Before excusing myself from this debate (which was great) and deferring to my forthcoming article, I'll respond point-by-point to the Hassel's last post.
- I disagree with the contention that new starts and turnarounds have the same success rate, especially in education. If you were to take all of the schools that were in restructuring three years ago and compare them today to all of the schools that were started new three years ago, I would bet that the new start quality curve is farther to the right at all points. I'm very confident that this would be especially true at the far right side; that is, the top 25 percent of new starts from three years ago would be higher performing as a class than the top 25 percent of schools in restructuring three years ago.
- I agree that we have too little good research on the DNA of successful turnarounds and new starts. Having said that, however, from all of the evidence I've seen, turnarounds are always going to have a very low success rate. I'm sympathetic to the argument that we ought to try lots of things while we're looking for the answer, but there's a limit to that. In my view, the potential of turnarounds is so low that we'd be better off putting our eggs in the new start basket. Speaking of which, everyone who's so bullish about Green Dot's turnaround success ought to read this article. Things aren't so rosy as some would suggest. Moreover, according to the opening on this article Green Dot itself is more encouraged by the potential of its new starts!
- I think the "we haven't tried hard enough" argument is the by far the least convincing one out there. The list of interventions used to try to fix chronically failing schools over decades is nothing short of stunning. Yes, in hindsight, some weren't tough enough, but many, many were significant and continuous.
- I think my previous points get at their fourth point and explain why I'm in the new start camp. By way of analogy, if I was asked to set a baseball batting lineup and I could choose from among 20 players, 10 of whom had a .350 lifetime batting average and 10 of whom consistently batted, say, .180, I would choose nine of the .350 hitters; I wouldn't mix it up with some of the .180 guys . I'm not positing that .350 and .180 perfectly match the stats of new starts and turnarounds, only that one is much more reliable than the other.????In short, no batter gets on base every time, but if we're in the bottom of the ninth in game seven, you better believe that I'd feel better with Ted Williams at the plate than Bob Uecker. And if I had to give one of them a $3 billion contract extension, I know who I'd pick.
