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Understandings and Research Methods

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School Turnaround Policies and Practices in the US

Part of the book series: Education, Equity, Economy ((EEEC,volume 6))

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Abstract

In the history of modern education reforms, the concept of school turnaround is relatively new (Murphy & Meyers, 2008). The first known use of the term turnaround in an education context was by Rosenholtz in the mid-1980s (Peurach & Neumerski, 2015). A few years later the first actual case of school turnaround occurred in New York City. The Chancellor of New York City Schools sought the help of an organization called Turnaround for Children that was working to provide wrap-around services to students after the attacks on September 11th (Duke, 2012). Together they worked to develop a national program to help struggling schools. School turnaround gained prominence as a policy starting with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002 (Peck & Reitzug, 2014). The focus on school turnaround increased further with the passage of the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program in 2009 (Redding & Rhim, 2013). SIG was a central component of the Race to the Top (RTTT) program (part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ARRA). SIG served as the main policy tool for improving the performance of historically struggling schools (Aladjem et al., 2010). These initiatives sought to apply “turnaround” improvement strategies that were utilized in the corporate sector (Murphy & Meyers, 2008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Joseph F. Murphy & Joshua F. Bleiberg

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  1. Joseph F. Murphy
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  2. Joshua F. Bleiberg
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Murphy, J.F., Bleiberg, J.F. (2019). Understandings and Research Methods. In: School Turnaround Policies and Practices in the US. Education, Equity, Economy, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01434-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01434-6_1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01434-6

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