Case Study: Fulton County School System

:: Background and Situation

Founded in 1871, the Fulton County School System is one of the oldest and largest school districts in
Georgia. With a focus on student achievement and a commitment to continual improvement, Fulton has
earned a reputation as a premier school system. This long history of excellence is evidenced by the many
state and national honors bestowed on Fulton's schools, staff and students.

Fulton County Schools, located in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, is a diverse public education system
covering students from kindergarten to grade 12. The district serves 88,000 students and employs 12,000
employees throughout its 93 schools. Fulton County Schools use the Balanced Scorecard to clearly articulate,
communicate, and manage their strategy.

With student achievement at the top of its scorecard, over the past seven years that Fulton County has
managed with the BSC, students have increased their SAT scores to exceed the national average by 23
points. 89% of all graduates took the test compared to only 48 percent nationally. Their elementary and
middle schools have increased 5 points annually on the state's criterion-referenced test. 82 percent of Fulton
County parents surveyed show a high level of satisfaction with their schools compared to the national
average of 68 percent. Other results include reduced teacher attrition, new school construction that is
consistently on time and under budget, and reduced administrative expenses. In 2004, Fulton County Schools
was the recipient of the coveted Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame For Strategy Execution AwardTM.

:: How We Helped
From 2000 to 2006, Fulton County had primarily used Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel to manage their BSC
program. They found that although this was the simplest approach, it was increasingly difficult to manage
alignment and various versions of the scorecard throughout the school system. In 2007, Fulton County
decided to use the Executive Strategy Manager (ESM) to organize all of their content into one place so that it
could be accessed by all. Fulton County is taking advantage of some recently released features in the ESM
application and is immediately realizing benefits. All of the organizations strategic information is in one
location, data redundancy and rework has been reduced, and all employees have access to up-to-date and
consistent strategic information.

The two major enhancements that is allowing Fulton County Schools to fully adopt the ESM include data
sourcing to and from MS Excel for test score tracking and the use of driver measures to drill into specific
operational metrics (without the need to create additional cascaded scorecards).

Fulton County scorecard managers are sourcing much of their data from a MS Excel spread sheet right into
the individual measures or driver measures that they want to populate. For example, one strategic measure is
based on the percent passing on a particular test, and the driver measures include the percent passing for each
grade (ex. if their measuring grades 9-12, then each grade would represent a driver measure). Within
minutes, ESM users can upload the MS Excel sheet into the Executive Strategy Manager and populate all of
the data for each driver measure. These operational measures then roll up (summing or averaging) the data
into the strategic measure. Other strategic measures that dont contain driver measures are simply sourced
directly from the spreadsheet. As Fulton County Schools report on this measure in their strategy review
meetings, they are able to see the overall status of this strategic measure for the entire school system as well
as drill down to view the individual performance of each grade level.

Fulton County is also taking their initiative management program to a new level with the ESM. Before using
the tool, their Balanced Scorecard was heavily focused on reporting metrics, rather than tying data to the
overall strategy of the organization. Now that Fulton is managing their initiatives in the ESM, including
performance tracking and milestone management, they are finding that there is a close linkage between their
objectives, measures, and initiatives throughout the organization. According to the Chief Planning and
Evaluation Officer:

The ESM ties it all together and makes it very easy for our staff and constituents to see the connection
between the performance of the school system and the priority initiatives.
Martha Greenway
August 17, 2007

The ESM has become the facilitator for not only reporting on objectives and measures, but also for taking
action by reporting on and executing their strategic initiatives.

:: Results
Fulton County has a system in place that leverages the information they already collect for their successful
BSC program. With the Executive Strategy Manager, the Fulton County School system is realizing the full
benefits of their Balanced Scorecard effort. Between data sourcing capabilities that drive timely decision
making, and expanded visibility by administrators, officials, parents, and other constituents into their strategy
through the ESM, Fulton gets an A for improving the operations of the school system and the improved
performance by their students. Their success has become the benchmark by which all school systems in
Georgia, the US, and around the world are striving to achieve.