Contemporary Perspectives on School Turnaround and Reform

As one of the most wide-spread models for improving low-performing schools, school turnaround has garnered extensive attention, millions of dollars of investment, and serious critique. Current research, practice, and policy evidence suggests that turnaround initiatives can have positive effects on students, but these results are far from conclusive, suggesting wide variation in context, design, and implementation. Although these mixed results suggest that improving low-performing schools can be an intractable challenge, much has been learned from myriad past efforts to improve school performance. This series offers an organized approach to understanding lessons-learned from these past efforts. By triangulating perspectives from educators, administrators, researchers, and policymakers, this series brings together both practical and theoretical insights that can help address issues in implementing school turnaround and suggest a path forward for future efforts to improve low-performing schools.