The Secondary School Turnaround Model

Many countries invest vast resources and efforts in trying to turn around their
low-performing schools, as they are known in the USA (Darwin & Meyers, 2017;
Duke, 2012), or failing schools, as they are called in the UK (Nicolaidou & Ain-
scow, 2005), or to use the Israeli term, “red schools.” This turnaround process
means improving such schools in a structured way that instigates drastic change
in a short amount of time (Meyers & Murphy, 2008). The literature offers all
kinds of guidelines for these turnaround processes, acknowledging that there is
no one silver bullet to fit all schools, contexts, and circumstances (Meyers &
Smylie, 2017). One special context is secondary schools, which oftentimes share
common features such as impersonal structures, fragmented curricula, segregated and unequal program options, inability to respond effectively to different student needs, and overloaded teachers who are responsible for the learning of 150 to 200 students daily (Darling-Hammond, 2006). These large “factory-model” secondary schools, sometime housing 3000 or more students, are especially inclined to present chronically poor performance, which is defined by a high proportion of their students (generally 20 percent or more) failing to meet state standards of proficiency in mathematics or reading over two or more consecutive years (Herman et al., 2008). The aim of this chapter is to present a conceptual turnaround model that is suited to the unique features of such secondary schools.
The following sections begin with two basic assumptions that lead the devel-
opment of the Secondary School Turnaround Model (SSTM): the nature of school
organization in general and the uniqueness of secondary schools in particular,
and the differences between theory of change and theory of turnaround. Then,
the turnaround model is presented, focusing on three main points of intervention: developing core organizational routines, obtaining and distributing relevant resources, and setting a pedagogy-based vision. The model statements include clarification of cause-effect relations, comparison with existing turnaround models, and validating the SSTM toward research of high-performing schools (Williams, Kirst, & Haertel, 2005). The main contribution of this chapter is a secondary school turnaround model of change, which enables opening the process’s “black box” and suggesting who should do what, when, why, and to what end.