Turning Around Schools in New Orleans: Two Sectors, Two Directions

• In Event: Lifting All Boats With a Multisector Approach: Lessons From New Orleans

Abstract

Shortly after taking control of New Orleans schools, the Recovery School District (RSD) realized that some of its schools needed significant intervention. The RSD implemented two primary school turnarounds strategies: a “district-run” strategy, whereby the district oversaw most of the change in school operations, staffing, and support; and a “charter-run” strategy, whereby the district releases control of failing schools to nonprofits, including CMOs with experience operating multiple charter schools. The operator chose the specific approach that was used in the school.

We will present the results of a qualitative case study in 11 New Orleans turnaround schools. The sample includes both district-run and charter-run turnarounds. Visits occurred four times over the course of a year (spring 2009 through spring 2010). At each visit, researchers spent approximately half a day at each school interviewing school principals and other building/program leaders and conducting classroom observations.

Informed by existing literature on school turnaround we explored whether and in what ways the turnaround efforts we observed reflected:
1. A well-articulated and clear plan for the new school/strategy (Murphy 2009).
2. Dismantling the old internal school structures and building new ones. (Murphy 2009)
3. A shift in school culture toward high expectations for student success exhibited in both classroom and school wide activities (Learning Points Associates 2010).
4. Leaders with skills of a turnaround specialist, including change management, teacher screening and selection, management of community politics (Fullan 2005).
In addition, we assessed the extent to which the charter and district-led strategies differed along these elements.

To explore these questions we probed interviewees on schools’ methods of leadership training and transition, teacher retention and dismissal, inculcation of a school “theme,” academic programs, culture programs, professional development structures, student supports, board relations, and methods of upholding high expectations for student achievement in a high school learning environment.

We found evidence of differences in the ways in which charter and district-run transformation efforts in these 11 schools. Relative to the district-led transformations, we found that classrooms in charter-led transformations displayed higher norms for student work, a stronger sense of urgency about raising student achievement, and more structured student behavior systems. In addition leadership placed a greater emphasis staff development, demonstrated more authority in decision-making. Based on this work, we hypothesize that the charter-led transformations benefit significantly from being implemented by a central organization with a defined instructional and organizational model and central leadership steeped in the model (e.g. CMO). This central structure gave the transformation efforts an immediate direction and support.

Author

• Robin Lake, Center on Reinventing Public Education