But let’s be honest: while turnaround efforts in some schools show promise, other attempts are falling short.  If you’re leading a state or district turnaround effort, how should you respond? 

In Try Try Again, Public Impact makes the case for “rapid retry” – attempting new major change now rather than letting failing turnaround efforts drag on for years.  Even if most individual turnaround attempts fail, you can achieve a cumulative success rate of 70 or 80% by retrying rapidly.

In partnership with the University of Virginia’s Turnaround Leadership Specialist Program, Public Impact is releasing two new reports to help with rapid retry and increasing the success rates of turnarounds.

The first, Leading Indicators of School Turnarounds: How to Know When Dramatic Change Is On Track, explains how leaders can use data to see the need for retry in the first one or two years – and then take action.  It contains a set of research-based indicators organizations can use now to start making these tough but vital decisions.

When turnaround efforts are not on track, they either need new or dramatically improved leadership.  Either way, our second report can help:  Using Competencies to Improve School Turnaround Principal Success.  This report discusses how the well-honed science of assessing individuals’ “competencies” – their underlying patterns of thought and action – can help organizations make much better decisions when selecting turnaround leaders, and become much smarter about developing the competencies of leaders on the job.