Thanks to reader Linda for sending this important article:
| The Paradoxical Logic of School Turnarounds: A Catch-22
by Tina Trujillo — June 14, 2012 In the 1955 classic novel Catch-22, Joseph Heller chronicles the absurdity of the bureaucratic rules and constraints to which a conflicted Air Force bombardier and others are subjected. Each character lives under the absolute, yet illogical, power of these policies. The Obama administration’s current school turnaround policy is a catch-22. This policy mandates that low-scoring schools fire principals and teachers and change schools’ management. Such reforms engender the exact conditions that research has linked with persistent low performance—high turnover, instability, poor climate, inexperienced teachers, and racial and socioeconomic segregation. In this way, the policy presents potential turnaround schools with certain impossible dilemmas, or catch-22s, because implementation is likely to lead schools back to the original problems that the turnaround was supposed to solve. Full article: http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=16797 |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, indeed, this is an important article, and it comes with an interesting bibliography.
The one caveat is that the author uses the phrase “research shows” (and similar phrases) a bit too liberally. Too often, in my experience, studies don’t quite show what people say they show.
For instance, I was intrigued by this sentence in Trujillo’s article, where she discusses “turnarounds” in the corporate world:
“Some analysts have found that such popular management techniques are associated not with greater economic performance but with greater perceptions of innovation (Staw & Epstein, 2000).”
As it happens, the article by Staw and Epstein focuses on Total Quality Management, empowerment, and teams, not turnarounds. The findings may still apply to turnarounds–I suspect they do–but Trujillo should have made clearer that the study didn’t address turnarounds at all.
I looked up the Staw and Epstein article (“What bandwagons bring: Effects of popular management techniques on corporate performance, reputation, and CEO pay”). The authors explain how they tested out a number of hypotheses, including the following:
“The use of popular management techniques may also be interpreted as a general indicator of management quality. Because there is so much ambiguity in attributing the causes of organizational performance (March and Olsen, 1976; Staw, 1980), outside observers may rely on positively valued behaviors in making their judgments of a corporation’s management. Observers may perceive that managers are well qualified and of high ability when they are using the latest
techniques, such as TQM, empowerment, or teams. Because these techniques are popular, leaders using them are assumed to be competent, regardless of their actual degree of effectiveness.”
They found confirmation of this hypothesis, albeit with some nuances and qualifications.
One can easily make a similar hypothesis regarding turnarounds. It’s evident that the turnaround model has been presented as a form of “innovation.” (Trujillo draws an apt analogy between such reform and the chocolate-covered cotton in Catch-22.) Whether people buy it is another matter.
This minor glitch aside, it’s an important and compelling article. Trujillo’s larger point–that turnarounds “engender the exact conditions that research has linked with persistent low performance” deserves much attention. Obama and Duncan should take note.
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I mentored/coached teachers at a number of inner city schools and it really concerns me that the lunch ladies, janitors, hall monitors, office staff, etc. are also fired in turnarounds. Many of those people come from the very communities in which the schools are situated and are parents or grandparents wtih kids in the schools. Those people serve as role models for students and bring a certain decorum and stability to the school.
These staff members have nothing to do with student tests scores, so firing them, along with faculty and principals, seems to be intended to destroy the school culture –as if each employee is part of some sinister conspiracy to keep kids down. On the contrary, in most cases that I’ve witnessed, the school culture brings a sense of community and feelings of safety and security to kids. Letting go of stable staff and causing more unemployment in blighted communities is unwarranted and deleterious, contributing to, not ameliorating, poverty.
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Not that I think teachers and principals should be fired either. There is no conspiracy!
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I coached CPS teachers while Duncan was CEO. His policies suggest that the only answer to poor teachers is firing them and that unions prevent this. That is such an inaccurate and simplistic view, but one you could expect from someone who is neither an educator himself nor in touch with what goes on in schools –even under his own watch.
All but one of the teachers I coached at CPS were on track and put forth earnest efforts towards continually making improvements. The one teacher who was problematic had a teacher-centered classroom that was not developmentally appropriate for her 3 and 4 year old at-risk students. The walls were completely covered with commercial posters, leaving no room for student work, so none was displayed. She gave children very limited choices and even fewer opportunities to learn through play. She implemented a strict academic curriculum that was designated for 1st Graders, and her carrot and stick approach to classroom management appeared to be a lot more stick than carrot. For example, she often required the class to recite in unison slogans intended to boost their pride and self-esteem, but she frequently chastized kids for the slightest imperfection. She seemed to be trying to create soldiers.
She resisted change at every turn and, after reaching an impass with this teacher, who had been accustomed to locking her door and doing whatever she wanted in her classroom for years, under a previous principal, I shared my concerns with Department administrators and the new principal. They came in to observe, spoke with her and attempted to faciliate change. At the end of the year, when it was clear that the teacher had made virtually no effort to change, the principal gave the teacher a choice: she could either agree to do everything very differently and in accordance with standards, beginning in summer school, or she could not come back. The teacher chose to not return and she got a job at a different CPS school in the fall. The union was not involved.
That fall, I was told that Department administrators had monitored this teacher at her new school and found her using the same developmentally inappropriate practices with her at-risk 3 and 4 year old students there. She was not permitted to continue working with that age group and she left the school. From what I could tell from public information pages showing CPS teacher assignments and salaries, the next year, she got a job at a charter, and the following year, she obtained a CPS job teaching primary aged students. The page indicates “K-3 Only” –which is probably because her certification covers younger children, too, but she’s not allowed to work with PreK at CPS anymore.
As far as I know, the union was never involved and Arne Duncan probably knows nothing about how Departments and principals work through such issues, without union involvement, even on his own watch. I don’t know how this teacher has been doing with older kids, but she’s still at that school and I feel satisfied with this resolve, because not all teachers are cut out to work with every age group covered by their certificate. Sometimes, it’s a matter of finding the right match for teachers, but I doubt this would ever occur to Duncan.
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