Time to Drop the Hammer on Troubled Schools?

Enough is enough in many of the nation's lowest-performing schools, according to Arne Duncan, the new secretary of education. He's announced that one of his major goals will be to have 250 of the worst schools closed, reorganized and reopened next year.

Duncan doesn't actually have the power to order schools closed – that rests with local school boards. But Duncan does have $3 billion in federal stimulus money earmarked to pay for turning around troubled schools, and that's a powerful inducement to local authorities.

Most experts do agree that a relatively small number of schools, sometimes tagged "dropout factories," account for a huge share of our educational problems. Yet trying to fix them has baffled educators and policymakers for decades. If we're going to rebuild these schools, how do we go about it?

One vital element is going to be leadership, the kind of people we put in charge of these schools. In our Mission of the Heart study, we conducted focus groups and interviews with principals and superintendents in high-needs districts, the people struggling with the tough problems.

The striking difference was how the administrators broke down into two distinct groups: the "copers" and the "transformers." They all had similar complaints: red tape, a lack of administrative support, parents who have their own daunting challenges. But how educators dealt with them was drastically different. Copers were struggling to keep from being overwhelmed; transformers took a "can-do" attitude and had an explicit vision of the school culture they wanted.

Obviously, the nation's schools need more "transformers" to lead the schools Duncan wants to rebuild. But Public Agenda's researchers were left with two big questions: First, are transformers "born" or "made?" The transformers we talked to were talented, committed people, but so were many of the copers. Many of the transformers had the advantage of being in school systems that nurtured their talents. With better support, could more copers become transformers?

Secondly, running a high-needs school is a grueling job, and the administrators we talked to were putting in long, hard days. How long can we expect transformers to keep up the brutal pace needed to keep ahead of the problems they face? Are we burning out our best school leaders? And if so, how do we keep them in the game – just when we may need them the most?