In concept, well-designed, well-run charter schools offer innovative practices that yield successful teaching and learning — practices from which other schools can learn and improve. But what happens when the reality doesn’t live up to the concept?

Traditional approaches to addressing low-performing charter schools include:

  • Closure
  • Restart (a different charter management organization taking over the school)
  • Issuing warnings or findings of noncompliance

This brief proposes a different approach entirely, one that should be considered with the same thought, rigor, and transparency called for in making closure or restart decisions. That option is school turnaround.

The brief offers insights for authorizers  looking at school turnaround as a possible response to low-performing charter schools and describes the importance of establishing thoughtful, rigorous, and transparent criteria by which to distinguish good turnaround candidates from those that are not.