• Turnaround Experience
• Lessons Learned
• Results

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned from the Turnaround Experience

• The results show that our expectations were far too low for what the stakeholders could accomplish! 

• Offering  the leaders in the  schools a choice of how they want to improve their results and with whom they want to work, instead of one more mandate from the District, was a key first step in building the empowerment and self-respect  that is absent in too many models for leading transformative change.

• These two learnings helped us discover a third learning. Among the lowest performing schools in Chicago, there is a large  reservoir of teachers, principals and parent leaders with untapped energy, creativity and motivation for improvement.  

This reservoir can be tapped in three years and at a low cost per school, 12 percent of the cost of other models.