When

Mayor Bloomberg took the stage on January 12, 2012 at Morris High School for his tenth State of the City Address, he announced a plan that would surprise parents, education experts and reporters. Thirty-three schools receiving federal school improvement funds would undergo the untested turnaround reform model, which would include closing the school, re-opening it under a new name, and replacing the principals and at least half of the teachers. After months of community opposition to this plan, on April 2nd the administration retreated, announcing that it would take seven schools that had received an A or B on the 2011 Progress Report off the turnaround list. This was excellent news for parents and students at these schools. However, twenty-six city schools all in the midst of improvement plans, and some which meet or exceeded the citywide average for graduation and college readiness rates -- will still be subjected to the unproven turnaround model. Many of these schools do not meet the profile of failure. Among the 26 schools: 11 do not meet the DOEs closure benchmark of receiving a D, F, or three Cs on their Progress Report 10 improved faster from 2008-10 on their 4-year Regents graduation rates than the city average 4 improved faster from 2008-10 on their 6-year graduation rates than the city average 4 received a Proficient rating on their most recent Quality Review Report 2 have college readiness rates that exceeded the citywide average These twenty-six schools are already receiving federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) funds to implement federal restart or transformation models for school improvement. Many of them have contracted with Educational Partnership Organizations (EPOs) and are undergoing school redesign, re-organization and staff development. However, SIG funds are dependent on the Department of Education (DOE) and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) reaching an agreement on methods to evaluate teachers. When the DOE terminated negotiations this winter, they missed the deadline for this agreement and the NY State Education Department suspended their SIG funds. Instead of returning to negotiations, the Mayor has proposed that firing half a schools staff under the federal turnaround model would be NYCs substitute for a teacher evaluation agreement. Such a strategy is hardly in the best educational interest of the more than 35,000 students in these twenty-six schools: There is no research indicating that the turnaround model will effectively improve schools. Not a single study shows positive results for replacing half the staff of a school.

Turnaround or Tear Down?

 It will cost the city over $60 million to replace the necessary staff at these schools. These funds would be much better spent on proven, research-based school improvement strategies. Eighteen of the twenty-six schools have large student populations in areas where there is a severe shortage of available teachers, such as English as a Second Language (ESL) and special education. Replacing half the staff may force schools to hire unqualified teachers or teachers fired from others of the twenty-six schools. What is turnaround? The turnaround model is one of four options offered by the federal government for each states Persistently Lowest-Achieving (PLA) schools to qualify for SIG funding. While turnaround is used commonly to mean school improvement, in the context of federal funds it has a very specific meaning. This model requires schools to close down; replace the principal and the entire school staff and re-hire no more than half, based on staff evaluations; and re-open with a new name and a new design, including increased learning time and social-emotional supports To comply with NY State law, the DOE produced an Educational Impact Statement for each of the thirty-three schools originally slated for turnaround, and is currently holding hearings in the twenty-six remaining schools on the list. On April 26th, the Panel for Educational Policy will vote to approve the turnaround model in these schools. No research basis for turnaround model Many schools in the process of improvement replace some of their teaching staff who are considered ineffective or not supportive of the schools new direction. However, the drastic step of replacing a full 50% of a schools staff has no research support, and recent implementation of turnaround efforts across the country provide few, if any, reasons for optimism about the New York City effort. For example, two recent Chicago studies by the Consortium on Chicago School Research1 and Designs for Change,2 found no positive results for turnaround efforts in high schools. An American Institute of Research study of schools that had made significant improvements in California identified some successful efforts, but none used turnaround.3 Furthermore, a Research for Action study of Philadelphia school reform found first-year gains for change efforts using strategies very different from this model.4 The administration and the Citys Department of Education are seeking to impose a strategy that has no research base or evidence of success. Student characteristics at schools slated for turnaround The twenty-six schools still targeted for turnaround serve more than 35,000 students, many of whom enter school with severe academic challenges. These schools serve more
http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/12CCSRTurnAround-3.pdf http://designsforchange.org/democracy_vs_turnarounds.pdf 3 http://www.air.org/files/CA_CC_Turnaround_School_Report_11-30-11.pdf 4 http://www.researchforaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/RFA-Renaissance-Schools-18-Month-Report.pdf
1 2

 students in special education, more overage students, more students with low 8th-grade test scores, more English Language Learners, more low-income students, and more homeless students than most city schools. At Fordham Leadership Academy in the Bronx, for example, 90% of students are low-income (compared to 67% citywide), 21% are in special education (compared to 13% citywide), 10% of students are overage (compared to 6% citywide), and the incoming 8th grade proficiency level is 2.45 (compared to 2.79 citywide). These schools have already begun implementing reforms through other federal models, and many of them have been making progress. For example, Fordham Leadership Academy has raised its Regents graduation rate from 27% to 49% over the last three years (2008-10). Richmond Hill High School in Queens has raised its Regents graduation rate from 22% to 41% in the same period. The mayors insistence on disrupting these efforts by replacing half of the staff at these schools is likely to derail the improvement processes underway, and threatens to everse the progress already achieved. His plan will also damage school morale, sever important relationships between students and teachers, and set back whatever educator, parent and community collaboration has been developed by the current efforts. The tables below show student demographics and student achievement at four schools still slated for turnaround. With high concentrations of high-needs students, these schools are exceeding the city average for student achievement. If these schools are doing an equal or better job than NYC schools as a whole, why do they need to be turned around? Table 1: Student demographics and achievement at four schools slated for turnaround
John Dewey High School Fordham Leadership Academy W.C. Bryant High School Long Island City High School CITY AVERAGE STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT English Regents 6-year College Low- Special Language Overage graduation graduation readiness income education Learners rate rate rate 56% 9% 19% 6% 49% 72% 30%

90%

21%

17%

10%

49%

56%

6%

30%

12%

19%

7%

46%

65%

23%

72%

13%

14%

5%

52%

69%

21%

67%

13%

13%

6%

49%

69%

22%


Sources: Low income and ELL -- NYC DOE. School Demographics and Accountability Snapshots (2011 CEP Data). Special education, Overage, Progress Grades and School-level college readiness -- NYC DOE. Progress Reports for High Schools (2011). Citywide college readiness -- http://gothamschools.org/2012/01/26/at-turnaround-schools-wide-range-in-college-readiness-rates/ Regents graduation -- NYC DOE. Graduation Results. Class of 2010 Graduation Outcomes. 6-year graduation -- NYSED, IRS, Public School Total Cohort Graduation Rate and Enrollment Outcome Summaries (2010). Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Prepared for: The NYC Coalition for Educational Justice.

The DOEs own accountability system, which flags schools for closure when they have received a D, F, or three Cs in a row on their Progress Reports, does not support closure of many of these schools. The twelve schools below have received an A or B in the last three years. And four of the twenty-six schools received a Proficient on their most recent Quality Review Report: JHS 80, Grover Cleveland High School, Sheepshead Bay High School, and Long Island City High School. Table 2: Progress report grades at schools slated for turnaround School Name J.H.S. 22 Jordan L. Mott J.H.S. 80 Mosholu Parkway M.S. 391 Angelo Patri Middle School J.H.S. 142 John Philip Sousa J.H.S. 166 George Gershwin Bronx High School of Business Automotive High School Grover Cleveland High School John Adams High School William Cullen Bryant High School Long Island City High School Bushwick Community High School 2009 A A A A B B B C C B B B 2010 C B B C C C C B B C C B 2011 C C C C C C C C C C C C

Sources: NYC DOE. Progress Reports for Elementary/Middle and High Schools (2009-11). Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Prepared for: The NYC Coalition for Educational Justice.

Many of these schools should be recognized and supported as examples of school improvement, not subjected to punitive policies. In the Educational Impact Statements prepared for these schools, the DOE offers a punishing choice: replace at least 50% of the school staff, many of whom are integral to the schools progress, and continue to receive federal funds for school improvement; or keep more than half their staff, and risk forfeiting the funds that are supporting the schools current improvement. Turnaround model will disrupt current progress The large populations of high-needs students at many of the twenty-six schools makes massive staff turnover especially problematic because teachers will likely have to be

 replaced in subjects where there are already not enough teachers to fill available positions - areas such as special education, ESL, and bilingual education. High school special education teachers are amongst the most difficult to hire, because they must be certified in both special education and in their content area. The table below shows that eighteen of the twenty-six schools have large populations of students (more than 5 percentage-points above the citywide average) in areas where there are already severe teacher shortages. Table 3: High needs in teacher shortage areas at turnaround schools School Large student population in teacher shortage area JHS 22 ESL/bilingual W.C. Bryant High School ESL/bilingual Flushing High School ESL/bilingual Grover Cleveland High School ESL/bilingual Newtown High School ESL/bilingual Sheepshead Bay High School ESL/bilingual John Dewey High School ESL/bilingual MS 126 Special education JHS 166 Special education Bread and Roses High School Special education Alfred E. Smith High School Special education Banana Kelly High School Special education Fordham Leadership Academy Special education Automotive High School Special education August Martin High School Special education JHS 80 Special education and ESL/bilingual MS 391 Special education and ESL/bilingual Bronx High School of Business Special education and ESL/bilingual

Sources: NYC DOE. Progress Reports for Elementary/Middle and High Schools (2011). NYC DOE. School Demographics and Accountability Snapshots (2011 CEP Data). Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Prepared for: The NYC Coalition for Educational Justice.

The challenge of hiring hundreds of teachers in citywide shortage areas in these schools suggests that schools will likely have to either hire teachers who are not certified in their subject areas, or hire teachers who are fired from some of the other twenty-six schools. Cost of turnaround model The turnaround model involves replacing half the staff at these twenty-six schools, but teachers hired in the last two years are exempt. Even exempting the new teachers, this model will require at least 800 new hires in the 2012-13 school year, at a cost of more than $60 million. The table below estimates the cost of the turnaround strategy in each school

 by subtracting the number of new teachers at a school from the total number of staff mandated to be fired, and multiplying that by the schools average teacher salary. These funds could be much better spent to accelerate improvement at these schools or other struggling schools. Table 4: Costs at schools slated for turnaround
Teachers (N) 53 56 56 72 40 46 123 35 82 228 34 20 37 39 69 142 132 157 149 153 71 167 198 170 186 24 Teachers teaching 2 yrs. or less (N) 17 24 6 10 10 17 23 9 8 49 16 2 6 9 11 12 12 20 12 26 12 21 46 11 22 10 Teachers fired under turnaround (N) 9 4 22 26 10 6 38 9 33 65 1 8 12 10 24 59 54 58 63 51 24 63 53 74 71 2 Average teacher salary $73,055 $72,118 $71,355 $73,883 $66,941 $71,090 $71,311 $71,924 $78,179 $71,707 $65,550 $76,216 $68,336 $72,739 $70,505 $82,641 $77,471 $81,378 $74,820 $76,506 $79,609 $74,128 $75,311 $79,199 $77,417 $66,076 Total cost of hiring new teachers $693,847 $288,357 $1,569,981 $1,920,899 $669,410 $426,426 $2,745,402 $611,462 $2,579,657 $4,661,156 $65,524 $609,728 $854,104 $763,672 $1,656,966 $4,875,902 $4,183,527 $4,760,467 $4,676,662 $3,863,958 $1,870,891 $4,633,600 $3,991,829 $5,860,805 $5,496,313 $132,099

Middle/Middle-High Schools J.H.S. 22 Jordan L. Mott J.H.S. 80 Mosholu Parkway M.S. 391 Angelo Patri Middle School J.H.S. 142 John Philip Sousa John Ericsson Middle School 126 J.H.S. 166 George Gershwin High Schools HS of Graphic Communication Arts Bread and Roses Integrated Arts HS Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Herbert H. Lehman High School Banana Kelly High School Bronx Academy High School Bronx High School of Business Fordham Leadership Academy Automotive High School John Dewey High School Sheepshead Bay High School Newtown High School Grover Cleveland High School Flushing High School August Martin High School Richmond Hill High School John Adams High School William Cullen Bryant High School Long Island City High School Bushwick Community High School

TOTAL

849

$64,462,645

Sources: # of Teachers -- NYC DOE. School Demographics and Accountability Snapshots (2006-2010 CEP Data). Teacher salary -- https://www.nycenet.edu/offices/d_chanc_oper/budget/dbor/galaxy/galaxybudgetsummaryto/display2.asp?DDBSSS_INPUT=K540 Federal funds -- NYC DOE School Allocation Memorandum No. 66, FY 12. October 7, 2011 http://schools.nyc.gov/offices/d_chanc_oper/budget/dbor/allocationmemo/fy11_12/FY12_PDF/sam66.pdf Note: Schools in italics are Transfer High Schools. Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Prepared for: The NYC Coalition for Educational Justice.

 Why would the Mayor risk more than $60 million of city money to implement an unproven model in many schools that are already on the road to improving or doing well? The turnaround strategy represents a destructive gamble. If the Mayor really wants to improve schools, he will abandon the turnaround model and focus on supporting schools that are already improving, and implement research-based strategies in struggling schools not taking risks with childrens futures.