Education: Testing candidates’ ideas

We’ve all heard about the three R’s of education. It’s the two T’s, though — taxes and trust — that Georgia’s next governor must study harder in order to adequately serve our children.

The state’s school systems have scrambled to deal with recession-driven recent declines in tax receipts. Hundreds, if not thousands, of educators have lost their jobs to budget cuts. Class sizes are growing and programs are shrinking.

To ensure Georgia’s future competitiveness, the incoming governor must find smart, yet cost-conscious ways to bolster sapped funding resources and provide greater predictability to the state’s funding for education. That task will require large doses of both political courage and innovative thinking.

For their part, school boards must now spend the people’s money more prudently than was the case during recent flush times. It’s an understatement to say that will be a harder task for some districts than others.

The next governor must also figure out how to restore Georgians’ confidence in the standardized testing that’s a large part of today’s public school pedagogy. Working against this renewal are the persistent allegations across the state of cheating on the CRCT.

The ongoing delay in release of an investigative report into cheating allegations at 58 Atlanta public schools makes clear that the state needs adequate funding to police testing irregularities. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last week that the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement lacked the resources to fully investigate all 191 Georgia public schools flagged in the CRCT investigation.

Given the weight accorded these tests today, this state office must have sufficient wherewithal to truly fulfill its role as an arm’s-length observer — and investigator, if need be — of testing red flags. Our children and taxpayers deserve no less.

Andre Jackson, 
for the Editorial Board

Atlanta Forward: We look at major issues Atlanta must address in order to move forward as the economy recovers.

This concludes The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s five-week series on its Sunday editorial pages, focusing on major issues facing the state’s next governor. The questions have mirrored themes of our Atlanta Forward project.