Ten years ago, the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) had low and declining student achievement, demoralized teachers, crumbling buildings, high turnover among superintendents (average tenure of two years) and disaffected parents pulling their children out of the system. More than 60 percent of the city's high school students missed at least two weeks of school per year, and the district had more than 700 teaching vacancies. The system was failing its students and stakeholders. Fast forward 10 years, and Atlanta has reversed its dismal numbers.

Fourth graders' reading and math scores are nearly on a par with their Georgia peers, chronic absences have plummeted, and 91 percent of the district's elementary schools made adequate yearly progress in 2009. Last June, the New Schools at Carver had a 94 percent graduation rate. Superintendent Beverly Hall said of the transformation, "Atlanta Public Schools is becoming a model urban school district."

The difference was not caused by a major infusion of new money, the standard remedy many offer to cure a sick and underperforming school system. Atlanta still has limited resources, constrained operations and multiple, often conflicting, constituencies. The positive developments were brought about by a shift in the district's leadership and management. Previously, leadership managed reactively, addressing all the short-term operational problems that continually emerged. Today, Hall has the entire district focused simultaneously on delivering short-term results and executing on its long-term strategic plan.

Ascendant Strategy Management Group has partnered with APS to help drive the transformation through a district-wide implementation of the Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard at APS is used to communicate with the school board, manage the agenda for senior cabinet strategy reviews, and drive strategy implementations in the schools. In addition, the Balanced Scorecard has replaced a lengthy and static strategic planning process with a dynamic strategy management process that allows APS to quickly react and respond to strategic challenges.

The Atlanta Public Schools case was profiled in the most recent School Administrator magazine. Co-authored by Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School and Dylan Miyake of Ascendant, the article is an in-depth view of how the lessons learned in Atlanta can be applied to school districts across the country. To learn more about how Ascendant is helping forward thinking schools and districts, please contact us.