Last week's editorial ("Education's Sweet Dream") inspired me to write. Over the last five years, I have worked closely with Superintendent Beverly Hall of the Atlanta School System in support of her efforts to improve student achievement at Atlanta Public Schools (APS). I was so inspired by the efforts of Dr. Hall that I ran and was elected to the board of City Schools of Decatur, a nearby, much smaller, school system. I am also the Executive Director of the Atlanta Committee for Progress (ACP), an organization of Atlanta CEO's put together by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin to support the City's economic development efforts. A key focus of the ACP is to continue to improve academic performance in APS.
A recent study produced at the request of the Atlanta Committee for Progress reports on the significant progress APS has made the last five years. Some of APS's elementary schools have actually eclipsed the performance of its charter schools.
APS still has significant progress to make, but it's on the right trajectory and has the potential to be one of the first - if not the first - fully reformed urban education systems. Dr. King would be proud.
I am optimistic you will find APS a model of urban education achievement in the not too distant future. Its current practices are a national model, as the report documents. [Read the report, here.]
John Ahmann
Executive Director
Atlanta Committee for Progress