The Gore treatment is equally controversial. If after two years that hasn't turned the schools around, states would have the power to shut the schools down and reopen them with new teachers and administrators. But once the teams leave, some schools have fallen back onto the failing list. The second half of Gore's plan, reconstitution, has been called the neutron bomb of school reform, and most states, including North Carolina, have been too skittish to try it. But such radical change is difficult to pull off.
Unions fight layoffs.
And it isn't easy to find good replacements. In 1997 Denver restaffed two elementary schools, but test scores have barely changed. These mixed results, however, are unlikely to quell the public demand for reform.