Article Highlights
- Atlanta cheating scandal revealed businesses donate dollars to #school districts without asking questions #education
- The business community can only play important roles in k-12 schooling if their partnership is credible @AEIEducation
- Business leaders who support local schools should (in the words of Reagan) "trust, but verify"
As details of the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) cheating scandal continue to emerge, the city’s business leadership has come under fire for its unabashed support of former Superintendent Beverly Hall. The tough truth is that Atlanta’s business community is partly to blame, as it ignored one of the cardinal rules of true partnerships: effective ones are two-way streets. City business leaders ended up working for, not with, the city’s school district leadership.
Too often, local businesses wanting to get involved in their K-12 education systems fall into this trap. Eager to be seen as “partners,” they donate dollars first and ask questions later. But to be effective, business leaders must recognize that partnering with school districts or policy makers doesn’t simply mean carrying their water. It means asking tough questions and insisting on certain end results or operational targets in exchange for support.









