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We sorely need to define what we mean when we say "turnaround." That's becoming more and more apparent as the media start finding romance and drama in turnaround stories. Here's the problem: One person can see a budding turnaround story where another sees a school mired in failure. In this climate, ideology can trump evidence.

We also need to decide what the milestones on the road to excellence look like. That's not at all easy. Take, for example, the case of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. President Obama points to its rock-bottom math scores as a reason for starting over. Teachers point to rising reading and writing scores as a reason for staying the course. Similar debates are swirling around other troubled schools in the state.

As the press hungers for stories about triumph and failure, the tendency to find conflicting meanings in the same numbers will only grow. And that will create the perfect climate for spin doctors. (Just look at Chicago. The "results" of the city's school reforms have been spun in so many ways by boosters and critics alike that I'm getting dizzy.) You would think you'd just know a turnaround story when you saw it, but it's not that easy.

So we need to define what the early signs of success and failure look like. Those early signs should include much more than test scores. They should include evidence that the school is doing the right things. They could also include signs of real community engagement, a better school climate, better attendance, and more support for teachers. (For more ideas, see our recent set of principles for gauging the progress of school turnarounds.)

But we can't expect the feds to hand down a set of one-size-fits-all measures of school progress. Painful experience teaches us at least that much. No Child Left Behind's Adequate Yearly Progress provisions catch far too many schools in the same net, and the law prescribes fixes that may or may not suit those schools' very diverse needs.

In the end, we will have to give communities a strong hand in shaping goals for their struggling schools. If we give them half a chance, their aspirations for their children will support a common vision of school success and help define the milestones struggling schools need to reach along the way.