City Room™ - Education - Radical School Reform Model Showing Results

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Radical School Reform Model Showing Results
Produced by Julia McEvoy on Friday, July 10, 2009

A classroom at Sherman Elementary, one of Chicago's turn around schools.

The turn around school reform model—where all staff is fired and replaced-- is becoming a go-to plan in the Chicago district. Now turn arounds may have more ammo.

Four of the Chicago elementary turn around schools are run by a private company called the Academy of Urban School Leadership. 3 of those 4 showed gains that outpaced the rest of the district by several percentage points on the state standards test.

AUSL’s Don Feinstein says the secret is in the staffing. AUSL trains its own staff through its teacher residency sites.

FEINSTEIN: You’re bringing in like-minded individuals who have an esprit de corps and I think that gives you a distinct advantage in creating the right kind of climate and culture that you need to ultimately get the kind of student outcomes everyone expects.

Less happy are those running the CPS managed turn around schools. Two of them started up last fall. Both are now doing worse than the original schools.

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