School Turnarounds: Exciting and Felicitous or Expensive and Futile? A Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Education Next debate. In the Flypaper and Eduwonk blogs and on the pages of Education Next, Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel have engaged in a debate with Fordham’s Andy Smarick about how the nation should address its chronically failing schools. Smarick contends that the only strategy with promise is closing failing schools and replacing them with new start-ups. The Hassels argue that new school creation alone can't meet the challenge. We need a national strategy that includes both new school creation and classic turnarounds, in which a leader receives “the big yes” to carry out the needed changes. On January 28, 2010, the debate went live. Watch the video webcast here.