Who should be the next Atlanta Public Schools superintendent?
The school board is wrestling with that very question, and their answer will be one of the biggest decisions they make.
In September, the board announced it would not extend Superintendent Meria Carstarphen's contract when it expires June 30. Board members want a new leader in place by July 1.
The next superintendent will chart the course for the district's 52,000 students, oversee thousands of employees and a general fund budget of roughly $860 million. That person will also be expected to improve Atlanta's low-performing schools.
To help figure out what kind of leader can fulfill that tall order, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sent a five-question survey to 15 key stakeholders, including representatives of parent and teacher groups.
Here are some of their responses, some of which have been edited for length and clarity.
Ricardo Miguel Martinez
President and board member, Latino Association for Parents of Public Schools
What past job experience is most important?
“Having worked with a richly diverse school district that closely reflects the numbers Atlanta is about to take on after the CENSUS 2020 count — taking into consideration that Atlanta is one of the top three fastest Latino growing metropolitan areas in the country - because we need to be prepared not just for today but tomorrow and far beyond that… Being able to accept measurements and deliver against those measurements by rewarding the passing schools and also rewarding the schools with incremental gains while holding the perennially failing schools accountable and being able to gather ALL stakeholders and as a community fixing our problems and gaps that currently exist.”
What should the next superintendent’s first priority be?
“Acknowledging that the previous/current staff did an amazing job to bring us from where we were 5 years ago and they should also be rewarded for improving the STATE of THE DISTRICT, rewarding them, and learning from them by working together to set the strategy through measurements and accountability and improving student/educator morale and quality of life. Engage parents and community to fix ourselves together.”
After three years as superintendent, what would success look like?
“Closing achievement gaps, students surpassing measurements, schools improving and surpassing measurements, intervening in continuously failing schools. Graduating worldly, happy citizens prepared for the demands of the current workforce.”
Describe the role of the superintendent in working with business and community groups and other government offices.
“CEO of community and stakeholder relations - LEADING BY ENGAGING”
What experiences or attributes should disqualify a candidate?
“Stale, slow growth or declines, set in their own ways, NOT INNOVATIVE, slash and burn approach, kicking the can down the field, measurable, accountable.
Kinnari Patel-Smyth
Executive Director, KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools
What past job experience is most important?
“A track record of closing achievement gaps in schools that face the similar challenges of ours in Atlanta. That track record should also be systematic and not solely dependent on recruiting an all-star principal. While the principal is an important part of the work, the challenges faced by our schools that are the most under-performing need to be carefully analyzed and specific interventions need to be put into place and monitored regularly to ensure that they are having the intended effect.”
What should the next superintendent’s first priority be?
“Developing a clear and transparent system to identify and address the most significant gaps in our most challenged schools in the district. Aside from the annual CCRPI score, the superintendent should have a specific plan to support those schools with resources, monitoring, guidance and evaluation of interventions to rapidly transform those schools. This process should be transparent to students, faculty, families and community members so that the broader communities can rally behind these initiatives and be supportive of the work.”
After three years as superintendent, what would success look like?
“Success would be a narrowing of the achievement gaps between black and white students in the district and between those students who are growing up in poverty and those who are not. This can be measured through test scores but also graduation rates and college matriculation rates.”
Describe the role of the superintendent in working with business and community groups and other government.
“The superintendent needs to be the primary advocate and spokesperson for Atlanta’s children. He or she needs to be able to transparently identify and name the many challenges that our students face outside of the classroom that directly impact their abilities to learn and she needs to champion their cause with community groups and government officials who can provide resources, support and partnership to mitigate those challenges.”
What experiences or attributes should disqualify a candidate?
“Atlanta Public Schools needs a leader who will be inclusive, innovative and collaborative. The leader needs to see APS as a district that has grown and improved significantly over the past decade and is excited to build systems that will address the challenges that have not been solved through the past two administrations. The leader must see the broad range of schools in Atlanta: traditional, charter and partner schools as an inclusive ecosystem that are all working on behalf of the students in Atlanta, and this new leader has to have a strong desire to promote continued collaboration with all of these entities.”
Byron Amos
Member of Superintendent’s Community Equity Advisory Committee, former Atlanta Board of Education member representing District 2
What past job experience is most important?
“As we seek to educate the whole child here is APS, the next Superintendent must possess a track record to support it. The next superintendent must be a parent of a traditional public school student. He must have experience of a teacher, principal or school leader and the experience of being a lead administrator in a traditional school system that demographically resembles APS.”
What should the next superintendent’s first priority be?
“The first priority of the new superintendent must be to complete or implement a plan to achieve equity in APS.”
After three years as superintendent, what would success look like?
“After three years, the word ‘choice’ should be more about what mascot you want your child to represent and less about the quality of education your child will receive. Having a strong plan to achieve equity and the will to fund it.”
Describe the role of the superintendent in working with business and community groups and other government.
“The next Superintendent must be able to hold these individual groups accountable for their participation in education. We all have a role to play. The Superintendent must by able to create a plan and to share and the other partners just how important their piece of the plan is.”
What experiences or attributes should disqualify a candidate?
“Not having the experience of three of these titles: parent, teacher, school administrator or system administrator. We should not hire a superintendent that only has business experiences with no real education experience.”
Richard Quartarone
President, Atlanta Council of PTAs
What past job experience is most important?
“APS has a tendency to gravitate toward ‘superstar superintendents.’ Unfortunately, that can lead us to wrap the identity of the school system around the brand and personality of an individual, which causes us to lose focus on children. We need someone who has shown that they work from the bottom up — starting at the student, classroom, school, and community levels — to build a system of people who are 100% focused on children, not tweets or data points.
Test-driven approaches to education are harming our children. Unfortunately, in many APS schools, we seem to test more than teach. We need someone who has a proven track record of using the science of education and child development to guide the pedagogy of the system, and sees test scores as only ONE measure of success, not the ultimate goal. We have educational models, such as International Baccalaureate and STEM/STEAM in every school, but we are not effectively using those models to engage and empower children in learning. We are falling back on old habits that put testing over teaching.
Ultimately, we need a leader who understands and thrives in a city school system. Cities are diverse demographically and socio-economically, and that diversity is the strength of a city school system. Community and sense of place matters in cities, and schools should be consciously and deliberately integrated into the community fabric.”
What should the next superintendent’s first priority be?
“Children. Not tests. Not buildings. Not PR. Equitably serving all children. Despite the perception of improvement, we have continued to entrench two fundamentally different school systems in a way that perpetuates disparities and divisiveness in our city.”
After three years as superintendent, what would success look like?
“Being able to walk into any classroom in APS, and find an environment where teachers are empowered, and children are met where they are. Where children are treated like children, rather than testing machines.”
Describe the role of the superintendent in working with business and community groups and other government.
“While partnerships are critical to the long term success of APS, they are often transactional: A partner pays to give a school a program, and the schools will raise test scores.
Education does not work that way. Partnerships should be long term relationships with the communities that lift up the families currently in a community, but can be dynamic enough to continue to support families as the community changes. We talk about ‘wrap around services’ in APS, and while those services help children, partnerships should focus on improving the conditions in the community. With the superintendent as an advocate for children, partnerships can grow to focus on the issues in the community that prevent children from coming to school ready to learn.”
What experiences or attributes should disqualify a candidate?
“Just like sprinters and marathon runners are different, ‘turnaround’ school leaders and ‘transformational’ school leaders are different. APS has turned the corner, so we don’t need another ‘turnaround’ leader. We have all the pieces we need to build an amazing child-centered, community driven, globally focused school system. It is time to find the kind of leader who is ready to get dirty and help us build it.”
Kimberly Dukes
Parent and leader of Atlanta Thrive
What past job experience is most important?
“As a parent who has been paying close attention, I want to see solid experience and success in taking a district with failing schools and moving those schools into better positions. I would also be open to someone who lacked traditional experience, but has smart and bold approaches based on good data and research about what works for our students.”
What should the next superintendent’s first priority be?
“Their first priority should be to come and meet the parents because we’re the ones who purely have the interest of kids at heart. I think in talking to parents he or she might realize that we’re ready for faster, bolder change than a lot of other stakeholders might be pushing for.”
After three years as superintendent, what would success look like?
“If the superintendent comes in with a real plan to turn schools around, it shouldn’t look like Thomasville for example where progress hasn’t been made after over a decade of being a failing school. In three years we want a really clear picture of what’s working, we want the superintendent to be transparent, and we them to have significant progress.”
Describe the role of the superintendent in working with business and community groups and other government.
“Any relationships should be directed toward what’s best for kids. Whatever partner or business member does want to partner with us, the superintendent should be willing to stand up for families and make sure it aligns to what’s best for families and children.”
What experiences or attributes should disqualify a candidate?
“Anyone with no record of success in growing schools or turning around failing schools, isn’t the right candidate for the work that needs to be done here. Someone who has a history of being more in touch with adult special interests more than parents and kids wouldn’t be a good fit.”
Verdaillia Turner
President, Atlanta Federation of Teachers
What past job experience is most important?
“A comprehensive understanding and appreciation for various occupations essential to educating urban children should be required of the next Atlanta superintendent. The superintendent should be one who has spent at least 10 years as an urban classroom teacher and a few years as an urban school principal.”
What should the next superintendent’s first priority be?
“The superintendent’s first priority should be to review the APS budget in order to cut any and all programs, contracts, services, non essential personnel, including charter company contracts, which are non essential to effective evidence based educational solutions and practices that are working in world-class educational systems.”
After three years as superintendent, what would success look like?
“After three years as superintendent, success would look like the realization of pure community schools with plans to convert and or fit all communities for such, after school hubs that cater to adult continuous education enrichment programs and the realization of technical and vocational trade schools in each area of town.”
Describe the role of the superintendent in working with business and community groups and other government?
“The role of the superintendent is not to P.R. him or herself but to truthfully learn the real needs of businesses and communities over their values; to provide solid, non rhetorical educational advice as to meeting those needs now and futuristically.”
What experiences or attributes should disqualify a candidate?
“Any candidate that has not been vetted by the teacher organizations (the representatives of the folk who deliver but are stymied in speaking truth) and cannot be comprehensively questioned by a known and published list of stakeholders, should be disqualified. Any candidate with a penchant to carry out the chartering agenda is not a truthful educator, but is tantamount to a doctor who pushes more and more prescription drugs without understanding the effects of those drugs on their patients. That candidate MUST be disqualified.”
About Atlanta Public Schools
Number of students: 52,000
Number of schools: 87
Student demographics: 74.6% black, 14.5% white, 7.2% Hispanic, 2.3% multiracial, 1.2% Asian/Pacific Islander, 0.1% American Indian/Alaskan native
Economically disadvantaged students: 77.2%
General fund budget: About $860 million
Employees: More than 6,000
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