Article Summary 5: Turnaround

Yednak, Crystal. "Protest and Promises of Improvments at Schools." New York Times 26 Feb. 2010. Web. 28 Feb 2010.

What do you do with low scoring schools? That’s been a question for a long time, and this article discusses the possible solution that has been introduced to Chicago. When a school has scored lower then 2 or 3 the school is either closed, or it goes through a “turnaround”. A turnaround is when all school administration and teachers are switched out and a complete new group of people are brought in to better the school. Chicago has been doing this for a few years, and is now feeling the backlash of too many schools being closed or turned around. One parent had her children affected 3 times in the last few years, and is now struggling to understand why they are constantly on the move.

The School Board has taken action yet again, and closed more schools and elected more to be turned around. The communities of a few schools were able to convince the Board that there was no need to close their schools, and were saved. There are no studies released yet on how effective this new system is, but should be put out later this year. It will be interesting to see if there is actual improvement.