A civil conversation
Ken Foskett, Opinion editor
Justice Clarence Thomas, who I wrote a book about, liked to describe the Supreme Court as a place where people could disagree without being disagreeable. That’s a good description of the AJC’s new Opinion pages.
The Opinion pages are a forum where contributors can speak plainly and passionately, but still hew to the civility that defines the South.
Unlike the news sections of the paper, the Opinion pages are the one place where contributors can broadcast their bias freely. My job is to balance points of view so that many sides of an issue are fairly represented, and publish the best commentary on a wide array of topics.
I moved to Atlanta in 1989 and wrote about the city and region from a variety of perches. I know Atlantans and I know the diversity of this region. We are a community of conservatives, liberals, and most everything in between. What unites metro Atlantans, regardless of political persuasion, is a deep concern for community.
We are also a community of readers who have extraordinary gifts and perspectives to share. Our universities are full of experts who are authorities in technology, medicine and government; some have worked as senior officials in presidential administrations.
Our Legislature is full of out-spoken politicians who want to tell you how you should think. I know; I hear from them all the time.
I also hear from area residents of different walks in life who put pen to paper because they have something unique to share. Last fall, Elisabeth Kadlec, a mother of two in Fayetteville, described her anguish over her vote for president as her husband, an Army officer, was off on his third deployment in Iraq.
Janice Pope wrote about carrying pictures of her great-grandparents, both freed slaves, to the inauguration of Barack Obama, so that their spirits might be part of that historic day. Last month, Peachtree City writer Terry Garlock, a Vietnam veteran, recalled the death of a friend in 1969, and why Memorial Day held special meaning for him.
Sunday through Friday, our regular columnists give you their take on the day’s top news. For balance, each of our columnists appears alongside one of another stripe from our stable of syndicated writers. All are terrific writers and people. Some are familiar faces. Some are new, including Kyle Wingfield, our newest columnist, who we added after Jim Wooten decided to retire. Read more about Kyle and the rest of our columnists in today’s Opinion section.
Mike Luckovich, our two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, delights and antagonizes, depending on your politics, five days a week. Mike will be mixing it up a bit more, and applying his wit to more local topics. I’m also making room for cartoons from conservative cartoonists to give our conservative readers something to smile about, too.
On Mondays, I devote a full page to education, perhaps the single biggest challenge facing metro Atlanta and our region. This topic generates so many letters that the page features a regular collection of your comments.
On Saturdays, a rotating stable of metro writers share perspectives on issues from their local communities. Recently, Jill Howard Church talked about how Fayette County’s sex education class wasn’t hitting the right note for her sixth grader in an era of ‘sexting’ and Britney Spears. Dick Goodman in Gwinnett has been giving commissioners there an earful, while Jim Osterman gives the word from Sandy Springs.
Displaying opposing views side-by-side on a single topic has proven to be enormously popular with readers, and you’ll find that feature on the Opinion pages regularly.
Everyday, you’ll find something interesting. Read on, and let me hear from you when you’ve got something to share with AJC readers.
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39 comments Add your comment
Jim
June 7th, 2009
10:01 am
Ken, credit where credit is due. This is a comment not so much about the opinion pages as about the paper as a whole. Some years ago, I emailed one of your colleague to complain about the content of my Sunday paper. What set me off, though I may recall this incorrectly, was a picture that ran on the front page, above the fold: Britney Spears. My comment at that time was that there was so little news in the paper, and most of that from wire services. Well, what a change. I am very favorably impressed by the newspaper I found at the end of my driveway this morning. The reporting on graduation rates in Georgia, on the financial incentives offered NCR, on vaccination rates among Georgia schoolchildren, on anticipated pollution problems at abandoned building sites in the metro area — these and other first-rate stories in today’s AJC offer some vindication of the managing editor’s decisions over the past many months. So, from one recently skeptical reader, thank you and sincere congratulations. I hope to continue seeing such hard-nosed reporting on news stories, and, yes, a vigorous but civil conversation on the pages you will be editing.
Ken Foskett, Opinion Editor
June 7th, 2009
10:30 am
Jim, thanks very much for the comment. The AJC has gone through some tough times of late, as I’m sure you’ve followed. But one upside is that it’s forced us to get back to basics, and focus on things that matter. (As I write this, I’m also hoping Britney Spears doesn’t make a fool of herself somewhere, and end up on the front page tomorrow.)
Let us know when we come up short.
Neil Murray
June 7th, 2009
11:32 am
A few weeks ago I sent an email to letters@ajc.com noting a contradiction between the AJC’s stated 150-word limit on letters and the actual length of published letters, which sometimes exceeds 200 and even 250 words. My email was neither answered nor published. Although I have noticed some decline in the number of overlong letters, the AJC is still not enforcing its policy uniformly. Why don’t you either follow your own rule or change it?
Jay
June 7th, 2009
11:32 am
When I came to Atlanta from NJ by way of Boston, in 1983, I was impressed to find two newspapers. Each with its own political viewpoint.
I have paid for home delivery of the “morning” paper ever since. Two things motivate me to read the paper every day, Doonesbury and the feeling of ignorance if I don’t.
Oftentimes I converse with someone who only heard the headline and not “the rest of the story”. I delight in furnishing the details that usually change the person’s perspective on the particular issue.
In the past few years the AJC has forced me to go to the internet for more of what I never lacked before. The Car Talk column, synopses of movies on TV, some favorite cartoons, the wood working column ( by Jack Warner) , architecture reviews ( by Catherine Fox) and informative business reporting ( by Maria Saporta). The AJC has also disposed of some things I will never get on the internet. Such as movie reviews by someone in Atlanta, the @Issue section with quotes that summarized the week’s news.
I do not look forward to getting all of my news from the internet. The local content will be gone. No longer will I know what is happening in my own county of DeKalb.
Who will gather the news that is presented on the internet? Has anyone looked that far into the future? Too many papers are either for sale or in Bankruptcy.
And, I believe, the quality of reporting is already suffering in the print editions. Cut backs are too close to the bone.
I do not envy your position. I hope that you succeed in your pursuit of righting the ship. I know that if you fail, Atlanta will be left with no one to exercise the Freedom of Information Act to inform the populace of the shenanigans behind closed doors throughout the State of Georgia.
As it is now, I foresee the AJC morphing into “McNews”…a USA Today for the masses in the south. And goodbye to the Dayton Daily News, Palm Beach Post, AJC, et al. Please succeed, do not let that happen.
Where the AJC falls short
June 7th, 2009
11:54 am
If you want to know where the AJC falls short Mr. Foskett, read your own letters to the editor and the various blog postings on education. If there is one common concern among teachers, it’s that their hands are tied in matters of discipline, and that school systems often sweep these incidents under the rug.
Not only do teachers have that concern, but other citizens as well, as indicated by the number of print and online comments from parents who have withdrawn their kids from the public schools for that very reason.
Yet other than a few throwaways lines from Jim Wooten in his blog, your editorial board has never, once, written a full editorial endorsing the position that teachers must be given more authority, and more support from the school systems, in matters of discipline.
If I’m wrong, then please show us the editorial, written by one of your editors, that fully devotes itself to endorsing that position.
If I’m not wrong, then please explain why they haven’t, and how you expect them to have any credibility on education issues with their readers, with such a huge, gaping hole in their coverage?
Please don’t avoid the issue Mr. Foskett, by pointing out letters or column on the subject by readers or outside columnists.
Please address the issue directly Mr. Foskett, and tell us why your editorial board has never written a column, specifically devoted to, and endorsing the position, that teachers must be given more authority and more support from the public schools in regard to discipline.
You asked, in your 10:30am post, to let you know where the AJC has come up short. And it’s been done, and done in a civil manner. Now are you ready to live up to your end of the bargain and address this on this blog?
Where the AJC falls short
June 7th, 2009
11:56 am
Enter your comments here
Ken Foskett, Opinion Editor
June 7th, 2009
12:08 pm
Neil, you are correct that some letters run longer than 150 words, which is primarily due to the fact that most letter writers do not follow the limit. If I set the limit higher, then the letters would be that much longer.
We’ve recently moved the letters to the first Opinion page in a space that will force letters to be closer to the 150 word limit.
There is one other area where I make allowances for longer letters. Occasionally, the subject of a news article will write that the AJC story did not adequately reflect their position, or left out some important details. In those instances, I will allow a longer letter to address those concerns.
DannyX
June 7th, 2009
12:14 pm
Why does the AJC spend so much time apologizing to people complaining about the so-called liberal content of this paper/website? Most of the people that do the complaining seem to only want their views reflected here.
Second, where has the local coverage gone? Dekalb County opinion and news coverage is almost non existent. Funny how the people complaining most about your liberal slant are getting excellent coverage. Gwinnett County for example has specific blogs and its own opinion columnist covering that county. Dekalb County has nothing, why is that?
Ken Foskett, Opinion Editor
June 7th, 2009
12:17 pm
Jay, I share your concerns about erosion of content, though some of the material your cite is still available in print. Catherine Fox, for example, regularly provides visual arts criticism to the AJC, even though she retired this year (see her nice review of the Monet exhibit in Friday’s Go Guide).
The decline in content is entirely driven by economics at this point. The AJC, and every other American newspaper, aren’t making the money they used to, and that has forced cut backs.
I’ll also say, however, that the AJC has gotten much more serious about listening to readers such as yourself, and tuning the newspaper to give readers more of what they want. Your comments will be read by every senior editor here, and I promise you they’ll be noted.
I appreciate you’re hanging with us. Like you, I can’t really imagine what life would be without a morning newspaper.
Ken Foskett, Opinion Editor
June 7th, 2009
12:21 pm
Regarding more control for teachers in the classroom. This is an excellent idea for the editorial board to consider, and I’ll forward this comment to Andre Jackson, the AJC’s Editorial Editor.
On Monday, we devote a page to education topics. We’ve had a feature from teachers on why they teach and why they quit. I’ve noticed that many of the teachers who left teaching cite inability to enforce discipline in the classroom as the reason.
Carter is a Fool
June 7th, 2009
12:28 pm
I agree with Where AJC Falls Short. It is in most cases a blame the teacher world. It happened recently to me. Student cut class and did not take the final exam. Parent called and chewed me out for recording a 0 for the exam.
The above was not about discipline, but it touches on the lack of respect for what we do and the very limited support and tools available to us. We are always wrong in our decisions regarding disciplining someone’s little angel when the little angel is disrupting the learning in our room.
It is not just the parents that fail to value what we do. Politicians do so as well. Our Governor recently slapped many of us across the face with his decision to create his own master teacher program when he did not like the National Program supported by Governor Barnes — National Board Certification. The legislature in their fine wisdom sort of agreed to dishonor their word as to salary incentives and rolled this back to 10 percent of what a new teacher makes. Even the “wonderful” politicians thought that they rolled this back to 10 percent bonus based on the teacher’s salary the year the teacher earned the certification. Instead it was rolled back to 10% of a new teacher’s salary.
Education is slipping in Georgia because there is no longer a partnership between parents and teachers. It is no longer assumed that the adult (teacher) is correct. Teachers are not always correct, but the assumption now by a parent is whatever Suzie told them happened and thus the teacher is wrong, at fault. I am not sure how to fix this as it is cultural and climate change that has pulled down learning and discipline in our schools.
Carter is a Fool
June 7th, 2009
12:32 pm
It will be nice to see someone balance Cartoon Boy’s poisoned pen scribbles as to hating all things conservative. I hope this will not be just another failed promise by the AJC. When does Cynthia (we are all racists) leave town?
Where the AJC falls short
June 7th, 2009
12:39 pm
Mr. Foskett,
Thank you for responding. Passing the idea along to Andre Jackson is good, but it doesn’t address the issue. The issue is, there is no way you should have to pass this idea along!
After 9/11, did you have to pass along to the editorial board that they should discuss Osama bin Laden? I doubt it.
Yet the editorial board ducking this issue, damages their credibility as much as refusing to discuss Osama bin Laden would damage their credibility to talk about 9/11.
Can you please address why they haven’t addressed it, because it is not hyperbole to say that other than a few blurbs from Wooten, the editorial board has never once taken a stand on supporting teachers in that regard.
Where the AJC falls short
June 7th, 2009
12:42 pm
Carter is a Fool,
Perhaps you can correct me if I’m wrong. Have you ever read an editorial in this paper, outside of a few blurbs from Wooten, where the editorial board endorses giving teachers more authority and support on discipline issues?
Ken Foskett, Opinion Editor
June 7th, 2009
1:09 pm
I did a quick check back to 2000, and I cannot find an editorial on this topic. I honestly have no idea why not. It’s a good topic. In terms of how the editorial process works, once a board member elected to write an editorial on this topic it would be up to them how they came down on it. Part of it would be identifying the specific policies or actions that a school district could take, and recommending changes. Again, this would require some understanding of the current situation and how it could be improved.
gwinnett reader
June 7th, 2009
1:18 pm
It is disturbing that you are an “editor” of a major US newspaper, and do not use proper grammar.
Political Man
June 7th, 2009
1:31 pm
The most important characteristic of any opinion piece appearing in the AJC is that it should be intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable, factual, etc. Just because someone has an “opinion” does not make it worthy. Furthermore, regarding conservative, liberal balance. Most of your so-called conservatives have not a clue about what it means to be a conservative. Most of themn are free-market libertarians, surely one of the more socially destructive forces to ever come along. As far as liberals. Since the AJC dropped Molly Ivins (now deceased), I don’t think a leftist-liberal has appeared in your pages. Sadly, some of the writings of your pseudo conservatives fail the coherence test. I wonder what Eugene Patterson and Reg Murphy would think of their offerings?
Where the AJC falls short
June 7th, 2009
1:47 pm
Mr. Foskett,
Thank you for addressing the issue directly, and acknowledging that it has not been covered.
Thank you also for your honesty in not making excuses for why it hasn’t been covered, for it is indeed a huge, gaping hole in the editorial board’s portfolio.
To understand the enormity of it, imagine your editorial board writing numerous editorials about Michael Vick the last several years, and not a single one mentioning dogfighting. You wouldn’t think your editorial board was writing openly and honestly in regard to Michael Vick if that were the case now would you?
And frankly, because of that gaping hole, many readers think the AJC has yet to engage in an open and honest dialogue about education issues.
Since the older members of the AJC board, save Wooten who is now leaving, seem completely unwilling to address this, I’m not sure passing along a suggestion to address it will actually do any good.
Perhaps you can focus your influence on your new guy, Kyle. Hopefully he still has an open enough mind to address what obviously, except to the AJC editorial board, is one of the biggest challenges facing education today.
Ken Foskett, Opinion Editor
June 7th, 2009
5:08 pm
Thanks to everyone who wrote in. I’m available by email Monday through Friday at kfoskett@ajc.com.
Will Jones
June 7th, 2009
6:14 pm
When the “balance” one is trying to achieve is between the Truth and a Lie an opinion editor, by half-measure does Truth no good.
Anita Hill was obviously telling the truth on Clarence Thomas, and he lying, and by his voting with the illegal majority opinion, as enunciated by Justice Breyer’s ‘Bush v. Gore’ dissent, Thomas proves that evil has gained advantage by relying on gentle, good Americans’ misplaced sense of fair-play.
Just because evil dresses itself “civilly” does not make outrage on the part of patriotic Americans any less appropriate.
Bush and Cheney committed 9/11. Any with a question about this established fact need merely read a scholar of proven integrity, Emeritus Professor, and PhD, David Ray Griffin’s “The New Pearl Harbor,” a free download, in its entirety on Google Scholar, patriotically donated after the profitable sale of millions of copies to some portion of the majority of Americans who know for a moral absolute that Bush and Cheney committed 9/11. This erudite book proves in scholarship and irrefutable reason and logic that they committed the crime.
It was this short work which was issued to a great Georgian, Max Cleland, before he resigned from the 9/11 Commission cover-up.
Like Thomas Paine’s best-seller “Common Sense,” and the sale of papers published by John Peter Zenger, the AJC can prosper anew by simply being a purveyor of truth to the People.
Traitors and their apologists, and others committing Misprision of Treason, can argue as civilly as they wish, but the editorial staff of a fine newspaper like Atlanta’s biggest and best, has an obligation to the Creed and to Journalism to Righteousness and the Truth.
There shall be no profit in protecting the false elite against the sovereign People, which make America exceptional. “Annuit Coeptis” shall make it profitable to the AJC to do good for America by promulgating and protecting the Truth.
The AJC should put itself on the right side of history, in service to the Creed and the People, by promoting to its readers that electing Max Cleland as Governor of Georgia is the right path for all Georgians and Americans. Like Georgia’s Hugh Thompson who singlehandedly stopped the Massacre at MyLai, Governor Max Cleland can help President Obama bring to justice the traitors of 9/11 – “sine qua non” in restoration of American Justice and Righteousness.
Lead the way AJC. Let Truth guide your vision that rot not be your ruin.
Carter is a Fool
June 7th, 2009
6:54 pm
Mr. Will Jones,
You are really confused after drinking the spiked Kool-Aid. I know that you also believe that Cynthia McKinney was a conservative who did a great job in Washington instead of a kook race baiting clown.
You have the right to your opinion and the right to voice it, but that does not make it the truth. None of what you wrote is the truth.
Carter is a Fool
June 7th, 2009
7:01 pm
Where the AJC Falls Short,
Never have I read anything in the paper about supporting teachers having the tools to maintain discipline in the classroom in order to teach. I have had one class this year with two students who disrupted the learning daily. Upon contacting one parent, I was informed to deal with it as it was not acceptable. In other words, it is your problem not mine. The other parent talked about the student needing extra attention. All the while this student talked about his mother as being so stupid to his friends. It is not uncommon for parents to ask the teacher in a conference the question — “What should I do to discipline Sammy?”
Parents need to help support the learning environment and support teachers unless shown that the teacher is incorrect. I know of no teacher who wakes up thinking that today is will be great fun to hassle some student. Unfortunately most parents want to be their child’s best friend and not their child’s parent.
Will Jones - Atlanta
June 7th, 2009
7:55 pm
Here’s the link to the book which proves Bush and Cheney committed 9/11: http://www.angelfire.com/biz/hankramey/The%20New%20Pearl%20Harbor.pdf
Only traitors and ignorant philistines will fail to read this sedulous proof of Bush’s and Cheney’s treason, by a scholar of known, proven integrity…unlike the anonymous detractor/fascists who take exception to the proven truth of their “Fifth Column” of Rome’s Anti-Christ, as identified by America’s Founder, Thomas Jefferson.
It is no coincidence that only the Roman Catholics on the Supreme Court voted in the unconstitutional ‘Bush v. Gore’ (Viz. Breyer dissent) to make Hitler banker’s closet-queen draft-dodging grandson our president to commit 9/11 as a “Reichstag Fire Redux,” nor that his father and his grandfather’s protege, Richard Nixon, could not accurately identify their respective locations upon hearing of John Kennedy’s assassination, which sent 58,000 of us to die for the pope in Vietnam.
As to Cynthia McKinney: she only provided an inoculation to Bush’s treason: a little of the truth to protect the Big Lie. She and Michael Moore are virulent Roman Catholics, and they know whose “side” they’re on: not the American People’s or G-d’s. Had they had Truth and Righteousness in them, they’d have called it like it was, knowable at the time: Bush and Cheney committed 9/11.
The book given as a patriotic donation by its author and publisher, is incontrovertible.
Any who read it know the Truth. Those who claim Bush and Cheney didn’t do 9/11 are traitors, dupes, or transparent morons.
The AJC must lead the way, as Atlanta, and Georgia, is the future of America.
Cleland for Governor!
Carter is a Fool
June 7th, 2009
8:33 pm
Man never landed on the moon. The Holocaust is a lie. Shall I list a few more way out there. Gore lost. Get over it. Bush did not cause 911. Get that straight. Cleland is a nice man who promised to vote for the belief’s of Georgians and then did not — the voters fired him. Simple, plain truth.
Oh well, after your last long missive there is no sense in wasting anymore time debating this with the owner of a closed mind.
Will Jones
June 7th, 2009
9:20 pm
Who’s the one who refuses to read a book? Afraid you actually might learn something prejudicial to your worldly faith in a sectarian faction whose multi-generational treason is documented for the other eighty percent of us?
The Beast shall be cast into the Pit by the American People…many philistines, hypocrites, liars and traitors will be sent along for the ride to Hades.
party pooper
June 12th, 2009
6:44 am
will jones is insane
Sounds of silence
June 14th, 2009
1:25 pm
What happened to the AJC Conversation Starter blog today? What happened to the editors trying to show how responsive they were to the readers?
Were the questions too tough for the editors to handle?
LT5000
July 2nd, 2009
3:29 pm
The AJC has lost all credibility as a newspaper. Especially as long as they let that clown Badie have a column.
When was the last time an AJC reporter broke a real story? Never.
LT5000
Troglodyke
July 3rd, 2009
2:33 pm
What happened to the “Woman to Woman” blog?
Now, I was not a W2W follower in the strict sense, but I did check it at least once or twice a week. I am well aware that blogs tend to get corrupted by attention-seekers (this one, apparently, is no exception) who 1.) stray from the topic as soon as they arrive; 2) flame those they do not agree with, and 3) act like general horse’s rear ends.
Is that why the W2W was shut down? Or did the women just run out of topics?
Troglodyke
July 3rd, 2009
2:40 pm
As for the paper, I am a 7-day subscriber and loyal reader for my entire life. I am 43 and an Atlanta native, and though the paper does slant liberal, this doesn’t bother me too much, generally. I consider myself a slightly left-leaning Libertarian.
I enjoy the AJC, and sincerely hope it can remain solvent. It does sometimes seem tame as newspapers go, but that’s not always bad. There are very few spelling and grammatical errors in it, which I appreciate, and content on a number of issues I am concerned about.
Even though Cynthia Tucker was a bit too left-leaning for me occasionally, I will miss her. I rarely agreed with Wooten, but I’ll miss him, too. (I thought his homage to Tucker was beautifully written and heartfelt.) The new “conservative” columnist is not a bad writer, and is not as strident as many on the right, so I look forward to agreeing with him some, too. I enjoy Luckovich, but it’s true: he needs to take Obama to task for SOMETHING soon, or I’ll have to grudgingly agree with those on the right who slam him for being too liberal.
In general, keep up the good work. The layout change is growing on me, and I understand the hard times newspapers are facing.
Pompano
July 7th, 2009
7:31 pm
I think it’s hilarious when Ken claims “to know Atlantans”. Every Opinion page writer on his staff is a flaming liberal except for Kyle – the only reason they kept Wooten on board for so long is because he’s senile. However, the majority of people that actually PAY to read the AJC are over-whelmingly Conservative. So much for tailoring the content for the people that actually support your organization.
Sorry but you guys don’t have a clue as to who actually pays your bills. The only thing the AJC seems to do well these days is to put a racial slant on every news article.
Troglodyke
July 8th, 2009
9:50 am
//However, the majority of people that actually PAY to read the AJC are over-whelmingly Conservative. //
Really? How do you know this?
Bat boy
July 9th, 2009
1:16 pm
Why do the conservative cartoonists deserve the label “conservative” when you won’t label Luckvoch? At least liberal?
It goes to your mindset that offends many of us as readers. Represesnting a conservative perspective is somehow out of the mainstream. Of course we know that it’s the AJC that’s out of step with its market.
Pissing it’s readers off…one day at a time.
Levi S.
July 9th, 2009
11:18 pm
Did I miss something? Is Cynthia leaving as well? If so, I will miss her, though I did not always agree with my Auburn Tigress.
Batboy
August 7th, 2009
8:01 pm
Notice too that even on the blog listing that the conservatives need a label. Cynthia Tucker and Jay Bookman must be ashamed of the liberal label.
Al
August 13th, 2009
10:42 am
Ken, I congratulate you and AJC for increasing coverage on educational issues. Our schools are in real trouble now and there are several reasons for this. As a DeKalb Teacher for over 20 years I have observed many changes in our society that seriously affect education. Our superintendent, Crawford Lewis, observed at our meeting last Thursday that the educational system we have today was put in place over 200 years ago, and has really changed little since. Fixing education today will require much more than the discipline of children. Lack of discipline is a problem and teachers do need more authority to manage behavior problems. However, a more fundamental truth here is that the behavior problems we encounter in school are just a symptom of more serious problems. In fact, harsh discipline very often makes the problem much worse. Key issues include the following: 1)The structure of education is wrong: Classes sizes and length of class periods are often not appropriate for effective learning; and teachers cannot engage students in learning subject matter effectively when content volume is overwhelming. Teachers have NO latitude to respond to student curiosity or time to permit students to develop content proficiency. 2)At enormous cost and damage to the educational process, our tests (which are used to determine school success or failure) are measuring the wrong things. Educating our children should not be a process of forcefeeding them large quantities of facts so that they can regurgitate them on the next exam, and then, with sufficient review, deposit the right answers again for the standard exams now required. When a student graduates from High School, I believe (and I think most folks believe) that he/she should be prepared to enter our society and have the knowledge and skills necessary to become a good citizen. The CRCT’s, Graduation Tests, and other standardized exams don’t address that. What we actually measure with these tests is a students ability to retain a set of facts (or practiced math skills)long enough to put a check mark in the correct box on a piece of paper. Students today who graduate from HS (many with A or B averages)often cannot write coherently and have difficulty understanding and communicating with adults. Many of our best and brightest have an unreasonable fear of failure. Most have very limited ability to take initiative, and need to be told, not just what needs to be done in general terms, but a detailed step-by-step set of instructions to accomplish a task. Most kids today, if pressed, will tell you that they are bored with education and that it is not relevant for them. I think that we have, in part, arrived at this sorry state of affairs in education by being led astray in measuring the wrong variables and overresponding to the results.
Please remember that there is no more critical need in our society that to properly educate our children so that they can continue to make our civilization work. Yet our society does not want to address this issue in any comprehensive way.
I would like to challenge AJC to dig deeper into the issue of education than just to air the frustrations of various stakeholders and rehash the same old tired proposals that offer a “quick fix”. This is not a band-aid problem.
One very disturbing proposal that is gaining bureaucratic support in the Federal Government is the idea of incentive pay for teachers. This concept sounds like a really good way to reward effective teachers. In an ideal world it might work pretty well. However, most public schools are not close to that ideal. The working environment has become very difficult for a classroom teacher to function effectively on his/her own. Sharing of everything, including classrooms, copy machines, lab equipment and storage areas, is usually a necessity. Each teacher and each class of students have their own special requirements and needs. To teach effectively in this environment, teachers depend heavily on each other. Very often, the adminstrator is unaware or dimly aware of these circumstances. Effective teachers are those who learn to cooperate with each other and their colleagues to an unusual degree. A pay incentive program that would fairly reward individual classroom teachers will be extremely difficult to develop. If it is unfair or even perceived as unfair, it will undermine the efforts of those other teachers who did’t receive the pay and destroy their incentive to help each other. Competition between teachers for supplies, use of equipment, or seeking favor with administrators to get the additional pay, is more likely to destroy a public school than to improve it. The only thing I can think of that should receive consideration for incentive pay is academic extra-curricular organizations, competetions, etc. Athletic coaches are given extra pay but, at least in most public schools, academic coaches (for things like Science Olympiad, Academic Bowl, Science Fair, Debate, or language clubs) are not. Yet these teachers get no pay incentive. There would be a great improvement in teacher participation in after school academics with a little incentive pay. Also, AJC could help by providing a greatly expanded media coverage of these academic events. Recognition of student efforts would sharpen competetion and motivate more students to participate.
In any event, I am very glad to see the emphasis that AJC is putting on educational issues and look forward to more serious, constructive debate in your public forum.
vote4change
September 3rd, 2009
2:22 pm
My favorite latest (safe) headlines, CAU student shot! and exactly why is this a shocker when we have instructors at this school spreading hate, seperation, narrowmindedness, and racism with memos to politicians?
Tom Califano
September 17th, 2009
10:39 am
Mr. Foskett,
I read the AJC (Thursday, Sept 17) article from guest columnist Ed Hooper regarding the Medal of Honor. It opened with the byline regarding the upcoming presentation of the Medal to the parents of Staff Sgt. Jared Monti. After reading the article I took notice of the artwork that was included with the opinion article. It was an image of a black soldier with the American flag in the background.
What was the thought process used in deciding the picture for the article? Why would you not use a picture of the actual Medal of Honor?
Why would you not use a picture of Staff Sgt. Monti?
Why was a picture of a non descript soldier used instead?
Tom Califano
Doug Willix
November 5th, 2009
9:05 pm
Ken…shouldn’t your first sentence read “…whom I wrote a book about?”