On Education: Scarred by Cheating Scandal, Atlanta Schools Are on the Mend

Underlings were humiliated during rallies at the Georgia Dome. Dr. Hall permitted principals with the highest test scores to sit up front near her, while sticking those with the lowest scores off to the side, in the bleachers.

She was chauffeured around the city, often with an entourage of aides and security guards. When she spoke publicly, questions had to be submitted beforehand for screening. “She was known as the queen in her ivory tower,” said Verdaillia Turner, president of the Atlanta teachers’ union.

But Dr. Hall got results. Test scores soared. Two national groups named her superintendent of the year. The secretary of education, Arne Duncan, hosted her at the White House.

Fear seemed to work.

Then, last summer, the Atlanta miracle collapsed. A state investigation found that 178 principals and teachers at nearly half the district’s schools — desperate to raise test scores — had cheated. Students from this poor, mostly African-American school district who could barely read were rated proficient on state tests, and they didn’t receive the remedial help they needed.

For months, the Fulton County district attorney has been investigating former school officials. Felony indictments are expected, for altering state documents, lying to investigators and theft of government funds.

By last spring, Gov. Nathan Deal and Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta knew they had to find someone to clean up the mess. They asked Erroll B. Davis Jr. to become the new superintendent when Dr. Hall left at the end of June.

Mr. Davis, who is 67, did not need the job. His wife of 43 years hoped he would not take it. He had nothing to prove. An engineer by training, he had been the chief executive of a Wisconsin-based utility company, and then, starting in 2006, the chancellor of the University System of Georgia. In October 2010, he announced he would retire from the chancellorship the following summer.

People tried to warn him off the Atlanta job. Michael Bowers, a former attorney general who was co-director of the state investigation, understood how pervasive the corruption was and how daunting it would be to change the culture. “I know Erroll. I told him, ‘You’re crazy as a bedbug to take that job at your age,’ ” Mr. Bowers recalled. “You know why he did it? He is a genuine public servant.”

For his part, Mr. Davis said, “When I look back at my life, I don’t want my contribution to have been shaving a few eighths off a bond deal to make a million dollars.”

On July 1, the day he was supposed to retire, Mr. Davis was sitting at Dr. Hall’s old desk, reading the 800-page investigative report and trying to figure out which, if any, of the people in the offices surrounding him could be trusted.

Since then, he has been unbending about rooting out corruption, to the point that Richard L. Hyde, who had been the lead investigator on the commission that issued the state report, said, “He’s brought order to chaos, it’s very impressive.” Mr. Davis has removed more than the 178 teachers and principals named in the report, and he dismissed several top administrators.

He has also made himself accessible, visiting 8 to 10 schools each month unannounced. And he has been kind. During a stop at Slater Elementary last week, he walked into every classroom. “I want to thank you for what you do,” he told each teacher. “I couldn’t do your job.”

As he travels the district, often driving himself to meet with small groups of principals, Mr. Davis repeatedly tells them, “Education is the only industry in this country where failure is blamed on the workers, not the leadership.”

Politically, he was the right choice for the job. On one level, the state investigation had been viewed as racially tinged, pitting former Gov. Sonny Perdue, a white Republican who ordered the inquiry in 2010, while still in office, against Dr. Hall, a black woman who served a Democratic constituency.

Beyond his talents, Mr. Davis offered something to both sides.

He had been chosen for the university chancellorship by Mr. Perdue. And he is African-American, a must for a school district where most of the work force and students are black.

Mr. Davis says he is not political, describing himself as “slightly left of center on social issues and slightly right of center on fiscal matters.”

His salary as superintendent is $240,000, less than half of what he made as the university system chancellor.

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