Can Failing Schools be Turned Around?
Anna Sanalitro
Challenge: Can a failing school be turned around?
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act 2001 with its high-stakes testing and accountability has exposed failing schools in greater numbers and with more accuracy than ever before. As a result, an effort by all stakeholders (educators, policy makers, community members) to turn these schools around has become a critical issue in the United States. The question one must ask oneself is can a failing school be turned around? In order to determine this we must first develop an understanding of what a failing school is and the causes. This in turn will help us identify the efforts or initiatives we must implement at the different levels in order to turn failing schools around, if indeed this is a viable option. The term ‘turnaround failing schools’ is a relatively new phenomenon in the educational world. The No Child Left Behind Act, states that a failing or “low performing” school is one that fails to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) for two or more consecutive years. Schools in need of improvement would be facing a series of prescribed sanctions, from providing their students with the opportunity of attending another school within their district to closing and reopening schools as public charter schools. Although no one would argue against the intent of the law, debates around improvement, responsibility, and achievement have received much attention and provoked great controversy. This is not without cause since "focusing on performance failures raises a host of complex issues ... [like] what should be the nature of the intervention?" (Cibulka, 2003 p. 250) and can the school be turned around?
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Anna Sanalitro
Challenge: Can a failing school be turned around?
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act 2001 with its high-stakes testing and accountability has exposed failing schools in greater numbers and with more accuracy than ever before. As a result, an effort by all stakeholders (educators, policy makers, community members) to turn these schools around has become a critical issue in the United States. The question one must ask oneself is can a failing school be turned around? In order to determine this we must first develop an understanding of what a failing school is and the causes. This in turn will help us identify the efforts or initiatives we must implement at the different levels in order to turn failing schools around, if indeed this is a viable option. The term ‘turnaround failing schools’ is a relatively new phenomenon in the educational world. The No Child Left Behind Act, states that a failing or “low performing” school is one that fails to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) for two or more consecutive years. Schools in need of improvement would be facing a series of prescribed sanctions, from providing their students with the opportunity of attending another school within their district to closing and reopening schools as public charter schools. Although no one would argue against the intent of the law, debates around improvement, responsibility, and achievement have received much attention and provoked great controversy. This is not without cause since "focusing on performance failures raises a host of complex issues ... [like] what should be the nature of the intervention?" (Cibulka, 2003 p. 250) and can the school be turned around?
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