Atlanta Public Schools is the latest Georgia school district to achieve “charter system” status, gaining approval Friday from the Georgia Board of Education for a petition that promised annual gains on performance measures, parent surveys and other indices.
The charter, which goes into effect July 1, will give APS five years of freedom from state laws that limit student-teacher ratios, require minimum teacher pay and impose other costly mandates.
During the Great Recession, the state offered blanket “hardship” waivers from the mandates, but a new state law threatened to take those waivers away from districts that did not opt for a new “flexibility” governance model. The models push schoolhouse decisions away from the central office to school governance teams.
Fulton County Schools was the first big Georgia system to achieve charter status, and in recent years has implemented innovations such as a bonus pay program that encourages high-performing teachers to work in struggling schools. Decatur and Marietta are also charter systems.
APS is the 33rd district to win charter status, with 14 more awaiting a decision by the state. Another 35 have secured “strategic waivers” system status. The strategic waivers model, formerly known as “IE2,” is like the charter model but retains more central control with more limited waivers. Gwinnett County was the first big system to adopt that model, with Cobb recently winning approval. Forsyth and Cherokee counties are also strategic waivers systems.
Only two of Georgia’s 180 districts — Buford City and Webster County — are forgoing waivers and sticking with centralized governance.
In exchange for the "maximum flexibility allowed by state law" in APS's new charter contract, the district must attain annual goals, including ever higher scores on the school report card known as the College and Career-Ready Performance Index, declines in student suspension rates and increased satisfaction in parent surveys.
Superintendent Meria Carstarphen appeared before the state school board Thursday, a day before the vote, to make her case for a district that she said is improving as it puts the test-cheating scandal behind it.
But the local teachers’ advocacy group expressed skepticism about the new management model, since it will rely heavily on parent and community involvement on school governance teams. Many APS schools have councils that have been ineffective, with unfilled seats, said Verdaillia Turner, president of the Atlanta Federation of Teachers.
“There must be a concerted effort to reach out and get parents involved,” she said. She added that teachers are worried about the waivers, saying they will now have to rely on the “good will” of system leaders to protect teacher pay.
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