For those of you optimistic about our ability to fix broken schools via "turnarounds," please consider the following. It's a single sentence from a journal article explaining what government and non-profit leaders ought to know about turnarounds in the private sector:
There is a risk that politicians, government officials, and others, newly enamored of the language of failure and turnaround and inadequately informed of the empirical evidence and practical experience in the for-profit sector???????will have unrealistic expectations of the transformative power of the turnaround process.
It's worth bearing this in mind the next time someone speaks glowingly about our ability to turn around America's worst schools. ????Given the $3 billion in ARRA funding dedicated to school improvement and the likelihood that many Race to the Top applications will focus on struggling schools, we'd be wise to leaven our hopes with generous portions of evidence.