The study was guided by a staged conception of the school turnaround process within which successful leadership practices are enacted in forms uniquely suited to the turnaround context. These practices give rise to a set of school improvement initiatives which, if successful, prompt change on the part of teachers which leads to increased student performance. In line with considerable evidence, especially from the non-school sector, three turnaround stages were identified: Declining Performance; Crisis Stabilization; and Sustaining and Improving Performance. Within each of these stages, successful leadership was assumed to include a set of “core” leadership practices found to be successful across many locations, sectors, and conditions.2 Depending on the data source, from 14 to 19 specific leadership practices were located within four broad dimensions or categories including: direction setting; developing people; redesigning the organization; and managing the instructional program. While considerable evidence suggests that these practices are used by successful leaders in a wide array of contexts, we also assumed that their enactment would change in ways highly sensitive to the contexts in which leaders found themselves. Each of the three stages of school turnaround would provide a unique context calling for different forms of enactment. The study was carried out in two stages. During the first stage, interview data were collected in four elementary and four secondary schools (a total of 73 individual interviews, as well as eight parent focus groups and eight student focus groups). The schools were selected as successful turnarounds based on their performance over three years on Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) achievement tests in Grades 3 and 6, as well as the province’s Grade 10 literacy test. During the second stage, surveys were sent to a total of 472 teachers and 36 administrators within 11 elementary schools and three secondary schools. Of these 14 schools, EQAO data were used to identify nine schools which met our criteria for being turnarounds, and five schools which were “clearly improving” from a starting point slightly below the district average to above the average within three or four years. Synthesizing the evidence from both stages of the research produced eight key findings about successful turnaround leadership.

Available online at: http://www.cea-ace.ca/sites/cea-ace.ca/files/cea-2008-turnaround-schools.pdf. External link. Electronic reproduction.

Foreword -- Executive summary -- Introduction -- Background and Purpose -- Framework -- Methods -- Results of the qualitative analysis -- School Turnaround Processes -- Turnaround School Leadership -- Results of the quantitative analysis -- Introduction -- Improvement Initiatives -- Teacher Changes -- Nature of Leadership Practices -- Sources of Leadership Enactment -- People and Groups Influencing School Improvement Initiatives -- Relationships: Leadership and School Improvement Initiatives -- Relationships: Leadership and Teacher Changes -- An Exploration of Causal Relationships -- A Synthesis of Qualitative and Quantitative Results -- References -- Appendices: Appendix A: School Improvement Initiatives in Improving Schools -- Appendix B: Teacher and Principal Ratings of Extent of Change in Teachers over the Past Three Years: Improving Schools -- Appendix C: Teachers’ Ratings of the Value of Core Leadership Practices: Improving Schools -- Appendix D: Percentage of Principals Identifying Each Role/Group as the Primary Enactor of Leadership Functions: Improving Schools -- Appendix E: Sources of Influence on School Improvement Initiatives: Improving Schools -- Appendix F: Leadership Dimensions and School Improvement Initiatives: Improving Schools -- Appendix G: Leadership and School Improvement Initiatives: Improving Schools -- Appendix H: Leadership Dimensions and Teacher Changes as a Whole: Improving Schools -- Appendix I: Leadership Dimensions and Individual Teacher Changes: Improving Schools -- Appendix J: Turnaround Schools and the Leadership They Require û Teachers’ Survey -- Appendix K: Turnaround Schools and the Leadership They Require û Administrators’ Survey -- Appendix L: Leadership and Improving Schools û Teachers’ Survey -- Appendix M: Leadership and Improving Schools û Administrators’ Survey.