August 21, 2008
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Winter 1998 Vol. 7 No. 4
Raising the Investment Quotient
By Paul F. Kraack
When voters in suburban Atlanta's Clayton County went to the polls and approved a special local option sales tax to build new schools and retire old debts, they also bolstered their savvy superintendent's vision calling for fully wired schools in the district. One important outcome: a 22-point increase in students' SAT scores.
For more than 16 years spanning three decades, colorful and powerful elected officials with a legendary ability to control the political process—county commissioners, judges, and school superintendents—held sway over suburban Clayton County, Georgia. But when the late 1980s and early 1990s brought an influx of new residents whose roots and political loyalties lay elsewhere, a new political and educational era dawned in the heartland of the “new South.”
Now less affluent, more densely populated, more racially diverse and highly commercial, Clayton County faced a series of challenges that threatened to create economic and social divisions within the community. One of the most serious challenges was the establishment of trust in the county's public school system, which had suffered a number of image-damaging blows in preceding years.
Located
directly south of Atlanta, the county is the sixth smallest in Georgia in
square mileage but has one of the largest populations. It is the site of Hartsfield
International Airport, one of the nation's busiest airports. Home base for
Delta Airlines, the county's largest employer, the airport generates nearly
$8 million annually from fuel taxes, along with many more sales tax dollars
collected on alcohol, concessions, and other retail sales.
Per capita, the county boasts more retail square feet than any other county in the metropolitan Atlanta area. In addition, the county is far enough south of Atlanta (15 miles) to serve as the hub for other counties in the area. Any night or weekend the county's malls, movie theaters, and shops are heavily populated by shoppers and moviegoers from counties ringing Clayton. At least 40 percent and maybe as much as 60 percent of all sales taxes paid in the county come from nonresidents.
A New Superintendent
As a major step toward school improvement, Georgia threw out its long tradition
of electing school superintendents and began appointing them. Clayton County's
first appointed superintendent, Joe Hairston, was a newcomer to the system,
a black educator from Prince Georges County, Maryland, with an excellent reputation
in the burgeoning national school reform movement and a serious, nonpolitical
demeanor.
Dr.
Joe Hairston, Superintendent, Calyton County Public Schools (hairston@atlanta.com)
Appointed by the Clayton County Board of Education in March 1995, Hairston took up his new position with a personal commitment to high academic standards and a vision for reorganizing the district's schools into a model system. He also had a mandate from the board to increase student achievement.
One major issue facing the district was how the schools were going to be financed. New school buildings were needed. Clayton County's school-age population had grown incrementally since the early 1980s, approaching nearly 40,000 and continuing to grow at a rate of 1,000 to 1,300 students annually—nearly enough to fill one new school a year.
Fiscal
conservatism and economic turmoil in the early 1980s had left the district
with major funding shortfalls for transportation, facilities construction,
and instructional programs. By 1995, even though the county's economy had
experienced an upturn, building enough schools with revenues available from
local property taxes and state sources was impossible.
A Possible Solution
In 1996, Georgia's legislature passed a statute that allowed local school
boards to hold referendums on instituting a special local option sales tax
(SPLOST). If approved by voters, this one-cent tax would have a specific time
limit (up to five years) and could be used only for school building construction
and retirement of debt previously incurred by local school boards.
While this new revenue stream promised to be a boon to local school boards, it came with some caveats. Local school officials could not, by law, take any specific actions to lobby for passage of the SPLOST or speak specifically to encourage local voters to approve the referendum. They could meet with people to offer information, but it was a narrow line to walk, with severe personal, civil penalties for stepping off it.
For Clayton County, the statute not only promised a boon; it also created a conundrum. Local residents had recently passed a similar local option sales tax specifically to offset property taxes, and even though that effort had produced results, lowering individual and business ad valorem taxes on personal property, were they ready to try it again? Was the trust level in public officials sufficient and the commitment to schools and educational excellence high enough to marshal the votes for another penny in sales tax?
Superintendent Hairston, whose schedule was already filled with commitments to local civic and service organizations, met with legislators, local politicians, Chamber of Commerce officials, and local residents to explore their options. He made the case simply: Clayton County needed more schools; it needed them desperately and immediately. “There wasn't time to wait for the state's facilities planning funds,” Hairston says. “We had to act as a community to create an educational future for our children.”
Along with the sense of urgency, Hairston also sold his vision of what future schools should look and be like. “We wanted to let people know they were investing in the schools of tomorrow,” he says. His vision called for all of Clayton County's schools to be linked to the Internet, with email capability. They would be loaded with computers for teachers and students, staffed with educators who were well trained and technology literate, and filled with high-achieving students, all of whom would have the opportunity to use technology as part of their daily classroom activities.
Technology
instructor Rod Smith works with teachers from Clayton County Public Schools
as they learn to use the new computer technology that was installed in all
district schools for the 1998-99 school year.
With financial support from the state's lottery-funded technology programs, Hairston's vision wasn't impossible, but it was grand. Renovating and adding classrooms to existing schools, along with the wiring of all schools old and new to a network would cost more than $73 million. Building two new schools with SPLOST dollars would cost another $16.6 million, and retiring bond indebtedness would add another $22 million to the equation. Add to that the funds needed from the local budget to furnish each teacher with a network-connected computer (more than $2 million) and the scope of the sales tax initiative was clearly immense. The proposal was to collect the SPLOST for only three years as a signal of the district's commitment to being fiscally responsible and accountable to the voters.
A Group Effort
Community leaders agreed to try to convince residents to go to the polls to
approve the new tax. The 19-person group formed to conduct this campaign was
called VOICES, an acronym for Visions of Improving Clayton's Education System.
Members included active and retired business persons, representatives of civic
organizations, former school administrators including a former elected superintendent,
and religious leaders from a broad range of racial and economic backgrounds.
Also active in the group were local education association officers, members
of the media, school volunteers, a former school board member, and members
of a local anti-tax organization which made the decision early to support
the initiative.
The key points, all agreed, were to show how the SPLOST could reduce school system debt and equitably raise revenues for a rejuvenated school system committed to excellence—without raising ad valorem property taxes. It would also be a discrete, finite-use tax program, subject to voter review and possible reapproval at the end of three years.
Technology
trainer Krista Hinkle gives senior Melissa Smith pointers on using a new laptop
computer issued to her for use in her advanced placement psychology class.
These community residents, along with local PTA officers and members, raised the standard for the local option sales tax for approximately six months. Their efforts included making public speeches to civic clubs and organizations in the district, doing radio and newspaper interviews, distributing brochures and flyers to explain the referendum's details, and talking with friends, relatives, and acquaintances in the district. One especially powerful force in the campaign was the district's 2,600 teachers, approximately 60 percent of whom live in the district.
The Results
The SPLOST was approved by nearly 70 percent of those voting in the special
election. Sales tax collections began in July 1997, resulting in more than
$40 million in revenues for construction and renovation in year one.
At the beginning of the 1998–99 school year, the district joined the rarefied regions of high technology, with every teacher and department in the system having access to a computer and the Internet. In addition, the district began a two-year technology training program to implement full use of technology, not only in classrooms for instruction but also in nutrition services, maintenance, transportation, and school offices.
During
their annual retreat, CCPS principals build their personal computer skills
on new laptop computers issued to them.
With the full implementation of teacher and classroom-based technology and the start of the two new schools fully equipped for the 21st century, the results of the SPLOST effort became apparent across the community. In the fall of this year, SAT scores of county students showed a 22-point increase, the largest in the metro Atlanta area and a gratifying nudge for the district toward its goal of higher achievement and national prominence as a model for educational reform.
In keeping with the spirit of VOICES, the district has already started to look at other ways to keep its commitment to “bring the community into schools.” The district has added a construction update page to its public affairs Web site showing the three-year school construction process as it progresses at new schools and school renovation sites (www.ccps.ga.net/admin/publicinfo/constructionupdate.html).
Board
chair David Halcome, Sr., Board vice-chair Mark Armstrong, board member Valencia
Seay, and Superintendent Dr. Joe Hairston look over plans for construction
of the CCPS's new PC/Systems Technology Repair Lab at Forest Park High School.
The district also set up seven neighborhood educational forums in the fall of 1998 to show off its instructional programs and computer software and to provide information to community members about services, schools, and staffs. Twice a week for a month, system curriculum coordinators, teachers, and students invite residents to watch demonstrations, try out technology, and meet teachers, principals, and system-level administrators.
“Our power in our community rests with its citizens—parents, business persons, church leaders, and civic organization members,” Hairston says. “They created the opportunity we have to change and improve our schools. Our intent is to report to them how good we are. They will be able to see it for themselves when they walk in the door.”
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Local Option Sales Tax Vote Mandates
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A
veteran teacher, businessperson, and media consultant, Paul F. Kraack (pkraack@ccps.ganet)
is the Communications Assistant for Clayton County Public Schools. He was
previously the social studies department chair of Morrow High School in Clayton
County, where he taught for 12 years. Kraack's consulting firm, Creative Resources,
specializes in media relations, web design, and publishing.