American Indian Model Schools
Under the leadership of Ben Chavis (Lumbee), a Native American professor, AIPCS students made considerable progress in academic scores from 2000 to 2007, and enrollment increased at the school. The first middle school, AIPCS, received national recognition in 2007. Some of Chavis's disciplinary methods and his treatment of students and teachers generated controversy, and he resigned as principal in 2007. But the board voted to maintain him in an influential executive role at the school and with the model school system. In 2012 Chavis ended his ties with the charter system (although his children remained as students) and returned to his home state of North Carolina.
Turnaround model
Between 2001-2008, a predecessor to the Turnaround Model was originally used by the Chicago Public School System under then Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan. To address the large number of low-performing public schools, Duncan worked with a variety of stakeholders to open new schools and close underperforming schools while simultaneously improve performance and teacher and principal quality. This success likely contributed to President Obama’s selection of Duncan as the U.S. Secretary of Education in January 2009. This experience served as an inspiration to Duncan when creating and implementing the SIG and RTTT programs as Secretary of Education to utilize the $3.5 billion surplus to improve low-performing schools nationwide. Between June and August 2010, 2,000 tenured and untenured teachers were laid off from Chicago Public Schools. Opponents of the move claimed that the main driving force behind the move was budgetary concerns, rather than school improvement, with one laid-off teacher explaining, "...You can hire three new, untenured teachers for the price of a tenured teacher.".