Commenters on the AJC Get Schooled blog had a lot to say about Race to the Top, the $400 million federal grant won under the leadership of former Gov. Sonny Perdue and state school Superintendent Kathy Cox. A new report says Georgia has gained a lot of education momentum from the four-year grant, which is nearing completion. But the report cautions the focus and commitment must be maintained to see reforms begun under the grant to fruition. Here is a sample of reader comments:
MD3: Whatever the outcome may end up being — and there will likely be no true way to ever determine actual success due to so many variables outside the educational system — the fact is Gov. Sonny Perdue and state school Superintendent Kathy Cox sold Georgia's educational soul to the federal devil. Constitutionally, education is a matter for the states. Perdue and Cox gleefully ceded control of Georgia's educational system for a bribe from Obama and Duncan. Their actions were shameful. It's even more shameful that they were never taken to task for abdicating their responsibility to the citizens of Georgia.
Tread: Well, if they had $200 million more federal dollars, they could have built a website. Maybe not a secure website, but a website.
Astro: It should be noted that one of the board members of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education — which did the review of the Race to the Top grant — is Dr. John Barge, currently the state school superintendent. His department commissioned this report, so I'm not shocked that it says what he would want it to say.
Wendy: It may have paid off, but the question is: Did it pay off for the children and educators in the trenches?
Nickel: If the money only resulted in more assessments/evaluations students/teachers had to complete, that is not much benefit to Georgia education overall. Hopefully, the state leadership learned something from the process, at least.
Raj: I'm not sure if all of the Race to the Top stuff is hurting or helping education in Georgia, but isn't the general gist of it that it does try to bring more accountability to the system — introducing evaluations and assessments of teachers and schools based upon their performances and levels of improvement on standardized tests?
Star: We need to rethink the way we do public education in this country. We need to provide separate schools for groups of kids that need different kinds of education. Academics are not for everybody. To be fair, we need to make it simple to move from one group to another, up and down.
Tina: To eliminate all of this mess, send your children to private school, and you won't have to be bothered with what the governor or the state superintendent has mandated. My husband said even if he had to take another job, we would not send our children to public school. I concur; I will take a second job, too. That includes college as well.
Cat: Much ado about very little of substance. Give it a few years, and it will circle the drain while the next "new thing" ascends to the heavens.
