Week 7, Blog 2 - Turnarounds

The article is from the following site: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/turnarounds-schools-next-generation-obrien-anne.

With school turnarounds being one of the latest buzz words in education, OBrien blogs about a very interesting alternative to what the government has offered in regards to school turnarounds.  Noting that the four alternatives that the government offers for turnarounds – which, by the way, have yet to be proven to actually work – neglect to tap the teachers and principals for their energy, OBrien posits that there needs to be another option.  One of the reasons is that an elementary rural school in northwestern Michigan is much different from an inner city Miami high school which is quite different from a Seattle suburb middle school.

Instead of getting rid of all of the teachers and administrators (which is found in many of the turnaround options), OBrien believes that going with the SLI (Strategic Learning Initiatives) model is the one that schools should go with.  One of the reasons is because it involves teacher buy-in to the program.  Teachers have the opportunity to look at SLI model and then they vote on whether they want to go with the model.  If enough (80%) of the teachers vote on the model, then the school will adopt the model and begin the training of the staff.

SLI not only trains the staff, but it also trains the parents.  By teaching the parents what the state benchmarks and standards are, they are involving the parents directly within their student’s education.  I believe that this is a crucial element to why this SLI program is so successful.  You have to have parents involved in their children’s education.  If they know what is expected of their child, then they can help their child progress toward mastery of the learning targets.  I think that this is a major reason why this model is so successful.

Another reason why it is successful is because it focuses on student outcome based on weekly assessments.  Based on assessment results, teachers can figure out what is working and what is not working.  They can also understand how to better teach each individual child so that maximum learning can happen for all of the children.

This form of school turnaround sounds much better for the parents, teachers, schools, administrators, and community.  It focuses on everything that is involved in education: the student, the parents, the teachers, and the administrators.  Instead of being top-down, it is student and teacher driven.  This should be a model that the government looks at instead of the threatening turnaround ideas that currently exist.

Obrien, Anne.   “The Next Generation of School Turnarounds.”  25 July 2011.  Web.  Edutopia.  31 July 2011.  < http://www.edutopia.org/blog/turnarounds-schools-next-generation-obrien-anne >.