Atlanta chamber has hand in school board rift

Atlanta’s top corporate executives were fed up. The power struggles, the bickering, the internecine warfare that defined the Atlanta Board of Education had crossed a dangerous threshold.

The school board had become bad for business.

So the chamber of commerce launched a plan to choose new board members who could get along or, at the least, not let their disputes scare off economic development prospects. The plan’s motto: “You Get What You Vote For.”

That was 17 years ago. Now, with scandal shattering an extended period of peace and stability, Atlanta’s school board again seems to be on the verge of imploding — at least in part because of business leaders’ attempts to create the appearance of unity.

The nine-member board has split into two polarized factions as the school district responds to allegations of widespread cheating that boosted scores on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test. One side says the other wants to micromanage the district rather than set a course for the longtime superintendent, Beverly Hall. The other side — the board’s new five-member majority — says business leaders have exerted too much control over the district, particularly in regard to investigating the CRCT scandal.

The new majority staged a revolution of sorts last month, changing the board’s operating rules in order to overthrow its leaders. The minority group has described the action as “an illegal coup d’état” and says it does not “recognize” the board’s new leaders. It is a highly unusual situation, made all the more so by the fact that of the nine current board members, eight won election last year with the endorsement of EduPAC, a political committee affiliated with the Metro Atlanta Chamber.

“We thought we had a great slate of folks,” William “Sonny” Walker, EduPAC’s chairman, said in an interview last week. “We thought we had found the answer. But apparently we didn’t have the answer we thought we had.”

The school district has long boasted of a special relationship with Atlanta’s business elite. Corporate executives, saying a competent board and well-run schools spur economic development, volunteered time and expertise and received Hall into a leadership role in the community. Corporate foundations gave the district millions of dollars in grants.

But some board members have begun to chafe against an arrangement that gives corporate leaders influence without publicly holding them accountable. This underlying tension erupted this summer following news reports that revealed the chamber had guided the formation of a “blue ribbon commission” appointed to investigate cheating allegations.

“I was completely shocked and floored to find out about the decisions that had been made about the coming together of the blue ribbon commission before this board even had a chance to formulate a plan about how we wanted to move forward,” the school board’s new chairman, Khaatim Sherrer El, said recently.

Bill Linginfelter, the chamber’s chairman and Regions Bank’s top executive for Georgia and South Carolina, said business leaders get involved in the schools only when asked.

“Our interest is almost one-dimensional,” Linginfelter said. “If you do not have an educated work force, not only will you not be able to attract business, you won’t be able to keep the business that’s already in place.

“I’m sorry there’s an impression the business community is causing division on the Board of Education. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

The disharmony on the board comes at a crucial moment for the 48,000-student Atlanta school system, which has strived to portray itself as one of the most progressive urban districts in the nation.

The district faces two inquiries into the CRCT scandal — one by federal prosecutors, the other by special investigators appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue — that could bring criminal charges against school officials. One board member who has voted with the new majority received a public reprimand and a $2,500 fine last week from the district’s ethics panel. And the district may soon have to recruit a new superintendent if either Hall or the board decides against extending her contract. It expires next summer, but the board must divulge its intentions by the end of this year.

The board’s dysfunction and the public airing of members’ enmity toward one another run counter to its image as a smooth-operating corporate body that has generally allowed its chief executive, Hall, to conduct the district’s business as she saw fit.

Just last October, the Council of Urban Boards of Education named Atlanta its urban board of the year. The same month, longtime board member Emmett Johnson won the Council of the Great City Schools’ highest award for urban education leadership.

“I’ve been around watching and trying to help the Atlanta Public Schools because it has been a very, very good school board and system,” said James Bostic, a former EduPAC chairman who now sits on the state school board. “My view right now is that this board, with the last election, has become a dysfunctional board.”

Stamp of approval

Every four years since 1993, EduPAC has emerged from dormancy to put forth a slate of school board candidates. At first, said Walker, the committee’s chairman for the past decade, few other than business leaders got involved in vetting candidates. Over time, he said, the organization brought in more “stakeholders” — parents, clergy and civil rights activists, among others.

“EduPAC became a very broad-based entity,” said Walker, who owns a management consulting firm. “We tried to make it representative of all the elements in the community to give it legitimacy.”

Still, the Metro Chamber houses the committee in its downtown headquarters. The chamber’s president, Sam Williams, is the committee’s treasurer. And most of the money that pays for the group’s operations comes from familiar figures in Atlanta’s business community, such as the Georgia-Pacific Foundation; SunTrust; Equifax; and the foundation of Arthur Blank, the Home Depot founder and owner of the Atlanta Falcons.

“The chamber thought they needed to have a stake” in the school board’s performance, Walker said. “If they were going to have a stake in it, they needed to get involved in the elections.”

The committee sends questionnaires to everyone who has hinted at running for the school board, then interviews candidates before announcing its endorsements. In part, committee members base their decisions on a single-page list of “desired attributes.” Among them: “Do not undermine the authority of the superintendent or intrude into the spheres of responsibility that properly belong to the school administration.”

EduPAC’s candidates have been remarkably successful at the polls. In five general elections and two special elections since 1993, the committee endorsed 38 candidates; 34 won.

Last year, EduPAC spent $28,021 promoting its slate, mostly for fliers mailed to voters. For many voters, the EduPAC document may have been their sole source of information about campaigns that generate minimal news coverage.

But the fliers provided few meaningful facts about candidates. They described one as an “advocate for meaningful parent and community engagement.” Another was a “supporter of APS reform efforts.” One was an “advocate for quality instruction,” while another supported “strong school board governance.”

Nevertheless, only one candidate — Nancy Meister, who challenged incumbent Mark Riley to represent North Atlanta — won without EduPAC’s support. Meister now aligns herself with the new board majority.

The other four in that faction, Walker said, once seemed likely to promote EduPAC’s goal of a unified board.

Yolanda Johnson and Brenda Muhammad are board veterans. El appeared to be “very seasoned,” Walker said, “someone who would represent his people.”

And Courtney English won EduPAC’s endorsement even though he was running unopposed, Walker said.

“We were hoping for the best.”

A new majority

The new board had barely taken office when its first major challenge arose.

In February, state officials announced they had found statistically improbable numbers of erasures that boosted CRCT scores in more than two-thirds of Atlanta’s elementary and middle schools. The state ordered the district to investigate.

The board approved an independent investigation by what became known as its blue ribbon commission. Most board members, however, did not know until this summer that before they were asked to formally create the panel, most of its details had been worked out in secret meetings with chamber executives.

By August, when the commission reported its findings, fissures had formed in the school board’s once-solid foundation. News of the chamber’s involvement with the blue ribbon commission exacerbated the conflict. Five members decided to alter a board policy that required a two-thirds vote to replace its chair. A simple majority, they said, should suffice.

The school district’s lawyer said the proposed change would violate the board’s governing charter. She consulted an outside attorney who gave a similar opinion. In the state Capitol, however, the legislative counsel’s office declared that the policy change would not conflict with a 2003 law that revised the board’s charter.

On Sept. 13, by a 5-4 vote, the new majority approved the change and elected El to replace LaChandra Butler-Burks as chairman. The group also replaced Cecily Harsch-Kinnane, the vice chairwoman, with Yolanda Johnson.

The deposed faction asked Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker to issue an opinion on the legality of the policy change. That ruling is pending, but no matter what Baker says, both sides acknowledge that litigation over the issue is looming.

To El, the minority group’s refusal to accept the changes signified deep divisions about the school district’s direction.

“What they’re really saying,” El said last week, “is they do not want to support the board’s ability to move forward.”

Members in exile

Across the divide, board member Reuben McDaniel offers a different perspective.

The minority, to which he belongs, “wants to take a governance role” in the district’s affairs, he said. The other five, he said, “want to micromanage the school system.”

In an interview last week, Butler-Burks disputed the new majority’s claims that the chamber’s role in forming the blue ribbon commission justified the uprising.

“Everybody had input into the process,” she said. “If you didn’t agree at that particular time, why would you sign the resolution [creating the commission]?”

From their position in exile, members of the minority faction decided not to formally recognize the board’s new leadership. But they say they will continue to participate in meetings and will cast votes and perform other duties.

“We are not doing anything to get in the way,” Harsch-Kinnane said. “We are nine adults. We may have personal issues. But do not let our personal issues get in the way of the working of the system.”

The fourth member of the minority group, Emmett Johnson, said business leaders put no undue pressure on the school board. The board’s involvement with the chamber, he said, is not at all unusual.

“I don’t care what major city you’re in,” Johnson said, “you’ve got to deal with the chamber.”

The open divisions on the board trouble parents and other advocates of the district.

“I’ve been watching the board for years; I’ve seen votes go all sorts of ways,” parent Shawnna Hayes Tavares said. “But now, with this shift ... it’s like they’ve collected up all their toys and stomped into their bedroom and don’t want to play any more.”

A call for unification

Several members of Atlanta’s legislative delegation recently asked the attorney general’s office for a quick resolution.

“The longer there is uncertainty as to the leadership of the board, the more precarious that leadership becomes,” state Rep. Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, said in an interview last week. “They’re all good, capable people. I know there is pride involved, some hurt feelings among some.”

As for EduPAC, “we really are taken aback,” Walker said.