A NYT editorial about an innovative turnaround model being pioneered in Charlotte, NC:

Two years ago, district administrators adopted an innovative staffing system intended to put the best principals in the most troubled schools — and give them the autonomy they need to succeed. While Charlotte was already one of the highest-performing urban systems in the country, it has made progress since then.

Under the Strategic Staffing Initiative, principals who have improved student performance at their current school are given bonuses and allowed to recruit new leadership teams in exchange for moving to chronically low-performing schools.

Once at the new schools, the principals are permitted to remove as many as five teachers if they consider them to be hostile to reform. These turnaround schools are also given high priority when their new leadership teams request technology, staffing or new programs.

Turning a school around is not supposed to be easy. But by the end of just the first year, test scores in the first seven schools had risen significantly and the schools were visibly more orderly.

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April 26, 2010

NYT Editorial

www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/26mon2.html

When the System Works