They will need to hire turnaround experts, new principals and coaches, and many more teachers to replace those judged to be ineffective. Where the districts will find those top-quality educators is unknown. California expects to face a shortage of as many as 100,000 qualified teachers in the next decade, even without changes to its existing school system.
“I think it’s going to take leadership, commitment and expectations,” she said. “It’s just like with the kids: If you think you have a bunch of kids who can’t get to grade level, that's what you have. If you think you have superstars, that's what you have.”
With half the black and Hispanic students in the country dropping out before graduation, anything less than aggressive action to turn around the failing districts is unacceptable, Spellings said. Under some of the states’ current improvement plans, it would take some districts more than 100 years to bring students’ reading and math skills to grade level.
“The accountability — all the testing, all the data, all the stuff we do — are meaningless unless we have real consequences for failure,” Spellings said.
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