Turning Your School Around

The far-reaching consequences of academic failure are now well known. High-poverty, low-performing schools in particular face an urgent need to transform in order to meet the needs of all their students. The school improvement audit a research-proven process of self-evaluation yields evidence-based conclusions that can significantly enhance education for children at risk. Turning Your School Around: A Self-Guided Audit to School Improvement follows a step-by-step process, with, tips and practical examples that can help all schools become high-performing learning communities. Research over the past decade has identified the specific factors that work to turn around high-poverty, low-performing schools. The school improvement audit looks at every aspect of a school or district, including its personnel, students, finances, achievement, professional development, and demographics. This is a challenging task requiring complete openness and transparency, but schools that use the audit no longer have to respond to low report cards intuitively or out of fear. And because the audit requires the rigorous and active participation of the entire community, it also builds trust, consensus, and dialog, along with higher achievement. The rubrics used by the school improvement audit are based on the same research used in the nationally recognized The Kids Left Behind.