Get Schooled

By thomas

July 17, 2006 02:21 PM | Link to this

Don’t be a fool. What idiot would want to join APS? This pityful woman has no clue what is going on. She bickers about the little problems she has in her little community. Being annexed by Atlanta will not solve the little problems she complains of. Neither is having the local school taken over by APS a good answer either. APS will do no better in the administration of the school and the school will not receive any more resources. What it will get however is more regulation, bureaucracy, red tape, and folks with attitudes.

Poor little fools— little do they know……

By teacher too

July 17, 2006 04:08 PM | Link to this

I think it all boils down to the fact that school systems here are much too big. I hail from the Northeast, where each city or town has their own school sstem. Typically that means one high school, two middle and five or so elementary schools. We’re not talking NY City of course, but smaller cities and towns. With so many schools to manage, counties like Fulton, Gwinnett and Cobb are having a tough time prioritizing funding and the like. You have everything from poverty to millionaires in one district, and too many thousands of students to deal with. Not to mention aging infrastructure and lack of land left to develop…

By catlady

July 18, 2006 10:39 AM | Link to this

I don’t think too many people care….

Ask parents what they think of a reading program that requires children to answer, in unison, at the click of a dog clicker! Quite a few of them have children in this situation, and may not know it.

By thomas

July 18, 2006 07:18 PM | Link to this

You may be right- maybe no one cares. But I hope these fools in Sandtown care.

APS is racked with trying to deal with a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE, HUGE number of low level, inner city students. That is what their entire ED program is built around. SRA (or whatever that program is called) is all about teaching reading to very low students. Students have to call out words in unison on a fingersnap signal. Clayton County has similiar program called Direct Instruction. Teachers who have used it tell me that it is awful. The kids are made out to be dumb monkeys.

If that’s what they want, go for it.

By Robert

July 18, 2006 08:01 PM | Link to this

Who in their right mind would join APS??? That is the worst run school system in the State. I speak from first-hand experience.

As a science teacher, I put in my application with their main office. I accomplished this feat only after waiting for 2 hours in their waiting room and then trying to get help as their “workers” were talking personal talks on their cell phones and yelling at each other. I thought that surely I would be snapped up by some high school quickly, since science teachers are fairly rare. After 2 weeks of hearing NOTHING, I went back to the office. They “lost” my paperwork.

I promptly went to another metro system and now teach in one of the best high schools in Georgia.

My story/experience is not rare at all. I hear this sort of thing repeatedly regarding APS. Every “office” worker and “administrator” is incompetent and should be fired. They make big bucks and do NOTHING.

APS is pitiful. By this, I do not include the teachers of APS because I don’t have any direct experience with them.

By catlady

July 19, 2006 11:10 AM | Link to this

Smaller schools are usually better in performance, student behavior, climate. More accountability, more parent “buy-in”. Check the research. What we can do is pay for it in the front-end (smaller schools, smaller classes) or pay for it THROUGH the back-end (dropouts, drugs, crime, welfare, unwed parents, etc)

SRA is a BRAND of direct instruction. There are others. Children learn to “salute Hitler”(give short answers,in our school, to the click of a dog clicker) in unision. If a child does not, the whole class is stopped until the wayward child complies. We should all be very, very scared. Example: Students read: The boy went to the store in his red jacket. Teacher: Where did the boy go? Students: To the store. Teacher: What did he wear? Class: A red jacket. This stuff is killing reading, not to mention things we have valued in America. Part of the pattern currently in operation.

By Amazed (Independent Woman)

July 19, 2006 11:25 AM | Link to this

Patti,

I think it’s wrong to display the Sandtown school issue in Fulton County as an issue all by itself.

This Sandtown issue is bigger than just schools. The people will have to make a decision about the entire South Fulton area real soon.

People are going ANNEX crazy in this state. Or they want to make a city/town out of every available piece of “DIRT”. This state has too many counties and too many school systems.

I just sent an email to the principal of my daughters soon to be middle school. I can’t wait to see if and how she responds.

By James Boykin

July 25, 2006 02:03 PM | Link to this

I think that Sandtown should become part of Atlanta. The people of Sandtown will have a voice in sharping Atlanta and could make the APS and the city a better place to live. Sandy Springs and other parts of North Fulton County did just what they always do and that is RUN. How can you make a city or situation better by running. Like it or not, all of the Atlanta area will benifit or pay for the comes from the children of each community. I believe that the wealth of talent in areas like Sandtown can make a different to the children living in the city of Atlanta. I am glad that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr did not think like the people in Sandy Spring and North Fulton County.