These seven people and issues will change and shape education in Georgia and metro Atlanta in 2016. They range from looming state political fights to the actions local leaders are taking. Here, in no particular order, are events and leaders that will shape how much money schools will get, who could run them, and how children will be educated.
1. Who’s in control?
There will be a vote Nov. 7 on Gov. Nathan Deal's proposal to let the state take over chronically failing schools. Or, as he puts it, to "temporarily assist" them and "rescue children languishing in them." This will take a revision of the state constitution, so the public must vote before it can happen.
Deal wants to make failing schools better by creating a statewide district. The district could run the schools, run them in collaboration with the local district, convert them into charter schools or shut them down.
Deal has targeted education reform as a key item for this year's legislative session, and this looming political fight is already attracting money from out of state. Reformers including free-market school idealists are on one side, and many established interests such as teachers and school boards and idealists for local control are falling on opposite sides of this proposal.
2. Will the Georgia Milestones tests count toward all Georgia student evaluations in 2016-17?
The Milestones are a series of tests that measure student progress and learning, but the first iteration did not count because it was the dry run, and the second in 2015-16 was marred by significant technical failures. (It was administered mostly online in many places). The failures were significant enough that it was left up to some school districts to determine whether or not to use the results in passing students in a limited number of grades.
Will this year be the magic year when the bugs get ironed out?
3. Whither DeKalb County?
Superintendent Steve Green begins to implement his vision for the formerly troubled DeKalb County Schools. Green was chosen out of Kansas City in 2015 and came a year ago to set a new course, after current DeKalb CEO candidate Michael Thurmond stabilized a system that had been troubled by mismanagement and board malfunction.
After a year of learning the system, bringing in some new talent and some research, Green said he is putting into place a group of educators to overhaul curriculum and create more hyperlocal control by giving regional superintendents more authority to decentralize functions and get work done faster.
If all goes well, Green hopes to eliminate 28 schools from Deal’s list of failing schools, partly through better community engagement and streamlining organizational structure. He also has a challenge to eliminate overcrowding in the Cross Keys cluster of schools and to continue improving the graduation rate. He says he is committed to using a “laser focus” to improve learning and test results.
4. Atlanta’s grand experiment
Atlanta Public Schools superintendent Meria Carstarphen proposed dramatic changes in an effort to improve some of the city's worst schools this year. It's an effort to force rapid improvement in schools, and is being done in part to avoid Gov. Deal's proposed state takeover.
“We’ve been moving really fast on behalf of children who really need us to get this right,” Carstarphen said initially.
If it works, farming out schools as a way of management could be notable for public education. It’s something of a gamble for Carstarphen, who was recruited to Atlanta to bring change to a school system with troubles that have bogged down many urban systems, including the typical problems that plague poor students and a past teacher and administrator cheating scandal.
5. The new president and education
President Barack Obama put in place an active federal Department of Education, led first by Arne Duncan and then by John King.
At a convention of education journalists in Boston in April, Ted Mitchell, the undersecretary for education, joked that he was counting down the number of days left in the Obama administration, but he wasn’t going to sit on his hands and do nothing while waiting for the end to come.
The next month, the Obama administration sent letters to schools directing them to let transgender students use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. That has sparked a public outcry and lawsuits by states contesting the directions.
The federal course could change with a new president. But the direction won’t be known until after January when the new president begins appointing bureaucrats.
6. Fulton starts year with new superintendent
When the highly regarded Robert Avossa left Fulton schools last school year for south Florida, the school board settled on Jeff Rose as its new superintendent.
The former Beaverton, Ore., educator has a reputation for boosting that district’s achievement levels, particularly among low-income students. He is considered an energetic, innovative leader and came touted by both Avossa and Gwinnett’s Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks.
Rose arrived in June and has been getting settled into Fulton's school district, which is more than twice the size of Beaverton's. There have been no big changes so far, but Rose told the AJC in a video interview that he wants to hear from the community what it wants to be known for and that he has concerns about how student assessments are carried out.
7. Money, winners and losers
Gov. Nathan Deal wants to reform Georgia’s education system, including how the state doles out taxpayers’ money to local school districts. Education is a massive slice of the state budget, and the funding formula dates from the 1980s. But whenever leaders begin reassigning money, people get nervous and often fight against change.
Deal appointed a large panel of state and local expert and politicians to recommend changes in 2015, but their recommendations were put on the back burner during the General Assembly’s 2016 session.
The governor told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he doesn’t plan to scale back his education agenda in 2017 even as he braces for the fallout over his vetoes of two measures that passed the Legislature this year, a campus gun-carry law and a “religious liberty” law. Deal also wants to change how teachers are paid, charter school policy, early childhood learning and school “flexibility.”
His plan to “revolutionize” how Georgia schools are funded could be his biggest ask yet. Other governors have tried and failed.
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