School District Innovation Zones a New Wave of District-Led Efforts to Improve Economic Mobility

School District Innovation Zones A New Wave of District-led Efforts to Improve Economic Mobility By Nithin Iyengar, Kate Lewis-LaMonica, and Mike Perigo Collaborating to accelerate social impact October 2017 Table of Contents A New Wave of District Innovation Zones . 3 A Growing and Varied Landscape of Innovation Zones Across the Country . 4 Promising Outcomes to Date for This New Wave of Innovation Zones . 7 Design Features That Create a Framework for Success . 7 A Promising Turnaround Strategy Worth Watching . 12 Appendix: Profiles of School District Innovation Zones . 13 Profiles . 14 The AUSL Way: Moving from “Good” to “Truly Excellent” (Chicago) . 14 From Innovation Schools to an Innovation Zone in Denver, Colorado . 21 Innovation Network Schools in Indianapolis: Phalen Leadership Academies Takes the Lead . 27 Built to Last: The Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership, Springfield, Massachusetts . 34 Proving What’s Possible: Shelby County (Memphis) Public Schools, Tennessee . 40 Cover photo: Phalen Leadership Academies 2 Educators, policy makers, and philanthropists have worked for years to improve the substandard quality of education provided many low-income students, one of the most effective ways to put disadvantaged kids on a pathway of upward economic mobility . But well-meaning reform efforts aimed at turning around failing schools largely disappoint . More than $3 .5 billion in federal School Improvement Grants awarded in 2010 “had no impact on math or reading test scores, high school graduation, or college enrollment,” concluded an independent 2017 research report 1. Similarly, the vast majority of district- led efforts to improve low-performing schools have been equally unsuccessful 2. None of this comes as a surprise . It’s widely understood that school districts face significant barriers to designing and implementing sustained improvements in chronically underperforming schools . In particular, the size and complexity of urban districts pose daunting challenges to advance significant reform efforts, despite glaring need . Many students—especially low-income students and students of color—fall years behind in reading and math . Principals and teachers grow fatigued by repeated—mostly unsuccessful—improvement efforts . Money also is a problem . Cash-strapped districts in recent years have relied heavily on federal grants to fund turnaround strategies, but that source has diminished over time . As a result, many district leaders feel stymied when it comes to delivering meaningful improvement . Instead, district improvement efforts often focus on modest goals, well below the standard required for social mobility and rarely include strategies to meaningfully improve student outcomes . A new wave of district-led “innovation zones” holds promise to overcome these challenges and deliver significant improvements in student outcomes . These zones provide a subset of district schools with control over staffing, curriculum, and budgeting . State laws and contractual agreements often guarantee the autonomy that can sustain the zone despite potential changes in district leadership . Nonprofits typically operate the schools and are held accountable to the school district for significant improvement in student outcomes . The experiences of five school districts that are vanguards of this new wave of innovation zones—Chicago; Denver; Indianapolis; Memphis, TN; and Springfield, MA—are the subject of this report .3 These innovation zones reveal certain design features that place a focus on improving teaching and learning over multiple years—the heart of any successful turnaround effort . 1 Lisa Dragoset, et . al ., School Improvement Grants: Implementation and Effectiveness, US Department of Education, January 2017 . 2 Richard D . Kahlenberg, “Turnaround Schools that Work: Moving Beyond Separate but Equal,” The Century Foundation, November 12, 2009 . 3 We restrict our attention to district-driven efforts to improve low-performing schools via innovation zones that provide school-level autonomy to enable improvement in a subset of district schools . Our focus is specifically on initiatives designed and either led by or overseen by districts . As a result, we exclude efforts such as charter schools under the provisions of the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program and state turnaround efforts . These efforts have been well surveyed by others, including Stephanie Aragon and Emily Workman in “Emerging state turnaround strategies” published by the Education Commission of the States, 2015, http://www ecs. or. g/ec-content/uploads/12139 .pdf and Jon Rybka in “The promise of restarting schools” published by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, August 25, 2015, https://www .msdf or. g/ 3 blog/2015/08/the-promise-restarting-schools/ . A Growing and Varied Landscape of Innovation Zones Across the Country Interest in innovation zones has picked up in recent years as legislatures in several states, including Colorado, Indiana, and Tennessee, have given school districts the authority to grant schools varying degrees of freedom from school district and state policies 4. As of 2017, innovation zones served over 63,000 students in at least 108 schools in nine districts .5 Multiple philanthropists across the country have made multimillion dollar investments to help school districts implement such innovation zones . Yet, not all innovation zones are the same . Our research identified three primary types: district-led, third-party led, and autonomous improvement zones . Each type takes a different approach to reach the same goal—improving student outcomes for a subset of schools by providing guaranteed school-based autonomy in return for higher expectations and accountability for performance . District-led innovation zones Historically, innovation zones created and led by the school district have been the most common . In these zones, the school district selects a group of low-performing schools and gives them specific autonomy over staffing, curriculum, and budgeting . Often, state law or school board policy grants school districts the authority to exempt schools from local and state regulations . School boards and district leadership, in turn, hold the innovation zone schools accountable for improving student outcomes— Syracuse City often by holding school leaders School District accountable for a higher degree Denver Public Schools Chicago Public Schools Aurora Public Schools Springﬁeld Public of student progress . If the schools Schools Indianapolis do not achieve sufficient progress, Pueblo City Public Schools Public Schools the autonomy may be revoked or Clark County School District the principal may be removed . Shelby County Schools Los Angeles School District 4 An overview of the state-level policy created in Colorado, Indiana, and Tennessee can be found as part of the Denver, Indianapolis, and Memphis profiles, respectively . 5 Based on data pulled from district websites and National Center for Education Statistics in May 2017 . This analysis highlights select districts, as indicated on the map that are leading efforts to provide school-level autonomy to enable improvement in a subset of district schools . It focuses on initiatives designed and either led-by or overseen by districts, and does not include all standalone innovation schools that may exist across the country . 4 The innovation zone is typically led by a senior-level zone administrator responsible for overall strategy Examples of District-Led and empowered to select principals committed to Innovation Zones: implementing successful turnaround practices . The principals pick their teaching staff and work with • Shelby County Schools Innovation them to shape the instructional program . School Zone, Tennessee districts support the costs of teacher professional • Syracuse Innovation Zone, New York development tailored to specific needs and teaching • Aurora ACTION Zone, Colorado supports, such as coaches or added time to the • Pueblo City Schools Innovation Zone, school day . Colorado Third-party led innovation zones • Clark County School District Turnaround Zone, Nevada A few school districts have recently taken a different approach by bringing in a nonprofit organization to Examples of Third-Party Led operate low-performing schools . Such arrangements Innovation Zones: typically entail a change in state law . School districts enter into a contractual agreement with the nonprofit • Chicago (Chicago Public Schools to operate a select group of low-performing schools . contracting with the Academy for Urban Third-party operators are guaranteed autonomy in School Leadership) staffing, scheduling, curriculum, and budget, and • Springfield, Massachusetts (Springfield they are contractually accountable to the school Public Schools contracting with board for improving student outcomes . Renewable Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership) contracts typically run for several years but may be cancelled for failure to produce agreed-upon results . • Los Angeles (Los Angeles Unified School District contracting with the Autonomous improvement zones Partnership for Los Angeles Schools) A few districts have created state-enabled innovation Examples of Autonomous zones that allow any school to request operational Improvement Zones: autonomy whether or not they are low-performing . A group of autonomous schools can come together • Denver (Denver Public Schools to form a zone managed by a nonprofit organization contracting with Luminary Learning Network) under a contractual agreement with the

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