The Research Is Clear: School Turnaround Takes Time. Montgomery County, NC Has the Opportunity to Get It Right.

MoCo's Voice | Public Accountability Series

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There is a body of research on school improvement that is as consistent as any finding in education policy. It does not come from advocates or activists. It comes from universities, federal agencies, and independent research organizations that have studied hundreds of school districts over decades. And what that research says is this: sustainable school improvement takes three to five years of stable leadership to take hold, and superintendent turnover is one of the most reliable predictors of academic decline.

That is not MoCo's Voice's opinion. That is what the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction told the Montgomery County Schools Board of Education directly, in a board meeting, on the record.

The question Montgomery County must now answer is whether it will follow the research, or repeat the mistakes that left six of its schools designated low-performing in the first place.

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What the Research Actually Says

A 2025 study published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis examined student achievement across school districts in Florida and Texas over nearly a decade. The findings were clear: student achievement decreases in the years following a superintendent's departure. [1] The study's lead researchers, Christopher Redding and Steven M. Carlo, found that the negative effects are most pronounced in exactly the kinds of districts where the stakes are highest, large, urban, high-poverty districts. [1] Montgomery County fits that profile precisely.

The Wallace Foundation, one of the nation's leading funders of education research, reviewed the full body of literature on school leadership and reached the same conclusion: leadership stability is not a nice-to-have, it is a prerequisite for the kind of sustained improvement that changes outcomes for children. [2]

Harvard Graduate School of Education Senior Lecturer Jennifer Cheatham, who has spent her career studying and supporting urban superintendents, put it plainly: "What we need in school systems across the country is stability in leadership right now. We need to maintain our focus on teaching and learning and what it takes to reduce inequality in our communities." [3] She noted that superintendent turnover has always been most damaging in districts serving primarily students of color, and that the political pressures driving that turnover have reached levels she has never seen before.

The Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, reviewed the evidence on turning around chronically low-performing schools and identified stable, sustained leadership as one of the core conditions required for success. [4] Turnaround, the research shows, is not a single event , it is a multi-year process that requires consistent vision, consistent relationships, and consistent accountability. Disrupting that process in the middle resets the clock and often reverses the gains.

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The Timeline That Matters

The research consensus on school turnaround timelines can be summarized in a simple table:

Dr. Roseboro is in Year 1. The state of North Carolina came to the board meeting and said the district is moving in the right direction. By every measure the research identifies as predictive of long-term success, Montgomery County is where it should be at this stage of the process.

Removing a superintendent in Year 1, before the early implementation phase has even begun, does not reset the clock. It destroys the work that has already been done and signals to every future candidate that Montgomery County is not a place where serious leaders can do serious work.

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What Happens When Districts Don't Wait

The research on premature superintendent turnover is sobering. A 2019 study in the AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice examined superintendent longevity and student achievement in North Carolina public schools and found that superintendents can influence student achievement, particularly as their in-state experience increases, and that the relationship is most significant in districts where the need for improvement is greatest. [5]

Education Week reported in September 2025 that superintendent turnover rose slightly among the nation's 500 largest school districts in the 2024–25 school year. [6] Harvard's Cheatham described the situation as an "amplification of long-standing challenges" , the same forces that have always destabilized leadership in high-need districts are now operating at greater intensity and with greater organization.

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Montgomery County Is at a Crossroads

The pattern playing out in Montgomery County right now, a new superintendent hired to change a struggling district's trajectory, followed immediately by organized opposition from people connected to the previous administration — is not unique to Montgomery County. It is documented. It is studied. And the research is clear about how it ends when communities allow it to succeed.

Districts that protect their superintendent's ability to do the work see improvement. Districts that yield to organized pressure and remove leaders before the work is done return to the same cycle of instability, low performance, and declining opportunity for children.

Montgomery County had six low-performing schools. The state came and said the district is moving in the right direction. The research says it takes three to five years to know if that direction will hold.

Dr. Karen Roseboro has been here for nine months.

The children of Montgomery County deserve the full timeline the research says they need.

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References

[1] Redding, C. & Carlo, S.M. (2025). "Superintendent Turnover and Student Achievement: A Two-State Analysis." Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Education Week summary: https://www.edweek.org/leadership/do-students-suffer-when-a-superintendent-leaves-a-new-study-has-an-answer/2025/02

[2] Wallace Foundation. "Leading School Improvement: What Research Says." https://wallacefoundation.org/report/leading-school-improvement-what-research-says-what-research-says

[3] Cheatham, J. & Cohn, C. (2022). "The Superintendency and Culture Wars." Harvard Graduate School of Education EdCast, October 21, 2022. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/edcast/22/10/superintendency-and-culture-wars

[4] Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. "Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools: A Practice Guide." https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/PracticeGuide/Turnaround_pg_04181.pdf

[5] Hart, W.H., Schramm-Possinger, M., & Hoyle, S. (2019). "Superintendent Longevity and Student Achievement in North Carolina Public Schools." AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, Vol. 15, No. 4. https://www.aasa.org/docs/default-source/publications/journal-of-scholarship-and-practice/2019-jsp/longevity-jspwinter2019.pdf

[6] Blad, E. (September 16, 2025). "Superintendent Turnover Is Up. Is High Leadership Churn the New Normal?" Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/superintendent-turnover-is-up-is-high-leadership-churn-the-new-normal/2025/09