In school turnarounds, the human element is crucial
By Laura Pappano/Education Week (subscription required)
As we dig into school turnaround work, the haul of education data is getting, well, exciting. The things we can know, extrapolate, and rate—from multiyear subgroup test results by school, to value-added teacher scores across a district—have provided a delightful (if sometimes controversial) plate of information. There is much that can—and should—be read into data now available to parents, community leaders, and educators. The drive for tangible improvement, the bad-to-great transformation that is the hope of school turnaround, demands transparent assessment. We need to know: Which schools aren’t cutting it? Who’s got it figured out? The numbers, however, project the illusion that turnaround is more straightforward than it is. (more…)