If turning a failing school around were simple—say as simple as transferring a top-notch principal and a few key staff members—school districts would have done that years ago. But turning failing schools around is not simple, and most urban districts have faced the challenge of transforming low-performing schools with minimal success.
Top principals are often firmly ensconced at schools with advantages: better locations, better facilities, better teachers, more involved and supportive parents, and more resources. Even if generous raises are offered, few are interested in a transfer that requires giving up such perks for a more difficult job. For those who are willing to take on such a challenge, the community indignation about a potential transfer can be enough to stop them in their tracks.
One North Carolina district has figured out a way to entice its most effective principals to not only agree to transfers to its worst performing schools, they are essentially competing for them.
Peter Gorman, superintendent in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC, school district since 2006, considered simply transferring his best principals to the district’s most challenging schools, but concluded that forcing people to take jobs they didn’t want would be counterproductive.
Instead, he found a way to persuade principals to move through an annual districtwide competition to identify those who were most effective. The “Strategic Staff Initiative” winners were chosen using hard data: the growth in their student achievement scores. Their years of service and the school’s reputation were not a factor in their selection.
Before the winners were announced to the public, Gorman offered them a deal: in addition to district acknowledgment for their work, they would get the “opportunity” to turn around one of the districts failing schools. They were offered a three-year deal that would include a 10 percent raise, more autonomy, and the chance to pick their own eight-person transformation team (an assistant principal, a behavior modification technician, a facilitator, and up to five teachers, all of whom would receive bonuses, too). The principals would also have the authority to transfer out up to five teachers, including obstructionists, underperformers, or chronic complainers.
Gorman contends that the program sold itself, and for good reason: every winner accepted the challenge. “It turns out people appreciate being recognized as being excellent at what they do,” Gorman said.
The competition also helped the community realize the importance of changing the fate of the district’s failing schools. As a result, constituents of schools with winning principals were willing to part with them so they could pursue education’s version of a higher calling.
Twenty of the district’s schools are in the program, which is now in year three. So far, no principal has turned Gorman’s offer down. In fact, principals approach the district’s chief academic officer to find out why they weren’t chosen.
Under Gorman’s plan, principals start working in their SSI school in March to allow them time to evaluate the current group of teachers and decide which ones are a good fit. They also have time to develop a reform plan.
So far, the plan is an unqualified success. As early as spring of 2009, a year after the initiative started, the district was seeing remarkable results: student proficiency on the state’s standardized test rose in all seven of the original SSI schools, with some school’s scores rising by more than 20 points. An Aspen Institute analysis 
showed that SSI schools posted impressive gains: Averages of 6 percent in reading, 10 percent in math, and 9 percent in science in a single year.
With a price tag of $3 million—about $175,000 per school over three years—Gorman has developed a working turnaround model at a relatively low cost. Moreover, it’s a plan that other districts can replicate by identifying their most effective principals and teachers and making them an offer infused with a sense of mission.
“Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is charting a new course on turnarounds,” said Ross Wiener, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Program on Education and Society. “The Strategic Staffing Initiative demonstrates the value of a team approach to turning around schools. It’s a smart policy because effective teachers have consistently said that money alone isn’t enough to bring them to struggling schools—districts need to focus on leadership and working conditions, too—and the Strategic Staffing Initiative does that.”
—“An Offer They Wouldn’t refuse/How one district lured top principals to rescue its failing schools, by Pat Winger, Newsweek, Oct. 12, 2010.
—“This is how you do turnarounds,” by Pat Winger, Newsweek online, Oct. 12, 2010.
—“School Turnaround at the System Level,” Aspen Institute, April 20, 2010.
