Skip to main content

Mobile Navigation

  • National
    • Policy
      • High Expectations
      • Quality Choices
      • Personalized Pathways
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Gadfly Newsletter
      • Flypaper Blog
      • Events
    • Scholars Program
  • Ohio
    • Policy
      • Priorities
      • Media & Testimony
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Ohio Education Gadfly Biweekly
      • Ohio Gadfly Daily
  • Charter Authorizing
    • Application
    • Sponsored Schools
    • Resources
    • Our Work in Dayton
  • About
    • Mission
    • Board
    • Staff
    • Career
Home
Home
Advancing Educational Excellence

Main Navigation

  • National
  • Ohio
  • Charter Authorizing
  • About

Ohio Menu

  • Topics
    • Accountability & Testing
    • Career & Technical Education
    • Charter Schools
    • Curriculum & Instruction
    • ESSA
    • Evidence-Based Learning
    • Governance
    • High Achievers
    • Personalized Learning
    • Private School Choice
    • School Finance
    • Standards
    • Teachers & School Leaders
  • Research
  • Policy
  • Commentary
    • Ohio Gadfly Newsletter
    • Ohio Gadfly Blog
    • Events

Special Reports on School Improvement Grants

Kai Filipczak
7.18.2012

Since 2010, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) has issued two handfuls of reports on the reborn federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program. These latest three (1) tackle the challenges related to SIG staffing requirements, (2) tackle the challenges related to increased learning time, and (3) profile the culture changes made in six SIG schools. The first and third reports are worth mentioning. In the first, surveyed state leaders explain that finding and keeping quality principals and teachers is difficult for SIG schools, especially those in rural areas. Yet just 21 percent broke the hiring mold and offered recruiting and appointment assistance to SIG schools and districts looking for qualified staffers. It’s unclear from the survey data how many states and districts are utilizing alternative recruitment pathways like New Leaders or Teach For America. Instead, some state officials interviewed called for the relaxation of SIG schools’ replacement mandates. Indeed, just 55 percent of those in states with schools undergoing the “transformation” model (where the school must replace the principal and implement other programmatic and structural reforms) felt that replacing the school’s leader was a key or “somewhat” key element in upping student achievement. (Of course, there are inherent flaws in state-official survey data.) In the third report, CEP explains specific strategies implemented to change schools’ cultures, including requiring uniforms, hiring behavior specialists, and improving teacher collaboration (via pay for instructional coaching, etc.). Interviewees, unsurprisingly, most often cited improvements in school climate as the greatest success after Year 1 of SIG implementation. Changing the culture of the school is surely a requisite for seeing growth in student achievement. But one wonders how effective, and sustainable, this climate shift can be without a new captain at the helm—something a disconcerting number of state leaders a) don’t find to be vital or b) aren’t helping districts find.

SOURCE: Jennifer McMurrer, Special Reports on School Improvement Grants (Washington, D.C.: Center on Education Policy, July 2012).

Kai Filipczak is a twenty-year-old graduate student working towards a master's degree in public policy at Georgetown University. His primary research interests include charter schools, K-12 school choice, and gifted education policy. He worked for the Fordham Institute as part of the Koch Summer Fellows Program, a ten-week fellowship for students interested in promoting liberty. Prior to joining Fordham, he spent two…

View Full Bio

Sign Up to Receive Fordham Updates

We'll send you quality research, commentary, analysis, and news on the education issues you care about.
Thank you for signing up!
Please check your email to confirm the subscription.
Fordham Logo

© 2020 The Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Privacy Policy
Usage Agreement

National

1016 16th St NW, 8th Floor 
Washington, DC 20036

202.223.5452

[email protected]

  • <
Ohio

P.O. Box 82291
Columbus, OH 43202

614.223.1580

[email protected]

Sponsorship

130 West Second Street, Suite 410
Dayton, Ohio 45402

937.227.3368

[email protected]