By Alton Hornsby
Less than two years ago the Atlanta Public School System and its Superintendent Dr. Beverly Hall gained national recognition for improvements, including test scores, in the mostly Black schools of the city. Then came allegations and investigations of widespread cheating on the Criterion Referenced Competency (CRCT) Tests (for grades 1-8) over the past year. Teachers and paraprofessionals were accused of erasing answers and giving answers to students. Principals were said to have condoned the cheating. Investigations at the state and national level continue and criminal charges are possible. On top of this, the majority Black school board began squabbling over its leadership and policies, with peace being restored only under pressure of a local judge. Then late last month the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), the regional accrediting agency, placed the Atlanta School System on nine months probation because of the dysfunctional board leadership. And just last week Secretary of Education Arne Duncan lambasted the board, chiding it “to get its act together.” The Atlanta school mess, as some called it, was reported in several national media and reflected badly on the city’s image as a “Black mecca.”
Prior to these latest difficulties, the Atlanta Public Schools served students from mostly disadvantaged neighborhoods. These students consistently scored poorly on national and state standardized tests and were often at or near the bottom in statewide and national rankings. The best schools were in mostly White areas of north Atlanta. There were also a few good ones in southwest Atlanta, in affluent Black neighborhoods, and a few scattered in other parts of Black Atlanta.
Historically, the education of Black children has been a very important priority of Black Atlantans. Following the Civil War, Blacks were given rudimentary education by the federal government. At the same time, with the emergence of Black colleges in the city, some of the more affluent Blacks were educated in academies provided by the colleges. With the coming of publicly supported schools, state law demanded that separate schools be provided for Blacks and Whites. As a result of the U. S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Plessy v Ferguson, 1896, the court sanctioned separate schools but required that they be made equal. In actuality the schools were separate but far from equal. Black schools received less financial support, were physically inferior to White ones, had inferior books and other resources, and their teachers were paid less. Black schools were overcrowded and often on double shifts, and education ceased at the elementary level. Through a shrewd use of their votes in special elections, Blacks secured a major victory with the construction of the Booker T. Washington High School in 1923. Washington High was not only an educational institution, but a community center as well. Its first principal, Professor C. L. Harper, became a major civic and civil rights leader. During the era when the schools were segregated, some of the most prominent personalities in the nation attended Washington High, including Martin Luther King Jr, Lena Horne, and Louis Wade Sullivan. The leadership and alumni of other Black schools, including David T. Howard, Benjamin E. Mays,
and Frederick Douglass were, in most respects, similar to that of Booker T. Washington.
Atlanta schools were desegregated in 1961. But it took many more years to achieve any meaningful desegregation of the schools, and that was soon lost as White parents moved their children out of the city or placed them in private schools. The only possible way to have meaningful desegregation would be crosstown or cross jurisdictional busing. Most Whites and some Blacks, however, opposed this solution. Recognizing the futility of the matter, and with the sanction of the courts, Black and White leaders forged what became known as “the Atlanta Compromise” in 1973. In exchange for a cessation of pressures for busing, Blacks would be given administrative control of the now mostly Black school system. The Blacks believed that with the empathy and control of resources which a Black-run school system would have, that they could provide a better education for their children.
There was much promise in 1973, the venerable former Morehouse College President Benjamin E. Mays was elected president of the Atlanta school board and Alonzo Crim of Chicago became the school system’s first Black superintendent. Crim had a five-year plan for marked improvements, particularly on test scores, for the Atlanta schools. He set out to prove that disadvantaged Black children could learn — and learn well. But the pattern of low test scores from most of the students in the disadvantaged neighborhoods continued under his leadership and all who followed him.
While there has always been friction on the Atlanta School Board, the egotism which led to the recent fractions and factions is unparalleled. In the crisis the geographical and racial divides that have always existed in the city have appeared. With the probationary accreditation, some northside White parents have reportedly threatened to withdraw their children, while the only protests against the probation have come from a few Blacks. Also, a group of Black leaders led by the venerable Rev. Joseph Lowery have asked the Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard to not put any teachers in jail.
Until accreditation was threatened, attendance at Atlanta School Board meetings was sparse and there was little public outcry, except in the media, about the school system’s cheating scandal and the board in-fighting. Since most White children in the city do not attend the public schools, as well as many upper- income Black children, there has not been a strong public voice in support of the schools for at least the past four decades. Without such a voice and without substantial improvements in the socio-economic conditions of disadvantaged communities, the public schools in Atlanta and most urban communities have a steep uphill climb. However a united, committed and visionary board of education and superintendent are a prerequisite in the quest for the quality education that the Black communities have always sought.
Alton Hornsby Jr. is Fuller E. Callaway Professor of History (Retired), Morehouse College. He has written on the history of Black education in Atlanta in his books, A Short History of Black Atlanta and Black Power in Dixie: A Political History of African Americans in Atlanta.
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