Incentivizing Improvement or Imposition? An Examination of the Response to Gubernatorial School Takeover and Statewide Turnaround Districts

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Is State Takeover the Path to School Improvement? Examining the Politics of State Takeover

Abstract

Using Georgia as a case study, this paper examines how leaders in districts and schools interpret and respond to the threat of takeover by a state-run turnaround district. First, we provide a descriptive overview of the schools, districts, and neighborhoods most likely to be influenced by the recent wave of Governor-led school takeover efforts. Next, we use semi-structured interviews with school and district leaders, teachers and state-level officials to gain a granular understanding of how school and district leaders perceive and respond the threat of state takeover. We address the following research questions: (a) Which schools, districts and neighborhoods are likely to be most affected by gubernatorial school takeover and statewide turnaround districts?
and (b) How might district and school leaders make sense of and respond to the threat of takeover by a state-run district?

We use two theoretical frameworks to guide our analysis of state turnaround districts: (a) Sensemaking to analyze the interpretation and perception of state takeovers among district and school leaders, and (b) Exit, voice and loyalty to analyze the response to state takeover. The political nature of school takeover in Georgia makes these theories quite relevant to better understand how district and school leaders not only interpret the policy, but also how they might choose to respond to it.

This study uses a complimentary mixed methods design that involves collecting, analyzing, and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data simultaneously, which affords researchers the opportunity to investigate underlying phenomenon through both lenses (Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2006). In order to address the first research question, we use a four-year panel of publicly available school- and district-level data from the 2011-12 through to the 2014-15 school year. The data come from multiple sources including: the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE), the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA), the National Center Education Statistics (NCES), and the Stanford Education Data Archives (SEDA). In order to address the second research question, this study draws from semi-structured interviews with educational leaders at the state-, district, and school-level who have agency over the interpretation and response to the threat of takeover. We interviewed a total of 15 educational leaders.

Results indicate that urban schools and districts largely populated by low-income and minority students are most likely to be affected by state takeover. We find that overall there is a negative sentiment towards statewide turnaround districts among school and district leaders, and school and district leaders have responded in desirable and undesirable ways to the threat of state takeover.

We contribute to the nascent literature examining state-run turnaround districts that takeover schools for academic reasons, and we add to the school improvement literature by shedding light on how takeovers may change the relationship between state, district and school officials, which in turn, may influence improvement efforts. Our study also contributes to the literature on the politics of education given that educators are key constituents in the local political landscape.

Authors

• Richard Welsh, University of Georgia

• Sheneka M. Williams, University of Georgia