Q: APS is challenged with a tarnished image. What is your philosophy for dealing with this?

On Thursday, September 22, 2011 at Whiteford Elementary, Board of Education member Cecily Harsh-Kinnane hosted a district 3 community meeting featuring a question and answer session with superintendent Erroll Davis. 

Below is the second in a series of questions and answers addressed at that meeting.

APS is challenged with a tarnished image. What is your philosophy for dealing with this?

Mr. Davis: There were 178 educators implicated out of 3,000+ educators who do a wonderful job throughout this school system. We need to point out real achievement. As I said earlier, this school [Whitefoord] is a school that achieves. There are others in Atlanta Public Schools, and we need to point them out to parents and community members. Education seems to be the only industry in which failure is blamed on the workers instead of the leaders. I believe every failure is a leadership failure. We will make sure we put the appropriate leaders in place and define an ethical space in which they can work. My sense is that this district has been driven too much by initiatives instead of academic rigor. We cannot glorify the processes it takes to achieve our goals.