Atlanta’s superintendent pick wants to learn from district’s past
When she was a student at Harvard University, Meria Carstarphen learned from urban education leaders she considered “giants of the business” — the generation of reformers who demanded test-based academic results and rigorously measured improvement.
One of those reformers who visited Carstarphen and her classmates was former Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall, the disgraced leader whose school system leadership job Carstarphen is in line to take.
Today, while Carstarphen still strongly believes in accountability and metrics, her approach emphasizes legitimate student achievement that goes beyond teaching to the test. She wants children to have a more complete education that starts at home and extends into the classroom.
Carstarphen, 44, would take over an Atlanta school district that is still on the rebound from a broad cheating scandal that took place while Hall led the city’s education system from 1999 to 2011.
“I’m as sad as everyone else that this is where Atlanta is,” Carstarphen said as she was introduced this week. “It won’t help any of us to … spend a lot of time thinking about the past. It’s very important that we learn from it and put measures in place to move things forward.”
About the Author
Mark Niesse is an enterprise reporter and covers elections and Georgia government for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is considered an expert on elections and voting. Before joining the AJC, he worked for The Associated Press in Atlanta, Honolulu and Montgomery, Alabama. He also reported for The Daily Report and The Santiago Times in Chile.
