By Van Schoales, DFER Colorado Advisory Board Member and the CEO of A+ Denver
We recently did some research on the state of school turnarounds in Colorado. I was reminded of that great “spaghetti” western The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. For those of you that don’t remember the movie, it was a tale of intrigue, deceit and murder among three men (not so good, bad, and ugly) in a quest for buried gold in the context of the chaos of the Civil War. It’s one of my favorite movies for the remarkable cinematography, directing, and character acting, not to mention one of the best scores ever. Oh yes, there’s also the interesting sub-texts on war and the West.
So, what’s the connection with the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG)/ turnaround schools program? The SIG program is hardly as interesting as the movie, but turnarounds are filled with struggle, conflict, and failure; often the only ones benefiting are the outside consultants making upwards of $5,000 a day. It’s like the end of the movie where after all the death and destruction, the “not so good” walks into the sunset with the gold. In this case it’s the consultants walking off with a check on their way to the next district. And who says education doesn’t pay?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for identifying the worst schools and doing everything possible to turn them around or, when necessary, replacing them with new high performing schools. My fear, however, is that while the SIG program will have done some good helping to support the development of a few new schools (like several here in Denver), most of the funds will go to ill-conceived and clumsily implemented interventions with little change in student outcomes.
I just don’t believe that many states and districts have the appropriate levels of oversight nor the capacity to manage turnarounds. The current program shovels out $4.5 billion over four years to states with the expectation that state departments of education can effectively oversee the distribution of these funds to improve schools.