Atlanta Forward: Joe Martin, Democrat for state school superintendent
Federal role in public schools
● The federal government is here to stay and there will be a federal role in education. ... The point is not to fight federal involvement; the goal ought to be to use it to our advantage.
Race to the Top
● I don’t buy in every respect all of the rules, and I certainly don’t agree with all of the parts of the 212-page application we turned in, but I see it as an opportunity. We ought to jump at it, use it to our advantage.
DeKalb and Atlanta board issues
● DeKalb has been in turmoil for some time. Atlanta’s going through a rocky period right now. The premise has to be that the board has to work as a team. The Atlanta system has a problem that it has to address; it can do so. We need to get it behind us. But infighting over who occupies what position on the board just seems to be a terrible distraction.
In the case of DeKalb, there have been issues there. ... There are a lot of single agendas there and, somehow or another, they need to coalesce.
● I have seen wonderful school board members and I’ve seen other school board members who had personal agendas and were very adept at disrupting things. I don’t know that you can police behavior. ... But you certainly can put in safeguards to prevent unethical behavior.
State school funding formula
● You have certain basics that you have to provide, and I think the state is not fulfilling its responsibility and I don’t shy away from saying that. By the same token, I will quickly add that whatever money is available has to be spent in the most effective way; it has to be focused on instruction, it has to be carefully monitored. So I would say more resources, yes — better spending, as well.
Funding adequacy
● Can I give you my normal disclaimer — money’s not everything.
Because of my experience ... I know where there are some opportunities for savings. Most school systems in Georgia are bare-bones in their administration, they truly are. There are some exceptions, though. There are some situations where we need to make sure there’s some money that’s not going unnecessarily for non-instructional purposes.
Standardized testing
● The overemphasis on standardized tests is going to hurt us in the long run. We must make sure that every child has those [basic] skills, but also [build] a student who can think, who is creative, who knows how to solve problems.
● Speaking as a businessperson, you can’t measure everything. Schools aren’t factories; kids aren’t widgets. But I will totally agree that we need to have tests of basic skills and there’s no excuse for kids going through 13 years without mastering certain skills. I’m simply saying that we also need other forms of learning ... some of the evaluation has to be qualitative.
Atlanta cheating probe carryover into 2011, if needed?
● Of course. We need transparency; we need to know what’s actually happened. Let’s think how we got into this boat, and this is another, just general point. There’s no one who believes in accountability more than I do, but we’ve created a monster almost with this obsessive attention to standardized tests; we’ve created the wrong incentives. We’ve got teachers teaching to the test. We’re squeezing out many of those precious moments in education because everybody’s so revved up to pass a standardized test.
The Joe Martin file
Education: Bachelor's degree, Vanderbilt University. MBA, Harvard.
Experience: President, Civitas Inc. Former executive director, Georgia School Funding Association. Served on Atlanta School Board for 20 years. Former president of the Atlanta Economic Development Corp. and Central Atlanta Progress. Appointed to three state education improvement commissions. Helped write the Quality Basic Education (QBE) school funding and reform legislation.
Source: Campaign website.
