The Education Gadfly Weekly

Interdistrict open enrollment allows students to attend public schools outside their district of residence. It is among the largest and most widespread of school-choice efforts in the United States but often flies under the radar in policy discussions. In Ohio, over 70,000 students open enroll into schools outside their district of residence. However, despite the large scale, relatively little is known about the operation of open enrollment and the outcomes of students who participate in it.

This first-of-its-kind analysis, conducted by Ohio State University professor Stéphane Lavertu and Deven Carlson of the University of Oklahoma, uses statewide data to examine who uses open enrollment and how open enrollees perform academically.

The report yields the following findings:

      1. Consistent open enrollment is associated with modest but positive test-score gains

      2. African American open enrollees appear to make substantial gains

      3. Open enrollment throughout high school boosts the probability of on-time graduation

This is invaluable new data for a little-understood but heavily-utilized program. We urge you to download the report to learn more about what works for open enrollees across Ohio.

To see if your district participates in open enrollment, click on the image below to access a searchable, interactive map of Ohio (to scroll side to side, use the small arrow at the bottom of the list of icons) :

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NOTE: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute occasionally publishes guest commentaries on its blogs. The views expressed by guest authors do not necessarily reflect those of Fordham.

The State Board of Education (SBOE) recently recommended that the legislature soften graduation requirements and allow attendance, community service, and other non-academic items to replace test scores and allow students to graduate regardless of whether they meet existing graduation requirements. If the proponents of this change are to be believed, the state’s End of Course (EOC) tests (which replaced the Ohio Graduation Tests, or OGTs) are too hard for students—and will lead to nearly one-third of the Class of 2018 failing to graduate.  Though lowering standards is troublesome there is another—perhaps more alarming—reason to oppose this recommendation: the legislature is being asked to make a change without having all the facts. Here are a few questions that must be answered before the legislature can decide to lower the bar.

First, what does the most recent student data say?

The SBOE claims that a third of students in the Class of 2018 won’t graduate due to new EOC tests. But this claim rests solely on test results from students’ sophomore year, almost 12 months ago. If the SBOE possesses more recent data, they haven’t shared it–but that doesn’t change the fact that it makes little sense to change state law based on information that’s a year old. Later this summer, test results from students’ junior year—including American Government and American History test results that are typically taken in junior or senior year and “retakes” of previous examinations—will be available. These results are reflective of an entire additional year of learning, and could show serious score improvements and a higher number of students who are on-track to graduate. It would be wise to closely examine the 2016-17 results before such any serious decisions are made.

Second, how accurate are the predictions about the number of students who are off-track?

Although everyone agrees that we want every student to graduate, we must acknowledge that that Ohio does not presently have a 100% graduation rate. Instead, our current baseline is 83 percent—a baseline that should be used to calculate how many students are actually off-track. Assuming that close to 70% of students in the Class of 2018 have met or are on track to meet graduation requirements, there’s no way that a third of students are not graduating because of EOC tests. That means that only about 15 percent (or less) of students who we might expect to graduate are actually falling into the gap between on- and off-track.

Third, what role do changes to special education graduation requirements play?

Although it varies slightly year to year, approximately 15% of Ohio’s student population is identified as having a disability. Ohio is one of a handful of states that permits Individual Education Plans (IEP) teams to excuse students with disabilities from meeting all requirements for a regular diploma.  Most of these students are on IEPs not because they are intellectually disabled, but have been given plans because they need additional assistance from their teachers to meet state requirements for a regular diploma. This practice has led the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) to rate our state as ‘needs assistance’ on special education matters over the last several years. Beginning with the Class of 2018, the USDOE will no longer allow states like Ohio to count students with disabilities who do not meet the same requirements as their non disabled peers as graduates when determining the four-year cohort graduation rates.

We can’t pretend that we didn’t know how widespread this practice was, since the data is posted on ODE’s website. For example, the graduation rate in Dayton City Schools for the Class of 2015 is 75 percent. That figure is close to the average proficiency rate of OGT tests administered to those students in March of 2013. Compare that to the graduation rate for students with disabilities among the Class of 2015, which is just under 64 percent—even though their average OGT proficiency rate is only around 27 percent. I’m no mathematics scholar, but even I can see the numbers don't add up.

Other districts have similar gaps. Although we can’t say exactly how many students with disabilities statewide have previously been excused from meeting graduation rates, we do know that districts will soon no longer be able to count these students as graduates. It’s possible that this looming gap—and not issues with EOC exams—is the reason for some folks’ panic.

Fourth, how many students are on-track in the other two graduation pathways?

Often lost in all the discussion is the fact that EOC results are just one of three pathways to a diploma. The SBOE has yet to review or share data regarding how many students are on-track to graduate via the career tech or ACT/SAT pathway—and that’s a big problem, since those numbers could go a long way toward calming the fears of districts and parents with questions about EOC assessments.

The SBOE has the legal right to reduce the number of points required on EOC exams without the permission of the General Assembly. And yet they have not done so to date. Could it be that they have failed to act because they, too, are troubled by so many unanswered questions?

We raised the bar on high school graduation because too few of our students were prepared for success at the end of K-12 education. We do our children a great disservice if we lower the graduation requirements without having all of the available facts. The solution offered to the legislature should be rejected until these critical questions are answered.

Tom Gunlock is the former president of the state board of education.

Additional commentary on this issue from guest and staff contributors can be found on Ohio Gadfly Daily by clicking here, here, and here.

For years, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has released reports that rate and compare hundreds of teacher preparation programs across the country. These reviews have examined both graduate and undergraduate programs for elementary, secondary, and special education teachers.

NCTQ’s newest report looks at traditional undergraduate programs that develop secondary school teachers. Though quality preparation is vital for all educators, the high-level academic content that middle and high school teachers must deliver to their students makes strong preparation essential. As the report authors note, the vast majority of Americans depend on their high school education to give them a knowledge base across many subject areas that they won’t go on to major or work in. Without a firm grasp of subject content and how to convey it effectively to their pupils, high school teachers are unable to impart this essential knowledge, the result being a less knowledgeable society.   

The new report examined 717 programs across all 50 states and D.C. on a variety of standards in three main areas: knowledge (content preparation in the sciences and the social sciences[1]), practice (subject-specific instructional methods courses, student teaching, and classroom management), and admissions selectivity. NCTQ then assigned percentile scores for each program for which the analysts had access to sufficient evidence to review all key standards.

How did Ohio’s programs fare? Some were simply outstanding. You can examine the rankings for all of Ohio’s programs here, but here’s a look at the programs that fell into the top quartile nationally:

Of the approximately 600 programs that NCTQ ultimately ranked, Ohio Wesleyan was one of just six to earn a 99th percentile ranking. Only two of Ohio’s top ten programs are public (Miami University and Kent State) and most of the others are relatively small: seven enroll no more than 3000 undergraduates across all majors.  Also noteworthy is that each of the ten has at least one additional teacher-prep program (typically its undergraduate elementary program) that NCTQ ranked highly, suggesting that their success in preparing prospective educators isn’t isolated to the secondary level.

Here’s a look at Ohio’s overall distribution of percentile rankings:

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NCTQ also broke down how each program performed on each of the standards and assigned them letter grades. Here’s how Ohio programs fared on several of those.

Content Mastery

To earn an A, candidates graduate from the program only after demonstrating reasonable knowledge of the subjects they will teach—either through state licensure tests[2] or by successfully passing a sufficient number of courses in the subject area. In Ohio, 39 programs earned an A in science. In the social sciences, however, only 20 Ohio programs earned an A. (All but one of the Ohio programs that earned As in social sciences also did so in science.)

Many states permit teacher candidates to earn an “umbrella” license for science and social studies based on a single test that broadly assesses a variety of subjects instead of deeply assessing one. For example, a prospective science teacher could be licensed to teach biology, physics, and chemistry—subjects with very different knowledge requirements—after passing a general science licensure test that’s far less in-depth than an individual biology or chemistry test would be. The report observes that when programs prepare teachers for all subjects and a general certification, there is “a big drop in the quality of preparation.” Additionally, the fact that more states use multiple-subject certifications for social studies than for science may explain the national gap between the number of A grades for the science content standard versus the social studies content standard.

Ohio is one of the states that permits multiple-subject certification. Tests for specific disciplines are offered, but so are integrated science  and integrated social studies tests that cover a wide range of content from multiple disciplines. To be fair, the reasons for integrated licensure tests have some merit: Many districts have tight budgets, and hiring a teacher who can teach multiple subjects is far most cost effective than hiring multiple teachers for multiple subjects. It’s also impractical (and expensive) to ask teachers to take multiple licensure tests or to have multiple majors in college. To circumvent these issues, NCTQ offers a solid solution that’s already in place in Missouri and could easily be adopted by Ohio—maintain multi-subject tests, but require that each subject’s subtest is graded separately. In order to obtain licensure, prospective teachers must earn a passing score on each subtest, rather than a passing score on the test as a whole. Additional options include requiring prospective teachers to earn at least fifty credit hours across the sciences or social studies and requiring candidates to minor in at least two of the subjects they will be licensed to teach.

Student teaching and classroom management

Another standard evaluated by the report was the quality of student-teaching experiences. NCTQ considered two elements: 1) The prep program’s policy regarding how often student teachers must be observed and the quality of those observations, and 2) the program’s role in deciding which teachers are qualified to serve as “cooperating teachers,” i.e. the instructors with whom the future teachers will apprentice. Nationally, just 6 percent of programs did well on both elements. In Ohio, only three institutions met both standards and earned an A for student teaching: Central State, Ohio Wesleyan, and Wright State. Closely related to student teaching is classroom management—a challenge for many new teachers. NCTQ found that fewer than half of teacher preparation programs even evaluated student teachers on their ability to apply effective management strategies. In Ohio, only two programs earned As here: Miami of Ohio and the University of Dayton.

Admissions standards

The final area tackled within this report is admissions selectivity—a teacher prep program’s screening of admissions candidates for academic ability. A total of thirteen Ohio programs earned an A on this standard, with an additional thirteen earning a B. NCTQ pointed out that while many programs argue against selectivity because of diversity concerns—claiming that raising standards will make it harder to admit minority candidates—nearly half of the most selective programs in the country are both selective and diverse.[3] Five Ohio programs fit this bill: John Carroll University, Miami of Ohio, University of Cincinnati, University of Dayton, and Xavier University.  

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Good news as far as it goes, yes, but quite a few Ohio programs have serious work to do. State policy makers can help by addressing flaws in the licensure system, and districts can commit to working closely with programs to ensure quality student teaching experiences. But Ohio should be proud of its traditional undergraduate programs that are doing an excellent job of preparing secondary candidates for the challenges of teaching. Kudos especially to Ohio Wesleyan, Miami of Ohio, and the University of Dayton—universities that earned scores in the 90th percentile for both secondary and elementary undergraduate rankings.

Since 2002, the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) has published yearbooks on the state of preschool education. These reports examine state-funded prekindergarten education programs that meet specific criteria outlined by NIEER; besides being state-funded and directed, for example, the programs must serve at least one percent of the 3- or 4-year-old population within that state. This excludes children who participate in federally funded Head Start and special-education pre-K programs. The most recent report, chock-full of interesting data points on the national and state landscapes, focuses on three areas: enrollment, funding, and quality.

Across the nation, nearly 1.5 million children attended state-funded preschools during the 2015-16 school year. That number includes almost 5 percent of three-year-olds and a third of four-year-olds. Total enrollment rose by more than 40,000 children over the previous year, with D.C. serving the highest percentage of both three- and four-year-olds. Seven states don’t offer any state-funded programs that fit NIEER’s criteria: Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.

Total state pre-K spending totaled nearly $7.4 billion, up by more than half a billion (adjusted for inflation) from the previous year. The average state spending per child was $4,976. D.C. spends the most per child at $16,812, while Mississippi spends the least—less than $2,000. Eighteen states benefited from nearly $210 million in federal Preschool Development Grants (PDG), intended to help states build their capacity to provide high-quality programs and to expand access for high-need communities. NIEER estimates that these funds supported more than 30,000 children via new seats or quality improvements, with approximately 19,000 of those children served by state preschool programs.

NIEER uses ten quality benchmarks to rate state preschool programs. These ten benchmarks include requiring site visits at least once every five years, the use of comprehensive early learning standards, and a minimum of 15 hours of teacher in-service a year. For years, those benchmarks were almost entirely about inputs, which NIEER declared were sound proxies for program quality. This year, they’ve taken a positive step with several revised benchmarks meant to focus more specifically on classroom practices that research has shown to boost children’s outcomes, such as the continuous improvement of teachers. Thus one revision changes the site visit benchmark into a requirement for a continuous quality improvement system that includes structured classroom observations and ongoing coaching and feedback for teachers.

For the sake of continuity, the report grades states on both the previous and the revised benchmarks, with many states faring worse on the latter, a development that NIERR believes reflects its increased rigor. Alabama and Rhode Island, however, pulled off perfect scores on both the old and new benchmarks, while Arizona and Indiana were in the rear with a dismal 3 out of 10 on the previous benchmarks and an even worse 1 out of 10 on the revised set.

As for Ohio, over 14,000 students are enrolled in state pre-K programs, a number that accounts for 3 percent of the state’s three-year-olds and 8 percent of four-year-olds. The vast majority of Ohio children in that age range either participate in programs that fall outside the purview of NIEER’s study or aren’t enrolled in any organized program at all (the report doesn’t differentiate between the two). This includes 84 percent of three-year-olds and 76 percent of four-year-olds.[1] Because of these low enrollment numbers, NIEER ranked Ohio 20th out of 29 in access for three-year-olds and 33rd of 44 in access for four-year-olds. In total, Ohio spent around $59 million on state pre-K programs, a 33 percent increase from the previous year. State spending per child clocked in at $4,000, which ranked 27th out of 44 states. And although Ohio was one of only two states to meet more quality benchmarks under NIEER’s revised system, preschool quality in the Buckeye State still needs work (provided one agrees with NIEER’s criteria): Ohio met just four of the previous quality benchmarks and five of the ten new ones. 

The authors conclude with a call for a more detailed look at classroom quality. Specifically, they recommend a nationally representative study of pre-K classrooms in state and locally funded preschools as well as child care centers and Head Start programs with a focus on the quality of experiences provided to children. Although this move toward measuring quality should be celebrated, it’s also important to remember that the best types of measurements will focus on outcomes; namely, how well each program prepares students for Kindergarten.

SOURCE: W. Steven Barnett, Allison H. Friedman-Krauss, G.G. Weisenfeld, Michelle Horowitz, Richard Kasmin, James H. Squires, “The State of Preschool 2016,” National Institute for Early Education Research (May 2017).

In case you missed it, Fordham released a new report last week: a first-of-its-kind analysis of the districts and the students utilizing open enrollment across district boundaries in the Buckeye State, focusing on which districts did and did not open their borders and on the academic outcomes of students who take advantage of the opportunity.

Interest in the findings was widespread and a sample of the local, state and national media coverage includes:

• The Columbus Dispatch – which has previously covered local school residency and attendance issues
• The blog of The 74 Million – including an interview with Fordham Ohio’s research guru Aaron Churchill
• The blog of Chalkbeat – including a national perspective on the issue
• Statehouse news site Gongwer Ohio – who covered the report and the release event held in Columbus

If you weren’t able to join us for that release event and the important panel discussion included therein – which included the perspective of urban and suburban district leaders as well as a vital parent perspective – please visit Fordham’s YouTube channel or click on the image below to see the full video.

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NOTES: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute occasionally publishes guest commentaries on its blogs. The views expressed by guest authors do not necessarily reflect those of Fordham.

This commentary was originally published in Crain’s Cleveland Business.

As a business owner in Cleveland as well as other cities, I spend a lot of time thinking about return on investment (ROI).

It's a financial term that when used in public education can make some people feel uncomfortable. Students and teachers are not units or widgets, and running schools is not a business — or so the thinking goes. Many would argue that the educational process of expanding a child's mind and equipping them for a lifelong love of learning simply can't be reduced to numbers.

I agree that teaching is an art form, that children are unique, and that K-12 public education — as a public good — cannot and should not be reduced to balance sheets alone. Yet we see the results of a poor education very much in terms of numbers.

These are cold, hard facts that we must contend with and eventually pay for. Low percentages of students who can't read or do math at grade level lead to high dropout rates, which give way to discouraging numbers on unemployment and crime, a swelling prison population, and an ultimate breakdown of healthy communities. The cost of all this is emotional, physical and, yes, economic.

Recognizing these trends and patterns is partly what motivates me to volunteer for Breakthrough Schools, a nonprofit network of public charter schools in Cleveland serving 3,400 students in 11 schools in some of our city's neediest areas. Nearly all Breakthrough students are students of color, and eight of 10 are low-income.

Despite the challenges they bring with them to school each day, including many coming to school several years behind, its schools are in the top third of all schools in the city for academic performance. Breakthrough is ranked among the best charter networks in the state and is doing its part to change lives and get many first-generation students equipped for high school and college. This also has the long-term benefit of helping to revitalize neighborhoods and to prepare young people to contribute meaningfully to our local workforce.

An increasing number of jobs require postsecondary education, and Cleveland lags the surrounding region on these metrics. A 2016 labor market analysis of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County shows that just 15% of residents in the city of Cleveland have a bachelor's degree or higher — half the rate of Cuyahoga County. Meanwhile, nearly four in 10 Cleveland residents live at or below the federal poverty line.

To escape poverty, Cleveland families need access to decent-paying jobs. Access to those jobs is made possible through a postsecondary education or meaningful workforce training — both of which rely on a high-quality K-12 education. Breakthrough is providing that education, offering hope to families that their students may reach greater heights one day.

This is a dream that all parents, rich or poor, have for their children.

Despite their schools' impressive scores and high parental satisfaction rates, their charter schools as well as all Ohio charter schools receive, on average, two-thirds as much funding as traditional public schools. This means that Breakthrough has to raise significant private capital in order to fill the gap and provide the quality of education their students deserve. As a donor, I see this firsthand and can say that such a funding model is not only unfair, it is unsustainable.

While some politicians or opponents of change like to suggest charter schools like Breakthrough's are "draining" funds from traditional districts, they forget that those educational dollars don't belong to institutions. They belong to children. From a business point of view, we should be investing in what's working.

Two years ago, the Ohio Legislature did just that when it created a competitive grant fund for high-performing charter schools to purchase or remodel school facilities. The $25 million fund had rigorous parameters and ended up providing much-needed support to Ohio's best charters, like Breakthrough, which won $6.5 million to continue growing and expanding. The Ohio House of Representatives did the right thing recently when it made funds left over from that grant cycle available to great schools again.

But they should take it a step further and reinstate the grant program for this budget cycle as well. Breakthrough aims to serve almost 5,000 students at full capacity. Although strong partnerships with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District have eased the burden slightly, making it easier for Breakthrough to access some public school buildings, there are many additional costs involved. Charter schools in Ohio have to dip into already-limited operations funding in order to purchase or renovate facilities — a challenge traditional schools never have to face.

The Ohio Legislature should continue to recognize and reward excellence, and make it easier for those with a track record of great performance to continue their good work. Continuing the competitive facilities grant program is one such way to get a solid return on investment. Breakthrough is accomplishing results for kids that so few are able to achieve, setting them up for success in high school, college and eventually the workforce. Shouldn't we recognize what's working and invest our public dollars accordingly?

Moreno is president and founder of the Bernie Moreno Cos. chain of auto dealerships.

NOTE: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute occasionally publishes guest commentaries on its blogs. The views expressed by guest authors do not necessarily reflect those of Fordham.

The 2015 reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act—known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)—requires states to identify poorly performing public schools and help them improve. Importantly, ESSA grants states flexibility in fulfilling this requirement. That means Ohio has some decisions to make as it creates the state’s accountability plan due to the feds this fall. To inform this decision-making, the Ohio Department of Education commissioned Deven Carlson of the University of Oklahoma and me to use rigorous scientific methods to estimate the impact of recent efforts to turn around struggling schools in Ohio. I write to share the results of this study and to offer some general thoughts on how Ohio might proceed under ESSA. 

Our study focused on two recent “school turnaround” initiatives: Ohio’s administration of the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program beginning in 2009 and its intervention in “priority schools” beginning in 2012. These programs targeted elementary and secondary schools ranked in the bottom 5 percent of eligible schools in terms of student proficiency rates in math and reading, as well as high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent. Importantly, both initiatives sought to produce rapid and lasting improvements in school quality by requiring significant changes to many aspects of schools’ educational delivery—particularly their leadership and staffing, as well as their use of data to drive instructional and managerial decision-making. These school turnaround efforts took three years to implement and entailed state-level monitoring and technical support.

There was one major difference between the programs, however: SIG was a competitive grant program for which districts applied, whereas the “priority school” program was mandatory and did not provide districts with financial support. Specifically, districts with SIG-eligible schools—those that fell below the performance threshold—could apply to receive up to $2 million in grants per school to support their implementation of one of SIG’s four models.[1] The “priority school” program, on the other hand, required all non-SIG schools below the performance threshold (i.e., those that did not previously apply for and receive SIG funds) to implement a school improvement plan without financial support.

The effects of these interventions were clear.[2] Ohio’s SIG efforts significantly improved student achievement in math and reading.[3] Indeed, the analysis indicates that students in schools that received SIG awards experienced achievement gains of around 0.10-0.15 standard deviations annually, which is the equivalent of approximately 60 extra “days of learning” each year if one assumes a 180-day school year. According to one estimate, by 2014, the average test scores of a SIG school’s students were around 0.55 standard deviations higher than they would have been without the intervention. That is the equivalent of students moving from the 5th percentile to approximately the 14th percentile on the achievement distribution.

Yet Ohio’s “priority school” interventions had no such impacts on achievement.[4] On average, the program’s requirements—such as staffing and leadership changes, data-driven decision-making procedures, increased community engagement, and the direction of Title I funds toward expanded learning time and professional development activities—did not have a positive impact on school quality as measured by student achievement gains on math and reading exams.

Why did student achievement improve in SIG schools but not in priority schools? We cannot say for sure. But the results of this study, as well as those of other rigorous evaluations, suggest some possibilities. In particular, research provides evidence consistent with the notion that managerial commitment and capacity, context, and disruption play important roles in the success of school turnaround efforts.

Managerial Commitment and Capacity

Turnaround initiatives are based on the notion that to improve the performance of a failing school, one must make fundamental changes across the entire organization—piecemeal efforts are inadequate for eradicating the entrenched perspectives and practices that lead to poor performance. In particular, the underlying theory suggests that fundamental change requires managerial commitment, resources, and managerial authority over key inputs, such as teachers.

The SIG program was more likely than the “priority school” model to meet these conditions. Districts applied for the program and selected from one of four improvement models, and ODE awarded grants based on a demonstrated commitment to implementing one of them. Additionally, the SIG program allocated up to $2 million per school, which ended up being over $2,000 per pupil for each of three years. The “priority school” effort, on the other hand, came with no additional dollars. Both the SIG and “priority school” programs featured technical assistance in the development and implementation of improvement plans, and both emphasized and facilitated school reconstitution through the replacement of teachers and principals. But SIG concentrated significant resources on a smaller set of schools in districts that were likely more committed to turnaround efforts.

Context

The problems plaguing poorly performing schools—and the available solutions to those problems—vary significantly across districts. Imposing uniform interventions across schools is unlikely to work. Consider school reconstitution. In the spirit of spurring fundamental and lasting organizational change, the SIG and “priority school” initiatives have emphasized the replacement of teachers and principals. This focus is understandable, as research convincingly demonstrates the importance of both (particularly teachers) in determining student achievement and longer-term outcomes. But the assumption underlying this strategy is that superior teachers and principals are available. In hard-to-staff rural and urban districts educating impoverished students—precisely those likely to be in the bottom 5 percent in terms of achievement-based metrics—school reconstitution could actually lead to inferior teachers and principals. 

The SIG program featured voluntary participation and choice over which model to implement. Those districts that applied for and received SIG grants likely perceived the models they chose as viable in their particular contexts. They also were apt to view participation as worth the administrative burden that comes with state oversight. The “priority school” program was not voluntary—it was mandatory—and offered no such choice over intervention model, thus lowering the likelihood of a match between the improvement strategy and school context.

Disruption – For the Better

School turnarounds require fundamental organizational change. Such change is disruptive by design. On the one hand, research has shown that turnover among teachers and principals can have a negative impact on student achievement. On the other hand, as noted above, replacing a school’s teachers or principal may be worth it if their replacements are of sufficiently greater quality. In other words, organizational disruption is costly, so policy makers must make sure that the benefits of disruption are worth the costs.

Research that finds that turnaround strategies are successful also often finds that the more disruptive turnaround models were more likely to yield improvements in student learning (e.g., see this recent study). Our study also provides some suggestive evidence to this effect. For example, we found that the SIG Turnaround model was more disruptive than the SIG Transformation model, as it led to far more principal and teacher turnover. Yet there was also some evidence that the SIG Turnaround model led to somewhat greater improvements in student achievement. Thus, it seems that dramatic, fundamental changes may have been more efficacious than incremental changes for this particular set of schools. It’s also important to keep in mind, however, that the schools for which SIG Turnaround made sense were likely to be those that implemented it.

Concluding Thoughts

Our study enables us to say with relative confidence that, on average, Ohio schools benefited from SIG turnaround efforts but not from the first wave of “priority school” identification. It does not allow us to explain why that occurred with nearly that level of confidence. Nevertheless, in the context of a larger body of research, our results are consistent with some broad lessons. First, school improvement programs should ensure that school managers have the commitment and capacity (including money) to undertake reforms. Second, programs should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate the highly variable circumstances that districts face. Third, program designers should consider carefully both the risks and benefits of organizational disruption.

To the extent possible, Ohio might focus its resources toward a few of the lowest-performing schools whose districts demonstrate a commitment to fundamental change, and perhaps not waste state resources and impose administrative burdens on schools that see little value in implementing turnarounds. That strategy would allow districts—the locus of managerial authority and capacity at the local level—to implement significant reforms in schools that are most likely to change. For persistently low-performing schools that prove incapable of implementing meaningful changes, closure may be the only recourse for districts. As some studies from Ohio and elsewhere have indicated, shutting low-performing schools can have academic benefits if students transfer to better schools. (Also see this study for particularly rigorous evidence of closure’s potential effectiveness.)

Ohio policymakers also should keep in mind that one purpose of accountability systems is to capitalize on the expertise of local managers—to provide them with the authority and capacity to take actions appropriate given their local context. Although micromanagement is always tempting—and there is evidence that specific interventions such as data-driven decision-making and extended instructional time can be very effective—the powerful logic of accountability systems is that schools should be held accountable for outcomes, as opposed to the means by which they generate those outcomes.

Stéphane Lavertu is an associate professor in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. The opinions and recommendations presented in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily represent policy positions or views of either the John Glenn College of Public Affairs or the Ohio State University.