Next Atlanta school leader takes command at critical point

The school board hired a partnership between BoardWalk Consulting and Diversified Search at a cost estimated at $146,000 to conduct the nationwide search, which included consultations with between 425 and 450 sources, said Sam Pettway, the founding director for BoardWalk Consulting. The search committee met with six candidates face-to-face, and four candidates were recommended for interviews with the school board.

The school board announced March 27 that Meria Carstarphen, the superintendent for the Austin Independent School District, was its sole finalist for the job.

State law requires at least 14 days to pass before a vote on her hiring takes place, and that vote is planned for Monday.

Metro Atlanta 2013 Superintendent Salaries

Source: http://open.georgia.gov/ and AJC archives

Meria Carstarphen’s résumé

Professional Experience

Education

The Nation’s Report Card

Eighth-grade average scores in 2013

Area…Math…Reading

Atlanta…267…255

Austin…285…261

Source: The Nation’s Report Card: 2013 Trial Urban District Snapshot Report

Metro Atlanta 2013 Superintendent Salaries

Source: http://open.georgia.gov/ and AJC archives

Meria Carstarphen’s résumé

Professional Experience

Education

The Nation’s Report Card

Eighth-grade average scores in 2013

Area…Math…Reading

Atlanta…267…255

Austin…285…261

Source: The Nation’s Report Card: 2013 Trial Urban District Snapshot Report

Trained among the Harvard elite to fight urban education battles, Meria Carstarphen rose from a freckle-faced Alabama middle school photography teacher to a hard-nosed school district leader.

Her path wound from her home town of Selma, a place steeped in the conflict of the civil rights movement, to meetings with angry Austin parents who feared their schools would close. She joined students playing the “Just Dance” video game and four square. During her five years as Austin’s superintendent, graduation rates and test scores rose.

Known in Texas for connecting with kids and at times dividing adults, Carstarphen (car-STAR-phen) plans to leave the big sky of Texas for the bigger skyline of Atlanta, where she’ll take over a public education system at a crossroads.

The Atlanta Board of Education is expected to vote Monday to hire her as superintendent, a role whose importance extends beyond the 50,000 students in 100 city schools. She’ll also be responsible for repairing Atlanta’s poor educational reputation nationally and attacking the roots of poverty that lead to embarrassing academic outcomes.

She’s taking over a school system where fewer than 6 in 10 high school students graduate in four years, test scores lag and parents’ faith was shattered by revelations that educators falsified standardized test scores at dozens of schools.

Despite the weight of those problems, Carstarphen arrives in Atlanta at an opportune time.

Voters elected a fresh slate of school board members last fall, putting six rookie representatives on the nine-member body. Led by a 28-year-old chairman, they have the chance to pick a schools chief who reflects their vision for public schools with plenty of room to make progress.

Carstarphen, who at 44 will be taking her third city superintendency, said she’s up for the challenge.

“This is a moment where the real needs of Atlanta’s public school children and the talents I’ve been blessed to develop intersect,” Carstarphen said during an interview in an Austin school district conference room. “Educators across the country have all been rooting for Atlanta for a long time. We hope there’s closure. We hope there’s healing. We hope there’s progress. We’re all hoping.”

Journey toward leadership

Carstarphen operates like a business executive, with her staff fluttering to anticipate her needs and her conversations sprinkled with talk about “systems,” “structures” and “outcomes.”

But when she meets students, a softer side emerges, such as when she high-fived children at her introductory press conference at Hope-Hill Elementary in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood.

She works long hours, and during an interview Tuesday she acknowledged feeling tired after traveling back and forth between Texas and Georgia over the past two weeks.

“She’s that combination of someone who’s really warm and doesn’t suffer fools gladly, which is a great quality for a superintendent in an urban district,” said Andres Alonso, a former classmate from Harvard University’s doctoral Urban Superintendents Program — known as a training ground for educators out to tackle the problems of teaching students in big-city settings.

Carstarphen’s office is in the heart of the college town of Austin, past tattoo parlors, burger joints and bars.

She generates strong emotions in the community, probably as much because of her actions as because of who she is — a woman comfortable in her role as a chief executive of thousands of employees.

“I can implement anything. I feel like I’ve had to do that,” she said during her introduction at Hope-Hill. “Be careful what you ask for, because it will be done.”

Carstarphen, who is black, grew up in Selma with an awareness of the South’s history of civil rights struggles.

As a freshman on the student council, she supported a successful effort to integrate the senior prom. After high school, she attended college at Tulane University before returning home to teach Spanish and documentary photography for four years at the same middle school where she had been educated years earlier.

Her photography of the Selma-to-Montgomery national historic trail, where more than 3,000 civil rights advocates marched in 1965 to demand voting rights for black Americans, was published in National Geographic magazine.

After earning her Harvard degree, Carstarphen worked as a school system administrator in Kingsport, Tenn., and Washington, D.C. She was then the superintendent in St. Paul, Minn., for three years before moving to Austin in 2009.

Austin controversies

When Carstarphen arrives in the heart of the South, she’ll depart a community that has mixed feelings about her leadership.

Her strongest opponents said she lost their confidence in 2011 when she urged hiring charter school management to run two schools, and when she was blamed for a task force’s recommendation to close several schools.

“Y’all battening down the hatches?” asked Andy Welch, a former spokesman for Austin schools who retired in 2011. “I found her to be very aloof and standoffish. She could be very cordial, but that wasn’t really her nature.”

Robin Rather, the daughter of former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather and the parent of an Austin student, said she feared Carstarphen would push for more charter schools in Atlanta at the expense of traditional schools.

“I’m well aware of the trauma you’ve already had (from the cheating scandal), and I want you to be able to heal from that, and I don’t see there’s a way in hell this is going to work,” said Rather, who withdrew her son from Austin public schools because she didn’t like the system’s direction under Carstarphen. “Maybe she’ll change. Maybe she learned her lessons. But I wouldn’t bet my kid’s future on it.”

In the eyes of Jason Sabo, the father of an eighth-grader and an opponent of the closure of Barton Hills Elementary, Carstarphen became defined by the controversies.

“I felt like she lurched from one crisis to the next,” said Sabo, who also praised Carstarphen for protecting pre-k education from budget cuts and helping students from poor backgrounds. “You can give her credit for uniting the city of Austin — both in support and opposition.”

After much debate, the charter school proposal was approved by one school board but later reversed when elections changed the makeup of the board. No school closures ever materialized.

Getting results

Carstarphen’s most strident supporters said she made a difference in the ways that mattered: improving academic results.

Graduation rates rose from 74.3 percent in 2008, the year before Carstarphen took the job, to 82.5 percent in 2012. By comparison, Atlanta’s graduation rate was about 59 percent in 2013.

On national tests, Austin students recorded small gains between 2009 and 2011 in reading and math, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress scores. Atlanta students made more significant progress during that time, but still trailed far behind their peers in Austin.

“She’s not afraid to propose solutions that to some may upset the establishment but are for the good of our children,” said Andy Anderson, an involved parent of two children in Austin schools.

The president of the Austin Council of PTAs, Monica Sanchez, praised Carstarphen for connecting with students, keeping them in school.

“In the world of adults, there’s always controversy and there’s always challenges, but I think she was very focused on keeping students No. 1 in her mind,” said Sanchez, who has a third-grader and fourth-grader in an Austin elementary school.

Business community members like Gene Austin, CEO of software company Bazaarvoice, said Carstarphen relied on metrics and data to solve problems and improve student achievement.

“She’s a passionate leader. She throws herself at challenges,” he said.

Atlanta bound

The newly elected Atlanta school board will expect Carstarphen to move quickly toward reducing inequities, providing services beyond the school day for at-risk children, reducing the number of dropouts, increasing early childhood education and improving academic results, said school board Chairman Courtney English.

“Our children can’t wait one or two or three years. We can fix this today,” English said. “We’re impatient with mediocrity and complacency.”

If she’s successful, a more educated population will help attract businesses and reduce poverty, said Ernest Greer, chairman of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce who served on the Atlanta Superintendent Search Committee.

“It’s extremely important for Atlanta and this region and the state because it will help ensure the continuation of our economic development.”