After reviewing the statistics released by the U.S Department of Education (ED) and taking a look at a few schools, I’m wondering if we’ll eventually see more of the nation’s worst schools take the road less traveled with School Improvement Grant (SIG) money.
ED says that only 5 percent of all schools receiving SIG dollars in the 2010-11 school year elected to “restart” the school under the control of an education management organization (EMO) or as a charter school. Just 5 percent of the lowest-performing schools in the nation decided that after many, many years of failing to improve student achievement they should give someone else a shot.
In the upcoming issue of Thompson’s NCLB Advisor, I examine an alternative high school in rural North Carolina that decided enough was enough. After a thorough vetting of potential EMOs, the Anson County School District elected to hand over the keys to Nashville, Tenn.-based Ombudsman Educational Services, a division of Educational Services of America. Bold move, certainly, but one that Superintendent Greg Firn told me was necessary to “rebrand” a school plagued with problems ranging from excessive disciplinary problems to poor attendance.
Thus far, Firn is pleased with the results. Despite some inevitable hiccups, Firn really believes the restart will work. Most SIG recipients elected to bypass the restart option because they considered it costly and disruptive, but Anson County officials saw restarting as a chance to shed the Anson Academy’s negative stigma within the community.
Perhaps there’s something to just starting over. Does anyone else expect bold moves by district administrators “watching the wheels go round and round” as NCLB’s 2013-14 deadline for universal proficiency approaches, or will a reauthorized NCLB prove a victory for the school improvement status quo?
