"State-Directed" Schools

Kathy Cox is acting like Georgia just won a prize. We most assuredly did not. Georgia is one of six states selected by the U.S. Department of Education to pilot a program allowing "differentiated accountability" under the No Child Left Behind Act. Touted and "freedom" and "flexibility," the devil is, as always in the details.

1. Not one dime. Local school systems have been told that this grand prize comes with not one extra dollar. Never mind that most local boards just signed off on their budgets for next year, and that no one has yet determined whether this program will cost districts additional money-how can it not-and if so, how much.

2. Not on our time table. When Cox (who, as we know from the CRCT mess, just loves to spring surprises on local school districts) applied for this program in May of 2008, she told the U.S. DOE that the earliest Georgia could implement the program would be the 2009-2010 school year. Now, because a condition of being a pilot project was implementation this year (2008-2009), school districts across the state learned just today that they will be expected to make changes most do not yet understand. Never mind that most school districts have very few 12 month staff positions. When you're saddled with 1.6 billion in cuts, you can't afford many 12 month positions. Who, exactly, is going to stop putting out the daily fires to sort this out? Implementation is going to be chaotic, at best.

3. Just say "no" to local control. Talk about loss of local control, Cox's plan includes the creation of "State-Directed Schools." Here's the exact language from Cox's proposal as submitted to the DOE:

State-Directed Status (NI-5 or higher)
All schools in Needs Improvement year 5 or higher will receive a State-Directed status label which involves an immediate loss of local governance and other additional consequences as determined by the GaDOE in each school’s required state directed contract.

I don't know about you, but Cox seems to be having substantial trouble with the tasks currently on her plate. I'm not sure she needs to be taking over local schools and removing authority from locally elected boards of education and locally hired superintendents. I laughed when I read the AJC explanation that this was not really taking over local schools since local boards would still get to make all non-academic decisions. Read: Local boards will get to figure out how to pay for what the State requires them to do. And, that's change, how?

4. Delay, Delay. Because of Cox's rush to accept this "prize," Cox has made it nearly impossible for local schools systems to begin their school years as planned. Cox does not plan to inform local school systems which schools will be "State-Directed" until July 21-25, just a couple of weeks before most school systems are slated to start. Expect Cox to use this as an excuse to further her argument that schools should start later this year (to give her time to clean up her CRCT mess.)

5. The Holy Grail of Charter Schools. Read the report, or at least the comparison of how things are now, and how they will be under this plan. Cox has taken this opportunity to embed becoming a Charter School as one of a few limited options schools that need improvement are forced to choose between.

So, though I am no fan of NCLB, I am also no fan of trying to turn a battleship on a dime in rough waters. Cox was right in her first submission to the U.S. DOE-we needed a year to implement these changes successfully, not the mere weeks we now have. And, you can't fix broken schools by sending a monitor down from Atlanta or by having the state take over the school. Only leadership that is out of touch with the realities of local school districts could think such a plan is a good idea.

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Cox, Perdue: Duck and Cover

Maybe all the schools in Georgia should be private. At least, then, the incompetent CEO, Kathy Cox, would be fired. Seriously, can you imagine parents at a private school allowing an administrator to remain who failed to align curriculum with the ( not standardized, per Tina) test required for advancement to the next grade? Me neither. But, in this case, Cox thinks that she should face no scrutiny what-so-ever, and says that those who think otherwise are just being partisan.

I work with children every day. Many of them are attending summer school because of Cox's failure. These families cross the political and demographic spectrum-and they are all fighting mad, as they should be. Are they angry that their child is being held accountable? No. They're angry that their children were short-changed and that taxpayers are being forced to fund the solution.

The reality is that our schools are not private (though that is, in truth, the goal of these Atlanta republicans) and our state school superintendent is elected not employed. So, in two years, it's going to be the voter's job to fire her and the rest of the republican team that thinks leadership in education includes the fluff while neglecting the basics. From teacher gift cards to "parental involvement coaches," Perdue and company have systematically funded the icing on a cardboard cake. And, when they're asked to account for their actions-or in Cox's case, her silence, her failure to advocate for children and her preference for political sound-bite over actual reform-they cry foul. They are happy to hold teachers, parents and children accountable, but accountability stops at the door to the gold dome. It's up to the voters to say otherwise.

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Shipp: Perdue's to Blame for School Failure

Who better than Bill Shipp to tell it like it is when it comes to Georgia's public schools. The current testing debacle says little about Georgia's students, yet, it speaks volumes about Predue, Cox and the republican-led General Assembly. Half of Georgia's eighth graders failed the math exam, and even more failed the now-discarded social studies exam. Don't you love it? Set children up for failure, then when they fail, and it makes you look bad, toss the results. Oh, don't get me wrong, there was no choice but to toss the results, and they ought to do that with the math, too, but that would get a little complicated. Because of NCLB, the feds would have to agree. But tossing results is not the answer-actually funding and supporting public schools is the answer. Everyone knows that the republican agenda is to privatize public education, so answer me this: in the private sector heads would role in the wake of a failure of this magnitude. Stock holders would insist upon it. So, can someone please explain to me why Kathy Cox should keep her job? For that matter, why would we ever again trust republicans to take care of our schools?

As Shipp so eloquently points out-it's not children and teachers who have failed. It's Perdue, Cox and all who supported their agenda. Until now, those most aware of the ceremonial gutting of our schools were educators. Not so any longer. Parents who must deal with their 8th graders failing test scores are now fully aware of the real price of the republican agenda.

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