16 Education
Introduction
The Atlanta Public Schools is responsible for the delivery of public education to the City. Its mission is to ensure the life long achievement of every child through effective and innovative teaching that meets the needs of the individual learner; aims at daily success; engages families, teachers, students and community in full participation; and capitalizes on Atlanta's global presence.
The Atlanta Public Schools system is in the fourth year of a five-year comprehensive school reform program. The program is broad in its reach and targeted in its goals. Innovative approaches to improving academic performance, increasing enrollment in advanced studies and decreasing absenteeism have achieved results that outpace the rest of the state. Other programs award scholarships, prevent dropouts, and apply innovative teaching strategies.
A key component to the Atlanta Public Schools whole-school reform movement is the implementation of Project GRAD. Project GRAD is a school-community collaborative to improve the instructional quality and culture of at-risk feeder patterns in school systems. The goal of the program is to find and implement the most cost-effective, research-based prescription for addressing the educational needs of an inner-city school system. Project GRAD seeks to prove that the problems facing inner-city school systems can be overcome with the right resources, strategies, and school-community collaboration.
Project GRAD is being implemented in the Washington High School feeder cluster, which has 12 schools: Washington High; Sylvan and Kennedy Middle Schools and Arkwright, Bethune, Connally, Herndon, Oglethorpe, Jones, Perkerson, Ragsdale and Venetian Hills Elementary Schools. The cluster consists of 6,900 students and 800 staff members (500 instructional and 300 non-instructional)
This year the program will be implemented in the cluster of schools that feed into both Carver and South Atlanta High Schools. The 17-school clusters include Long, Parks and Price Middle Schools and Capitol View, Cleveland Avenue, Dobbs, Gideons, Heritage Academy, Humphries, Hutchinson, Lakewood, Slater, D.H. Stanton, Thomasville and Waters Elementary Schools.
New American Schools is part of an ambitious effort for APS to implement research-based school reform aimed at improving student performance and encouraging higher levels of achievement for students on all grade levels. New American Schools (NAS) is a proven leader in the school reform movement.
Avoiding the one-size-fits-all concept, which has hampered the usage of other reform programs, NAS features flexible research-based school designs to address local school needs. These programs include America’s Choice, Co-Nect, Core Knowledge, Direct Instruction, High Schools the Work, International Baccalaureate, Making Middle Grades Matter, Modern Red School House, Roots and Wings/Success For All, and Urban learning Centers.
Under the leadership of Superintendent Dr. Beverly Hall, APS has reorganized key personnel and aligned its spending to support strong instructional programs for schools throughout the system. The district has a Deputy Superintendent for Instruction, an Executive Director of Teaching and Learning and five executive directors to each lead a School Reform Teams (SRT’s). The SRT’s consist of elementary and middle schools in close geographic proximity and are supported by staff from various divisions and offices within APS. The organizational restructuring aligns all available instructional resources, providing a cohesive and comprehensive support system for schools.
For additional information about the Atlanta Public Schools and the district’s reform agenda, please check the APS website at www.atlanta.k12.ga.us.