Tinkering and Turnarounds: Understanding The Contemporary Campaign To Improve Low-Performing Schools

Abstract

An unprecedented amount of attention in recent years has been focused on turning around low-performing schools. Drawing on insights from Tyack and Cuban's (1995) Tinkering Toward Utopia, the article analyzes the forces behind the school turnaround phenomenon and how they have evolved since passage of the No Child Left Behind Act. The article concludes by considering whether turnaround efforts represent the kind of reforms that Tyack and Cuban characterized as tinkering.