549665

research-article2014

JELXXX10.1177/1555458914549665Journal of Cases in Educational LeadershipMette and Scribner

Article

Turnaround,
Transformational, or
Transactional Leadership: An
Ethical Dilemma in School
Reform

Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership

2014, Vol. 17(4) 318
2014 The University Council
for Educational Administration
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DOI: 10.1177/1555458914549665
jcel.sagepub.com

Ian M. Mette1 and Jay P. Scribner2

Abstract
This case was written for school leaders, specifically building-level principals and central
office administrators attempting to implement school turnaround reform efforts.
Often, leaders who embark on this type of organizational change work in intense
environments that produce high levels of pressure to demonstrate improvement in
student achievement. Educators studying this case should examine the impact on
ethical leadership when implementing rapid reform efforts, particularly the pressure
on school leaders at the district and building levels to employ a transactional rather
than transformational approach to leadership as they respond to the pressures of
turnaround school policy.
Keywords
turnaround school policy, school improvement efforts, accountability, politics, ethical
leadership, transformational leadership

Case Narrative
Walnut Lane Elementary is a public school that supports 500 students in a midwestern
state. The building is part of the K-12 Watertown School District, which has 19 elementary schools, 5 middle schools, and 2 large high schools. The public school system of
Watertown serves just over 13,000 students and supports high numbers of

1University
2Old

of Arkansas, Fayetteville, USA

Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:
Ian M. Mette, University of Arkansas, 237 Graduate Education Building, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA.
Email: ianmette@gmail.com

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Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership 17(4)

impoverished and minority status children. Located in what has become an increasingly
urbanized area, the school community has evolved over time, growing from a bedroom
community for the large neighboring city in the 1940s and 1950s to becoming an extension of the citys downtown area. Over the past 70 years, Watertowns demographics
have changed dramatically. Prior to World War II, Watertown was almost 95% White,
but with the building and rapid expansion of highways during the 1950s, the community began to experience White flight, urban decay due to a lack of business investment, and the continual rise of crime within the area.
Throughout the remainder of the 20th century, White Watertown residents increasingly migrated to newer, more secluded communities. Simultaneously, many Black
residents from the inner-city moved away from the ever increasing violence that
plagued many American cities, and thus saw relocation to Watertown as an opportunity to provide their families with a safer, more stable lifestyle. In 1980, the school
demographics were roughly 50% Black and 50% White; however, by the mid-1990s,
almost three out of four children in Watertown School District were Black. Today, the
district serves students who self-identify as 82% Black, 12% White, 4% Hispanic, and
2% Other.
Watertown is part of a sprawling metro area that has a long history of racial and
economic segregation dating prior to the American Civil War. Many residents of the
area take pride in identifying their socioeconomic class based on from which high
school, and from what part of the city, a resident graduated. An example of continued
efforts to self-segregate was highlighted when city planners proposed to expand the
light rail system. While the elected officials of Watertown gladly passed the mass transit initiative to help their citizens have access to inexpensive and reliable transportation, Hillside, one of the more affluent communities in the metro area (in between the
center of the city and the Watertown area), prevented the mass transit expansion into
their municipality, thus blocking the light rail expansion into Watertown. As documented by the local media, Hillside, a mostly White, upper-middle class neighborhood
that went through gentrification several decades ago, openly debated how the mass
transit system expansion into their community would provide open access to those
who might not have the best intentions. This type of communication among neighboring towns only served to divide communities and solidify racial stereotypes.
Interestingly, Watertown has several roads and rail lines that run through the municipality and serve as literal dividing lines between more affluent adjacent towns with
distinctly different racial compositions.

A History of Conflict
In addition to the history of racial tension and conflict in the surrounding area, the
Watertown School District has a history of internal conflict as well. In the mid-1990s,
many of the Watertown teaching workforce, who at the time were predominantly
White, were unprepared to deal with the cultural differences of the students they supported within the Watertown community. Several lawsuits ensued, and both minority
staff members and parents of minority students successfully, and publicly,

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Mette and Scribner

won discrimination torts against the school district. Rather than capitalizing on the
opportunity to improve the culture and ethics of leadership within the district, the lawsuits of the 1990s magnified the dysfunction of the district and school leadership.
Media interactions were poorly handled, as those school employees who were interviewed about the impact of the lawsuits often came across as gruff, unapproachable,
and unconnected to the needs of the changing population of students being served.
Moreover, administration during the 1990s typically employed a transactional style of
leadership that focused on controlling, influencing, and managing the tumultuous
work environment.
By the time a dynamic new superintendent, Dr. Rachel Taylor, came into the district
in 1999, the relationship with the press was so damaged by previous administration
that it took several years of repairing media relations for the local newspaper to share
her message of improving student achievement via instruction with cultural relevancy.
In addition, the new superintendent attempted to empower educators in the district by
utilizing a transformational style of leadership that valued the work, opinions, and
visions of teachers to address issues of social equity and justice. The teachers union
bought into the vision, and many schools saw immediate improvement in school culture and student achievement. After 3 years in the district, Dr. Taylor won the state
administrator of the year award for her work to promote cultural awareness in the
classroom. Then, in 2003, she left for a large metropolis area in Texas, the high-stakes
accountability measures of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) consequences went into
effect, and the Watertown District slowly regressed into a culture that focused on
responding to the demands of reform initiatives rather than meeting the needs of their
students. In other words, the lack of ethical leadership by district and building administrators created a culture of compliance under a transactional leadership approach that
focused on controlling the students, teachers, and overall school environment.
In 2006, a surrounding school district was stripped of its accreditation by the State
Department of Education (SDOE), and many school officials feared the Watertown
School District would soon be next. In early 2009, the SDOE announced the launch of
a new reform effort that invited the lowest performing schools in the state to take part
in a turnaround school initiative, called the State Turnaround Schools Project. With the
assistance of a turnaround consulting firm, the goal of the program was to create a targeted, specific, highly prescriptive support program that provided executive leadership
training for principals. By focusing on using data to drive instruction for students and
to make personnel decisions, as well as using predictive assessments written by the
same corporation that wrote a large portion of the state assessment, the hope of participating was to improve student achievement within 2 years. The SDOE contacted the
superintendents of school districts directly to suggest participation, rather than including principals of the building in the conversation, mainly because participation in the
turnaround program required the removal of ineffective principals. As a result, many of
the school districts who were invited, including Watertown, felt coerced by the state to
accept the State Turnaround Schools Project invitation. This was primarily because the
SDOE had already stripped the accreditation of two of the largest school districts in the
state, and many districts felt they might be next if they did not comply.

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Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership 17(4)

Compounding the issue was pressure from the Watertown central office for Walnut
Lane to participate in an effort to show the SDOE that the district was doing everything in its power to address low student achievement. However, behind closed doors,
many central office administrators only seemed concerned with maintaining district
accreditation. Further complicating the matter was the recent election of a new school
board president and three new board members, all of whom were White and whose
families had lived in Watertown since the late 19th century, long before the municipality was racially transformed. These newly elected members created a foursome majority, of the seven total board members, which seemed determined, with the help of the
local newspaper, to remove the Watertown superintendent, Dr. James Winslow.
Winslow, a Black man in his mid-50s, was depicted in recent newspaper articles as an
ineffective leader incapable of standing up to the demands of the local teachers union.
As one new board member told the newspaper, Winslow was not capable of forcing
the strong teachers union to get down to work and make these students learn. As a
result of the onslaught from both the newspaper and the school board foursome,
Winslow felt further compelled to demonstrate that district leadership was doing
everything in its power to improve student achievement, even if it meant trying new
programs such as the State Turnaround Schools Project that were considered suspect
by many practitioners and researchers throughout the state. Walnut Lane would participate, and Winslow believed he had just the right principal for the job.

Walnut Lane Elementary

Dr. Rhonda Brown, principal of Walnut Lane, has served as principal in the Watertown
School District for the past 10 years and had built a reputation as being a no-nonsense
administrator who successfully implemented multiple reform efforts to improve student achievement in response to NCLB requirements. Rhonda, a well-educated Black
woman with an EdD from a highly reputable university in the metro area, had risen
through the Watertown ranks quickly. At the age of 27, she was one of the youngest
principals in her district. Now in her late 30s, she was a seasoned administrator who
was regarded as a change agent. After the Watertown School District agreed to participate in the State Turnaround Schools Project in the spring of 2009, Dr. Winslow
removed the previous Walnut Lane principal, and Rhonda was promoted from a
smaller elementary school building. Told by Winslow that she was to help implement
the State Turnaround Schools Project initiative starting in the fall of 2009, Rhonda
knew the improvement effort would be difficult. However, she had taken on many
challenges in the past and saw this as an opportunity to continue to improve her status
in the district.
Although Rhonda was not known as having a warm personality, she was seen as an
achiever. She built solid relationships with teachers at her previous two school buildings through hard work, trust, and the willingness to work in the trenches to collaborate and improve instructional practices. Moreover, she improved community
engagement at each of her two previous schools, helping parents see teachers as people who could help their children succeed, not people who forced unnecessary lessons.

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Mette and Scribner

As a result, culture improved in both of Rhondas previous schools. Rhonda was

driven, motivated, and passionate about helping students earn a quality education, but
she also possessed what many administrative peers described as a laser-like focus on
proving her leadership experience could be an asset to the Watertown central office.
Yet the road to improvement for Rhonda and Walnut Lane would not be easy. As
Rhonda would soon discover, Walnut Lane was not like other schools participating in
the State Turnaround School Project. One thing setting Walnut Lane apart was the fact
that the building had received a major overhaul in physical appearance 2 years ago
when the district applied for and received grant funding from the federal government
to update buildings in danger of being closed due to structural concerns. As such, the
building had new flooring, new windows, a new gymnasium and cafeteria, and a
much-needed centralized air unit. Thus, the school had already undergone a major
physical transformation, eliminating the ability to capitalize on a quick win to show
the community that the school was serious about improvement. If Rhonda were to
turnaround Walnut Lane, she would have to show more than just physical
improvements.
Another aspect that differentiated Walnut Lane from other turnaround schools participating in the State Turnaround Schools Project was the strong presence of union
representation among the faculty. Further complicating the issue of Walnut Lanes
prior physical transformation (in contrast to other schools that were just starting) was
the fact that the local union president was a fourth-grade teacher in the school building. The local union strongly opposed many of the would-be reform efforts suggested
by the State Turnaround School Project, which included a longer school day, increased
evaluation and greater scrutiny of teacher performance, Saturday school, and removing tenure. The union president also had the ear of the local newspaper editor, who
seemed to be more interested in printing stories about conflict between teachers and
administrators than celebrating the successes that existed in pockets throughout the
district. Moreover, Walnut Lane had its fair share of mediocre teachers, some of whom
Rhonda suspected would have to be put on professional improvement plans (PIPs) to
target specific improvement efforts. However, Rhonda believed in the importance of
supporting teachers through continued supervision and professional development and
that it was her job to build her staff by meeting them where they were individually in
their careers. Rhonda knew the turnaround reform effort would be difficult at Walnut
Lane, but by participating in the program, she felt she surely would be able to implement change and impact the lives of students she served on a daily basis. Of course,
there also was the potential victory of turning around the lowest performing school in
the district, which Rhonda thought would surely propel her to the central office.

An Ethical Dilemma
After participating in initial training with turnaround consultants during the summer of
2009, Rhonda came back energized with new information and felt ready to make
changes at Walnut Lane. Realizing the lack of time to properly plan for an improvement effort of this size, Rhonda understood she could not undertake this mammoth

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Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership 17(4)

reform effort on her own and would have to rely on the support of the turnaround
consultants to ensure success. Interestingly enough, however, was the disconnect
Rhonda noticed between what the turnaround specialists spoke about and what
Rhonda, herself, knew about educational leadership. Many of the suggestions to turn
around low-performing schools ignored relationship building with teachers in
exchange for achievement on assessments, demanded unnaturally rapid improvement,
and appeared to use data to remove teachers, not to build educators with individualized
professional development. When Rhonda brought her concerns to the attention of Dr.
Winslow in a 2009 September meeting, he responded by stating, It sounds like youre
just not up for the job. We can always find someone else who is willing to make the
change that is necessary at Walnut Lane. Not wanting to miss a leadership opportunity, Rhonda assured Winslow she could lead Walnut Lane through the turnaround
process.
With the help of local turnaround consultants provided by the State Turnaround
Schools Project and confirmation from Dr. Winslow that Walnut Lane was to proceed
as directed, Rhondas newly formed leadership team examined individual student data
to identify the schools strengths and weaknesses in student achievement. In addition,
the leadership team was also able to assess the instructional deficiencies of teachers.
In particular, the turnaround consultants trained the leadership team and led teachers
on instructional assessment practices such as classroom data analysis and developing
student lessons that were highly aligned to state objectives. The turnaround consultants even suggested purchasing and using predictive assessments written by the same
corporation that wrote a large portion of the state assessment. Thus, by working closely
with the turnaround consultants and accepting their role as advisors in the improvement effort, Rhonda could individualize goals for both students and teachers, increase
achievement on assessments, and establish procedures for overall turnaround school
improvement. Data, as Rhonda was learning, must be at the center of a turnaround
effort.
In addition to working closely with the turnaround consultants, Rhonda also benefited from the network of other turnaround principals and consultants who helped
focus on specific areas of evaluation improvement. During one session that she
attended during October of 2009 with her Assistant Superintendent for Human
Resources (HR), the turnaround consultants brought in several HR specialists who had
successfully removed tenured teachers from other school districts who were unwilling
to partake in the turnaround process. Thus, the State Turnaround School Project supported the notion that if teachers refused to take part in their individualized areas of
improvement, principals and HR directors should follow this recently provided training and initiate the necessary documentation to remove teachers who refused to take
part in the improvement effort process.
Overwhelmed by the perceived pressure to promote rapid and dramatic improvement, between October and December of 2009, and with the help of the turnaround
consultants, Rhonda put 7 teachers on PIPs, one of whom shortly resigned. Drawing
the ire and attention of the local teachers union, a public maelstrom soon ensued on the
front pages of the local newspaper. By the end of the first year in the State Turnaround

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Schools Project, Rhonda successfully dismissed 11 ineffective teachers out of 32 total

from her building by providing consistent documentation of poor teacher performance.
Of those 11 who were to be removed from Walnut Lane, 6 of them had tenure status.
The teachers union continually weighed in on Rhondas leadership, as well as their
dissatisfaction with the participation of Walnut Lane in the State Turnaround Schools
Project. However, the superintendent viewed it as a short-term loss in exchange for
long-term success. Even though culture at Walnut Lane was suffering, Dr. Winslow
thought it was positive in the long-term if it meant removing ineffective teachers.
Moreover, the school board seemed appeased by the efforts of the superintendent to
finally put pressure on resistant teachers to change. After all, Walnut Lane was identified by the SDOE as one of the lowest performing schools in the state, and Watertown
had to prove it was doing everything it could to keep its accreditation.
With the difficult first year behind her, Rhonda felt good going into August of 2010,
as she believed she was well on her way to making change in her building. Yet she
began to reflect and wonder at what cost. After a year of taking part in the State
Turnaround Schools Project and a flurry of very public activity as the teachers union
responded to Rhondas removal of ineffective teachers, Walnut Lane saw a slight
bump in state standardized test scores. While Dr. Winslow openly claimed this as the
beginning of a successful turnaround, Rhonda was more conflicted than she had ever
been about what it would take to truly turnaround Walnut Lane. While she had followed the advice of the turnaround consultants and superintendent to remove ineffective teachers, much irreparable damage had been done to Walnut Lanes school culture.
In addition, Rhonda was concerned with the managerial-based, transactional style of
leadership she was using to promote change, as this went against most of her training
and experience in school leadership. While the district continued to strongly encourage Walnut Lanes continued participation in the State Turnaround Schools Project,
leaders in the central office were met with staunch opposition by the local teachers
union to implement any further changes within the school building. Thus, in a board
meeting in November of 2010, more radical changes such as extended school days,
Saturday school, or any other reform effort that would draw the close scrutiny of the
teachers union were determined to be off-limits.
Rhonda felt confused, frustrated, and even betrayed. She knew that there were more
ethical considerations to take into account than just removing ineffective and resistant
teachers, such as building relationships, focusing on effective and engaging instructional practices, and improving teachers based on individualized professional development needs. Her shift from a transformational style of leadership where she had
inspired teachers to perform at high levels, to a transactional approach where she controlled behavior and actions with sanctions and rewards, also was a professional concern for herself as she reflected on her participation in the State Turnaround Schools
Project. In addition, she felt real, constant pressure from Dr. Winslow, who was similarly pressured by the school board, to make immediate changes at Walnut Lane.
While Rhonda was doing all of the technical things necessary to promote change,
the building culture had rapidly deteriorated to the point of clear dysfunction. By
attempting to rapidly improve student achievement through the prescribed turnaround

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Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership 17(4)

efforts, teachers were scared that if they did not follow Rhondas lead, then they, too,
would be removed from Walnut Lane. Instead of focusing on improving their instruction based on walk-through data, teachers began isolating themselves, locking their
doors and covering their door windows with paper. Perhaps most importantly, there
had been a noticeable drop in shared leadership and shared accountability. Teachers
blamed each other for not providing proper instruction in earlier grades as a reason
why students were struggling to improve academically; as a result, little collaboration
occurred between teachers and enrichment efforts faltered.
By the end of the second year of participation, in May of 2011, Walnut Lane saw
another slight increase in scores on the state exam. However, teachers privately shared
among each other that students were complaining about taking too many tests and that
learning was no longer fun. Dr. Winslow claimed victory in the turnaround program
but, feeling continued pressure from the school board, left Watertown in July 2011 to
work as a turnaround consultant expert. Rhonda, a reflective administrator, knew the
culture of her school was greatly damaged. Before the start of the 2011-2012 school
year, she was moved back to another small elementary school by the replacement
superintendent. She had such high aspirations for school turnaroundwhat had gone
wrong?

Teaching Notes: The History of Turnaround School

Policy, the Impact on Ethical Leadership, and the
Transformation Into Transactional Leadership
In 2001, the U.S. Department of Education published the School Improvement Report:
Executive Orders on Actions for Turning Around Low-Performing Schools. Written as
a result of executive orders from President Bill Clinton in 2000, the report focused on
the need to support traditionally failing schools to develop challenging academic standards, construct high-quality assessments to track and monitor progress, hire welltrained educators, and employ strong leadership to guide the vision and mission of the
school community (U.S. Department of Education [U.S. DOE], 2001). Ultimately, the
School Improvement Report (U.S. DOE, 2001) held that improving low-performing
schools is hampered by a lack of ability at the building, district, and state levels to
provide interventions that build capacity to improve student achievement. As seen in
the Watertown case, both district and building leadership provided too much emphasis
on the technical improvements of turnaround policy while seemingly ignoring cultural
aspects, lacking ethical leadership to meet the needs of the individual school building,
and relying heavily on a form of transactional leadership by targeting areas of weakness and rewarding compliance to produce increased test scores.
As interest in school turnaround policy increased, the Center on Innovation and
Improvement (funded by the U.S. DOE) published School Turnarounds: A Review of
the Cross-Sector Evidence on Dramatic Organizational Improvement (Rhim, Kowal,
Hassel, & Hassel, 2007). The authors posit two findings, (a) environmental context
and (b) leadership; allow turnaround leaders to implement a clear timetable, target

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specific measures of improvement using data; not be constricted by pre-existing regulations; align systems of support; increase community engagement; and motivate all
staff to change and/or replace those who are not willing to change (Rhim et al., 2007).
Again, as seen in the Walnut Lane turnaround efforts, the principal is able to use data
to inform practice and remove teachers who are not willing to change, but she is not
able to motivate her teachers. Rather, they are coerced into participation as the principal attempts to manage their behaviors. Moreover, she is not able to influence the
environmental context of turnaround, namely, the need to increase community engagement and to communicate clear expectations of what turnaround efforts entail.
Borrowed from the organizational sciences and business management world of the
1980s, turnaround school policy is heavily influenced by the organizational turnaround
successes and failures of the private, for-profit business sector (Murphy, 2008).
Although conceptually broad, most of the literature on organizational turnaround
details common themes of declining performance, implementing a response plan to
improve output, and creating new organizational processes that increase efficiency
(Murphy & Meyers, 2008). Interestingly enough, there is a substantial amount of organizational science research indicating that turnaround efforts more often end in failure
than in success (Pearce & Robbins, 1993; Shuchman & White, 1995; Slatter, Lovett,
& Barlow, 2006). This suggests that the implementation of selective research and
ignoring evidence that turnaround policy might not be as successful as advertised may
not be wise (Mathis & Welner, 2010). Thus, although programs such as the School
Improvement Grant (SIG) initiative and the Race to the Top (RTTT) have funded more
than US$4.35 billion in school improvement efforts to date (U.S. DOE, 2010, 2011),
there is a body of research that highlights the notion that the flexible funding mechanisms, supported by neoliberal ideology, treat improvement efforts as a commodity
that can be bought and sold in a transactional manner (Mette, 2013). Moreover, these
efforts contain an over-reliance on standardized assessments, as well as methodological errors, to prove these school reform efforts are actually effective (Trujillo & Rene,
2012).

Ethical Leadership
Almost a decade of turnaround policy literature supports the notion that there are two
main components to school turnaround: (a) technical improvements and (b) cultural
improvements. In this case study, the over-reliance on technical improvements was
influenced by a culture of leadership that lacked an ethical component when attempting to address school improvement efforts for both teachers and students, and thus
potential for increased student achievement was negatively impacted. Ethical leadership acknowledges that the concept of accountability is more than simply raising standardized test scores; equally important is taking into account professional standards,
encouraging engagement from the local community, and valuing the opinions of stakeholders throughout the community (Stone-Johnson, 2014; Strike, 2007). Thus,
accountability can be a positive or negative force in school improvement efforts, particularly in the area of teacher buy-in to help drive increased student achievement.

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A central tenet to ethical educational leadership is to empower and value educators

as individuals within the school organization to allow them to meet their professional
responsibilities (Rebore, 2014). When reflecting on ethical leadership, pedagogical
considerations should be taken into account, specifically through instruction that questions and critiques issues of justice and human rights (Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2011).
Thus, there are major implications for educational leadership programs regarding their
preparation for aspiring leaders (Furman, 2012), not just in providing a solid theoretical coursework that addresses issues of educational ethics, but also in how educational
leaders might apply these concepts in problems of practice. Theoretically, ethical
school leadership requires administrators to apply a democratic decision-making process that considers issues of social justice (Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2009; StoneJohnson, 2014). However, in practice, educational leaders often are required to make
decisions that balance notions of transformational leadership with practical operational choices in light of accountability requirements (Maxcy, 2002). As noted by
Stefkovich and Begley (2007), ethical leadership is often influenced by the notion of
what is considered best interests of students; however, they astutely point out that
this very notion can be influenced by policy-driven expectations for student achievement as a result of accountability standards. Consequently, leaders may make decisions that are not in the best interests of students. Rather, they may make decisions that
are in the best interest of school leaders, district leaders, or the school organization as
a whole, as seen in the actions of the leaders in Watertown.

Transformation Into Transactional Leadership

One way to examine the relationship between ideology and implementation regarding
turnaround schools is to employ the transformation of intentions framework. The
transformation of intentions framework provides valuable critical insights to the creation of policy. As Hall and McGinty (1997) posit, policies are vehicles for the realization of intentions (p. 441), whereby policy makers enact policy to solve problems.
Thus, intentions are inherent in the visions, goals, and interests that influence policy
makers political agendas that then transform into specific actions. However, as policy
is implemented, often the original intent of the policy becomes transformed to ensure
the goals are met. As a result, the actions of those implementing the policy may or may
not align with the original intent.
Placier (1996) discusses the cycle of labels in education, stating the creation of
policy is a four-stage cycle that includes creation of a new label, diffusion to a wide
audience, semantic variance in the meaning of the label, and critique of the label (see
Figure 1). When President Obama proposed reauthorization of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (2010) and introduced the label turnaround school in
Blueprint for Reform, the American public witnessed the latest attempt of the federal
government to enact policy with the purpose of reforming our countrys public education system to better compete with other countries. With regard to turnaround schools
as a label, it seems the neoliberal policy was created to recapture the publics attention
about Americas low-performing schools and to change the political context regarding

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Mette and Scribner

Creaon of a
new label

Crique of
the label

Diffusion to
a wide
audience

Semanc
variance in
the meaning
of the label

Figure 1. Cycles of labels in education.

Source. Adapted from Placier (1996).

governmental intervention. Specifically, the creation of the label turnaround school

attempts to reduce a stigma that is highly politicized, mainly that schools with high
levels of minority and low-socioeconomic status (SES) students correlate with producing academically low-achieving students. As depicted in the Watertown case, the
intent to improve student achievement and ensure reform efforts are met became transformed by the political agendas of school leaders and the economic interests of turnaround consultants.
Different from the concept of transformation of intentions, transformational leadership is a popular theoretical style of leadership that first became popular in the 1980s
and continues to influence practitioners and scholars in both theory and application.
Transformational leadership focuses on leading by motivating teachers to invest in the
improvement process by grounding efforts in values, goals, and beliefs (Leithwood &
Sun, 2012) to improve student achievement. In contrast, transactional leadership
implements a managerial approach that monitors the environment for weaknesses and
offers rewards for compliance (Barnett & McCormick, 2004). As displayed in the
Watertown case, school leadership shifted from inspiring followers to reach higher
levels of performance to focusing on creating incentives to follow directives and managing through expressing expectations (Bass, 1985), as well as finding weaknesses of
teachers that require intervention (Bogler, 2001). As posited by Hsiao, Lee, and Tu
(2012), transactional leadership is an attempt to manage a school building via an
exchange process between leaders and teachers that creates a subordination culture. It
is an attempt to control a situation and manage outcomes in exchange for resources,
which is exactly what occurred between the State Turnaround Schools Project, the
hired turnaround consultants, the superintendent, the principal, and the teachers of
Watertown. What this type of leadership and reform effort does not address, however,
is the need to speak to the deep-rooted issues of race, SES, and segregation. This is of

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particular importance in Watertown and similar communities faced with implementing

turnaround policy. As Burns (1978) emphasizes, transformational leadership drives
real change in the sense that it must address cultural components of leadership that
question democracy, social justice, and equity promoted by our public education system. Thus, as a result of the focus on the technical aspects of turnaround school leadership in Watertown and the inability to impart change regarding cultural components,
lasting school reform is unlikely to occur by implementing turnaround efforts.

Discussion Questions and Teaching Activities

Using this case study and associated theoretical frameworks as a platform for learning,
the following discussion questions and teaching activities are intended to engage students of educational leadership and policy in critical conversations about leading
school reform in politically charged policy environments. Aspiring school leaders and
current teachers, principals, central office administrators, and community members
can use this case to take an in-depth look at the political, racial, and economic factors
that often lead to imposed sanctions and improvement efforts on traditionally failing
schools. Suggested readings are provided as well to further detail turnaround school
policy and provide a broader theoretical framework to deconstruct the intent of these
reform efforts.

Discussion Questions
1. How might the use of transactional styles of leadership in the Watertown case
overemphasize the technical aspects of school turnaround and prove ineffective in promoting school improvement in the Watertown community as well as
Walnut Lane? Is there a time that transactional leadership could help a turnaround school leader address necessary cultural aspects of school turnaround
improvement efforts?
2. Analyze the leadership provided by the Watertown superintendent and think
about how he might better support the turnaround effort for the Watertown
community. What real political pressures does Dr. Winslow face from his
Board of Education as well as from the SDOE, and how does this impact his
district leadership? What aspects of ethical leadership is he currently ignoring,
and whose interests are being served?
3. Analyze the leadership provided by the Walnut Lane principal and think about
how she might better support the turnaround effort in her school building. What
real political pressures does Dr. Brown face from the superintendent and the
school board? What aspects of ethical leadership is she currently ignoring regarding leadership and instructional practices, and what leadership strategies might
she have used to work more closely with her teachers to promote change? How
might she determine when to employ a transformational style of leadership as
opposed to strictly using a transactional approach? What attributes should turnaround principals possess? Overall, what has gone wrong for Rhonda?

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4. How might Watertown school and district leaders promote buy-in among the
community to highlight the importance of school improvement efforts? What
type of activities might leaders implement to address issues of social justice,
democracy for all, and equity among all community members? What racial,
social, and economic considerations should school leaders take into account
when attempting to implement school turnaround policy?

Teaching Activities
The role of a turnaround principal. In groups of three to four students, instructors should
ask students to discuss how Dr. Rhonda Brown approached the implementation of
turnaround policy at Walnut Lane Elementary. The instructor should provide students
with the Teaching Notes from this article, but also provide electronic copies of School
Improvement Report: Executive Orders on Actions for Turning Around Low-Performing Schools (U.S. DOE, 2001), School Turnarounds: A Review of the Cross-Sector
Evidence on Dramatic Organizational Improvement (Rhim et al., 2007), and Turning
Around Failing Schools: Policy Insights From the Corporate, Government, and Nonprofit Sectors (Murphy, 2008). Using these documents, students should create a PowerPoint or Prezi that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of Dr. Browns turnaround
leadership, taking into account technical and cultural improvement efforts. Groups
should present their information to other groups in the class, and the instructor should
then conduct a class-wide discussion focusing on suggestions to improve the turnaround leadership in the Walnut Lane scenario. Specifically, the conversation should
include the importance of providing transformational leadership rather than transactional leadership, as well as how to involve various members of the community in the
turnaround process, including parents, civic services, faith-based centers, business
members, and other community groups.
Exploring the notion of ethical turnaround leadership. Students should explore the ethics
of turnaround leadership by conducting a debate in class regarding the research supporting turnaround school policy and how turnaround policy might be supported with
ethical leadership at the district and building level. Instructors should ask the class to
split into two groups, with one side debating in favor of turnaround school implementation methods and the other side arguing against the policy. Within the debate, students should consider whether improving achievement in a rapid manner by
implementing turnaround policy is a sustainable leadership practice. Specifically, the
instructor should not only provide students with the Teaching Notes from this article
but also give students an electronic copy of Keys to Sustaining Successful School
Turnarounds (Duke, 2008) that describes a turnaround school as having improved low
student achievement on standardized tests for at least 2 consecutive years. In addition,
students should be given Democratic School Turnarounds: Pursuing Equity and
Learning From Evidence (Trujillo & Rene, 2012) to help reflect on how well turnaround school policy addresses the deeper societal issues of low student achievement,
such as socioeconomic factors, poverty, and race (Trujillo & Rene, 2012), and

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Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership 17(4)

whether turnaround school policy focuses too much on improving standardized test
scores. For a more critical conversation about policy analysis, instructors could also
have students debate the validity of a variety of opinion literature from private consulting firms, such as The Turnaround Challenge (Calkins, Guenther, Belfiore, & Lash,
2007), School Turnaround of the Rensselaerville Institute (Rensselaerville Institute,
2011), and The Turnaround Challenge and Reaching New Heights: Turning Around
Low-Performing Schools (Mazzeo & Berman, 2003).
Technical and cultural improvement: Conducting interviews with those in the trenches.In
either groups or done individually, students should conduct several interviews with
principals within their school district by asking questions regarding the implementation of school improvement efforts to improve achievement. Students should ask questions about the implications of school improvement efforts, the pressures that can be
created to improve student achievement through transactional approaches to leadership, the work that is being done to improve the culture of the interviewees buildings
through transformational approaches to leadership, and how communities respond
and/or are involved in school improvement efforts. Students should then analyze their
findings from the interview activity, discuss any themes of ethical leadership that
emerge from the brief study, and share out their data in a brief presentation the following class. Instructors should lead the discussion by reflecting on the lessons learned
from turnaround school improvement efforts detailed in the case study, as well as from
the interviews conducted by students. Specifically, instructors should focus on facilitating discussion among students by addressing the balance between technical and
cultural improvement.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

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Additional Suggested Readings

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Brady, R. C. (2003). Can failing schools be fixed? Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham
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Murphy, J. (2010). Turning around failing organizations: Insights for educational leaders.
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Peurach, D. J., & Marx, G. E. (2010). Leading systemic improvement: Confronting complexity
in turnaround schools. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 13, 26-36.
Shields, C. M. (2003). Good intentions are not enough: Transformative leadership for communities of difference. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Author Biographies
Ian M. Mette is a visiting assistant professor of Educational Leadership at the University of
Arkansas. His research interests include school reform policy, teacher supervision and evaluation, and bridging the gap between research and practice to inform and support school improvement efforts. Specifically, his work targets how educators, researchers, and policy makers can
better inform one other to drive school improvement and reform policy.
Jay P. Scribner is the Department Chair and Professor of Educational Foundations at Old
Dominion University. His research interests include professional learning in schools, teacher
quality, and strategic management.

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