School Turnaround AmeriCorps National Evaluation:

Final Evaluation Report

nationalservice.gov

School Turnaround AmeriCorps National Evaluation: 

Final Evaluation Report

FINAL

Contract No.: CNS-HQ-14A-0004 

Task Order No.: CNS14A0004-0004 

July 22, 2016 

Prepared for:

Corporation for National and

Community Service

250 E St. SW 

Washington, DC 20525 

Submitted by:

Abt Associates Inc.

55 Wheeler Street

Cambridge, MA 02138 

Authors: 

Jennifer Bagnell Stuart

Beth Gamse

Anna Jefferson

Ed Bein

Hiren Nisar

Brian Freeman

Marissa Personette

Samantha Burke 

Krista Olson 

Alex Silverman

Porsha Cropper 

Katherine Murphy

Lisa Setrakian 
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps Study Team would like to thank the grantee program staff, 

AmeriCorps members, and State Service Commission staff, as well as participating district staff, school 

leaders, and school-based faculty and staff. Their contributions to the study (via surveys, interviews, and 

more) are deeply appreciated. 

The listed authors of this report represent only a small part of the team involved in this project. We 

would like to acknowledge the contributions of the project quality advisor, Alyssa Rulf Fountain, and of 

the director of data collection; Amy Checkoway, who led a highly capable team, including: Djaniele 

Taylor, Erin Sullivan, Jackie Mendez, Rachel Luck, Marble Karuu, Hayley Didriksen, Syeda Fatima, and 

Benjamin Sadkowski; and additional members of the data analysis team, including William Huguenin 

and Theresa Silla. In addition, we thank Abt’s editors, Bry Pollack and Anne Kelleher, and desktop 

publishers for their assistance in preparing this and other related reports: Missy Robinson, Chaneka 

Arthur, Kathleen Linton, Melissa O’Connor, Audrey Hanbury, and Charmayne Walker. We also would 

like to acknowledge the support of staff from DataStar (for survey administration) and from Noble 

Transcription.

Not least, we appreciate the careful review and guidance from the study’s Contracting Officer 

Representative, Diana Epstein, and the CNCS program staff Amy Hetrick, Carla Ganiel, and Rosa 

Moreno.
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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................................................... i

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................................................ v

Background............................................................................................................................................. v

Data Sources ......................................................................................................................................... vii

Key Findings........................................................................................................................................... x

SUMMARY OF PERCEIVED IMPACTS OF AMERICORPS SERVICES IN 

SUPPORTING SCHOOL TURNAROUND EFFORTS .................................................................. xvi

I. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 1

School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program Overview ...................................................................... 1 

Study Goals and Research Questions .................................................................................................. 2

Study Design, Study Sample, Methods, and Limitations ................................................................. 4

Lessons Learned about the Evaluation Design, Recruitment, and Data Collection ..................... 7 

Organization of This Document........................................................................................................... 9 

II. PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION FINDINGS ........................................................................ 11

Summary of Implementation Findings over Time .......................................................................... 11

Grantee Program Characteristics and Partner School Contexts and Demographics ................. 15

Member Recruitment, Retention, and Management ....................................................................... 16 

Identifying Students for Services....................................................................................................... 23 

Description of Program Activities and Services .............................................................................. 26 

Members’ Roles in Supporting School Staff and Building School Capacity................................ 34 

Use of Data to Manage and Monitor Programs for Continuous Improvement .......................... 37

Potential Uses and Challenges of Administrative Data for Measuring Grantee 

Performance .......................................................................................................................................... 38 

Case Study Cross-Site Analysis.......................................................................................................... 44 

Effectiveness of Strategies and Adjustments over Time................................................................. 65 

III. PERCEIVED IMPACTS OF AMERICORPS SERVICES IN SUPPORTING SCHOOL 

TURNAROUND EFFORTS .................................................................................................................. 72

Summary of Perceived Impact Findings over Time........................................................................ 72 

Perceived Overall Success of School Turnaround AmeriCorps.................................................... 73 

School Turnaround Goals for Student Outcomes ........................................................................... 79

Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps on Student Academic Achievement 

and Socio-Emotional Health Outcomes............................................................................................ 81

Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program on School Climate .................. 85

Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program on School Capacity................ 86 
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IV. PARTNERSHIP FINDINGS......................................................................................................... 87

Summary of Partnership Findings over Time.................................................................................. 87

Written Grantee Program-School Partnership Agreements .......................................................... 88

School Partnerships: Relationship-Building, Communication, and Collaboration Practices ... 90

Challenges with Partnerships............................................................................................................. 96

V. CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................ 98

Summary of Findings .......................................................................................................................... 98 

Summary of Comparisons of Schools with and without School Turnaround AmeriCorps ..... 98

Summary of Intervention Effectiveness, Promising Practices, and Changes over Time........... 99

Implications for School Turnaround AmeriCorps ........................................................................ 100

VI. REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 108
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Table of Exhibits

Exhibit ES-1: Reporting Conventions by Unit of Analysis.................................................................................x

Exhibit IS-1: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions: Value of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps ................................................................................................................................. xvii

Exhibit I-1: Program Implementation and Evaluation Timelines .................................................................. 4

Exhibit II-1: School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Enrollment and Retention Rates in 

2013–14 and 2014–15......................................................................................................................18

Exhibit II-2: Trends in School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Enrollment Rates over Time ..............19

Exhibit II-3: Trends in School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Retention Rates over Time.................20

Exhibit II-4: Mechanisms to Identify and Reason Students Identified to Participate in School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Activities ............................................................................................24

Exhibit II-5: Number of Schools, School Turnaround AmeriCorps Members, and Students 

Served, by Year and Grantee........................................................................................................28

Exhibit II-6: Average Hours per Member and Student, by Year and Grantee.............................................29

Exhibit II-7: Number of Grantee Programs Offering Various Program Activities, by School 

Year..................................................................................................................................................30

Exhibit II-8: Level of Service Offering, by Service Type Provided................................................................33

Exhibit II-9: School Improvement Grant Strategy Most Influenced by School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps (Year 1 and Year 2)..................................................................................................36

Exhibit II-10: Performance Measures Definitions ..............................................................................................41

Exhibit II-11: Grantee Performance in Meeting 2013–14 and 2014–15 Performance Measure 

Targets .............................................................................................................................................43

Exhibit II-12: Selected Characteristics of Case Study Schools..........................................................................46

Exhibit II-13: Prevalence of Schools Reporting Use of Turnaround Strategies, by School Type.................50

Exhibit II-14: Implementation Challenges over Time .......................................................................................57

Exhibit II-15: Grantee and School Leader Perceptions of Important Elements of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Implementation (Year 1 and Year 2)..............................................66

Exhibit II-16: Implementation Strategies and Change over Time ...................................................................68

Exhibit III-1: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions of Success of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps (Year 1 and Year 2)..................................................................................................74

Exhibit III-2: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions of Value of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps (Year 1 and Year 2)..................................................................................................76

Exhibit III-3: Summary of Impacts Perceived by Program Schools................................................................78

Exhibit III-4: School Leader Perceptions of Level of Influence of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps on School Turnaround Goals (Year 1 and Year 2) ..............................................80

Exhibit III-5: School Staff Perceptions of Changes in Student Behavior (Year 1) .........................................83

Exhibit IV-1: Summary of Partnership Findings ...............................................................................................90

Exhibit IV-2: School Turnaround AmeriCorps School Partnerships by School Year...................................91

Exhibit IV-3: Grantee, School Leader, and School Staff Satisfaction with Elements of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Program Operations.........................................................................94

Exhibit V-1: Tensions between the School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program Model and 

Serving in Educational Settings .................................................................................................101

Exhibit V-2: CNCS School Turnaround AmeriCorps, Program-Level Logic Model ................................107
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Background

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps grant program, launched in school year 2013–14, is a joint initiative 

of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and the U.S. Department of Education. 

The grants provide support to help low-performing schools achieve their school improvement goals by 

placing AmeriCorps members in schools. At the activity level, School Turnaround AmeriCorps is very 

similar to other AmeriCorps programs, yet it differs in three important ways. First, to host School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps, schools must have been designated as School Improvement Grant (SIG) or 

Priority status schools or be among the five percent of a state’s persistently lowest-achieving Title I 

schools.1,2 Second, School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs must establish partnership agreements 

with the schools that detail specific grant requirements. Third, the services to be provided by School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps members should align with the goals and student needs identified in the 

schools’ turnaround plans. 

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps program is intended to increase the capacity of these lowestachieving schools to implement their turnaround models successfully, primarily through efforts to 

improve students’ academic performance, academic engagement, attendance, high school graduation 

rates, and college readiness. By 2015–16, its third year, the program was operating in nearly 70 schools. 

CNCS contracted with Abt Associates to conduct an implementation-focused national evaluation of the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, funding the evaluation in two successive year-long 

increments, referred to as Year 1 and Year 2.3 In this report, Year 1 represents the first year of the 

evaluation, which corresponds to the second year of program operation (2014–15 school year), and Year 2 

references the evaluation’s second and the program’s third year (2015–16). The goal of the evaluation is to 

deepen current understanding of the perceived effect of AmeriCorps members on the capacity of host 

schools to implement their respective turnaround model successfully and to improve key turnaround 

outcomes. The evaluation is assessing School Turnaround AmeriCorps members’ contributions to lowperforming schools’ success in their turnaround efforts, and it seeks to understand the mechanisms 

underlying those contributions. Note that the evaluation included only those School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps schools that met specific study requirements; consequently, only about three-quarters of the 

nearly 70 schools in the program participated in the evaluation.4,5 

 

1 SIG guidance defines “persistently lowest-achieving schools,” as determined by the state, as (a) Title I schools in 

improvement, corrective action, or restructuring and (b) secondary schools that are eligible for, but do not 

receive, Title I, Part A funds, that are among the lowest-achieving 5 percent or lowest-achieving five schools in 

each set, whichever is greater. In addition to the lowest-achieving 5 percent of schools (or lowest-achieving five 

schools) identified in this manner, a state education agency (SEA) must identify as persistently lowest-achieving 

schools any high schools in each set of schools that are not captured on the basis of academic achievement but 

that have had a graduation rate of less than 60 percent over a number of years. Source: U.S. Department of 

Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2012, March 1). Guidance on Fiscal Year 2010 School 

Improvement Grants under Section 1003(g) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

https://www2.ed.gov/programs/sif/sigguidance02232011.pdf. 

2 For the 2016–17 program year competition, CNCS expanded eligibility to also include Focus schools. 

3 CNCS also funded the design year of the evaluation during the first year of program operation (2013–14). 

4 For the purposes of studying schools that were roughly comparable in their implementation of School 

AmeriCorps Turnaround programming, the study excluded two types of schools: those that did not implement 

the School Turnaround AmeriCorps intervention in 2013–14 and/or in 2014–15 and some of the Teach For 
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This report comprehensively summarizes the findings from Years 1 and 2 of the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps national evaluation, including the entire set of survey, qualitative, and quantitative analyses 

conducted throughout both years. Overall, the study was designed to address the following research 

objectives:

• Examine the capacity-building strategies, school-level interventions, and direct services that 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members deliver to support school turnaround efforts, and how 

those activities are similar or different from activities provided by other partners in similar 

SIG/Priority schools.

• Understand how local context may affect program implementation, and identify promising

practices for the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in supporting schools’ ability to 

implement their turnaround plans.6

• Understand how the structure and functioning of grantee-school partnerships affect program 

implementation, and identify promising practices for involving school leadership and 

participating School Turnaround AmeriCorps members in support of schools’ ability to 

implement their turnaround plans.7

• Compare the implementation of school turnaround efforts in School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

schools versus those of matched comparison schools with no or minimal AmeriCorps presence to 

provide insights into the perceived effectiveness of the program with respect to the following 

outcomes: 

o Overall success in school turnaround. 

o Academic achievement. 

o Students’ socio-emotional health. 

o School climate. 

o School capacity to implement its turnaround effort.

• Identify the strategies used by School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs in schools that have 

successfully exited SIG/Priority status that helped them engage students and school stakeholders 

to reach their turnaround goals, in order to inform other education-focused programs at CNCS.8

This report presents contextual information about the 13 grantee programs funded by the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps grants. These programs partnered with approximately 70 SIG/Priority schools 

in the 2014–15 and 2015–16 school years, and they recruited about 450 School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

 

America (TFA) schools. In Year 1, only a representative sample of TFA schools (5 of 17) was purposively selected 

to participate in the evaluation because of TFA’s distinctive intervention. 

5 In Year 1, 57 School Turnaround AmeriCorps schools met the eligibility criteria to be included in the sample; in 

Year 2, 54 schools were eligible. 

6 This is a Year 1 study objective that was not explicitly included in Year 2 of the evaluation; however, the study 

team continued to analyze how local context affected program implementation in Year 2. 

7 This study objective was added in Year 2 of the evaluation to probe further into specific aspects of 

implementation based on the findings that emerged from Year 1.

8 This study objective was added in Year 2 of the evaluation to probe further into specific aspects of 

implementation based on the findings that emerged from Year 1.
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members annually to provide services in those schools.9 The report also presents findings on 

implementation effectiveness, program-school partner relationships, and the perceived impacts of the 

program in improving student outcomes from the perspectives of diverse stakeholders, including grantee 

staff, members, school leaders, teachers, and parents. The results of 29 case studies, including 

comparative case studies of matched schools with and without School Turnaround AmeriCorps services, 

provide additional information on the mechanisms at work and members’ added value across School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps programs. Additionally, the report explores the potential uses and challenges of 

administrative data for evaluating School Turnaround AmeriCorps and other CNCS education-focused 

programs. 

The report concludes with a summary of grantee programs’ promising practices for delivering effective 

interventions and serving schools. The conclusion describes implications for program improvement, for 

the AmeriCorps education program model, and for sustainability of strategies implemented with 

AmeriCorps resources beyond grant funding. 

Data Sources 

This report describes the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in two complementary ways: by 

focusing on grantee programs (in which the program represents the unit of analysis) and on participating 

program and comparison schools (in which the school represents the unit of analysis).10 Data collection was 

conducted during three time periods: Spring 2015, Fall 2015, and Spring 2016. Findings are based on 

multiple primary and administrative data sources, as described below.11 

Grantee Programs12

Primary Data Sources:

• Online survey administered to staff of 13 School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantee programs in 

Year 1 (Spring 2015) and again in Year 2 (Spring 2016).13

 

9 Source: Corporation for National and Community Service. e-Grants service location and member data as of 

2014–15 for the 2014–15 school year.

10 Here forward, the term “program schools” refers to schools with School Turnaround AmeriCorps members and 

“comparison schools” refers to schools with little or no AmeriCorps presence from other programs. This means 

that comparison schools were selected (among other criteria) on the basis of not having any form of the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps intervention, and having no or minimal AmeriCorps State and National or VISTA 

member presence.

11 The units of analysis and data sources summarized below include respondents who participated in multiple data 

collection efforts. This is a comprehensive list of all data collected; de-duplicated counts are reported in the 

findings sections of this report as well as in the Technical Appendix.

12 There are 12 grantee organizations and 13 grantee programs. Four grantee organizations implement their own 

programs; eight organizations are state service commissions whose subgrantees implement grantee programs. 

One organization is a state commission with two subgrantee organizations, each of which operates one grantee 

program. Eleven School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs are single-state programs that address local needs in 

only one state; two are national programs that address local needs in two or more states. Throughout this report, 

grantee programs are referenced by a random ID number from 1 to 13 rather than their program name to 

preserve confidentiality of responses.

13 The term “grantee staff” refers to staff members of grantee and/or subgrantee organizations who participated in 

the Grantee survey, interviews, and focus groups; the term is generally synonymous with “program staff.”
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• Beginning and end of school year interviews with grantee staff in both years (four interviews 

with each of 12 grantee staff, three interviews with one grantee staff). 

• Online focus groups with 11 staff from 10 of the 12 grantee organizations in Year 1 

• Telephone interviews with 26 School Turnaround AmeriCorps members serving all 13 grantee 

programs in Year 1. 

• Online focus groups with 10 School Turnaround AmeriCorps members serving in 7 of 13 grantee 

programs in Year 1. 

Administrative Data Sources:

• Grantee program performance measures and narrative responses recorded in annual grantee 

progress reports (GPRs) covering the 2013–14 and 2014–15 school years for all 13 grantee 

programs. 

• Grantee program activity logs or AmeriCorps member services tracking information (“member 

activity data”) covering the 2014–15 and 2015–16 school years for all 13 grantee programs. 

• Partnership agreements between 12 grantee programs and their 55 partner schools, reviewed in 

Spring 2015, Fall 2015, and Spring 2016.14

• Student-level data, including student achievement data, student attendance, and/or student

behavior data, for the school years 2012–13 (2 programs), 2013–14 (8 programs), and 2014–15 (10 

programs). 

Program Schools

Primary Data Sources:

• Surveys administered to principals whose schools were in their second year of hosting a School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program, administered in Year 1 (56 principals in Spring 2015) and 

Year 2 (56 principals in Fall 2015 and 54 principals in Spring 2016).15

• Survey administered to 543 instructional and counseling staff whose schools were in their second 

year of hosting a School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, administered in Year 1 (Spring 2015). 

• Telephone interviews with principals of 35 schools hosting School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs, conducted at different points in time throughout Years 1 and 2 (25 one-on-one 

interviews, 17 participants in small-group interviews, some respondents participated in both). 

• Telephone interviews with 50 parents representing 14 program schools that provided family and

community engagement services to families of students receiving School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps services, conducted in Spring 2015.

Case Studies: 

• Case studies in Year 1 of six SIG/Priority schools with School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs 

(matched to six comparison schools). Site visits were conducted at two of the program schools in 

Spring 2015, including interviews with the principal and two to three teachers, and an 

 

14 One of these 12 grantee programs provided documents that were not identified as a “partnership agreement” 

per se but that functioned as such.

15 See Exhibit A-1, “Response Numbers and Rates for School Leaders, Instructional Staff, and Counselors” for more 

detail on survey administration.
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observation checklist. Phone interviews were conducted with the principal and three teachers 

apiece in the other four program schools in Year 1 (Spring 2015). Four of the program case study 

schools were re-interviewed by phone in Year 2 (Spring 2016).16

• Case studies in Year 2 of another six SIG/Priority schools with School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs (matched to six comparison schools), plus one replacement case study of a program 

school not matched to a comparison school. Site visits were conducted at three of the program 

schools in Spring 2016, including interviews with the principal and two to three teachers, a 

member focus group, a parent focus group, and an observation checklist. Phone interviews were 

conducted with the principal, three teachers, and one to four members apiece in the other three 

program case study schools in Spring 2016.

• “SIG Exiter” case studies in Year 2 of four schools that exited SIG/Priority status with the help of 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs. Case study interviews were conducted by phone 

with the principal and two to three school staff members per school who had knowledge of the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Interviews were conducted in Spring 2016.

Case study data collection for the 17 program case study schools in Year 1 and Year 2 included 22 

principal interviews, 65 teacher or other school staff interviews (two to three per school), five in-person 

focus groups with teachers in five program schools, 19 members serving in program schools, 12 parents 

of students receiving School Turnaround AmeriCorps services in site-visited program schools, and site 

observations documenting the physical appearance and school climate at five program schools. 

Comparison Schools

Case Studies: 

• Case studies in Year 1 of six SIG/Priority schools without School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs (matched to six program schools). Site visits were conducted at two of the comparison 

schools in Spring 2015. Phone interviews were conducted with the principal and three teachers 

apiece in the other four comparison schools in Year 1 (Spring 2015). Five of the comparison 

schools were re-interviewed by phone in Year 2 (Spring 2016).17

• Case studies in Year 2 of another six SIG/Priority schools without School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs (matched to six program schools). Site visits were conducted at three of the comparison

schools in Spring 2016. Phone interviews were conducted with the principal and three teachers 

apiece in the other three comparison schools in Spring 2016. 

Case study data collection for the comparison case study schools in Year 1 and Year 2 included interviews 

with principals of 12 comparison schools, interviews with 49 teachers or other school staff (three to four 

per school), five in-person focus groups with teachers in five comparison schools, and site observations 

documenting the physical appearance and school climate at five comparison schools.18 

Because the numbers of survey, interview, and case study respondents varied by data collection method 

and timing, the study team adopted the following conventions to help anchor the magnitude of the 

findings across data collection strategies. The conventions apply to findings at the grantee program level as 

well as at the school level.

 

16 Two of the Year 1 case study program schools did not participate in Year 2 of the evaluation.

17 One of the Year 1 comparison schools did not participate in Year 2 of the evaluation.

18 See Exhibit A-10, “Number and Type of Case Study Participants by Case Study Site” for further detail on case 

study participants.
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A detailed description of data sources for the report is included in the Technical Appendixes. 

Exhibit ES-1: Reporting Conventions by Unit of Analysis

Program Schools (n=41) Case Studies (n=29)

Represents

Grantee 

Programs 

(n=13)

Interviews 

(Case Studies, 

Principals) 

(n=41)

School Leader

Surveys 

(n=36)

Program 

Schools 

(n=17)a 

Comparison 

Schools 

(n=12)

All/almost all 11–13 35–41 31–36 14–17 10–12

Most/majority 8–10 23–34 21–30 10–13 7–9

About half 6–7 18–22 16–20 8–9 5–6

Some/minority 3–5 6–17 7–15 4–7 3–4

Several/few 1–2 1–5 1–6 1–3 1–2

a Including four SIG Exiter schools. 

Notes. “Program Schools” includes those schools within which the following data collection activities occurred: case 

study interviews and focus groups with principals, teachers, and, in Year 2, parents and members, and non-case 

study interviews with principals. Across both years of the evaluation, stakeholders from 41 unique schools 

participated in data collection. These data were collected at different points in time so not all 41 schools were 

observed at the same points in time. Thirty-six schools participated in Year 1 and 23 schools in Year 2. Of the 23 

schools that participated in Year 2, 18 also participated in Year 1. 

Exhibit reads: All/almost all means 11-13, out of n=13 Grantee Programs, reported a theme; 35-41, out of n=41 

Interviews, reported a theme; 31-36, out of n=36 School Leader Surveys, reported a theme; 14-17, out of n=17 Program 

School Case Studies Only, reported a theme; or 10-12, out of n=12 Comparison School Case Studies, reported a theme.

Key Findings

The Context and Need for School Turnaround AmeriCorps

This section describes the need for the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program and the environmental 

challenges it faced in often challenging contexts. Even in the third grant year, grantee programs 

continued to experience volatility due both to dynamic conditions in low-performing K–12 school 

environments and to external school or community factors beyond the control of grantee programs and 

members; this finding corroborates the Year 1 final report.19 In particular, programs’ implementation 

efforts were affected by high turnover of school leaders and staff, lack or loss of resources, and other 

family-related, community, statewide, and geographic conditions that contributed to pervasive 

instability.20 Whether changes in school leadership and teaching staff were part of the turnaround plan or 

a consequence of morale and retention issues, schools that experienced such turnover had to re-introduce 

their programs, start building crucial relationships and earning buy-in anew, and prepare new faculty to 

use school-specific curricula and interventions. 

Large majorities of school leaders and staff identified pervasive challenges faced by their schools, 

including student academic performance, disruptive student behavior and discipline, student attendance, 

student engagement, and student depression. The case study research documented schools whose 

 

19 Bagnell Stuart et al. (2015).

20 Survey findings from Year 1 and Year 2 substantiate the relatively high rates of principal turnover in partner 

schools. According to the Year 1 survey, 28 percent of school leaders had worked at their current school fewer 

than three years; in Year 2, 43 percent of principals had worked at their current school fewer than four years (not 

adjusted for nonresponse bias). 
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diverse student populations faced special needs and challenges, ranging from attendance and behavioral 

issues to language and personal barriers. School Turnaround AmeriCorps members supported school 

staff working to meet the needs of English learners, students with disabilities, and students with low 

levels of math and reading proficiency, many of whom required additional instructional support. The 

majority of students in program schools faced substantial economic disadvantage and experienced 

multiple challenges associated with poverty, including families who cannot meet their basic needs.

The conditions in turnaround schools described in this and prior reports highlight the need for external 

partners and programs such as School Turnaround AmeriCorps. Partners can help increase state and 

district capacity to support school efforts to improve student performance in high-needs schools by 

implementing effective school improvement strategies.21

Program Implementation Findings

Programs varied across multiple dimensions: the number of schools, number of members serving, 

number of service hours provided by members, and the number of students served, as well as the 

amount of time that represented the minimum dosages of AmeriCorps services for students to be counted 

as having completed the program. Member activity data for Years 1 and 2 indicate that the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program had a smaller footprint in Year 2 (the third program year), as reflected 

in approximately 12 percent fewer school partners, 18 percent fewer members serving, and 25 percent 

fewer students served.22 During Years 1 and 2, programs also continued to experience persistent 

challenges with member enrollment and retention, and these challenges appear to be related to programs’ 

challenges with establishing realistic performance measure targets. 

In Year 2, grantee programs responded to challenges with member recruitment, retention, and—another 

persistent challenge—confusion about members’ roles by emphasizing member preparation and training. 

Strategy adjustments that programs made to tackle these challenges included providing more tailored 

pre-training to members about their school’s community and demographics, training on how members 

should carry out their roles in the school, and training for the administration and staff about how to use 

AmeriCorps members appropriately in their school.

Once members were placed in schools, teacher referrals were the most common mechanism for 

identifying students for services, according to survey data from both years. One shift in Year 2 was 

reflected in an increased emphasis on using data to target students in need of additional academic or 

behavioral support, reflected in survey responses as well as Year 2 case studies (albeit based on a 

subsample of schools). 

Service offerings changed only slightly from one year to the next, such that grantee programs generally 

provided the same general types and combinations of services and activities in the second and third years 

of implementation. Many programs used on-site coordinators to support members in their roles and 

make the program run more smoothly in host schools.

Case study findings indicate some commonalities in how program schools used AmeriCorps members to 

support turnaround efforts, including use of data to inform interventions and providing socio-emotional 

learning supports to students. Fewer comparison schools (than program schools) relied on providing 

 

21 U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development (2010).

22 The comparison in total members serving and students served across years excludes grantee program #6 because 

grantee program #6 reported members serving and students served in 2015–16 but not in 2014–15. Including 

grantee program #6 in 2015–16 only, there are 1 percent fewer members and 18 percent fewer students in the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in 2015–16 compared to 2014–15.
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socio-emotional learning support and targeted and individualized academic support to struggling 

students. The case study research further suggests that using embedded, full-time School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members effectively may require a different partnership model than is required for partners 

who are on site episodically (volunteers, trainers, etc.). Programs operated more effectively when 

members immersed themselves in the school culture and operations and regularly collaborated with 

teachers, for example, in discussing their intervention or reviewing student data.

Findings from the four SIG Exiter case studies suggest that Exiters perceived their partnership with 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps as one of multiple important factors that helped them to successfully 

exit SIG status. Notably, in Exiter schools, members’ efforts were in the same areas deemed important on 

surveys of school leaders—the strategies most consistently influenced by members’ contributions include 

academic achievement, school culture and environment, and increased learning time.

Grantee staff reported somewhat different challenges in grantee progress reports from the first to the 

second program year, suggesting that administrative challenges typically associated with launching a 

new program became less prevalent. In their GPRs for the second program year, grantee programs 

reported fewer start-up challenges and greater investment in strengthening relationships and 

communication with school partners. The types of implementation challenges reported by grantee staff 

and school stakeholders suggest that program start-up and grant administration issues decreased over 

time, while underlying tensions in the AmeriCorps program model persisted (see Exhibit V-1). These

included: 

• Member demographics: Members were near peers and could be role models to students, yet 

sometimes exhibited inexperience and immaturity. 

• One-year term of service: Dedicated, often full-time AmeriCorps members who were embedded 

in the school throughout the year were valued by schools, but relationships built with students 

ended with their term of service, interrupting student progress. 

• Modest living stipend: The amount of the living stipend was prohibitive in areas with a high 

cost of living and/or high opportunity cost of obtaining other full-time work. 

• Service dosage requirements: The requirement that students receive the targeted amount of 

intervention hours limited members’ and programs’ flexibility to meet schools’ needs or the 

needs of highly transient student populations. 

• Program goal of building schools’ capacity: Members augmented school capacity during their 

term of service, but because school capacity gains were based on member presence, these gains 

were not sustainable when members left the school.

Finally, analyses of first- and second-year GPR data and second-year student-level data paint a different, 

and somewhat less optimistic, picture than do stakeholders’ perceptions during the program’s second 

and third years of implementation. The GPR and student data suggest more limited success.

Perceived Impact of the Program 

The themes documented through in-depth case studies, interviews, and focus groups—and confirmed by 

survey results from Years 1 and 2—indicate generally positive stakeholder perceptions of the 

effectiveness of the program’s interventions. Overall, across both years of the evaluation, respondents 

(grantee staff, principals, teachers, members, parents) characterized the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program as successful, and they reported that it influenced key aspects of schools’ turnaround efforts, 

such as student academic performance, school climate, and students’ attendance, behavior, and socioemotional well-being. The School Turnaround AmeriCorps program was also perceived as contributing 
nationalservice.gov xiii

positively to key student outcomes. These findings reflect perceptions of the large majority (79 percent or 

more) of grantee staff, school leaders and staff, and parents in Year 1, and of grantee staff and school 

leaders in Year 2.23

In Year 1, large majorities of school leaders and staff rated the program highly for providing helpful 

supports to schools and teachers, and they perceived that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members were 

important partners in improving student outcomes. School leaders’ perspectives were similar in Year 2. 

Enhanced academic achievement was ranked as the most important school turnaround outcome for 

students by both school leaders (in both years) and staff (in Year 1). A majority of school leaders (in both 

years) also reported that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members’ contributions influenced applicable 

school turnaround goals, including establishing a school culture and environment that fosters school 

safety, attendance, and discipline and improving academic performance in English language arts and/or 

math. 

Program-School Partnerships Findings

Generally, grantee staff and principals reported that partnership agreements are useful tools for defining 

roles and responsibilities in the partnership planning stage, yet are seldom revisited if and when 

implementation challenges arise later in the partnership. Instead, most grantee programs used on-site 

coordinators to supervise members and manage relationships with school stakeholders throughout the 

year, a practice that was used somewhat more widely in Year 2 than Year 1.

Grantee-school partnerships appeared to function more effectively when partnership relationships were 

stable over time; such stability improved communication and program implementation. Partnerships also 

experienced the converse when school leader turnover or other external conditions or implementation 

factors hindered relationship building. Overall, all stakeholders reported high levels of satisfaction with 

their partnerships, both broadly with program operations and specifically with elements of program 

implementation; a minority of grantee staff reported having challenges with partnerships.

Key Mechanisms of Program and Member Effectiveness and the Value-Added of AmeriCorps

The premise of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program is that its members are well suited to 

deliver effective turnaround interventions and help schools achieve their desired student outcomes. 

Three themes emerged as necessary (yet not sufficient on their own) conditions for member and 

intervention effectiveness: 

• School leader receptivity toward using external resources, openness to robust partnership 

engagement, and buy-in to the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. 

• Having an on-site coordinator manage members and facilitate communication with the school 

staff. 

• Close collaboration between teachers and members about classroom support and how to review 

student data.

Other mechanisms for integrating members into school operations and culture were established through 

members’ consistent (daily) presence in schools and through participation in other school functions 

beyond service provision alone—“AmeriCorps presence.” Multiple school and program stakeholders 

described several other key means by which that presence contributes to perceived effectiveness, 

including these: 

 

23 Only school leaders and grantee staff were surveyed in Year 2. School staff and parents were not surveyed 

during Year 2 of the evaluation.
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• Building trusting relationships with students, an important mechanism for supporting students’ 

socio-emotional learning and improving student academic engagement and behavior. 

• Contributing to creating a positive school climate. 

• Boosting classroom and overall school capacity.

In sum, the study details the range of activities and the structure of services that AmeriCorps members 

delivered to their school turnaround partners. Underlying the variation in how these services were 

structured or delivered is a common thread: All School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs provided 

additional human capital resources to their under-resourced and under-staffed school partners. Among 

the central findings of this two-year evaluation is that the value of AmeriCorps is based on the consistent 

presence of additional helpful, caring adults who support students by developing strong relationships 

with them. This defining feature of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps model is the unifying element in 

what program schools most appreciated about the program. 

As the first grant period for School Turnaround AmeriCorps comes to an end, the insights that may guide 

future programming include understanding the key mechanisms of program and member effectiveness,

understanding how School Turnaround AmeriCorps adds value to school improvement efforts in lowperforming schools, and recognizing that some implementation challenges may reflect tensions between 

school contexts and the program model. Other insights reflect learning from the grantee programs and 

partner schools about specific practices that stakeholders have reported to be particularly useful in their 

efforts to deliver effective interventions (see textbox below). 

Promising Practices for Delivering Effective Interventions and Serving in Schools

• Communication and Relationship Building: Communicate proactively at program level 

(grantee programs to districts, school leaders; members to teachers, students, on-site 

coordinator, and school leaders); build sustained relationships to increase program 

understanding and ease challenges.

• Recruitment and Retention: Recruit early, advertise through multiple channels, communicate 

expectations about the service commitment and school conditions clearly, recruit and match 

members with schools’ needs, place members in full-time positions.

• Preparation and Training: Provide pre-service orientation and training, specialized training in 

behavior management and school-specific strategies; include members in faculty and 

professional learning community meetings, school-level training, and teacher professional 

development during the school year.

• Supervision and Support: Rely on on-site coordinators to manage, organize, and support 

members and facilitate communication with school staff; cultivate school leader buy-in, integrate 

members into school culture and operations.

• Service Delivery: Establish effective and trusting relationships with both teachers and 

students, maintain a consistent presence in schools and classrooms to aid with classroom 

management, collaborate with teachers to review student data and target supports appropriate 

to students’ needs, and be flexible in meeting schools’ needs.

Recommendations for Program Improvement

Based on the study team’s observations over the two-year evaluation period, the report also offers 

recommendations about aspects of program implementation and structure for CNCS to consider:

1. Provide grantee programs communications technical assistance and more opportunities for peer 

learning. 
nationalservice.gov xv 

2. Clarify the expectations and standardize the requirements for how programs collect and report 

administrative data. 

3. Consider encouraging greater continuity of members’ service within participating schools to 

alleviate some of the implementation challenges associated with member onboarding and 

relationship building that now occur anew each year.

The first recommendation is focused on helping to improve communications; by improving how grantee

programs communicate with members and schools, some common and persistent implementation 

challenges may be avoided or minimized, tensions in the program model may be mitigated, and program 

delivery may be enhanced. Communications assistance could be helpful in several modes and formats, 

including messaging and materials development, one-on-one support, and facilitated peer group learning 

for both grantee staff and host school staff. For example, materials in using language that is accessible and 

formats that are engaging (e.g., one-page FAQs, posters, short videos) and developing concise and 

consistent talking points that clarify the program rules and the most effective ways to leverage members 

in schools could provide useful, program-wide tools for managing schools’ expectations about the 

program, particularly related to tensions and challenges with AmeriCorps model features and how to 

mitigate them. The program could also benefit from disseminating promising practices more broadly; for 

example, by making available on the AmeriCorps program website a communications toolkit tailored to 

different audiences (districts, school leaders, teachers and school staff, parents, and students).

Despite considerable variability in GPRs, member activity data, and student-level data, the study team 

was able to identify opportunities for enhancing these data for future reporting years and future cohorts, 

potentially for both the School Turnaround AmeriCorps and other education-related CNCS 

programming. In the Year 1 final evaluation report, the study team offered several recommendations for 

improving the collection, reporting, and analysis of administrative data, focused on providing more 

explicit guidance, articulating common reporting procedures, and developing common templates. 

Building on those Year 1 recommendations, the second recommendation is for CNCS to consider an 

alternative approach to the collection and analysis of grantee program administrative data to improve 

measurement of program performance. The approach is summarized in the Conclusion of this report, and 

described in detail in Appendix A.4.

The third recommendation focuses on encouraging greater continuity of members’ service within 

participating schools. While the grant program statute requires terms of service to be no longer than one 

year, some grantee programs enroll members into two consecutive one-year terms, which provides some 

stability and continuity to the program.24 Perhaps CNCS could consider providing explicit 

acknowledgement that two consecutive years of service for members might be a viable option for 

programs (assuming continuity of funding and satisfactory member performance), as having some 

continuity in members’ service might mitigate some persistent and program-wide implementation 

challenges. This recommendation is based on the finding that starting over each year with a new cohort 

of members requires substantial time and energy from programs and schools. One possible alternative 

might be to build in some continuity across school years to help reduce the time lost each fall, by 

staggering members’ service terms so that some members begin in the fall semester and others in the 

spring semester. The study team recognizes that considering such a change might lead programs to 

provide mid-year orientation to new members, although the members already on-site could potentially 

help accelerate the onboarding process for their newly arrived peers. 

 

24 The Citizen Schools organization, for example, asks its AmeriCorps members to commit to a two-year term in 

large measure to provide continuity in staffing from one year to the next.
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SUMMARY OF PERCEIVED IMPACTS OF AMERICORPS SERVICES IN SUPPORTING SCHOOL 

TURNAROUND EFFORTS 

Key findings related to perceived impacts of School Turnaround AmeriCorps services that help to 

support turnaround efforts include these: 25

• The School Turnaround AmeriCorps program is perceived as contributing positively to achieving 

key outcomes, including improving students’ academic achievement and socio-emotional health.

• All grantee programs, a majority of schools, and most principals reported that positive 

relationships between members and students have a positive impact on students’ academic 

engagement and behavior and/or are effective at meeting school turnaround goals. 

• Stakeholders from case study schools noted capacity improvements in several areas: leveraging 

grants and partners to increase the services and opportunities available to students; hiring or 

assigning a dedicated staff member responsible for managing and analyzing student data; and

improvements in teacher professional development systems and practices. Stakeholders in about 

half of program schools reported that AmeriCorps members increased capacity in classrooms.

• Improving student achievement was ranked as the most important student outcome for school 

turnaround efforts in both evaluation years, and most grantee staff reported improvement in 

academic achievement outcomes for students served by the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program in all or most of the partner schools. School leaders also reported the greatest degree of 

improvement in academic achievement, followed by increased motivation and attendance; staff 

perceptions were broadly similar. 

• Stakeholders in program schools consistently characterized members’ assistance as valuable in 

helping their school address turnaround goals, whether there was one or as many as 22 members 

serving within the school; most stakeholders reported that AmeriCorps members positively 

influenced students’ socio-emotional well-being and academic engagement. 

• School leaders, school staff, and parents agreed or strongly agreed that the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program provides value through offering helpful supports, serving as partners in 

improving student outcomes, and providing activities frequently enough to be valuable (see 

Exhibit IS-1). 

• Case study and SIG Exiter school case study findings suggest that School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members helped schools increase their capacity to achieve turnaround goals and 

improve students’ socio-emotional well-being. However, SIG Exiters also reported loss of the 

same resources that had helped them exit SIG status, including School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

services, and commented that these losses would have negative consequences for their schools’ 

continued progress. 

• Not all stakeholders knew about School Turnaround AmeriCorps program goals or which 

students were served, and therefore were not able to offer perceptions about program impact; 

stakeholders’ perceptions of improvement, not surprisingly, reflect their rankings of which 

student outcomes are most important (i.e., the program has contributed to improvement in 

students’ academic achievement). 

 

25 See Chapter III for a more comprehensive discussion of the perceptions of impact summarized here. 
nationalservice.gov xvii 

Exhibit IS-1: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions: Value of School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

Year 1

School Leaders: Strongly Agree Agree

School Staff: Strongly Agree Agree

Parents: Strongly Agree Agree

Year 2

School Leaders (Spring): Strong Agree Agree

School Leaders (Fall): Strongly Agree Agree
nationalservice.gov xviii

Notes: School Leaders Year 1 (N=38, Missing=0). School Leaders Year 2-Fall (N=37, Missing=0). School Leaders Year 

2-Spring (N=40, Missing=1).School Staff Year 1 (N=155-215, Missing=1-5). Parents Year 1 (N=38, Missing=0). School 

Leaders Year 1: Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0-3. School 

Leaders Year 2-Fall: No respondents indicated that this question was not applicable. School Leaders Year 2-Spring: 

Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0-4. Year 1 and 3: Chart excludes 

school leaders who indicated not applicable. School Staff Year 1: Responses limited to school staff restricted who 

worked with at least one student in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Parents Year 1: Number of 

respondents who did not know ranged from 2-3. Responses limited to those familiar with the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program. Exhibit sorted by Year 2-Spring School Leader responses. See Appendix Exhibits C-29, C-49, 

and C-55 for tables with all response options. 

a Question asked of school leaders and school staff only.

b Question asked of school leaders only. 

Source: School Leader Survey Q18 (“Please indicate your level of agreement/disagreement with the following 

statements this school year. (Mark one response in each row.)”). School Staff Survey Q17 (“Please indicate the level of 

agreement/disagreement with the following statements about your school this school year (2014–15). (Mark one 

response in each row.)”). Parent Interview Q10 (“Now I will read several statements about your child’s school. For 

each statement, please tell me whether you strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree, or don’t know.”) 

Exhibit reads: 100% of school leaders in Year 1, 97% of school leaders in Year 2-Fall, 95% of school leaders in Year 2-

Spring, 94% of school staff in Year 1 and 97% of parents in Year 1 agreed or strongly agreed that “School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members provide helpful support to the students in this school.” 

Improved Academic Achievement

“In English, we saw our [end-ofcourse] scores rise significantly; a 

large part is because there is 

another dedicated person that is 

constantly reinforcing what we’re 

teaching. The data is there, we’re 

seeing increas[es] in the number 

of kids who are passing. It only 

happens because all oars are 

rowing in the same direction.”

—Teacher Interview (2016) 

Improved Academic Engagement

“I've had a student come up to me 

and he assists me in some of my 

duties here at the school. And he 

told me once ... ‘If I wasn't helping 

you, like helping me, I'd probably be 

in detention right now.’ So basically 

he's saying, ‘You keep me on 

track.’” 

—Member Interview (2016) Members’ Positive Effects on 

Students 

“Even when she feels bad she 

wants to go to school, so that 

lets me know that they are 

doing something to make her 

want to come back.”

–Parent Interview (2015)
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I. INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides an overview of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, including its theory 

of change, guiding strategies, and defining elements within the context of the Corporation for National 

and Community Service (CNCS) and the U.S. Department of Education partnership. It then describes the 

key study features (goals, design, and sampling) that allow the study to address research questions about 

the program’s implementation and perceived impacts.

School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program Overview

In 2013, CNCS and the Department of Education launched a new grant program, School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps, that supports the placement of a dedicated cadre of AmeriCorps members from the 

Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) in persistently underachieving schools across 

the country. These AmeriCorps members serve in schools implementing school turnaround interventions 

as required by Department of Education’s (ED) School Improvement Grant (SIG) program or as required 

through Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility.

26,27 

The goal of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program is to improve students’ academic performance, 

academic engagement, attendance, high school graduation rates, and college readiness, thereby helping 

to turn around the lowest-achieving schools. Its premise is that AmeriCorps members are particularly 

well suited to help deliver effective turnaround interventions and help achieve the desired student 

outcomes in eligible schools.

The program logic model depicts the core activities of the interventions being implemented by 

AmeriCorps members. It illustrates how those activities are expected to lead to the intended short-term, 

intermediate, and long-term outcomes for the target population (see Exhibit V-2). The logic model also 

contextualizes the program by describing key assumptions that underlie the hypothesized causal 

relationships between program activities and intended outcomes and factors (moderators) that may affect 

the degree to which those activities achieve intended effects. 

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps logic model illustrates how activities funded through the program 

address multiple student needs and align with comprehensive school turnaround plans by incorporating 

one or more of the following six SIG strategies:

1. Provide ongoing mechanisms for family and community engagement. 

2. Establish a school culture and environment that improve school safety, attendance, and discipline 

and address other non-academic factors that affect student achievement, such as students’ socioemotional and health needs. 

3. Accelerate students’ acquisition of reading and math knowledge and skills. 

 

26 School Improvement Grants (SIGs), authorized under Section 1003(g) of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), are “grants to state educational agencies (SEAs) that SEAs use to make 

competitive subgrants to local education agencies (LEAs) that demonstrate the greatest need for the funds and 

the strongest commitment to use the funds to provide adequate resources in order to substantially raise the 

achievement of students in their lowest-performing schools.” Source: 

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/sif/index.html. Accessed Oct. 9, 2014.

27 Priority schools can implement interventions aligned with the provisions provided in the ESEA. Throughout this 

document, all references to SIG-funded schools also include Priority-funded schools.
nationalservice.gov 2 

4. Increase graduation rates through strategies such as early warning systems, credit-recovery 

programs, and re-engagement strategies. 

5. Increase college enrollment rates through college preparation counseling assistance, to include 

completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and college applications, and through 

educating students and their families on financial literacy for college. 

6. Support school implementation of increased learning time. 

The six strategies are aligned with those required of SIG schools implementing one of the four SIG 

turnaround models (Turnaround, Transformation, Restart, or School Closure).28 These strategies are 

based on research on turning around the lowest-achieving schools. 

The program theory of change also recognizes that leveraging community, local education agency (LEA), 

and school-level support systems can be important comprehensive turnaround efforts. As such, the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps funding guidelines encourage grantee programs to partner with 

multiple eligible schools within an LEA and to coordinate turnaround efforts among multiple school 

sites. Implementing the six strategies through a comprehensive and coordinated approach is 

hypothesized to enable programs to take advantage of economies of scale and to aid in changing school, 

LEA, and community cultures.

Study Goals and Research Questions

The study examines the contributions of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members toward the success of 

turnaround models in low-performing schools in which members provided direct services, and it seeks to 

explain the mechanisms underlying those contributions. The goal of the evaluation is to understand how 

AmeriCorps members contributed to schools’ capacity to implement their turnaround models 

successfully and to improve key turnaround outcomes. 

The specific goals of the evaluation are as follows:

• Describe how AmeriCorps members supported school turnaround efforts. 

• Contrast the implementation of school turnaround efforts at School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

sites with implementation at school turnaround sites that were supported by other AmeriCorps 

programs only minimally or not at all. 

• Identify promising practices for the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in supporting 

schools’ ability to implement their turnaround plans and achieve key turnaround outcomes. 

• Identify promising practices and key lessons from the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program 

that could be applied to other education-focused programs at CNCS. 

The study’s guiding research questions are summarized below: 29

1. How do AmeriCorps members help schools implement their turnaround plans and achieve key 

turnaround outcomes? 

a. How do AmeriCorps grantees work with teachers and other school personnel to identify 

and target students with whom their members will engage so that the school is more 

likely to achieve its turnaround goals? 

 

28 As well as the requirements associated with Priority schools under ESEA flexibility. 

29 Based on Year 1 findings, the research questions were slightly modified from Year 1 to Year 2 in order to 

examine specific aspects of implementation in more detail.
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b. What are the specific direct service activities and school-level interventions that 

AmeriCorps members conduct at each school and how are those activities believed to 

support school turnaround? 

c. What are the specific capacity-building strategies that AmeriCorps members contribute 

to each school? 

i. How do school leaders and staff view the role and contributions of AmeriCorps 

members in building the school’s capacity to implement its turnaround effort? 

ii. What are the areas in which schools believe AmeriCorps members have the most 

and least influence over the school’s ability to achieve its turnaround goals, and 

why? 

iii. In what ways, if any, does the presence of AmeriCorps members allow school 

staff or volunteers to modify their activities in ways that might benefit students? 

d. Do the specific activities that AmeriCorps members conducted change over the course of 

the grant period? To what extent do grantees use data to inform continuous 

improvement efforts to meet changing needs and improve their interventions? 

e. How are School Turnaround AmeriCorps activities similar to or different from activities 

provided by other partners in SIG/Priority schools?

2. Which aspects of grantee-school partnerships appear to be the most promising practices in terms 

of involvement and satisfaction of the school leadership and the participating AmeriCorps 

members? 

a. How have written partnerships agreements changed, if at all, over the course of the grant 

period?

b. What improvements could be made to written partnership agreements and how they are 

used to improve desired outcomes for schools and for students? 

c. What lessons from the School Turnaround AmeriCorps partnership could be applied to 

other education-focused programs in CNCS’s portfolio?

3. Are AmeriCorps members perceived by school leaders and other stakeholders to be more vital in 

supporting certain SIG/Priority strategies than others? Which activities pursued by AmeriCorps 

members are perceived as being more or less helpful in supporting schools’ turnaround efforts 

with respect to the following outcomes, and why? 

a. Overall success in school turnaround. 

b. Academic achievement. 

c. Students’ socio-emotional health. 

d. School climate. 

e. School capacity to implement its turnaround effort. 

4. For School Turnaround AmeriCorps schools that have exited SIG/Priority status since the 

beginning of the grant period, what strategies have they used to improve? 

a. What strategies do school leaders and other stakeholders perceive as being most helpful? 

b. To what extent do school leaders and other stakeholders attribute improvement to the 

contributions of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program? 
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Study Design, Study Sample, Methods, and Limitations

Study Design, Sample, and Methods

To answer both the broad and more specific questions, the research design for Years 1 and 2 of the 

national evaluation of School Turnaround AmeriCorps uses a mixed-methods design. The study design 

emphasizes primary data collection from diverse stakeholder groups, including comparative case studies 

and surveys of grantee staff and school leaders, to examine implementation and perceptions from 

multiple perspectives. These primary data are supplemented by administrative data on grantee program 

performance and member activities. 

One condition of receiving School Turnaround AmeriCorps grant funding was that grantee programs 

participate in the national evaluation, and therefore all 13 funded programs are represented in the 

findings. Most of their host schools were included in the evaluation, with the exception of one large 

program for which only a representative sample of schools was included during Year 1.

30 In Year 1, 57 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps schools met the eligibility criteria to be included in the sample; in Year 2, 

54 schools did.

31

As shown in Exhibit I-1, school year 2013–14 was the first program year for School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps grantee programs implementing the intervention. School year 2014–15 was the second 

program year, and 2015–16 the third program year. For the evaluation, the 2013–14 school year served as 

a design year, during which the study team developed the evaluation design, developed and pilot-tested

the data collection instruments, and prepared the clearance package for the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB). The two-year national evaluation spanned the 2014–15 and 2015–16 school years. 

Exhibit I-1: Program Implementation and Evaluation Timelines 

School Year 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16

Program implementation n/a First year Second year Third year

Program evaluation Baseline data Evaluation design Year 1 Year 2

The evaluation was designed to examine program implementation from multiple stakeholders’ 

perspectives through primary data collection, including surveys, comparative case studies, semistructured interviews, and focus groups with grantee staff, AmeriCorps members, school leaders, school 

staff, and parents/guardians of students who received AmeriCorps services. The study purposefully 

excluded data collection from students, so as not to detract from their instructional time. Taken together, 

these data allow the study to describe implementation in detail.

Administrative data collection included mid-year and annual grantee progress reports to CNCS and 

performance measurement data, member activity data, and other outcomes data (e.g., achievement 

 

30 The Teach For America (TFA) intervention provides schools with AmeriCorps members who have been trained 

as teachers for school classrooms, in contrast to other School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantee programs whose 

members provide services, such as tutoring and mentoring, to support student engagement and academic 

achievement but do not teach. Because of TFA’s distinctive intervention and its relatively large number of school 

partners in Year 1, only a representative sample of TFA schools was included in the evaluation. In Year 2, five of 

six TFA schools were included. 

31 This number excludes schools newly added to the 2015–16 cohort, as it was likely that the experiences of schools 

just starting the intervention would be qualitatively different from those of schools in the cohort that had already 

completed one year of program implementation. Several schools that were new to the 2014–15 cohort and were 

not included in the Year 1 evaluation were added to the Year 2 evaluation, and several Year 1 schools that 

stopped participating were dropped from it.
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scores, attendance and behavior records) obtained from grantee programs.32 These data allow the study 

to describe programs’ capacity for data collection and performance measurement. 

The case study approach attempts to understand how services from School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members contributed to schools’ turnaround efforts. It also incorporates in-depth comparisons of 

turnaround implementation in SIG schools with support from members (program schools / treatment 

group) versus a similar group of low-performing schools without support from members (comparison

schools / comparison group). All program schools relied on School Turnaround AmeriCorps members to 

help achieve turnaround goals, whereas the comparison schools relied on other partners and/or school 

staff.

The case studies consist of 12 matched pairs of SIG schools, each pair comprising one program school and 

one comparison school, plus five case studies of single schools. These five consist of one program school 

replacement case study and four “SIG Exiter” case studies of schools that exited SIG status with the help 

of School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs. The purpose of the SIG Exiter case studies is to identify the 

major strategies school leaders and teachers perceived as supporting their school’s success in exiting SIG 

status, including the role of AmeriCorps members in implementing each strategy. 

Six of the 12 paired comparative case studies, representing six grantee programs, were conducted in Year 

1. Six of the 12 paired comparative case studies, representing another six grantee programs, were 

conducted in Year 2, as was follow-up data collection from five of the Year 1 pairs. The five individual 

case studies were all conducted in Year 2. The Year 1/Year 2 follow-up case studies cover the 2014–15 and 

(follow-up) 2015–16 school years; the Year 2 case studies cover only the 2015–16 school year.

The 12 comparison schools were matched to program schools on key characteristics (i.e., state, grade 

level, urbanicity) and were from the same LEAs, wherever possible. Among other criteria, potentially 

eligible comparison schools were selected on the basis of being a SIG-funded school and having no or 

minimal AmeriCorps presence.

Matched pairs of one program school staff member and one comparison school staff member participated 

in either site visits or telephone interviews to provide additional context. The study team also drew from 

existing data sources to learn about each case study school’s SIG status, history, and student population. 

Case study data were collected through one-on-one telephone or in-person interviews with principals 

and teachers; site visits also included focus groups with teachers and a structured observation protocol of 

the school environment in program and matched comparison schools. The team collected additional data 

from program schools in the pairs, including interviews and focus groups with AmeriCorps members

and parents. For the SIG Exiter case studies, the team conducted interviews with principals and selected 

teachers. For the replacement program school case study, interviews were conducted with the principal, 

teachers, members, and parents. 

The evaluation integrates findings from the varied data collection strategies and their corresponding 

analytic approaches to describe the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program comprehensively,

synthesize the findings, and contextualize them appropriately.

 32 Because of the variability and poor quality of student-level data collected from grantee programs in Year 1, and 

the difficulty in interpreting data analyses that do not include a comparison group, no student-level data were 

collected in Year 2.
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Limitations

Survey Data 

The study team administered surveys to grantee staff and to school principals and instructional staff, 

achieving different response rates for each respondent group for each year. 

All 13 grantee programs responded to the Grantee survey in Year 1 and in Year 2. The response rates for 

the School Leaders survey were 68 percent in Year 1, 66 percent in Fall Year 2, and 74 percent in Spring 

Year 2, which suggest reasonable confidence that survey responses can characterize the perspectives of 

leaders at the participating schools. The Staff survey of instructional staff and counselors was 

administered only in Year 1. Its response rate was 40 percent, which suggests that those responses are less 

likely to be representative of all staff in the study schools. The study team applied statistical adjustments 

for nonresponse for all the school leader and school staff surveys (see Appendix A.1 for more detail). 

All survey findings presented in this report are based on surveys of personnel whose organizations 

(grantee programs or schools) participated in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program and are 

descriptive only of participants; it is not possible to determine whether and how their experiences may 

have differed from those of personnel at similar nonparticipating organizations.

Qualitative Data

Qualitative data sources present some limitations in terms of their content, sampling methods, and 

analysis over time. In terms of content, interview responses may be incomplete, as not all respondents 

had equally comprehensive insights about the full range of activities. Similarly, although interviews 

followed a semi-structured protocol, not all respondents necessarily answered questions 

comprehensively or with the same level of detail. As a result, individual interview responses reported 

here likely represent lower-bound estimates for the reported themes. 

Focus group data should be interpreted with the caveat that participants may have influenced one 

another. Further, while focus group discussions with the same type of stakeholder (e.g., teachers, 

members) used the same protocol, the discussions in each group unfolded in different ways based on the 

composition of the group and perspectives of the participants. 

Grantee progress reports required grantee staff to provide explanations when they did not meet their 

targets, yet no such requirement was in place when they met or exceeded their targets. This limits the 

usefulness of reports for understanding what strategies or circumstances contributed to a program’s 

success. Not all grantee staff reported on all (or the same) set of performance measures, and when they 

did track the same performance measure, they usually had different instruments and different targets for 

improvement. Such variability in reporting on possible performance measures leads to considerable 

variability in the number of grantee programs for any individual performance measure, and also means 

trends across programs are difficult or impossible to describe because the sample sizes are too small for 

any individual (shared) measure.

When seeking school staff and parent participants for interviews, the study team requested referrals from 

principals for individuals who had some knowledge of and/or experience with the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program. This process helped identify interview participants who could meaningfully 

answer questions about the program, although principals may have chosen teachers or parents whose 

perspectives did not necessarily represent the experiences of all other teachers in the school or families. 

However, because the study team heard such varied feedback from these stakeholders (from teachers in 

particular), there seemed to be no systematic bias in teachers’ responses either overly favorable or overly 

critical of the program or of turnaround initiatives at comparison schools. 
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The main limitation of this case study research is sample size. The study team triangulated information 

from at least three stakeholders within each school, yet such a small sample may not represent that 

school’s full range of experiences or opinions. The team designed the comparative case studies to offer 

breadth across the School Turnaround AmeriCorps portfolio rather than breadth across more 

stakeholders within each case study school. The findings are not representative of the sample of 

continuing program schools or the larger universe of SIG-funded schools and so should be interpreted 

with caution.

In terms of analysis, when data sources across years are comparable, the study team compared findings 

across the 2014–15 and 2015–16 school years. However, in cases when data are not directly comparable—

such as the different samples of schools in Year 1 and Year 2—the study cannot describe changes within 

specific schools from one year to the next. The Year 1 case study schools are an exception, as follow-up 

data were collected from a subset of those schools in Year 2. The team has assessed change over time 

based on both quantitative changes in the frequency of themes and a qualitative assessment of changes in 

the intensity or quality of a theme across the full body of sources. 

Administrative Data

The member activity data have several noteworthy limitations. First, the 2015–16 data were collected 

from grantee programs in May 2016, so the figures do not account for any changes that may have 

occurred in the last few weeks of the academic year or over the summer.33 Consequently, comparisons 

between the two school years should be made with caution. Second, grantee staff varied in their ability to 

report member, service hour, and student counts using specified activity categories because they differed 

from the activity categories some programs used to track member activities for internal purposes. This 

limited the study team’s capacity to analyze counts of service hours and students served by program, 

school, and service type. 

Lessons Learned about the Evaluation Design, Recruitment, and Data Collection

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps national evaluation yielded multiple interrelated insights about the 

program; it also generated a number of useful lessons about the evaluation itself. Based on lessons about 

program design and operations and about the practical realities of primary data collection in dynamic 

contexts, the study team adapted the evaluation from Year 1 to Year 2 in the following areas, each of 

which is described in more detail below: 

• Evaluation design to address unanticipated difficulties in forming a valid comparison group. 

• Research questions to enable the Year 2 evaluation to build on findings from Year 1. 

• Data collection instruments and incentive structure to better align the instruments with the modified 

design and research questions and increase incentives to help ensure more successful comparison 

school recruitment and improve data collection response rates. 

• Collection and analysis of administrative data to improve the consistency and completeness of 

administrative data collected and reported by grantee staff. 

 

33 Several of the grantee programs provide substantial services over the summer.
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Evaluation Design 

During the first year of the program (2013–14), the School Turnaround AmeriCorps evaluation focused 

on developing the research questions and an appropriate, credible, and feasible design of an impact and 

implementation study for the national evaluation. Because of the small sample size and the estimated low 

analytic power of an impact study, the initial design year resulted in considering—and rejecting—a 

research design that would measure impacts. CNCS instead opted for a quasi-experimental design

focused on examining program implementation by comparing implementation of turnaround models in 

SIG schools with AmeriCorps members versus a matched comparison group of schools with little or no 

AmeriCorps presence. 

During Year 1 of the evaluation, however, the study team encountered a significant methodological 

challenge in its efforts to form a comparison group needed to implement this design. During recruitment, 

the team gained a better understanding of the broader comparison condition—specifically, the limited 

pool of potential comparison schools available for the evaluation, and further, the dynamic and fluid 

nature of schools’ reliance on external partners, including other AmeriCorps programs that were not part 

of School Turnaround AmeriCorps. These conditions threatened the study’s internal validity, both 

because there was insufficient contrast between treatment and comparison schools and because the 

comparison group was too small to yield sufficient statistical power to detect meaningful differences 

between AmeriCorps schools and comparison schools. 

To address this challenge, CNCS and Abt Associates changed the research design midway through Year 

1, from a quasi-experimental design to a comparative case study design. That latter design would enable 

descriptive and qualitative analyses of the value-added of School Turnaround AmeriCorps by comparing 

implementation progress and efforts to improve school climate and achieve turnaround goals in a 

purposively selected sample of matched pairs of AmeriCorps and comparison schools. 

Research Questions

Based on the findings from Year 1, the research questions were adjusted and expanded in Year 2 to probe 

further specific aspects of implementation, including the use of partnership agreements as a planning and 

accountability tool and describing strategies used by programs in schools that have exited SIG status 

since the beginning of the grant period. The Year 2 evaluation also emphasized comparing the strengths 

and challenges that School Turnaround AmeriCorps program schools had experienced over time and 

across the different strategies and partnerships. 

Also in response to the evaluation’s findings, CNCS strengthened and clarified its guidance given to 

applicants for the 2016-17 grant application process. CNCS updated its guidance on partnership 

agreements to add the expectations that programs would update the written partnership agreement 

annually and would describe how their activities align with schools’ turnaround plans and how they will 

collaborate with school partners throughout the grant period. 

Recruitment, Data Collection, and Incentives 

The lessons about recruitment and data collection in highly fluid school contexts are many. First, because 

schools and districts (and grantee programs) are dynamic organizations, priorities and needs can change, 

which directly affects the number of AmeriCorps members on site. Changes in numbers of member 

placements and schools’ eligibility status are not necessarily communicated quickly to CNCS, and 

therefore are not shared with study contractors either; however, providing real-time updates was not an 

expectation of the grant.

Another overarching lesson is that sufficient time for planning, recruitment, and data collection is 

essential. There are simply so many demands on districts/schools (and their employees) that externally 
nationalservice.gov 9 

commissioned evaluations are low on their priority lists, which is reflected in the length of time required 

to obtain Institutional Review Board approvals, to recruit school and individual study participants, and 

to schedule and complete data collection within the school year calendar, with its multiple testing, 

vacation, and other scheduling constraints. The sooner an evaluation can begin to plan outreach, 

recruitment, and data collection the better its success in studying school-based programs. A related third 

lesson is that the importance of a given study can be conveyed through both well-timed communications 

from sponsoring agencies and the use of incentives. 

In response to these challenges, the Year 2 evaluation contract began in the summer, rather than the start 

of the school year, to facilitate earlier communications with school districts to request continued and new 

approval for data collection activities in program and comparison schools, as well as to secure 

agreements for data collection from comparison schools once district approvals were obtained. Also at 

the beginning of Year 2, the study team assisted CNCS in requesting OMB approval to modify the 

incentive structure to improve school recruitment and response rates. Year 1 response rates were fairly 

low for some groups (teachers and members, as noted above), and many comparison schools declined to 

participate in data collection activities. Thus, the study team recommended increasing incentives for 

comparison schools, adding incentives for SIG Exiters (since they may no longer have members), and

modestly increasing incentives for principals, teachers, and AmeriCorps members in order to recruit 

schools and districts, encourage study participation, and increase response rates to data collection 

activities. 

Administrative Data Collection

In Year 1, the School Turnaround AmeriCorps study attempted to collect from grantee staff student-level 

administrative data on academic achievement, as well as attendance and behavior data. The study team 

assessed and found the data, on the whole, incomplete and unusable for performing portfolio-level data 

analyses. As a result of these findings, CNCS discontinued the collection of student-level data in Year 2. 

The study team continued to collect other types of administrative data (performance measures data in 

grantee progress reports, member activity data) and worked with programs to improve the consistency 

and completeness in reporting these data in Year 2. 

Organization of This Document

Chapter II, Program Implementation Findings, describes school contexts and program operations, the 

types and structures of service activities AmeriCorps 

members delivered in schools, members’ roles in supporting 

schools, and how implementation was perceived across 

stakeholders, in terms of both accomplishments and 

challenges. Chapter II also summarizes the study’s findings 

and observations about using administrative data to 

evaluate education-focused AmeriCorps programs, as well 

as the findings across all 17 case studies, which are also 

discussed in the next two chapters. 

Summary Sections

Executive Summary—Brief overview 

of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program and the national evaluation, 

summarizing the methods used and 

limitations of results reported and 

highlighting key findings. 

Impact Summary—High-level 

summary of the perceived impacts of 

AmeriCorps services in supporting 

schools’ turnaround efforts.

Chapter III, Perceived Impacts, presents detailed findings 

and accompanying exhibits on the perceived impacts of 

AmeriCorps members’ service in turnaround schools. 

Chapter IV, Partnership Findings, describes partnership structures, stakeholders’ perceptions of grantee

programs’ relationships with their school partners, including communication and collaboration practices, 

and common challenges with partnerships. 
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Chapter V, Conclusion, summarizes lessons learned about intervention effectiveness, promising 

practices, and changes over time. It concludes with implications for the program’s theory of change and 

suggestions for program improvement. References are provided in Chapter VI.

In a separate document, the Technical Appendixes include the sampling, data collection, and analysis 

methodologies; supplemental case study material for the 17 individual case studies; survey data tables;

supplemental exhibits; and the data collection instruments. 
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II. PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION FINDINGS

Summary of Implementation Findings over Time

This chapter summarizes implementation findings over time based on grantee progress report (GPR) data 

covering the first and second year of program implementation (2013–14, 2014–15), as well as on member 

activity data and primary data collected for the second and third years of implementation (2014–15, 2015–

16; evaluation Years 1 and 2). 

Findings about program size and scope indicate the number of schools, members placed, and students

served continued to vary, while program size decreased, in the third implementation year:

• Grantee programs varied significantly in size and scope, from 1 to 11 schools, 13 to 95 members

serving, and 248 to 2,437 students served, in 2014–15. Between 2014–15 and 2015–16, the number 

of schools hosting School Turnaround AmeriCorps members decreased (from 68 to 60 schools), 

resulting in reductions from 394 members to 325 and 13,404 students served to 9,544.34,35 In 2015–

16, grantee programs placed between 6 and 91 members who served between 242 and 1,663

students. 

• Across both years, schools, too, varied considerably, in the number and proportion of their 

students served by the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, as well as in caseloads for 

members. On average, grantee programs reported 25 students received services for every 

AmeriCorps member in Year 2, slightly lower than the 28 students reported in Year 1. 

Stakeholder Views

Findings related to program implementation challenges indicate member enrollment and retention

challenges persisted. They suggest that in general, grantee programs have not established realistic 

performance measure targets:

• School Turnaround AmeriCorps member enrollment and retention are key indicators of a grantee 

program’s performance, and failure to meet member enrollment or retention targets can 

correspondingly limit a program’s capacity to meet other performance measure goals.

• Challenges with member enrollment and retention were serious issues for grantee programs in 

2013–14 and remained so in 2014–15. Notably, programs in rural areas had limited success in 

 

34 The comparison in total members serving and students served across years excludes grantee program #6 because 

grantee program #6 reported members serving and students served in 2015–16 but not in 2014–15. Including 

grantee program #6, grantee programs in 2015–16 had 389 members serving and served 11,001 students.

35 Several reasons explain discrepancies between counts of members serving in School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

schools reported in GPRs versus the counts in member activity data collection administered by the study team. 

The primary reason is different time points in reporting member enrollment figures, which reflected 

idiosyncratic fluctuations in member enrollment and retention, early member exits from the program, and 

grantees’ responses to fill vacant slots throughout the program year. In addition, one grantee program 

experienced challenges in member activity tracking at the school level. A third reason for the discrepancies is 

differences in the eligibility criteria for program schools to participate in the evaluation. Per the Evaluation 

Design Plan, the study team requested and grantee programs reported counts of members serving only at those 

schools that participated in the program for at least one year prior to their participation in the evaluation (this 

eligibility criterion applied to both years of the evaluation). In at least one case, the program reported in its GPR, 

but not in its member activity data, additional members serving in newly approved schools that were ineligible 

to participate in the current year of the evaluation.
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overcoming structural barriers associated with their rural locations, such as limited 

transportation options and the opportunity cost of taking a stipended service position over fulltime work.

• The majority of program targets remained the same from 2013–14 to 2014–15, and half of the 

targets that were not met in 2013–14 were set again in 2014–15. Detailed examination of these 

unmet and subsequently unadjusted targets suggests that a number of these were overly 

optimistic.

Findings about members’ roles and preparing and training them to support schools include these: 

• Grantee programs reported providing more tailored pre-training to members in Year 2 than in 

Year 1. Topics included their school’s community and demographics, culturally responsive 

education (e.g., focused on students’ ethnic or immigration histories and school-specific 

contexts), and relationship building. 

• Grantee programs in Year 2 continued to provide training on how members should carry out 

their roles in the school, with increased attention to ensuring that members understood the 

reality of school contexts before they were placed in schools, as well as providing training to the 

administration and staff about how to use School Turnaround AmeriCorps members 

appropriately in their school. 

Survey data indicate that teacher referrals were the most common mechanism for identifying students 

for services in both years; these data also indicate a somewhat stronger emphasis in Year 2 on use of data 

for targeting students in need of additional academic or behavioral support services:

• Grantee staff reported teacher recommendations and grades as the primary mechanisms for 

identifying students for School Turnaround AmeriCorps services in both years, with 

standardized test scores replacing counselor recommendations in Year 2. Year 2 case studies with 

a subsample of schools also indicated them using student performance data to identify students 

for services. 

Findings related to program activities and service delivery indicate that grantee programs provided the 

same types and a similar mix of services and activities in the second and third years of implementation:

• Grantee programs appear to cluster into three groups depending on how many of the 11 types of 

services they offered in a program school: all or almost all, between 2 and 5, or only 1 (see 

Appendix Exhibit D-1). Tutoring was the most common service activity, offered by 

approximately four-fifths of program schools, nearly twice as many schools as any other type of 

service.

• Within schools offering multiple services, all or nearly all School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members participated in each of the activities, suggesting that members did not generally 

specialize in one particular activity.

• Not surprisingly, some services were more commonly provided in small groups or one-on-one 

settings (e.g., tutoring, mentorship, attendance coaching), whereas others were offered more 

frequently in large-group settings (e.g., community engagement, college readiness).

Overall, findings related to understanding members’ roles suggest that many programs used on-site 

coordinators to make the program run more smoothly in the host schools, as well as member integration 

with school operations and regular collaboration with teachers. 
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• Most interviewed principals reported that members were integrated in their school’s staff, while 

grantee staff and principals continued to regard the role of on-site coordinator as crucial for 

supporting members and communication among grantee programs, school leaders, teachers, and 

members. 

• Across both years, programs consistently reported that School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members met with school staff to review students’ progress monthly or more often.

• Member roles appear to be somewhat more clearly understood by principals in Year 2. 

Findings from the case study data suggest several patterns in how program schools used AmeriCorps 

members to support their turnaround efforts, and these patterns are quite similar to the SIG strategies 

that school leaders ranked as being most influenced by School Turnaround AmeriCorps members: 

• The two most prevalent turnaround strategies among both program and comparison case study 

schools are using data to drive interventions and investing in teacher professional development 

including training in implementing specific curriculum to meet turnaround goals. 

• Substantially more program schools reported providing socio-emotional learning supports and 

targeted and individualized academic support to struggling students than did the comparison 

schools. 

• Other turnaround strategies reported more frequently by program schools than comparison 

schools included member-teacher collaboration and classroom supports; on-site coordinators to 

support members and facilitate communication; and flexibility in meeting schools’ needs. 

• In both years and across the three administrations of the School Leader survey, school leaders 

ranked academic achievement, school culture and environment, and increased learning time as 

the three strategies most influenced by AmeriCorps members.

Tentative findings that emerged from the four SIG Exiter case studies suggest that the schools that 

successfully improved on their turnaround goals embraced their partnership with School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps, and that they viewed its members as one among a combination of factors that helped them 

to successfully exit SIG status:

• Stakeholders in all four schools viewed strong leadership from the principal as a critical factor in 

their school’s ability to exit SIG status, and they described multiple ways that school leaders 

influenced their school’s turnaround. Examples included changing the school culture, supporting 

and empowering teachers to implement turnaround strategies, and facilitating communication 

and clarifying expectations between the school and grantee program.

• Having School Turnaround AmeriCorps members provide socio-emotional support for students 

was an improvement strategy employed by all four schools, which stakeholders described as 

helping to attend to students’ socio-emotional needs, overcome barriers to learning, and improve 

their ability and motivation to succeed in school.

• All four schools were characterized as open to using School Turnaround AmeriCorps members 

and reported that fully integrating them into the school staff was important in successfully 

achieving student- and school-level outcomes. Three schools also mentioned the importance of 

member flexibility, particularly in terms of spending additional time with students and school 

staff beyond the formal intervention.

• Three schools indicated that implementing a targeted curriculum, in math or literacy, for 

example, was an effective strategy in successfully exiting SIG status.
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• All four schools reported using data to measure how their school was performing, specifically to 

help guide goal setting, interventions, and matching members and students.

• All four schools also mentioned the importance of having sufficient resources for successfully 

exiting SIG status, and three schools reported that local support (through their school board, 

district, or parents) played a big role. Conversely, stakeholders from three SIG Exiter schools

described experiencing a detrimental decline in resources upon exiting SIG status; two of the 

schools lost resources that included their School Turnaround AmeriCorps members.

Key findings related to challenges in program implementation suggest that program start-up and grant 

administration issues decreased over time, whereas the factors intrinsic to the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps model persisted, simultaneously representing program strengths and challenges:

• Grantee programs faced an initial learning curve, but their initial start-up challenges with setting 

up their new program’s operations and administering their grant abated toward the end of the 

second year of implementation and further diminished in the third.

• Program schools primarily reported implementation challenges with defining members’ roles, 

members’ need for additional training on site, their uneven quality and preparation, and 

inconsistent AmeriCorps presence in the school. These tensions in the AmeriCorps model 

persisted in the second and third years of implementation. 

• By the end of the second implementation year, the primary challenges for grantee programs were 

member enrollment and retention, structural issues specific to the AmeriCorps model (the 

amount of the stipend, opportunity cost of forgoing full-time or permanent work), and 

(continuing) issues around accessing student data.

Performance Data and Student-Level Data

The key findings from analyses of GPR data covering a School Turnaround AmeriCorps program’s first 

and second year performance and student-level data collected in its second year are not always consistent 

with stakeholders’ views collected during the program’s second and third years of implementation. The 

performance data suggest more limited success:

• More grantee programs met all or most of their 2014–15 output and outcome performance 

measure targets (6 of 13 programs) than met their 2013–14 targets (4 of 13).

• In 2014–15, of grantee programs reporting on improved academic engagement (Performance 

Measure ED27), four of seven met or exceeded their targets, while a fifth program approached its 

target. 

• In 2014–15, of grantee programs reporting on improved academic performance (Performance 

Measure ED5), 3 of 10 met their targets. 

Programs did not meet their targets for a variety of reasons, including lower-than-expected member 

enrollment, retention issues, barriers at the school level, and problems accessing student assessment data.

• Student-level data, including 2013–14 academic achievement, attendance, and/or behavior 

outcomes, were collected from all grantee programs (except for one) during evaluation Year 1 but 

not during evaluation Year 2. 

• Three programs provided 2013–14 data that represented all of their partner schools and that had 

a low level of missing data. Meaningful cross-grantee program data analyses could not be 

performed.
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Grantee Program Characteristics and Partner School Contexts and Demographics

School Turnaround AmeriCorps is one component of each 

host school’s broader school turnaround plan. Each host 

school had different student compositions, resources, and 

turnaround goals, which determined how a school deployed

members and the services it provided to support its 

turnaround efforts. 

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for This Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 47 

principal interviews, 50 parent 

interviews, 17 program school 

case studies)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

Grantee survey and 

interviews) 

This section discusses the characteristics and contexts of the 

grantee programs and partner schools to address the 

evaluation’s research objective of understanding how local 

context affects program implementation and identifying 

promising practices in supporting schools’ ability to implement their turnaround plans. The section 

describes findings from Grantee surveys and interviews with grantee staff, as well as interviews with 

principals in a sample of 25 schools in Year 1 and 17 case studies of program schools across the two years 

of the evaluation (see textbox). 

Grantee Program Characteristics

Of the 13 grantee programs in both years, 11 are single-state programs and 2 are multi-state programs.36

Most served multiple schools (ranging from 1 to 11 schools); 10 served high schools, 9 served elementary 

schools, and 5 served middle schools in Year 2, but 9 served middle schools in Year 1. Of the 13 

programs, 6 were new to AmeriCorps, and 7 were experienced AmeriCorps grantees when School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps began in 2013. 

Partner School Contexts and Demographics

Almost all of the SIG partner schools (more than 90 percent in both years) were implementing the 

Transformation or Turnaround model. On average, the partner schools had an enrollment of 518 students 

in Year 1 and 580 students in Year 2 in grades targeted by the AmeriCorps program. A large majority of 

these students (85 percent) were eligible for Free and Reduced-Price Lunch (FRPL). Almost all 

interviewed school staff reported serving economically disadvantaged student populations. Principals 

specifically mentioned the high proportion of FRPL-eligible students, or they described the majority of 

their students as economically disadvantaged without specifically referencing the proportion of students 

eligible. (Case study school demographics are shown in Exhibit II-12). 

About half of schools reported having large minority student populations. Substantial proportions of 

students in these schools also required additional academic support. A minority of schools specifically 

discussed the needs of English learners, reflecting large immigrant or refugee populations in their 

respective districts. In this group of schools, English learner students comprise anywhere from about 10 

percent to about 50 percent of the student population, placing varying levels of demands on each school’s 

instructional and financial resources. A minority of principals specifically mentioned their population of 

students with disabilities, which ranged from 6 to 25 percent of the student body. Some case study 

schools reported highly transient or homeless student populations, and a few schools classified 

themselves as alternative high schools serving teens aged 17 to 21, one of which serves pregnant and 

parenting young women. 

 

36 There are 12 grantees, one of which works with two subgrantees to operate two different School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps programs. 
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Across both years of the evaluation, most grantee programs and some schools reported high levels of 

turnover in school staff. Sometimes this was part of a turnaround plan to bring in new leadership and 

mostly new teaching staff. Other times, the turnover was due to morale and retention challenges. For 

example, one case study school reported having four principals in five years. Another case study school 

reported teacher turnover as high as 30 percent per year. Principal turnover was a persistent challenge for 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantee staff because it disrupted the implementation and efficacy of 

their programs (discussed in the Partnership Challenges section of the Partnership Findings chapter). 

Member Recruitment, Retention, and Management

This section summarizes findings about member recruitment, enrollment, and retention, including 

challenges with these issues and changes in them over time. 

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for this Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 47 

principal interviews, 50 parent 

interviews, 17 program school 

case studies)

• Grantee programs (n=13: 

grantee interviews, GPRs, 

member activity data) 

Member Recruitment 

Recruitment (and retention) of qualified School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members was a prominent theme discussed by 

grantee staff in Years 1 and 2. When recruiting members to 

serve in schools, grantee programs appear to have balanced 

two primary considerations—the size and individual needs 

of a school and the skill sets of recruited members. A 

minority of grantee staff explained that they scaled the 

number of members placed in schools by the size and needs 

of individual schools, and in one case, by teachers’ needs. 

A minority of grantee staff also noted having either surveyed or ascertained members’ skill sets prior to 

matching them to their student caseloads. One grantee staff explained that ideally this process leads to a 

diverse team of members with varying strengths, “making sure that each team has someone that is strong 

in math, someone that is strong in English, someone that has done youth development in the past.”

Member Enrollment and Retention and Grantee Program Performance

Member enrollment and retention are of paramount importance for understanding grantee programs’ 

performance. Member enrollment targets affect how programs set other performance measure targets 

because the number of members in a cohort determines how many students the program can serve in a 

given year. For example, if a program estimates it can recruit and place 30 members, it may set a target to 

serve 900 students (Performance Measure ED1), assuming 

each member can work with a caseload of 30 students. 

Associated performance measures, such as improved 

academic performance in literacy and/or math (ED5), are 

relative to the number of students served because they are 

derived in part from the number of members serving. 

Therefore, a shortfall in member enrollment or serious 

problems with retention may have a cascading effect on a 

program’s capacity to meet other performance measure goals 

(see textbox).

Member Enrollment Affects Ability 

to Reach Performance Targets

“Without 100% enrollment the 

program is unable to reach the 

number of students originally 

targeted.”

–Grantee #11 (2014–15 GPR)

37

 

37 However, a grantee program’s ability to meet its performance measure goals is not entirely dependent on 

meeting its member enrollment and retention targets. Grantees make assumptions not based on member cohort 

size (such as the number of eligible students in a school) that may allow them to serve more students than 

expected rather than fewer, helping grantees sometimes exceed their targets. For example, a grantee may set a 
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Member Enrollment and Retention Challenges

Challenges regarding enrollment and retention are intertwined. Grantees that have difficulty attracting 

applicants to fill all of their AmeriCorps member slots also tend to have difficulty retaining members 

through the end of the school year, for many of the same reasons.

Some grantee staff reported challenges due to members leaving for other opportunities; most of these 

reported that members sought higher-paying positions. Other reasons reported in the GPRs for underfilled member positions include these: partner schools not being able to accommodate all the member 

slots available or the grantee program adding additional schools to its grant; school closures and limits on 

the number of members who could be placed in remaining schools; and insufficient communication to 

applicants during application and enrollment about the nature of working in an urban school 

environment (grantee program #10, grantee program #2, grantee program #4). Several other programs 

reported structural barriers associated with their rural locations (grantee program #8, grantee program #7, 

grantee program #6), including limited transportation options and the discrepancy between the cost of 

transportation and the living stipend, presented challenges. 

The enrollment and retention challenges that grantee staff reported were echoed in interviews with 

school staff. For example, several schools requested more members in order to more effectively 

implement their program, while several others reported that not all of the members placed were a good 

fit for the role. 

Member Enrollment and Retention Trends over Time

Challenges with member enrollment and retention were serious issues for grantee programs in 2013–14 

and remained so in 2014–15. Of 13 grantee staff interviewed, 7 reported challenges with enrollment and 

10 with retention. Exhibit II-1 shows enrollment and retention rates reported by staff in their 2013–14 and 

2014–15 GPRs. While 2014–15 data suggest modest improvements, enrollment and retention continued to 

be challenging. For example, five programs met or exceeded enrollment targets in 2014–15; of them, four 

had met or exceeded targets in the prior year, and one had met targets in 2014–15 but not the prior year. 

Eight programs had not met enrollment targets, of which four were new programs. One program

dramatically improved its enrollment (from 27 percent to 95 percent), while two others achieved 90 

percent or more of their enrollment targets in the second year. Exhibit II-2 shows this general upward 

trend graphically. It is also clear from the graph that three programs struggled with enrollment in 2013–

14 and 2014–15 (grantee program #2, grantee program #7, grantee program #6).

 

target assuming there are 200 students at one of its partner schools, but the true figure may be closer to 250 

students. If the grantee enrolls five AmeriCorps members from their eight slots but still provides services to all 

students in the school, they would exceed their performance measure goals if each member provided services to 

a larger group of students (50 students per member rather than 25, in this example).
nationalservice.gov 18

Exhibit II-1: School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Enrollment and Retention Rates in 2013–14 

and 2014–15

Grantee Program

2013–14

Enrollment 

Rate

2014–15

Enrollment 

Rate

2013–14

Retention 

Rate

2014–15

Retention 

Ratea

Grantee program #3 119% 88% 84% 79%

Grantee program #9 118% 103% 60% 80%

Grantee program #1 101% 102% 95% 95%

Grantee program #8 100% 107% 88% 86%

Grantee program #5 100% 117% 88% 79%

Grantee program #11 92% 94% 89% 78%

Grantee program #13 92% 83% 86% 60%

Grantee program #12 85% 100% 88% 90%

Grantee program #10 81% 90% 88% 94%

Grantee program #2 74% 54% 98% 95%

Grantee program #7 48% 43% 33% 39%

Grantee program #6 39% 38% 70% 74%

Grantee program #4 27% 95% 88% 85%

Notes:

a Retention rates are based on the number of members, not the Member Service Years (MSY). Attrition would be 

expected to have a greater or lesser effect on a program depending on the composition of its cohort overall and the 

type of members (full-, part-, or minimum-time) who leave. For example, if a program with 10 members lost 1 

member, its retention rate would be 90 percent. However, the member may have been one of only two full-time 

members, while the rest of the cohort is serving half-time. The relative impact of that member’s departure would be 

higher than the program’s retention rate would show. The converse is true if part- or minimal-time members leave 

from a cohort that also includes full-time members.

Exhibit reads: Grantee program #3 had an AmeriCorps member enrollment rate of 119 percent in 2013–14 and 88 

percent in 2014–15. Grantee program #3 had an AmeriCorps member retention rate of 84 percent in 2013–14 and 79 

percent in 2014–15. 
nationalservice.gov 19

Exhibit II-2: Trends in School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Enrollment Rates over Time
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Exhibit II-3 displays member retention rates for 2013–14 and 2014–15. Across programs, retention 

remained essentially flat year over year and averaged around 80 percent. Grantee program #2 had the 

highest and Grantee program #7 the lowest retention rates in both years. No grantee program met the

CNCS retention expectation of 100 percent in either year, though Grantee program #2 reached a 98 

percent retention rate in 2013–14.38 

Exhibit II-3: Trends in School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Retention Rates over Time

 

38 This 100 percent retention expectation is set by CNCS as explained in the GPR instructions: “For enrollment and 

retention, a “yes” or “no” appears in the “Meets CNCS Expectations” column. Any rate below 100 percent is 

assessed as not meeting CNCS expectations.” School Turnaround AmeriCorps Grantee Progress Report 

Instructions (p. 6). In practice, CNCS understands that there are many extenuating circumstances that affect

enrollment and retention rates. See section on Potential Uses and Challenges of Administrative Data for 

Measuring Grantee Performance for more detail.
nationalservice.gov 21

Although grantee programs faced ongoing challenges with member recruitment and retention across the 

years, references to these challenges decreased in frequency over time. Almost all program staff reported 

in interviews challenges with recruitment and/or retention of members in 2013–14, the first year of the 

program; by the end of 2014–15, approximately half of grantee staff reported in their GPRs challenges 

with member recruitment and some with retention. By the end 2015–16, only a few staff referenced

difficulties, specifically in terms of recruiting both the right quantity and/or quality of members. 

Grantee Staff Responses to Enrollment and Retention Challenges

Grantee staff generally perceived that they could improve their retention rates by improving their 

recruitment, screening, and training strategies, and a majority of staff reported that in Year 1 they 

planned to adopt some changes regarding recruitment. Staff reported trying various strategies to improve 

enrollment and retention rates in 2014–15 and/or 2015–16, including more-explicit communication with 

potential members pre-enrollment, as well as stronger collaboration with school and district leaders 

(some grantee staff); creating new application procedures (a few staff); or using surveys or other tools to 

learn about members’ plans and priorities (a few staff). 

Among the grantee staff who mentioned better upfront communication, a few also indicated that in their 

orientation and training, they would communicate more clearly with members about what they are 

signing up for. To recruit potential members, five grantee programs either hired new staff or worked with 

school staff, and four programs focused on using media sources, including Facebook and radio. Other 

strategies for improving enrollment and retention included adding more member training, asking for 

advice from marketing specialists, and placing ads in local media sources. Two rural programs described 

attempts to overcome these barriers by recruiting high-schoolers as part-time members and recruiting at 

community agencies and a local university with an education program. Ultimately, neither strategy was

effective in improving their enrollment. In response to an increase in members leaving before completing 

their term of service due to mental health issues, one grantee discussed “ways to provide some different 

opportunities for members for [support] throughout the year as far as ... maybe life coach or 

opportunities ... to help alleviate [mental health issues], as well.” 

Some of these strategies may have helped, as slightly fewer grantee programs reported issues with 

recruitment and retention in Year 2 compared with Year 1. Even so, almost all programs fell short of their 

enrollment and retention goals in Year 2. 

Member Training and Preparation

Grantee programs provided pre-service training in Years 1 and 2 to orient members to their host school, 

roles, and responsibilities. A few programs reported providing specialized training on topics such as 

chronic student absenteeism, strategies for engaging parents, behavioral coaching (e.g., Real Time 

Coaching and Respect 360), and student data management. The model of a pre-service training carried 

over from Year 1 to Year 2 in all grantee programs, with a minority of programs in Year 2 shifting to 

providing members with more site-specific training. 

Topics covered in Year 2 trainings included community and demographics of the school, culturally 

responsive education (e.g., focused on students’ ethnic or immigration histories and school-specific 

contexts), and relationship building, generally with training on how to carry out member roles in the 

school. These changes appear to be responsive to the training topics suggested in Year 1 by principals and 

members. A few grantee programs described ongoing training provided to members to build on the preservice training. A few other programs also emphasized the importance of explaining to members what 

AmeriCorps is about before placing them in schools. In a few other cases, programs provided training to 

the school’s administration and staff about how to appropriately use AmeriCorps members in their 
nationalservice.gov 22

school. Finally, a few programs noted that they added training in Year 2 on issues they or their members 

had struggled with in Year 1; namely, program rules, school calendars, and attendance interventions. 

Grantee program training occurred before members entered the schools, though members also received 

additional training at their host school before the school year began. Several principals described schoollevel training and professional development participation for members. As with program training, this 

was primarily to orient and integrate members into the school community. One principal explained that 

at her school, this training allowed members to join teachers in summer professional development to 

learn about specific school procedures, that “the earlier we get a hold of them, the better.” Across Years 1 

and 2, many principals, teachers, and members reported that the pre-training was not fully sufficient to 

prepare members for the realities they would face in turnaround schools, although notably there were 

changes made in Year 2 in response to feedback on Year 1 trainings. 

Surveys of school leaders corroborated interview data describing the importance of member training and 

preparation. More than 90 percent of school leaders across all three administrations of the survey (Spring 

2015, Fall 2015, and Spring 2016) reported considering orientation and training of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members before they served at the school, as well as comprehensive trainings of members 

and support staff during members’ year of service, to be somewhat or very important.

Member Management and Supervision

Most schools in the evaluation sample reported using on-site coordinators to supervise members’ daily 

work, and found these supervisors to be very useful—if not essential. Almost all partnership agreements 

specify that the partner school is responsible for appointing a primary school-based liaison or coordinator 

to help organize and assist program members. A majority of principals reported that they used on-site 

coordinators, usually school staff, typically from the attendance, guidance, or administrative offices, to 

manage School Turnaround AmeriCorps members’ work and program-school communication. A few 

programs with many partner schools provided on-site coordinators, who were program staff members. 

Almost all grantee staff and principals regarded the on-site coordinators as crucial for supporting both

members and communication among grantee programs, school leaders, teachers, and members across 

both years. About half of grantee staff described site coordinators as key linkages in communicating with 

the school. In fact, one grantee program that reported communication challenges in 2014–15 added onsite coordinators for 2015–16 at each of its three partner schools to improve communication. Another 

program cited site coordinators’ importance in navigating changes in school leadership. 

In a majority of schools, there was agreement across grantee staff, principals, teachers, and members in 

both years about the benefits of having an on-site coordinator to manage members’ work and act as a 

liaison between the school and program. Such coordinators (especially on site) were described as “the 

glue that helps members work through issues and gives them the support they need” in schools. One 

principal emphasized that her site coordinator provided “the most bang for her buck,” and helped 

ameliorate challenges arising from members’ inexperience or immaturity, which led another principal to 

express interest in the site coordinator position, as she too found that School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members required higher levels of supervision and monitoring than she had expected. Members were 

also overwhelmingly positive about the support they received from their coordinators. 

Those grantee programs that relied on on-site coordinators adjusted their roles throughout the year. One 

program staff explained that the program had already hired its coordinators for 2015–16 as of Spring 

2015, so they would be available to plan, prepare, and forge connections during the summer months. Two 

program staff reported difficulties with their on-site coordinators. One program that used teachers as site 

coordinators lost them due to teacher turnover in the schools. Staff from another program, which
nationalservice.gov 23

operated across multiple schools, explained that it was difficult to coordinate the schedules of guidance 

counselors who served as coordinators to have a full program meeting (i.e., with the grantee staff and 

coordinators from all partner schools). 

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for This Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 47 

principal interviews, 50 parent 

interviews, 17 program school 

case studies)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

Grantee survey, interviews, 

GPRs) 

Identifying Students for Services

Awareness of the Program and Students Served

The large majority of grantee programs (11 of 13) were 

aware of which specific students were served by their 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members in both Years 1 

and 2 (see Appendix Exhibit C-3). Whether school staff were 

familiar with the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program 

and knew about the number of students served varied.

More than a quarter of school staff respondents in Year 1 

were unfamiliar with the program, and almost a third were 

unaware of how many of their own students were served by it. However, school staff who were 

knowledgeable about the program indicated that it served considerable portions of their students: Nearly 

two-thirds of these respondents noted that at least 25 percent of their students were served by School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps (see Appendix Exhibit C-4). About 40 percent of respondents noted that 75 

percent or more of their students were served.

Identifying Students for Services

Grantee staff and school staff generally concurred about the specific mechanisms most often used to 

identify students for School Turnaround AmeriCorps services. The primary mechanisms used to identify 

students for services were teacher recommendation and grades (for both years), with test scores replacing 

counselor recommendations in Year 2. Year 2 case studies with a subsample of program schools also 

reported that schools used student performance data to identify students for services (and for other 

decision making such as enrollment in other types of interventions). 

Grantee staff and school staff also concurred that improving academic achievement was the most 

common reason students were identified to participate in the program (see Exhibit II-4). 
nationalservice.gov 24

Exhibit II-4: Mechanisms to Identify and Reason Students Identified to Participate in School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Activities 

Mechanism to Identify Students 

Year 1

Grantee Staff:

School Staff:

Year 2

Grantee Staff:
nationalservice.gov 25

Reason Students Identified to Participate

Notes: Grantee programs in both years (N=13, Missing=0). 

Grantee frequencies in both years do not sum to 13 because multiple responses were permitted. 

Fifty-one school staff did not know which mechanisms were most frequently used in Year 1. (N=104, Missing=3). 

Forty-one school staff did not know the reasons students were identified in Year 1. (N=114, Missing=1). 

Note that school staff were not surveyed in Year 2. See Appendix Exhibits C-6, C-7, C-37, and C-38.

Source: Grantee Survey Q8 (“To the best of your knowledge, which mechanisms did the school(s) use to identify 

students to participate in activities led by School Turnaround AmeriCorps members?”). Instructional Staff and 

Counselors Survey Q8 (“To the best of your knowledge, which of the following mechanisms are most frequently 

used in your school to identify students for activities led by School Turnaround AmeriCorps members?”). Grantee 

Survey Q9 (“To the best of your knowledge, what are the reasons that students were identified to participate in 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps programming?”). Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q8 (“To the best of your 

knowledge, what are the reasons that students were identified to participate in School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programming this school year?”). 

Exhibit reads: Nine of 13 grantee staff (in both years) and 89 percent of school staff (in Year 1) chose "teacher 

recommendation" as a mechanism to identify students for participation in School Turnaround AmeriCorps. Twelve 

of 13 grantee staff and 88 percent of school staff in Year 1, and 11 of 13 grantee staff in Year 2 indicated that students 

were identified to participate to "improve academic achievement."

Year 1

Grantee Staff:

School Staff:

Year 2

Grantee Staff:
nationalservice.gov 26 

Member Matching and Caseloads

Most school leaders across all three time periods considered matching of members to students on the 

basis of academic strengthening and social/emotional supports, as well as to program objectives, to be 

important or very important.39 Consistent with school leader survey findings, interviewed grantee staff, 

members, and school staff reported that students were, indeed, generally identified by school staff for 

services and matched with members on the basis of test scores, grades, or behavior, although some 

services were targeted to specific grade levels. In a few cases, the students who were targeted for services 

were those who had approached the members directly for help. In most cases, programs or schools 

matched members to students who were identified as struggling based on low test scores. One case study 

program school described changing its model for 2015–16, from having members work with the students 

struggling most to working with students performing closer to grade-level. This way the neediest 

students could receive more attention from teachers with more expertise in the subject area and 

instructional strategies.

The majority of programs reported some challenges in managing and/or matching members to 

placements, including tutoring/mentoring groups that exceeded the target ratios, members’ inability to 

access students during the school day, and slow build-up of caseloads. The most prominent strategy 

reported by programs for dealing with such challenges was to engage school leaders, administrators, 

and/or teachers, although several program staff reported that they addressed caseload/management 

issues by relying on supervisory staff who worked closely with members and used data to manage 

caseloads and match students to members. A few principals reported wishing that members did not have 

to maintain the same caseload of students throughout the year, but could instead adjust their caseloads 

when students no longer needed their support. Interestingly, one principal in Year 2 reported some 

flexibility in the caseload, discussing how the members in that school sometimes volunteered to check in 

with or add students who were not in their original caseload.

The numbers of students expected to be served and to complete services varied markedly by grantee

program, though the proportion of students expected to complete services was generally close to 100 

percent for most schools. On average, programs had 25 students receiving services for every AmeriCorps 

member in Year 2, slightly less than the 28 students reported in Year 1 (see Appendix Exhibit C-4).40

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for This Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 

47 principal interviews, 50 

parent interviews, 17 

program school case 

studies, 54–57 School 

Leader surveys)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

Grantee surveys, 

interviews, GPRs, member 

activity data, member 

interviews) 

Description of Program Activities and Services

School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantee programs organized, 

trained, and placed dedicated members in low-performing 

schools to support one or more of the six School Improvement 

Grant (SIG) strategies to improve student educational 

achievement. 

The six SIG strategies are: 

• Engaging families and communities. 

• Addressing non-academic factors that affect student 

achievement (school climate and students’ socioemotional and health needs). 

 

39 Source: Principal survey, Year 1 and Year 2 (2014-15, 2015-16).

40 Source: Grantee survey, Year 1 and Year 2 (2014–15, 2015–16).
nationalservice.gov 27

• Supporting skill acquisition in reading and math. 

• Increasing graduation rates. 

• Providing college preparation and increasing college enrollment. 

• Increasing learning time. 

The specific combination of activities that programs offered, how services were structured, and the 

implementation of these strategies in individual schools varied tremendously, according to each school’s 

turnaround plan and the needs of its students. This section describes grantee program size and scope, the 

range of activities offered, and the structure of services that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members 

delivered to their host schools. 

Program Size and Scope

Grantee programs reported detailed counts of students, members, and service activities in evaluationeligible schools in the member activity data collection. However, the reported data are sufficiently 

variable to warrant caution in interpreting them (see the section Member Activity Data for more detail).

In 2014–15, grantee programs varied significantly in size and scope—from 1 to 11 schools, 13 to 95 

members serving, and 248 to 2,437 students served. Between 2014–15 and 2015–16, the scope of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps decreased (68 to 60 schools, 394 to 325 members, 13,404 to 9,544 students).41

Some of that decrease reflects a considerably smaller number of one grantee program’s schools—from 11 

to 3. However, most programs experienced modest decreases in their numbers of students served; 8 of 

the 12 programs that reported student counts for both school years served fewer students in 2015–16 than 

in 2014–15. 

Changes in number of students served do not appear related to whether the grantee program planned to 

recompete for the next round of School Turnaround AmeriCorps funding, as only one of the six 

recompeting programs had steady or increasing student counts. Several grantee programs plan to operate 

summer programs in 2016, so their student counts for those are not represented in the data. Exhibit II-5

presents each program’s total number of schools, members, and students who participated in any School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps activities.42

 

41 The comparison in total members serving and students served across years excludes grantee program #6 because 

grantee program #6 reported members serving and students served in 2015–16 but not in 2014–15. Including 

grantee program #6, grantee programs in 2015–16 had 389 members who served 11,001 students.

42 Member counts cannot be used to directly compare levels of School Turnaround AmeriCorps presence because 

some grantee programs use full-time members, while others use a mix of full- and part-time members.
nationalservice.gov 28

Exhibit II-5: Number of Schools, School Turnaround AmeriCorps Members, and Students Served, 

by Year and Grantee

Grantee Program

2014–15

Schools

2014–15

Members

2014–15

Students 

Served

2015–16

Schools

2015–16

Members

2015–16

Students 

Served

Grantee program #2 11 38 2,437 3 6 436 

Grantee program #11 10 33 388 10 21 242 

Grantee program #12 9 41 685 9 42 621 

Grantee program #1 8 95 1,797 8 91 1,165

Grantee program #13 6 19 1,808 6 24 1,636

Grantee program #10 5 18 587 3 13 350 

Grantee program #5 5 24 1,874 5 27 1,663

Grantee program #9 4 30 342 4 27 407

Grantee program #6 3 a a 5 a a

Grantee program #4 2 20 1,451 2 15 1,552

Grantee program #8 2 49 1,339 2 32 1,349

Grantee program #3 2 14 448 2 13 321 

Grantee program #7 1 13 248 1 14 248

Grantee Program Total 68b 394 13,404 60 325 9,544

Notes: This exhibit reports each grantee program’s total number of schools eligible for the evaluation and its 

corresponding numbers of AmeriCorps members and students who received any School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

services. Student are counted even if they dropped out of the program or left the school midway through the year.

See footnote 35 for the definition of evaluation-eligible schools.

a Member and student counts were not reported by grantee program #6 for the 2014–15 school year. Grantee program 

#6 provided member and student counts only for the 2015–16 school year (64 members, 1,011 students). The 2015–16 

member and student counts are excluded from the exhibit to facilitate comparisons across years.

b Two schools are served by two grantee programs each. Both sets of programs reported information on their 

members’ activities in these two schools.

Exhibit reads: In the 2014–15 school year, grantee program #2 had 11 partner schools and 38 AmeriCorps members 

who served 2,437 students. In the 2015–16 school year (through May), grantee program #2 had 3 partner schools and 

6 AmeriCorps members and served 436 students. 

Grantee programs reported significantly varied total AmeriCorps member service hours, ranging from 

3,200 to 116,620 hours in 2014–15 (see Exhibit II-6). Hours per member are often in the range expected of 

full-time members (1,700 hours), although several programs reported fewer average hours per member, 

suggesting a mix of full- and part-time members or members serving for only a portion of the school year. 

Service hours per student participating in School Turnaround AmeriCorps activities also varied 

significantly in 2014–15, from 9 service hours per student to 95.43 

Total service hours and hours per member were about four-fifths as large in 2015–16. However, 2015–16 

data were collected in May 2016, before the end of the academic year. Average hours per student were 

nearly the same in both years.

 

43 Service hours per student participating in School Turnaround AmeriCorps activities are equal to total average 

service hours divided by number of students served.
nationalservice.gov 29

Exhibit II-6: Average Hours per Member and Student, by Year and Grantee

Grantee

2014–15

Total 

Service 

Hours

2014–15

Average 

Hours 

per

Member

2014–15

Average 

Hours 

per 

Student

2015–16 

Total 

Service 

Hours

2015–16 

Average 

Hours 

per 

Member

2015–16 

Average 

Hours 

per 

Student

Grantee program #1 116,620 1,228 65 125,649 1,381 108

Grantee program #12 64,917 1,583 95 59,288 1,412 95

Grantee program #2 64,600 1,700 27 10,200 1,700 23

Grantee program #8 63,947 1,305 48 20,480 640 15

Grantee program #5 42,460 1,769 23 43,144 1,598 26

Grantee program #4 34,000 1,700 23 23,900 1,593 15

Grantee program #11 32,739 992 84 18,900 900 78

Grantee program #10 28,337 1,574 48 15,651 1,204 45

Grantee program #13 25,700 1,353 14 24,276 1,011 15

Grantee program #3 20,614 1,472 46 19,700 1,515 61

Grantee program #9 3,200 107 9 3,200 119 8

Grantee program #7 a a a 5,995 428 24

Grantee program #6 a a a 18,034 282 18

Grantee Total 497,134 1,262 37 388,417 999 35

a Data were not reported by the grantee program. 

Exhibit reads: Grantee program #1’s AmeriCorps members served a total of 116,620 service hours in the 2014–15 

school year. Since grantee program #1 had 95 AmeriCorps members who served 1,797 students in 2014–15 (see 

Exhibit II-5), the average number of service hours per member was 1,228 and the average number of service hours 

per student was 65. Grantee program #1’s AmeriCorps members served a total of 125,649 service hours in the 2015–16 

school year (through May). Since grantee program #1 had 91 AmeriCorps members who served 1,165 students in 

2015–16 (see Exhibit II-5), the average number of service hours per member was 1,381 and the average number of 

service hours per student was 108. 

Activity Types and Service Delivery over Time

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members engaged in a range of activities with their school partners, 

including tutoring, after-school and extracurricular programs, parental and community engagement, and 

mentoring services. Exhibit II-7, based on interviews with grantee staff, and Appendix Exhibit D-1, based 

on member activity data collected from grantee programs, summarize the range and prevalence of 

activities and interventions offered in School Turnaround AmeriCorps schools in 2014–15 and 2015–16. 

Both data sources indicate that, generally, grantee programs consistently offered the same activities and 

services across the years. However, depending on the data source, there were minor discrepancies in 

reporting of the prevalence of activities and changes in service configurations over time. Tutoring was the 

most common service offering in 2014–15 and 2015–16,44 followed by mentoring and behavior support,45

 

44 The member activity data indicate that tutoring was offered by 9 and 10 grantees, respectively, in 2014–15 and 

2015–16, whereas grantee staff reported in interviews that tutoring was offered by 11 programs in both years.

45 The member activity data indicate that mentoring and behavior support was offered by six and seven grantees, 

respectively, in 2014–15 and 2015–16, whereas grantee staff reported in interviews that these services were 

offered by nine programs in both years.
nationalservice.gov 30

and after-school programs and extracurricular services.46 According to the member activity data (see 

Appendix Exhibit D-1), in 2015–16 only one program added a service (grantee program #7 added college 

readiness) and only one program dropped a service (grantee program #9 dropped supportive services). 

By contrast, according to interviews with grantee staff (see Exhibit II-7), a few of the 13 programs 

discontinued their parental and community engagement interventions from one year to the next. Two 

grantee staff explained that their parental and community engagement activities in 2014–15 served to 

help their students engage in academic, attendance, or mentoring activities. 

Programs that dropped parental engagement did not explain why they made this shift; however, one 

possible explanation is that the parental engagement component, designed to raise awareness and buy-in 

for a new program, would no longer be relevant once the new program had been established. Dropping 

the parental engagement component, in particular, may help explain why fewer school leaders perceived 

that families play an active role and that the school/members connected parents to information and 

resources to support their children’s education. While nearly two-thirds of school leaders in Year 1 

agreed or strongly agreed that families play an active role in their school, only half agreed or strongly 

agreed in Year 2-Fall, falling to 42 percent agreed in Year 2-Spring. Similarly, while nearly all school 

leaders in Year 1 agreed or strongly agreed that their school (98 percent) or its School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members (83 percent) connect parents/guardians to information and resources to help them 

support their children’s education, slightly fewer school leaders agreed in Year 2-Fall (91 percent and 78 

percent, respectively) and fewer still in Year 2-Spring (86 percent and 63 percent, respectively).47

Exhibit II-7: Number of Grantee Programs Offering Various Program Activities, by School Year 

Activity

Number of Grantees

2014–15

Number of Grantees

2015–16

Tutoring 11 11

Behavior support and mentoring or coaching 9 9

After-school programs and extracurricular services 9 9

Parental and community engagement 8 5

School attendance coaching 5 7

Supportive services to build school capacity 5 5

College readiness and test preparation 3 3

Wraparound services 1 1

Teaching 1 1

Sources: Grantee interviews (Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015). 

Exhibit reads: Eleven grantees offered tutoring during the 2014–15 school year. Eleven grantees offered tutoring 

during the 2015–16 school year.

The study team also analyzed member activity data to examine service delivery at the school level, since 

service activities sometimes varied across a given grantee program’s schools. The types of activities 

delivered across schools were similar regardless of the turnaround model they were following and across 

grades served, with the exception of college readiness services provided only at high schools. As 

 

46 The member activity data indicate that after-school programs and extracurricular services was offered by four

and five grantees, respectively, in 2014–15 and 2015–16, whereas grantee staff reported in interviews that these 

services were offered by nine programs in both years.

47 Source: School Leader survey Year 1, Year 2-Fall, and Year 2-Spring (2014–15, 2015–16). See Appendix Exhibits 

C-23, C-25, and C-29.
nationalservice.gov 31

Appendix Exhibit D-2 also shows, there was modest fluctuation in service offerings from year to year, 

although the changes in number are so modest that there are no observable patterns. Tutoring was the 

most common service activity, offered in nearly twice as many schools as any other type of service, or 

approximately four-fifths of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program schools. At about 25 schools, 

on average, programs offered mentoring and attendance-related services, and at about 20 schools they 

offered parental engagement, community engagement, school climate, after-school, and behavioral 

support services. 

The grantee programs generally cluster into three groups, depending on how many of the 11 types of 

services they offer: either all or almost all types (four programs), between 2 and 5 types (three programs), 

or only 1 service (five programs) (see Appendix Exhibit D-1).48 Within schools where programs offer 

multiple service activities, all or nearly all AmeriCorps members provide each of the activities, suggesting 

that members do not generally specialize in one particular activity. Grantee programs are required to 

establish minimum dosages of School Turnaround AmeriCorps services received by students to count 

toward the programs’ performance measure goals; here, too, there is considerable variation across 

programs as well as across service activities (Appendix Exhibit D-4). For example, the minimal threshold 

(in hours) established for tutoring ranges from 15 hours to 130 hours.49 Programs typically use other time 

metrics for other service activities (e.g., days or weeks of support provided), and the dosage thresholds 

range from 30 to 90 days.

Activity Descriptions 

Tutoring

Tutoring was the most common program activity, offered by almost all programs, according to 

information from grantee staff, teachers, and principals. Tutoring was provided through one-on-one and 

small-group instruction either in the classroom or outside the classroom. Tutoring services were generally 

offered during the school day; five programs also offered tutoring services before school, during lunch, 

and/or after school. 

Behavior Support and Mentoring or Coaching 

Behavior support and mentoring or coaching was offered in a majority of programs. Mentoring models 

varied considerably but, as with parental and community engagement, principals often described 

mentoring as embedded in other services that members provided. Members and teachers noted the 

interrelatedness of mentorship, academics, and attendance, because building relationships was key to 

getting students to open up and begin to address other issues. 

After-School Programs and Extracurricular Services

A majority of programs offered after-school programs and extracurricular services, including homework 

help sessions and electives for student enrichment (e.g., baking, robotics, photography, and 

woodworking) that improved students’ attitudes about and engagement with school. Members led the 

after-school electives offered, organizing field trips, events, and service days. 

 

48 One grantee program did not report information on services offered.

49 One grantee program (grantee program #10) defines tutoring dosage by days of support provided rather than 

activity hours, and another (grantee program #9) defines tutoring dosage by number of contacts.
nationalservice.gov 32

Parental and Community Engagement

Through grantee staff interviews, a minority of programs reported activities related specifically to 

parental and community engagement. When engaging parents, members leveraged their academic and 

personal relationships with students to understand students’ lives more holistically. Members informed 

parents of events in the school and their children’s behavior and academic performance. Parents reported 

that they used the performance information to reinforce the members’ feedback at home. Parental

engagement included such events as parent nights, socials, and parent-teacher conferences where 

members served as translators to help involve parents in their children’s academic lives.

School Attendance Coaching

School attendance coaching, as a distinct activity from behavior coaching, was reported by about half of

programs in Year 2. Two grantee programs added attendance coaching to their intervention in the 2015–

16 school year. One of these mentioned attendance coaching as an offshoot of mentoring, meaning that 

members encouraged students to come to school when they mentored them. The other grantee based its 

intervention on the needs of individual students, so attendance support was added in response to its

experience with students. Among the remaining programs, attendance coaching was a component of 

their parental engagement activities, with members calling home to discuss attendance records of truant 

students and to engage parents in their children’s daily attendance. In many of these programs, members 

conducted outreach to students with low attendance, thereby adding capacity to the school’s outreach 

efforts over what administrative staff would otherwise have been able to accomplish. In most cases, 

principals emphasized that members framed their attendance outreach to students in terms of their 

positive relationships with students, rather than in terms of punishment for truancy. 

College Readiness and Test Preparation 

Three programs offered services focused on college readiness and/or college entrance test preparation, 

chiefly helping students prepare for the ACT and for the college experience. One college readiness 

program partnered with local postsecondary institutions to plan in-depth introductions-to-college 

experiences for students; students visited college campuses, met professors, and sat in on college classes. 

Another program also worked with students and their families on the Free Application for Federal 

Student Aid, a form prepared annually by current and prospective college students to determine their 

eligibility for financial aid.

Wraparound Services; Teaching

Two programs offered unique services in that only one program used them. One provided wraparound 

services, addressing student needs that may have had a negative impact on school experience. 

Wraparound services included providing uniforms and transportation to students in need. The other 

program provided teaching services: Its members served as classroom teachers. That program (Teach For 

America) is a national teacher corps of recent college graduates from highly selective colleges who 

commit to work in urban and rural schools for two years.

Structure of Services

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members could provide services to all students in the school, whole 

classes, small groups, and individual students; these categories of direct service provision are not 

mutually exclusive. 

Nearly all grantee staff reported in Year 2 that members provided direct services to individual students, 

similar to findings in Year 1 (11 grantee programs). Some three-quarters of school leaders in Year 1, Year 

2-Fall, and Year 2-Spring reported that services were provided to individual students (74, 77, and 75 
nationalservice.gov 33

percent, respectively). A minority of grantee staff reported that services were provided to whole 

classrooms or all students in the school in Year 2 (see Appendix Exhibits C-2 and C-17). A similar 

proportion of school leaders in Year 2-Fall and Year 2-Spring reported services targeting whole 

classrooms (58 and 39 percent, respectively) and all students in the school (50 and 40 percent, 

respectively). In Year 1, seven staff and 45 percent of school leaders reported members provided services 

to whole classrooms, whereas four staff and 54 percent of school leaders reported members provided 

services to all students in the school.50

Most services were offered in multiple formats, including one-on-one, small-group settings, and larger 

group settings; not surprisingly, services designed to support individual students, such as tutoring, 

mentorship and attendance coaching, were more likely to be offered to individuals or small groups, 

whereas community engagement and college readiness services were more likely in large-group settings 

(see Exhibit II-8 and Appendix Exhibit D-2).51 Beyond direct services, several programs also described 

deploying members in supportive activities intended to expand the capacity of school staff to engage in 

school turnaround efforts. Programs also described how members’ contributed to creating a positive 

school climate by building relationships with students.52 

Exhibit II-8: Level of Service Offering, by Service Type Provided

Notes: “Other” services include summer camps; service-learning, civic engagement, and leadership opportunities; 

teaching; graduation assistance; and a credit recovery program. See Appendix Exhibit D-1 for more details.

Exhibit reads: Forty-four schools offered tutoring during the 2015–16 school year. Seventeen offered tutoring in large 

groups, 35 to individuals, and 41 in small groups. Many schools offered services at more than one level.

 

50 Source: Grantee survey, Year 1 and Year 2 (2014–15, 2015–16). School Leader survey, Year 1, Year 2-Fall, and 

Year 2-Spring (2014–15, 2015–16).

51 Source: Member activity data, Year 1 (2014–15).

52 Source: Grantee interviews (2014–15, 2015–16). 
nationalservice.gov 34

Members’ Roles in Supporting School Staff and Building School Capacity

Members’ Roles in Supporting Classrooms and School 

Staff 

Members’ work supported teachers in several ways. For 

members who served in classrooms, simply being present 

throughout the day helped with classroom management, 

preventing disruptive behavior and allowing differentiated

instruction in small groups. In about half of case study 

program schools, stakeholders emphasized the importance of 

having an additional person in the classroom to provide 

individualized attention to students who needed it. 

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for This Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 47 

principal interviews, 50 parent 

interviews, 17 program school 

case studies)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

grantee staff interviews, GPRs, 

member interviews) 

Across all program schools, stakeholders from about a third of schools reported desiring more members 

in the school to increase the reach of individualized academic and socio-emotional support. This more 

individualized attention from School Turnaround AmeriCorps members helped students better access 

academic material and engage in learning by supporting their socio-emotional health needs—for 

example, by improving their confidence and self-concept, their ability to regulate their emotions, and 

their resilience and ability to persevere through challenge. According to stakeholders in all four SIG 

Exiter schools, members were able to increase capacity as the schools lost their SIG funding, although 

several school staff members also lamented the loss of AmeriCorps members (in some cases when schools

exited SIG status, in others in anticipation of losing members). Several principals emphasized the value 

members added and their desire to keep them in the school by hiring them at the school or district level; 

one said explicitly, “I would like to hire them to stay here and teach. That’s how confident I am with their 

ability.”

Members also supported teachers in using and interpreting assessment data to help tailor instruction. In 

some cases, AmeriCorps members discussed student data with teachers to specify which students needed 

additional, individualized attention. In others, AmeriCorps members or the on-site coordinator from the 

grantee program were responsible for managing student data, which removed some responsibility from 

school staff, allowing them to focus more on teaching. Programs also reported that members participated 

in planning meetings and worked with school leaders and teachers to identify and track student progress, 

as in one program, by supporting its Response to Intervention system, a multi-tiered approach to early 

identification and support of students with learning and behavior needs. 

Members’ Roles in Supporting School Climate and Building School Capacity 

A majority of grantee staff and some principals emphasized the importance of members being integrated 

into the school staff, culture, and operations to make their school-based relationships “seamless.” 

Stakeholders described several promising practices for integrating members into schools, from extending

themselves to become part of the community during the school day to participating in extracurricular 

events outside of school hours, which increased their presence and visibility in the school and 

demonstrated their support for the school’s goals, policies, and structures. School leaders’ welcoming and 

strong support of members in their schools was also important for ensuring successful program-school 

partnerships (discussed further in the Case Study Cross-Site Analysis section below). Several principals 

described School Turnaround AmeriCorps members as part of the school “family” and as co-equal 

members of the school staff. Despite these efforts, schools’ understanding of members’ roles was a 

lingering challenge in some schools (discussed more in the Program Implementation Challenges

section).
nationalservice.gov 35

The Role of School Turnaround AmeriCorps in Supporting SIG Strategies 

Across all three administrations of the School Leaders survey, school leaders in Year 1 and Year 2 ranked 

academic achievement, school culture and environment, and increased learning time as the three 

strategies most influenced by AmeriCorps members (see Exhibit II-9). School leaders also consistently 

ranked family and community engagement highly, but not as highly as the above three strategies. 
nationalservice.gov 36

Exhibit II-9: School Improvement Grant Strategy Most Influenced by School Turnaround AmeriCorps (Year 1 and Year 2) 

School Improvement 

Strategy

Year 1

Rank of 

Influence

Mean 

Rankings 

(Standard 

Errors)

Year 1

Rank of 

Influence 

Percentage

Ranked

Year 2-Fall

Rank of 

Influence

Mean 

Rankings 

(Standard 

Errors)

Year 2-Fall

Rank of 

Influence 

Percentage

Ranked

Year 2-Spring

Rank of 

Influence

Mean 

Rankings 

(Standard 

Errors)

Year 2-Spring

Rank of 

Influence 

Percentage

Ranked

Academic achievement 1.8 (0.4) 90 1.9 (0.3) 98 1.9 (0.2) 100

School culture and environment 2.5 (0.3) 85 2.7 (0.3) 95 2.6 (0.3) 100

Increased learning time 2.7 (0.5) 91 3.3 (0.3) 91 2.8 (0.3) 93

Family and community engagement 3.6 (0.3) 91 4.0 (0.3) 93 3.9 (0.3) 90

Graduation rates 4.2 (0.3) 59 4.1 (0.3) 82 4.2 (0.3) 86

College enrollment rates 4.7 (0.5) 69 4.5 (0.3) 80 5.2 (0.2) 83

Notes: Year 1: (N=31, Missing=3); Year 2-Fall: (N=34, Missing=2); Year 2-Spring: (N=35, Missing=2). See Appendix Exhibit C.30.

Ranks range from 1–6, with 1 being the most important; not all responses were given a ranking. Seven respondents (23 percent) indicated that this question was 

not applicable. Table rows are sorted in ascending order by the mean ranking of school leaders in Year 2-Spring.Source: School Leader Survey Q19 (“Which School 

Improvement Grant (SIG) strategies are influenced the most by the School Turnaround AmeriCorps members this school year?”) 

Exhibit reads: School leaders across all three surveys ranked “academic achievement” as the most important school improvement strategy, with a mean ranking of 

1.8 on a 6-point scale in Year 1 and 1.9 in Year 2-Fall and Year 2-Spring; 90 percent of school leaders in Year 1, 98 percent in Year 2-Fall, and 100 percent in Year 2-

Spring ranked this particular outcome. 
nationalservice.gov 37

Use of Data to Manage and Monitor Programs for Continuous Improvement

Data use and monitoring were integral to most schools’ 

turnaround efforts and emerged as a prominent theme in 

about half of program schools, including nearly all case 

studies. Schools described assessing students frequently, 

using formative assessments to monitor student progress, 

determine student needs/weaknesses, and inform 

instructional strategies; for example, by addressing gaps in 

English language arts and math instruction. In addition to 

using data to identify students for services, schools used 

student data to help manage School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps member workloads. Some program schools, 

including almost all case study schools, provided teacher professional development in using data and 

gave school staff time to work together to review and interpret data, and some used a staff member 

dedicated to supporting student-level data. These themes are described in more detail in the Case Study 

Cross-Site Analysis section. 

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for This Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 47 

principal interviews, 50 parent 

interviews, 17 program school 

case studies)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

grantee interviews, GPRs, 

member interviews) 

There is ample evidence that grantee programs and members embraced this culture of data use and 

implemented many of the same data use practices documented in their partner schools. All programs 

used data to manage and monitor themselves for continuous improvement. Among the ways programs 

used data were these: 

• Establishing data-sharing agreements with school partners outlining how they could access data. 

• Providing training to members on how to use assessments or attendance records to create 

targeted interventions for students. 

• Tracking whether they were meeting their performance measures, and monitoring the 

effectiveness of their strategies. 

• Helping members to evaluate and effectively target their interventions and to tailor their efforts 

to better meet students’ needs.

Members routinely handled student data at host schools, and they used data to improve their 

interventions: 

• Participating in training sessions and regular meetings to help manage data responsibilities at 

some host schools. 

• Working collaboratively with teachers in some schools to discuss student performance and 

interpret interim assessment data to improve targeted services. 

The majority of grantee staff and a small number of members also reported a number of challenges with 

data. Programs experienced challenges related primarily to data accessibility and capacity to analyze the 

volume of data. When schools or districts were unwilling to share their data, usually out of concern for 

student privacy, it was extremely problematic for programs. 

The most common data issue grantee staff reported in Year 1 was having limited capacity and/or 

resources to process, analyze, and interpret data. A related challenge was extracting and communicating 

meaningful information from data reports, in part due to the use of proficiency levels, which mask 

students’ improvement within the category of “Far Below Basic,” so that even a full grade-level 

improvement would not register as a change in performance level. A few grantee staff apiece also 
nationalservice.gov 38

reported challenges arising from data entry errors or missing data (e.g., student activity participation in 

interventions is not systematically recorded).

Beginning in 2014–15 and continuing in 2015–16, a few programs reported implementing changes to data 

management and use to address such challenges. One program established a corrective action plan to 

align data tracking to the grading period, which was more meaningful than a semester system. Another 

program hired a staff member with expertise in data monitoring and analysis. A third program focused 

on empowering members to collect and analyze data, among their other responsibilities. Two of these 

programs specifically noted that their changes had improved the impact of their programs.

Potential Uses and Challenges of Administrative Data for Measuring Grantee Performance

The evaluation collected data from multiple sources in both years. Some data were collected by the study 

team and are referred to as primary data. These include data collected via interviews, surveys, and focus 

groups with grantee staff, members, principals, teachers, and parents. Additional data collected by 

grantee programs in service of their School Turnaround AmeriCorps reporting requirements to CNCS 

were subsequently shared with the study team. These are referred to as administrative data and include the 

following: data reported in grantee progress reports, School Turnaround AmeriCorps member tracking 

sheets, and student-level achievement, attendance, and behavior data obtained from partner schools. 

This section begins by discussing two general challenges to using administrative data for evaluation 

purposes. It then considers, in turn, student-level data, member activity data, and GPR performance 

measure data. For each type, main findings are summarized and particular challenges in using the data 

for evaluation are discussed. Additional results are presented in Appendix D.

General Challenges in Using Administrative Data

The use of administrative data presents challenges in data collection adequacy and interpretive clarity. 

The data adequacy challenge reflects the fact that grantee programs and their host schools are primarily 

concerned with delivering educational services, not with data collection. To be sure, schools collect 

student attendance, behavior, and achievement data, both to monitor and assist individual students and 

to comply with local reporting requirements—but not necessarily to support larger-scale (and external) 

cross-school data analyses. Programs collect data from their partner schools, but again may not be

orientated to the level of detail a rigorous evaluation requires. 

As a result, the study team has encountered numerous obstacles in data collection, including receiving 

data that were delayed, incomplete, and/or inconsistent with other data about the same grantee program 

and school(s). In addition, the possibility of cogent cross-grantee data analyses can be greatly diminished 

when data content and format are not shared across grantee programs. For example, because each 

program had its own approach to collecting member activity data in Year 1 of the evaluation, the study 

team was unable to do much meaningful analysis with those data. In Year 2, the study team developed 

and distributed a member activity data template to most programs to encourage them to use a common 

set of data fields, which allowed the study team to perform somewhat more extensive analyses.

The second general challenge relates to making credibly unambiguous summative interpretations based 

on analyses of administrative data. CNCS wants to know whether member-provided services are 

satisfactorily benefiting students and whether service provision is increasingly beneficial in successive 

years, as schools gain experience in using School Turnaround AmeriCorps members. Reliable answers to 

such summative questions require comparisons between service recipient students and a very similar 

group of non-recipient students, but the administrative data are limited to participants only. For example, 

nearly all grantee programs (12) report the number of their students who complete a course of a memberprovided service such as tutoring; they also report the number of completers who exhibit satisfactory 
nationalservice.gov 39

improvement on standardized achievement tests. To what extent do the improvers owe their success to 

the tutoring (or other member-provided services) they received? In addition to the tutoring, these 

students may well have also benefited from turnaround efforts provided by non-members in their school, 

but separating out the respective contributions of the different kinds of services and efforts requires a 

comparison group. 

The results of analyses of administrative data can, at best, suggest certain summative interpretations.

Student-Level Data

For the Year 1 evaluation, all grantee programs except for one collected student-level data for member 

service recipients during the first two years of implementation; four programs also collected data for their 

2013–14 service recipients from 2012–13, the year before their entry into School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

(even though this was not a requirement of the grant or an expectation of its grantees). All but two 

programs obtained student-level achievement test data, eight obtained student-level attendance data, and 

four obtained student-level behavior outcome data. Five collected student-level academic, attendance, 

and behavior outcomes; three collected two of these outcomes; and four collected one kind of outcome

data. 

For each type of outcome (achievement, attendance, and behavior), the study team first verified whether 

the student-level datasets shared by grantee programs included all partner schools. Then the team 

assessed data quality in those datasets. The data quality was rated as good if there was less than 25 

percent missing data, which meant that a full range of data analyses could be performed adequately. 

Only three programs provided data that both included all of their partner schools and was rated as good 

quality: grantee program #7 (attendance data), grantee program #3 (achievement test data), and grantee 

program #11 (achievement test, attendance, and behavior data). Given the relative comprehensiveness 

and quality of the datasets, it was not possible to perform any cogent cross-grantee analyses.

Because of the data collection challenges and the difficulty in interpreting data analyses that do not 

include a comparison group, no student-level data were collected for the Year 2 evaluation.

Member Activity Data

Member activity data for the 2014–15 and 2015–16 school years were collected from grantee programs in 

February 2016. Updated data from the 2015–16 school year were collected in May 2016. The study team 

administered a standardized, online data form to nine programs and provided detailed instructions and 

examples to the remaining four programs.53 Grantee staff reported information on students, AmeriCorps 

members, and program activity types using categories the team had identified based on analysis of Year 1 

materials. The study team followed up with programs as needed to resolve discrepant values (e.g., more 

students listed as completing School Turnaround AmeriCorps services than ever participated in them).

The member activity data reported here corroborate a consistent finding of this evaluation: Grantee

programs track and report on program activity data idiosyncratically. The data reported by programs are 

so persistently and pervasively variable that the study team has not been able to characterize patterns in 

program activities meaningfully to support program-wide analyses.54 

 

53 The study team developed a standardized form for collecting member activity data that is not included in the 

study’s OMB clearance. Therefore, the study team administered the data form to nine grantee staff and provided 

only general instructions to the remaining four staff, to remain compliant with OMB Paperwork Reduction Act 

guidelines. 

54 Abt reported on the variability and poor quality of program-collected student-level data and member activity 

data in two previous reports: School Turnaround AmeriCorps National Evaluation: Memorandum #3: Secondary Data 
nationalservice.gov 40

It is important to note that variability in member activity data is not surprising, given the dynamic school 

environments in which the School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs operate. Study findings—not to 

mention efforts to recruit participants for the study’s varied data collection activities—consistently 

indicate that over the course of a school year, school partners change, school needs change, member 

placements change to meet schools’ and districts’ evolving priorities, and sometimes members leave (e.g., 

transition to other employment, relocate due to personal circumstances). The Year 2 case studies 

discussed below in the Case Study Cross-Site Analysis section underscore the importance of such local 

adaptations evident even when examining a relatively small number of schools that use whatever 

resources they have to meet their unique needs; it is also evident that turnaround partners and programs 

in particular benefit from the flexibility to follow a “whatever is needed now” approach to be useful. 

The study team recognizes that there should be some local adaptation because schools have different 

priorities. Yet until there is more consistency both in the specific elements of information that grantee

programs report and in how they report it, so that the same activities and outcomes are reported 

similarly, CNCS will continue to face the same challenge: information so variable across its grantees that 

it can make only the most general observations about patterns across interventions and grantee

programs. If programs adopt and maintain consistent practices in tracking and reporting administrative 

data, then it will be easier to understand outcomes both across School Turnaround AmeriCorps and 

specific to grantee programs. To establish a standard of consistency, CNCS will need to provide explicit 

guidance to its grantees about applying the same definitions and conventions in administrative data 

reporting. In short, analyzing what happens locally in response to clearly articulated local needs is an 

important program dimension, but local flexibility should not come at the expense of the funder’s ability 

to make assessments using metrics that can meaningfully characterize the program-wide results. 

As discussed below, careful accounting of member activity also aids in the interpretation of grantee 

progress report performance measure data.

GPR Performance Measure Data

Grantee performance measures were reported in the mid-year and annual grantee progress reports 

(GPRs). There are three types of performance measures: enrollment, output, and outcome. Enrollment

measures (Performance Measures ED1, ED3A) count the number of students who start participation in a 

member-offered service. Output measures (ED2, ED4A) count the number of students who complete 

(receive the specified dose of) a member-provided service. Outcome measures count the number of 

students who complete a member-provided service and exhibit a specified amount of improvement in 

achievement or engagement (ED5, ED27). The performance measures are summarized in Exhibit II-10. 

 

Collection: Grantee Data Access, Practices and Implications for CNCS Evaluations (June 29, 2015) and School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps National Evaluation: Year 1 Final Report (September 28, 2015). Abt reported on the

variability in grantee progress report data in Memorandum #2 of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps National 

Evaluation Year 2: Analysis of Annual Grantee Progress Reports for 2013–14 and 2014–15 (March 21, 2016). 
nationalservice.gov 41

Exhibit II-10: Performance Measures Definitions

Performance 

Measure Definition

Theoretical 

Denominatora

ED1 Number of students who start in a CNCS-supported education program n/a

ED2 Number of students that completed participation in CNCS-supported K–12 education 

programs

ED1 (optional)

ED3A Number of disadvantaged youth/mentor matches that are commenced by the CNCSsupported education program n/a

ED4A Number of disadvantaged youth/mentor matches that were sustained by the CNCSsupported program for at least the required time periodED3A (optional)

ED5 Number of students with improved academic performance in literacy and/or math ED2 or ED4A

ED6 Number of students that improved their school attendance over the course of the 

CNCS-supported program’s involvement with the student

ED2 or ED4A

ED7 Number of students with no or decreased disciplinary referrals and suspensions over 

the course of the CNCS-supported programs' involvement

ED2 or ED4A

ED27 Number of students in grades K-12 that participated in the mentoring or tutoring or 

other education program, including CNCS-supported service learning, who 

demonstrated improved academic engagement

ED2 or ED4A

Source: Corporation for National and Community Service. Notice of Federal Funding Opportunity Addendum: 

Definitions, Suggestions regarding Data Collection, and Additional Notes (FY 2013). 

a CNCS guidance on performance measures. 

Exhibit reads: The definition of Performance Measure ED1 is: Number of students who start in a CNCS-supported 

education program. There is no theoretical denominator for ED1 (it is an enrollment measure).

Meeting performance targets is not a compliance requirement for continued funding. Rather, the 

performance targets indicate whether or not each grantee program is making adequate progress against 

its own defined targets. Programs must provide an explanation and implement a corrective action plan if 

targets are not met.

CNCS expects all grantee programs to achieve the highest enrollment and retention possible, but 

understands that many extenuating circumstances affect these rates. Even though the official enrollment 

and retention rate targets are 100 percent, program model and circumstances are taken into consideration 

when assessing whether a program’s enrollment and retention rates are acceptable. Additionally, CNCS 

assesses output and outcome performance measures in the context of enrollment and retention, noting 

where low enrollment or retention may have constrained output and outcome values.

Grantee programs propose performance measure targets in their grant applications. During the 

clarification process, CNCS may ask applicants to change their targets if they seem too high (unrealistic) 

or too low (insufficiently ambitious). Programs may also change their targets if CNCS awards funding at 

a lower level than requested. After awards are made, CNCS examines proposed reductions in grantee 

targets with great scrutiny. In general, target reductions are approved under one of the following 

circumstances:

• The program requests fewer AmeriCorps members. 

• The program has been approved for a change in how the interventions are delivered (e.g., change 

in dosage). 

• The program misunderstood the performance measure instructions, and a correction is needed in 

order to collect accurate data. 
nationalservice.gov 42

• The target was set so unrealistically high that it would be unattainable even after corrective 

actions are implemented for program improvement.

CNCS also allows grantee programs to adjust targets for future years based on lessons learned in the 

current year. However, School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs had to submit their continuation 

applications three months after the beginning of their first program year, at which point they lacked 

complete information on how close they were to meeting their targets in the first year.

A GPR compares the program-determined target for each measure (e.g., target number of students with 

improved academic performance in literacy and/or math) versus what the program was actually able to 

accomplish, noting whether the target was met. None of the grantee programs reports all performance 

measures.55

As reported in the Year 1 final evaluation report, grantee programs variably met their performance 

targets in 2013–14: of the 13 programs, 3 met all targets, 3 met no targets, 1 met almost all of its targets, 

and the remaining 6 met at least one of their targets. Exhibit II-11 provides an overview of grantee

programs’ success in meeting their self-selected performance measure targets in 2013–14 and 2014–15. 

Within each cell of Exhibit II-11, the first and second letters (Y=Yes, N=No) indicate whether the grantee 

met its performance measure target in 2013–14 and 2014–15, respectively. The exhibit is ordered by 

programs that met more of their 2013–14 targets, and then by those that met more of their 2014–15 targets.

In 2014–15, of the 13 programs, 4 met all of their performance targets and 3 met none of their targets. 

Overall, about half of programs (6) met all or almost all of their targets, while about half (7) met half or 

fewer of their targets. This is a noticeable increase over 2013–14, when 4 programs met all or almost all of 

their performance targets and the remaining 9 met half or fewer of their targets. 

 

55 Grantees are not required to report all performance measures. Grantees are required to report on at least one 

output measure (ED2, ED4A) and at least one outcome measure (ED5, ED6, ED7, or ED27) and can opt to report 

any other measures. For instance, per the Notice of Federal Funding Opportunity Addendum: Definitions, Suggestions 

Regarding Data Collection, and Additional Notes (2013, p. 3), tutoring and other education programs must report 

ED2 and then at least one of ED5, ED6, or ED27. 
nationalservice.gov 43

Exhibit II-11: Grantee Performance in Meeting 2013–14 and 2014–15 Performance Measure Targets

Grantee Program Activity Type56 ED1 ED2 ED4A ED5 ED6a ED7 ED27

2013–14

Targets 

Met

2014–15

Targets 

Met

Grantee program #9 Tutoring YY YN 4/4 3/4

Mentoring and Wraparound Services YY YY

Grantee program #10 Attendance and Academic Engagement YY YY 2/2 2/2

Grantee program #12 Tutoring YY YN 2/2 1/2

Grantee program #1 Academic Achievement YY YY NY 5/6 6/6

Academic Engagement YY YY YY

Grantee program #7 Classroom and Extended Learning YY YY 3/6 2/6

The Whole Child NN YN NN NN

Grantee program #6 Academic Performance YY NY 1/2 2/2

Grantee program #8 Early Warning System YY NN 1/2 1/2

Grantee program #4 Tutoring YY NN NN 3/10 8/10

Family/Community Engagement YY NY NY NY YY

Early Warning System NY NY

Grantee program #3 Academic Engagement YN NN NN N‡ 1/4 0/3

Grantee program #11 Academic Engagement and Achievement YN NN NN NN 1/4 0/4

Grantee program #13 Project Graduation NY NY † NY 0/3 3/3

Grantee program #5 Academic Interventions NY NN NN 0/3 1/3

Grantee program #2 Academic Achievement NN NN 0/2 0/2

Notes: See Performance Measure definitions in Exhibit II-10.

Y/N cell indicates that the grantee program did meet / did not meet the performance target for 2013–14 and then 2014–15. 

Blank cells indicate that the grantee did not report on the performance target.

a According to the performance measure guidance documented in CNCS’s Notice of Federal Funding Opportunity Addendum for AmeriCorps State and National Grants 

FY 2013, “Applicants and grantees may report on either ED27 or ED6 but not both measures to ensure an unduplicated count. Applicants are encouraged to select 

ED27, which is a more direct measure of academic engagement than ED6, but ED6 may be preferred if it is significantly easier to collect school attendance data 

than to obtain parental consent and administer a pre-post survey” (p. 7). 

b Performance Measure ED5 was selected in error for this grantee, so data are not reported. The relevant outcome Performance Measure is ED27.

c Performance Measure ED27 was reported by grantee program #13 in 2013–14 only.

Exhibit reads: Grantee program #9 Tutoring reported the following CNCS-defined performance measures in its GPRs: ED2 and ED5. It did not report ED1, ED4A, 

ED6, ED7, or ED27. It met its targets for ED2 and ED5 in 2013–14, and met its target for ED2 but not ED5 in 2014–15.

 

56 The Activity Type column in this exhibit and other exhibits throughout this report presents the Aligned Performance Measure names provided by grantees in 

their GPRs, with some of the names shortened and standardized to aid comparisons across grantees. A crosswalk of names reported in GPRs and in exhibits 

in this report is provided in Appendix Exhibit A-13.
nationalservice.gov 44

Case Study Cross-Site Analysis

Overview

This section addresses two broad questions: Which 

activities pursued by School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members are perceived as being more or less helpful, and 

why? and What are the perceived impacts of the program 

in supporting a school’s turnaround plan? Over Years 1 

and 2 of the evaluation (2014–15 and 2015–16 school years), 

the study team conducted case studies of 29 schools: 17 

program and 12 comparison schools. 

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for This Section

• Program Schools (n=17, 

including 4 SIG Exiters)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

grantee interviews, GPRs) 

• Comparison Schools (n=12)

Twenty-four schools (12 pairs) participated in comparative case studies, in which one school (labeled 

School 1A, etc.) was supported by School Turnaround AmeriCorps members and one school (labeled 

School 1B, etc.) had no School Turnaround AmeriCorps members and no or minimal AmeriCorps 

presence. By comparing program schools with otherwise similar schools with little to no AmeriCorps 

support, the comparative case studies describe diverse turnaround efforts across multiple schools 

receiving SIG funding, endeavoring to distinguish the unique contributions of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps. The case studies specifically examine how partnerships contributed to schools’ 

improvement efforts, what strategies external partners used, the range of strategies used across case 

study schools, and school stakeholders’ perceptions of the impact of additional resources on key 

turnaround outcomes. Case studies also document common challenges and promising practices that 

could potentially be replicated by other turnaround schools. An additional replacement case study 

examines a single program school without a comparison school.57

In 2015–16, the study team also conducted case studies of four School Turnaround AmeriCorps schools 

that had successfully exited SIG status. The “SIG Exiter” case studies describe the major strategies school 

leaders and teachers perceived as supporting each school’s success in exiting SIG status, including the 

role of members in implementing each strategy, program implementation conditions and challenges, and 

perceived impacts of turnaround strategies, including the contributions of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps.

Evaluation schools were chosen purposively to represent a range of School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

grantee programs, geographic locations, and intervention types. Program schools served a range of grade 

levels (six elementary, including one elementary/middle; one middle; and six high schools), school size 

(e.g., an elementary school with 249 students, a high school with 1,489 students), and locations (one town, 

one suburban, four rural, 11 urban; six regions of the country). Program schools also offered varied types 

of interventions, including attendance support, literacy tutoring, college preparation, and mentoring. The 

number of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members ranged from 1 (in a suburban high school) to 22 

(providing mentoring to every student in a rural high school). Other sources of variation in School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps programs reflect individual school needs, district and school partnerships, and 

grantee capacity. 

 

57 Year 1 case study Schools 4A and 4B were not included in Year 2 follow-up data collection (for separate reasons 

detailed in Appendix B). Program School 4A was replaced with a program-only case study (School 13A) without 

a comparison school, as potential comparison schools declined to participate. 
nationalservice.gov 45

In each pair, comparison schools were chosen as matching program schools based on several criteria: 

• Comparable SIG status. 

• Similar grade levels served. 

• Similar student demographic, enrollment, and academic proficiency characteristics. 

• Same district or, at a minimum, same urbanicity in the same state. 

• Having little to no AmeriCorps presence.58

Data sources for the case studies include principal interviews, teacher interviews and focus groups, 

member interviews, school climate observations for 10 schools visited in person, and materials from 

grantee programs, as appropriate (i.e., staff interviews, GPRs). Further details on the case study 

methodology are presented in Appendix A.3. 

The next section presents an overview of school contexts for the case studies, followed by a synthesis of 

findings on turnaround strategies, including implementation challenges. Lessons are drawn from all 

program and comparison schools that identified common challenges and promising practices in working 

with partners generally and with School Turnaround AmeriCorps specifically. The section concludes 

with perceived impacts of turnaround strategies, those using School Turnaround AmeriCorps members 

and others. Individual case studies are presented in Appendix B.

School Context

Understanding how School Turnaround AmeriCorps members supported their respective school’s 

turnaround strategies first requires describing the local contexts within which members served. Across 

the 29 schools, there are three overarching contextual themes: factors that influence the broader school 

context, school leadership and leaders’ attitudes and approaches to using external partners, and the 

challenges presented by heterogeneous student populations. Exhibit II-12 shows selected demographic 

and school characteristics for the 29 case study schools.

 

58 To be eligible, comparison schools had to have less than or equal to three Member Service Years and at least two 

less Member Service Years than the program school it would be matched to. 
nationalservice.gov 46

Exhibit II-12: Selected Characteristics of Case Study Schools

School

Number of AmeriCorps 

Members

Number of 

NonAmeriCorps 

Partners SIG Funding School Level

School 

Enrollment

District 

Urbanicity / 

Enrollment

Academic 

Proficiency in 

Reading / Math

Proportion of 

Students 

Eligible for 

FRPLa

Racial/Ethnic Composition

2014–15 2015–16 White Hispanic Black Asian Other

Year 1 /Year 2 Follow-Up Case Study Schools

School 1A 10 6 7 2011-14:

$6,000,000

High 1,358 Urban

86,516

50% / 35% 89% 3% 84% 10% 2% 2%

School 1B 0 0 3 2011-14:

$5,992,251

High 1,489 Urban

86,516

65% / 30% 90% 4% 80% 10% 4% 1%

School 2A 18 16 8 2011-14:

$1,279,599

Elementary 391 Urban

44,179

19% / 28% 84% 0% 1% 98% 0% 0%

School 2B 3 8 6 2011-14:

$550,387

Elementary 387 Urban

44,179

19% / 16% 78% 0% 0% 99% 0% 1%

School 3A 4 5 4 2010-13:

$2,136,713 

Elementary 395 Urban

83,377

41% / 38% 85% 6% 64% 25% 2% 3%

School 3B 0 0 7 2011-14:

$760,200

Elementary 384 Suburb

10,069

40% / 45% 91% 9% 82% 2% 5% 2%

School 4A 4 n/a 3 2011-14:

5,788,125

High 724 Urban

8,626

<10% / <10% 86% 0% 0% 97% 2% 0%

School 4B 0 0 4 2011-14:

$3,103,536

High 975 Urban

8.358

17% / <10% 82% 6% 2% 89% 0% 3%

School 5A 24 14 0 2010-13:

$308,417

High 874 Town

4,538

43% / 11% 62% 97% 1% 2% 0% 0%

School 5B 0 0 0 2010-13:

$1,324,949 

High 602 Town

2,525

59% / 16% 58% 99% 0% 1% 0% 0%

School 6A 1 n/a 3 2010-13:

$1,400,000

High 741 Suburb

2,177

30% / 27% 80% 19% 19% 43% 16% 3%

School 6B 0 0 2 2010-13:

$1,000,473

Middle/High 338 Rural

783

48% / 37% 50% 85% 4% 4% 1% 7%

Year 2 Case Study Schools

School 7A 9 11 9 2010-11:

$2,696,299

Elementary 249 Urban

354,262

18% / 26% 96% 1% 20% 79% 0% 0%

School 7B 0 0 17 2010-11: 

$1,343,612

Elementary 368 Urban

260,226

28% / 33% 99% 1% 2% 94% 0% 2%

School 8A 4 6 2 2011-14:

$267,000

High 369 Urban

2,431

20% / 11% 91% 1% 0% 98% 0% 1%

School 8B 0 0 0 2011-14:

$938,707

High 985 Urban

41,323

44% / 10% 84% 1% 0% 98% 0% 0%

School 9A n/a 8 2 2009-10:

$500,000

Middle 287 Rural

1,738

86% / 74% 45% 75% 22% 1% 0% 3%

School 9B 0 0 2 2009-10:

$530,970

Middle/High 378 Rural

778

88% / 72% 51% 80% 17% 1% 1% 1%

School 10A 9 7 9 2011-12: 

$475,000

Elementary 486 Urban

8,852

41% / 57% 75% 77% 2% 5% 1% 15%

School 10B 0 0 2 2011-12

$490,000

Elementary 962 Town

4,187

47% / 60% 60% 51% 34% 12% 1% 2%
nationalservice.gov 47

School

Number of AmeriCorps 

Members

Number of 

NonAmeriCorps 

Partners SIG Funding School Level

School 

Enrollment

District 

Urbanicity / 

Enrollment

Academic 

Proficiency in 

Reading / Math

Proportion of 

Students 

Eligible for 

FRPLa

Racial/Ethnic Composition

2014–15 2015–16 White Hispanic Black Asian Other

School 11A n/a 8 4 2009-10:

$1,215,057

High School 488 Rural

1,614

44% / 40% 46% 97% 1% 2% 0% 0%

School 11B 0 0 3 2009-10:

$1,623,200

High School 569 Rural

1,809

45% / 40% 48% 93% 2% 1% 1% 3%

School 12A 2 1 2 2011-12:

$4,899,454

Elementary 380 Urban

25,283

18% / 35% 99% 7% 67% 15% 9% 1%

School 12B 0 0 3 2011-12:

$4,899,454

Elementary 403 Urban

25,283

34% / 47% 93% 6% 65% 25% 1% 2%

School 13A 6 5 1 2010–11

$1,398,750

Elementary/

Middle

939 Urban

2,431 

students

53% / 61% 89% 1% 1% 99% 0% 0%

Year 2 SIG Exiter Schools

SIG Exiter 1 2 1 6 2011-12:

$4,899,454

Elementary/

Middle

392 Urban

25,283

2012-13: 57% / 64%

2014–15: 67% / 62%

68% 21% 43% 27% 1% 8%

SIG Exiter 2 3 2 4 2011-12:

$4,899,454

Elementary 354 Urban

25,283

2012-13: 21% / 21%

2014–15: 27% / 34%

98% 1% 86% 13% 0% 0%

SIG Exiter 3 n/a 7 2 2010-11:

$3,386,154

Elementary 427 Rural

6,966

2012-13: 55% / 47%

2013-14: 60% / 50%

73% 40% 5% 41% 10% 5%

SIG Exiter 4 25 18 1 2010-11:

$1,497,464

High 497 Rural

1,918

2012-13: 36% / 40%

2013-14: 56% / 31%

59% 99% 0% 1% 0% 0%

Notes:

a Free or Reduced-Price Lunch. 

AmeriCorps member counts:

Conflicting information was received from the grantee and school for program schools 1A and 10A regarding total number of AmeriCorps members. The grantee 

confirmed initially having seven members, but they recently had to exit a member and now have six, while School 10A confirmed four members at the time of the 

site visit in January 2016. Program School 4A did not participate in 2016 data collection because its grantee was having grant compliance issues. Comparison 

School 4B did not participate due to a public health crisis in its city. Program School 6A had no AmeriCorps members in 2015–16 and declined to participate in 

follow-up data collection. Program schools 9A and 11A and SIG Exiter School 3 did not provide 2014–15 AmeriCorps member counts.

SIG funding: Data on SIG funding was obtained from state websites and cannot be referenced without revealing school identities.

School Enrollment, Urbanicity, District Enrollment, Free and Reduced-Price Lunch, and Racial/Ethnic Composition: U.S. Department of Education. Institute of 

Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. 2012–2013.

Academic Proficiency: Proficiency data are from 2012-13 unless otherwise noted. Data obtained from state websites; principals provided data for the year of SIG 

exit.

Program school 1A/Comparison school 1B: End-of-course assessment; Program school 2A/Comparison school 2B: grades 2-6; Program school 3A/Comparison 

school 3B: grades 3, 4, 5; Program school 4A/Comparison School 4B: grade 11; Program school 5A/Comparison school 5B: End-of-course assessment; Program 

school 6A: Reading: Grades 6, 7, 8, 10; Math: Grades 6, 7, 8, 11; Comparison school 6B: Reading: 7, 8, 10; Math: 7, 8, 11; Program school 7A/Comparison 7B: grades 

3, 4, 5; Program school 8A/Comparison school 8B: End-of-course assessment; Program School 9A: grades 7, 8 (2011-12); Comparison School 9B: grades 7, 8, 10 

(2011-12); Program School 10A/Comparison School 10B: grades 3, 4, 5; Program School 11A/Comparison School 11B: grade 11; Program School 12A/Comparison 

School 12B: grades 3, 4, 5; Program School 13A: grade 8; SIG Exiter 1 and 3: grades 3-8; SIG Exiter 2: grades 3-5; SIG Exiter 4: End-of-course assessment.
nationalservice.gov 48

Factors Influencing the Broader School Context 

Case study respondents in all schools described multiple factors that influence their respective school’s

climate and culture (see textbox). 

 

School Climate, Culture, and Context

This report uses the following definitions to distinguish concepts that describe different aspects of 

the school environment. 

• Climate is the quality and the characteristics of school life, which include the availability of 

supports for teaching and learning. It includes goals, values, interpersonal relationships, 

formal organizational structures, and organizational practices.

• Culture refers to shared beliefs, customs, and behaviors. Culture represents people’s 

experiences with ceremonies, beliefs, attitudes, history, ideology, language, practices, 

rituals, traditions, and values.

• Context is the conditions surrounding schools, which interact with the culture and the climate 

in a school.

Source: Clifford, M. (2012). Measuring School Climate for Gauging Principal Performance: A Review of the 

Validity and Reliability of Publicly Accessible Measures. 

Examples of climate factors reported by the case study schools include: 

• High turnover in school leadership and staff, including new principals who took ownership of 

the turnaround effort and initiated new policies that created a more positive tone in the school, 

but also teacher turnover that impeded progress, as new teachers had to be trained each year in 

the curriculum and school-specific interventions. 

• Changes in schools’ structure or focus, such as serving different grades or transitioning to an 

early college access school. 

• School building upgrades that influenced people’s outlook on their environments.

Examples of cultural factors reported by case study schools’ turnaround initiatives include:

• School leader ownership of the turnaround effort and attitudes and approaches to using external 

partners (discussed below). 

• Staff attitudes toward collaboration and sharing instructional strategies. 

• The psychological stigma reported by school staff resulting from working in schools widely 

known as among the lowest performing schools in their state. 

• The reported psychological uplift of working in a school that has moved from the lowestperforming school-level classification in its state (outside of Receivership) to the highest 

classification level. 

Examples of other contextual factors in the case study schools include:

• The social and economic conditions of the surrounding community, including safety in the school 

environment. 

• Challenges specific to schools in rural areas, including limited availability of partner resources, 

transportation barriers that affect both students traveling to/from school and teachers attending 

professional development, and inadequate guidance or advice from state-level experts who 

offered advice more applicable to urban and more-accessible communities. 
nationalservice.gov 49

While school climate and culture changes can be broad and their effects difficult to quantify, it is 

important to acknowledge that these and other contextual factors can both facilitate and impede the 

ability of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members to support schools’ efforts to reach their turnaround 

goals. In particular, school climate factors were highly fluid, which added an additional layer of 

complexity to schools’ efforts to provide consistent environments or interventions. 

School Leader Ownership of the Turnaround Effort and Attitudes and Approaches to Using External 

Partners

School leaders play an important role in setting the tone for their turnaround strategies, a key element of 

school culture. Notably, across all four SIG Exiter schools, strong leadership was critical to exiting SIG 

status. Principals provided leadership by taking ownership of the turnaround initiative as a whole and by 

focusing on shifting the school culture from a demoralized state to one committed to improvement. 

Several SIG Exiter principals were assigned to their schools specifically to carry out the turnaround plan, 

including two principals in the same district (at SIG Exiter Schools 1 and 2) with prior successful 

turnaround experience. Some stakeholders at these schools noted that changes in principal and school 

leadership enabled their schools to address their challenges and change their cultures. In these several

SIG Exiter Schools, the principals empowered teachers by providing them with significant leadership 

roles in setting the strategy for the school’s turnaround path. 

Principals’ receptivity toward using external resources was a major theme in Year 1, Year 2, and the SIG 

Exiter case studies. A school’s predisposition toward partners can influence its success (or lack thereof) in 

using them, making it difficult to isolate the added value of School Turnaround AmeriCorps resources in 

instances where there were multiple partners. Not surprisingly, school leaders had varying perspectives 

about using external partners; leaders in a minority of all case study schools welcomed partners, while a 

few comparison school principals intentionally limited the number and scope of partners’ activities (one 

subsequently expanded use of partners in 2015–16). All four SIG Exiter School principals were open to 

robust partnership engagement, including fully integrating members into school operations. Principals’ 

receptivity to partners varied and did not necessarily mirror the schools’ use or not of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps. 

Student Populations with Socio-Emotional or Special Needs and Challenges

Respondents in some schools described using turnaround 

strategies to address student populations facing special 

needs and challenges, ranging from attendance and 

behavioral issues to language and personal barriers. This 

meant that school staff were working to meet the needs of 

English language learners, students with disabilities, 

students who were homeless or in foster homes or shelters, 

and/or students who themselves or whose families were 

refugees or otherwise transient. In addition, all case study 

schools served economically disadvantaged student 

populations (e.g., eligible for Free and Reduced Price Lunch 

(FRPL), ranging from 45 to 99 (median 82) percent of students. Several schools noted that because 

students and their families faced multiple challenges associated with poverty, students often did not have 

their basic needs met (such as clothing, school supplies, sufficient food) and parents often had less 

capacity to be highly involved in schools. 

A School with Large Refugee 

Populations

The big, big job for us has been to 

get families involved to understand 

the school system. And when you 

think you’ve got it made, then it’s a 

new group coming in and you have 

to...learn what their needs are.”

–Teacher Interview (2016)

Across all case studies, most schools also reported changes in their student populations, such as increases 

in English language learners (ELLs), or refugees from different national and linguistic backgrounds. 
nationalservice.gov 50

These changes in the student population meant that schools needed to recalibrate their services to 

accommodate the changing student body. 

Turnaround Strategies

Cross-Cutting Turnaround Strategies

This section presents cross-cutting findings about turnaround strategies from all case study schools. 

Almost all case study schools were dynamically adjusting their goals and strategies. In some, a school 

changed its turnaround goals because it had met one or more prior goals. In others, schools found that 

the interventions they had been trying were ineffective, so they adopted new interventions they believed 

would be more effective. 

The three most prevalent strategies among the case study schools are using data to drive interventions 

(all schools), teacher professional development (most schools), and providing supports for students’ 

socio-emotional learning (SEL) (most program schools, a minority of comparison schools). Other common 

strategies include provision of targeted and individualized academic support to struggling students. 

As shown in Exhibit II-13, almost three times as many program schools provided socio-emotional

learning supports than did comparison schools, likely because such supports were the most common 

strategy employed by School Turnaround AmeriCorps members regardless of academic interventions. 

Several other turnaround strategies were reported almost exclusively by program schools because they 

are specific to the AmeriCorps member role, which did not exist at comparison schools, including teacher 

buy-in, collaboration, and classroom supports; on-site coordinators to support members and facilitate 

communication; and flexibility in meeting schools’ needs. 

Exhibit II-13: Prevalence of Schools Reporting Use of Turnaround Strategies, by School Type

Turnaround Strategies

# Program 

Schools Reported 

Using This 

Strategy

# Comparison 

Schools 

Reported Using 

This Strategy

Cross-Cutting Turnaround Strategies

Frequent student assessment and monitoring student data to identify 

student needs and inform interventions to boost student performance (29) 17 12

Providing supports for students’ socio-emotional learning to improve 

student engagement and behavior (19)

14 5

Investing in teacher professional development and implementing specific 

curriculum to meet turnaround goals (23)

12 11

Providing targeted and individualized academic support to struggling 

students, or credit recovery to failing students (14)

12 2

Strategies Specific to School Turnaround AmeriCorps

Member-teacher collaboration and classroom supports (17) 17 0

On-site coordinators to support members and facilitate communication

(10)

10 0

Flexibility in meeting schools’ needs (8) 7 1

Notes:

Themes are ordered by program school frequencies. Appendix Exhibit A-12 “Prevalence of Themes by Unit of

Analysis, Stakeholder, and Change over Time” provides further detail on the frequencies presented in this exhibit, 

including prevalence by stakeholder type. 
nationalservice.gov 51

The most common turnaround strategies are discussed below.

Frequent student assessment and monitoring of student data to identify student needs and inform 

interventions to boost student performance

Monitoring data to assess progress and tailor instructional strategies was an integral part of all schools’ 

turnaround strategies.59 Schools described assessing students frequently using formative assessments to 

monitor student progress, guide goal setting, and inform instructional strategies; for example, by 

addressing gaps in ELA and math instruction. A few program and comparison schools dedicated a staff 

member to supporting data use, while in other schools teachers monitored their own students’ data.

Almost all program schools used student test scores or standardized assessment scores to identify 

students’ needs and match School Turnaround AmeriCorps members with students. Typically, a staff 

member analyzed student data, and students with low scores were matched with a member. Program 

schools also monitored student data to determine students’ needs/weaknesses, such as highlighting 

subjects where students were struggling and needed additional attention, and then using data to help 

guide specific types of interventions. They also used student data to help manage member workloads.

One school (4A), however, changed its program model in 2015–16 so that members no longer worked 

with students struggling most, instead working with students performing close to grade level, so that 

more-experienced teachers could work with the students facing the most severe academic challenges.60

Teachers and the principal at the school were more satisfied with the efficacy of the program after making 

this change. 

Stakeholders at all comparison schools discussed using Response-to-Intervention (RTI), standardized 

testing and reporting (STAR), and other assessments to track student progress, on a weekly or lessfrequent basis. Stakeholders at those schools described having professional development (PD) focused on 

learning to use data and ongoing structures, such as Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) in 

several schools and data retreats, to give staff time to collaborate on using and interpreting data (as 

discussed below). Interestingly, teachers at one comparison school (7B) that provided extensive support 

for students’ basic needs expressed skepticism that assessment data truly measured student success or 

potential. 

Providing supports for students’ socio-emotional learning to improve student engagement and 

behavior

Almost all program schools and a minority of the comparison schools reported providing socioemotional learning supports to improve student engagement and behavior. As discussed further in the 

Perceived Impacts chapter, members’ ability to provide such supports was perceived to boost the 

schools’ capacity to serve students’ needs and to work toward turnaround goals. Stakeholders’ 

descriptions of their school contexts as having high proportions of students with socio-emotional or 

special needs and challenges highlight the importance of having School Turnaround AmeriCorps and 

other added resources for providing those supports. 

 

59 The three schools not included in this count are the three Year 1 schools that did not participate in case study 

data collection in Year 2 (Schools 4A, 4B, and 6A). It may be possible that these schools were also using this 

strategy and either it was not reported in Year 1 or it was adopted for the 2015–16 school year.

60 The study team identifies examples of single schools with their case study identifier so that readers may 

reference the case study summaries in Appendix B. In a few other cases in the report, single examples are drawn 

from schools that did not participate in case studies and therefore do not have school identifiers to reference.
nationalservice.gov 52

Socio-emotional supports took various forms, including mentoring students during lunch, providing oneon-one mentoring sessions to talk about strategies to meet behavioral and attendance goals and to 

motivate students to attend school, providing enrichment activities through after-school programs, and 

one-on-one tutoring. SIG Exiter School 1 deployed members in a unique way, as school counselors 

dedicated to working in specific classrooms. These members were master’s of social work students 

fulfilling their internship placement requirement, placed by a local college (the grantee program). The 

members’ specialized background—plus professional supervision on site and through the college—

enabled them to provide students with professional socio-emotional and mental health supports well 

beyond the capacity of members without such training.

In program schools, members’ trusting relationships with students were the key mechanism for socioemotional learning to succeed. In some program schools, one-on-one interventions were perceived as 

supporting both behavior and student academic achievement, because students reportedly felt supported 

by members and more accountable as a result of their one-on-one relationships. Members’ various 

strategies and interactions with students enabled them to develop trusting relationships with students by 

giving them their focused attention and getting to know them, which helped students open up and 

become more willing to engage in school academically and socially. In several program schools, School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps members assisted in the implementation of a formal incentive-based, positive 

behavior system called Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS), which rewarded students for 

appropriate or positive behavior.

Stakeholders in all SIG Exiter schools described how attending to students’ socio-emotional needs 

enabled them to learn and was a crucial precipitating factor to increase their academic performance, in 

conjunction with other interventions. Similarly, School 2a described in 2015–16 that it had focused on 

behavior and school climate in previous years, but having attended to those issues, it could then focus 

more on academic improvement. 

Socio-emotional learning supports were also used in a minority of the comparison schools, and their use 

increased in 2015–16 compared with 2014–15. A few comparison schools added new socio-emotional 

learning initiatives in 2015–16, including one (2B) whose initiatives were to improve the school climate 

and student satisfaction. One school (1B) was the last in its district to be able to adopt the district-wide 

socio-emotional learning curriculum, delivered twice weekly; teachers reported they were eager to be 

able to implement it. Another school (6B) was able to hire a school psychologist and bring in two mental 

health providers from outside agencies, who were perceived as successful in improving the school 

climate. Socio-emotional learning supports were less consistent in two other comparison schools: One 

school (7B) emphasized “understanding the whole child” by assessing each student’s individual situation 

to determine how to address attendance and discipline issues and measure improvements. A teacher at 

the second comparison school (9B) primarily focused on parental engagement and communication to 

improve student behavior.

Investing in teacher professional development and implementing specific curriculum to meet 

turnaround goals

Most case study schools described increased professional development (PD) for teachers as a key 

component of their turnaround strategies. Administrators and teachers at most comparison schools (2015 

interviews) observed that teachers can more effectively provide additional supports than can volunteers 

or outside organizations, given their mastery of content and experience managing student behavior. 

Schools employed multiple strategies to improve teaching quality. In combination with the student data 

monitoring strategy, in all comparison schools and about half of the program schools, increased PD for 

teachers focused on their school’s goals and testing data, as well as for planning curriculums and sharing 
nationalservice.gov 53

ideas and learning from other teachers. Stakeholders in some comparison schools and one program 

school also described receiving additional training to ensure teachers were teaching specific curricular 

content to help students meet their goals (as well as, in one comparison school, teaching to the test). 

PD took several forms, ranging from one-time trainings (off site or at schools) to periodic trainings in the 

school to Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and other standing structures for teachers to 

strategize and collaborate. PLCs were used by some program schools and about half of comparison

schools to keep focused on improving teachers’ instructional strategies and skills. They provided

dedicated time for teachers to meet regularly to share promising practices, collaborate in reviewing 

student data, and strategize how to improve instructional practices throughout the school and for 

particular struggling students. One comparison school (6B) reported in 2014–15 that teachers were 

resistant to sharing information in the PLC or having their work called out (even positively) in front of 

colleagues. In 2015–16, stakeholders at that school reported that collaboration in the PLC had improved; 

another addition was that they began reviewing student data in PLC meetings. 

Other PD strategies described by fewer schools included supplementing district-wide teacher PD by 

partnering with local universities; sending teachers to data retreats and off-site trainings or courses; and 

implementing peer observations and coaching for probationary teachers to learn from observing their 

colleagues’ classroom practices.

Providing targeted and individualized academic support to struggling students or credit recovery to 

failing students

Providing targeted and individualized academic support or credit recovery interventions to struggling 

students was a strategy used by most program schools and a few comparison schools. In program 

schools, it was a key role played by members to provide this level of differentiated instruction; in 

comparison schools, teachers typically provided additional academic supports. 

At program schools, interviewed principals and teachers emphasized the value of small-group and oneon-one interventions. Program schools reported that members placed in core classrooms (i.e., English 

language arts (ELA), math, and science) could work with students individually or in small groups and 

use different teaching techniques to accommodate individual students’ levels or focus on different needs. 

In these schools, stakeholders appreciated members’ consistent presence. One school (SIG Exiter 1) 

previously tried an approach in which members floated across multiple classrooms to provide socioemotional support, but found that approach too diffuse to be effective for targeted students.

School staff reported that they appreciated member-provided one-on-one and small-group interventions 

because reduced responsibility for helping struggling students meant they could attend to their already 

full workloads. Members also provided one-on-one tutoring during school or after-school programs, and 

they helped motivate students to stay on task and complete their school work, which allowed members to 

build strong relationships with students while addressing their socio-emotional needs (as discussed 

below) and to provide more tailored academic instruction or support than typically possible in 

classrooms. 

Members worked with students in small groups to help students practice their reading; this strategy 

helped to differentiate student learning and provide more individualized learning within classrooms. A 

few programs used student data monitoring to target credit recovery interventions to students struggling 

to stay on track toward on-time graduation. 

Strategies Specific to School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

Grantee programs were described by schools’ principals and teachers as distinct from their other 

partnerships because their members are a consistent daily presence throughout the year. Such immersion 
nationalservice.gov 54

benefits schools by boosting classroom and overall school capacity. It also enables—and requires—

different partnership strategies than can be provided by more episodic partners (volunteers, trainers, 

etc.). 

The most common strategies employed by School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs were memberteacher collaboration around classroom support (most program schools), having an on-site coordinator to 

manage members and facilitate communication and understanding with the school staff (most program 

schools), and being flexible in meeting schools’ needs (about half of the program schools).61 

Member-teacher collaboration and classroom supports 

Across both years of data collection, collaboration between teachers and members emerged as an 

important mechanism in member and intervention effectiveness. All program schools described memberteacher collaborations. Some stakeholders across all program schools viewed the types of academic 

supports members provided, including small-group and one-on-one interventions and push-in classroom 

support to keep students on task, as beneficial because they generally allowed members to use different 

teaching techniques or to support students in ways that teachers were not able to.

In addition, collaboration and communication between teachers and members increased teacher buy-in 

and understanding of members’ roles; schools achieved this through multiple strategies. Teachers at 

some program schools in 2014–15 described a need for schools to provide communication that helps 

members be more effective. At several schools, teachers wanted more information—for example, from 

their departments—about activities members could and could not do. Strategies and suggested 

improvements at program schools included having designated meeting times when members (or 

coordinators) and teachers communicated about individual student needs and to coordinate supports. 

Another strategy that was used consistently by several

schools and inconsistently by a few others was integrating 

members into the school community through active 

participation in faculty meetings, trainings, and other 

activities to help members learn as much about the school 

and students as possible. When well used, this strategy 

helped members strengthen relationships with faculty as 

well as students. In 2015–16, teachers in a minority of 

different program schools described providing on-site 

training to build members’ confidence and ensure that 

members knew exactly how to support them and work in 

their classrooms effectively, which also helped build 

teachers’ trust in members’ contributions. 

 

Member-Teacher Collaboration

“[T]hese AmeriCorps members are 

so dynamic. I learn something from 

them every day. They always thank 

me. They say, ‘Thank you. I'm 

learning so much.’ And I flip it. I turn 

it right around. I go, ‘You know, 

thank you. I'm learning so much 

from you,’ because they bring a 

wealth of passion to the table, 

because I really believe the 

philosophy behind AmeriCorps is 

something that can be life changing. 

That’s why people go into the 

Peace Corps. That’s why people do 

different things in other countries. 

It’s so community focused and other 

focused. It’s just a great, great 

program.” 

–Teacher Interview (2016)

Teachers in some program schools perceived members as 

resources to reduce teachers’ workloads and/or to intervene 

with students who needed more attention, which in turn 

increased teachers’ receptivity to the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps intervention. Teachers in a few additional 

schools reported that members’ relationships with teachers 

were valuable to creating successful interventions, and these improved with increased communication 

and teachers’ familiarity with the program. Several teachers felt positively influenced by AmeriCorps 

61 One comparison school also noted the importance of having partners that were flexible about meeting the 

school’s needs. 
nationalservice.gov 55

members, saying they appreciated members’ passion and positivity and reaffirmed their love of teaching 

(see textbox). Teachers at one school also reflected on the importance of teachers mentoring members in 

their classrooms to model the skills needed for effective behavior management, lesson planning, and 

more. 

When member and teacher communication and collaboration functioned well in a school, teachers 

praised the members (reported by some program schools). In schools where communication and

collaboration functioned less well, teachers perceived members as burdensome or ineffective. For 

example, in School 4A, teachers interviewed in 2015 reported that they did not understand the work 

members did with the guidance counselor, and they had negative views of the program (see the Program

Implementation Challenges section).62 

On-site coordinators to support members and facilitate communication

On-site coordinators were described as crucial in supporting successful programs in most program 

schools across both years of the evaluation.63 On-site coordinators appeared to be an important structural 

mechanism for building relationships between program and school stakeholders. Again, no comparison 

schools reported using an analogous strategy of placing an external partner staff member or volunteer in 

the school to facilitate communication and coordinate its program activities on site. 

In several program schools, stakeholders reported that coordinators were valuable resources for School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps members to manage their caseloads based on member data. Most of those 

schools also used on-site coordinators to analyze student data and communicate it to members to help 

guide their interventions. In several other program schools, coordinators’ communication with school 

staff and leaders was reported to be crucial to understanding member roles and increasing school buy-in 

of members. Stakeholders in all program schools reportedly liked having someone they could consult to 

provide feedback on members, or to work out a different placement. In all program schools, the member 

coordinators also served as a liaison between the member and school staff (although they were not 

viewed positively in all of these schools). In the absence of receiving support from the school, one 

member also reported leaning on her coordinator for leadership. 

Flexibility in meeting schools’ needs

Although not a formal intervention per se, flexibility was reported by some program schools, including 

almost all SIG Exiters, and by one comparison school as an important turnaround strategy. These 

program school staff viewed the flexibility afforded to their schools by members as an asset; they 

described wanting more flexibility to be able to assign members to different students, classrooms, or 

ability levels as needed. For example, one school staff person described working to find a better 

placement for a member who was not a “good fit” with another staff member. In another case, an 

AmeriCorps member requested a transfer to provide the school’s intervention in a different subject area. 

In a third school with only one member, the member’s caseload was purposefully fluid so students could 

 

62 It is unclear whether these issues persisted into the 2015–16 school year, as School 4A did not participate in Year 

2 data collection.

63 This includes volunteered information from one of the four SIG Exiter schools. Interviews do not have details 

about how the other three SIG schools perceived supervision of their School Turnaround AmeriCorps members. 

SIG Exiters were not explicitly asked about supervisory structures, since not all such schools still had members at 

the time of the interviews (spring 2016). The partnership agreements for SIG Exiter Schools 1 and 2, which were 

served by the same grantee program, make clear that there is both on-site and grantee-provided supervision. The 

grantee program at SIG Exiter School 4 increased the amount of on-site supervision for members in 2015–16 due 

to challenges in the prior year. 
nationalservice.gov 56

receive support even if they were not identified at the beginning of the year. In a final example, members 

who were usually distributed across grades were placed all in one grade-level to provide additional 

support where there was increased need. 

These examples suggest that grantee programs understood and responded to schools’ desires to flexibly 

deploy members to meet their needs. However, case study data do not indicate how programs monitored 

members with respect to meeting minimum dosage levels for an intervention. One principal appreciated 

members’ flexibility, while noting a tension between meeting the needs of the school’s highly transient 

student population and the School Turnaround AmeriCorps model’s requirements for meeting the 

targeted amount of intervention hours per student. Staff from three SIG Exiter schools also commended 

members’ willingness to spend time with students and school staff outside of providing the formal 

intervention.

Units of Analysis (and Data Sources) 

for This Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 47 

principal interviews, 50 parent 

interviews, 17 program school 

case studies)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

grantee interviews, Grantee 

surveys, GPRs, member 

interviews) 

Program Implementation Challenges

The challenges described by grantee programs, school 

leaders, school staff, and members about implementing 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps are challenges 

commonly associated with operating programs in 

dynamic school environments undergoing major school 

reform.64 

Challenges noted by these stakeholders primarily 

clustered into school-level conditions and program 

implementation challenges. Challenges at the school 

level included staff turnover, a lack or loss of resources, 

school conditions, and rural-specific challenges. Program implementation challenges included member 

recruitment and retention; confusion over members’ roles and program rules; uneven member quality, 

preparation, and training; an inconsistent level of AmeriCorps presence; member skill sets for direct 

service provision; and grant administration. Less common challenges were related to program design and 

schools’ turnaround strategies, such as flexibility in the program’s approach to meeting students’ needs, 

teacher professional development, and using data to target interventions. Exhibit II-14. Implementation 

Challenges over Time summarizes the implementation challenges programs experienced over their threeyear grant period, including the challenge’s magnitude (major, moderate, or minor theme) and 

prevalence (reported by most, some, or few schools).

 

64 Parent interviewees were not usually directly involved in implementing activities, and therefore did not have 

first-hand knowledge about the activities that members and programs implemented. Their limited 

understanding of program challenges and issues was reflected in the interviews.
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Exhibit II-14: Implementation Challenges over Time

Challenges with... 2013-14a 2014–15 2015–16

School-Level Conditions

School Leader and Staff Turnover Not documented Minor (some programs) Major (most programs 

and few schools)

Lack or Loss of Resources Not documented Major (most programs 

and some schools)

Major (most programs 

and some schools)

Challenges with School Conditions Major (most programs) Major (most programs) Minor (few programs)

Distinct Challenges Facing Schools 

in Rural Areas

Minor (few programs) Minor (few programs) Minor (few programs)

Program Implementation 

Member Recruitment and Retention Major (most programs) Moderate (some schools) Moderate (some schools)

Confusion and Tension over 

Members’ Roles

Not documented Moderate (some schools) Moderate (some schools)

Uneven Member Quality, 

Preparedness, and Training

Not documented Moderate (some schools) Moderate (some schools)

Inconsistent AmeriCorps Presence Not documented Moderate (some schools) Moderate (about half of

schools)

Member Skill Sets for Direct Service Not documented Moderate (some schools) Moderate (some schools)

Grant Administration Major (most programs) Major (most programs) Minor (few programs)

Access to School Data Moderate (some programs) Major (most programs) Major (most programs)

Program Design and Schools’ Turnaround Strategies

Flexibility in Meeting Schools’ Needs Not documented Not documented Minor (few schools)

Teacher Professional Development Not documented Not documented Minor (few schools)

Use of Student Data to Inform 

Interventions

Not documented Not documented Minor (few schools)

Program Constraints Affecting 

Member Recruitment or Retention 

(e.g., amount of stipend vs. cost of 

living, opportunity cost vis-à-vis fulltime work) 

Minor (few programs) Minor (few programs) Minor (few programs)

a 2013-14 challenges identified retrospectively through Fall 2014 grantee interviews and 2013–14 GPRs.

Sources: Grantee interviews and focus groups (Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016); GPRs (2013–14, 2014–

15); principal interviews (Spring 2015); member interviews and focus groups (Spring 2015); case studies (Spring 2015, 

Fall 2015, Spring 2016)

Exhibit reads: Challenges with School Leader and Staff Turnover were not documented in 2013–14; were a minor 

challenge in 2014–15, reported by some programs; and were a major challenge in 2015–16, reported by most 

programs and a few schools.

School-Level Challenges

Both instability and lack of resources in schools were noted as challenges by members, grantee staff, 

teachers, and principals. Principal and teacher turnover was a significant source of instability within 

schools, while various family-related, community, statewide, and geographic conditions further 

contributed to the instability and resource challenges that hampered AmeriCorps members and grantee

staff in working effectively. 
nationalservice.gov 58

School Leader and Staff Turnover

Most grantee programs and a few members and program school stakeholders described high levels of 

teacher and principal turnover. Interestingly, this was a challenge mentioned much more frequently by 

grantee staff than by school stakeholders—one of the few instances with markedly different perspectives 

among stakeholder groups. This may be because establishing school relationships is a primary grantee 

program responsibility and a crucial factor for programs in successful implementation, whereas it may be 

a general challenge in turnaround schools—though one that is not seen as specific to School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps or that may be expected due to Turnaround status or pre-existing trends. As mentioned in 

the School Context section, turnover in both principals and teachers meant that some grantee programs 

were continually reintroducing their services. School leader turnover, which is an element of some 

turnaround models, meant that grantee staff had to frequently start over building crucial relationships 

and earning buy-in from the principal. In at least one case, a grantee reported that new school leadership 

was not as actively involved with the program because they were not involved with bringing it to the 

school. Furthermore, new teachers come to the school each year and need to be oriented to the program 

and learn about the role members could play in their classrooms, including limitations on their activities, 

and how to effectively work with members. High teacher turnover (reported to be as high as one-third 

per year in School 2A) was a significant drain on school resources and a loss of knowledge about the 

program. These challenges from fluctuating school teams limited how much grantee programs could 

mature their programs’ implementation. 

Lack or Loss of Resources 

Almost all grantee programs noted challenges due to limited resources in their partner schools. A 

minority of program schools (and about half of program case study schools) and almost all comparison 

schools reported lacking or losing resources—particularly staff resources, such as behavior specialists, 

subject matter specialists, mental health practitioners, and resources for after-school programs. In 

addition, most of the SIG Exiter schools that had reported increased internal capacity experienced (or 

anticipated) deleterious effects of losing the SIG resources that had helped them exit SIG status. In one 

case, this explicitly included losing the school’s seven School Turnaround AmeriCorps members because 

the district had higher-needs schools that would benefit from those members. 

A common sentiment among the few schools that reported losing resources (including losing members) 

as they improved was that they were being “punished” for achieving their goals, because they no longer 

could afford the resources that helped them to improve. Two principals that exited SIG status indicated 

that there were clear data that the school was improving with the assistance of those SIG and School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps resources and “that we should keep those systems of support in place” because 

“[if] schools get out of that [status], it doesn't mean the school won’t go back into it.” Two comparison 

schools also reported lacking volunteer resources and partner resources, the latter because of the school’s 

rural location. 

Challenges with School Conditions

Almost all grantee programs reported at least one challenge posed by school conditions they could not 

change, including the inability of school staff to communicate with parents and community members, 

low statewide education spending, classrooms with large populations of English language learners, and 

student transience. Additionally, the academic and behavioral issues members sought to address were 

entrenched and complex. According to a majority of school leaders in all three surveys, academic 

performance, attendance, and engagement, as well as disruptive behavior, discipline, and bullying were 

moderate or severe challenges, with slightly larger majorities in Year 2-Fall compared to the other two 

time periods. According to grantee programs, students living in poverty or in unstable housing, families 
nationalservice.gov 59

without resources or capacity to support homework or learning growth, chronic absenteeism due to 

students’ family obligations (e.g., needing to care for younger siblings or their own children), and chronic 

un- or underemployment in the surrounding community were a few examples of the difficult issues faced 

by turnaround schools in the study sample. More grantee programs reported challenges with school 

conditions in Year 1 compared with Year 2, suggesting that programs were adapting to turnaround 

schools’ conditions. 

Distinct Challenges Facing Schools in Rural Areas 

A few case study schools were in small towns or rural areas, and stakeholders from these schools 

described barriers and challenges unique to rural locations.65 These include limited availability of partner 

resources, transportation barriers that affect both students traveling to/from school and teachers 

attending professional development, and inadequate guidance or advice from state-level experts who 

offered advice more applicable to urban and more-accessible communities. Two remote areas with a high 

influx of refugees (Somali, Burmese, Iraqi) also struggled to support their ELL students and the needs of 

these students’ families.

Program-Level Challenges

Three major grantee program implementation challenges persisted over the second and third program 

years: member recruitment and retention; confusion about member roles; and uneven member quality, 

preparation, and training. Inconsistent AmeriCorps presence was a moderate theme experienced by most 

schools. Insufficient member skill sets for direct service provision presented a moderate challenge 

experienced by some programs and schools. Grant administration was a major problem for most 

programs in the first year that markedly improved over the second and third years.66

Member Recruitment and Retention

As described in the Program Implementation Findings chapter, all grantee programs reported 

challenges with either member recruitment or retention; a majority of programs reported each challenge, 

with more programs having challenges with retention. Reported by all grantee programs and most 

program schools, member recruitment and retention were the most prevalent types of challenge 

identified in the evaluation. Many turnaround schools depend on external resources, such as the 

additional staff that can be hired with SIG funds and School Turnaround AmeriCorps members, to 

support core school functions. A cohort of members that was unexpectedly small or mid-year departures 

created a disruption in schools’ plans and abilities to work toward their turnaround goals. In schools 

where members were placed in the same classroom throughout the year, a member leaving partway 

through the year burdened teachers who had come to rely on members for differentiating instruction and 

it upset students who depended on their relationships with members. Even when members completed 

their services hours, it could still pose a problem if they finished before the school year ended, leaving the 

school unable to continue providing those services for the rest of the year. 

 

65 Case study schools over-represent rural areas compared with all schools surveyed for the evaluation, which was 

between 7 and 9 percent per year.

66 Administrative data (grantee progress reports) provided limited information about challenges in the first 

program year, but administrative data as well as primary data sources provided a more complete and more 

nuanced understanding of challenges in the second and third program years.
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Confusion and Tension over Members’ Roles 

Confusion over members’ roles was a persistent challenge 

for a minority of schools, grantee programs, and members 

in Year 1 and Year 2. Unlike other partners who worked in 

schools for targeted amounts of time providing a single 

specific activity, School Turnaround AmeriCorps members 

(especially full-time members) served in schools all day. 

While the intensity of their service helped them positively benefit students and schools’ overall 

turnaround goals, their steady presence on site also led to confusion about how they could and could not 

contribute at the school. 

Tensions about Members’ Roles in 

the School

“They just want more teachers at 

the end of the day.”

–Member Focus Group (2015)

Most grantee staff and stakeholders at a minority of program schools (including most case study schools)

emphasized the importance of understanding AmeriCorps members’ roles; still some degree of confusion 

about how teachers could use them in their classrooms remained.67 School stakeholders across almost all 

case study schools—the only program schools where teachers, who interact with members on a daily 

basis, were interviewed—expressed confusion or concerns about member role definition. This was 

explicitly discussed as a challenge in three Year 2 case studies. As noted under the turnaround strategy of 

member-teacher collaboration (above), teacher expectations and understanding of members’ roles were 

not homogeneous, but rather varied within schools.

The lack of clarity about members’ roles in the schools appeared to come from several sources. First, 

programs and schools miscommunicated about members’ roles and responsibilities; second, school 

leaders misunderstood program rules; and third, the services offered by School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

were not always matched with schools’ needs. 

A minority of principals expressed frustration with program rules they felt made the program less 

effective—specifically, members having to maintain the same caseload of students throughout the year 

and do a community service project (required by their grantee programs). Principals admitted in 

interviews that they did not always understand the program rules and activity restrictions or they found 

the restrictions a hindrance to productivity. Some principals also noted that their AmeriCorps members 

had more restrictions and guidelines to adhere to than their other school partners did, a sentiment shared 

by a few grantee staff. Interestingly, in the 2015–16 school year, some principals in SIG program schools 

and all four of the SIG Exiter principals responded that they and their teachers did understand members’ 

roles. 

Confusion over members’ roles was sometimes manifested in teachers’ disinterest in using members 

because they (teachers) were doubtful about how they could productively use members’ services. 

Sometimes it manifested in members’ own confusion about what they were expected to do. For 

stakeholders at some case study schools, confusion about members’ roles seemed to reflect lack of 

communication and insufficient relationship building between teachers and members. Whether members 

understood their roles but not how to inform school staff or members lacked understanding, the result 

was members struggled to find their place in the school. 

Teachers’ lack of buy-in was more pronounced in one rural program school, and may also reflect broader 

challenges members faced building relationships in a local community they described as “closed” and 

“guarded.” Members there were not invited to attend either faculty meetings or teacher professional 

development sessions. One member reported that while some of the school’s teachers were approachable 

and communicative, others did not welcome members’ help, perceiving it as intrusive or interfering. One 

 

67 Note that these perceptions were not unanimous in these schools.
nationalservice.gov 61

teacher corroborated such member perceptions, noting that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members 

were underutilized because some school staff were unsupportive and that in one instance, teachers 

turned the members away from participating in a school activity after members helped set it up. By 

contrast, teachers and members in several other case study schools described how they addressed this 

challenge; simply put, teachers were willing to take the time to support members by having 

conversations with them to help them understand their role. 

In one school, a teacher and her colleagues developed a 

checklist to clarify members’ roles for both teachers and 

members themselves, which all found to be an effective 

resolution. 

Miscommunication between 

Programs and Schools

“What my coordinator is telling me 

is that they’ve had every 

communication necessary with 

administrators. Clearly something is 

missing, though.”

–Member Focus Group (2015)

Members in two Year 1 focus groups observed that school 

administrators often did not know what School Turnaround

AmeriCorps members are and are not allowed to do within 

their schools. As a result, members said they felt like they 

had to say, “I can’t do that” (i.e., substitute teach, proctor 

tests, perform miscellaneous other tasks) more often than they liked. Several members revealed that they 

did not feel respected by the school staff; one grantee staff echoed that, saying that grantee staff struggled 

to ensure members received the respect they deserve. 

Tension between programs and schools about members’ roles appeared to be not only a case of 

miscommunication but a mismatch, to some degree, between schools’ needs and what services members 

are allowable to offer. It is also, potentially, a misunderstanding based on the school leadership’s desire to 

use the School Turnaround AmeriCorps as a pipeline to identify future staff members.

Issues of Member (Partner) Quality, Preparation, and Training 

Concerns with members’ quality and preparation were consistently reported by a minority of principals, 

teachers, and members and by about half of grantee staff across Year 1 and Year 2. The issues that were 

highlighted included both gaps in training and sometimes a mismatch between members’ backgrounds 

and the skills schools most needed and desired. Stakeholders across most program schools and one 

comparison school commented on the need for more on-site training for members placed in schools, on 

uneven performance by members, on members’ lack of professionalism and soft skills, or on the 

importance of quality when recruiting members (or volunteers, in the case of the comparison school). All 

these issues posed challenges for members in supporting schools’ turnaround goals, especially early on in 

members’ service before they gained practical in-school experience.

Although members generally reported receiving considerable training and orientation before being 

placed in schools—and all grantee programs reported providing at least two weeks of pre-service 

training—stakeholders in most program schools reported that members placed in schools still needed 

specific, on-site training to build teacher buy-in. Desires for additional member training reflected 

members’ lack of training in classroom management and behavior issues, or in specific curricula and 

literacy interventions, or in working with student populations with special needs (e.g., students in Special 

Education and with Section 504 plans). Across Year 1 and Year 2, members’ lack of behavior management 

skills was especially a problem at the beginning of the year, but members most often were said to have 

learned effective strategies by the end of the year. 

Stakeholders in some schools lamented that members almost always left just as they had gained practical 

experience to make them substantially more helpful. A few principals even reported in Year 1 that it was 

a burden to host inexperienced members and then lose them after their one-year term of service, just as 
nationalservice.gov 62

the members gained these skills and became helpful to the 

school.68 To mitigate this tension, a few members, in fact, 

were reported to stay on for a second year precisely because 

they wanted to increase their impact in a second year of 

service. 

Member Preparation for Service

“I have these four very young 

AmeriCorps members that are 

trying to address these issues and 

barriers that are really beyond their 

scope. They haven't been able to 

figure out how to refer or where to 

refer, so they end up leaning on my 

social workers, and then we just are 

kind of spinning at that point.”

–Principal Interview (2015) 

As noted, on-site supervision was seen as a crucial 

component to well-functioning programs. A majority of 

program schools reported that on-site coordinators 

supported members in implementing their duties; a few 

reported that site coordinators provided additional training 

to members. Program and comparison schools alike 

described challenges with adequately supervising partners 

and having partners with the training needed to deliver content and manage student behavior. 

Stakeholders from several program schools and one comparison school emphasized the importance of 

whom their schools brought in as members and volunteers. Several teachers and one principal stressed 

the importance of member (or other partner) quality during recruitment and selection, noting that they 

emphasized finding engaged individuals who were willing to attend staff meetings and be professional 

and outgoing. 

Two schools in Year 1 where coordinators split their time across multiple schools (Schools 3A and 5A) 

discussed the negative effects of a school not having a dedicated coordinator. These two programs were 

perceived by school stakeholders as less effective because the coordinator was not readily available either 

to communicate with school staff about members’ roles or to coordinate with teachers about matching 

tutoring plans to teachers’ upcoming lesson plans. In 2015–16, the grantee program for School 5A brought 

on a full-time coordinator instead of having her split her 

time between three schools. Recruiting Quality Members 

“It’s all about who you hire, and 

unfortunately, we’ve had to let some 

AmeriCorps members go. And I 

know it’s kind of the entry-level 

position into the professional world, 

and some people just aren’t ready 

to be a professional. And so we’ve 

had to kind of cut bait on some of 

our AmeriCorps members.” 

–Principal Interview (2016)

Two comparison schools also struggled with the supervision 

and preparedness of external partners. One school (4B) hired 

external part-time tutors described as lacking necessary 

skills or knowledge needed to manage and deliver 

instruction effectively to a small group; this partnership was 

discontinued in 2015–16. At another comparison school (2B) 

with an extensive network of partners, most interviewed 

school staff members emphatically observed that the school 

was not providing adequate supervision and coordination 

for external partners in 2014–15; the same issue was not 

noted in 2015–16. 

In one focus group, some grantee staff noted that they wished they could train members earlier, before 

the school year starts, so they could “be up to speed” on the first day of school. Their experience was that 

the grant timeline did not make it possible to do so, however. 

Inconsistent AmeriCorps Presence

Some program schools reported dissatisfaction with inconsistent AmeriCorps presence due to a variety of 

reasons. Such inconsistency came from member turnover and retention, transportation issues in rural 

schools, disruptions in instructional time due to School Turnaround AmeriCorps schedules that had not 

 

68 This specific challenge was not mentioned in Year 2.
nationalservice.gov 63

been communicated, and the yearly change in member cohorts in a given school. Four of these schools 

experienced member attrition during the school year, limiting the program’s ability to serve the target 

student caseload and meet defined performance measure targets. Although commitment to a one-year 

term of service is the standard required by AmeriCorps, 

parents in one school commented that the change in 

members every year means their children did not 

experience enough continuity in the program. 

Inconsistent Member Presence

“So I think [students] were really 

excited about [the AmeriCorps 

program] to begin with, but then 

when you’re constantly having to 

change and adapt to a new person 

and a new way of doing things, it 

almost became too much work 

versus the benefits that the kids 

were getting.”

–Teacher Interview (2016)

One program school shared member recruitment 

responsibilities with the grantee staff (as outlined in the 

partnership agreement); the principal reported that 

challenges with member recruitment made this 

responsibility burdensome rather than beneficial. A 

teacher in another program school explained that 

recruitment and retention challenges adversely affected 

schools’ ability to sustain gains made by AmeriCorps 

members, particularly in building relationships with students and families from one year to the next. 

Stakeholders perceived members’ consistent presence in the school as necessary for teachers to rely on 

member-provided supports, which in turn engendered teachers’ buy-in and students’ trust—but 

inconsistency in members’ presence in the school had the opposite effect, eroding teachers’ buy-in to the 

roles and purpose of members in the school.

Negative stakeholder perceptions also stemmed from inconsistent quality in the members’ performance 

over different program years (i.e., having a “bad batch” of members in certain years vs. high performing 

members in other years, particularly those who served in a school for more than one year). In one School 

(2A) with a long-standing relationship with its grantee program (that transcended School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps), several teachers across both years noted that each new cohort of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members, and the performance of these new members, deteriorated each year; specifically, 

that members struggled to develop classroom skills. Retention at the school also worsened from 2014–15

to 2015–16. Still, the school’s history of effective partnership with that grantee and its overall reliance on 

AmeriCorps to provide core functions meant the program remained essential to the school. 

Member Skill Sets for Direct Service Provision

Throughout both years of the evaluation, there were notably few challenges with either the delivery or 

quality of members’ tutoring—the primary responsibility of most members. A minority of schools and 

about half of grantee staff reported shortcomings in members’ skill sets for direct service delivery. 

Challenges with tutoring were generally overshadowed by challenges with the bigger-picture issues 

discussed above, such as members needing more training and confusion and tension in the schools over 

members’ roles. 

However, two concerns raised by members, principals, and (to a lesser extent) grantee staff were school 

staff not trusting members to engage parents (especially early in the year) and teachers not being 

confident about allowing members to be responsible for students’ academic progress. Teachers are 

evaluated based on their students’ performance, and they did not want to yield control to others whose 

skills were untested. A minority of members and principals also pointed out that members’ skills did not 

match students’ areas of need (e.g., a cohort of literacy-focused tutors in a school with higher needs for 

math and science tutoring).
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Grant Administration

Grantee programs reported a changing set of barriers from the first year of implementation through the 

third, as reported in GPRs and interviews. In the first year (2013–14), program start-up issues (e.g., timing 

of award notification/school start, technical difficulties with eGrants, misunderstanding of program 

requirements, managing financial and other resources, challenges with accessing or analyzing data, and 

obtaining access to technology) were the most prevalent type of barrier reported. Almost all programs 

reported at least one such challenge. 

The 2014–15 barriers differed notably from the barriers previously reported. By the end of that second 

program year, programs were not reporting grant administration challenges. Rather, their primary 

challenges were member enrollment and retention, structural issues specific to the AmeriCorps model 

(the amount of the stipend, opportunity cost of full-time or permanent work), and (for some) continuing 

challenges with accessing school-level student data. Various strategies to ensure access to data also 

appeared to be an area where programs could improve—for example, consistently implementing preand post-tests and negotiating access to student records with the school or district.

The changing character of grantee programs’ challenges as reported in GPRs from 2013–14 to 2014–15 

suggests that the programs successfully overcame administrative challenges typically associated with a 

new effort. 

Less Common Challenges with Program Design and Schools’ Turnaround Strategies

While not common, some program schools as well as comparison schools experienced challenges with 

the design of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program or the turnaround strategy they implemented. 

These are included because they provide informative examples about potential challenges inherent in 

certain turnaround strategies, which can impact the effectiveness of external partners engaged in 

supporting those strategies. 

Flexibility in Meeting Schools’ Needs

Most program schools demonstrated flexibility in meeting schools’ needs. However, one school 

simultaneously appreciated the program’s flexibility and lamented the grant restrictions prohibiting 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members from administering tests and grading, creating lesson plans, 

and disciplining students. Its principal and teachers believed the restrictions hampered the program’s 

potential effectiveness in their school. The principal also viewed the member caseload dosage definition 

as misaligned with the school’s highly transient student population, where students exiting and enrolling

throughout the school year made meeting targeted dosage levels unlikely.

Teacher Professional Development

A few comparison schools experienced challenges related to implementation of their teacher professional 

development strategies. In one case, the principal and teachers noted that insufficient resources to retain 

and recruit staff and volunteers impeded the school’s turnaround efforts focused on investing in teacher 

professional development. In another case, the school’s culture of privacy and teachers’ discomfort with 

critiquing one another’s instructional practices hindered its progress in creating Professional Learning 

Communities as a means for teacher professional development.

Use of Student Data to Inform Interventions

Using student data to inform interventions was the most prevalent school turnaround strategy in 

program and comparison schools alike. However, one comparison school teacher suggested that the 

school’s turnaround status led staff to teach to the test, an unintended negative consequence of focusing 

so heavily on this strategy.
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Effectiveness of Strategies and Adjustments over Time

Perceived Effectiveness of Implementation Strategies 

The large majority of grantee staff and school leaders in both 

years indicated that all seven elements of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps programs listed in Exhibit II-15 were very 

important or important. The stakeholders characterized as 

very important or important orientation and training of 

AmeriCorps members before they serve, supervisory structure 

to ensure fidelity of program implementation, recruitment 

process that identifies members with skills corresponding to 

program objectives, and comprehensive trainings of 

members.69

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for This Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 47 

principal interviews, 50 

parent interviews, 17 

program school case studies)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

Grantee surveys, grantee 

interviews, GPRs) 

 

69 Sources: Grantee survey, Year 1 and Year 2 (2014–15, 2015–16). See Appendix Exhibit C-12; School Leader survey 

Year 1, Year 2-Fall, and Year 2-Spring (2014–15, 2015–16). See Appendix Exhibit C-20.
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Exhibit II-15: Grantee and School Leader Perceptions of Important Elements of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Implementation (Year 1 and Year 2) 

Year 1

Grantees: Very Important Important

School Leader: Very Important Important 

Year 2

Grantees: Very Important Important

School Leader (Spring): Very Important Important 

School Leader (Fall): Very Important Important

 
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Notes: 

Grantees Year 1: (N=13, Missing=0–1); School Leaders Year 1: (N=38, Missing=0-1); Grantees Year 2: (N=13, 

Missing=1); School Leaders Year 2-Fall: (N=37, Missing=0-1); School Leaders Year 2-Spring: (N=40, Missing=0).

Grantees Year 1: Number of respondents who indicated the question was somewhat important ranged from 0 to 2. 

Number of respondents who indicated the question was not at all important ranged from 0 to 2. School Leaders Year 

1: Grantee Year 2: Number of respondents who indicated the question was somewhat important ranged from 1 to 2. 

School Leaders Year 2-Fall: Number of school leaders who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0

to 1; School Leaders Year 2-Spring: One respondent indicated the question was not applicable. Exhibit is sorted 

according to Year 2 grantee staff responses. 

The wording of several elements differed between the Year 1 Grantee, Year 2 Grantee, Year 1 School Leader, Year 2-

Fall School Leader, and Year 2-Spring School Leader surveys:

a Year 1 Grantee: "Recruitment and selection process that effectively identifies members with characteristics/skills that 

correspond with the program objectives." 

 Year 1 School Leader: "AmeriCorps member recruitment and selection process that identifies and selects members 

with skills aligned with the program's objectives." 

 Year 2 Grantee and School Leader: “AmeriCorps member recruitment and selection process that effectively identifies 

members and selects members with characteristics/skills aligned with the program’s objectives.” 

b Year 1 Grantee: "Multi-layered supervisory structure to ensure fidelity of program implementation." 

 Year 1 School Leader: "Clearly defined supervisory structure to ensure fidelity of program implementation." 

 Year 2 Grantee and School Leader: “Clearly defined multi-layered supervisory structure to ensure fidelity of 

program implementation.” 

c

 Year 1 Grantee: "Defined framework (e.g., RTI) to guide instructional choices and allow for the assessment of 

program effectiveness." 

 Year 1 School Leader: "Defined framework (e.g., RTI) to guide instructional choices and allow for the assessment of 

program effectiveness." 

 Year 2 Grantee and School Leader: “Clearly defined framework (e.g., RTI) to guide instructional choices and allow 

for the assessment of program effectiveness.”

d This element did not appear in the Year 1 Grantee surveys.

e Year 1 Grantee: "Limited set of highly scripted interventions that have been shown to be effective (i.e., research 

based) in achieving desired student-level outcomes." 

 Year 1 and Year 2 School Leader: "Highly defined set of research-based interventions to improve desired studentlevel outcomes." 

 Year 2 Grantee: “Highly defined set of research-based scripted interventions to improve student-level outcomes.” 

See Appendix Exhibits C-12 and C-20 for tables with all response options.

Source: Grantee Survey Q16 (“How important are the following characteristics to successfully implementing your 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program at a typical school?”) School Leader Survey Q9 (“How important are the 

following to the successful implementation of School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in your school(s)?”) 

Exhibit reads: Thirteen grantees and 100 percent of school leaders in Year 1 perceived that a "recruitment and 

selection process that identifies members with skills that correspond with the program objectives" is important or 

very important to implementation of AmeriCorps. Twelve grantees in Year 2-Fall, 100 percent of school leaders in 

Year 2-Fall, and 100 percent of school leaders in Year 2-Spring also perceived this as an important or very important 

element of implementation. 
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Effective Strategies That Continued or Increased over Time

Grantees’ programs generally remained the same year over year (see Exhibit II-7), meaning that 

members’ activities in schools were generally stable throughout the grant period. While about half of 

members interviewed reported that their activities changed over the course of the service year, most of 

these were minor changes, such as more time allowed for lesson planning, increased responsibility for 

leading other members, and increased after-school activities. Few members reported structural changes 

to their activities over time, such as diversifying small groups to incorporate multiple learning styles or

changing from a pull-out tutoring model to in-class support. 

Over the program’s first three years, program implementation matured, as grantee programs both 

identified and adopted promising strategies and made strategy adjustments in response to challenges. 

This section describes the most prevalent, key changes to implementation, summarized in Exhibit II-16. 

Exhibit II-16: Implementation Strategies and Change over Time

Change over Time

(2013–14 to 2015–16)

Effective Strategies

Communication and collaboration between members and teachers, grantee

programs and school leaders 

On-site coordinators 

Use of data to target students for services and tailor interventions 

Individualized attention from members to students

Strategy Adjustments Based on Challenges

Confusion and tension over members’ roles 

Member recruitment and retention 

Training for members to address issues in preparation 

Loss of SIG funding/resources 

Notes: 

Represents a theme that continued at the same prevalence or intensity over time. 

  Represents a theme that increased in prevalence or intensity over time.

  Represents a theme that decreased in prevalence or intensity over time.

Communication and Collaboration Between Members and Teachers, Grantee Programs and School 

Leaders (Increased)

The most pronounced change in program strategies from 2014–15 to 2015–16 was in the type and amount 

of communication and collaboration between program stakeholders (grantee programs and members) 

and school stakeholders (school leaders, teachers, and counselors). Understanding members’ roles was an 

important theme across the majority of schools in both years of the evaluation, and well served by 

increasing communication among all stakeholders. 

Several grantee programs emphasized communication and relationship development with districts and 

schools as means to settle into routines and work to create stronger, more efficient programming. These 

strong ties helped programs navigate challenges as they arose—such as using district relationships to 

help smooth over changes in school leadership—and facilitated programs and school and district 
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partners mutually supporting one another’s goals. At the school level, for most case study schools and a 

minority of other schools, collaboration and communication between teachers and members increased 

teacher buy-in and understanding of members’ roles. Several members specifically credited their ability

to implement their interventions more effectively to developing stronger connections with school staff, 

which in turn helped members strengthen relationships with students and become more comfortable in 

school environments. 

Notably, this strategy change was used both proactively—increasing communication in programs and 

schools that were already successful—and in response to challenges with members’ roles, described 

below. 

On-Site Coordinators (Small Increase)

On-site coordinators were widely perceived by stakeholders at majorities of schools and programs to be 

an effective means of organizing members’ work in schools and maintaining open communication 

between school stakeholders and program members and staff. Interviewed stakeholders from a majority 

of schools and almost all programs reported using on-site coordinators in 2014–15. A few programs noted 

specific challenges with insufficient member supervision that year and chose to add on-site coordinators 

in 2015–16. 

Use of Data to Target Students for Services and Tailor Interventions (Increased) 

All grantee programs and interviewed stakeholders from about half of the schools (and almost all case 

study schools) reported using data frequently to identify students for School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

member interventions and to assess student progress. Several program staff and members, and some 

school stakeholders, also reported some challenges with data. For programs, these challenges included 

inability to access school or district student data and limited staff capacity to handle large volumes of 

data. 

In 2015–16, grantee programs had taken more proactive steps to negotiate data-sharing agreements with 

schools and districts and to align their reporting periods with school grading periods (to get more 

meaningful views of student progress). Programs also in a few cases provided staff to schools to handle 

student data for the program and sometimes to boost the school’s overall capacity to manage student

data. Schools also improved their ability to use data by increasing professional development for teachers 

in using assessment data to tailor their instructional strategies, which also meant teachers increased their 

skills for reviewing student data with members to help tailor members’ interventions. 

Individualized Attention from Members to Students (Continued)

Members providing individualized attention to students was reported by stakeholders from a majority of 

schools and programs to be among the most effective mechanisms for members to positively affect the 

outcomes of the students in their caseloads. This was due both to members building trusting 

relationships with their students and to the more targeted instruction members were able to provide. 

Over the two years of the evaluation, schools continued to engage in this strategy; no schools or programs 

reported decreasing their use of this strategy. Across both years, a majority of principals and teachers 

from program schools reported members building positive relationships with students.

Strategy Adjustments Based on Challenges

Confusion and Tension over Members’ Roles (Improved)

To make members’ experiences successful, grantee programs worked to ensure the members felt like 

valued contributors to the school community, set and organized members’ schedules, and helped 
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members’ roles be understood by school staff. Overall, the challenges with confusion over members’ 

roles, while they did persist, were significantly less in 2015–16 compared with prior years. One grantee 

program helped its members hone an “elevator speech” about their roles in the school so that school staff 

would learn why the members were there and how they could be helpful. 

One program staff, however, described persistent challenges over two years in one school with having 

members’ roles understood. The staff reported having tried several strategies but that, “if anything, ... it 

got worse.” Ultimately, this program resolved the issue by dropping the school (School 6A) from its 

partnership and working with another partner district to identify a different school with more buy-in to 

the program and capacity to support members. The improved level of understanding of members’ roles 

overall seems likely to be related to improvements in the communication and relationships between 

programs and partner schools, most of which occurred in the third year of implementation. 

Member Recruitment and Retention (Improved) 

All grantee programs experienced challenges with member recruitment and retention, though these 

challenges lessened somewhat in 2015–16 compared with prior years. The modest improvement may 

have emerged from several strategies grantee programs employed. In response to recruitment challenges, 

programs (and in a few cases, school partners that were partially responsible for recruiting) sought to 

begin recruiting earlier in the year and to diversify their advertising channels, including using social 

media. Retention problems persisted over both years of the evaluation, and programs also used a variety 

of strategies to address member turnover. These strategies included more and clearer up-front 

communication with prospective members about service commitments and the stipend, conditions, and 

challenges in turnaround schools, as well as contingency plans for members when personal 

circumstances interfered with service. 

Training for Members to Address Issues in Preparation (Increased)

A minority of schools and members over the two years of the evaluation consistently described 

shortcomings in members’ preparation to work in turnaround schools, most often because they lacked 

skills in managing student behavior, preparation for understanding students’ socio-emotional challenges, 

and training in the host school’s specific interventions or policies. Across years, almost all grantee

programs reported providing member training, and a majority of schools provided school-based training 

and/or professional development for members. 

Both grantee programs and schools (a minority of each) reported providing members more and moretargeted trainings in 2015–16 compared with 2014–15. Several programs provided more training to 

members in response to reports of them being underprepared for the specific conditions of their service—

such as cultural competency training for working in diverse school settings and on the demographics and 

conditions of the schools. Teachers and principals in a majority of program schools described providing 

on-site training to build members’ confidence and ensure that members knew exactly how to support 

them and work in their classrooms effectively, which also helped build teachers’ trust in members’ 

contributions.70

 

70 This finding emerged in significantly more case study schools than schools where only the principal was 

interviewed. It may be that more case study schools offered this training compared with other schools; it may 

also be that the single principal interviews did not elicit information on members’ on-site training as did the 

more in-depth case study interview protocols. 
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Loss of SIG Funding/Resources (Increased) 

A minority of schools described with some frustration that as their schools improved their performance, 

they lost resources—SIG supports, School Turnaround AmeriCorps members, or both. This was 

perceived as a perverse incentive, for schools to lose more resources the better they were performing, 

even though they attributed part of their success to the contributions of those resources. A few principals 

specifically noted that they received smaller member cohorts as their schools improved. 

All four SIG Exiter schools profiled in case studies noted a version of this theme. The loss of SIG and 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps resources was likely more pronounced for the SIG Exiter schools 

because they experienced the most improvement (and concomitant loss of resources associated with SIG 

status). Two SIG Exiter schools lost all SIG resources, including School Turnaround AmeriCorps, upon 

exit. For the other two SIG Exiters, the AmeriCorps members provided a much-needed, albeit temporary, 

boost to those schools’ capacity after other supports, such as instructional specialists, coaches, and grant 

funds, were withdrawn. (As noted in the SIG Exiter case studies, grantee programs sometimes need to 

reallocate members based on the needs of their partner districts overall.) 

Grantee programs echoed these concerns in both Year 1 and Year 2 interviews. While almost all programs 

noted challenges with a lack of resources in their partner schools, a minority of programs in each year 

specifically identified concerns about not having sustainable interventions in those schools. In a few 

cases, programs sought to train and recruit teachers and external volunteers to continue the AmeriCorps 

members’ activities when they were gone. In 2015–16, several grantee programs discussed having to 

discontinue School Turnaround AmeriCorps interventions at certain schools and the negative impact the 

withdrawal of members had on the schools. 
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III. PERCEIVED IMPACTS OF AMERICORPS SERVICES IN SUPPORTING SCHOOL TURNAROUND 

EFFORTS

This chapter addresses the broad question, What are the perceived impacts of the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program in supporting a school’s turnaround plan and achieving its desired outcomes?” It 

presents the broad findings on perceptions of the program’s overall success and the perceived value of 

the partnership to school stakeholders. It then describes school leaders’ turnaround goals for student 

outcomes and program stakeholders’ perceived impacts of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program 

on specific student and school outcomes, including the perceived impacts achieved by case study schools 

in specific student and school outcomes. 

Data sources include the case study research, School Leader and Staff surveys, Grantee surveys, principal 

individual and small-group interviews, parent interviews, member interviews, and grantee staff and 

member focus groups.71 

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for This Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 47 

principal interviews, 50 parent 

interviews, 17 program school 

case studies, School Leader 

and Staff surveys)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

Grantee survey, interviews, 

member interviews) 

Summary of Perceived Impact Findings over Time

Key findings related to perceived impacts of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps services that help to support 

schools’ turnaround efforts include these: 

• The School Turnaround AmeriCorps program is 

perceived as contributing positively to key student 

outcomes, including students’ academic 

achievement and socio-emotional health; these 

findings reflect perceptions of the large majority of 

grantee staff, school leaders and staff, and parents in 

Year 1, and grantee staff and school leaders in Year 2. 

• A majority of grantee staff ranked enhanced achievement as the most important student outcome 

for school turnaround efforts in both years. In both years, nearly all grantee staff reported 

improvement in outcomes for students served by the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program 

in all or most of their partner schools, with the greatest degree of improvement reported in 

academic achievement.72

• Nearly all school leaders in both years reported improvement in student outcomes, with the 

greatest degree of improvement reported in academic achievement, followed by increased 

motivation and increased attendance. School staff perceptions were broadly similar. Although 

some staff reported not necessarily knowing which students were served by the program, the 

outcomes they ranked as showing the greatest improvements included attendance, academic 

achievement, and improved grades. 

• School staff also reported significant or moderate improvements in participating students’ 

classroom or classwork behaviors in Year 1, in terms of being regularly attentive in class, 

 

71 Grantee surveys asked about outcomes and their relative importance, but not ask about perceived impact. 

Grantee interviews also did not include questions about perceived impact.

72 Improvement in academic achievement is based on survey responses, not direct analysis of academic 

achievement measures by the study team. Survey respondents were not asked to indicate on what basis they 

claimed improved academic achievement (e.g., based on individual student-level comparisons of standardized 

test scores or end-of-year grades).
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participating in class, getting along well with other students, and coming to school motivated to 

learn. 

• School stakeholders in program schools consistently characterized members’ assistance as 

valuable in helping their schools address turnaround goals, regardless of the number of members 

serving within the school (the number ranged from 1 to 22). School stakeholders most often 

reported that members affected students’ socio-emotional well-being and academic engagement, 

with stakeholders from about half of schools perceiving members as positively affecting school 

climate, and a substantial minority reporting improvements in student academic achievement.

• School stakeholders in about half of program schools reported that School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members increased capacity in classrooms and improved their school’s ability to 

address students’ academic as well as socio-emotional needs comprehensively. 

• In all four SIG Exiter schools (and about half of all program schools), school stakeholders 

perceived their School Turnaround AmeriCorps members as increasing the school’s capacity to 

implement its turnaround efforts. Stakeholders credited members’ contributions to increased 

capacity by providing additional classroom support that allowed teachers to focus on the entire 

class and by providing tailored, one-on-one support for individual students, academically and 

through relationship building.

Perceived Overall Success of School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

Stakeholder Perceptions of Overall Program Success

Almost all (more than 90 percent) of surveyed school leaders and staff in Year 1 and school leaders in 

Year 2 reported that the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program was somewhat or very successful as a 

whole. Similar proportions noted the program’s success in improving the school’s capacity to implement 

the turnaround plan and to improve school climate (see Exhibit III-1). 

The exhibit also presents responses from interviewed parents along the same dimensions. Interviewed 

parents were generally familiar with and had overwhelmingly positive impressions of the success of the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, although a sizeable fraction of parents did not know enough 

about program details to answer questions about specific areas of program success.
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Exhibit III-1: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions of Success of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps (Year 1 and Year 2) 

Notes: School Leaders Year 1 (N=38, Missing=1). School Leaders Year 2-Fall (N=37, Missing=0). School Leaders Year 2-

Spring (N=40, Missing=0). School Staff Year 1 (N=155, Missing=2-5). Parents Year 1 (N=38, Missing=0). School Leaders Year 

1: Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0-1. School Leaders Year 2-Fall: No 

respondents indicated that this question was not applicable. School Leaders Year 2-Spring: Number of respondents who 

indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0-1. Year 1 and 3: Chart excludes school leaders who indicated not

applicable. School Staff Year 1: Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 6-11. 

Responses limited to school staff who worked with at least one student in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. 

Parents Year 1: Number of respondents who did not know ranged from 2 - 8. Responses limited to those familiar with the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Exhibit sorted by response option in survey. See Appendix Exhibits C-28, C-51, 

and C-56 for tables with all response options.

Source: School Leader Survey Q17 (“In your opinion, how successful is the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in the 

following areas this school year? (Mark one response in each row.)”). School Staff Survey Q19 (“In your opinion, how 

successful is the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in the following areas this school year? (Mark one response in 

each row.)”). Parent Interview Q11–Q15 (On a scale of 1–4, what is your perception of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program's success in terms of “Overall”, “Student academic achievement”, “student socio-emotional health”, “School 

climate”, “The school’s capacity to implement its turnaround model”) 

Exhibit reads: 91% of school leaders in Year 1, 95% of school leaders in Year 2-Fall, 94% of school leaders in Year 2-Spring, 

83% of school staff in Year 1 and 100% of parents in Year 1 perceived School Turnaround AmeriCorps to be very successful 

or somewhat successful in improving student academic achievement.

Year 1

School Leaders: Strongly Agree Agree

School Staff: Strongly Agree Agree

Parents: Strongly Agree Agree

Year 2

School Leaders (Spring): Strong Agree Agree

School Leaders (Fall): Strongly Agree Agree
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Stakeholder Perceptions of the Value of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps Partnership

Exhibit III-2 shows the proportion of school leader, school staff, and parent respondents who strongly 

agreed and/or agreed with statements about the perceived value of School Turnaround AmeriCorps in 

Year 1 and Year 2.73 Large majorities of school leaders in both years agreed or strongly agreed that the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program provides value in multiple ways, through offering helpful 

supports, serving as partners in improving student outcomes, and providing activities frequently enough 

to be valuable. Agreement was strongest in Year 2-Fall. Staff reported generally positive perceptions of 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members. The majority of staff in Year 1 (80 percent or more) perceive 

that members provide helpful supports to students, members are important partners in improving 

student outcomes, and members offer supports benefiting teachers in the school. Interviewed parents also 

have strongly positive perceptions of members.

 

73 Grantee staff were not asked their perceptions of the value of School Turnaround AmeriCorps. School staff and 

parents were surveyed only in Year 1.
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Exhibit III-2: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions of Value of School Turnaround AmeriCorps (Year 1 and Year 2) 

Year 1

School Leaders: Strongly Agree Agree

School Staff: Strongly Agree Agree

Parents: Strongly Agree Agree

Year 2

School Leaders (Spring): Strong Agree Agree

School Leaders (Fall): Strongly Agree Agree
nationalservice.gov 77

Notes: School Leaders Year 1 (N=38, Missing=0). School Leaders Year 2-Fall (N=37, Missing=0). School Leaders Year 

2-Spring (N=40, Missing=1).School Staff Year 1 (N=155-215, Missing=1-5). Parents Year 1 (N=38, Missing=0). School 

Leaders Year 1: Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0-3. School 

Leaders Year 2-Fall: No respondents indicated that this question was not applicable. School Leaders Year 2-Spring: 

Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0-4. Year 1 and 3: Chart excludes 

school leaders who indicated not applicable. School Staff Year 1: Responses limited to school staff restricted who 

worked with at least one student in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Parents Year 1: Number of 

respondents who did not know ranged from 2-3. Responses limited to those familiar with the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program. Exhibit sorted by Year 2-Spring School Leader responses. See Appendix Exhibits C-29, C-49, 

and C-55 for tables with all response options. 

a Question asked of school leaders and school staff only.

b Question asked of school leaders only. 

Source: School Leader Survey Q18 (“Please indicate your level of agreement/disagreement with the following 

statements this school year. (Mark one response in each row.)”). School Staff Survey Q17 (“Please indicate the level of 

agreement/disagreement with the following statements about your school this school year (2014–15). (Mark one 

response in each row.)”). Parent Interview Q10 (“Now I will read several statements about your child’s school. For 

each statement, please tell me whether you strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree, or don’t know.”) 

Exhibit reads: 100% of school leaders in Year 1, 94% of school staff in Year 1, 92% of parents in Year 1, 95% of school 

leaders in Year 2-Spring, and 97% of school leaders in Year 2-Fall, agreed or strongly agreed that “School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members provide helpful support to the students in this school.”

Across both years, principals of schools that were not involved in case studies reported positive 

perceptions of the program’s impacts. Principals expressed both overall assessments of the program—or 

AmeriCorps generally—and specific assessments of each cohort and individual members. For example, at 

schools with longstanding grantee partnerships, principals acknowledged the enduring value of their 

partnership even if one particular year (or member) was challenging or underperformed. This reiterates 

the value of sustained relationship building between grantee programs and schools and/or districts, 

especially in light of documented challenges some grantee programs faced with either recruiting or 

retaining a sufficient number of members or members with desired skills or maturity. 

Perceived Impacts Achieved by Program Schools

Interviews and case studies also examined how schools progressed on key components of their 

turnaround plans—specifically, student academic performance, school climate, students’ socio-emotional 

well-being, and the school’s capacity to meet its turnaround goals. With the support of School

Turnaround AmeriCorps members, most program schools—and all case study program schools—

reported having impacts on students’ socio-emotional health and academic engagement, as did the 

majority of comparison schools, as shown in Exhibit III-3. 

The next most commonly reported impacts in program schools were on school climate and the school’s

capacity to reach its turnaround goals—reported by about half of total program schools and by almost all 

case study program schools. Finally, a minority of program schools—though a majority of case study 

program schools—reported improvements in students’ academic achievement. 
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Exhibit III-3: Summary of Impacts Perceived by Program Schools

Key Turnaround Outcomes

Grantee 

Programs

(n=13)

Program Schools 

(n=41, including 17 case 

studies)

Comparison 

Schools

(n=12, all case 

studies)

Student academic achievement 12 16 (including 11 case studies) 5

Student socio-emotional well-being and 

academic engagement

13 27 (including 17 case studies) 10

School climate 13 21 (including 16 case studies) 11

School capacity to reach turnaround goals 12 21 (including 16 case studies) 2

Student academic achievement 12 16 (including 11 case studies) 5

Note: Table excerpted from Appendix Exhibit A-12.

Sources: Principal one-on-one interviews (2015), case study interviews (2015, 2016).

The following sections include the specific impacts achieved by the 41 program schools from which 

qualitative data were obtained (case studies or single interviews) and 12 comparison school case studies. 

The discussion draws heavily on case study school findings: Because of the greater depth involved in case 

studies, including interviews with multiple stakeholders, there is more detailed evidence of the impact of 

turnaround activities in those schools, including School Turnaround AmeriCorps members’ 

contributions. AmeriCorps members contributed to their host schools’ progress through a variety of 

means. The most prominent contributions they made, compared with similar schools without School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps members, were in providing socio-emotional supports, temporarily increasing 

schools’ capacity, and (to a lesser degree) improving school climate and culture. 

Findings from the SIG Exiter case studies provide a helpful lens for understanding the specific 

contributions School Turnaround AmeriCorps can make toward a successful exit from SIG status. These 

schools’ experiences suggest that a combination of factors contributed to successful SIG exit. SIG Exiter 

schools had strong leaders who established a shared vision for achieving the school’s turnaround goals; 

these leaders set a tone and promoted a culture of collaboration, and they implemented turnaround plans 

that empowered other school staff to take ownership in their school’s success. Importantly for School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps, all four leaders embraced external partners and integrated them into the 

school’s broader set of turnaround strategies in ways that leaders viewed most appropriate for their 

needs. 

The SIG Exiter case study findings thus corroborate themes from other data sources about the importance 

of school leadership and culture in setting the tone for schools’ receptivity and use of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps resources. The SIG Exiter case studies also reinforce the findings from other data sources 

about successful strategies. Specifically, these were:

• Using data to match members and students as well as to inform and tailor interventions. 

• Providing socio-emotional supports to students to help them become academically engaged in 

school. They did so by building relationships, implementing behavioral improvement plans, and 

providing attendance coaching. 

• Tailoring small-group and one-on-one supports to give students individualized attention and 

support teachers’ classrooms. This strategy required close collaboration between teachers and 

members. 
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The SIG Exiter schools did not explicitly describe how the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program 

contributed to improved student academic performance, yet all four schools’ stakeholders perceived that 

their AmeriCorps members helped improve student academic engagement and their schools’ capacity to 

implement their turnaround efforts. The stakeholders in these four schools clearly perceived that School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps members played a role in the schools’ improvement, although the available 

data do not allow the study team to quantify the extent to which members contributed to these schools’ 

successes more or less in the SIG Exiter schools than in other case study schools.

School Turnaround Goals for Student Outcomes

On average, in both Year 1 and Year 2, enhanced achievement was ranked as the most important student 

outcome for school turnaround efforts by all stakeholders (grantee staff, school leaders, and school staff) 

(see Appendix Exhibits C-8, C-9, C-10, C-46, C-48). In Year 1, grantee staff considered improved grades as 

the next highest ranked important outcome, whereas school leaders and staff prioritized motivation over

grades. Attendance was ranked second by school leaders in Year 2-Fall and second by grantee staff in 

Year 2-Spring. In general, grantee staff, school leaders, and school staff reported slightly different 

priorities from one another and across years.

Among survey respondents, only school leaders were asked about the level of influence of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps on their schools’ turnaround goals. Across applicable school turnaround goals 

(e.g., improving academic performance and increasing graduation rates and college readiness), a majority 

of school leaders reported that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members had either substantial or some 

influence, although the majority was slightly smaller in Year 2-Spring and higher in Year 2-Fall than in 

other time periods (see Exhibit III-4). Leaders were more likely to characterize the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program as exerting some rather than substantial influence on all goals. Additionally, not all 

the goals listed below were applicable to all schools; for example, high school graduation and college 

readiness goals were not applicable to elementary or middle schools.
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Exhibit III-4: School Leader Perceptions of Level of Influence of School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

on School Turnaround Goals (Year 1 and Year 2) 

Notes: Year 1: (N=22-37, Missing=0-1); Year 2-Fall (N=21-37, Missing=1); Year 2-Spring (N=23-40, Missing=0).

Year 1: Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 1 to 16. Year 2-Fall: 

Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0 to 16. Year 2-Spring: Number 

of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0 to 17. 

Source: School Leader Survey Q20 (“Please indicate the level of influence School Turnaround AmeriCorps members 

have over the following elements of your school’s turnaround goals? (Mark one response in each row.)”) 

Exhibit reads: 85% of school leaders in Year 1, 91% of school leaders in Year 2-Fall and 85% of school leaders in Year 

2-Spring indicated that School Turnaround AmeriCorps had some influence or substantial influence on “Improving 

academic performance in ELA and/or math.”

Year 1

 Some influence or Substantial influence

Minimal influence or No influence

Year 2- Fall

Some influence or Substantial influence

Minimal influence or No influence

Year 2- Spring

Some influence or Substantial influence

Minimal influence or No influence
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Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps on Student Academic Achievement and SocioEmotional Health Outcomes

Overall Perceived Impacts on Student Academic Achievement

As shown in Exhibit III-1, large majorities of school leaders, school staff, and parents across (applicable) 

years perceived that the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program is successful in improving student 

academic achievement. This trend has remained steady over Years 1 and 2 covering Spring 2015, Fall 

2015, and Spring 2016. 

Impacts on Student Academic Achievement Perceived by Program Schools

A minority of all program schools and a majority of the case study program schools reported 

improvements in students’ academic achievement. This includes all six of the Year 2 case studies, three of 

the Year 1 case studies, and not surprisingly, all four of the SIG Exiter case studies that had improved 

enough to exit SIG or Priority status. A few schools referenced state or end-of-year test scores and noted 

explicitly that students’ test scores had improved. 

Improved Academic Achievement

“In English, we saw our [end-ofcourse] scores rise significantly; a 

large part is because there is 

another dedicated person that is 

constantly reinforcing what we’re 

teaching. The data is there, we’re 

seeing increas[es] in the number of 

kids who are passing. It only 

happens because all oars are 

rowing in the same direction.”

—Teacher Interview (2016) 

Stakeholders perceived that AmeriCorps members 

contributed to improvements in students’ academic 

achievement: Stakeholders in some schools reported that 

members helped students improve in both reading/ELA and 

math, while stakeholders in a few other schools commented 

that they credited members with helping students improve in 

reading/ELA. Overall, almost all grantee programs reported 

their members having an impact on students’ academic 

achievement. Specifically, in interviews in Spring 2016, a 

minority of grantee staff described the impact of their 

AmeriCorps members on increasing assessment scores for 

reading and/or math standardized testing. In a few instances, 

members were able to support students at schools that had 

switched to new standardized tests that they expected to be especially challenging for students. In one of 

these, the grantee program had prior experience with the assessment and had trained members 

specifically in how to work with it. These comport with school leader perceptions across all three time 

periods that academic achievement was the school improvement strategy (and improved academic 

achievement the school turnaround goal) most influenced by AmeriCorps members.

Importantly, in schools with improved academic achievement, it appeared that a combination of factors 

(including AmeriCorps, teacher professional development, extended learning time or new schedules, and 

new curricula) were responsible for higher academic achievement and could not be isolated to the 

AmeriCorps intervention.

Furthermore, by providing academic and college readiness supports, members helped to fill gaps in 

supporting academic achievement that students might not otherwise have filled in their home 

environments. A few program schools reported increasing their on-time graduation rates and/or college 

readiness, as did a minority of comparison schools. In program schools, members assisted failing 

students with online credit recovery sessions; in one comparison school (5B), two retired teachers ran a 

school-day program for failing students to make up coursework. College readiness activities included 

members encouraging, registering, and tutoring students for the ACT or helping them fill out the Free 

Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). 
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Overall Perceived Impacts on Students’ Socio-Emotional Health and Student Engagement

Stakeholders’ perceptions of the specific student outcomes influenced by the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program in Year 1 were largely similar, although the rankings differed modestly.74 There are 

two distinct patterns and similarities across stakeholder groups that emerged from the survey findings. 

One, school-based respondents—both school administrators and staff—either were unaware of whether 

the program had led to improvements in certain areas, such as motivation or self-esteem, or did not know 

which students had been served by the program and therefore could not assess whether there had been 

improvement on student outcomes (see Appendix Exhibits C-9A and C-9B). Two, stakeholders’

perceptions of improvement track closely with their rankings of the most important student outcomes 

shown in Appendix Exhibits C-8, C-9A, C-9B, C-21, C-22, C-41, C-42 and C-43 (i.e., the program has 

contributed to improvement in students’ academic achievement). Improved socio-emotional health and 

behavior were generally rated lower on the list of improved outcomes by both grantee and school staff. 

Understanding how improvement in student outcomes translates into students’ day-to-day behaviors can 

best be described by school staff who know which students participate in School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps activities. These staff reported significant or moderate improvements in participating 

students’ classroom or classwork behaviors during the second year of implementation—measured by

students who are attentive in class, participate in class, get along well with other students, and come to 

school motivated to learn (see Exhibit III-5).75 Generally, about twice as many school staff reported 

moderate rather than significant levels of improvement for students. 

 

74 While school leaders answered questions about how the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program had affected 

student outcomes for the prior (2013–14) school year, school staff and grantee staff answered similar questions 

about the current (2014–15) school year. Across respondent types, the data collection protocols focused on 

implementation during the current school year (2014–15) except in several cases where it was more appropriate 

to reflect on the prior school year. To explain the discrepancy described here, grantee staff were asked about the 

current year’s student outcomes because they were surveyed toward the end of the school year (Spring 2015) 

whereas school leaders were surveyed much earlier in the school year (Winter 2014). Because the Staff survey 

was fielded slightly later than the School Leaders survey, school staff were also asked about student outcomes 

for the current year. 

75 Exhibit III-5 displays information about the confidence intervals (the black bars shown at the end of each bar on 

the chart) for each item. These exhibits help convey information about both the study sample and the variability 

of responses. Generally, the narrower the interval, the greater the confidence in the findings. For more 

information see footnote 45 in Bagnell Stuart et al. (2015). 
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Exhibit III-5: School Staff Perceptions of Changes in Student Behavior (Year 1) 

Notes: See Appendix Exhibits C-52 for tables with all response options.

Black capped lines are 95 percent confidence intervals (see Year 1 Final Report Appendix for details on how they 

were calculated).

Ninety-five percent confidence intervals may not be symmetric because the upper bound is limited to 100 percent 

and the lower bound is limited to 0 percent.

Responses were limited to individual school staff who had worked with at least one student in the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Each respondent was asked about one students whose last name starts with a 

letter closest to “A” and one student whose last name starts with a letter closest to “Z.” Each student is counted 

separately in this graph. (N=190, Missing=6–9). 

Bars are sorted in descending order by the proportion of students for whom school staff reported significant 

improvement.

Source: Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q20 (“Since beginning to work with a School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps member(s), to the best of your knowledge, to what extent has student with the last name closest to the 

beginning of the alphabet changed his or her behavior in terms of. ...”). Q21 (“To the best of your knowledge, to what 

extent has student with the last name closest to the end of the alphabet changed his or her behavior in terms of. ...”). 

Exhibit reads: School staff perceived observing significant and moderate improvement in an estimated 28 percent

and 51 percent of students, respectively. With 95 percent confidence, the proportion of all participating students 

perceived to have improved significantly or moderately in their class participation falls between 70 and 90 percent. 
nationalservice.gov 84

Impacts on Student Socio-Emotional Health and Academic Engagement Perceived by Program Schools

Across both years of the evaluation, improvements to students’ socio-emotional health and academic 

engagement were the strongest, most consistent impacts 

attributed to the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program.

Interviewed school stakeholders in a majority of program 

schools, including all 17 case study program schools, 

reported benefits to students’ socio-emotional health that 

they specifically credited to the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program, as did all grantee programs by the end 

of the 2015–16 school year. One grantee staff, however, noted 

a tension between the program’s positive influence and that 

members typically serve only one year in a school: “It takes 

time to build relationships with students and that they ... felt 

like they really were in a groove further into the year.” 

Several members affiliated with that program returned for a 

second year of service because they wanted to further their impact on the students and the school where 

they were serving.

Improved Academic Engagement

“I've had a student come up to me 

and he assists me in some of my 

duties here at the school. And he 

told me once ... ‘If I wasn't helping 

you, like helping me, I'd probably be 

in detention right now.’ So basically 

he's saying, “You keep me on 

track.’”

—Member Interview (2016) 

This strong agreement about members’ contributions to socio-emotional health compares with about half 

of comparison schools staff that reported improvements in students’ socio-emotional health. Along with 

school capacity improvements, this is the largest gap between program and comparison schools and 

suggests that socio-emotional support is a major distinguishing component of what AmeriCorps 

members offer to struggling students. 

Members added value to schools through their supports for socio-emotional learning (SEL), which are 

based on building trusting relationships with students. A substantial minority of case study stakeholders 

who mentioned positive relationships specifically noted trust as an important component of these 

relationships. The case study data indicate that engendering trust in relationships is important because it 

allowed students to share information with members that they may not have shared with teachers, other 

school staff, and in some cases, their parents. The information students reportedly shared with members 

but not teachers was more personal in nature, such as their feelings about troubles at home or appearing 

vulnerable for not knowing an academic concept.

Generally, respondents commented on the different forms that partners’ socio-emotional supports could 

take, including tutoring, mentoring, college visits, career shadowing, or extracurricular activities. 

Notably, most respondents remarked on the socio-emotional value of the relationships formed through 

these activities to students’ growth and development, regardless of the activities’ focus, because of the 

relationships members developed with students in their 

caseloads. Many school stakeholders noted these 

relationships would form because students would share 

information with a member that they were not sharing with 

other school staff. Sometimes this was because members 

were perceived as closer to peers, and thus students would 

feel more comfortable sharing personal struggles with people 

they did not perceive as authority figures; in other cases, it 

was explicitly because teachers cannot give all students 

individualized attention because they are responsible for 

managing the whole classroom. 

Members’ Positive Effects on 

Students

“Even when she feels bad she 

wants to go to school, so that lets 

me know that they are doing 

something to make her want to 

come back.”

–Parent interview (2015)
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One aspect that was important in this relationship was member consistency. By serving as a consistent, 

daily presence at schools, members made students felt more comfortable seeking relationships and 

assistance. 

These relationships often encouraged students to succeed academically and behaviorally, while allowing 

students to have a resource they trusted to help them solve problems (both academic and personal). 

Because of their positive relationships with members, students were reported (by teachers, members, and 

parents) to be more motivated and academically engaged. Additionally, these trusting relationships also 

helped students be better prepared to learn. A few schools identified this relationship building as

increasing students’ confidence and, in several cases, also improving students’ relationships with 

teachers.

At a minority of schools, strong member-student relationships helped encourage more regular student 

attendance, because students looked forward to seeing members in school. Members’ interventions were 

also specifically targeted to improve attendance at several schools, whether this was through attendance 

monitoring and mentoring (e.g., Schools 5A, 6A) or through leading a “walking school bus” (SIG Exiter 

2), members employed varied strategies to motivate students to come to school.

Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program on School Climate

Overall Perceived Impacts on School Climate

Findings from multiple stakeholders suggest that School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs have had 

positive impacts on their schools. The programs made contributions to school culture, school 

improvement, and both general and targeted contributions to improvements for participating students. 

School leaders and staff all have positive perceptions of the program’s impact, with school leaders’ 

perceptions being consistently (albeit moderately) more positive than school staff perceptions (see 

Appendix Exhibits C-18 and C-56). 

Impacts on School Climate Perceived by Program Schools

Improvements in school climate were reported by interviewed stakeholders in about half of all program 

schools, almost all case study program schools, all grantee programs, and also in almost all comparison 

schools. Stakeholders from most of the program schools specifically mentioned AmeriCorps members 

positively influencing the school climate in several respects, which in turn positively influenced student 

outcomes. One grantee concurred, observing that members “have the time in their day to announce and 

say everything good they see,” contributing to a positive school culture. 

First, school climate improved through programs placing members committed to one year of service, 

which established a consistent AmeriCorps presence in schools throughout the year. By providing a fulltime presence of additional trusted and caring adults and near peers in the schools, members 

supplemented students’ relationships in school and at home and expanded their network of social 

supports. 

Second, member presence is an element of many of the turnaround strategies described above. For 

example, through individualized, one-on-one academic supports and building positive, caring 

relationships with students, AmeriCorps members helped foster a school climate that values academic 

achievement in which students want to succeed. In several high schools, AmeriCorps members’ influence 

was as acting as positive role models, nurturing students’ interest in and confidence about attending 

college. 

Third, members supported positive school climate when they participated in activities (e.g., 

extracurricular and community service activities) outside of their planned interventions, which helped to 
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increase student engagement. School stakeholders viewed members’ voluntary participation in school 

activities as constructive contributions toward encouraging and celebrating student engagement in the 

school community. 

Fourth, in tandem with the socio-emotional supports members provided, they also served as positive role 

models who made school a more supportive and encouraging environment where students wanted to be. 

Members in several schools contributed either by leading interventions specifically supporting the 

school’s values or by implementing the Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS) program.

These findings reinforce the hypothesis that integrating members into the school’s culture and operations 

as key members of the school community helped to strengthen relationships with school staff and 

students.

Because almost all comparison schools also reported improvements in school climate, it is unlikely that 

AmeriCorps members were solely responsible for school climate improvements in their host schools. 

Instead, members supported and augmented the school climate initiatives designed by their host schools. 

Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program on School Capacity

Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps on School Capacity Perceived by Case Study Schools

Stakeholders from about half of program schools, including almost all case study program schools, 

described multiple ways in which their turnaround strategies helped improve their school’s capacity to 

meet turnaround goals. Only a couple of comparison schools also reported improvements in school 

capacity, making this the largest gap between program and comparison schools along the dimensions of 

impact described in this report. Stakeholders from both program and comparison schools noted capacity 

improvements in three areas: leveraging grants and partners to increase the services and opportunities 

available to students; hiring or assigning a dedicated staff member responsible for managing and 

analyzing student data; and improvements in teacher professional development systems and practices. 

Program schools did not attribute all of these capacity gains solely to AmeriCorps contributions. 

Stakeholders in a minority of program schools overall reported a specific capacity improvement from 

AmeriCorps members’ classroom support, which improved their school’s ability to address students’ 

academic as well as socio-emotional needs comprehensively. This came from members’ consistent 

presence in classrooms that enabled the teachers to differentiate instruction into smaller, more-targeted 

groups or one-on-one with struggling students as needed. Teachers also noted that they do not have the 

ability to give all students individualized attention because they are responsible for managing the whole 

classroom. Hence, this level of individualization would be impossible without AmeriCorps members and 

certain students’ needs would not have been met without them. Further, a minority of schools (especially 

in 2014–15) used members to bolster parental engagement strategies, such as through making calls home 

about attendance or supporting parent nights at school. In a few schools, AmeriCorps members also 

served to increase school capacity by helping to monitor student data and discussing it with school staff, 

allowing staff to focus more on teaching. 

Notably, a majority of SIG Exiters described experiencing a detrimental decline in resources when they 

exited SIG status. These included the loss of instructional specialists, coaches, counselors, and other 

support staff, as well as reduced funding for professional development and supplies. For half of the SIG 

Exiter schools, the lost resources also included their School Turnaround AmeriCorps members—a tension 

that their respective grantee staff also noted. 
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IV. PARTNERSHIP FINDINGS

This chapter addresses the following broad research question, Which aspects of grantee program-school 

partnerships appear to be the most promising practices in terms of involvement and satisfaction of the 

school leadership and the participating AmeriCorps members?

Data sources include these: Grantee surveys and grantee staff interviews; School Leader and Staff

surveys; case study interviews and/or focus groups with school leaders, teachers, parents, and members; 

principal small-group interviews; member interviews and focus groups; partnership agreements; and 

grantee progress reports. 

Summary of Partnership Findings over Time

Findings about partnership structures indicate that programs generally considered partnership 

agreements as useful tools for setting up their partnerships, while most programs used on-site 

coordinators for supervising members and managing relationships with school stakeholders throughout 

the year:

• Grantee staff and principals reported that partnership agreements are useful tools for defining 

roles and responsibilities in the partnership planning stage, but they are seldom invoked to 

address implementation challenges later in the partnership.

• A majority of the updated partnership agreements from 2015–16 differed from those of the 

previous year, and they included more specificity about partners’ responsibilities, the 

relationship between the intervention activities and school improvement goals, and in granting 

more autonomy to those implementing the program.

Findings about grantee program-school partnerships and participation suggest that stability in 

relationships over time is related to improved communication and program implementation efforts, 

while the converse is true when school leader turnover and other conditions disrupt the relationshipbuilding process:

• In both years, a majority of grantee staff reported having had pre-existing relationships with 

partner schools of at least two years duration before implementation of the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program. Most of grantee staff characterized their interactions with schools as 

highly collegial, with frequent communication and collaboration. Some grantee staff in Year 2 did 

not report having frequent communication and 

collaboration.

• Dynamic school environments, especially principal 

turnover, posed an ongoing, inherent challenge to 

the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. 

Whereas programs can deepen their relationships 

and service effectiveness in schools with stable 

leadership and partnerships, changes in school 

leadership require re-establishing buy-in to the 

program and rebuilding understanding of and trust 

in the program and members’ service.

Units of Analysis (and Data 

Sources) for This Section

• Program Schools (n=41: 47 

principal interviews, 50 parent 

interviews, 17 program school 

case studies)

• Grantee Programs (n=13: 

grantee interviews, GPRs, 

written partnership 

agreements) 

• Almost all grantee programs described focusing on issues related to communication and 

relationships with schools and school staff, and about half reported overcoming these issues. One 
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program, for example, purposefully added on-site supervisors in the 2015–16 school year at each 

of its three partner schools to improve communication.

One of the evaluation’s strongest findings, reported in both years of the evaluation across all 

stakeholders, was members’ ability to forge strong relationships with students:

• All grantee programs, a majority of schools, and about half of principals reported that positive 

relationships between members and students have a positive impact on students’ academic 

engagement and behavior and/or are effective at meeting school turnaround goals. 

Overall, all stakeholders reported high levels of satisfaction with their partnerships, both broadly with 

program operations and specifically with elements of program implementation. 

A minority of grantee programs reported challenges with partnerships: 

• Among those school leaders and staff who were familiar with the program in Years 1 and 2, 

satisfaction with program implementation was broad, reflecting an appreciation of the program’s 

structure, supports, and alignment with key turnaround goals. Those respondents reported 

strong communication and collaboration between school staff and School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members.

• Grantee staff reported being very satisfied or satisfied with all elements of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program operations. Overall, more grantee staff indicated satisfaction in Year 2 than 

in Year 1, although the strength of satisfaction moderately decreased from Year 1 to Year 2.

Generally, a majority of grantee staff were satisfied with all the elements of the program in both 

years.

• Most grantee programs and a minority of schools reported a challenge with confusion over 

members’ roles. 

• Other challenges reported by a minority of programs and schools were, balancing district and 

school needs, cultivating principal and (more commonly) teacher buy-in, and some schools’ 

mixed experiences with member quality and consistency, suggesting a need for greater member 

supervision and training.

Written Grantee Program-School Partnership Agreements

CNCS Grant Requirements and Guidance for Grantee-School Partnerships

In the Notice of Funding Opportunity, CNCS required grantees to establish written partnership 

agreements that “articulate the alignment between the local School Turnaround AmeriCorps program 

design and school and [local education agency] turnaround plans, as well as the parties’ plan for ongoing 

collaboration.”76 CNCS guidance further described several elements of strong partnerships that grantees 

should pursue with their school partners: managing collaboratively, sharing data, sharing resources, and 

articulating specific roles and responsibilities. 

For the 2016–17 application process, CNCS issued updated guidance on partnership agreements to 

ensure they describe how grantee activities align with schools’ turnaround plans and how the parties will 

collaborate throughout the grant period.77 

 

76 Corporation for National and Community Service, Announcement of Federal Funding Opportunity, School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps FY13, p. 31. 

77 See 2016 Notice of Funding Opportunity, School Turnaround AmeriCorps Appendix (pp. 8–9). The partnership 

agreements reviewed for this report were not expected to follow the updated guidance.
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Content and Elements of Written Partnership Agreements

In Year 1, the majority of grantee programs explicitly described their strategies for addressing the CNCSrequired elements in their partnership agreements with schools. The level of detail and length of 

partnership agreements varied significantly, from a single-page outline to a 20-page document with a 

separate data use agreement. 

In Year 2 the study team obtained written partnership agreements from 11 of 13 grantee programs. A 

majority of the written partnership agreements (8 of 11) showed greater detail than in Year 1. Three 

agreements specified additional aspects of the partners’ responsibilities; for example, one referenced 

schools’ responsibility to select members by a certain date or have them assigned to another school. Two 

agreements added details on how the intervention activities map to school goals. Two agreements also 

granted more autonomy to those implementing the program: in one case, the school, and in the other, 

members to set and validate thresholds for participating students. Three agreements provided more 

detail on member roles and responsibilities and school responsibilities for supporting members, such as 

providing a work space with internet access for members’ use and the school playing a bigger role in 

tracking members’ activities.

Setup and Use of Partnership Agreements in Practice

Generally, in Year 1, grantee staff perceived partnership agreements as documents that outlined partners’ 

roles and responsibilities, not as tools for program implementation. Five grantee staff specifically 

described the agreement as recourse if and when a partner was not meeting its obligations. These same 

five grantee staff also reported they had very strong collaborations with their school partners and had not 

“needed to” refer back to the partnership agreements.

As in Year 1, grantee staff and principals in Year 2 characterized partnership agreements as tools that can 

be useful in the planning stage of establishing the partnership but that are seldom used during 

implementation. Interviews suggest that conversations about partnership agreements are more robust 

when partnerships are first established than they are annually. Some grantee staff noted that their 

partnership agreements do not involve a lot of “back and forth” with school leaders, while some more 

indicated they use a memorandum of understanding or a template for all partner schools. Some grantee

staff indicated that they met with or communicated with school leaders prior to signing agreements to 

ensure buy-in at partner schools. 

Most principals asked directly about the partnership agreement indicated they were not involved in 

drafting partnership agreements for their schools (only a few were). Those not involved generally 

described “signing the partnership agreement” as the first time the school and grantee program created 

and signed an agreement. Some of these principals were new to their turnaround schools, and had not, 

therefore, been part of the initial drafting and signing of the original agreement. Overall, however, 

principals had to sign an updated partnership agreement at the beginning of each consecutive school 

year.78 

One principal who had participated in the original drafting of the school’s agreement had been “heavily” 

involved and described it as an effective document. Another had previously been an assistant principal at 

another school with AmeriCorps presence, and believed the experience shaped his partnership 

agreement and gave him an “advantage” in drafting the document. 

 

78 It is unclear what level of engagement principals had with updating the partnership agreement at the two 

schools where assistant principals were interviewed.
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Although principal turnover requires grantee programs to reestablish relationships and develop a new 

understanding of the program, there was little evidence of programs using partnership agreements in 

those instances. One grantee, however, expressed a strong opinion about the partnership agreement’s 

value, describing it as a key tool: “I don’t think we can do what we do without an agreement. ... People 

transition, and so you need to have an agreement that regardless of who’s where, that we’re all on the 

same page.”

In contrast to Year 1, in a few cases in Year 2, grantee programs used partnership agreements to address 

specific problems. One grantee described the agreement’s primary use as a “planning document” that 

lacks concrete power, explaining, “Honestly, it’s not like we have some sort of giant hammer we can hang 

over the head of school districts. If the principal doesn’t want to do it, they don’t want to do it.” However, 

the grantee added that they used the agreement “maybe a couple times a year” to open discussions with 

schools around various challenges, demonstrating that it is useful for resolving implementation 

challenges.

School Partnerships: Relationship-Building, Communication, and Collaboration Practices

In Year 1 of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps evaluation (2014–15, the second year of implementation), 

findings on partnership revolved around the quality, preparedness, and training of AmeriCorps 

members and the experiences and challenges grantee programs encountered while setting up their 

program operations and administering their grants. Representatives from each of the 13 grantee 

programs were interviewed four times, twice in the 2014–15 school year and twice in the 2015–16 school 

year.79 

Their responses from both years suggest that programs faced an initial learning curve with the new 

program but that start-up challenges abated toward the end of the second year of implementation and 

further diminished in the third. By the end of the second year of the grant, grantee programs were 

discussing topics such as ongoing communication and relationship-building needs, challenges posed by 

external circumstances, and changes to implementation—all of which reflected maturation in program 

implementation and were themes that continued to be prevalent in the third year of the grant. In the third 

year, an even heavier emphasis on a varied set of relationships emerged—those between members and 

students, members and teachers, and programs and schools. These findings are summarized in Exhibit 

IV-1 below.

Exhibit IV-1: Summary of Partnership Findings

Grantee Programs

(n=13)

Program Schools (n=41, 

including 17 case studies)

Members’ positive relationships with students 13 29

Members’ positive relationships with teachers 12 29

Grantees’ positive relationships with schools 12 6

Note: Table excerpted from Exhibit A-12, Prevalence of Themes by Unit of Analysis, Stakeholder, and Change over 

Time. Please see Exhibit A-12 for more detail.

In the final interviews of Year 2 of the evaluation, both program schools and grantee programs had begun 

to grapple with the loss of SIG funding and/or the impending loss of their School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps grant, leading to questions of sustainability. This was particularly true for schools that were 

close to or had met their turnaround goals, which oftentimes resulted in a cut in funding and resources.

 

79 Grantee staff from one program was interviewed three times.
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Grantee Programs’ Relationships with Schools

Establishing and operating effective turnaround models require schools to make strategic use of 

relationships with partners. Programs reported that their school turnaround activities and interventions 

would not be successful without the active engagement of partner districts, schools (primarily school 

leaders), and teachers. Perhaps not surprisingly, the same philosophy seems to be evident from the 

grantee programs’ perspective, as a majority of the programs in both years (11 of 13) reported having had 

relationships with at least some of their target schools before implementation of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps, but the length of these relationships varied (see Appendix Exhibit C-1). Most of grantee staff 

reported having had pre-existing relationships with partner schools of at least two years’ duration before 

implementation.

As discussed in the Case Study Cross-Site Analysis section, support from school leaders is a critical 

component to successful implementation of School Turnaround AmeriCorps—a perspective that was not 

only evident in case study schools but echoed strongly by grantee staff. All 13 grantee staff in their final 

Year 2 interviews discussed the importance of having dedicated relationships with school principals at 

their host schools, with some specifically noting that school leaders’ support enabled School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members to achieve their goals. 

Even though grantee programs generally matured in their implementation of services over the first three 

years, each year represented a new beginning in other ways. Specifically, each year, programs recruited a 

new cohort of members and reestablished services in school contexts that had experienced changes in 

leadership, staff, and/or student needs. About half of programs added or removed schools to or from 

their partnership in 2015–16, as shown in Exhibit IV-2. 

Exhibit IV-2: School Turnaround AmeriCorps School Partnerships by School Year

Count 2014–15 2015–16

Grantee Programs 13 13

Schools 72 69

New Schools Added to Partnerships 4 13

Schools Dropped from Partnerships 2 16

Sources: Corporation for National and Community Service, FY15 School Turnaround AmeriCorps Approved Schools” 

and phone calls made to program schools by the study team, August–December 2015.

Exhibit reads: Of the 72 schools with which the 13 grantee programs partnered in school year 2014–15, 4 new schools 

were added to the partnerships and 2 schools were dropped from the partnerships. 

Among the minority of grantee programs that added schools, they coordinated with districts to provide 

extra support to schools in need of additional resources. Other programs received grant expansions that 

allowed them to add more schools; one grantee wanted to expand its reach throughout the feeder pattern 

of a school it partnered with the prior year. Among the four programs that dropped schools for the 2015–

16 school year, the capacity, demographics, or needs of the school changed in ways that could no longer 

support the AmeriCorps presence.80 Three programs discussed not being able to continue in certain 

schools, two due to a school’s change in turnaround status and in the other due to a district discontinuing 

matching funds for School Turnaround AmeriCorps. The staff of the grantee program that could not 

continue its support of a school due to its new status described “delivering the news” to school staff in a 

 

80 Two grantees replaced and added partner schools because they believed their resources could be put to better 

use elsewhere.
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staff meeting and it being “not a great day” even as the program strove to figure out how to continue the 

support of the school after its change in status. 

Members’ Relationships with Teachers

Members’ relationships with teachers were also a key connection that laid the groundwork for success in 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs, especially those that involved members serving directly in 

teachers’ classrooms.

Collaboration between teachers and members is an important mechanism in member and intervention 

effectiveness and its use appeared to increase from Year 1 to Year 2. Among case study schools, some 

program schools reported member-teacher collaboration and member classroom support as an effective 

turnaround strategy. Stakeholders across all program schools viewed as beneficial the types of academic 

supports members provided, including small-group and one-on-one interventions and push-in classroom 

support to keep students on task. This was primarily because these interventions allowed members to use 

different teaching techniques or to support students in ways that teachers were not able to.

In addition, collaboration and communication between teachers and members increased teacher buy-in 

and understanding of members’ roles. When member and teacher communication and collaboration 

functioned well in a school, teachers praised the members (reported by most program schools); in schools 

where communication and collaboration functioned less well (a few schools), teachers perceived 

members as burdensome or ineffective. 

Two grantee staff in their final interviews shared lessons learned in Year 2 that reflected the importance 

of engaging teachers in members’ work. One grantee staff noted that the most important and hardest 

hurdle for grantee programs is “getting the message [about how to work with an AmeriCorps program] 

to the teachers.” In order to convey program details and collaboration strategies to teachers effectively, 

the grantee drafted action plans that included attending staff meetings to explain the roles of members. A 

second grantee program collaborated with its host school to identify new teachers who would be open 

and receptive to working with members. The grantee requested that principals ask prospective new 

teachers in their interviews, “When you’re working in this school you will have a [GRANTEE] Corps 

member to help you reach your academic goals. How do you best see this implementation going?” As a 

result of this process, the program believed that it was “easily able to identify teachers who had the 

correct mindset and openness and willingness” to work with members. The school’s willingness to 

modify its interview process to accommodate the AmeriCorps program speaks to the high value the 

school places on the contributions made by AmeriCorps.

Members’ Relationships with Students

One of the evaluation’s strongest findings, reported in both years of the evaluation across all 

stakeholders, was members’ ability to forge strong relationships with students. Across most program 

schools, many teachers and principals interviewed for case studies discussed the importance of the bonds 

members developed with students, oftentimes explaining how members bridged a gap between students 

and the school by forging relationships that other school staff could not. In their Year 2 follow-up 

interviews, about half of grantee staff discussed members’ abilities to form strong relationships with 

students. One grantee staff reflected that not only did the program help shape students through strong 

relationships with members, it also changed members. The grantee staff elaborated, “We are not only 

within 10 months turn[ing AmeriCorps members] into amazing tutors, we also turn them into mentors 

and into people who understand kids at the level at which kids need to be understood.” 
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Stakeholder Satisfaction with Grantee Program-School Partnerships

In both years, at least 9 of the grantee programs were satisfied or very satisfied with the different 

elements of communication and collaboration between themselves and the partner schools, although a 

few grantee staff noted that their interactions varied across schools (see Appendix Exhibit C-11)81. In Year 

2, three grantee staff reported that they did not have frequent communication with their partner schools, 

whereas none reported so in Year 1. 

The School Leader and Staff surveys explored communication and collaboration between school staff and 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members, a topic not covered by the Grantee survey. The majority of 

school leaders strongly agreed or agreed that the school communicates about school turnaround efforts in 

general, that teachers are supportive of the AmeriCorps program, and that the school uses several means 

to integrate and communicate with members (see Appendix Exhibit C-25).

School staff perceptions were generally similar to those of school leaders, both about teachers’ support of 

the AmeriCorps program and in terms of the specific means by which the schools integrate and 

communicate with AmeriCorps members. For all items, at least three-quarters of school staff strongly 

agreed or agreed. School staff responses were moderately less positive than those of school leaders (see 

Appendix Exhibit C-25). 

According to grantee staff, the frequency of student progress meetings between School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members and school staff varied, sometimes by school within grantee program (see 

Appendix Exhibit C-5). Grantee staff reported that at most schools, members met with school staff to 

review student progress on a monthly or more frequent basis.

Partners’ Satisfaction with Program Operations

The majority of all stakeholders (grantee staff, school leaders, and staff) in Years 1 and 2 reported being 

very satisfied or satisfied with all elements of School Turnaround AmeriCorps program operations (see 

Exhibit IV-3).82 Note that the exhibit has two panels: The first panel displays results for questions asked of 

only one or two stakeholder groups, whereas the second panel displays results for all three. Generally, 

grantee staffs in both years indicated being very satisfied with school-level communication and 

collaboration (sharing data, alignment with school turnaround plans, referral of students, and matching

and placement of members); they indicated they were satisfied with member communication and 

collaboration within schools and implementation of roles and responsibilities outlined in partnership 

agreements.

 

81 In Year 1, all 13 grantee programs responded. In Year 2, one grantee staff did not know enough about their 

program's school partners to answer this question. 

82 School staff were surveyed only in Year 1 (2014–15).
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Exhibit IV-3: Grantee, School Leader, and School Staff Satisfaction with Elements of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Program Operations 
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Year 2

Grantees: Very Satisfied Satisfied

School Leaders (Spring): Very Satisfied Satisfied

School Leaders (Fall): Very Satisfied Satisfied

Year 1:

Grantees: Very Satisfied Satisfied

School Leaders: Very Satisfied Satisfied

School Staff: Very Satisfied Satisfied

Notes: Grantees Year 1: (N=13, Missing=0), Number of respondents who did not know ranged from 0 to 1. Number of respondents 

who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0 to 2. Grantees Year 2: (N=13, Missing=0), Number of respondents who 

indicated not applicable ranged from 0 to 1.Grantees did not have an option to select Don’t Know or Very Different in Year 2. School 

Leaders Year 1: (N=38, Missing=1-2), Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0 to 3. 

School Leaders Year 2-Fall: (N=37, Missing=0-1), Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged 

from 0 to 2. School Leaders Year 2-Spring: (N=40, Missing=1-2), Number of respondents who indicated the question was not 

applicable ranged from 1 to 4. Chart excludes school leaders who indicated not applicable. School Staff Year 1: (N=155, Missing=2-

5), Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 7 to 17. Responses limited to school staff 

who worked with at least one student in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Exhibit is sorted according to Year 2 grantee 

responses. See Appendix Exhibits C-11, C-27, and C-50 for tables with all response options.

Source: Grantee Survey Q14 (Year 1: “For this school year, please indicate how satisfied you are with each of the statements below”; 

Year 2: “For this school year, please indicate your level of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with each of the elements listed below. (Mark 

one response in each row.)”). School Leader Survey Q16 (“For this school year, please indicate your level of 

satisfaction/dissatisfaction with each of the elements listed below. (Mark one response in each row.)”). School Staff Survey Q18 

(“For this school year (2014–15), please indicate your level of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with each of the elements listed below. 

(Mark one response in each row)”). 

Exhibit reads: Ten grantees in Year 1, 97% school leaders in Year 1, 13 grantees in Year 2, 93% school leaders in Year 2-Spring, and 

93% school leaders in Year 2-Fall are satisfied or very satisfied with the “Collaboration and communication between school 

leadership and AmeriCorps members.”
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Challenges with Partnerships

As noted above, all stakeholders overall reported high levels of satisfaction with their partnerships. The 

challenges that stakeholders reported with partnerships were generally reflections of when the elements 

of successful partnerships, reported above, were not going well. Aside from the difficulty with fully 

understanding members’ roles in the schools, these challenges were reported by a minority of grantee

programs and schools. 

Balancing District and School Needs

All grantee staff described initially obtaining program buy-in from the school districts of their host 

schools, with those relationships ranging in involvement from “hands off” to quarterly (or even more 

often) coordination meetings with the district. Districts identified eligible schools and in most cases 

worked with programs to help determine how to allocate members among eligible schools. Occasionally 

grantee staff encountered tensions between a district’s assessment of how members should be distributed 

and schools’ assessment. In at least one case, a school had the program “forced” on it by the district, 

which led to strain between the school and grantee program and for members placed in the school. More 

often, districts reallocated members from one school (usually an improving one) to a school with higher 

perceived need. As one grantee staff explained after having to pull members from a school that exited 

SIG status, “We’re getting more schools but no new members, so we have to kind of move people around. 

... We finally get them out of [the lowest performance category] and then we take away all their 

resources. ... It’s a balance.” 

Principal and Teacher Buy-in

Principal buy-in to the program was usually not a challenge, as it is principals who sign partnership 

agreements to bring School Turnaround AmeriCorps into a school. A majority of grantee programs, 

however, noted challenges with principal turnover and having to reestablish the working relationship 

and program buy-in repeatedly. In a few cases, grantee staff reported that changes in school leadership 

meant that a principal was less invested in the program because he or she had not been part of bringing it 

to the school. In at least one case, a new principal was simply overwhelmed by the responsibilities and 

not able to devote time to developing a strong understanding of the program. 

In the schools where teacher buy-in was a challenge, it was a more difficult challenge than principal buyin for several reasons. First, teachers have less direct interaction with the grantee program than do 

principals, hence receiving less direct information about the program and how to work with members. 

Second, in some schools, teachers felt threatened by the AmeriCorps members’ presence in their

classrooms and wary of trusting them with students’ progress. Teachers’ evaluations and jobs are 

contingent on their students’ academic progress and some teachers and members reported that teachers 

did not feel comfortable trusting members—especially early in the year when they were unproven—with 

students’ learning. 

A related challenge was teachers’ (and sometimes principals’) confusion over members’ roles in the 

school. This lack of clarity meant that schools sometimes asked members to do activities outside the 

program scope or that schools were not using members effectively (i.e., underutilizing their skills).83 A 

few grantee staff described increasing the time they spent orienting teachers to the program and 

providing guidance on how best to collaborate with members, and this challenge lessened somewhat 

over the first three years of implementation. 

 

83 Sometimes these out-of-scope activities were ineligible activities as defined by CNCS and sometimes were 

activities out of scope for how the grantee program had defined its intervention.
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Member Supervision and Training

The day-to-day relationships between members and grantee staff with school staff and leaders were of 

paramount importance. As discussed above, support from the principal is an important enabling 

condition, followed by strong relationships and collaboration between teachers and members. Overall, 

members helped to sustain capacity in schools and generally had good relationships with school staff; 

however, case studies revealed that schools had mixed experiences with members. Among the Year 1 

case study schools that were re-interviewed in Year 2, stakeholders reported a range of experiences with 

members, from a significant improvement in teacher-member relationships over the prior year (School 

4A) to worsening teacher-member relationships (School 2A) due to decreased member quality and lack of 

time to appropriately match teachers and students. In a few cases when schools lost members due to 

attrition and school stakeholders reported a diminished capacity to serve and support their students, 

grantee staff reported a strain on grantee program-school relationships. 

In the final grantee staff interviews, about half of them suggested that programs could be improved by 

enhanced supervision at the school level. Several grantee staff spoke about the importance of training. 

Several staff discussed the importance or coordinating with the districts to create successful relationships, 

and two different grantee staff discussed getting schools to buy into their programs more—in one case by 

creating better partnerships and in another by having schools pay a “cash match” so that they are 

financially invested in the program. 
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V. CONCLUSION

Summary of Findings 

Overall, primary source respondents (grantee staff, principals, teachers, members, parents) indicated that 

the School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program had positive impacts, both broadly, in terms of its 

perceived impact on the schools as a whole, and more specifically, in terms of influencing key aspects of 

schools’ turnaround efforts. Most respondents—both those who work in program schools and those 

whose children attend such schools—perceived that the program overall is somewhat or very successful. 

Not surprisingly, school leaders and staff focused on the program’s success in helping schools overall, as 

well as in contributing to improving school climate, students’ socio-emotional health, and student 

achievement. Most parents (in both years) reported overwhelmingly positive views of the program, 

noting contributions to helping their children they had observed after their children had begun to receive 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program services. 

The modest and mixed results in the performance measures data contrast with grantee programs’ 

narrative reports and stakeholder perspectives, both of which suggest that the program has contributed 

meaningfully to improvements in school turnaround progress, student socio-emotional health, academic 

performance, and school climates. Combined, the findings from both the GPRs and stakeholder 

perceptions provide especially valuable information about the mechanisms underlying programs’ success 

as well as the challenges in implementation and working with school partners that hindered improved 

performance.

Summary of Comparisons of Schools with and without School Turnaround AmeriCorps

The comparative case study analyses indicated that program and comparison turnaround schools relied 

upon similar strategies overall, but that School Turnaround AmeriCorps helped schools augment selected 

interventions in ways that comparison schools were not able to do. Specifically, the two types of schools 

were similar in using data to assess student progress and tailor academic interventions, using those data 

to provide targeted and individualized academic support to students identified as struggling or failing, 

providing enhanced teacher professional development with SIG resources, and in providing increased 

socio-emotional supports to students. 

By contrast, many more schools with School Turnaround AmeriCorps members (than comparison 

schools) were able to augment their capacity, especially in terms of providing socio-emotional supports 

(because of their trusting relationships with students) and differentiated instruction to individual or small 

groups of students, which allowed them to provide more robust and sustained one-on-one or small 

group instruction to struggling students. Because members were usually placed in single classrooms or 

worked with the same students in all their classes, their sustained presence made it possible to deliver 

individual or small group instruction consistently throughout the day and after school. Members most 

often worked with students in the middle tier of performance—behind grade level but not with the most 

severe academic deficits (see School 4A for an exception). In comparison schools, teachers most often 

provided additional tailored academic support. 

The comparative case studies also suggest that the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program is distinct 

from other resources SIG schools use to implement their turnaround strategies in that it enables—and 

requires—different partnership strategies than more episodic partners (volunteers, trainers, etc.). The 

most common AmeriCorps-specific partnership strategies were member-teacher collaboration around 

classroom support (reported by all case study program schools), having an on-site coordinator to manage 

members and facilitate communication and understanding with the school staff (most program schools), 
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and being flexible in meeting schools’ needs (a minority of case study program schools, one comparison 

school). 

Summary of Intervention Effectiveness, Promising Practices, and Changes over Time

Over the course of the first three years of implementation, grantee programs continued to use the same 

broad interventions; adjustments programs

made were primarily to recruitment, retention, 

supervision, and other administrative functions. 

There were modest increases in the number and 

intensity of programs pursuing strategies in 

training, service delivery, and partnerships that 

emerged as promising practices. 

Promising Practices for Delivering Effective 

Interventions and Serving in Schools

• Communication and Relationship 

Building: Communicate proactively at 

program level (grantee programs to 

districts, school leaders; members to 

teachers, students, on-site coordinator, 

and school leaders); build sustained 

relationships to increase program 

understanding and ease challenges.

• Recruitment and Retention: Recruit 

early, advertise through multiple channels, 

communicate expectations about the 

service commitment and school conditions 

clearly, recruit and match members with 

schools’ needs, place members in full-time 

positions.

• Preparation and Training: Provide preservice orientation and training, 

specialized training in behavior 

management and school-specific 

strategies; include members in faculty and 

professional learning community meetings, 

school-level training, and teacher 

professional development during the 

school year.

• Supervision and Support: Rely on onsite coordinators to manage, organize, and 

support members and facilitate 

communication with school staff; cultivate 

school leader buy-in, integrate members 

into school culture and operations.

• Service Delivery: Establish effective and 

trusting relationships with both teachers 

and students, maintain a consistent 

presence in schools and classrooms to aid 

with classroom management, collaborate 

with teachers to review student data and 

target supports appropriate to students’ 

needs, and be flexible in meeting schools’ 

needs.

Grantee staff and principals agreed that preservice activities by grantee programs and 

schools—recruiting members with skills 

matched to the school’s needs and pre-service 

orientation and training—established a strong 

foundation for a successful program. Further, 

grantee staff and school stakeholders strongly 

agreed that strong supervisory and support 

structures for members and clearly defined 

measures of progress were helpful during 

implementation. 

Grantee programs made strategy adjustments in 

response to the most common challenges they 

faced: member preparation and training and a 

lack of sufficient communication, which 

manifested as confusion over members’ roles in 

schools and a lack of buy-in from teachers. The 

most significant adjustment from 2014–15 to 

2015–16 was in the type and amount of 

communication and collaboration between 

program stakeholders (grantee staff and 

members) and school stakeholders (school 

leaders, teachers, and counselors). Relatedly, 

several programs and schools described 

providing more specialized training to members 

at the beginning of and throughout the year, and 

increasing members’ coordination with teachers, 

such as by attending PLC meetings or reviewing 

student data together. These strategies, along 

with continued on-site coordination, may have 

contributed to the reported increased 

understanding of members’ roles between 2014–15 to 2015–16. Despite increased evidence of member 

training in 2015–16, respondents continued to note limitations in members’ preparation for managing 

student behavior and knowledge of intervention strategies specific to their host schools. 
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About half of programs reported challenges with member recruitment and retention. Grantee programs 

employed a variety of strategies to improve recruitment, including beginning recruitment earlier in the 

year and diversifying the channels through which they advertised positions. They also employed 

multiple strategies to improve retention, including clearer communication to members about the 

expectations for service (one year commitment, conditions in turnaround schools). Grantee programs and 

schools realized modest improvement on recruitment and retention in 2015–16 compared with prior 

years, though some of the issues may be persistent challenges with the program model (see Implications 

for School Turnaround AmeriCorps section below). 

The most effective strategies members and schools employed for delivering interventions were frequently 

assessing data to identify students for services and gauge progress, and having members provide 

individualized attention to students for both socio-emotional and academic improvements. School 

stakeholders and programs reported continuing both strategies and increasing their uses of data over the 

years. 

Implications for School Turnaround AmeriCorps

This section discusses implications of the study’s findings for informing program improvement, by 

revisiting the program design and its relationship to program implementation, as well as the potentially 

broader implications for the AmeriCorps education program model. The report concludes with the study 

team’s suggestions for program implementation and insights about the sustainability of strategies 

implemented with AmeriCorps resources beyond the designated time period for service provision. 

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps Theory of Change and the AmeriCorps Education Program 

Model

The Value Added of AmeriCorps Presence

As designed, School Turnaround AmeriCorps delivered a range of services and supports to schools, most 

often tutoring and providing general socio-emotional support to students. Members typically had little 

prior experience in delivering educational interventions and managing student behavior, which raises the 

importance of pre-service training or job-embedded practice at their host schools. Some programs 

provided more substantive or skill-based supports (e.g., a math instruction-focused program in School 

3A, or members in SIG Exiter 1 who were Master’s students in social work providing socio-emotional 

supports supervised by professional staff). While most programs did not offer such specialized 

interventions, the evaluation findings suggest that schools valued School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

because it allowed schools to provide targeted and individualized academic support and socio-emotional 

learning supports to students. Moreover, members were valued for their dedication, consistency, 

professionalism, and alignment with school activities more than for their expertise. Examples such as SIG 

Exiter 3 suggest that school stakeholders also placed considerable value on having another “warm body” 

in the classroom to assist teachers, to be another caring adult in students’ lives, and to be available to 

flexibly meet schools’ changing needs and priorities. However, the evaluation found that, the added 

value is more likely to occur in settings where it is well organized and well received by the school (i.e., by 

a site coordinator, and by establishing school leader buy-in and collegial relationships with teachers). 

Arguably, the ‘AmeriCorps presence’ approach to supporting schools is not in itself a particularly 

innovative strategy; rather it tends to augment schools’ existing approaches and not pioneer new models.

This emphasis on AmeriCorps presence is reflected in the program’s theory of change: when trusted and 

caring adults connect with students by giving them their time and attention, it helps students engage and 

develop an intrinsic interest in school and learning. Such increased academic engagement in turn 

engenders positive student behaviors and attitudes—better attendance, improved study habits, increased 
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completion of assignments and homework—critical to improving student academic achievement. In 

short, the value that the ‘AmeriCorps presence’ adds to schools is the defining feature of the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program model. In practice, consistent AmeriCorps presence—and members’ 

relationships with students—was a unifying element in what program schools most appreciated about 

the program. 

Program Model Features And Tensions

As a whole, study findings suggest that the School Turnaround AmeriCorps model worked well, when 

done right. However, the case studies and interviews with program and school stakeholders illuminated 

the conditions that hampered program and member effectiveness. Barriers to program effectiveness came 

in the form of external factors at the school or community level over which grantee staff and members 

had little or no influence or control—such as school leader turnover or a closed school culture that was

apprehensive of outsiders—as well as internal factors related to program design and implementation. 

Interestingly, some of the factors intrinsic to the program model simultaneously represent program 

strengths and challenges, as summarized in Exhibit V-1. For example, member demographics, the one 

year term of service, living stipend, service dosage requirements, and program goal of building schools’ 

capacity to implement their turnaround plans and achieve their turnaround goals are core program 

elements that generally have both clear positives and clear challenges. Notably, all of these School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program model features are applicable to any AmeriCorps educational 

program working in K-12 school settings.

Exhibit V-1: Tensions between the School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program Model and Serving 

in Educational Settings

Program Model Feature Strength Shortcoming

Member Demographics Ability to build relationships and relate 

with students as “near peers” and role 

models

Immaturity; variability in content knowledge 

and experience working in low-performing 

school environments

Term of Service Dedicated, often full-time, AmeriCorps 

members embedded in the school 

throughout the year 

Relationships with students built over the 

year ended, interrupting student progress

Living Stipend Not reported Amount of stipend was prohibitive in an area

with a high cost of living and/or high 

opportunity cost of obtaining other full-time 

work

Service Dosage Requirements Requires that students receive the 

targeted amount of intervention hours 

per student to improve in reading/ or 

math

Prohibits flexibility in meeting schools’ needs 

or the needs of high transient student 

populations

Building School Capacity Members augment school capacity 

during their term of service

Because school capacity gains are based on 

member presence, these gains are not 

sustained when members leave the school

Member demographics

As reported in the Year 1 evaluation report, over 80 percent of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members 

serving in 2014–15 were in their late teens to late twenties, and over 50 percent were between 22 and 24 

years old when they enrolled in AmeriCorps.84 This demographic profile mirrors the general AmeriCorps 

 

84 Corporation for National and Community Service. e-Grants service location and member data as of 2014–15 for 

the 2014–15 school year.
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population.85 One of the key study findings is School Turnaround AmeriCorps members’ ability to build 

strong relationships with students and relate to them as “near peers” and role models, yet some 

principals viewed members’ inexperience and (some members’) immaturity as a burden. In addition, 

variability in members’ content knowledge and in their experience working in low-performing school 

environments may have been more pronounced due to the relative youth of the member cohort. 

Term of service

Full-time members commit to a one-year term of service, and average service hours per member were

often in the range expected of full-time members (1,700 hours). Schools clearly benefited from having 

dedicated partners embedded in their schools throughout the school year. The downside of the one-year 

term of service is that the next year’s members (and the school staff and students) have to begin 

developing relationships from scratch. 

Living stipend

The modest living stipend for AmeriCorps members was another implementation challenge reported by 

grantee staff, who noted that the amount of the stipend versus the cost of living in some areas adversely 

affected recruitment, and the low stipends also affected retention because of the opportunity cost of other 

possible employment, especially in areas with poor job markets (e.g., rural or remote areas where 

opportunities were scarce). No positive comments related to the AmeriCorps stipend were documented.

Service dosage requirements

Another AmeriCorps program model tension arose from programs’ service dosage requirements, which 

sometimes conflicted with school partners’ needs for flexibility. Individual students must receive a 

minimum amount of services for grantee programs to meet their performance measure targets and, as 

shown in programs’ GPRs, meeting the minimum dosage requirement was a common struggle. Many 

schools reported wanting more flexibility in members’ services and caseloads. For example, some schools 

have transient student populations, who join later (and may not be able to be assigned to a member) or 

leave before the end of the school year (and are therefore unable to meet the dosage requirement). Several 

schools also reported students making benchmark gains before completing the required dosage, in which 

case schools would appreciate being able to assign more struggling students to the member. 

Building school capacity

Finally, the most basic contribution that all School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs provided is 

additional human capital support for their school partners. This strength of the program also presents a 

potential challenge to building schools’ capacity to operate at the same level when the designated time 

period for service provision comes to an end. Successfully exiting SIG or Priority status and continuing to 

operate at its improved level is one way to measure a school’s ability to sustain its turnaround successes 

even after School Turnaround AmeriCorps members have left. Schools’ ability to effectively engage and 

utilize external partners (AmeriCorps programs or other) after an intervention ends is another way to 

assess the School Turnaround program’s longer-term benefits. In this sense, grantee programs’ persistent 

challenges with member enrollment and retention, barriers at the school level, and problems with student 

assessment data, are important program implementation lessons for any turnaround partner. To the 

degree that both grantee programs and schools were learning how to navigate these challenges, such 

learning should be transferrable to working with other AmeriCorps programs as well as external 

partners. 

 

85 Corporation for National and Community Service, Office of Research and Policy Development (2004); 

Cardazone, G. et al. (2015). 
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Suggested Improvements to Program Implementation

To complement programs’ promising practices documented over both years of the evaluation, the study 

team recommends two areas in which CNCS can further improve school partnerships and program 

implementation.

1. Provide grantee programs communication technical assistance and more opportunities for peer 

learning

The first recommendation is that providing technical assistance in communications to programs could go 

a long way in addressing common and persistent implementation challenges, mitigating tensions in the 

program model, and enhancing program delivery. Communications assistance could be helpful in several 

modes and formats, including messaging and materials development, one on one support, and facilitated 

peer group learning for both grantee and host school staff. 

As this study has helped to document, relationship building is an important pre-condition for effective 

service provision. Exhibit II-2 in the Year 1 final evaluation report diagrammed the network of key 

program stakeholder relationships that occur in schools, illustrating why communication and interactions 

between and among these various stakeholders so heavily influence program effectiveness. Indeed, many 

of the program implementation challenges are essentially communication issues. It follows that 

communications assistance could help grantee programs improve in the following areas: maintaining and 

improving strong relationships with districts and school partners, defining members’ roles, promoting 

teacher buy-in, increasing communication with grantee programs about the use and usefulness of 

partnership agreements, and disseminating the program promising practices documented in this report. 

For example, developing materials in accessible language using engaging formats (e.g., one-page FAQs, 

posters, short videos) and developing concise and consistent talking points that clarify the program rules 

and the most effective ways to leverage members in schools can be useful, program-wide tools for 

managing schools’ expectations about the program, particularly related to tensions and challenges with 

AmeriCorps program model features and how to mitigate them, to improve principals’ understanding of 

how to balance adhering to program rules and flexibly using AmeriCorps resources to support 

turnaround strategies. Creating a web page on the school website or short presentations for faculty 

meetings or teacher work days using clear and consistent messaging can also help explain members’ roles

to school stakeholders, especially teachers, including what they are permitted and not permitted to do, as 

well as this study’s findings on how they can be used most effectively in schools. These techniques could 

also help to promote the program to teachers who are unaware of the program and what the members are 

doing in the school and might be interested in referring their students for services. 

Additionally, given that CNCS recently issued updated guidance on partnership agreements for the 2016-

17 application process, creating open communication channels could help encourage adoption of this 

special program design requirement of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. The program’s 

success depends on grantee programs’ ability to execute the terms of their written agreements in 

practice—align their activities with schools’ turnaround plans and collaborate with school stakeholders—

and this involves cultivating relationships and buy-in with school leaders and teachers, ensuring that 

members receive appropriate training and supervision and are integrated into school operations, making 

members’ roles clearly understood, and sharing resources and data to measure the program’s progress in 

helping to improve student outcomes. However, guidance is only useful when it is communicated clearly 

and well understood, and its principles are put into practice and refined with new knowledge and 

experience by its intended audience. Communication could focus on highlighting the importance of 

following the terms of written partnership agreements, and identifying early warning signs when 
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conflicts arise or agreements are not respected, or when adjustments to partners’ roles and 

responsibilities are needed. 

Other communication guidance could occur through regular, informal check-ins with grantee programs 

to discuss whether the spirit of the partnership established in the written agreements as well as in school 

leaders’ letters of commitment is being implemented by both parties in good faith. Creating opportunities 

for open communication about partner relations can also help to identify promising practices for 

involving school and program stakeholders in support of the partnership, for example, by using 

partnership agreements to facilitate grantee-school communication about challenges or to navigate 

transitions in school and district leadership and priorities.

Lastly, the program could also benefit from disseminating the program’s promising practices more 

broadly, by making a communications toolkit tailored to different audiences (districts, school leaders, 

teachers and school staff, parents, and students) available on the AmeriCorps program website. CNCS 

employed this strategy with the first cohort of School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantees by providing

technical assistance through topical peer-led discussions on common program challenges and the 

successful strategies some programs have used to address them, which possibly accounts for 

improvements in program implementation strategies noted above. Additional topics that could be 

explored for the next cohort of School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantees include how to replicate 

successful strategies in different school contexts, e.g. member training and supervision, member 

recruitment and retention, developing a checklist to clarify members’ roles for teachers and members, use 

of partnership agreements to open discussions with schools and resolve implementation challenges, and 

approaches to engage teachers in members’ work and support their roles in the school. Expanding the 

types and frequency of peer learning opportunities in a community of practice setting can provide a safe 

environment for grantee staff to test and practice new communications skills. 

2. Clarify the expectations and standardize the requirements for how grantee programs collect and 

report administrative data 

The study team’s efforts to collect and analyze the GPRs, member activity data, and student-level data, 

despite their considerable variability, produced many insights and recommendations for enhancing 

future evaluations of School Turnaround AmeriCorps and education-related programming in the 

AmeriCorps portfolio of programs. In the Year 1 final evaluation report the study team offered several 

recommendations for improving collection, reporting, and analysis of administrative data, focused on 

providing more explicit guidance, articulating common reporting procedures, and developing common 

templates. 

In Year 2, the study team implemented one of the Year 1 recommendations to establish a common 

template for the collection of member activity log data and provide assistance to grantee programs in 

tracking and reporting those data to improve the completeness and quality of the member activity data. 

However, despite a more standardized approach, Year 2 findings indicate that grantee programs track 

and report program activity data idiosyncratically. Absent changes in what and how grantee programs 

report, inconsistency of information in the GPRs is likely to persist, and consequently, the study team 

proposes an alternative approach to the collection and analysis of grantee administrative data to improve 

measurement of grantee performance. The approach is summarized here and described in detail in 

Appendix A.4.

Performance measure data present a considerable interpretive challenge, as they do not present a 

sufficiently fine-grained summary of grantee performance. Grantee programs’ schools operate under 

constraints that are partly or largely beyond their control, and a more comprehensive depiction of grantee 

performance (than available from performance measures) is needed to evaluate the contribution of 
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members given these constraints. One reason performance measures may not adequately capture 

participation and completion in services accurately is that the counts of eligible and participating 

students ignore the fact that some students enroll in school well after the school year starts while some 

students leave mid-year, so any overall number may mask salient indicators of students’ enrollment 

history. Grantee programs cannot exercise control over such fluctuations in student enrollment, and 

performance measures based in whole or in part on student enrollment (and eligibility) are therefore 

subject to over- or under-prediction. Appendix Exhibit A-5 in Appendix Section A.4 provides a more 

detailed explanation, and presents a potential exercise for grantee programs: using data from the most 

recently completed year, record the numbers of students in three groups: stayers, movers, joiners, and for 

each of those groups, record the number of students who were eligible, completed service, or exited (for 

various reasons). Completing such an exercise might help grantee programs provide more accurate 

performance targets in the future and would help them better judge the performance of their members 

over the past school year. 

3. Consider encouraging greater continuity of members’ service within participating schools to 

alleviate some of the implementation challenges associated with member onboarding and 

relationship building that now occur anew each year.

The third recommendation focuses on encouraging greater continuity of members’ service within 

participating schools. While the grant program statute requires terms of service to be no longer than one 

year, some grantee programs enroll members into two consecutive one-year terms, which provides some 

stability and continuity to the program.86 Perhaps CNCS could consider providing explicit 

acknowledgement that two consecutive years of service for members might be a viable option for 

programs (assuming continuity of funding and satisfactory member performance), as having some 

continuity in members’ service might mitigate some persistent and program-wide implementation 

challenges associated with member orientation, training, supervision, support, and relationship building 

(between school faculty/staff and members as well as between members and students) that now occur 

anew each year. This recommendation is based on the finding that starting over each year with a new 

cohort of members requires substantial time and energy from programs and schools. One possible 

alternative might be to build in some continuity across school years to help reduce the time lost each fall, 

by staggering members’ service terms so that some members begin in the fall semester and others in the 

spring semester. The study team recognizes that considering such a change might lead programs to 

provide mid-year orientation to new members, although the members already on-site could potentially 

help accelerate the onboarding process for their newly arrived peers. 

The Sustainability of Strategies Implemented with AmeriCorps Resources beyond the Designated 

Time Period for Service Provision

CNCS defines capacity building in its agency-wide performance measures as activities that “achieve 

lasting positive outcomes for the beneficiary populations served by CNCS-supported organizations.” 87

Generally, CNCS considers capacity building activities to be “indirect services that enable organizations 

to provide more, better and sustained direct services.” 88 This definition would seem to preclude a 

primarily direct service intervention such as School Turnaround AmeriCorps—and the AmeriCorps 

 

86 The Citizen Schools organization, for example, asks its AmeriCorps members to commit to a two-year term in 

large measure to provide continuity in staffing from one year to the next.

87 The Corporation for National & Community Service (2011). Demonstrating Impact through Capacity Building: 

An Overview of the National Performance Measures. 

88 Ibid.
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education program model generally—as they are not designed to build capacity in their host 

organizations, i.e. schools. For the purposes of this study, building school capacity has been evaluated in 

terms of the program’s ability to support schools in implementing their turnaround plans and achieving 

their turnaround goals, without an explicit expectation of how such support would continue beyond the 

grant period.

CNCS also defines the concept of sustainability as “a lasting outcome of the capacity building activity or 

intervention. This may include maintaining service after the CNCS resource is gone, maintaining 

enhanced or increased services after the CNCS resource is gone, or both.”89 As shown in Exhibit V-2, the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program logic model includes sustainability for the growth of the 

program as a long-term outcome, achieved through: 1) targeting an increased number of at-risk students 

each subsequent year, and 2) sustaining the turnaround program once the AmeriCorps members have 

left. However, these long-term outcomes for growth of the program (presumably with AmeriCorps 

members), and sustainability of the program without AmeriCorps members, have not been well-defined; 

nor has CNCS articulated a cogent theory of change for achieving them. 

Even acknowledging the implementation challenges and tensions in the program model, this study finds 

that the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program has helped some schools progress sufficiently to exit

SIG status. Based on the four SIG Exiter case studies, however, the program has not helped schools build 

long-term capacity that outlasts members’ presence. Nevertheless, the program appears to be making 

some progress toward the first sustainability outcome, as six of the 13 original grantee programs plan to 

recompete for the next round of School Turnaround AmeriCorps funding. 

In considering the implications of School Turnaround AmeriCorps for CNCS’s larger education portfolio, 

the SIG case studies demonstrate that schools need a variety of supports and resources to exit and remain 

out of SIG status, and they suggest that three years is not a sufficient investment to sustain schools’ 

improvements. In the context of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps federal partnership, the questions of 

continued investment and sustainability are particularly relevant. The two-year national evaluation 

suggests that the program is perceived as supporting schools, and it has already addressed some of the 

impediments described in earlier reports and memos about implementation challenges and promising 

practices. Just as importantly, some school stakeholders perceived that School Turnaround AmeriCorps

would be more valuable to them as a long-term and proactive strategy rather than a short-term solution.

 

89 Ibid.
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Exhibit V-2: CNCS School Turnaround AmeriCorps, Program-Level Logic Model 
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