AJC.com > Blogs > Get Schooled > Archives > 2005 > April > 14
Thursday, April 14, 2005
REWARD!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
*Breaking News: The student has been located. I’m leaving this blog post up, because the headline is an attention-grabber, don’t you think? Thanks, everyone, for reading Get Schooled. *
Okay folks, it’s like this. I’m an education reporter at Georgia’s largest daily newspaper.
My bosses expect certain things of me. I’m expected to know what’s going on in classrooms in Georgia. I’m expected to know how schools are funded, how much teachers make on average, what grades are tested, things like that.
And when one Georgia kid gets a perfect 2400 on the New SAT, I AM EXPECTED TO KNOW WHO THAT KID IS!!!!
Scores were posted four days ago. I know this student has told someone of his or her accomplishment. I assume word has reached the school’s principal and the district’s superintendent. Yet it hasn’t reached me, and that’s making me look bad.
In desperation, I’m offering a reward to any Get Schooled reader who offers a tip leading to an interview with this student. (The interviewer may be my colleague, Bridget Gutierrez, who is also working this story.) The reward will be a book from my vast library of education-related books. Or, if you prefer, I’ll let you post your very own blog topic one day. Whatever. JUST HELP ME FIND THIS KID!
My e-mail address is pghezzi@ajc.com
A Bad Teacher is a Bad Teacher. Period.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Someone said it on the record: “If there’s a teacher who can’t teach over here, they can’t teach over there. We won’t move teachers around who aren’t qualified.”
The someone who said it was DeKalb County Superintendent Crawford Lewis. He made the comment at a recent school board meeting during a discussion of a new middle school program the district was adopting. Lewis said the district would invest in training teachers who are struggling.
It’s easy to see why this is a big problem. We’ve established that teaching in today’s climate is very hard, requiring intelligence, good judgment and a variety of skills. Teachers who aren’t very good get criticized at schools with a lot of parent involvement, and then they get shuffled to schools where the parents are less active. Am I right? And it’s notoriously hard to fire a teacher.
So do you think Lewis can be true to his word?
There are several timely education stories in the paper today. First, the state board rejected a rule that would require parents to sign off on their child’s participation in clubs, a proposal that seemed a reaction to controversy over gay clubs.
Also, the Cobb school board approved in a split vote the first phase of a gargantuan laptop computer program.
