Davis points to APS achievement at community meeting

By Ernie Suggs

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta Public Schools interim superintendent Erroll Davis on Thursday night told a diverse audience that while the cheating scandal has placed a negative imprint on the system, there is still reason to be optimistic.

Speaking to more than 200 parents, teachers and students at Whitefoord Elementary School, Davis said APS would succeed through strong, moral leaders.

“Education seems to be the only industry where failure is based on the workers, not the leaders,” Davis said. “Every failure is a leadership failure. We will make sure we will put the appropriate leaders in place and define an ethical space in which they can work. I want them to be empowered and creative as possible.”

APS is still trying to recover from a state investigation into widespread cheating on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests at APS. Evidence of cheating was found at 44 schools, and 178 educators were named in the investigation.

“We have 178 educators who are implicated in this scandal out of 3,000-plus educators who do a wonderful job,” Davis said. “We need to celebrate that and point out real achievements.”

Rep. Pat Gardner, D-Atlanta, was a former Spanish teacher who attended the meeting and said Davis was leading APS down the right path since his appointment.

"I was in enough schools to know it makes a difference when you have good principals and good leaders," Gardner said. "I think we have a strong leader right now and we have a lot of good schools in APS."

Davis joked when he saw the rain he anticipated a light crowd and few questions. He said he didn't mind that he was wrong.

Davis opened the meeting with just two topics: the cheating scandal and a reiterated plan to add teachers throughout the system, one called leveling.

The superintendent said again the district needs 172 additional teachers in elementary and middle schools. He said 106 teachers would be hired with the rest coming from a reserve group of educators.

When a parent later complained that her third-grader’s grades were declining because one teacher was teaching 32 students, Davis said that class would be split up once he hires the additional teachers.

"I can see the vision but the only thing I can do is believe in him, because he is the leader we have chosen," said Lynnett Jackson, who has a fourth-grade daughter at Whitefoord. "At the end of the day, this is about the kids and providing them with a quality education."

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