Gold Dome Live

By joey

February 25, 2009 1:23 PM | Link to this

if these fools in Clay Co. didnt act a fool. Then maybe this then crazy bill would not come to the floor of the Assembly…State authority shouldnt oversee what is a local problem….let the idiots of Clayton Self Rule and Self Distruct.

God Save the Children of Clayton Co. from the power grabbing Political Elite!!!

By Taxpayer

February 25, 2009 1:33 PM | Link to this

Accreditation loss is not the school board’s fault. The fault lies with school administration and the state itself. If the state could learn from the problems of the big 3 automakers that automatic salaries for just staying around a long time does not work. I assume accreditation and low test scores would not be a problem if education had “pay for perfomance” standards.

By Scarlofs

February 25, 2009 2:04 PM | Link to this

How sad is it that you can’t manage your own school board? Someone needs to ask those fools how it feels to have lost control so much so that the Governor has had to step in with special legislation to stop the problem. That board ought to be ashamed of themselves. Dems cry now that a Repub is governor, but in 15 years they will use that legislation to their own purposes. What comes around, goes around. Where will that legislation go after today?

By Dumbed Down Dems

February 25, 2009 2:11 PM | Link to this

Sen. Gail Buckner (D-Morrow) defended Clayton County schools, saying the education the children get is good, notwithstanding a school board that micromanages.

“We got *state award winners and national award winners,” Buckner said. *

Senator Buckner, you just said it all. All hail to the government—and specifically those irrepressible Democrats.

By drsoul

February 25, 2009 2:25 PM | Link to this

Does it appear to anyone else that Georgia is moving to a ‘dictator’ form of government???? the state has consistently failed in many areas now under the leadership…so, what is the logic for handing over more control????? This is a disaster for all concerned… Should this particular area of interest not fall under the Education czar, who has much more interest in selecting qualified people and vetting integrity of school boards, rather than a ‘political power grabber’…????

By Kino

February 25, 2009 2:42 PM | Link to this

Actually, I think this bill is a great idea. The state should have a big stick to wave over an irresponsible local entity, such as a school board. I don’t want the future of my children to suffer from the idiocy of someone else. Perhaps some resolution that provides a check to the state isn’t a bad idea but I’ve seen, and heard, of too many instances where the school board didn’t have the welfare of the children first. At the end of the day that’s what this is all about; the kids.

By El Capitan

February 25, 2009 3:29 PM | Link to this

How can a law be constitutional that provides for the governor to remove elected officials????? At least in our county we elect our school board members. It is OUR responsibility to recall them if they screw up too much, not the governor. And the Republicans are pushing this? I thought they favored local control……. Would they be proposing the same thing if we again have a Democratic governor?

By Whatever

February 25, 2009 3:38 PM | Link to this

Do what it takes to get that mess cleaned up in Clayton County.

By drsoul

February 25, 2009 3:41 PM | Link to this

Those who really support this bill, may as well pack up all your deeds, checkbook and children and ship them down to Perdue’s office, so that they can have a full accounting of your family and assets and tell you how to live your life… this is not what the constitution was founded on nor has any intelligence to it at all… “don’t want the future of my children to suffer from the idiocy of someone else”…quite a contradiction..!!!! you want to hand them over to the government..!!

By Texas Pete

February 25, 2009 3:47 PM | Link to this

The citizens of Clayton County should be listed as To Stupid to Vote. Most of them require government assistance to live - why not let the state take complete control of them. Better yet can we quarentine them within their county boarder, so they can’t escape and affect other areas?

By Clayton County Native

February 25, 2009 3:57 PM | Link to this

Huh…if the school board was majority caucasian, they wouldn’t be this law. Pres. Obama should stop this racist law from being passed. GO OBAMA!

By Dave

February 25, 2009 4:09 PM | Link to this

Sen. Buckner- did you receive your education from the Clayton County Public School System ? We “got”—- so bad.

By Rob

February 25, 2009 4:34 PM | Link to this

I guess this bill wouldn’t be needed if the people of Clayton County actually cared enough to correct the problem of their inept school board. A number of months have passed, and yet the problem persists. Need I say more?

By SugarHillDawg

February 25, 2009 4:46 PM | Link to this

Hey Texas Pete, it’s too late. They have infested Rockdale County now!!!

By SugarHillDawg

February 25, 2009 4:48 PM | Link to this

Hey Clayton County Native, If the school board was majority caucasian they wouldn’t be decertified. You are a complete IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Rob

February 25, 2009 5:03 PM | Link to this

And one more thing - Clayton County Native, you, your school board and many in Clayton County are representative of the problem - you would rather blame others than fix the problem. In addition, you and your kind have an innate ability to claim racism where it does not exist.

By Bob Rose

February 26, 2009 2:25 PM | Link to this

May 25, 2008 Maria Montessori wrote, almost a century ago, that three- and four-year-old preschoolers will learn to read spontaneously if they get “sufficient” practice forming alphabet letters. Although boldly claimed in her “The Montessori Method” this possibility has strangely never before been subjected to a scientific test.

In 2002-2004 I found five kindergarten teachers on the Internet who provided experimental data on 106 experimental kindergarten students as they practiced printing fluency and we monitored their reading ability (and also five other first-grade teachers who did NOT make the effort of inducing printing practice, but who only measured how much of the serial alphabet students could print in a timed, twenty-second period of time, and the correlation with reading skill. These 94 students formed a control group).

The correlation was very obvious in all ten classrooms. We found that all but a very small percentage of students read well, and with good comprehension, shortly after the point in time when they were able to print at least the first thirteen letters within 20 seconds. Multiplied by three, this equates with a fluency rate of 39 letters per minute.

The children enjoyed the practice sessions, and observing their gradual increase in fluency as the weeks passed. No apparent stress was noted, and it was found that the median kindergartner, after spending five minutes daily of each school day practice printing, was “printing fluent” after a mere three months. But printing fluency didn’t correlate with reading skill among older students, according to our results with a group of fifty fourth-graders.

The kindergartners wrote and read with about the same skill as the first graders at the end of the winter of school. The fact that kindergartners were reading and writing at a level of children a full grade ahead shows that the early acquisition of literacy in the kindergarten (experimental) group was caused by the dedicated attempt to induce practiced fluency in printing, and not just a coincidental marker of some third, and unknown, causative factor.

At the present time (May, 2008) I have collected another group of kindergarten and first-grade teachers on the Internet. Fourteen K-1 teachers have already submitted correlations of the printing fluency and reading skills of their pupils. In each case the correlation has been obvious and strong. Anyone wishing to join and monitor (or participate on) this free list need only send any email to k1writing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Returning the automated “confirmation message” to the computer will result in automatic list membership.

Printing practice and fluency training in the early grades has completely gone out of style during the twentieth century, though it is still practiced (though not specifically tested) in India and China. This rediscovery of this important principle offers an inexpensive and effective means toward ensuring reading and academic success from the earliest grades for children of all races and ethnic backgrounds.

It has also been found that second-graders able to give correct answers to simple addition facts more fluently than 40 answers per minute rarely have problems with math or science thereafter.

Bob Rose, MD (retired), rovarose@aol.com Jasper, Georgia