The TurnAround ToolKit

Lynn Winters - Long Beach Unified School District
Joan Herman - UCLA, USA

Foreword by Carl A. Cohn

Additional resources:

Other Titles in:
Program Development & Evaluation | School Change, Reform, & Restructuring | Standards & Accountability

December 2010 | 312 pages | Corwin

"An absolute MUST-READ for school leaders who need to generate school improvement immediately! This book will help you make your school's turnaround a success."
—Bruce Haddix, Principal
Center Grove Elementary School, Greenwood, IN

"The authors go to the heart of school improvement by addressing the critical need to elevate learning for all students through the use of formative data and evaluation."
—Jim Lentz, Superintendent
USD 402 Augusta Public Schools, KS

Transform your school with research-based tools!

If you want to dramatically improve your school's performance in a short time, this book is for you. Using formative evaluation, The TurnAround ToolKit offers educators a nine-step method based on data-driven continuous improvement processes. Experts and experienced practitioners Lynn Winters and Joan Herman frame these steps within three overarching "turnaround tasks" that begin with realigning systems, progress to integrating data to create the turnaround plan, and, finally, set the stage for ongoing plan revision. Collaboration and rigorous reflection are interwoven through all the steps. The authors clearly explain how to use data to strategically choose, implement, and monitor school interventions. Included are proven methods for:

Improving school and student achievement
Meeting accountability targets
Increasing your school's competitive edge and reputation
Building a solid system for ongoing school improvement

This comprehensive resource has it all—a clear step-by-step procedure, tools for implementing each step, pocket summaries for each chapter, and leadership guides to walk you through the process.

Available Formats

ISBN: 9781412975018	Paperback	Suggested Retail Price: $45.95	Bookstore Price: $36.76
ISBN: 9781452239347	Electronic Version	Suggested Retail Price: $41.00	Bookstore Price: $32.80

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Foreword by Carl A. Cohn

Publisher's Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Introduction

Part I. The 3 Rs of Turnaround Work: Realign, Redesign, Refine

Section I. Realign: Create the Structures for Turnaround Work

1. Develop Systems for Managing Turnaround Activities: Distributed Leadership, Collaborative Teams, Expert Reviewers and Networks, Data Capacity

2. Organize Information Needed to Redesign Programs

3. Prepare Data Summaries and Displays

Section II. Redesign: Use Data to Create the Turnaround Plan

4. Identify the Turnaround Focus

5. Redesign Programs to Address the Turnaround Focus

6. Develop and Implement the Turnaround Plan

Section III. Refine: Evaluate and Revise the Turnaround Plan

7. Design an Evaluation of the Turnaround Plan

8. Analyze Evaluation Data and Revise the Program

9. The 4th R of Turnaround Work: Reflect on Lessons Learned

Part II. Leader's Guides for The TurnAround ToolKit

Introduction to Leader's Guides

1. Develop Systems for Managing Turnaround Activities: Distributed Leadership, Collaborative Teams, Expert Reviewers and Networks, Data Capacity: Leader's Guide

2. Organize Information Needed to Redesign Programs: Leader's Guide

3. Prepare Data Summaries and Displays: Leader's Guide

4. Identify the Turnaround Focus: Leader's Guide

5. Redesign Programs to Address the Turnaround Focus: Leader's Guide

6. Develop and Implement the Turnaround Plan: Leader's Guide

7. Design an Evaluation of the Turnaround Plan: Leader's Guide

8. Analyze Evaluation Data and Revise the Program: Leader's Guide

Endnotes

Resources and References

Index

“An absolute MUST-READ for school leaders who need to generate school improvement immediately! This book will help you make your school's ‘turnaround’ happen effectively.”

Bruce Haddix, Principal

Center Grove Elementary School, Greenwood, IN

“Turning around struggling schools is a challenging issue policymakers everywhere face. Lynn Winters and Joan Herman explain not only what to do but how to do it, including useful tools to help educators get started. The TurnAround Toolkit should be read widely.”

Robert Rothman, Senior Fellow, Alliance for Excellent Education

Alliance for Excellent Education

"School leaders searching for a way to achieve dramatic, focused, positive school improvement will find this book valuable. The text's manageable tools will provide a focused guide for improving student achievement."

Pamela H. Scott, Assistant Professor/Graduate Program Coordinator School Leadership

East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN

“The author goes to the heart of school improvement by addressing the critical need to elevate learning for all students through the use of formative data and evaluation.”

Jim Lentz, Superintendent

USD 402 Augusta Public Schools, KS

"Lynn Winters and Joan Herman understand there are no quick fixes to turning around low-performing schools. In this book, they draw on their hard-won experience to provide school leaders with the practical guidance necessary to succeed."

Hayes Mizell, Director (1987-2003), Program for Student Achievement

Edna McConnell Clark Foundation

"Takes the current school improvement cycle and provides a focus on instruction and tools to get the job done."

Leslie Standerfer, Principal

Estrella Foothills High School, Goodyear, AZ

Key features

Shines a light into the black box of school level turnaround work by providing a strategy—formative evaluation—for choosing, implementing, monitoring and revising school (and by extension classroom) interventions designed to improve student achievement and meet Adequate Yearly Progress.
Includes two distinct sections—Turnaround Tasks and The Toolkit—designed to walk school leaders through the turnaround process and provide them with the tools to do the work effectively.
Highlights three "Turnaround Tasks" within the formative evaluation process for improving instruction: 1) Creating an Instructional Focus; 2) Collecting, Summarizing and Analyzing Data; and 3) Using Data to Maintain an Instructional Focus
Each turnaround task is broken down into three manageable steps that constitute the nine-step formative evaluation process.
Includes easy-to-use tools and templates for educators who may not have extensive experience with data collection and analysis
Subsumes and builds upon current data-driven decision-making approaches such as "Baldrige" or "the cycle of inquiry"