Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Urban Schools Show Progress in Federal Program To Turn Around Low-Achieving Schools

  • 01/30/15

Washington, D.C. — About 70 percent of low-achieving urban schools that have received federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) to spur improvement have shown progress over the past three years, according to a detailed new study by the Council of the Great City Schools.

The study – School Improvement Grants: Progress Report from America’s Great City School – found that SIG-award schools increased the numbers of students at or above Proficient levels of attainment on state assessments in reading and math. SIG-award schools in urban districts also demonstrated significant reductions in the numbers of students in the below-Basic level of performance in both subjects.

In addition, the new study shows that urban high schools receiving SIG funds were able to improve their ability to move students from grade to grade.

However, performance in SIG elementary schools continued to be low even after three years of intervention and support, and not all schools receiving SIG funding improved.

Analyzing data across states for grades three through eight in both math and reading, the study also found that gaps in the percentages of students scoring at or above proficient between SIG-award schools and peer schools that did not receive grants narrowed steadily over the first two years of the grants, but then leveled off in the third year.

“The results of this study indicate that urban schools have made significant improvements with the federal funds they received through the School Improvement Grants, although they have much further to go,” says Council Executive Director Michael Casserly. “The gains suggest that the federal government should retain its targeted and dedicated efforts to improve the nation’s lowest performing schools.”

The report follows another study the Council released in 2012 that showed urban school districts were mounting an unprecedented number of school turnaround efforts with funds from the revamped federal School Improvement Grant program that complemented their ongoing system wide reform efforts.

In the past three years, the SIG program and the funding behind it “have provided an important opportunity for districts to redesign their support structures for struggling schools; recruit effective teachers and principals; change the climate and expectations for students in these buildings; and engage parents and the community,” says the new report.

School Improvement Grants: Progress Report from America’s Great City Schools identifies several features that appeared to propel successful SIG implementation efforts, including:

  • A coherent and coordinated district plan for supporting and turning around the lowest-performing schools;
  • Interventions focused on instructional improvements with high-quality programming and materials;
  • Coordination and integration of instructional interventions and strategies;
  • Professional development that built staff instructional capacity;
  • Principals who were invested in a vision for improvement and conveyed these priorities to teachers, students, and the community;
  • Principals who were given the flexibility to make staff changes or remove ineffective teachers and staff; and
  • The ability to leverage data to identify the specific academic needs of struggling students, determine needs for professional development, and decide on intervention strategies.

The unprecedented study also examines reasons behind why some SIG schools did not improve.

The Council of the Great City Schools is the primary coalition of the nation’s largest urban public school systems. It represents 67 big-city school districts.

Featured

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.

  • Planning with Clarity: Using AI to Make Better Campus Decisions, Not Just Better Designs

    Higher education leaders are being asked to make increasingly high-stakes decisions about campus facilities amid greater uncertainty than ever before. Social and economic pressures, shifting enrollment, and evolving learning models compete with growing deferred maintenance needs to strain even the most robust infrastructure budgets.

  • Virginia Tech Tops Out New College of Engineering Building

    Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., recently celebrated the topping out of Mitchell Hall, which will soon stand as the largest College of Engineering building on campus, according to a news release. The university partnered with Skanska on the 285,500-square-foot facility, which has an expected completion date of winter 2028.

  • Children walking along bright school corridor with motion blur

    How Next-Gen Design Is Reshaping the Student Experience

    The environments where students learn play a crucial role in shaping their growth in and out of the classroom. By centering design on well-being, flexibility, and purpose, districts can ensure their facilities remain vibrant community assets for many years to come.