Blazing New Trails - Connexions

Blazing a New Trail for the Educational Turnaround Leader 333
1. What are the current approaches to turnaround, and what elements have been
successful?
2. How can research and best practice from business and the public sector inform
education turnaround efforts?
3. How can we meet the localized needs of low performing schools that need assistance
improving student achievement?
4. What are the elements of successful Professional Development Programs for the
Educational Turnaround Leader?
An action research approach was recommended as a way to monitor ongoing progress and
success. A series of continuous questions were used to answer questions such as, "Where are
we now, where do we want to go, and how will we get there?"
Inquiry Model
An integrative review of the research process was used as the methodological
classification system for analyzing the available research evidence in a systematic, rigorous,
and detailed manner in much the same way as a meta-analysis of quantitative research articles
(Broome, 2000). As in all literature reviews, the goal was to go beyond a summarization of
related literature to one of critical evaluation of the strengths of the research evidence. The
researcher approached the prior literature with an intent of identifying central issues and gaps
in the body of knowledge as well as implications for future research. Overall, the hallmark
end goal was a more defined and goal oriented review that would extend the traditional goals
of a basic literature search to one that would provide conceptualization of a theoretical
framework. In this chapter, our goal is to present the available business, public sector and
educational research turnaround literature that informed our theoretical framework and
conceptual model, the Educational Turnaround Leader Professional Development Model, and
to describe the components of our model.
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Research from the business and public sector organizations were chosen for this
literature review because it was believed that the public education community can learn from
these organizations. One obvious difference in public education and these other organizations
is that they are not governed by the state and, therefore, are not bound to them for
performance scores. Another difference is that these other organizations are usually one
entity, whereas school districts are comprised of many different schools separated by
considerable distances. In businesses and public sector organizations, the CEO is the
turnaround leader, and the counterpart to this position in the educational organization would
be the superintendent and then the building level principal. In spite of these differences,
schools can take the aspects of research-based knowledge and skills from these other
turnaround leaders and apply them to the educational setting (Chapman, 2005).
Business Turnarounds
In business, there are many cases of successful turnaround initiatives from the Jet Blue
story to the automobile industry. Zimmerman (1991) stated, “It is possible for troubled
companies to turnaround" (p. 11). Thurow (2000) stressed, "Not all turnaround situations are