Georgia should be proud of its schools’ achievements

“Our schools aren’t as good as they used to be, and they never were,” joked Will Rogers. I wonder whether he was talking about Georgia.

Most folks don’t know it, but Georgia schools are on an impressive run. Believe it or not, Georgia is now ranked No. 1 in the nation in educational technology, according to Education Week. The report highlighted Georgia’s “Virtual School,” which allows computer learning of more than 120 online courses to include foreign languages, Advanced Placement and credit recovery.

Another bulletin you might have missed is that Georgia is 15th in the nation in AP scores, and we’re ninth in the nation of seniors who passed at least one AP exam. AP and International Baccalaureate programs allow high school students to take and pass college courses. A whopping 42 percent more Georgia seniors took the AP exam in 2008 than in 2003, and 38 percent more passed.

Even more impressive was that 22 percent of these Georgians were African-American, and their pass rate was third best in the nation — triple the national average and double what it was five years ago. And did you know that 10 percent of all African-Americans SAT test-takers are from Georgia? We have the highest percentage of any state of African-American test-takers (28 percent), and they scored well above their national average.

Finally, the new Georgia Performance Standards curriculum is ranked fourth best in the nation, and our SAT participation rate of 70 percent is 13th best in the nation. Compare that with the paltry 9.8 percent of 30 states, and you’ll see that more Georgians have higher college aspirations than most of the nation.

I live in Morgan County — a beautiful but poor, rural community. Yet thanks to our challenging AP and IB curriculums, 25 percent more of seniors took at least one college-level course and 30 percent more passed them than both the state and the nation. One in five of our sophomores — even freshman — are taking and passing AP classes.

So why do so many Georgians think we have crummy schools? Because talk show hosts have bigger microphones than folks like Dave Belton — or State Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox, for that matter. Talk to just about anybody in any Southern state, and they’ll give you a much more favorable opinion of Georgia schools than Georgians will.

Time to sit on our academic laurels? Of course not. It’s time for Georgia to continue to improve her already excellent public schools.

Dave Belton is a GOP member of the Morgan County Board of Education.