Before March 7, some teachers and parents worried the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) system was caught between a rock and hard place with education reform plans.
But on that date the rock struck first and APS Superintendent Meria Carstarphen’s “Turnaround” plan was approved by the city’s board of education.
That means some “chronically low-performing” public schools — crippled by budget cuts — will close down to consolidate with other schools, a few will relocate during renovations and a handful will be turned over to charter school interests.
The hard place that still looms over APS is the Opportunity School District (OSD) plan, developed by Erin Hames, a former Gov. Nathan Deal advisor-turned-APS consultant, to give the state control of failing schools, including two dozen in Atlanta. That proposal goes before Georgia voters in a November referendum.
Executive Director of Georgia School Superintendent’s Association John Zauner said he thinks APS introduced the turnaround plan as a defense mechanism to save the schools in case the state takeover model gets approved for a 2017 start.
“APS is concerned about [state takeover], so they’re taking an aggressive approach,” he said. “The reins could be turned over to [educational management organizations], which can be dangerous when you give up control.”
Protesters have been clamoring since the plans were introduced, claiming neither takeover plan offers sufficient access or transparency to parents wary of their kids’ schooling.
The turnaround plan would yield control of five failing APS schools to two charter school managers, Kindezi and Purpose Built Schools, according to APS.
But Carstarphen assures concerned parents that these charter operators won’t be converting any of the system into charter schools.
“Private entities Kendezi and Purpose Built are affiliated with charters; they’re not running charter schools,” she said at a Feb. 1 APS board meeting. “They’ve done a great job for the Atlanta community for some time.”
According to Tim Sass, an economics professor at Georgia State’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, if those companies are able to replicate the success of Purpose Built’s Drew Charter School in Atlanta’s East Lake neighborhood, they could contribute to the revival of a downed school system.
“If Purpose Built Schools can replicate the success they have had at Drew, then one would expect an increase in graduation rates and decline in negative outcomes like crime,” he said.
The school system has also partnered with the Rensselaerville Institute for Professional Learning Services to recruit new principals and teachers, which has some worried about the teachers that will have to reapply for their jobs during the turnaround reform.
Sass said Kindezi and Purpose Built will have “significant discretion over hiring of teachers and staff as well as various aspects of how the school operates.”
“It is not clear at this point whether the schools will be essentially de-facto charters or more like traditional public schools,” he said.
And atop questions of the volatility of the turnaround plan, those in objection claim the proposal was dropped on them without adequate time to fight it.
President of the National Education Association Patrick Crabtree said APS sprung the proposal on them just weeks before the plan went to — and was approved by — an Atlanta school board vote.
“[Carstarphen], you said you value transparency, yet you dumped this so-called transformation [plan] just recently,” he said at the Feb. 1 board meeting. “Not enough time for us to get together as a community to come up with a better plan. Where’s the transparency in that?”
Sass said the turnaround largely impacts the impoverished areas in Atlanta, those which tend to house those “suffering” schools.
“Given the turnaround effort is directed mainly toward schools serving a high proportion of students from low-income families, graduates from these schools may have fewer financial resources and might be more likely to select cheaper alternatives, such as a two-year college,” he said.
Still, recent research by Sass and a team of academics suggests that charter schools can yield professionally and financially beneficial results to their graduates. That research mostly — converse to the APS dilemma at hand — studied students who were afforded monetary stability during their upbringing.
“Charter high school attendees were more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to attend college, more likely to persist at least two years in college and had higher earnings in their mid-20s,” he said. “The turnaround schools in APS will be different in that they will be operated by companies who have run successful charters, but will remain traditional public schools.”
Atlanta Public Schools officials were unable to respond to The Signal’s inquiries because they were on spring break.
Najwa Hossain contributed reporting for this article.
