Turning around failing schools - a recipe that works
© Lane Erickson - Fotolia.com
May 04, 2010
Turning around failing schools is not rocket science, John Simmons told an overflow crowd in the basement of University Lutheran Church of Hope on April 16. Nor, he said, is it necessary to fire principals and teachers to turn around schools. He believes - and his organization's record shows - that it's possible to turn around school performance by empowering the teachers and principals, and the students and parents, who are already there.
Simmons was in town in mid-April to talk about the nonprofit Strategic Learning Initiatives organization, which he heads, and the Focused Instruction Process, which turned around failing Chicago schools. Simmons, who comes from a business background, and SLI facilitator Terezka Jirasek, was invited by Don Fraser and the Committee on Closing the Achievement Gap. Fraser became interested in SLI after reading a January 6 Education Week article that described SLI's success in Chicago.
Simmons and Jirasek spoke to five different groups during their whirlwind visit to the Twin Cities, including school district leadership in Minneapolis and St. Paul, a teachers' union gathering, and an overflow crowd at the monthly Committee on Closing the Achievement Gap forum at University Lutheran Church of Hope. While Minnesota students rank high on national tests, Minnesota faces one of the nation's most intractable achievement gaps.
For more about Strategic Learning Initiatives and Focused Instruction Process, see: A Different Turnaround Vision: A Conversation with Turnaround Expert John Simmons by Claus von Zastrowin Public School Insights, 1/29/2010 Focus on Instruction Turns Around Chicago Schools byDakarai I. Aarons in Education Week, Turn-arounds: The work of teaching by Maisie McAdoo in New York Teacher, 3/4/2010 |
The ten Chicago schools that SLI agreed to work with in 2006 had 95 percent or greater poverty levels. Five of the schools had 95 percent or more of students coming from homes where English was not the first language. The schools turned around dramatically, and maintained that improvement.
Results of the first two years show strong improvement, with the average annual increase in reading scores for the ten schools improving five times faster than previously. (See chart on left.) The results may offer promise for school improvement efforts nationally. In the third year, improvement was sustained. (Making a Difference, report on SLI-CPS partnership)
Simmons explained:
These turnaround results were achieved without changing the principals, removing the teachers, revising the curriculum or buying new books. Nor did the school communities go through substantial turmoil before, during or after FIP.The cost of this approach per school is less than 20 percent of the cost of