In a surprise announcement, the Atlanta School Board decided not to renew the contract of it controversial Superintendent Méria Carstarphen.
She supports the transformation of the city’s schools into a portfolio district with many charters. It appeared that she had a supportive board because of leadership drawn from TFA.
She served previously in Austin but lost the board majority when voters turned against charter expansion. She has served in Atlanta since 2014.
The Atlanta school board will not renew the contract of Superintendent Meria Carstarphen.
School board Chairman Jason Esteves said the board notified Carstarphen in July that there was not support for a renewal, but waited until now to announce it publicly so as not to disrupt the start of school.
The board did not release the vote count.
We will learn more later about this unexpected decision.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It appears people are still hung up on testing metrics as a way to determine school success. You would think that Atlanta would have learned its lesson. I don’t know much about Carstaphen, but I would feel sorry for her if her solution wasn’t to “charterize” the district. I am surprised that Lewis is willing to ignore or is unaware of the research that points to poverty as a leading cause of poor academic performance. Community schools would be a step in the right direction, but society as a whole has to take responsibility for improving the economic as well as the social emotional health of marginalized communities.
I do not feel sorry at all for her because Atlanta Public Schools has gone down since she was hired. What goes around comes around. Its called bad karma.
I want to know why U.S. Rep. John Lewis, and former mayors Shirley Franklin and Andrew Young supported her. Why are they not hearing what people like you, who sound like you have first hand, on the ground knowledge, have to say? The article was just reporting in as neutral terms as possible.
My guess: they share the belief that a great leader will arrive like deus ex machina and “fix” the problems.
John Lewis and Shirley Franklin obviously do not know the whole story and frankly, I do not believe they even care. There were countless teachers who suffered under this so-called new education that would supposedly save the lives of our black youth. Lives were torn apart. Personally, I reached out to Carstarphen to help stop the suffering I was under at one of her schools. Her only response was basically to kiss the ass of the principal or suffer even more. I suffered even worst and paid a price of not being offered a contract. I too wanted to stay for my students and finish the job I was doing because my students were making tremendouly progress when I was teaching them. This was known by everyone in the school building and the county office. I was never recognized for anything I ever did for my students the entire time I have been teaching. The special needs students of Atlanta Public Schools deserve better. I just hope and pray that all Charter schools and any other labeled school that chooses to exclude students are 100% abolished forever.
Thank you. Your response along with Ed Johnson’s letter clearly lay out why she had to go. As a fellow, former special ed teacher, I know the pain you feel at being separated from your students. I still feel it after nine years.
Andrew Young should know better since he cannot possibly have missed any wrong doing in Atlanta Public Schools.