NewSchools Venture Fund, consistently a valuable contributor to education reform, is hosting a smallish meeting today in DC on turnarounds (apparently with an appearance by Secretary Duncan). By all accounts, this is an effort to get charter school operators interested and involved in turnarounds.
My fervent hope is that those participating will cast a critical eye on the claims being made about turnarounds and leave open the possibility (and ultimately conclude) that new starts are the way to go. If those taking part today get caught up by the turnaround hype and rashly jump on board (partially to curry favor with the administration), the result might be the derailing of previously successful charter start-up organizations.
That is,????I hope everyone is mindful that a major push for turnarounds may lure strong operators????(a)????away from their core competency and (b) into a field with staggeringly low rates of success. In my opinion, there are entirely too few great urban public schools, so distracting the small number of groups who've seemingly cracked the code is concerning.
Many of the day's participants are sharp, successful reformers, and NewSchools is staffed with smart folks, and they've previously invested in important work,????so I'm sure the conversation will be very good. I'm just hoping it's also sufficiently skeptical.