AJC.com > Blogs > Get Schooled > Archives > 2007 > October
October 2007
Disaffected Youth: A Problem We Have To Live With?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It seems almost normal these days to hear stories about disgruntled students plotting harm to teachers and fellow classmates. But, whenever I read an article like this one about the McIntosh High School student who reportedly threatened to shoot up the campus, I can’t help thinking: We never heard about things like this when I was in school.
The thing is, many of these stories play out at good campuses in affluent suburban areas.
Peachtree City, where students drive to McIntosh in the family golf cart, is located in the wealthiest county in Georgia.
McIntosh itself was recently named a national Blue Ribbon School. Average SAT scores among the mostly white students are the 15th highest in Georgia.
State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox herself used to teach there.
Now does that sound like a place where you would find disaffected youth who want to kill or maim their classmates?
This is the second high school in Fayette County in just two years that has had a serious threat of student violence. Last year, a senior at Whitewater High School (in neighboring Fayetteville) brought a scary cache of weapons — including guns, knives and ammunition — to school on the first day of classes.
In that case, as in the latest at McIntosh, no one was hurt.
The question: If high-achieving schools that aren’t lacking for resources can’t reach such students, what school can?
UPDATE: I just finished speaking with John Hollis, my colleague who covers Fayette County. Here’s what Cele Eifert, McIntosh’s PTSO president, told him about the situation: “It can happen anywhere. Kids are screwed up all over the place. Parents are bad parents all over the place. I think you’d be fooling yourself if you thought otherwise.”
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$22,000,000 + The Cost Of PR
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I just got back from the big press event at Southside High School, which officials with General Electric Co. and the Atlanta Public Schools held today to announce their new $22 million math and science partnership.
I honestly cannot remember the last time I witnessed that much of a, well, spectacle. I think it may have been when the University of Texas named their business school after a wealthy San Antonio donor. But even a serenade of the “Eyes of Texas” from the Longhorn marching band hardly compared to this.
First, there were cheerleaders, each of whom held up a card with a number (2, 2, 0…) to reveal the amount GE has committed to the school system. All set to a drum roll and shaking pompoms, of course.
Then, when the final amount was displayed, confetti was shot from air cannons hidden by the stage and balloons were released from the gymnasium rafters.
A cynic might say it was all a bit much. But that’s apparently how big a deal both Atlanta and GE officials see this initiative, which promises to better kids’ math and science skills by improving what is taught in the classroom.
Both yesterday and today, I spoke at length to GE Foundation President Bob Corcoran about the program and his company’s interest in Atlanta. He and other GE officials, including Vice Chairman John Rice, who lives in the area, are true believers in reforming public schools.
Corcoran hopes the College Bound District program will help Atlanta turn around lagging math and science scores and provide a model for others to follow.
“We didn’t spend $22 million in Atlanta to get their light bulb business,” Corcoran told me.
Maybe not.
The question: When all the confetti and balloons are cleared away, will the students and teachers ultimately benefit?
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Learning: Whose Responsibility Is It?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For a while now, I’ve been mulling over the concepts of teaching and learning. I mean, when you think about it: Can one exist without the other?
It’s a kind of chicken-or-the-egg riddle.
Whenever the subject is broached on this blog, it seems teachers quickly blame the child for not learning, rather than themselves or their colleagues for not teaching.
How many times have you complained that your students do not come to class prepared? How many times do you argue that kids these days just don’t care?
Perhaps, that’s an impossible standard — to expect every teacher to reach every child in the classroom. But when large numbers of students aren’t learning: Is it the teacher or the child who is to blame?
In other words, when it comes to learning, whose responsibility is it?
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Campus Germs, Part II: When To Tell The Parents?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve spent all week reporting on these drug-resistant staph infections popping up in students around metro Atlanta, and I can honestly say that this has been the most frustrating story I’ve ever worked on.
Every time I talked to someone about the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria to find out how school systems handle reporting to parents and public health officials, I heard a different story.
There just does not appear to be any uniform guidance from state and local health departments (those responsible for identifying outbreaks of infectious diseases) on how school systems handle MRSA, which can cause potentially deadly bacterial infections.
Some school health administrators repeatedly told me they’re not expected to report MRSA-related staph infections — even though they report other contagious diseases, such as tuberculosis and measles.
But experts at the Georgia Division of Public Health, who oversee such reporting, said school nurses must alert public health authorities about infectious diseases — including MRSA — when they find out about them. It’s the law.
School nurses do frequently rely on public health officials to provide direction when they learn of a student who has been diagnosed with a spreadable illness. But even when that diagnosis is confirmed, parents are not always informed that a very sick child may have been in school.
Sometimes, the problem has been treated and medical experts have agreed the child is not a threat to others.
But when the student has potentially exposed classmates, shouldn’t other parents — and teachers, for that matter — at least be notified to look out for symptoms themselves?
UPDATE: For another perspective, check out Mike King’s editorial, which urges parents not to fret over MRSA.
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‘Pimping’ Kids Health For Profit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Many of our students maneuver through each day with a weight problem. Understandably, the school nutrition program, and its effect on childhood obesity, has become a matter of public interest. However, another threat has been multiplying prodigiously within our schools: beverage and snack vending machines.
They now consume every available cubbyhole on campus.
Last year, Dr. Grant Rivera, the principal at South Cobb High School, replaced many of the high-sugar offerings in vending machines with healthier alternatives. Still, the thirst for profit at the expense of student health is a controlling force in too many other schools.
Not only is it medically destructive, the accessibility of junk food is also detrimental to the learning process.
It’s first period on a Monday and a third of the class has no pencil or paper. Yet, just prior to the tardy bell, students have been pushing bills through the omnipresent silver slots. Parental cash is providing a serious junk food stash. Unfortunately, the carbohydrate “highs” are providing diminishing cognitive returns.
During instructional time, a student may have a legitimate need for the toilet facilities. But there are three, strategically placed containers, filled with glistening packages, winking at them by the restroom entrance. (By the time the student returns to class, the food may disappear, but the trash doesn’t!)
Vending machines are irresistible to money-hungry administrators. However, athletic teams, extracurricular programs and graduation venues were financially viable when there was only one drink machine located adjacent to the field house.
Public education should not be harming our students’ health to provide a discretionary fund bonanza.
Why are we pimping our kids’ health for profit?
Today’s guest blogger has taught high school English and special education for 25 years. She says vending machines are her big gripe this school year. Last year, it was students with cell phones. If you would like to be a guest blogger here, send an e-mail on any education topic to bgutierrez@ajc.com. Please include the words “guest blog” in the e-mail’s subject line.
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Campus Germs: How Clean Is Your School?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Department of Education officials are urging public schools to develop procedures to handle, contain and prevent outbreaks of the drug-resistant germ that infected some school kids in Georgia recently.
Department spokesman Matt Cardoza said the new guidance on staph infections issued on Friday was sent as a “precaution” — not as an indication that the deadly bacteria are running amuck in schools.
Last week, I discovered that four students in north Fulton County had contracted Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the past month — the same bacteria blamed for the death of a Virginia student last week.
Some Fulton parents were so alarmed by the news, a couple principals sent letters home Monday to allay fears. But it’s unclear whether any of the students — who all attend different schools —caught the bug on campus.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most illnesses from this so-called “super bug” start in the hospital or other health care facility, such as a nursing home. Still, there has been a noticeable increase in the numbers of patients catching the bacteria in other places.
Now, we all know that school kids routinely pick up colds, flu and other illnesses from their classmates. The question: Are schools doing enough to help them avoid unnecessary sickness?
In other words: How clean is your school?
UPDATE: In addition to the four cases in Fulton, DeKalb County also has had at least one case of a student contracting a staph infection. That case, which was reported to school officials about three weeks ago, involved a freshman football player at Columbia High School. After the infection was reported, the school’s locker rooms were cleaned — although, a DeKalb schools spokesman said it’s not clear whether that was the source of the bacteria.
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When I Grow Up…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I spent a couple of hours this weekend with a group of middle school girls involved in a new mentoring program from the Latin American Association and the Junior League of Atlanta.
Called “Estrellitas” — meaning Little Stars or Starlets — the girls meet each Saturday to talk about issues, such as peer pressure, affecting their lives.
The gathering this weekend was focused on careers, so I was asked to speak about being a journalist.
Answering questions from the teens and pre-teens got me thinking about all the things I wanted to be when I was growing up:
- a prima ballerina
- a world-renown cardiologist or neurosurgeon
- a constitutional lawyer arguing cases before the Supreme Court
- the first female president of the United States
Notice any similarities there?
For some reason I thought I was destined for great things. But not just great things, mind you, phenomenal things. Things that would separate my life from everyone else’s.
A lot of kids have grandiose ideas about their adult lives. But what would the world be like if more of us were able to realize the achievable dreams of our youth?
Or, to ask it another way: What would school have to look like for more children to realize their dreams when they grow up?
UPDATE: The Dalai Lama was installed as an official, distinguished professor this morning at Emory University. In his remarks to students, the Tibetan leader said something that, I think, adds another dimension to this discussion: “With no training, no modern education, now, somehow, I got a professorship.”
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Graduation Ceremonies: What Are They For Anyway?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton County Board of Education members may once again reverse a policy allowing so-called certificate students to participate in high school graduation ceremonies.
Previously, Fulton officials stopped letting those students — who could not pass all parts of the state-mandated graduation tests — walk on Graduation Day.
But, after a crush of complaints from outraged parents who said their children earned the right by passing all required classes, the board rejected the change. Students receiving a High School Certificate — but not a diploma — could go to commencement after all.
Of course, that upset other parents and students who felt including those classmates diminished the ceremony’s meaning. “It’s unfair to let people be recognized for something they have yet to do,” Chantai Meadows, a recent graduate, wrote in the AJC last spring.
Now it seems Fulton County Schools officials agree. In yet another revision of the policy currently being considered, only students receiving a bona fide high school diploma would be allowed to join in.
“We see no reason to allow students to participate in graduation exercises if they have not indeed graduated,” Fulton staff members told the board earlier this week.
But here’s the catch: Because the State Board of Education sometimes waives graduation test requirements for otherwise good students who repeatedly, but narrowly, flunk the exams, those teenagers also will be allowed to don a cap and gown.
So what’s fairer: Allowing only students who meet the diploma requirements to march with their class or allowing any student who completes high school — in any way — participate?
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Have You Visited A Classroom Lately?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I recently attended an excellent workshop for ninth-grade social studies teachers in Atlanta Public Schools.
The workshop provided us the opportunity to share the best practices for teaching our children and also gave me a chance to soak up more information from my intelligent colleagues, who are masters of their subject.
Afterward, I began to wonder: Why do so many people have negative feelings about teachers?
I have taught in three different school systems, and all I hear from non-educators is about how inadequate we are. That really upsets me.
Although there are a few bad teachers (just like any profession), good to great teachers are the majority. We are not the sole reason some of our students are not achieving at high rates.
I am not here to bash or blame parents, but do not expect your child to succeed based on the teachers’ efforts alone.
How many times have you actually contacted your child’s teachers? How many times have you sat down with your children and probed their minds to see what they are learning?
Teachers consistently try to better themselves so students can achieve great things. Excellent teachers come from rural, suburban and urban classrooms. And they have the intelligence, the patience and the love for a job that blames them for situations out of their control.
I ask you: Have you visited a classroom lately?
Today’s guest blogger has taught for eight years in schools in Baton Rouge, Houston, and metro Atlanta. To be a guest blogger here, send an e-mail on any education topic to bgutierrez@ajc.com. Please include the words “guest blog” in the e-mail’s subject field.
Tax Dollars, Land Deals And School Board Secrets
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How would you like a large developer to purchase property in your neighborhood without knowing until after the deal was done?
Well, that’s just what Gwinnett County Board of Education members have been doing for more than 30 years as they use tax dollars to buy up acreage for new schools.
According to today’s story by Gwinnett education reporter Laura Diamond, in just the past year the school system has spent $39.8 million on 130.6 acres of land for future public schools — all in secret deals that weren’t revealed until well after ink on the sales contracts dried.
Carole Boyce, the vice chairwoman of Gwinnett’s education board, told Laura the school system gets better deals when negotiating without community involvement.
“We do value public input but we don’t want to slow the process down,” she said. “The longer we wait, the more prices go up. We are very cognizant of trying to get the best piece of property at the best price. We need a lot of land and we need it quickly.”
Apparently, other local governments don’t have the same problem. County commissioners in Cobb, Cherokee, Clayton, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton — even Gwinnett — all vote in public when they buy land.
So you tell me: Are closed-door land deals really the best negotiating strategy for local school systems or are they just a sign of arrogance on the part of elected officials?
What’s A School Without A Playground?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Whenever I visit a school, teachers and students almost always ask me the same question: What’s the best part of your job? I always have the same stock, but true answer: This is!
I love, love, love visiting schools — chatting with students, watching teachers in action, sitting in the cafeteria and soaking up the ambiance. It’s all so much fun sometimes I don’t want to leave.
At least, that’s the way I felt last week when I attended opening ceremonies for a new play area at Boyd Elementary School in northwest Atlanta. Boyd, located in one of the poorer sections of the city, sits on a gorgeous wooded lot.
Principals at land-locked campuses I’ve visited would be awestruck by the expansive grassy field in Boyd’s backyard — perfect for an annual field day. But, until now, Boyd didn’t have much in the way of a playground.
A lone jungle gym was so rusty Principal Bettye Wright had to ban students from playing on it. The basketball court, which was in a woeful state of disrepair, didn’t even have baskets. All that was left, I’m told, was some kind of climbing apparatus made from old tires.
Then Wright found out about a grant program from Lowe’s, which provides funding for schools. To her great delight, she secured $150,000 — far more than any campus has ever received before, the Lowe’s people told me — for two new playgrounds, a new basketball court, flower beds and a goldfish pond.
“It took my breath away, it really did,” Wright said of the donation.
Battling ants and heat, 100 Lowe’s volunteers installed all the new gear during two marathon days last month. The students were thrilled with the results — as was the principal.
Once the children returned to classes after the grand opening, Wright turned to one of the playgrounds and exclaimed: “I gotta swing!”
She did — which brings me to a conundrum I’ve long wondered about. That is, when a school is built nowadays, why are playgrounds frequently considered an amenity, an extra often funded by committed parents?
I mean, when did a school playground become a luxury anyway?
Science Education: Another ‘Inconvenient Truth’?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After Al Gore Jr. won part of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, I decided to rent the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” which features the former vice president.
Watching Gore’s presentation on the possible causes and effects of global warming took me right back to seventh-grade science class — not a happy place.
Science was absolutely my worst subject as a student; I never had a science teacher who was good at teaching — which is why I learned nada in seventh-grade science.
In Georgia last spring, 22 percent of high school juniors failed to pass the science portion of the state-mandated graduation test — far more than the failure rates on the other subject exams, including math, which only 5 percent flubbed on their first attempt.
Ironically, performance on the high school End of Course Tests — which, as the title implies, are taken immediately after a course is taught — was even worse.
In biology, 42 percent of students flunked the test last spring. In physical science, 38 percent failed.
Read that again. Then ask yourself: How is that possible? Fewer than two-thirds of public school students are able to pass tests in science courses they’ve just completed.
What is wrong with science education today anyway? And is anybody ever going to do anything to fix it?
‘Eager’ Students: Where Do They Come From?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I just left Venetian Hills Elementary School in southwest Atlanta, where I spent a few hours this morning trying to find out what made the campus a national “Blue Ribbon School” this year.
Once in “Needs Improvement” status for failing to meet federally mandated standards, nearly all of Venetian Hills’ students — more than 90 percent of whom are eligible for free or reduced price lunches — now pass state reading and math exams.
Last school year, 97 percent passed Georgia’s reading exam and 98 percent passed math — up 3 percentage points and 9 percentage points, respectively, from the previous year.
Since Principal Clarietta Davis took over the failing school six years ago, she’s introduced a slew of new curriculum programs (Success For All in reading and Move It Math, for example) as well as more intensive tutoring for struggling students.
When I asked fifth-grade teacher James Davis Jr. what set his school apart from all the others, he said it was the eagerness of the students: “They have a high regard for learning,” he said. “It’s why I look forward to coming to work.”
After I left, I started thinking about that statement and wondering: Where does a student’s interest in learning come from anyway?
I mean, is a motivation and desire to learn something that’s innate like athletic ability? Or is it something that can be taught?
The New Math: What’s In A Name?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After months of complaints and criticism from parents and teachers, state education officials are changing the names of Georgia’s new, much-maligned high school math courses.
You may recall that the courses — which will be taught for the first time next school year — had been given generic titles, such as Math 1 and Math 2, because they will teach subjects like algebra and geometry together, rather than separately.
Since the spring, hundreds of parents have been fighting the changes, which they say could actually harm college-going students.
Previously, State Department of Education officials played down the controversy, saying parents just needed time to get used to the idea and realize that students were actually going to get more rigorous classes.
Now that tune is changing a bit.
Department officials still contend that the new curriculum will be better, but they admit the public perception is a real problem.
“We are absolutely listening to everything parents are telling us,” Sue Snow, one the department’s associate superintendents, told me after a State Board of Education meeting this morning where she briefed members on the pending name changes. “We are making modifications to make sure the transition [to the new courses] is smooth.”
Curriculum experts still are working on new titles that will better describe the course material. State board members are expected to vote on any changes in January.
I’m not sure that’s going to quell the uproar. After all, isn’t the pushback more about the state’s whole new approach to math, not just what the classes are called?
Atlanta Schools: Hall’s Reign Continues
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last night, Atlanta Board of Education members handed Superintendent Beverly L. Hall another three-year contract extension and upped her salary, a move that will keep Hall — currently the state’s highest paid public schools chief — in Atlanta until 2011.
Board members were so thrilled Hall agreed to stay on in the system, which she took over in 1999, that they gave her a standing ovation.
“We’re a little early with her contract, but we wanted to make sure we got it because of the great momentum we’ve got going,” board Chairwoman Kathleen Pattillo said moments after members approved the agreement. “This is a big day.”
Under the new contract, which goes into effect on July 1, 2008, Hall could earn as much as $355,102 in the first year, with her base salary and performance bonus. Last year, she earned $347,228, excluding benefits.
“I just look at Dr. Hall’s track record and where she’s brought us. The initiatives she’s rolled out this year and last year are very exciting,” board member Khaatim S. El said in an interview before the vote. “I want to see her carry us forward.”
This summer, all of Atlanta’s elementary schools met federally mandated academic goals for the first time. Last week, one of those campuses — Venetian Hills Elementary School — was named a national Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.
Still, student enrollment has fallen from 59,429 students when she first arrived to 51,123 this year — possibly the only school system in metro Atlanta that’s losing pupils. As you well know, wide-scale waste and abuse also were discovered in the system’s multi-million-dollar classroom technology program a few years ago.
In an interview after the board meeting, Hall, 59, acknowledged that the E-rate scandal was a low-point in her tenure. But she also blamed the problems on the previous administration.
What’s keeping Hall here is the possibility of completely turning around a school system that just five years ago had a graduation rate of 39 percent.
Now, it’s up to 68 percent.
“Everybody says it takes 12 to 15 years to transform a school system, and no urban school system has done that in this country — largely due to the revolving door in the superintendent’s office,” Hall said. “I think if it can be done, it can be done here in Atlanta.”
The question: Is Hall the one who can do it?
Charter Systems: The Next Education Frontier?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Decatur Superintendent Phyllis Edwards may convert all seven of her campuses into public charter schools — a move that could free the 2,500-student system from some burdensome state bureaucracy.
Interestingly, Edwards is not alone. According to Kristina Torres’ story on Decatur’s plans, superintendents in Marietta and Gainesville are considering similar action.
Of course, all of this activity stems from the new charter school law that passed earlier this year, which makes it easier for a public school system to convert to charter status.
School systems already could do this; at least one — Morgan County — was in the process of doing it when the legislation passed. But, as I understand it, system officials previously had to go through an application for each individual school.
Now a system only has to make one application to the State Board of Education for a charter or performance contract that would cover all of its schools.
At a presentation that I attended last week, Andrew Broy, the State Department of Education’s director of charter schools, said that next year Georgia could be home to more than 100 of these non-traditional, tuition-free campuses.
Currently, 74 charter schools are operating throughout the state. Three years ago, Broy said, there were 33.
With legislation to create other charter “authorizers” — including universities and city councils — pending in the General Assembly, it seems the number of charter schools in Georgia will only grow.
Plot Thickens In Old Textbook Dispute
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve spent the past couple of days going through hundreds of pages of documents at the State Department of Education regarding an old textbook case that’s been dragging on for years.
Some of you may remember the story the AJC first reported in August 2004 about the department investigating suspect deals between Macmillan/McGraw-Hill — one of the country’s biggest publishers of education materials — and some of Georgia’s largest school systems.
As I understand it, public schools can purchase any textbooks or other instructional materials they want to, regardless of whether those books are approved by the state.
But the education department still enters into contracts with textbook publishers that want to sell products in Georgia. Those contractual agreements are supposed to ensure that a company’s prices and special offers for “state approved” books are provided uniformly — regardless of the size of the school system and its potential order.
Brian Pollard, a disgruntled, former Macmillan salesman, first complained to the education department in late 2002 or early 2003 that, to generate business, his company was illegally giving free items to some large systems — including DeKalb County — that others in the metro area were buying outright — a direct violation of the state textbook contract.
Since then, at least one school system — Cherokee County — has tried to get restitution for purchased books, which others got gratis.
Throughout the files I reviewed, state officials repeatedly told Pollard that they investigated and found no wrongdoing. Then yesterday — miraculously, some might say — the education department’s top lawyer handed me a memo “hot off the press” from the Attorney General’s office, which indicated that that agency may sue over the issue.
Stay tuned, this could get interesting.
Parents And Teachers: Where Is The Love?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning I’ve been reading all the comments on ajc.com about a Cobb County employee accused of duct-taping a 10-year-old’s mouth shut when the boy apparently acted up during an after-school activity.
It didn’t take long before I got to the predictable finger-pointing.
“Way to go!” one teacher exclaimed. “Mother needs to teach her child how to behave appropriately, rather than raising a stink because she’s a poor parent…”
“There is simply no excuse for this type of action,” another commentator, an outraged parent, countered. “These people are supposed to be TRAINED PROFESSIONALS. Surely, they can deal with chatty children better than this!”
Now we have no idea from the article exactly what the child did to lead to this kind of punishment — if it actually occurred. Of course, that didn’t stop parents or teachers from taking sides.
But here’s what I don’t get: Why does each automatically assume the other is to blame?
Certainly, this doesn’t happen in every discipline case. But it seems to happen far more than it should.
So I really want to know: When it comes to the parent-teacher relationship, why is there so much distrust?
UPDATE: In case you missed the latest article on the Cobb County case, the employee told school system officials that the boy agreed to have his mouth taped shut.
“It wasn’t malicious or forced,” system spokesman Jay Dillon was quoted as saying. “But it certainly was not an appropriate or smart thing to do.”
Not Your Mama’s Public Schools
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My mother graduated from the same small-town public high school in Reisterstown, Md., that her mother did. And, if my family hadn’t moved out to the country a year earlier, I would have attended Franklin High School, too.
Sometimes I wonder if I had gone there how different it would have been from when my mother and grandmother were students.
I started thinking about this after reading about all the changes that may be coming to DeKalb County public schools in the next four years — including single-gender academies for middle school, world language programs starting in elementary school and more career-focused or college-oriented high schools.
According to DeKalb education reporter Kristina Torres’ article, Superintendent Crawford Lewis wants to build on the county’s already successful and substantial magnet and theme programs to give parents even more opportunities to find the best academic offerings for their children.
This year in Gwinnett County, the state’s largest school system opened its first charter school, which draws high school students from across Gwinnett to study engineering, biosciences and emerging technologies. Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks promises that this is only the first of new, more innovative schools.
Public schools are often criticized for being stuck in the same old ways. But it seems to me that every time I turn around another campus in metro Atlanta is trying something new.
So which is it: Are public schools holding onto the past or are they embracing the future?
UPDATE: Maureen Downey’s latest Opinion piece supports the DeKalb plan. Downey says the program should only strengthen the county’s public schools.
“Too often in the past, alleged innovations in education have failed because the changes have amounted to cosmetic surgery. Schools have gotten a face-lift when they need a heart transplant,” she writes. “DeKalb officials seem to understand that won’t work much longer.”
School Life Isn’t Always So Bleak
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There is little doubt we have major issues in our public education system. Each day it seems some dire new statistic rears its gloomy head, sending us bloggers into a frenzy.
I’ve been reading the comments here for several months and, finally, I’ve reached my saturation point.
ENOUGH! LIGHTEN UP!
I’m not angry, just weary of all the heat that lies under the surface of far too many responses. Friends and gentle adversaries, let’s blog about the lighter side of learning for once.
Over the years, my students have given me plenty of laughs.
Just the other day, a student asked me for help with his computer-animated drawing. I told him to zoom in so we could get a closer look at the problem. Well, he leaned so far forward his nose nearly touched the computer screen.
Then there was the young man who got so wrapped up in designing the ultimate bachelor pad he forgot to include a kitchen, bedrooms and closets. His dream house was all den, recreation rooms and bowling alley.
Stuff like this happens everyday, and it isn’t just the students providing the laughs.
Once, when a retired schoolteacher was subbing for me in a residential design class, she walked into my lab, saw my students drawing and ordered them to: “Put up those pictures and get out your school work!”
Do you get my drift?
Surely, others have amusing anecdotes from either their classrooms or their own school years to share.
Let’s lighten the mood for one day. Tomorrow we can get back to fixing Georgia’s education problems.
Today’s guest blogger has been an instructor in the Career, Technical and Agricultural Education program for 33 years. If you would like to be a guest blogger here, send an e-mail on any education topic to bgutierrez@ajc.com. Please include the words “guest blog” in the e-mail’s subject field.
School Taxes: How Would You Vote?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s been a lot of commentary recently about the sales-tax-for-property-tax swap that Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson has been pushing this year, including another editorial this weekend in the AJC.
As you know, advocates for public education have been on edge about the proposal since it was first floated, mainly because they say sales tax revenue — which is dependent on the highs and lows of consumer confidence — can’t produce reliable funding.
In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that officials in Gwinnett County Public Schools were projecting a $300 million shortfall in their construction budget because the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax — an added 1 percent tax issued for new schools — wasn’t generating the money they hoped it would.
Tariffs are a serious issue for public education — which, in Georgia, is mainly funded by state and local taxes (property, sales or income). Any changes in tax rates can affect how much money winds up in the classroom.
Richardson and other state lawmakers seem determined to alter Georgia’s tax system in the upcoming session. So you tell me: Does tying school budgets solely to sales tax revenue make sense or not?
UPDATE: At the Atlanta Board of Education meeting Monday night, board members reviewed possible legislative priorities for the coming year. Not surprisingly, opposition to House Resolution 900 — Richardson’s tax plan — was near the top of the list.
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