Markham Middle School Highlights the Need for School Turnaround, and Policies to Support Turnaround Efforts

We released a report yesterday that highlighted Markham middle school, a low performing Los Angeles school serving low income Hispanic and black students. Markham illustrates both the need for school districts and states to take dramatic action to improve the lowest performing schools in this country, and the need to make sure that any school turnaround effort is also supported by district and state policies, especially its human capital policies.

Lesson 1: Our lowest performing schools need dramatic change–not just marginal and piecemeal reforms.

The report highlights the saga of Markham Middle school, a chronically low performing school in Los Angeles Unified. Markham was first identified as a low performing school under federal law in 1997 and has been so ever since ( it was likely low performing long before that).

Prior to the No Child Left Behind Act, states and districts were charged with determining how to identify the lowest performing schools. Given that flexibility, California changed how it determined which schools were low performing as its testing standards and accountability systems developed. Throughout all of these changes in how low performance was measured, one thing stayed consistent. Markham was in the group of schools that were labeled.

The school was charged with developing numerous improvement plans for both state and federal programs. These programs had impressive titles including School Improvement Grants, Immediate Intervention for Underperforming Schools Program, Comprehensive School Reform Demonstrations, High Priority Schools Program, and the Quality Education Investment Act. All of these programs had accompanying planning, requirements, and funding. And while Markham participated in all of these programs, the reforms implemented at the school were marginal in nature and at best yielded marginal returns. But the underlying nature of the school did not change. And perhaps worse, the lack of combined impact of all of these programs may actually have been detrimental.

Much like taking partial doses of an antibiotics, schools like Markham that are continually implementing one reform after another without stopping to determine how these reforms fit together can become immune to the school reforms themselves.

Lesson 2. Dramatic School Turnaround Will Require Supporting Structural Changes to Succeed.

Given that many of the lowest performing schools across the country have taken similar haphazard paths of school reform for the last decade or more, it should not have been surprising when the President and Secretary Duncan fought to target $3 billion in federal stimulus funds for force school turnarounds. A combination of this funding and Race to the Top criteria have forced a level of activity to address the needs of low performing schools that is unprecedented. The four school turnaround models attempt to so dramatically change the nature of the school that the underlying apathy and cynicism of more than a decade of attempted marginal reforms can be removed, and an opportunity for the school to develop a new ethos can be provided. These four models include:

• Turnaround model– replace principals and at least half of the teachers at a school site.
• Restart model – close the school and restart it as a charter school
• Close/consolidation model – Close the worst-performing schools and transfer the students to other schools with higher achievement levels.
• Transformation Model – replace principal, overhaul evaluation systems and professional development, extend learning time, create community schools, operational flexibility, and comprehensive instructional programs.

These changes are dramatic, and for states and districts that implement them well, they create an opportunity to have a significant impact of the achievement of hundreds of thousands of students. But, implementing them well will require changes in both district and state policies. Markham illustrates what can happen, if one of these models is attempted without considering the context of the school. (See prior post for additional details)
On May 27, 2008, the operational control of Markham was transferred to the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, an organization created by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to take over and turnaround a cluster of the district’s lowest performing schools. Once the Partnership took control of the school, it implemented the turnaround model. Unfortunately, the Partnership did not work out the details of the transfer until the end of May, so the new Partnership was look to hire a principal and at least half of the staff for Markham, at a very late time in the teacher hiring season. In addition, as part of the agreement reached with the school district, all of the teachers at the Partnership schools were required to be school district employees. The Partnership was able to hire a new principal and teachers and start the 2008-09 school year under the new management with a new teaching force made up largely of first and second year teachers. Because the Partnership’s schools were still part of the district and at the same time independent, many ambiguities arose in the day-to-day operation of these new schools. So, needless to stay, the Markham turnaround start was rocky.

Then things got worse. The LAUSD budget picture looked awful because of a combination of state budget problems, the districts declining enrollment and its huge unfunded liabilities for retirees health benefits. As a result, the district issued over 9,000 pink slips based on a seniority policy. For Markham which had hired new teachers, it meant that most of its staff received pink slips. I can only image what the staff moral was like last spring with three months left in the school year. And while in the end some of the pink slips were rescinded, Markham lost 57 percent of its staff. It got worse for Markham. The Partnership needed to find replacement teachers for those let go, and was required to pick from the district’s surplus teacher pool (senior teachers who were not wanted by other school principals) when backfilling vacancies. Perhaps not the ideal candidate pool for creating a fresh start for this struggling schools. Many of the teachers in the surplus teacher pool did not want to teach at Markham, and as of March 20 percent of the classes were taught by long-term substituted.

Unfortunately, Markham illustrates both the need for meaningful changes at our lowest performing schools and the need to make sure that our policies support change. The report makes several recommendations for policy changes at each level of government – district, state and federal. Most important for Markham would be changes to the collective bargaining agreement to allow for improvement in the staffing at low performing schools including addressing seniority policies and some local autonomy in choosing staff. For additional details please see the report.

Tagged as: low performing schools, School Improvement Grants, school turnaround