http://www.massinsight.org/stg/:

STG Overview
School Turnaround is a dramatic intervention in a low-performing school that both produces significant achievement gains within two years and prepares the school for long-term transformation into a high-performance organization.
The School Turnaround Group (STG) believes that the problem of chronically failing schools is massive, and therefore cannot be addressed by either incremental change within districts, or by completely abandoning the existing school system. Instead, we advocate a hybrid approach, creating carve-out “Partnership Zones” of low-performing schools that remain within the district but offer more flexible operating conditions.