

But it seems to me we ought to start thinking about this structural entity of a classroom. Should it be the same way as it was 

for the last 300 or 400 years? 

Well, those are just some of my thoughts on this. I guess as 

chairman I get to say those things—— 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. At the end since I sat here the longest. Well, you sat here a long time too. 

So I turn it over to you. Do any of you have any last things that 

you would like to say or impart for the record before we end the 

hearing? I will just open it up. Any last thing that sparked you to 

say, ‘‘no, you are on the wrong track. We have to do something 

else.’’ Is there anything else that any of you would like to bring up? 

Going once—— 

[No response.] 

If not, again, we will leave the record open for 10 days for people 

to submit other testimony. 

I would also ask you—and I am not just pandering to you. You 

are really the experts. You are people who know this so much betVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:08 Feb 13, 2012 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56034.TXT DENISE
73 

ter than those of us here. Please follow our developments here. 

Please follow as closely as you can what we are doing here. We are 

going to have more hearings on this. I do not know how many more 

we have. Quite a few more hearings. Then we will develop the legislation on how we go forward on this. I would invite you at any 

time to get a hold of our staff, to submit e-mails to us, follow up 

on what you saw here today. If you think we are headed in the 

wrong direction, let us know. If you think we are headed in the 

right, let us know that also. This is an ongoing process. 

We will do the best job we can in trying to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I am hopeful that we are 

not just going to reauthorize something that is going to be making 

the same mistakes we have made in the past. Surely, we have 

learned something about what went wrong in the past. We are trying to do something a little bit differently, not to do something different for difference’s sake but to do something different where we 

have tested it, where we have tried things out. As you say—I think 

you said, Mr. Balfanz, there are all kinds of different things out 

there that work. Trying to find the best of those out there— 

I understand the idea of flexibility. I appreciated what Senator 

Bennet said, that you do not want the flexibility to do nothing. You 

want the flexibility to move in a certain direction, but it also seems 

to me that there are a lot of superintendents out there, Dr. Mitchell, around the country, principals around the country that would 

like to do something but they do not know what to do. They are 

busy people. They are busy in the day. They have their communities. They have their own families. They have their own school 

board to deal with and parents and things like that. So what we 

might be able to do is to provide that kind of a menu, a smorgasbord, a menu, or something that they can draw from, but with 

a certain limit in there of what they might draw from to do. 

I agree. I think most of you said those four items that we had 

in the past—that does not cut it for every school. There have to be 

other things in there that they can do also. 

I do not mean to digress any further in getting how you measure 

yearly progress. If there is one thing I am convinced of, you cannot 

measure progress against some unattainable goal. You must measure progress from where you have been and how you grow from 

where you are, and that is how you measure progress, not in trying 

to meet some, as I think, unattainable type of a goal. 

Well, that is enough from me. I thank you again very much. 

Again, I invite you to continue to keep in touch with us as we develop this legislation. 

The committee will stand adjourned. 

[Additional material follows.] 

74 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTES FOR RESEARCH (AIR) 

American Institutes for Research® (AIR®) is pleased to offer this testimony on 

school turnaround models. AIR® has conducted or is currently conducting major 

studies of school turnaround under contract to the U.S. Department of Education, 

including Design Options for Turning Around Low Performing Schools (2008), the 

Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools: A Practice Guide (2008), 

Achieving Dramatic School Improvement: An Exploratory Study (2010), Identifying 

Potentially Successful Approaches to Turning Around Chronically Low Performing 

Schools (ongoing since 2009), and the Study of School Turnaround (ongoing since 

2009). These studies and related work inform the testimony below. 

In the following written testimony, we provide a brief overview of the intervention 

models outlined in final rules for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 

(ARRA) followed by a summary of research evidence on improving chronically lowperforming schools. Our key points are the following: 

1. The research base supporting each of the four intervention models is mixed. 

There is supporting evidence for each, and evidence about conditions that correspond to positive effects. 

2. The intervention models as described are likely to include practices that have 

some support in research on school improvement. These include: changing principals, changing curriculum and instruction, providing flexibility, ensuring job-embedded professional development, providing social-emotional supports, and encouraging quick wins. 

3. Turning around chronically low-performing schools is fraught with challenges 

that can easily undermine success, including: leadership turnover, limited district 

and State capacity, a lack of high-caliber teachers, and the challenges of matching 

the intervention practices to school needs. Case studies provide some examples of 

how schools have overcome these challenges. 

4. The research indicates that the quality and level of implementation is critical 

to successful school improvement. How the practices are implemented, their coherence, and their fit with school needs may spell the difference between success and 

failure. 

ARRA INTERVENTION MODELS: EVIDENCE FOR THE MODELS AND KEY COMPONENTS

Under the ARRA, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has identified four 

school intervention models for chronically underperforming schools: Turnaround, Restart, Closure, and Transformation. 

• Turnaround involves changing many core elements of the school: replacing the 

principal and up to 50% of teachers, changing instruction, providing job-embedded 

professional development, using data to inform instruction, expanding learning time, 

providing wraparound services, changing the governance structure, and providing 

additional flexibility to the school. Research on whole school reform suggests that 

bringing together a suite of changes to these aspects of the school can improve student learning, but the quality of the implementation and exact nature of the programs (e.g., which curricula, the strength of the research base, the fit with school 

needs) are critical.1

• Restart involves closing the school and reopening it under new management 

(an education or charter management organization), under the premise that these 

organizations will have the efficiency and flexibility to make important and necessary changes in the school. Anecdotal indicators suggest some success for chronically low-performing schools that reopen as charters.2 However, most of the evidence focuses on charter schools in general, not chronically low-performing schools 

that have closed and reopened as charters. The evidence of charters’ effects on 

achievement is mixed, with significant gains in some but not all cases.3

Research evidence concerning charter schools run by Education Management 

Organizations, or EMOs, (a subset of all charters) is likewise mixed. There is 

some evidence that schools run by EMOs have significantly higher achievement 

gains than non-EMO charter and public schools, but the gains are not large enough 

to overcome initial achievement gaps.4 Some studies have found cases in which 

EMO-managed schools made gains, although at a slower pace than non-EMO 

schools.5 A critical review of seven widely implemented EMOs that operate in about 

350 schools found that one model had moderate evidence of positive effects on student achievement (Edison Schools), and six models either had no strong studies or 

no studies at all.6 EMOs do seem effective at streamlining school administration, 

creating more effective professional development, setting and maintaining clear 

75 

standards, establishing a consistent instructional approach, improving facilities, and 

similar hallmarks of well-functioning schools. Note that most of the research did not 

look specifically at chronically low-performing schools that had closed and reopened 

as charters, but at EMOs more broadly.7

• Closure involves closing the school and sending students to other existing 

schools; the intent is to provide different—and better—educational experiences for 

the students. A recent study of closure indicated that it may improve student 

achievement if students end up in higher achieving schools. However, a number of 

implementation factors (e.g., neighborhood schools tend to be of the same low quality and transportation to higher achieving schools is difficult, turmoil around the 

transition can affect learning) make it difficult to consistently realize these effects.8

A recent paper on how and why four major districts (Denver, Chicago, Hartford, and 

Pittsburgh) closed failing schools provides some suggestions on how to improve the 

implementation of this option.9 For example, schools and districts can offer additional support during the transition such as clarifying the new principal’s role, helping students and families understand and follow through on the school change, and 

providing staff clear information on next steps. They also should ensure that the 

public and school board are knowledgeable about and supportive of the effort. Critically, there needs to be a supply of higher performing school options readily available to the students. 

• Transformation is similar to the turnaround model, but with more emphasis 

on keeping the existing teachers and holding them accountable for student learning 

through new teacher evaluation systems that used student growth as a measure of 

performance. The closest related research is on teacher incentive programs, which 

reward teachers for students’ growth. The literature base on the effectiveness of 

teacher incentive programs is still developing. There are a limited number of rigorous studies that examine correlations and the implementation of specific programs—with mixed or positive results—but more studies are underway.10

Although the models themselves are relatively new and have limited rigorous research, the strategies that are part of the models build on earlier research. While 

the mechanisms may differ, all four models imply changing students’ learning experiences by one or a combination of practices, including replacing staff, providing 

staff with more job-embedded professional development, changing curriculum and 

instruction, and providing more flexibility at the school level (sometimes to the principal and sometimes to the management organization). The turnaround and transformation models involve wraparound services to meet students’ non-academic needs 

that affect their potential to learn. 

• Changing staff. There is case study support for the approach of changing at 

least some staff—especially principals—to improve schools. Changing staff, especially the principal, also can send a strong message to the school and community 

that the school will be changing and the status quo is no longer acceptable. According to the recent IES practice guide on turning around chronically low-performing 

schools,11 case studies of turnaround schools indicate that effective turnaround 

schools (e.g., schools that dramatically improve student achievement quickly) use 

turnaround principals. Often these are new principals, selected for leadership qualities common to turnaround leaders in education and other sectors (e.g., they thrive 

on challenge, they can stay focused on goals and motivate others towards those 

goals). Sometimes, existing principals can lead schools to turnaround, but these 

principals generally have turnaround-specific training and make a visible break 

from their previous leadership strategies. Consistently, turnaround principals become much more involved in classroom instruction, and make very public commitments to change the school and student learning. 

Case studies also provide evidence that successful turnaround schools evaluate 

and selectively prune their instructional staff. Indeed, wholesale staff replacement 

is not always warranted. Successful turnaround schools tend to build a committed 

staff by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the existing staff vis-a`-vis the 

schools’ reform strategies; redeploying or counseling out staff who are not functioning effectively, and purposefully selecting staff with the key qualifications and 

a commitment to the reform effort. 

• Embedded professional development. Decades of research supports the 

premise that embedded professional development is more effective at changing 

teachers’ instruction than traditional workshops. Further, content-focused professional development may be especially effective. However, rigorous effectiveness studies have yet to prove that embedded professional development improves student 

achievement. Researchers suggest that it may take longer for the impact to filter 

down to the student level.12

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• Changing curriculum and instruction. Descriptive research on effective 

schools and organizations consistently finds that instruction (including curriculum) 13 matters most, and other changes (e.g., leadership, resources) also relate 

to student achievement when they facilitate changes in instruction.14 The School 

Turnaround Practice Guide reported that successful turnaround schools consistently 

focused on (1) using data to improve instruction and (2) involving teachers in aligning the curriculum to the State standards. Successful turnaround schools used data 

to shape and track progress towards school goals, identify needs for individualized 

teacher professional development, and identify needs for reteaching individual students specific content and skills. These schools also involve teachers in aligning the 

curriculum, which seems to help teachers in the case study schools be more reflective of their own instruction. 

• Providing more flexibility at the school level. In their study of high poverty, high performing schools, Mass Insight found benefits to providing chronically 

low-performing schools with the flexibility to enact changes to improve the school.15

Specifically, allowing schools more control over staffing and budget may enable 

them to focus human and financial resources where they are most needed. 

• Social emotional supports. Students who attend chronically low-performing 

schools often have many non-academic needs that interfere with their ability to fully 

engage with instruction.16 17 Research supports a three-tiered approach in which 

students at the highest levels of need receive intensive services, such as wraparound; students who experience risk factors for school failure receive targeted services; and universal interventions are aimed at improving safety, relationships, and 

school climate.18 19 20

• Quick wins. Although not mentioned in ED’s four school intervention models, 

one further strategy frequently emerges in the cases of successful turnaround 

schools: quick wins. These schools consistently make one or a very few visible improvements early in the reform process to motivate staff around the reform effort. 

Quick wins are very focused accomplishments within the first weeks of reform to 

propel the reform forward; turnaround in achievement generally requires 1 to 3 

years of sustained efforts. 

IMPLEMENTATION AND SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES

Turning around chronically low-performing schools is fraught with challenges that 

can hinder effective implementation. Moreover, many schools have struggled to sustain high achievement levels after initial gains. Some implementation and sustainability issues that consistently appear in the research on turning around lowperforming schools include the following: 

• Matching need and approach. Case study research shows that no single 

intervention consistently works in every case, and that strategies that enable one 

school to improve may not succeed elsewhere.21 In part, this may be a result of the 

unique challenges and context for each school. A recent study of 11 low-performing 

schools found that matching the approach and implementation strategy to the school 

is critical for success.22

• Few high-caliber teachers. If chronically low-performing schools are to fill 

their classrooms with well-qualified staff, they need to recruit and retain such 

teachers. However, some districts are unable to attract sufficient numbers of teachers, particularly in high-need subjects and specialties.23 Thus, turnaround activities 

may need to be accompanied by systemic efforts to recruit and retain a more qualified teacher workforce. 

• Lack of capacity at the district or State level. One of the underlying premises of accountability is that low-performing school lack the capacity to improve on 

their own, and can only do so with external support, often provided by the district 

or State. However, districts and States themselves face capacity challenges with regard to expertise, the number of available staff, funding, or technology, that limit 

the extent to which they can facilitate change efforts.24

• Leadership turnover: Too often, it is difficult for schools to sustain improvement efforts (and resulting gains) when leadership changes.25 Unless a transition 

is carefully planned, the departing principal may leave a vacuum in terms of reform 

expertise, vision, networks, and communication skills. Similarly, substantial teacher 

turnover can contribute to an environment in which professional learning and staff 

capacity cannot grow. 

• Sustainability. Studies of turnaround schools, as well as anecdotal evidence 

collected from hundreds of turnaround leaders,26 consistently show challenges in 

maintaining and building on the early successes. The Achieving Dramatic School 

Improvement study found substantial ‘‘bounce’’ in test scores of schools that initially 

appeared to be turnaround successes—after years of failing to meet standards, they 

77 

might meet standards 1 year only to fail the next. Some schools lost additional funding when they met State standards, and had to abandon the extended learning time 

programs that had helped them raise student achievement. 

In summary, turning around chronically low-performing schools and sustaining 

improvement strategies are difficult, but not impossible. Research provides evidence 

about which practices are evident in turnaround schools and these practices can be 

included in the intervention models required by ARRA funding programs. However, 

the research base on the ARRA intervention models themselves is mixed, at best. 

Further, how the practices are selected and implemented matters greatly. An effective practice can be implemented poorly, and promising practices may be mismatched with a school’s most pressing challenges, thus not yielding desired results. 

The congruence and coherence of change practices may make the difference between 

success and failure. 

REFERENCES CITED

1. Aladjem, D.K. & Borman, K.M. eds. (2006). Examining comprehensive school reform. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. 

Aladjem, D.K., Le Floch, K.C., Herman, R., Zhang, Y., Taylor, J.E., Kurki, A., 

Herrmann, S., Uekawa, K., Boyle, A., Thomsen, K., Fashola, O., Shkolnik, J., Halverson, M., Brown, S., Borman, K., Cotner, B., Carter, K. R. (2006). Models Matter— 

The Final Report of the National Longitudinal Evaluation of Comprehensive School 

Reform. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research. 

Borman, G.D., Hewes, G.M., Overman, L.T., & Brown, S. (2003). ‘‘Comprehensive 

School Reform and Student Achievement: A Meta Analysis,’’ Review of Educational 

Research, 73 (2). 

Herman, R., Aladjem, D., McMahon, P., Masem, E., Mulligan, I., O’Malley, A.S., 

Quinones, S., Reeve, A., and Woodruff, D. (1999). An Educators’ Guide to Schoolwide 

Reform. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research. 

2. Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement (2005b). Reopening 

as a charter school. School Restructuring Options Under No Child Left Behind: 

What Works When? Washington, DC: Author. 

3. Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement (2005b). Reopening 

as a charter school. School Restructuring Options Under No Child Left Behind: 

What Works When? Washington, DC: Author. 

Ziebarth, T.M. (nd). Bringing to life the school choice and restructuring requirements of NCLB. Closing low-performing schools and reopening them as charter 

schools: The role of the State. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States. 

4. Loveless, T. (2003, October). 2003 Brown Center report on American education. 

Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. 

5. Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement (2005a). Contracting With External Education Management Providers. School Restructuring Options Under No Child Left Behind: What Works When? Washington, DC: Author. 

6. Comprehensive School Reform Quality Center (2006a). CSRQ Report on Education Service Providers. Washington, DC: Author. 

7. Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement (2005a). Contracting With External Education Management Providers. School Restructuring Options Under No Child Left Behind: What Works When? Washington, DC: Author. 

8. De la Torre, M. and Gwynne, J. (2010). When Schools Close: Effects on Displaced Students in Chicago Public Schools. Chicago, IL: Consortium on Chicago 

School Research at the University of Chicago. 

9. Steiner, L. (2009). Tough Decisions: Closing Persistently Low-Performing 

Schools. Lincoln, IL: Center on Innovation and Improvement. 

10. Podgursky, M. and Springer, M.G. (2007). Credentials versus performance: Review of the teacher performance pay research. Peabody Journal of Education, 82(4), 

551–573. Glazerman, S., McKie, A., & Carey, N. (2009). An evaluation of the Teacher 

Advancement Program (TAP) in Chicago: Year one impact report. Final report. 

Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research. 

11. Herman, R., Dawson, P., Dee, T., Greene, J., Maynard, R., Redding, S., and 

Darwin, M. (2008). Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools: A Practice 

Guide (NCEE #2008–4020). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, .U.S. Department of 

Education. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguides. 

12. Garet, M., Wayne, A., Stancavage, F., Taylor, J., Walters, K., Song, M., Brown, 

S., Hurlburt, S., Zhu, P., Sepanik, S., and Doolittle, F. (2010). Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study: Findings after the first year of implementation (NCEE 2010–4009). Washington, DC: National Center for Education 

78 

Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. 

13. There is also some evidence that some curricula and instructional practices 

are effective. See, for example, the What Works Clearinghouse. 

14. Gamoran, A., Secada, W.G., and Marrett, C.B. (2000). The organizational context of teaching and learning: Changing theoretical perspectives. In M. T. Hallinan 

(Ed.), Handbook of Research in the Sociology of Education (pp. 37–63). New York: 

Kluwer Academic/Plenum. 

15. Calkins, A., Guenther, W., and Belfiore, G. (2007). The Turnaround Challenge. 

Boston, MA: Mass Insight. 

16. National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. (2004). Engaging 

schools: Fostering high school students’ motivation to learn. Washington, DC: The 

National Academies Press. 

17. Rothstein, R. (2004). Class and schools: Using social, economic, and educational reform to close the black-white achievement gap. New York: Teachers College Press. 

18. Bradshaw, C., Mitchell, M., & Leaf, P. (in press). Examining the effects of 

schoolwide positive behavioral interventions and supports on student outcomes: Results from a randomized controlled effectiveness trial in elementary schools. Journal 

of Positive Behavior Interventions. 

19. Osher, D., Dwyer, K., & Jackson, S. (2004). Safe, Supportive, and Successful 

Schools Step by Step, Longmont, CO: Sopris West. 

20. Sebring, P.G., Allensworth, E., Bryk, A.S., Easton, J.Q., Luppescu, S. (2006, 

September). The essential supports for school improvement. Chicago: Consortium on 

Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago. 

21. Scott, C. & Kober, N (2009). Improving low-performing schools: Lessons from 

5 years of studying school restructuring under No Child Left Behind. Washington, 

DC: Center on Education Policy. 

22. Aladjem, D.K., Birman, B.F., Harr-Robins, J., and Parrish, T.B. (2010). 

Achieving Dramatic School Improvement: An Exploratory Study. Washington, DC: 

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Policy and Program Studies Service 

23. Birman, B., Le Floch, K., Klekotka, A., Ludwig, M, Taylor, J., Walters, K., 

Wayne, A., & Yoon, K. (2007). State and local implementation of the No Child Left 

Behind Act—Teacher quality under NCLB: Interim report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education 

24. Le Floch, K., Boyle, A., Therriault, S., & Holzman, B. (2008) Help wanted: 

State capacity for school improvement. AIR Research Brief. Washington DC: American Institutes for Research. 

25. Mintrop, H., & Trujillo, T. (2005). Corrective Action in low-performing schools: 

Lesson from NCLB implementation from State and district strategies in first-generation accountability systems. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American 

Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada. 

26. In over 20 presentations on the Turnaround Practice Guide, to audiences of 

30 to 100+ teachers, principals, districts administrators, and State policymakers, 

these findings were consistently affirmed by meeting participants. 

[Whereupon, at 4:49 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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