Except from Maureen Downey’s Get Schooled column
Statistician Howard Wainer doubts the salvation of public education will come from blue-ribbon commissions, a popular strategy in Georgia in which dense reports on how to fix schools stack higher than the Gold Dome. (As we discussed recently, the state is taking another swipe at funding reform, assembling its sixth commission to tackle the challenge.)
“If you try to change a very complicated system — and a school system is very complicated — the worst way is to appoint a blue-ribbon panel with a name like ‘Education 2030’ and ask them to come up with a plan to improve things,” Wainer said. “That is not going to work because we are not that smart.”
More on education: No Child is no way to fix our schools
Continue reading 9/5: Uneducated guesses: Reforming education by committee rather than evidence »
He will be overseeing new topic pages on the regional economy and leadership; the latter will focus on governance issues in our area. Badie joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as an education reporter in 1997. He has also covered the region’s immigrant communities, and for several years was the opinion columnist for the AJC’s Gwinnett edition. Until assuming his new duties last week, his column continued to appear as part of the paper’s Saturday Opinion page. Badie’s also worked as the newspaper’s feature obituary writer.
She has written editorials and opinion pieces for the AJC about local, state and federal education policy …
Jay Bookman is a columnist and blogger at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has written about foreign relations; the environment; the economy; and national, state and local politics.
