Delaplaine+McDaniel+Elementary+School,+Philadelphia

This is one of the 8 schools that Mass Insight lists on their website as successful models of turnarounds. Mass Insight is not responsible for these 'turnarounds' but utilizes the lessons learned from them.

In 2006, McDaniel and 11 other schools became part of the CEO district, which is kind of like RSD in New Orleans or The Achievement District in Memphis. These were the 12 lowest performing schools. Of those 12 schools, McDaniel was the only one to have significant improvement in math and English (though they are still way below state average in Science -- maybe too much focus on math and English). This is, Mass Insight admits, partly because of extra interventions that had nothing to do with the CEO plan (see below). The CEO district was disbanded a few years later and replaced with something else! So as a turnaround strategy, they were one for twelve here, but this school does seem to have improved a lot.

Their interventions are very vague, things like improved school culture, stronger discipline. No corporate reforms like using standardized test data to evaluate teachers.

It is ironic that this is one of the 8 Mass Insight turnaround schools because Mass Insight admits in their summary

"McDaniel’s performance appears to be partly attributed to factors not within the control of the CEO District program and not easily replicable – factors such as a charismatic principal, a (separate) grant-funded data staff position for the first turnaround year, and a fortuitous building renovation not part of the turnaround plan."

The main intervention was introducing a newly trained principal. Staff was not fired, so this isn't a 'restructuring.' Also, as the other 11 schools did not have some of the extra supports, they did not improve much.

Slogan is "Children Come First"