This election is about pursuing and promoting policies that support our students and teachers instead of the current practices which micromanage our classrooms and further the top-down model being promoted by Washington.
We must involve those who are impacted directly – students, parents, and teachers. They know what works in Georgia’s classrooms.
In 2010, I shared the view common to many of my fellow educators that the acceptance of federal Race to the Top monies would be disastrous for Georgia’s students. We knew that this would lock us into harmful policies developed without crucial input from Georgia’s teachers and parents. A striking example is the Common Core standards. When combined with the arbitrary deadlines and unfunded mandates that came with these federal dollars, it is clear that the long-term interest of our students was overridden by the short-term infusion of additional dollars during an economic recession.
Since then, our students and teachers have endured the botched rollout of both Common Core and a new teacher evaluation system. Now we are facing the continuation of that pattern with the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) announcing a new testing system and within the month instituting a name change for this new system.
This rushed approach by the GaDOE’s leadership is hardly the measured approach we should expect from an effective administration. How can an effective testing model be rolled out when the standards haven’t even been thoroughly vetted by Georgians? How can an effective teacher evaluation model be rolled out when the new tests haven’t even been written, let alone field tested?
These failed policies remind too many of us veteran educators of No Child Left Behind. I saw firsthand the negative impact of these initiatives. I decided to run because I wanted to ensure that Georgia’s teachers and parents are not forced to sit on the sideline of education reform any longer.
The truth is that many recent education successes fall solely on the quality of our communities and our teachers. They have managed to make the best out of a difficult situation and have done so without the support they need from the GaDOE’s leadership, who sometimes seem more interested in pursuing political ambition than meaningful reform.
We need a fair instrument for evaluating teachers, a diagnostic approach to standardized testing, and standards that are Georgia-grown and Georgia-owned.
We’ve seen the leadership at GaDOE view teacher surveys and public comment as an afterthought and not as instruments of real value. During my years as a teacher, I learned early on that you had to have buy-in from students, parents, and the community to truly see student achievement soar. As a small business owner, I know that I have to listen to what my customers want to see my business grow and succeed. Organizing community listening sessions and scheduling regular meetings with education groups will be key to get buy-in and move achievement forward. These sessions must include local legislative delegations.
Experience without learning and growing from that experience is just passing time.
Georgia’s path forward cannot be charted by looking through the rearview mirror, nor can we get there with Washington bureaucrats in the driver’s seat.
