Imagine you are responsible for managing an employee. One day, you tell that employee their time in the company is coming to an end and you would like to organize a thoughtful transition which will involve searching for a replacement. You communicate that there are a variety of reasons for the choice, but one key reason is the toxicity of the employee’s working relationship with half of your co-managers. The employee responds by saying this isn’t a good time to announce such a move publicly because of an upcoming product launch. She asks that you not make any public announcements for one-to-two months. You understand the request and agree to abide by it. You and your co-managers keep the conversation in the room to be revived after the launch. Once out of the room, the employee starts frantically sending emails. She contacts the local newspaper and requests an interview. She contacts the local NPR station to request an interview. She contacts the business press. The employee goes on all of these interviews and talks about how successful she has been in the company. She says that you and your co-managers may come and go, but as long as *she* sticks around the company will flourish. She corrals every aunt, uncle, and cousin with a pulse and a recognizable name to praise her and pressure you to keep her in the company. You are at a loss. By holding off an announcement, you were trying to do what was in the company’s best interest. Rather than keeping her future in the company out of the press for a month, which she said was the goal, this employee has made it the number-one topic of conversation. All driven from her perspective. You decide to move forward with your original decision to transition this employee out of the company. You make the announcement.
That is more or less what I took away from the Atlanta Board of Education’s (ABOE's) statement announcing Dr. Meria Carstarphen would not receive a contract extension and the Jason Esteves / Eshe Collins interview with WABE’s Rose Scott that followed.
A few weeks ago, when I learned there was a real possibility that the ABOE would not renew Carstarphen's contract, I felt concerned for the uncertainty it would introduce into the system. I still have those concerns, but I also understand the board’s decision, and I hope that time will reveal it to be the right one.
Carstarphen deserves credit for her dedication to the work of leading APS. Even her most ardent critics would have to concede that the superintendent puts an incredible amount of energy into her work. She also deserves credit for taking chances. There are few easy decisions in school-district leadership, and Carstarphen has tackled some of the toughest. She closed schools to correct under-enrollment problems the district has persistently battled since Alonzo Crim was superintendent in the 1970s and 1980s. That's the kind of decision that really upsets some people and excites virtually no one. She's moved the district toward school-level budgets. She brought in partners to manage seven of the district's worst-performing schools. Most of those partnerships seem to have increased achievement.
But along the way Carstarphen has proven to sometimes be about the business of promoting Meria J. Carstarphen. Carstarphen is a master at orchestrating photo-ops, but principals have described her visits as similar to a tornado arriving and leaving. She uses her blog and press team to craft a narrative of dramatic successes, even when the reality is not so newsworthy. When rigorous work is done but results are less favorable, they get swept under the rug. A first-year Mathematica evaluation of the turnaroud was posted quietly to the APS website. Early evaluations suggesting the Target 2021 initiative didn't work were scrapped from board presentations.
Some of the narrative-building and ego-affirmation would be easier to overlook if not for what occurs when Carstarphen's ego gets wounded. The result is not pretty. In a number of cases, the resulting rage has led to irreparable damage in professional relationships. I need multiple hands to count the number of unique people who I have heard say "I'm so glad I don't have to work with her anymore" after leaving the district. Depending on whether board members are currently in Carstarphen's good graces, they are either allowed to travel around to photo-ops on her bus or required to drive themselves separately. It is hard to build human capital in a district when the tone at the top is volatile and sometimes, frankly, petty.
I for one ignited Carstarphen's rage early on by writing that her new slate of principal hires didn't look transformational. After hearing from several parents involved in the principal selection process and looking into the issues they raised independently, I felt the crop of hires didn't look as amazing as she suggested they would be. They looked about like the people APS had hired in the past. My suggestion was that APS should consider hiring more leaders from top colleges. In hindsight we can see that most of those principal hires didn't work out and are no longer at the district. However, out of the ones that came from top colleges 80% were still around in 2018. Only 29% of the hires coming from non-selective colleges were still principals at that point (one was still at the district in another role). The anger that I generated by sharing my opinion on the hires was ridiculous. It was a bruise to her ego.
So, I get where the board members who decided not to renew are coming from. She's a torture to work with. Or as the ABOE more eloquently put it, we need a superintendent to work "in a spirit of continuous collaboration." I do remain concerned about the prospect of hiring another leader right now. If we were entering an election, candidates could talk about their policy ideas and hopefully reach the board with a consensus about the system's direction. Instead, I worry that different board members (though united in their desire to end Carstarphen's tenure) have divergent views on where to head. That will make a superintendent search challenging. I hope that a candidate will come forward who can continue the positive elements of Carstarphen's legacy with the relational-stability she struggled to demonstrate.
