Restructuring Under NCLB Leads to Success in Michigan

As one of the first states to measure Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the federal No Child Left Behind law (NCLB), Michigan has also been one of the first states to identify schools for restructuring, the sanction applied when a school has missed AYP for five consecutive years. The Center on Education Policy (CEP) has released a report on the results of Michigan 's school restructuring efforts, Hope but No Miracle Cures: Michigan's Early Restructuring Lessons. The report finds that the majority of Michigan schools in restructuring—85 percent—made AYP during the 2004-2005 school year, and that most did it through a combination of federally mandated reform efforts and other school reform strategies.

Hope but No Miracle Cures is a follow up to CEP's 2004 report, Makeovers, Facelifts, or Reconstructive Surgery: An Early Look at NCLB School Restructuring in Michigan. The new report has the benefit of one year of test results that reflect the relative success of school reform efforts in improving student performance on state standardized tests. The authors note, however, that many other factors could have impacted a school's AYP status, including recent changes to the way proficiency percentages are calculated. They also note that, since the reforms are only a year old, it is too early to draw any firm conclusions about their results. Nonetheless, CEP is able to offer some insights into the process and success of school restructuring efforts in one state, which are sure to be useful as the number of states with schools in restructuring increases dramatically over the next years.

Strategies for Improvement

The 133 Michigan schools in restructuring during the 2004-2005 school year used a variety of strategies for reorganizing their schools that combined federal requirements with state recommendations and school preference. One of the reform strategies enumerated by the federal government, state takeover of a school, was not a possibility in Michigan, where the state education department decided they did not have the human or fiscal capacity to make that option available. The most popular options involved making changes in the school's governance, including replacing the principal and appointing a governing board. Many schools also brought in educators termed “turnaround specialists” or coaches to help with their reform efforts. The state facilitated this option by training coaches to act as impartial advisors while working with a school to implement real reform.

Most schools used a combination of strategies in their restructuring plan. Because of the wide variety of reform combinations employed, the report's authors were not able to identify any single particularly effective reform. However, the authors were able to demonstrate that implementing several strategies simultaneously was significantly more effective in improving AYP status than implementing a single strategy. They showed, additionally, that of all the reforms implemented by schools, replacing the principal was perhaps the least effective. The evidence for this was backed up by observances of education leaders, who noted that principal turnover was fairly common in many of the restructuring schools, and no guarantee of school-wide improvement.

Indeed, evidence from the state's struggling schools has most clearly demonstrated that improving academic achievement will require a coordinated and multi-pronged strategy. In an effort to document the central aspects of school success, and to encourage future schools in restructuring to take a holistic approach to their reform, the state has produced a School Improvement Framework. The document identifies six strands, 12 standards, and 26 benchmarks that schools should consider when planning for curriculum, teaching, and leadership restructuring, and will become central to approving future school restructuring plans.

School Results

The report took a closer look at the restructuring efforts of three representative Michigan schools. The first, Hillside Elementary, is a rural elementary school that had been marked for restructuring along with the other elementary school in the district, Larson Elementary. Both schools were marked for restructuring because of their 2002-2003 test results. The first step they took towards restructuring was reorganizing the schools' grade levels. Instead of two schools serving kindergarten through 5th grade, they became three schools: a kindergarten through first grade school, housed at Larson; a second and third grade school; and a fourth and fifth grade school, both housed at Hillside. The district also appointed a governance board, hired an educator-coach, and created teacher teams. The coach helped grade-level and cross-grade-level teacher teams work together to improve the curriculum, share best practices, improve professional development, and develop flexible subject groupings. Both schools made AYP in both of the following two school years, and are off the list of schools in restructuring. School and district leaders praised a willingness throughout both schools to commit to “a major cultural shift” towards improved achievement.

Brownell Elementary, in urban Flint, Michigan, is a high-mobility, high-poverty school that had not made AYP in any year since the state began its testing program. Brownell has already been through “reconstitution,” a state program that replaced much of the school's staff. Once identified for restructuring, the school chose to bring in a state-trained coach and a turnaround specialist, who both worked closely with staff at the school to institute in-depth literacy reforms, vastly improve the school's library, and improve the school curriculum. Brownell already had a school improvement committee in place, but the committee met more frequently and made efforts to improve school culture. Brownell made AYP in the 2004-2005 school year, but will need to make AYP for another year in order to be moved out of the restructuring phase. School leaders are enthusiastic about the continuing work of the coaches, though they are concerned that continuing staff turnover will undo the hard work of the previous school year.

Suburban Willow Run Middle School had several reforms in the works prior to 2003-2004, when the school was marked for restructuring. The school was moved to a brand new building over the summer of 2004, hired a new principal and replaced much of the staff, and in 2004-2005 implemented a new, research-based curriculum. The curriculum, an amalgam of proven strategies, had been designed by a panel that included district leaders, parents, and teachers. The school did not make AYP in 2004-2005, after one subgroup of students failed on one academic indicator. School and district leaders attributed this to the time required to successfully develop a new staff and implement a new curriculum, and expressed pride that the school had only missed AYP by one category. The school plans to deepen professional development around the new curriculum in the next year.

Future Steps

The schools studied by CEP shared a commitment to school reform that went beyond a cursory adherence to the requirements of the law. They all developed plans for restructuring that were approved by the Michigan Department of Education, and received Title I grants of $45,000 that are available to schools for implementing restructuring programs. All the schools expressed concern that those funds would run out once a school had moved out of restructuring, and that the schools' general funds would not cover the reforms that had so far proven very successful. Hillside and Larson schools intended to apply for other federal funds, such as Comprehensive School Reform or Twenty First Century Schools funding.

Teachers at these schools were unhappy that the state had moved the statewide testing date from January/February to October, when teachers will have had far less time with their students. This is an especially challenging problem for schools with high mobility, as they are faced with new students every school year.

Though challenges such as these will continue to confront these schools, restructuring appears to have allowed them the opportunity to implement serious school-wide reforms. The authors write,

…Michigan's experiences over the last two years show that there are no miracle cures when it comes to turning around a low-performing school…successful restructuring of schools appears to be a complex process involving a number of interrelated reform strategies. Implementing these strategies appears to require intensive planning, teamwork and, at times, resources that are not necessarily provided by Title I.

The report details the active role that the Michigan Department of Education, and specifically its Office of School Improvement, has played in facilitating the thorough reform of schools in restructuring. The lessons learned in Michigan may prove vital as other state education agencies plan for their schools to enter the restructuring phase.

Prepared by Nelly Ward, November 21, 2005