"OK, you win"

APS board chair agrees to step down | ajc.com

Atlanta school board Chairman Khaatim Sherrer El agreed Monday to step down from leadership.
El and other members sought assurances that the move would unify the board and assure city leaders of its intent to win favor with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), which put the district on probation.

I'm not prepared to say Mr El is correct in all things, but if the charge is "the board is contentious" and the response is "one person changes", I don't understand how that can possibly be enough. That would imply that Mr El is not merely a problem, not merely the biggest problem, but the only problem.

Oh, and while we're at it:

Atlanta superintendent acknowledges cheating | ajc.com

A month before retiring as Atlanta’s schools superintendent, Beverly Hall finally acknowledged this week that educators cheated to help students pass state-mandated achievement tests. And, she said, the findings of a criminal investigation into the matter will be “alarming.”

In the interests of accuracy, I should note she didn't say it would be "surprising". And I should also mention that if she'd said this a year ago, APS would not now be in the jam it's in. They'd still be in a jam, just a different, more reparable jam. And folks might, you know, trust them to fix it.

As it is, though, it just makes it look like Job One at 130 Trinity is to keep the wagons circled.