Planning changes.

Byline: Susan Snyder

Oct. 20--Principal Darlynn Gray noticed a pattern that could wreck her school's chances of meeting federal achievement targets if left unchecked.

She shared the news with the eight members of her leadership team at McDaniel Elementary in South Philadelphia, who were gathered around a table for a meeting last week.

"There was a pattern, the day before a holiday, the day after, and if it's an early-dismissal day: Attendance is lower," Gray told the group of teachers, counselors and administrators. "So now I'm going to put it out to the table: What is our action plan? What are some of the things that we can do?"

This kind of conversation is happening in 14 of the Philadelphia School District's most academically troubled schools -- all of which have principals who are participating in a University of Virginia program that tags them "turnaround specialists." All but two of the schools are in the "CEO region," schools chief Paul Vallas' "line in the sand" for improving schools with long-standing low performance.

Such an effort comes as the district grapples with a high dropout rate, a budget deficit, and increasing federal pressure to raise test scores.

Chief in the training is the use of a "balanced scorecard." Using an approach designed for business and adapted for schools, the leadership teams at each school meet weekly to measure progress in achieving goals on attendance, discipline, test scores and other benchmarks, then plan to improve.

At the Philadelphia schools, one of the goals on their…