Less than a decade ago, Atlanta parents used their school system’s open enrollment policy to send their kids anywhere but Carver High School.
Officials nearly closed the school. Instead, after the nearby Carver Homes project was bulldozed, they split the campus into four smaller schools that focused on art, technology, science and college prep.
One of those schools, the Early College Academy, posted sharp gains.
“That is the highest performing school we have right now,” Superintendent Erroll Davis said of Early College at a recent public forum. “I don’t know that everybody knows that. We haven’t publicized it.”
The school isn’t tops on raw test scores. The average SAT score for 2010, the most recent available, was 1320 compared with 1482 at Grady High School and 1442 at North Atlanta High.
But all 79 students in the class of 2009 graduated and all but one in the class of 2010 received diplomas, according to the Georgia Department of Education. (The figures for 2011 have been delayed as a result of the investigation into the allegations of cheating on statewide elementary and middle school tests in 2009.)
In Saturday's newspaper, the AJC takes a deep look at the lessons of Carver Early College Academy's turnaround. It's a story you'll get only by picking up a copy of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution or logging on to the paper's iPad app. Subscribe today.
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