New schools ‘turnaround’ official will face tricky balancing act
Georgia is on the verge of naming an official who will be tasked with one of the most delicate diplomatic, bureaucratic, political and educational balancing acts in state government.
As reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the state Education Turnaround Advisory Council, which has been meeting since early summer, has whittled down a pool of almost 60 applicants to three finalists, scheduled to be interviewed at the Georgia Department of Education (glaring political irony there, but more on that in a moment) this morning. The one selected as Chief Turnaround Officer will oversee the implementation of a state law passed in the most recent legislative session — the “First Priority Act” — for the improvement of struggling public schools. This official will target schools in need of intervention, recommend plans for improvement and, if the schools don’t ramp up their academic performance, recommend that those schools be run privately or as charters.
The balancing act is twofold. For starters, the “First Priority Act” was a political and statutory end-around after the first effort at state takeover of underperforming schools, Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposed Opportunity School District constitutional amendment, got a decisive thumbs-down at the polls. The idea of a state official, appointed by and answerable only to the governor, having the authority to take over schools and even authorize for-profit private entities to run them didn’t wash with the voters, much less virtually every education organization in the state.
That’s the most public part of the new chief’s PR job. The other part will be both at the state and local school levels, where, as the AJC delicately put it, “There’s opportunity for ill will.”
No kidding. Locally, school districts designated by the turnaround officer will have to up their performance or possibly cede control of struggling schools, either through conversion to charters or by private operation. However, one of the provisions in the new law that won the support of many of the educational groups opposing the failed amendment is that any private entity contracted to run a public school must be a nonprofit.
At the state level (this is the aforementioned irony), the turnaround chief will need the cooperation of the state superintendent and the Department of Education to implement his or her decisions about intervention. But in a telling political power play, the legislature, at Deal’s urging, put the Chief Turnaround Officer under the authority of the state Board of Education — whose members, unlike the elected superintendent, are appointed by the governor.
One detail of which the new official should take note: Superintendent Richard Woods, who, not surprisingly, argued with the governor that a high-ranking and otherwise all but autonomous state education official should be answerable to the Department of Education, will be running for reelection in 2018. His major-party opponent will be Sid Chapman, president of the Georgia Association of Educators. The two will no doubt disagree on many issues. This is not one of them.
This story was originally published October 16, 2017 at 5:47 PM with the headline "New schools ‘turnaround’ official will face tricky balancing act."