Georgia has created a system for its citizens to identify "failing" schools. An extra week of standardized testing has been implemented in addition to other tests that were already being done (read less time to teach the curriculum). There are a lot of rules and regulations about how these exams will be evaluated in order to determine which schools are failing schools. If a school is judged to be failing two years in succession, parents may move their students to a different school. The current results show so many failing schools that you would hardly know what to do with your student. The Republicans are now saying in editorials in the paper, "The public school system is a failure. Vouchers are the only answer. Let the child go to school where ever they want and let the money follow the child."

I didn't see that line coming. I had wondered why the system for evaluation was so screwed up. Our local middle school had been ranked 38th best in the state several years back, and the same kids come through to me at the high school where the senior class average on the SAT has been consistently over 1100. We are usually considered in the top 5 schools in the state, public or private, regular or magnet. We don't care who we are up against. We can hold our own. Our kids routinely go to Harvard, Cornell, Emory, Tech, MIT, etc., etc. So how could our local middle school wind up on the Georgia's failing schools list? Well I'll tell you. It's about paperwork. If everything gets done just so, and that just may not be possible, then you will be a passing school. In our case, two special education students who listed our school as "home" but actually attend special programs at other nearby schools, failed to take the standardized tests. They were absent from school and did not make them up when they returned. Our school wasn't aware of it because they didn't attend there anyway. No matter. The T's were not crossed, the I's were undotted, and our school is a failing school.

The whole thing, I said, THE WHOLE THING, is a scam, cooked up by the legislature to make as many schools as possible look bad, in order to urge school vouchers upon us.

Let's face it. Someone should call a spade a spade and stop waltzing around the issue. School vouchers are just a way to ask to get your tax money back because you don't want your children in integrated schools. There is not an education issue here. It's a race issue. I want my Michael or Kaitlyn in parochial school with children of families who look just like us and that is expensive. It's breaking the family budget. So can't we find a way to get our tax money back from public education to pay for my desire to be segregated?

Are the private schools better? They charge some big bucks and some have fine facilities. But they have teachers making extremely low pay. How are they drawing the best teachers for the lowest pay scale? They have teachers teaching "out of field." In other words, teaching subjects they did not study in college. Dr. G we want you to teach a civics class or 9th grade English this year. You understand politics and can read a book so you are quailfied don't you think? (Well sure if that's what it takes to keep my job). They have teachers teaching who have not had any courses in the education area. They've never studied about how children learn. They don't have to have certification to teach in private schools. There is no professional standards commission looking over their shoulder. There are no requirements for continuing education. This does not sound like a recipe for high achievement. For 8 thousand a year you cannot get a better education than you will get at our school. But you can get a more segregated one. And you can say the Lord's prayer over the intercom every morning. I just don't think your desire to destroy quality public integrated education is a good reason to give you a tax break. Develop some coping skills. Learn to deal with other cultures and ethnicities. Or if you must be a racist, go ahead and be responsible for yourself. Support the system that is available to educate all students and choose to pull your student out and pay the freight.

There is a second issue here and I'll put it in the next blog.