New US Secretary of Education wants to scale up school ‘turnarounds’
Duncan, President Obama’s education secretary, wants to take school turnaround efforts nationwide on a scale never tried before. In speeches and interviews, he said he would press local authorities to close thousands of the country’s worst schools, the dropout factories where only a tiny fraction of students are reading at grade level, and reopen them with new staff members.
Mr. Duncan appears to have the money to drive the effort. Experts estimate the cost of overhauling a failing school at $3 million to $6 million. Mr. Duncan controls $3 billion in the economic stimulus law that could go to school turnarounds, and the administration’s 2010 budget requests $1.5 billion more.
Still, he faces many obstacles, experts said.
“Closing a school is the most difficult task any superintendent or school board can attempt, and not many succeed,” said Terry Mazany, who watched Mr. Duncan’s school makeovers as chief executive at the Chicago Community Trust. “But it’s not impossible, and it’s the right thing to do.”
[...] Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has expressed strong support of school turnarounds – see this post from June [...]
Chicago’s experience suggests school turnarounds may not help students « The Education Blog
October 30, 2009 at 9:55 am