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Taylor Nondorf
Dr. Beth Fowler
PS 1010
March 21, 2016
Policy Paper - Success

In recent events, it has come to the peoples attention that the Detroit Public School
(DPS) system is attempting to educate its students in extremely unhealthy environments, along
with having teacher work in very poor conditions. The physical infrastructure of DPS schools are
failing. There have been reports of mold, rats, ceilings falling apart, and much more (AlHajal,
Khalil, More than 100 Photos of Mice, Leaks and Poor Conditions at Detroit Schools
Accompany Lawsuit, MLive). Problems like this happen in more places than just Detroit,
poverty stricken school districts everywhere are experiencing the same issues. The St. Louis Post
Dispatch, a news organization, created a school poverty data analysis and found that, ...in
schools with some of the highest concentrations of poverty and minority children, students are a
third as likely to pass state exams as students at schools of higher affluence. And at several of
such high schools, theyre half as likely to graduate (Crouch, Elisa. "Poverty and Academic
Struggle Go Hand-in-hand." St. Louis Post-Dispatch). What this means is that students in
poverty stricken areas tend to do poorer in school than students in more wealthy areas. DPS are
based in a poor district in poor conditions, meaning this is affecting the education of the students
enrolled in the Detroit Public School system. The quality of education students are receiving in
poor school districts matters because it is a key for the poverty-stricken children to progress
further in life. Considering that, ...today's jobs, and the careers of the future, will require a
workforce that has received a globally competitive education and is prepared to lead the nation

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into a new era of prosperity, students need to, now more than ever, be able to reach higher
education in order to progress in life (Smith, Hal, and Marc H. Morial. The State of Black
America: HIGH QUALITY EDUCATION = HIGH QUALITY JOBS).
State governments are usually in charge of creating and enforcing education policies,
reforms, and other education requirements specific to each state. Recently, although, the federal
government has stepped in by creating new funding programs such as President Obamas No
Child Left Behind Act. Well before this was President Johnsons Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965. Both of these acts were created to fight poverty within the school system
and make sure that all children, no matter what income level, received a high quality education
("Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965" Social Welfare History Project). As shown,
the biggest efforts to increase the quality of school systems and the education they give all come
from the federal/national government.
One of the most successful federal government funded programs that focus on poor
communities is the School Improvement Grant (SIG). These grants are actually enacted under
Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and are defined by the U.S. Department
of Education as, ...grants to State educational agencies (SEAs) that SEAs use to make
competitive subgrants to local educational agencies (LEAs) that demonstrate the greatest need
for the funds and the strongest commitment to use the funds to provide adequate resources in
order to raise substantially the achievement of students in their lowest-performing schools.
Basically, a SIG is granted to schools in poor communities that really need the money to provide
its students with sufficient resources to help better the school system as a whole ("School
Improvement Grants." U.S. Department of Education). When a school is chosen to receive a
SIG, they are given four options with what to use the money for. The least chosen choice would

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be to simply close down the school as a whole, next would be to restart the school. Restarting the
school consists of reopening the school under new management of a charter school. The second
most chosen option is called the turnaround. With a turnaround, at least half of the schools
employees are replaced, along with more professional development days, and a new principal is
hired. Finally, the most popular option is the transformation, this option increases learning time
and teacher evaluations along with employing a new principal and creating more time for
professional development (Anrig, Greg. "Lessons from School Improvement Grants That
Worked." The Century Foundation). The ultimate goal of the School Improvement Grant plan
was to create dramatic, positive change in school systems. Overall, the SIG policy makers
definitely took a capacity-building tool approach when designing this program. The policy
makers were aiming towards educating and informing the recipients of the grants in order for
them to have the power to change the future. In this case, that would be the future of the students
and even the educators (Kraft, Michael E., and Scott R. Furlong, Public Policy: Politics,
Analysis, and Alternatives, 138).
The School Improvement Grants have proven to be very successful over the last couple
of years. A study was conducted on 31 schools in Massachusetts, all receiving SIG benefits, and
it was found that each school had significantly increased its students improvement in math and
reading. It was also found that, ...these schools made so much progress that they were able to
close the gap to other schools in their districts by nearly half in just three years. Therefore,
schools that receive a SIG do in fact improve, and can even bring themselves out of poverty with
the grant they are given, making the school and its students more successful (Martin, Carmel.
"Real Progress." U.S. News). But, this success has not always been the case for the SIG program.
In research collected on SIG funded schools in Ohio in 2012, it was found that the schools were

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not reaching their academic goals and in some cases, there was actually a decline in academic
achievement. Other than this limited data found on Ohio SIG schools, there had been a lack of
data in general on schools in the SIG program. This was mostly because each state has its own
set of curriculum, tests, and even different grading scales (Wilson, Natasha M., and Robert N.
Strassfeld.Cleveland State Law Review: Turnaround in Reverse: Brown, School Improvement
Grants, and the Legacy of Educational Opportunity). The different state governments are a sort
of structural barrier that the SIG program has to overcome. Because education is handled mainly
on a state or even local level, especially when it comes to funding, the grants did not create the
dramatic change that the federal government had been hoping for. Of course, the schools who
chose the turnaround method actually increased learning time and professional development, but
they did mostly the bare minimum of what was required for the grant. School after school, it was
found that they only used the grant money to create incremental improvements in the school
systems. In a study done on SIG schools in Washington, it was found that, ...many forces
including politics, fear of controversy, lack of knowledge, and the constraints of collective
bargaininghave prevented districts from choosing controversial interventions for schools. So,
not only was the state government a barrier to what the federal government had in mind for the
SIG program, but also peoples own social structures. Schools who received the grant feared
what might happen if they did in fact create dramatic change, so they stuck to what they knew
and let the grant money trickle in only changing one little thing at a time (Yatsko, Sarah, et al,
"Federal School Improvement Grants (SIGs): How Capacity and Local Conditions Matter").
Therefore, these barriers make it extremely hard for the SIG program to be as totally successful
as it was originally planned to be.

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In order for the SIG program to pass such structural barriers, there are a few things that
first had to be done. For example, once a school was selected for the grant, they were only given
two months to come up with their turnaround plan and get all staff on board. This lack of time
caused a rush and little effort put into the turnaround programs, causing the effects of the grant to
be minimal. To fix this, the SIG simply has to adjust its planning time. Another issue was that the
district had much control over the grant for the school it was given to whereas the school itself
had little knowledge of what was going on within the system. This would cause uneasiness with
staff members, wondering if they will be replaced, because there was a lack of communication.
All in all, schools should be required to have a complete plan before receiving their grant and let
the staff be actively involved and in the know as to what is going on during the turnaround
process. In general, the SIG program policy is an easy one to fix, there should just be more
regulation on the schools who receive the grants and stricter rules for what to do with the award
(Yatsko, Sarah, et al, "Federal School Improvement Grants (SIGs): How Capacity and Local
Conditions Matter")
From the success of School Improvement Grants, one can understand that putting more
money into poor schools does actually work. Of course, the schools have a set of rules in which
they use their money and have to compete for the grant, but that is what makes the SIG an earned
reward. The schools that need the SIG deserve the SIG. Before the Harvard School of Excellence
received the SIG award in 2007, it was ranked in the bottom five out of more than 3,000
elementary schools in Illinois but now has consistent gains in student improvement ("School
Improvement Grants: Examples of Successful Efforts." U.S. Department of Education). This
example shows that even some of the worst ranked schools can still improve, if they are given
funding and a plan to change. Because of the success of the SIG program, Detroit Public Schools

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should be given grants to help fund and change the environment DPS students are learning in.
This change will create an increase in learning which will lead to an increase in students moving
on to higher education. If this plan is implemented, however, there should be a direct plan in
place on what DPS is allowed to do with the money they are given.

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Works Cited
Anrig, Greg. "Lessons from School Improvement Grants That Worked." The Century
Foundation. The Century Foundation, 23 July 2015. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.
Crouch, Elisa. "Poverty and Academic Struggle Go Hand-in-hand." St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
STLtoday.com, 17 May 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.
"Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965." Social Welfare History Project. The Social
Welfare History Project, 03 Feb. 2011. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.
Khalil AlHajal. "More than 100 Photos of Mice, Leaks and Poor Conditions at Detroit Schools
Accompany Lawsuit." MLive. MLive Media Group, 29 Jan. 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.
Kraft, Michael E., and Scott R. Furlong. "Chapter 5 Public Problems and Policy Alternatives."
Public Policy: Politics, Analysis, and Alternatives. Washington, D.C.: CQ, 2004. 138.
Print.
Martin, Carmel. "Real Progress." U.S. News. U.S. News and World Report LP, 9 Sept. 2015.
Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
"School Improvement Grants." U.S. Department of Education. U.S. Department of Education,
n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2016
"School Improvement Grants: Examples of Successful Efforts." U.S. Department of Education.
U.S. Department of Education, 26 Aug. 2009. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
Smith, Hal, and Marc H. Morial. The State of Black America: HIGH QUALITY EDUCATION =
HIGH QUALITY JOBS. National Urban League, 2011. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.
Wilson, Natasha M., and Robert N. Strassfeld. Cleveland State Law Review: Turnaround in
Reverse: Brown, School Improvement Grants, and the Legacy of Educational
Opportunity. 63 Vol. Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, 01/01/2015. Web. 22 Mar.

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2016.
Yatsko, Sarah, Robin Lake, Melissa Bowen, and Elizabeth Cooley Nelson. "Federal School
Improvement Grants (SIGs): How Capacity and Local Conditions Matter." Taylor &
Francis. Informa UK Limited, 28 Jan. 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.