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DEL.ICIO.USPerdue touts graduation coaches
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sponsor: Sonny Perdue for governor
The ad: The latest in Gov. Sonny Perdue’s “Sonny Do list� ads opens with a young lady looking out the shades with the sun streaming in, a common theme depicting his 2002 campaign mantra of “A Sonny Day in Georgia.�
The ad then cuts to Perdue asking, “What’s on your Sonny do list?â€? Next comes a mom with her two children, and she says, “The big one on my Sonny Do list … my child struggling in school.â€? Then it cuts back to Perdue saying, “We’ve had great success putting a graduation coach in every high school, and I believe we ought to do that for middle schools as well.â€?
As he does in the other “Sonny Do list� ads, Perdue ends the commercial by asking Georgians to send e-mails to tell him what’s on their mind.
The reality:Perdue is timing the ads with proposals he’s announcing in the final few months of the campaign. In this case, he talks about a proposal he released Monday to put dropout prevention counselors into middle schools.
He was successful last session in getting the General Assembly to fund such counselors in high schools. However, the “success� Perdue is talking about in this commercial is open to debate. Some schools haven’t accepted the state’s money for the program.
In some cases, they were already paying for such counselors. In others, they turned down the money, saying the program had too much red tape or that the state wasn’t providing enough money. Since the state program has only paid for graduation coaches at high schools this school year, and the school year is only about two months old, it’s impossible to say whether they have lowered Georgia’s traditionally high dropout rate.
However, his program has helped put dropout prevention counselors into high schools that previously did not have them.
And, according to his staff, the “Sonny Do list� ads have been successful in their own right, bringing in thousands ofe-mail suggestions from Georgians.
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