Report: School turn-around efforts fail up to 90 percent of the time

Failing school districts often know what's wrong with their schools — from weak leadership to inadequate skill levels among teachers to insufficient teaching materials and training — but these districts rarely have a comprehensive strategy for how to implement reforms, according to a recent report from the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices.

"Although some states have been engaged in school and district turnaround efforts for 20 years, often they have lacked the capacity to undertake the work at the scale required to create sustainable improvements in teaching and learning," the report's authors conclude.

Past turnaround efforts have been successful only 10 percent to 20 percent of the time, the report says.