Turn Around--Every Now And Then It Reforms a School But An Awful Lot of the Time, No

The title works if you sing it to the tune of "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

The December 16th issue of Education Week has a front-pager on a recent report from the Center on Education Policy talking about school restructuring under No Child Left Behind; the upshot is that there are no miracles when you try to turn a bad school into a good one. A quote I really liked:

Replacing many staff members in an area where qualified replacements are hard to find, or in a school that lacks a widely publicized vision to help it overcome its reputaiton as a "failing school," hampered improvement efforts, according to the study.

Remember this when the State Board of Education starts pushing the Bylsma School Reform Plan through the legislature. Washington State is about to become the laboratory of education research--time will tell if that's a good thing or not.