Schools – School Turnarounds
Chronically failing schools are one of the most potent and enduring causes of the national achievement gap, with just 5 percent of the nation’s high schools accounting for more than 50 percent of the nation’s dropouts. The need for solutions is great, with thousands of schools nationwide in some form of restructuring and very few successful approaches to fixing failing schools that have worked at scale and over time. Federal and state policymakers, city and district leaders, and community members are all looking for innovative solutions for turning around failing schools.
As such, NewSchools’ fourth fund will support entrepreneurial organizations that take on the school turnaround challenge in new and more effective ways. NewSchools believes that school turnaround is distinct from school improvement. Transforming the culture, expectations, program and ultimately performance of chronically failing schools requires dramatic and comprehensive change, not the kind of incremental and piecemeal interventions that most states and districts attempt. This means that school leaders – not district or state bureaucrats – must have control over these variables and be held accountable for significant gains in student performance. Over the past several years, NewSchools has worked with a number of entrepreneurial organizations that are demonstrating strong early results with this approach. For example, Philadelphia-based Mastery Charter Schools transforms failing district middle schools into high-performing middle-high charter schools. The Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) in Chicago combines the management of turnaround schools with a unique human capital strategy that prepares new teachers to staff these schools. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Green Dot Public Schools has turned around two comprehensive high schools, breaking sprawling campuses into smaller, focused learning communities with strong cultures and rigorous curricula.
In the NewSchools Innovation Fund, NewSchools will work with education entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and the public sector to build additional capacity to turn around failing schools in America’s most troubled districts. Because of the limited supply of similar operators, NewSchools will bring to bear our expertise and track record in successfully incubating and building new ventures in order to grow the field of organizations that can take on this work. We will also support other entrepreneurial organizations that help turnaround operators achieve rapid gains in student performance, including those that supply effective teachers and leaders to turnaround schools and those developing the crucial tools, technology, and services to improve instruction and outcomes.