In fact our recent experience with the identification of 188 schools under the new SIG grant requirements have proven that exemplary principals are being removed just after being placed in struggling schools to do the very work proposed in the Blueprint. In some cases districts will be forced to rearrange the “deck chairs” to appease state and federal officials when in fact they had the right leader in the right place at the right time. This cannot be a federal decision, and we urge Congress to reject this overly prescriptive experiment.


ACSA proposes that only those interventions or that can be confirmed by research and based on the time necessary to turn around a struggling school be included in ESEA reauthorization. It will also be imperative that the federal government provides dedicated and sufficient funding for states to make multi-year investments in struggling schools. One - or two-year quick fix injections of funds will not achieve the results desired by the Obama Administration, in particular if longer school day or year is expected.


The School Closure Model is of particular concern. Encouraging school closure can undermine local neighborhoods, impact student self-esteem when students are bussed to schools across town and labeled “from a failing school,” and absolves the community from working on improvements.


While there are merits to the transformation and turnaround models both suffer from a lack of recognition of the true reality of the devastation of the education budget cuts experienced by states. Longer school day and year, increased compensation for working in low performing schools built into the salary schedules, etc., takes long-term financial commitments not just one-time-only funding resources or even three-year funding resources in order to truly show improved achievement over time.


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