The embarrassed, apologetic and sometimes tearful testimony of Atlanta public school teachers taped by investigators in the aftermath of the widespread state achievement test scandal must not be forgotten as new superintendent Meria Carstarphen takes the helm of the 50,000-student system on July 7.
“I knew they (test scores) were inflated because my third-graders don’t know the alphabet,” confessed one teacher. Another tearfully admitted there had to be cheating because her third-graders “don’t know English.”
Sad to say, not much reform has occurred since February 2010 when the Governor’s
Office of Student Achievement dropped the bombshell announcement that 256,779 wrong-to-right erasures occurred in 58 Atlanta public schools on the 2009 CRCT tests. Of those 58 schools, 43 were classified as “severe.”
Obviously, the sheer magnitude of the number of erasures, the improbable gains on tests and the large number of schools involved indicated systematic cheating condoned and fostered by the central office. That’s why over three dozen teachers and administrators have been indicted along with disgraced former Superintendent Beverly Hall. (Hall faces charges of racketeering, theft by taking, giving a false statement and submitting a false document— namely, her superintendent’s test certification.)
While interim Superintendent Erroll Davis commendably stabilized the system after Hall left and helped root out the bad apples, a dysfunctional School Board from 2010 through 2012 impeded reform. Furthermore, the central office all too often bullied principals (as evidenced by the North Atlanta High School principal fighting the central office’s racially-tinged scheme to replace competent teachers with incompetent ones).
There is a reconstituted School Board now, with most of Hall’s enablers and defenders gone or voted out of office. The School Board’s unanimous choice of Carstarphen, therefore, hopefully signals a special time to finally implement a system-wide turnaround. She’s taking over a system where parents’ faith and pride needs to be restored at a time when fewer than 6 in 10 high schools students graduate. Schools in south Atlanta are the lowest performing and some are poorly maintained, which even led some parents to pull their asthmatic children out due to mold and poor air quality.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the school system’s budget is expected to grow from $595 million this year to $658 million next year. That means some of that additional spending can go to maintenance, teacher pay raises and perhaps the elimination of furlough days.
Carstarphen, who is leaving as superintendent of the Austin, Texas, system, commendably says she wants to track down and help the many students who were betrayed and affected by the cheating scandal. That has never been done. The system only expanded tutoring and remedial opportunities.
Aside from raising the graduation rate, which she has accomplished in Austin, Carstarphen seeks to expand advanced placement classes. She and the School Board will also need to implement a better type of English immersion policy so non-English speaking kids can be better assimilated into the classroom environment to foster grade improvement.
Of special interest will be how Carstarphen addresses parental school choice. She supported a controversial Austin charter school, where the principal and teachers have far more independence from central office bureaucratic control. Such schools have long been favored by many Georgia Republicans. But in recent years a growing number of Democrats and especially African-Americans are bucking teacher union bosses by supporting charter schools.
As the new superintendent tackles reform, it is noteworthy that the Selma, Ala., native has an impressive educational resume. She earned degrees from Harvard University, Auburn University and Tulane University, and is a graduate of Harvard’s Urban Superintendents program with a doctorate in education.
Even the outgoing interim superintendent has special praise about Carstarphen: “I’m like everyone else— very excited about having someone here who actually knows what they’re doing. She’s an experienced superintendent, far more than I.”
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