A Case Study in Accountability, District Monitoring, and School Improvement 299leaders across the district must acquire a deep knowledge of the change process. Third, the
district must develop the capacity to implement and sustain efforts aimed at improving
teaching and learning utilizing community and state resources. Finally, districts must accept
that less is indeed, more, and limit their reform efforts to the implementation of two or three
key areas.
CONCLUSION
When superintendent, central office staff, and principals ignore the need to engage in
extended learning, or believe that “there’s very little they can actually do about NCLB”
(School Superintendent, personal communication, July 2007), failure is certain to follow. We
believe our data highlight important gaps in the operation of low-performing schools and
warrant further study.
We posit that poor performance may be improved by paying attention to four key areas:
(a) having a clear road map for reform, (b) acquiring a deep knowledge of the change process,
(c) building capacity to implement and sustain efforts aimed at improving teaching and
learning, and (d) limiting their reform efforts to two or three attainable goals. This leads to the
need for super-leaders, principals, and central office professionals with knowledge about how
to transform school districts, implement reforms and sustain change, especially in those that
are considered high-poverty.
Logically, this important information must be integrated into the curriculum of leadership
preparation programs. Our findings remind us that perhaps we had been looking for reform in
all the wrong places or, perhaps by adding so many additional layers of monitoring, no one
even really knew where to begin implementing a manageable corrective action plan.
Beginning with what is important, a focus on teaching and learning, and understanding the
barriers standing in our way, monitoring resulting in manageable outcomes might has the
potential to provide a data-based organizational analysis. In conclusion, we agree that Murphy
and Meyer’s (2008) observation that school improvement now seems inadequate for the
second-order change that needs to occur in schools. We prefer the more comprehensive notion
of turnaround leadership.
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