Education Week - February 6, 2013 - Special Report - S9

“The culture was a culture of failure,” she says. “We just didn’t
think we could transform a school without radically changing
the culture.”
The U.S. Department of Education made similar staffing
shake-ups a key component of the School Improvement
Grant program, the Obama administration’s prescription for
turnarounds.
Ronan also used economic-stimulus dollars to extend the
school year, adding what she calls a “fifth quarter” in some
of the district’s most academically challenged schools. The
program eventually added a month to the school year for
schools taking part in the elementary initiative, and used
the added time to pair academics with enrichment programs,
such as art and music classes and field trips offered by
community organizations in partnership with the district.
Ronan is hoping that community partners will help the
district continue to offer the services now that the extra
federal funding has dried up.
Ronan has also put substantial energy behind an initiative
already under way in the district: community schooling.
Nearly all the schools in the elementary initiative—and many
others—now house a range of outside players, from tutoring
providers to dentists to social service organizations for
children and families. Mitchell and Ronan helped incorporate
those groups into the schools’ overall goals and worked to
ensure that the services went to the students who needed
them most.
The district’s population includes a number of groups that
have traditionally struggled to close the achievement gap.
Seventy-three percent of the Cincinnati school system’s
students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and nearly
70 percent are African-American.
Ronan also increased the number of “resource coordinators,”
whose job it is to make sure the community groups
complement the schools’ efforts, from just nine to 34 across
the district. A resource coordinator might ensure that
volunteer tutors focus on a particular student’s areas of
academic weakness, for example.

Rick Lohore for Education Week

Longevity Pays Off

She chose the University of Virginia program because it
promised results, telling Cincinnati that it would be able
to help schools make ayp—or gain at least 10 percentage
points within two years.
“You don’t get too many guarantees like that out there,”
Ronan says.

Training for Principals
As part of that partnership, which began in late 2009,
principals learned to set goals, draw up 90-day plans for
academic improvement, motivate teachers, and single out
and develop leaders from within their existing staffs. Those
strategies merged well with the new focus on data that
was already at play in the district, Ronan says. University
officials followed up several times, visiting the district
throughout the school year. The 34,000-student district
participated in the University of Virginia program for two
years, then incorporated many aspects of its training into
Cincinnati’s own professional development for leaders.
The training was enormously helpful, says Ruthenia
Jackson, the principal of Carson Elementary School, a K-8
school, which was part of the elementary initiative. Experts
from the university encouraged her to “think outside the

box,” she says, and use the resources already under her
control to greater effect.
With those lessons in mind, Jackson decided to test out
some new strategies at Carson, including grouping 7th
and 8th graders into single-gender classes. Discipline
incidents—like office referrals and suspensions—declined
significantly, she says. The idea worked so well that others
in the district are planning to try single-gender classes in
those grades next year. And the school, which had been in
academic emergency, has now been rated “effective”—the
second-highest ranking.
To help oversee the turnaround process, Ronan tapped
Laura Mitchell, herself a former turnaround principal,
to serve as the deputy superintendent in charge of the
initiative.
Not every aspect of the turnaround plan has been easy,
Mitchell says. Ronan gave her significant political cover
when the city teachers’ union pushed back on pieces of the
turnaround effort, including staffing changes at four of the
targeted schools that replaced nearly everyone—even, in
some cases, secretarial workers and custodians.
“There were grievances filed by teachers that came in
with her name on them,” Mitchell says. “She took the heat.”
Ronan continues to stand by those personnel decisions.

Ronan, 59, has spent her entire career in Cincinnati. She
began in 1976 as a middle school math and science teacher,
and later moved to a high school. In 1996, she became the
principal of the Kilgour School, an elementary school in
the district, which received a National Blue Ribbon Award
for Excellence in the 2001-02 school year. She then took on
leadership roles with the district, serving as an assistant
superintendent, and then director of schools, overseeing the
districts’ principals.
By the time she was named acting superintendent in
2008—she officially took over the top job the next year—she
had served more than 30 years in the Queen City and knew
it inside and out.
“I think it has made me more effective. You understand
your community, you understand the politics,” Ronan says.
“I’ve developed relationships over the years. … I knew to
whom to speak when I needed something. I wasn’t groping
around to figure out who the power brokers were.”
Ronan has been able to enlist allies among everyone
from outside donors—she’s brought at least $30 million
in additional grant funding to the district, according to
Janet Walsh, a spokeswoman for the district—to classroom
teachers.
“She probably knows more teachers than any
superintendent,” says Julie Sellers, the president of the
Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, a 2,400-member affiliate
of the American Federation of Teachers. “I think it has been
beneficial for her to get buy-in. Teachers feel comfortable
talking to her.”
Sellers acknowledges that she and Ronan have had their
differences. But when it comes to parts of the elementary
initiative, including what Sellers sees as the prescriptive
nature of classroom instruction in the turnaround schools,
they are always able to come to a resolution, she says. And
she praises the superintendent for trying out a range of
strategies—from instructional changes to wraparound
services—to improve the city’s schools.
“There’s nothing we don’t do in Cincinnati,” Sellers says.
“These are the best urban, high-poverty schools in the
country.” n

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