Chapter 4: District Readiness to Support School Turnaround: A Case Study

Much of the attention on school improvement and school turnaround has focused on creating school-level conditions that support achievement growth. School leadership has played a central role in that discussion. To date, relatively little emphasis has been given to the role district leadership plays in helping schools to successfully turn around. This chapter focuses on some of the promising work that has been done to identify district leadership practices that are associated with school success. A district readiness assessment that has been developed to assess a district’s readiness to support school turnaround is described as well as the findings from the initial implementation of this readiness assessment in 11 school districts. The findings suggest that many districts do not initially have a solid understanding of how they can actively support their schools’ improvement efforts.