The saddest theme of the report dissecting the cheating rackets that enveloped Atlanta Public Schools was that so many educators did not believe their pupils were capable of meeting even minimal academic standards.
That revelation defines the biggest problem that APS and metro Atlanta must resolve.
First, we need educators who believe in their kids and don’t plot cynical workarounds to cover perceived, or real, student shortcomings. APS can nurture these teacher-zealots only if it enacts a new culture that both supports teachers and holds them accountable for making learning happen. Interim Superintendent Erroll B. Davis Jr. seems off to a good start in re-engaging and re-energizing teachers.
Next should come broad acceptance that now-discredited former Superintendent Beverly Hall was right about one thing. Poor children can learn. They must learn. If they don’t, we all suffer, no matter where we live. It is far cheaper to school a child well than to imprison an adult. It’s that simple.
Bringing real, beyond-any-doubt academic progress to many of the 49,800-plus students in APS will test the district’s new leaders far more thoroughly than any standardized test ever will. And it will take the concerted involvement of all sectors of this community to help ensure that APS and its students make the grade.
That entails reaching fragile kids before we can teach them. Doing so demands new approaches that extend far beyond blindly ratcheting up the bar each year for this or that test. Overemphasizing testing ineffectually attacks a symptom and not the causes of poor performance.
For sure, tests are important in assessing where children are along the learning curve. But they’re not the be-all, end-all. We must deeply and honestly look at why at-risk children too often don’t learn. To do otherwise ignores hard realities and wastes scarce resources.
That’s where enlightened self-interest comes in. Assuming at least average ability, it’s a commonsense thesis that children will learn when they set their minds to do so. Despite compulsory school attendance laws, learning is the ultimate self-help process.
That may sound like a “duh” concept in school districts where parents routinely encourage learning and homes are full of books that are read to children from birth. That’s not the reality for many APS students, not when 78 percent of students were poor enough to qualify for free or cut-rate school meals in 2009-2010.
Children’s horizons are heavily influenced by their surroundings, we all know that. Effective learning can’t occur until we find new ways to better counteract harsh outside-of-school realities facing thousands of students.
Gideons Elementary School is an instructive example. Despite the electronic sign at its entrance that ironically flashed “Character Word, Truthfulness” last week, Gideons was an epicenter of CRCT cheating. A dozen of its educators confessed in what was called a “coordinated, schoolwide cheating scheme.”
The Gideons campus sits amidst streets where many homes are boarded-up, collapsing or burned-out. One bungalow’s back deck is tightly hemmed-in by fencing topped with barbed wire. Graffiti covers neglected walls and “cash for junk cars” signs dot power poles. Even newer houses sit vacant, windows and doors protected by metal covers.
Yet, hope can spring from any neighborhood. Students must provide the grit, hard work and tenacity. And any productive citizen can help frame the vision that makes clear why kids should steer away from dead-end journeys to poverty and despair. Knowledge mastery is key to achieving life goals, whether students aspire to be pediatricians or plumbers. We must provide the examples kids can emulate.
Etienne R. LeGrand, co-founder of the W.E.B. Du Bois Society, which works to improve academic achievement, said, “Students need to be expected to excel and they need to be given the tools to do that.”
Many business and community groups have long supported schools in poor areas, giving generously of time and resources. They should continue and, better yet, increase their involvement.
Yet the hardest work will come in examining critically and broadly just what our schools do now, and how well they do it. That should reveal what needs to change to enhance learning. APS should, like a business, focus on how best to meet the needs of its end-users — students.
If unsavory influences loom just outside school walls, it makes sense to find ways to routinely keep students on campus for more hours each day. That can insulate them from the false lure of the streets, ensure that they receive nutritious meals and finish homework. This extended-day model is being used by charter schools such as those run by KIPP.
If students’ families don’t, can’t or won’t nurture their young minds, then it’s up to schools and communities to step up. KIPP schools can offer a structured environment of longer school days because they use public and private money.
Creating similar initiatives in districts such as APS requires creating a culture that fosters both radical innovation and a desire for results. It will also take more help from those who can contribute time, treasure or talent.
The end result will prove cheaper than processing at-risk children through ineffective schools and out into mean adulthoods of poverty or incarceration. Society pays the bill either way.
In fiscal 2010, per-pupil general fund spending at APS was about $12,000. The Georgia Department of Corrections that year spent about $16,790 per inmate.
We can pay now for the best results, or pay later. The choice is ours.
At-risk children desperately need us to be their champions and supporters. We can’t afford to fail them.
Andre Jackson, for the Editorial Board
Atlanta Forward: We look at major issues Atlanta must address in order to move forward as the economy recovers.
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