One of the planks I use in my arguments against using turnarounds as the primary strategy for improving urban districts is this IES study. Researchers went looking for successful turnaround tactics that have a robust research base and came up empty. I recommend this study to anyone optimistic about the future of turnarounds, but I'll quote a couple passages here:
The panel did not find any empirical studies that reached the rigor necessary to determine that specific turnaround practices produce significantly better academic outcomes.
All recommendations had to rely on low levels of evidence as defined by the Institute of Education Sciences Practice Guide standards. ????We could not find any studies that fit the high-quality experimental and quasi-experimental study standards of the What Works Clearinghouse and that would provide the strongest evidence of causal validity.
Readers should note that the case research on school turnarounds and the business research clearly indicates that there is no specific set of actions that applies equally well to every turnaround situation.
I bring this up because the new administration is tasking IES with getting back into this business. Via this RFP, IES is looking for researchers to develop and test practices that can eventually be used to turn around chronically low-performing schools.
Debbie Viadero at Ed Week has some valuable thoughts about this, and two are worth highlighting. First, this moves IES away from umpiring (providing dispassionate evaluations) and into idea development. Second, the RFP is not looking for randmonized controlled studies, a top-tier research design. Valdero's description makes it sound like IES is willing to fund case study-style research.
If this is true--meaning researchers will develop an intervention, study how it works in one or two cases, and then draw conclusions--I'm concerned. This has been one of the downfalls of turnaround research to date. The IES study quoted above does an excellent job of explaining why:
Studies of turnaround schools tend to be case studies that look back at factors that may have contributed to the school's success. ????This research design is particularly weak in determining causal validity for several reasons, including the fact that there is no way to be confident that the features common to successful turnaround schools are not also common to schools that fail.
This was the basic mistake made by Hassel and Hassel (ordinarily among my favorite researchers) in this otherwise interesting????Education Next article. (As always, I'm happy to be corrected if in error, so if IES and/or the Hassels object to any of the above, let me know.)
One final thought. This RFP shows that the Department agrees with what many of us have been saying--that we know entirely too little about how to turn around failing schools. As I've noted, the conclusion I've drawn is that there is a reason why we know so little after 40+ years of effort (because this isn't a scalable strategy for success).
But if ED and others remain confident that turnarounds can work at scale, let's at least wait until this project turns up reliable strategies (backed by strong research) before investing billions of dollars in turnarounds via the School Improvement Fund, the Race to the Top fund, and the What Works fund.
Until then, let's do what has worked for KIPP, Achievement First, Uncommon, Aspire, Noble Street, YES, IDEA, Citizen's Academy, and so many more: start new schools.