Business & Tech

Accreditation Head Urges Business Leaders to 'Re-engage' With School System

AdvanceED president talks about education's 'new normal.'

The president and CEO of AdvancED, an Alpharetta-based company that provides accreditation for some 27,000 public and private schools worldwide — including the Atlanta and Fulton school systems — discussed the state of schools with a crowd of business, political and school leaders Tuesday morning.

Dr. Mark Elgart spoke to the community leaders who gathered for the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce's monthly Eggs & Enterprise Breakfast at Country Club of the South in Johns Creek.

Elgart began by alluding to the embattled Atlanta Public School System, currently on probation with AdvancED. He said people have been asking him if he's "stressed." He jokingly said he's really not, that for him the definition of stress is that his 16-year-old daughter recently received her driver's license.

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Later, he explained that probation doesn't mean a school system is in imminent danger of losing its accreditation; rather, it means the school has six to eight months to improve. At that point, if the system has not adequately addressed its problems, it is then given "notice" that it has another six to eight months to make the necessary changes.

"We're not preying" on school boards, he said.

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Elgart explained that accreditation means providing a sustainable and stable framework for school improvement by identifying success and confronting challenges.

He talked about a "new normal" in education, where schools must produce better results with less resources. "Money alone," won't fix the problems, Elgart said, but "money well spent will."

"Everybody wants schools to improve, just not to change," he said, pointing to the redistricting and school calendar debates in North Fulton and Cobb County. But, "change is necessary to evolve our system."

Elgart said schools "need to re-envision how to use resources in this new normal." He pointed to the chamber's business-school partnerships that were highlighted earlier in the morning when the chamber presented its Partner in Education Partnership of the Year Awards. Shane's Rib Shack, partnered with Ocee Elementary, received the small-business award, and Elavon, partnered with Lake Forest Elementary, received the large-business award.

These partnerships tell students that "education will matter to me," Elgart said.

He said that in the past business leaders were routinely members of their local school boards because they had a vested interest in the schools' success, but there's been a shift in that structure. Now, school board positions are thought of as "a stepping stone to a political career."

"My challenge to the business community is that you must re-engage," Elgart said. "Where [students] find hope for the future is in your businesses."


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