Improving Low-Achieving Schools

Abstract

Improving low-achieving schools is a critical challenge facing urban education. Recent national policy shifts have pressed states to take an expanded role in school improvement efforts. In 2009, a federal grant competition called Race to the Top (RttT) compelled states to improve their capacity to implement ambitious education reform agendas. Drawing on the theory of organizational capacity, the study sampled five RttT winning states’ plans to support improving low-achieving schools. Findings indicate that states sought to build capacity to productively enact an expanded role and focus resources and expertise toward school improvement initiatives.

Keywords

educational policy school improvement capacity state education agencies

Introduction

The past 60 years of federal intervention to improve urban schools has been mixed at best (Anyon, 2005; Green & Gooden, 2014; Payne, 2008). However, the desegregation battles of the mid-20th century highlighted the benefits of an expanded federal role in improving K-12 education for all students (Holme & Wells, 2008). However, many education reform efforts have failed to meet their grand plans due to inadequate funding from federal and state governments (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2006). Inexperienced teachers, low student achievement scores, chronic absenteeism, and a consistent turnover of school leaders are just some of the reasons why schools can be seen or labeled as “failing” (Bukoski, Lewis, Carpenter, Berry, & Sanders, 2015; Carpenter, Bukoski, Berry, & Mitchell, 2015; Cosner & Jones, 2016). States have been using labels such as “failing” as a means to spur schools into making academic improvements. In 2002, with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), states were now required to assess whether schools were making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), and whether schools failed to make AYP in consecutive years invoke penalties and sanctions that could lead to their improvement (Leithwood, Harris, & Strauss, 2010).

Many of the nation’s identified low-achieving schools are located within urban city centers. Nearly 15,000 schools have been identified as low-achieving (Council of the Great City Schools, 2015), with close to 67.9% of these low-achieving schools located in urban areas (Hurlburt, Carlson Le Floch, Bowles Therriault, Cole, & Wei, 2011). Urban schools disproportionately serve students of color and reflect the myriad of social, economic, and political challenges that characterize the urban communities that they are situated within (Rury, 2013; Wallace & Chhuon, 2014). Not every school that is located within an urban community is “failing” (Milner, 2012), as research has highlighted some of these successful urban learning environments (e.g., Howard, 2010; Noguera, 2003). Yet, social and environmental problems that tend to become concentrated in urban areas, along with decades of failed social policies, have had a significant impact on how urban schools are structured, operate, and perform (Kincheloe, 2010; Orfield, 2004). Furthermore, the increasing political pressure to identify and improve schools that are “failing” has led to an overreliance on achievement-based assessments and holding schools accountable for what happens to students when they are not in the classroom (Downey, Von Hippel, & Hughes, 2008). School districts have been seen as the conduit for policies and reforms aimed at addressing inequality and federal improvement efforts (Reardon & Owens, 2014), with states¹ operating in a supportive but limited role (Mintrop & Trujillo, 2005).

However, in 2009, the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) launched the Race to the Top (RttT) federal grant competition program, created to support ambitious state-led education reform agendas, including improving low-achieving schools. An amount of US$4.35 billion was allocated for RttT, so that winning states could appropriate money toward educational innovation, closing opportunity and achievement gaps, and designing ambitious education reform agendas (Gottfried, Stecher, Hoover, & Brown-Cross, 2011; McGuinn, 2012). In drafting their RttT proposals, states were required to discuss in detail how they planned to create realistic goals, implement strategies and reforms, and provide timelines for improving low-achieving schools (Russell, Meredith, Childs, Stein, & Prine, 2015). RttT encouraged states to have a greater role in advancing school improvement efforts at the local level. This included providing direct support to schools and districts; addressing the teacher and school leader labor market; strengthening connections between early childhood, K-12, and higher education; and creating pipelines that would lead students into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers (USDOE, 2013b). Increasing the states’ role under RttT is a departure from past federally initiated school improvement policies, where the state was primarily confined to identifying low-achieving schools, leaving the process of improvement to districts and schools (Elmore & Fuhrman, 1995; Mintrop & Trujillo, 2005). RttT had the potential to profoundly change the policy dynamics between states and low-achieving schools.

This exploratory study investigated the ways in which five RttT states planned on improving their low-achieving schools. This study explored how RttT was compelling states to be active in the school improvement process, including taking on more central roles in designing and implementing school turnaround reforms, and providing direct support to low-achieving schools (Overview Information, 2009). Prior research has called into question the ability and capacity of states to support school improvement efforts (Hamman & Lane, 2004; Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, 2005), so the study sought to understand from RttT policy documents how a state planned on executing strategies and initiatives that focused on improving their low-achieving schools.

The analysis of five states’ RttT applications revealed that each state outlined a number of strategies focused on building their capacity to support school improvement. As of today, states are still focused on building their capacity (Manna, 2012; Miller & Hanna, 2014); however, the efficacy of federal competitions such as RttT as a reform strategy to incentivize states to be more active in the school improvement process remains an open empirical question. The study’s findings could potentially guide future research aimed at understanding the efficacy of state-led school improvement efforts and the role states should play in improving schools in urban areas.

Policies to Address Low-Achieving Schools

According to federal guidelines, low-achieving schools are identified as failing to miss test score targets for 2 consecutive years, either for total population or for any subgroup population, thus making the school not meet AYP standards (Hansen, 2012). Usually, targets are based on reading and math assessment tests that are administered in Grades 3 through 8 and at certain grades in high school. Schools that are among the lowest achieving 5% of schools within a state are identified as persistently low-achieving.² Low-achieving schools disproportionately serve low-income students, students of color, and English language learners (Le Floch et al., 2007).

A key challenge in U.S. education policy centers around improving the quality of low-achieving schools (Gottfried et al., 2011). Efforts in the 1980s and early 1990s promoted state takeover of entire school districts considered to have a high number of low-achieving schools (Pipho, 1998). However, state takeover yielded limited results, with few districts changing the academic trajectories of their students (Wong & Shen, 2002). The 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) shifted responsibility to districts, providing incentives for them to assert centralized control over schools that failed. School districts were encouraged to intervene in a low-achieving school to improve their overall academic performance (Hill, 2000). It is during this time that reform efforts such as reconstituting schools, transferring management of schools to private companies, and mayoral control began to be legitimate policy options for school improvement (Hendrie, 1998; Gewertz, 2002; Hill, 2000).

NCLB called for states to take on more responsibility in improving low-achieving schools (Hamman & Lane, 2004; McGuinn, 2006). NCLB was designed to focus more attention and resources on low-income students and use disaggregated data to identify variation in the achievement levels of different racial and socioeconomic subgroups within and between schools (Fusarelli, 2004). Under NCLB, low-achieving schools that failed to make AYP for over 5 years were required to implement a corrective action plan known as restructuring. Restructuring includes options such as transferring authority for the school to the state education agency (SEA) or a private company, reopening as a charter school, or reconstituting the school by replacing some or all of the teachers, staff, and administrators. Under NCLB, states devoted resources and human capital to building accountability systems that would put high demands on schools and districts to improve student achievement (Izumi & Evers, 2002; Jennings & Stark-Rentner, 2006; Mintrop & Trujillo, 2005; P. J. Murphy & Ouijdani, 2011). Accountability systems were seen as a way to motivate school improvement, trusting that schools had the capacity to improve to avoid punishment (Mintrop & Sunderman, 2009; Mintrop & Trujillo, 2005). However, these accountability systems failed at decreasing the number of low-achieving schools, as the number of schools identified as failing has increased since NCLB (Stullich, Eisner, McCrary, & Roney, 2006). NCLB was ineffective at stimulating improvement in low-achieving schools (Balfanz, Legters, West, & Weber, 2007; Sunderman, Kim, & Orfield, 2005). To date, each reauthorization of the ESEA has had limited success at improving low-achieving schools due to the proliferation of “flawed rules for placing schools in improvement status, mismatches between actual needs and pre-prescribed service types, and capacity for designing services that lags well behind the numbers and needs of schools in improvement” (Forte, 2010, p. 76). Decades of trials and changes have not decreased the number of schools that are low-achieving, and in fact, a significant number of schools still face the threat of sanctions, restructuring, or closure (Duke, 2012; Hamilton, Heilig, & Pazey, 2014). States have varied in their design and enforcement of state accountability systems (Wong & Shen, 2002); therefore, school improvement policies and sanctions tend to be unique to each state.

Improving low-achieving schools was a priority in President Obama’s education reform plans and helped lead to RttT, a first-of-its-kind program requiring states to radically shift and address the way they approached school improvement (Miller & Hanna, 2014). RttT was a response to the belief that NCLB had forced states and local schools to lower their standards. Also, NCLB was seen as being administratively misguided due to its excessive bureaucracy across the federal system, and for embracing nonpractical approach’s for measuring student learning, evaluating school performance, and providing mechanisms for improving schooling outcomes (Manna, 2010). Forty-six states and the District of Columbia competed against one another in two rounds for a limited number of large one-time grants, with 12 in total winning millions of dollars for their education reform agendas (Kolbe & Rice, 2012).

SEAs as Intermediaries and Implementers of Educational Reforms

Under RttT, the SEA was viewed as the critical agency for implementing K-12 educational reforms (Smarick & Squire, 2014). When it came to improving low-achieving schools, SEAs were seen as vital because they controlled a substantial amount of resources and expertise, regulated the laws districts and schools follow, and influenced education policy throughout the state’s K-12 education system (Hamman & Lane, 2004). SEAs have historically been organized to fulfill two primary responsibilities: (a) effectively funnel state and federal funds to local districts and schools (Sunderman & Orfield, 2007; Turnbull & Anderson, 2012) and (b) ensure local compliance with federal education policy (Hanna, 2014).

Over the past 20 years, SEAs have evolved to become essential education policy implementation entities (Mintrop & Trujillo, 2005; Timar, 1997), taking on more authority and responsibility when it comes to education outcomes, students’ educational experiences, and the improvement of low-achieving schools (Hanna, 2014). During this time period, SEAs have attempted to hire additional staff with the expertise to distribute human, material, and social resources efficiently that have the potential to assist in school improvement efforts (Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, 2005). Typically, SEA staff were responsible for allocating federal education dollars throughout the educational system and ensuring that they are being used in accordance to federal regulations (Hanna, 2014). During the NCLB era, SEAs were reorganized as leadership agencies focused on improving low-achieving schools, authorizing public charter schools, maintaining statewide databases, monitoring the development of standards and assessments, and other responsibilities that are more closely tied to teaching and learning (Hamman & Lane, 2004; Smarick & Squire, 2014). It was during the NCLB era that SEAs sought to transition from being organized as compliance monitors to occupying roles as intermediaries and implementers of education reforms (Reville, 2007).

Smarick and Squire (2014) recognized that recent legislation and policy endeavors have suggested that SEAs must expand, reorganize, and reform to implement policies designed to affect schools and districts. However, SEAs have faced capacity limitations, and not all SEAs have been able to reinvent themselves under new education reform waves (Center on Education Policy, 2007; U.S. Department of Education, 2013a). SEAs have faced two major obstacles in capacity building—insufficient human capital and garnering sustainable financial resources that would provide adequate training, motivation, and operating conditions to build human capital (Haynes, 2009). These obstacles have created barriers to providing services and support to low-achieving schools (Center on Education Policy, 2007), limited the impact of SEAs on school improvement (Brown, Hess, Lautzenheiser, & Owen, 2011), and contributed to the failure of past federal and state educational reforms targeted at low-achieving schools (Center on Education Policy, 2009).

Systemic Capacity to Support School Improvement

Capacity has emerged as a crucial component of understanding and analyzing school reform and organizational change (Cosner, 2009). Successful organizations build their capacities to influence “the kinds of expertise, personnel, and data that can be brought to bear on specific policies” (Ting, 2011, p. 246). We draw on organizational capacity as a conceptual lens to view states’ efforts to improve their low-achieving schools.

Some scholars have defined capacity as the ability of schools and districts to support effective instruction and student achievement (e.g., Bryk, Bender Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010; Fullan, 2006; Spillane & Thompson, 1997). This research promotes a view of capacity that extends beyond teacher knowledge and skill to include supports for teaching and learning at the school and district levels (Coburn & Russell, 2008). An expansion of systemic capacity to a state-level perspective argues that there may be greater capacity for strapped urban districts and implementing strategies for improving low-achieving schools by leveraging onto state resources, human capital, and expertise.

Spillane and Thompson (1997) noted that organizational capacity was an important factor in the implementation process of educational reforms. Within an educational context, organizational capacity encompasses a variety of characteristics, such as knowledge, skills, and dispositions of teachers and leaders within schools (King & Bouchard, 2011). Previous educational studies on organizational capacity have acknowledged that effects on teaching and learning are affected by the capacities of organizations (districts and states) that surround schools (Corcoran & Goertz, 1995; Cosner, 2009; Massell, 1998, 2000). Improving student achievement and schooling outcomes is dependent upon the organizational capacity that exists within the entire educational system (Cosner, 2009; Massell, 2000; Floden, Goertz, & O’Day, 1995).

Capacity includes the human, material, and social resources within an SEA to support school improvement. Historically, SEAs have exerted “little control and no proximity” over local educational practice (Lusi, 1997, p. 11). This lack of influence can be attributed to fundamental capacity limitations: SEAs are often underfunded, lack the necessary personnel and expertise to accomplish tasks of improving low-achieving schools, and do not have strong social ties to local districts and schools where assistance is most needed. These capacity limitations affect the SEAs ability to implement new policies, manage regulatory processes, and navigate the various demands of families, districts, and stakeholders (Smarick & Squire, 2014; Timar, 1997). Federal policies have pressured SEAs to take on new roles, but challenges have persisted that have negatively affected SEAs capacity (Jochim & Murphy, 2013). For example, SEA staffing challenges can deter school improvement implementation efforts. SEA staff are often hired in response to new federal and state education programs that need administration and oversight (Jochim & Murphy, 2013; Redding & Walberg, 2007; Timar, 1994). Financial constraints can force SEAs to lay off essential personnel who work directly in districts with a number of low-achieving schools (Smarick & Squire, 2014). SEAs have mostly been organized as compliance administrators rather than school support organizations (Brown et al., 2011; Jochim & Murphy, 2013).

Building State Capacity to Support School Improvement

The research literature identifies three ways states may build capacity to support school improvement: articulating a theory of action for supporting school improvement, expanding internal capacity by partnering with nonsystem actors, and aligning organizational structures with their theory of action for reform.

A theory of action serves as a guide for improvement and identifies the core features of a state’s school turnaround approach (Gottfried et al., 2011). It also serves as the justification for the policies, actions, and strategies the SEA implements for school improvement (Malen, Croninger, Muncey, & Redmond-Jones, 2002). Defining the role of the SEA involves aligning state agency resources, personnel, and policies with federal and state educational reforms (Center on Education Policy, 2007; Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, 2005). Within this process, agencies create incentives for change, develop tools to improve student achievement, and facilitate a policy environment that provides districts and schools to respond to incentives absent excessive policy constraints (Minnici & Hill, 2007; Rhim, Hassel, & Redding, 2007).

Second, states can partner with nonsystem actors to extend their capacity to support school improvement. Nonsystem actors are those organizations that exist outside of the formal K-12 education hierarchy such as foundations, nonprofits, industry partners, research organizations, and institutions of higher education, which offer valuable expertise and human capital to SEAs (Coburn, 2005; Reville, Coggins, & Candon, 2005; Massell, Goertz, & Barnes, 2012; Russell et al., 2015). The prominence of nonsystem actors has increased since NCLB, with at least 19 states having used external partners to deliver support to schools for improvement (Archer, 2006). Many nonsystem actors support low-achieving schools by providing technical assistance through curriculum and professional development, assessment and data analysis, leadership support, and interventions for improving student achievement (Reville et al., 2005). Nonsystem actors are also involved in creating induction programs for new teachers and leaders, offering tutoring and other academic services to students, and providing SEAs with human capital to implement educational reforms. SEAs with limited capacity rely on nonsystem actors to promote school improvement (Gottfried et al., 2011), and as school turnaround becomes a bigger part of state policy lexicons, external partners will be relied upon to offer new perspectives on effective turnaround strategies (Meyers, 2012; Murphy & Meyers, 2008; Taylor, Stecher, O’Day, Naftel, & Carlson Le Floch, 2010).

Finally, aligning organizational structures with an SEA’s theory of action can focus specific goals, resources, and human capital toward school improvement. This restructuring should focus on enabling SEA personnel to be more creative and responsive to local education agencies (LEAs) and schools, reducing red tape and paperwork, reexamining core tasks and functions, improving internal and external communication, and creating new spaces for innovation and policy design (Gottfried et al., 2011; Hill & Murphy, 2011; Sunderman & Orfield, 2007; Ting, 2011). Restructuring contributes to capacity building by allowing SEAs to develop new organizational structures that focus strategically on specific goals and supports (Herget et al., 2009). As SEAs become more involved in identifying and facilitating support to low-achieving schools, alignment and coordination of school improvement efforts across various departments will be key (Herget et al., 2009). As part of the restructuring process, states can form support teams that work directly with schools and districts to assist in the school turnaround process (Turnbull & Anderson, 2012). These teams help schools and districts to analyze data, evaluate school practices, develop recommendations for improvement, and improve student achievement (Gottfried et al., 2011). Each winning RttT state requested funding to hire full-time employees that would staff state support teams targeted for low-achieving schools (Turnbull & Anderson, 2012).

Organizational capacity illuminates the interplay of resources and knowledge within SEAs and the strategies applied to improving low-achieving schools. This conceptual framing, therefore, provides a state-level contextual lens for education reform agendas, with a particular focus on supports for improving low-achieving schools, that are missing from the recent education policy debate that focuses primarily on test scores and sanctions-driven accountability (Green & Gooden, 2014; Mintrop & Sunderman, 2009).

Method

The study was guided by the following research questions:

Research Question 1: How do the states that were awarded RttT grants propose supporting and addressing school improvement in low-achieving schools?

Research Question 2: To what extent and how are RttT states pursuing strategies to building state-level capacity to support school improvement?

Content analysis was used to examine five states’ RttT plans for improving their lowest achieving schools and strategies for building state capacity. Those states were Delaware, Tennessee, Maryland, New York, and Ohio. Content analysis refers to any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages (Holsti, 1969; Malen et al., 2002). A systematic process for compressing words in a policy document into fewer content categories based on explicit rules of coding was also used (Krippendorff, 2004).

This study is consistent with other policy research that uses documents to examine policy intent and implicit theories of action (Malen et al., 2002; Russell et al., 2015). Data was collected from RttT applications and supporting appendices of the five selected states that won grants in either Round 1 or 2 of the RttT competition. The RttT applications were detailed plans that were developed through extensive collaborative planning processes that included diverse stakeholders. State applications ranged from 541 to 1,610 pages resulting in more than 7,000 pages that were analyzed. These documents provided insight into what SEAs planned to do with RttT funds to support their ambitious education reform agendas (Russell et al., 2015).

Selection of States

The selection of the five RttT states was based on an indicator of SEA capacity: the number of SEA staff per student in the state (Brown et al., 2011). This indicator provides an initial proxy for capacity, given the lack of additional data on other dimensions of capacity. The indicator was used to select states that varied in capacity prior to RttT funding. Table 1 shows the SEA capacity indicator scores by state with RttT winners italicized. Of the 11 states awarded RttT grants, three (Delaware, Hawaii, and Rhode Island) were above the mean score of 0.697 on the indicator of SEA capacity. Two states, Tennessee and Maryland, were just above and below the mean. The remaining five grantees were significantly below the mean. The indicator suggests that capacity, measured as SEA staff per pupil, did not predict the results of the competitive grants program. In fact, the majority of states selected had relatively low SEA capacity. Five states were selected to ensure that a range of SEA capacity would be included in the sample. Delaware represents a relatively high-capacity SEA, Tennessee and Maryland moderate capacity, and New York and Ohio relatively low capacity.

Table 1.

SEA Capacity.

	SEA staffing	Pupils	SEA staff/pupils
Alaska	634	131	4.840
West Virginia	675	283	2.385
Delaware	222	123	1.805
Vermont	158	92	1.717
Wyoming	135	86	1.570
New Hampshire	284	201	1.413
Hawaii	215	180	1.194
Alabama	888	744	1.194
Montana	166	143	1.161
South Dakota	135	120	1.125
North Dakota	101	95	1.063
Louisiana	650	681	0.954
Rhode Island	133	146	0.911
Arkansas	366	479	0.764
New Mexico	245	328	0.747
Nebraska	215	291	0.739
Maine	139	191	0.728
Tennessee	695	964	0.721
Maryland	548	846	0.648
Connecticut	325	568	0.572
Utah	328	576	0.569
Kansas	251	468	0.536
North Carolina	779	1,458	0.534
Massachusetts	500	963	0.519
Wisconsin	437	874	0.500
Oregon	268	559	0.479
Minnesota	400	838	0.477
Kentucky	315	666	0.473
Idaho	128	272	0.471
Oklahoma	300	642	0.467
Iowa	225	482	0.467
Colorado	369	802	0.460
Arizona	481	1,087	0.443
Florida	1,128	2,667	0.423
Washington	400	1,030	0.388
Georgia	537	1,650	0.325
Ohio	582	1,822	0.319
Michigan	460	1,666	0.276
Pennsylvania	493	1,788	0.276
Missouri	251	917	0.274
Nevada	100	429	0.233
Illinois	487	2,113	0.230
Indiana	239	1,046	0.228
Virginia	265	1,231	0.215
California	1,200	6,070	0.198
New York	519	2,765	0.188
District of Columbia		78	0.000
Mississippi		494	0.000
New Jersey		1,380	0.000
South Carolina		712	0.000
Texas		4,673	0.000

Note. SEA = state education agency.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data collection and analysis included reviewing the five states’ RttT applications, SEA documents, RttT appendix pages that provided meeting notes and minutes, and other relevant policy documents found on SEA websites. Documents were used to develop an understanding of state capacity building efforts for supporting school improvement in low-achieving schools and to trace the various approaches states intended to implement as a result of RttT funding.

Reflecting the inductive character of exploratory content analysis, the study’s data analysis proceeded in a series of iterative stages aimed at data reduction and conclusion drawing (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Sources were examined to identify salient strategies for state capacity building and detailed the actions states planned to take to support school improvement. Through this method, a chain of evidence that supported, contradicted, or qualified emergent themes was identified (Malen et al., 2002). Inspired by the conceptual framework, states’ RttT applications were coded based on the components of building state capacity: (a) a state’s articulated theory of action for improving low-achieving schools, (b) role of external partners (who and what they would do), and (c) the restructuring of the SEA.

For each state application, a summary matrix was created that paraphrased the actions states proposed taking within each category and then created a series of comparative matrices to examine similarities or differences across states. For example, the extent to which state actions within each category were related to their baseline level of capacity was examined. Successive iterations of matrices summarized and condensed the data to enable comparison. An example of a comparative analytic matrix can be found in Table 2.

Table 2.

State Role by Base Capacity.

Base Capacity	High	Moderate		Low
Base Capacity	Delaware	Maryland	Tennessee	Ohio	New York
State role
Close low-achieving schools that do not respond to turnaround efforts	X	X	X	X	X
Remove low-achieving schools from districts and place under state control	X	X	X
Monitor turnaround efforts by reviewing data	X	X	X	X	Also send state staff into schools
Select, monitor, and evaluate external support providers	X	X	X	X	Contract with an external organization to manage a network of providers
Adopt new standards and assessments aligned with Common Core State Standards	X	X	X	X	X
Create and maintain a web-based portal populated with aligned curricular materials	X	X	X	Contract with external provider to create and maintain	X
Mandated statewide educator evaluation system	X	X	Dictate requirements for local systems	X	Dictate requirements for local systems
Modify educator licensure requirements	X	X		X	X
Hire coaches to work directly with schools	X	X			X
Develop web-based professional development modules		X	X	X
Offer incentives to influence distribution of effective educators	X	X	X		X
Monitor distribution of educators	X		X	X
Hold higher education accountable for quality of teachers produced	X	X		X
Develop and manage longitudinal data systems	X	X	X	X	X

Kober and Rentner (2011) surveyed various state officials who were in charge of overseeing the completion of their state’s RttT application and found that officials across states saw their RttT applications as their state’s educational reform agenda moving forward. The study is an important first step toward examining the proposed actions states discussed to support school improvement.

Findings: Building State Capacity to Support Schools

Recognizing the challenges of their existing capacity, states took a number of steps to influence the school improvement process at the school and district levels. Overall, there existed no relationship between initial base capacity and RttT plans for school improvement. Table 2 outlines the major actions states planned to take to support school turnaround, with states displayed in order of their capacity level. There was a high degree of convergence in approaches across all sampled states. In addition to the convergence in strategies to support school turnaround, a second major finding was the degree to which states explicitly outlined approaches to build their capacity to support school improvement. Therefore, attention was focused on the ways states articulated their plans for capacity building, and the following findings are organized by the categories found in the conceptual framework.

Articulating a Theory of Action

All five sample states articulated an explicit theory of action for promoting the improvement of their low-achieving schools. A state’s theory of action provides a lens into the state’s conceptualization of the school improvement process and their plans to leverage resources, expertise, and support toward low-achieving schools. The theories of action identified core features of the school turnaround process and changes that would occur under SEA authority. These features included an expanded role for states to (a) intervene directly in low-achieving schools, (b) support districts in implementing state education policy strategies to turnaround low-achieving schools, and (c) connect schools with SEA expertise, technical assistance, and support to improve. The five RttT applications each articulated specific roles for the SEA in the improvement process.

All five states proposed a process for identifying and monitoring their low-achieving schools, which included identifying schools that were already undergoing improvement efforts that would not need as much state support as others. Properly identifying low-achieving schools would help SEAs to leverage services and resources toward the improvement process in schools. In addition, SEAs retained the authority to identify and approve the selection of a school’s turnaround model (as shown in Table 3). In cases where schools did not demonstrate concrete evidence of improvement, all five states noted their statutory authority to change school governance (e.g., remove principals or school boards) and close schools that do not meet improvement targets. While state-driven changes in school governance have rarely been executed in the past, three of the states (OH, MD, and TN) proposed the creation of clusters of schools that reduced the authority of local school districts over low-achieving schools and increased state intervention and oversight. For example, Tennessee discussed creating an Achievement School District, managed by the state, which would remove the governing authority of LEAs over 13 low-achieving schools. The Achievement School District would serve as a hub for localized support tailored to help them succeed. Low-achieving schools in the Achievement School District would be clustered with other schools with similar needs and provided with on-the-ground direct support. RttT plans also discussed the ways in which SEAs would engage in continuous monitoring of schools’ improvement plans, implementation of turnaround models, and achievement outcomes. New York discussed creating SEA-based teams that would engage in periodic quality reviews through multiday site visits. These multiday site visits would include community, school, and district stakeholders and would include a process that would assess the improvement taking place at each building and the resources still needed to continue to implement the improvement plan(s).

Table 3.

Four Federal Turnaround Models Proposed in RttT Guidelines.

Turnaround model	1. Replace the principal and rehire no more than 50% of the school’s staff2. Adopt a new governance structure3. Implement a research-based vertically aligned instructional program
Transformation model	1. Develop teacher and principal effectiveness which includes replacing the principal2. Implement a comprehensive instructional reform plan3. Extend student learning time and teacher planning time4. Engage families and communities5. Provide operating flexibility and sustained financial support
Restart model	Transfer control or close and reopen the school under an SMO or EMO
School closure	Close the school and enroll current students in high-achieving schools

Note. RttT = Race to the Top; SMO = school management organization; EMO = education management organization.

The second central feature found in states’ theories of action emphasized including districts as partners in the state’s efforts to improve low-achieving schools. States varied considerably in their discussion of the district’s role in improvement efforts. Maryland’s theory of action emphasized the need to build district capacity for the district to still have full responsibility in the improvement of their low-achieving schools. This was a departure from the SEA historically having a hands-off approach to districts in Maryland, as they were previously not heavily involved with their districts beyond compliance monitoring and other instances where a direct relationship with the district was necessary. New York developed a performance contract that would hold districts accountable for rapid school improvement results. These performance contracts would include mutually designed metrics that districts would have to meet to receive extra funding. Delaware, Maryland, and New York created Partnership Zones that clustered low-achieving schools for state-coordinated support and intervention and negotiated school autonomy from district policy in exchange for greater accountability for performance. Tennessee sought to bypass districts all together by creating a state-run district that removed schools from district authority and place them under one state-run Achievement School District. As mentioned earlier, these clustered zones would create similar protocols and policies for all low-achieving schools located within them, rather than creating customized protocols for each individual district.

Finally, connecting low-achieving schools with SEA expertise, technical assistance, and support for improvement was discussed in RttT applications. Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Ohio created new offices within the SEA to provide direct support to schools and coordinate external supports from outside organizations and agencies. These efforts to create new offices were a move to work in partnership with other offices within the SEA and connect expertise that would benefit a state’s efforts into school improvement. Delaware planned to reorganize its SEA in a way that would combine all the offices that would provide direct operational services to LEAs. Offices directly working on school improvement would be extended to have connections throughout the SEA to build collaborations and leverage resources. Two states, New York and Ohio, planned to launch formal networks of external support providers to connect schools with professional development providers, community associations, for-profit providers, and professional associations. In this sense, SEAs sought to leverage social capital to build capacity to support turnaround. While states varied with respect to the locus of that support—within the SEA, LEA, or among external support providers—the focused effort on supporting low-achieving schools is a departure from past improvement policies that focused on holding schools accountable, providing supports for individual student achievement through Supplemental Education Services and school choice, and not focusing on improving state capacity to assist in school improvement.

Defining the Role of the State in Supporting School Turnaround

To support improving low-achieving schools, SEAs discussed in their RttT documents new roles that departed from traditional functions of the past. First, SEAs would develop tools that could lead to instructional improvement in schools. Second, SEAs would invest in monitoring the implementation and efficacy of RttT improvement efforts. Finally, SEAs would create the capacity for boundary-spanning roles within the department that would bridge expertise, tools, human capital, and technical assistance from the SEA to low-achieving schools.

Designing tools to support instructional improvement

RttT documents revealed that SEAs would develop tools to support instructional improvement, which in the past were usually left to districts to be over (Coburn & Russell, 2008). All five states planned to create web-based portals to facilitate educators access to instructional materials, practice assessments, and assessment results. For example, Ohio planned to develop a web-based “Instructional Improvement System” that would distribute the new state standards, newly aligned formative assessments, and state-designed instructional materials. This system would enable field-based practice and material sharing, including a peer review process to screen instructional materials for quality and alignment with the new standards. Ohio’s SEA planned to contract with an external provider to develop the platform. To develop and maintain the system, they anticipated hiring 30 curriculum consultants.

SEAs also planned to increase the quality and distribution of teachers and school leaders by designing evaluation tools. These evaluation tools would help SEAs assess the necessary professional development, research, and support needed to improve the educator workforce in their state. Furthermore, these evaluation tools would help to identify strategically where teachers and school leaders should be placed to provide schools with highly skilled and trained professionals. Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio planned to include new measurement tools in their statewide teacher and leader evaluation systems that would assess more effectively teacher and school leader quality. These measurements would include indicators that would take into account a teacher’s years of experience, type of school they were working at, and student achievement data from multiple sources. New York and Tennessee proposed expanding their requirements for newly developed local evaluation systems. Tennessee required that 50% of their educator evaluations be based on student achievement data, including 35% of teacher ratings based on a state-developed value-added measure. States designed improvement goals whereby a minimum of 15% of educators would be required to improve their quality rating each year.

Monitoring and evaluating RttT turnaround implementation

RttT applications revealed that SEAs invested in monitoring and evaluating school improvement reform implementation. All five states discussed hosting conferences, technical assistance meetings, and oversight working groups that would elicit feedback from districts, schools, and educational organizations involved in the school turnaround process. Each application discussed the importance of receiving feedback on RttT implementation from schools and districts and making school improvement best practices available statewide. The School Improvement or Turnaround offices in Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio would provide districts and schools monthly feedback on the school improvement process, which would include the completion of diagnostic reviews by SEAs that would gauge the level of improvement in low-achieving schools. These diagnostic reviews would include needs-based assessments of student academic achievement, educational practices, and school climate. Maryland’s, Ohio’s, and New York’s diagnostic reviews would be designed to align SEA supports, expertise, and RttT resources with the needs of low-achieving schools.

The creation of longitudinal data systems was also discussed at length in each of the RttT applications. Longitudinal data systems would provide information on educators and their effectiveness to improve the academic outcomes of low-achieving schools. Delaware, Ohio, and Tennessee aimed to monitor the distribution of effective educators to place highly effective teachers in low-achieving schools. In addition, Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio planned to track graduates from higher education institutions and monitor their educator performance, especially those who chose to work in schools that were undergoing a school improvement initiative. Tracking graduates would be an effort to hold higher education institutions accountable for training effective educators who could work in a state’s lowest achieving schools. Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Tennessee planned to select and monitor professional development providers and evaluate their effectiveness based on student achievement gains in schools.

Boundary-spanning roles to bridge the state and school levels

To connect more directly with low-achieving schools, RttT funding would be used to design SEA personnel teams that would provide resources to low-achieving schools. New York’s SEA created several teams, including the School Quality Review, Joint School Intervention, and Distinguished Educators teams, that would provide targeted human capital and expertise to schools undergoing improvement. Ohio’s Transformation Teams would provide instructional support and professional development to low-achieving schools, with the specific task of assisting schools in implementing curriculum and assessment initiatives. Delaware would provide low-achieving schools with school turnaround specialists that would meet weekly with low-achieving schools to determine the level of direct support and monitoring necessary for schools in the turnaround process. Each of these SEA-facilitated teams would be staffed with personnel who have expertise in school improvement and are able to identify the specific needs necessary to improve low-achieving schools.

SEAs recognized the need to increase their organizational capacity to support improving low-achieving schools. The analysis of RttT proposals revealed two primary approaches to state capacity building: restructuring SEAs and partnering with external providers.

Restructuring the SEA to Support Low-Achieving Schools

To sustain reform within the state, RttT documents outlined how each state would go about restructuring SEAs, including offices and departments, to leverage expertise and resources efficiently to support school improvement. All five states would allocate RttT funds to create an office specifically for supporting low-achieving schools and ensuring that they successfully go through the improvement process. In Delaware, the Project Management Office would house a school improvement expertise group that would support schools within their Partnership Zone, the collection of the lowest achieving schools within the state. The Project Management Office would be in charge of organizing resources that could strategically be applied to schools within the Partnership Zone. A separate Turnaround Office would offer management support, recruit and train school leaders to serve in low-achieving schools, and provide school improvement personnel with the expertise in student academic achievement.

Similarly, Maryland’s Breakthrough Center, an office within the SEA that assists schools in navigating the complexities of school improvement, would exist to work with districts and schools to assess their capacity to improve, streamline services and supports, and collaborate in the development and execution of structures and strategies to build and sustain capacity. The Breakthrough Center would not only focus on education but also connect health and nutrition services for communities and families in Maryland’s urban areas and train district and school personnel to serve as effective community liaisons. Maryland would operate its Breakthrough Center not only as an educational resource hub but also as an outreach office that would connect local community resources with targeted low-achieving schools. In Ohio, the newly created Office of Transforming Schools would serve as the main communication hub between districts and schools. This office would staff employees with school turnaround expertise and allocate resources directly to low-achieving schools that could result in improved student achievement.

States Connect With External Partners to Support Low-Achieving Schools

Partnerships with external organizations featured prominently as a capacity building strategy in all five RttT applications. External organizations are those that exist outside of the formal K-12 hierarchy and have the potential to influence state-level policy as it relates to improving low-achieving schools (Russell et al., 2015). In theory, partnerships with external organizations allow SEAs to access expertise and resources that do not either exist within the SEA or enhance the state’s ability to turnaround low-achieving schools. In RttT applications, external organizations were discussed as essential partners involved in the states’ turnaround strategies. There were frequent references to SEAs working, contracting, or partnering with external organizations in the RttT applications. SEAs would also provide low-achieving schools with specialized school improvement assistance through state-contracted external organizations. For example, New York’s SEA would create an Office of External Partnerships charged with developing public–private partnerships to improve low-achieving schools. External organizations are mentioned over 100 times in New York’s RttT application as providing functions such as, but not limited to, developing formative assessments, providing professional development, and supporting school turnaround.

External organizations represented five categories: (a) higher education institutions, (b) for-profit technical assistance providers, (c) nonprofit technical assistance providers, (d) professional associations, and (e) networks. Higher education institutions were named in applications as sources of curriculum, research and evaluation services, and professional development. Multiple states named Teach for America and The New Teacher Project as partners in recruiting and developing new teachers, especially training teachers to serve in schools undergoing turnaround. The development of Tennessee’s longitudinal data system required the state to contract with SAS. SAS would create tools, dashboards, and data analysis protocols that aligned with the longitudinal data system and provide educators access to student achievement data. Delaware discussed contracting with Focus on Results to train educators in low-achieving schools on data-driven decision making. States also planned on initiating networks to coordinate external organizations and support efforts for school improvement, STEM educational reforms, and ambitious teaching and learning initiatives.

Discussion and Conclusion

Over the past 25 years, as federal education policy has expanded, so too has the responsibility of SEAs to carry out federal education policy (Louis, Leithwood, Wahlstrom, & Anderson, 2010). This century has seen the efforts lead by the federal government, the NCLB Act, and RttT program; each has specific directives and mandates for states. RttT was one of the first federal programs that recognized the important role that SEAs could have in the school improvement process and encouraged states through monetary incentives to increase their organizational capacity to facilitate successful improvement strategies in low-achieving schools. This included allowing SEAs to allocate money toward departmental reorganization, strengthening relationships with external organizations, and creating new offices and support personnel with the expertise to identify the issues that are found within low-achieving schools. RttT revealed that SEAs did plan on increasing not only their own organizational capacity as a result of RttT funds but also their support and roles to improve low-achieving schools. Furthermore, states recognized and articulated that they needed to work more closely with districts to have a greater impact in low-achieving schools.

This study examined states’ RttT plans for improving low-achieving schools and, to a larger extent, the promises of RttT as a possible education policy lever moving forward. However, there still remain several unanswered questions as states continue to move forward with their RttT plans. First, little is known about the efficacy of an expanded state role in supporting school improvement. Can SEAs build the necessary human capital to enact the roles of designer, evaluator, and boundary spanner? In the last few years, SEAs have slowly turned from their traditional orientation as compliance managers toward providing more direct support to districts and schools (Brown et al., 2011). RttT applications suggested that new SEA offices would serve as catalysts for changing organizational culture and prioritizing efforts and resources on the state’s low-achieving schools. Still, SEAs struggle with changing political environments that impact how affective they are in leveraging their support to low-achieving schools (Rhim & Redding, 2011).

Second, how will states oversee and train people in the boundary-spanning roles that bridge the state and local levels? The creation of boundary-spanning roles has the potential to connect state and local levels. However, prior research suggests that boundary spanning is complex and challenging (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Engeström, Engeström, & Kärkkäinen, 1995). For example, boundary spanners, such as state-employed coaches, run the risk of not being accepted in districts and schools (Edwards, Lunt, & Stamou, 2010). As agents of the state working with schools, building relational trust will be critical as state agents partner with local educators to promote improvement (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). States will need to carefully structure boundary-spanning roles and select individuals with the capacity to successfully connect and utilize their expertise with and within low-achieving schools, and provide adequate training and management to develop boundary-crossing skills (Fortuin & Bush, 2010; Murphy & Ouijdani, 2011; Walker & Nocon, 2007). Also, a boundary-spanning role for SEAs could include connecting with external sources of expertise through nonsystem actors. This could lead to building state capacity, but it puts demands on states to coordinate work across multiple organizations, offices, and agencies. Managing networks of organizations engaged in joint work requires different management strategies than managing traditional hierarchical systems (O’Toole, 1997). These boundary-spanning roles will probably continue under the post-NCLB era, where now more authority has been shifted back to states and districts to design and implement education policy.

Third, maintaining new offices and roles within SEAs once RttT funding has been exhausted could prove to be a difficult endeavor for states. Restructuring allowed SEAs to target specific resources, human capital, and strategies toward low-achieving schools. What this will look like without federal dollars remains to be seen, especially for many of those low-achieving schools that are located within urban districts that may be lacking in significant funds. According to reports on implementation progress of RttT, many states have secured other funding sources, such as School Improvement Grants, private donations, state funds, and other federal grants, to continue their school improvement efforts (http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/performance.html). It could be difficult for many states to maintain the level of expertise and commitment to low-achieving schools if offices that are tailored for school improvement were to be reorganized, defunded, or redirected under other offices or authority.

Fourth, how will states respond when some schools do not improve despite an influx of support? Inequities continue to shape the educational system, and even with unprecedented support from SEAs, many low-achieving schools will be slow to show improvement. States will have to confront on-the-ground situations when their supportive interventions do not seem to produce school turnaround. Given these realities, states potentially could revert back to the punitive measures and sanctions they enacted in years past. This includes relying on drastic measures such as turning schools over to charter management organizations or closing schools. States could possibly revert back to targeting schools for improvement based solely on test scores and ignoring the multitude of factors outside of school that influence student achievement. This could also lead to states lessening the time for schools to improve and ignoring the complex practices that are involved in improving low-achieving schools. Although states expressed confidence in their RttT reform plans to improve their low-achieving schools over time, they should also be careful not to revert back to past policies if results are not manifested quickly. Ultimately, given the growth in the number of low-achieving schools, states will be challenged to support these schools regardless if there is evidence of turnaround happening.

The findings highlight the need for policy researchers to further investigate the role of SEAs in school improvement. This includes studying the implementation of RttT plans and how closely they aligned with what was outlined in their policy documents. Research should focus on how SEAs design “espoused” theories of action and the various methods SEAs use to transform them into “theories in use” (Malen et al., 2002). Furthermore, research should examine the extent to which SEA personnel shift from previous roles that served as compliance and monitoring of low-achieving schools to enacting new roles as designers, evaluators, and boundary spanners. As federal funding continues to be allocated toward improving low-achieving schools, researchers should examine the extent to which states are building the necessary human and social capacity to support schools in the turnaround process, as well as the extent to which restructuring SEAs and partnering with nonsystem actors is a productive strategy for building such capacity. Finally, what are the implications of federal programs on urban schools when it comes to school improvement? This is an especially important question as research has shown that innovative teaching and learning are happening in urban school environments (Milner, 2012). Policy makers should rethink how schools are labeled and consider measuring impact of the teaching that is happening within schools. Schools labeled as low-achieving could still have a positive impact on student learning, employ teachers that provide consistent high-quality instruction, and have leaders that manage and sustain a positive learning environment. So in schools such as these, policy makers should think about the outside of school factors that exist within the community that may be impacting the student achievement levels within school.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Joshua Childs, PhD, is assistant professor of Educational Policy and Planning in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin. His research examines cross-sector collaborations and their role in facilitating education reform and improvement.

Jennifer Lin Russell, PhD, is assistant professor of Learning Sciences and Policy in the School of Education and research scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center of the University of Pittsburgh. She studies policy implementation and other planned change efforts through an organizational perspective.

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