AJC investigation: Dropouts in Georgia far higher than reported. Can we fix it?
In a front page Sunday investigation, the AJC shares its discovery – learned through open records requests — that 30,751 students in the Class of 2011 left high school without a diploma, nearly double the 15,590 initially reported.
The jarring difference owes to new federal requirements for counting dropouts, requirements that now put the onus on systems to track students who disappear.
I wonder whether schools have the staff to do what one principal described as intense detective work to hunt missing students.
“It’s going to be something where we all turn into Sherlock Holmes,” and we’re tracking every lead we can. It basically is a guilty-until-proven-innocent format,” Gabe Crerie, principal at Henry County’s Eagle’s Landing High School, said. He and his school’s grad coaches spent seven hours one day this summer, trying to track down 62 suspected dropouts. They found 33 at other schools, Crerie said.
The AJC story by reporters Nancy Badertscher and Kelly Guckian notes that Cherokee County officials considered the old formula suspect 10 years ago, when the state first adopted it. Superintendent Frank Petruzielo issued an edict that school officials document students said to be transferring from the district and to review their dropout data twice a year. That vigilance paid off: Among metro districts, Cherokee had one of the smaller increases in dropouts — 90 — and its grad rate moved 7.3 percentage points, from 82.1 percent to 74.8 percent.
I have to point out the obvious here: Georgia has one of the nation’s lowest graduation rates in part because it has one of the nation’s highest child poverty rates. After decades of writing about schools, I am convinced that we can’t deal with one without addressing the other.
Poor children are not a lost cause, but keeping them in school and on grade level requires an unwavering commitment of time, energy and money, and I sometimes wonder whether we have the will in Georgia to make such a commitment.
Please note that Georgia has never done well with low-income students. There is no golden era of education over which to wax nostalgic. The state’s failure to graduate large numbers of high school students was not a problem a generation ago when mill and factory jobs awaited them. In fact, the promise of cheap, ready labor — along with cheap, ready land — was something that Georgia presented as a selling point to new industries.
Now, little awaits a high school dropout. Industry wants educated workers who are able to adapt and learn new skills quickly.
According to the main AJC story in the Sunday package:
The discrepancy came to light because this year the federal government made all states use a new, more rigorous method to calculate graduation rates. Under the new formula, the state’s graduation rate plunged from 80.9 percent to 67.4 percent, one of the nation’s lowest.
Part of the reason for the decline is that the new formula defines a graduate as someone who earns a diploma in four years, though thousands of students take five years or longer. But the AJC’s analysis shows — for the first time — how much of the discrepancy stemmed from a failure to accurately measure how many students drop out.
For years, inflated graduation rates helped state and local districts meet political pressures and claim success. But undercounting the number of dropouts did nothing for the kids who quit school unnoticed.
“They spent more time trying to fix the numbers, than they did trying to fix the problem,” said Cathy Henson, an advocate for education reform and former state Board of Education chair. “My frustration is that if you’re giving people phony data, then they don’t understand the magnitude, the urgency of the problem.”
The cost to the taxpayer can be high. Dropouts are more likely to spend time in prison and need public assistance at some time in their lives.
In Clayton County, parents were stunned when told local dropout numbers quadrupled under the new formula. “I’m just blown away by those figures,” said Melody Totten, parent of a Clayton County 10th grader and past president of the local PTA council. “The school board should hold the superintendent accountable, and the superintendent, in turn, should hold the schools, principals accountable.”
Education experts have long suspected that the state’s soaring graduation rate was artificially high, rooted in faulty data.
Under the state’s old formula, students who disappeared from a school’s rolls were often written off as transfers without evidence that they had landed in another school. In general, students were only counted as dropouts if they formally declared that they were quitting school, something researchers say they seldom do.
The new method takes the opposite tack, counting a student as a dropout unless the district can show that he or she enrolled elsewhere.
Former State School Superintendent Kathy Cox said some districts, under pressure to graduate more high schoolers, might have looked the other way when students left. “Some of this is catching people who were probably deliberately messing with the system, and some of this is catching what probably is just bad record-keeping,” Cox said.
Current schools chief John Barge is more circumspect. “I can’t say that a system was or wasn’t fudging the numbers,” Barge said in a recent interview. “Do I think there is large-scale people wanting to manipulate the system? I really don’t think so.”
Georgia officials announced in April that the state’s grad rate was 13.5 percent points lower under the new formula. They blamed the fall in part on the undercounting of dropouts but said they had no specifics.
In metro Atlanta, Clayton County Public Schools saw a huge swing, going from 392 dropouts to 1,584 and from an 80.2 percent to a 51.5 percent grad rate, according to the state’s data. Clayton officials had thought they were making headway. Their 2010 grad rate was 81.6 percent, better than the state’s 80.8 percent.
Clayton officials believe that at least some of the newly-reported dropouts could have been legitimate transfers, district spokesman Doug Hendrix said. But they also are taking a hard look at strategies to help students graduate. Those include counselors serving as mentors to every child and parent coordinators out in the community, Hendrix said. “It’s obvious to us there is some work to be done,” he said.
As early as 2009, the AJC reported that some districts were suspected of over-reporting transfers and under-reporting dropouts — two measures that boost graduation rates. In 2010 and 2011, the newspaper reported that thousands of Atlanta Public Schools high school students were taken off the rolls without documentation of where they went, at the same time the district was boasting huge jumps in its grad rate.
The new data shows APS’s dropouts increased from 798 6 to 1,544 and its grad rate went from 69.5 percent to 52 percent with the switch to the new formula. APS spokesman Keith Bromery said more accurate numbers put “us in a better position to know what the reality of the situation is for the district.” The district is creating an early-warning system that will alert teachers and administrations to signs that a student could be on the path to dropping out, Bromery said.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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191 comments Add your comment
Digger
August 19th, 2012
1:14 pm
Is anyone not lying about education in Georgia? Perhaps its time to accept and celebrate our lot in life: that of flattering contrast to the other 49 states.
Jessica
August 19th, 2012
1:15 pm
I think we need to recognize that some kids don’t really need 12+ years of academic instruction. Some It would be a lot more beneficial to these students and society to prepare the ones who are not realisitically college-bound for a trade or skill instead. Focus the effort and money on the lower grades, on making sure all kids are grounded in the basics, and after that let them choose their own path — college prep, trade school, apprenticeship, etc.
MsFix_IT
August 19th, 2012
1:23 pm
Dear Community,
It is really time to reform public education. Why? Because the system is base on the past national harvest and agriculture periods. This is not a factor for families now. What we need to look at is adaptative education to direct students into trades and well as higher education. We are not attracting industry to Georgia not just because of low performing academic; but we don’t have the Trades and Craft skills required to fuel industrial applications. Education is more than English, Math, Science and Geography. It is the ability to apply these core disciplines to the work enviroment and adapt to the changes in the workplace and world to be productive citizens.
I received my G.E.D in Georgia over 30 years ago, not because I was slow or dumb. I received the highest G.E.D score in the state and passed all the tests in one session. What caused the discord is that, the educational system did not allow me to learn at a progressive rate. In our society, students are expected to sit still and listen to a lecture inside some inadequately lit quasi sterile enviroment. This serves to put kids to sleep and makes them inattentive. We have to know that learning is interactive. When students are engaged they learn and retain more information. An example, is to know why math is important and how it applies to real life. I use examples of our monentary system and everyday home projects; this gives my grandkids examples of why you must excel at Math and Reading in school.
Additionally, we invest all of our resources in test scores, this is not the measure of a good education. If education cannot be applied to one’s life and work enviroment; then it is a abysmal failure. Our education system was designed to train workers and not develop thinkers, which has lowered our expectation for our public educational system. That is why students with private educations are more prepared for secondary education and to lead corporations and companies.
The points I have made will address some of the shortcomings, but the other factor is being able to look at the future and see that there is a place for you. Students are disillusioned, because going to college and having to work at McDonalds or Burger King is not the American Dream most have envisioned.
Ron F.
August 19th, 2012
1:24 pm
Rep. Lindsey: What I’m rolling my eyes at right now is this:
“Between 2003 and 2008, state spending per K-12 child on education increased by approximately $750 per child.”
While that may be true, you surely know how cuts to QBE formula funding have been ongoing for the past ten years. My system, with an annual budget of approximately 28 million for fiscal 2011 has faced NINE MILLION dollars in state funding cuts in the past ten years. That is on top of rising insurance costs and mandated step raises. We are currently at the 20 mil cap on local property tax assessments on property that has dropped steadily in value since 2008. The funding formula has been state law since 1985. How do you explain those cuts? I’ll post the exact year by year cuts if you would like. Our enrollment has remained steady or grown slightly in those years. We’re a small, basically rural county that doesn’t have a large transient population as would be expected in the larger metro Atlanta systems.
Actually, my system has cut central office staff to the bone. We don’t have multiple levels of coordinators and asst. superintendents that larger systems have. Through it all, I realize how lucky I am to be in a smaller system, even with the funding strain. My only issue is the continued mandates for performance, curricula, and testing that the state imposes while its financial contribution is now less than 40% overall.
bootney farnsworth
August 19th, 2012
1:24 pm
@ Jessica
which would be an EXCELLENT use of charter schools.
the Home Depot school for stilled trades won’t harm our souls. it would solve a few problems
Claudia Stucke
August 19th, 2012
1:26 pm
@Todd: Basing school funding on graduation rates may sound good in principle, but I worry about lowering academic expectations and standards . . . which, in Georgia, are already too low, in my opinion. As late as 2010, my last year as a teacher, students who came to us from other states (or from local private schools) were generally at least a year ahead of our curriculum for student grade level.
With regard to the dropout rate, this is an inopportune time for DeKalb County to fire all its graduation coaches (mid-May, just before the end of the school year 2011-2012). Sadly, the coaches found out that they had lost their jobs by watching the local 6:00 news. The county immediately sent letters to the grad coaches, saying that the decision to terminate individual coaches had not yet been made but would be final by May 14 (”coincidentally” the due date for the coaches’ filing important federal documentation for special-needs students, compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, etc.). This action was apparently taken only to ensure that these documents were properly filed, after which the county summarily dismissed all graduation coaches. Although I’ve left the classroom officially, I continue to volunteer with at-risk students to help build on basic skills, as well as to keep them encouraged and supported; but volunteers cannot “fix” the problem. Some of these students barely speak English, some have to work forty-hour weeks to help support their parents and siblings, and some simply don’t want to be in school.
During my classroom days I occasionally had former students talk to current students. Sometimes they were invited; sometimes they just showed up because they wanted to tell the younger kids about their own “real-world” experiences. Whether they went to college or the workplace after high school, whether they dropped out or graduated, all had their regrets and advice. Their words of wisdom had much more impact and gravitas than anything I had to say.
crankee-yankee
August 19th, 2012
1:27 pm
Tired of it
August 19th, 2012
10:08 am
Hear, hear! Good points, the schools are not and should not be depended on to fix the ills of society. The right would agree that those who are failing “need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.” The left would agree all students have the ability to succeed. Think there might be a seed for compromise there?
The problem is you have a difficult time winning votes when you speak hard truths. So our “learned” representatives stoke the fires of extremism to fire up the “base” & attack the opposition. Along the way they become beholden to splinter groups that represent stands not truly representative of the norms yet fear losing their support. Money talks, too loudly IMHO.
The graduation rate has been abysmal ever since I moved to this state over 20 years ago. Even then, I noticed & questioned dropout numbers that didn’t reflect what I was observing in the schools. We teachers joked about the “funny numbers” our small county superintendent sent in to the DOE. What I didn’t know then was how widespread the practice was. I have since left that county after we had multiple superintendent changes in a few short years.
Follow the money, local funding can be enhanced when grad rates increase? A way will be found to report an increase.
Getting a federal grant is based on graduation rates? A way will be found to report an increase.
And when something is pointed out as being amiss, the mantra I hear most often is “we did nothing illegal.” Good, that makes it all OK. Why did Kathy Cox feel the need to comment on the report? Maybe because her administration was guilty of misreporting so she wanted to try and head things off with a shot across the bow?
Remember the old adage, you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say. Its all in the spin. You need to look at the raw data to see the truth.
Why are our rates so abysmal state-wide? Many posters have pointed out many valid reasons, none of which are within a school system’s purview to fix. It is a societal problem that needs compromise to find & implement solutions. I fear the current political climate will not allow for that.
Lynn Deutsch
August 19th, 2012
1:29 pm
Rep Lindsey,
Poverty is a huge challenge, but I believe that GA’s many incompetent local school boards are capable of working towards any kind of meaningful solution.
As long as central office bureaucrats and school boards are held harmless in public education in GA, things probably won’t improve very much. We hold teachers accountable, we hold schools accountable, but the state does very little to hold school boards and the people they employee accountable.
It is time for the state to look at other models including those that allow the state to intervene in systems where academic performance is continually low. The state must be quick to intervene in systems that are essentially financially bankrupt and in systems were employees are indicted. I would advocate for term limits for school board members, because more than any other elected official, they impact the outcomes of students and therefore, the future of children.
Texas and North Carolina are among the 24 states where a state takeover of a school system is possible.
http://ielp.rutgers.edu/docs/developing_plan_app_b.pdf
td
August 19th, 2012
1:29 pm
Maureen Downey said:
“I have to point out the obvious here: Georgia has one of the nation’s lowest graduation rates in part because it has one of the nation’s highest child poverty rates. After decades of writing about schools, I am convinced that we can’t deal with one without addressing the other.”
I agree with this statement and would like to know what you believe the ROOT cause of this child poverty is?
bootney farnsworth
August 19th, 2012
1:31 pm
I can’t help but wonder if part of the problem is kids just burn out. when I was in school, (pre Columbus, ya know) a guy could make a decent living without having to finish school. a good living on a HS diploma. college-they sky was your limit.
and the school year was shorter and didn’t have the stupid CRCT crap.
these days a HS diploma means you can join the army. a bachelors is the equivalent of a HS from my time, and masters the new bachelors. for now.
to make any kind of useful dent in education, you now put the first 24 years of life on hold. and for uncertain results. I can see why a lot of kids would ask why bother.
Lynn Deutsch
August 19th, 2012
1:32 pm
Opps that should incapable of working towards any meaningful solution.
bootney farnsworth
August 19th, 2012
1:34 pm
something which gets lost in discussion is until the last 15 years, HS diploma was nice but not vital to many professions in a mostly agricultural Georgia. saying Georgia has a long term graduation issue is not exactly telling the full story
mrb62
August 19th, 2012
1:35 pm
A very simple way to keep track of droputs is to mandate that a child’s official presonal file be transferred to the new school they attend. The current school will keep the official file of every child attending, and that child would not be able to transfer to another school without the file. The physical custody of the file would always remain in official hands of the schools districts to ensure accountability. If a file is tranferred and the child does not show up to the school, either two things have happened; the child has moved out of state or the child has dropped out.
bootney farnsworth
August 19th, 2012
1:36 pm
@ td
its easy to answer, but not politically correct.
we reward a growing segment of society for irresponsibility.
why work, why go to school, if someone else will provide your basics?
CCMST
August 19th, 2012
1:45 pm
@ Rep. Lindsey – thank you for being here!
My first thought in reference to your number of $750/child increase is did that keep up with the pace of inflation? It’s one thing to say we spend more, but it means nothing if it doesn’t go as far.
Answering your questions:
“What existing programs are most helpful to you as a teacher?” Others will disagree, but at my middle school, the graduation coach was hugely helpful. I suppose it depends a lot on the personnel hired and the duties outlined for them but at our diverse metro school, it worked. I was sad to see it go.
“Which ones are clearly a waste of time?” Anything that involves more repetitive paperwork. In the 12 years I have been teaching, I have seen the required paperwork triple. I use data, but we seem to collect it simply to say we collect it! Ridiculous. And RTI does not work – unless the goal of RTI was to keep kids out of special ed.
” What can be done to improve leadership in your school?” I have few complaints about leadership at my school, except I do think teachers should be able to evaluate it. It does provide a nice system of checks and balances. I also think building leaders in general need a lot more time in the classroom. I currently have more time in the classroom than every administrator in my building. I also think we shuffle administrators around too much.
“Is your central office lean and focused on your classroom or is it bloated and self absorbed?” Without naming names, our CO has a reputation (verified by an AJC study a couple years back) of running fairly lean and mean.
“How much do you roll your eyes when you hear from the state?” No offense, but a lot. Third curriculum overhaul in twelve years of teaching…wouldn’t you?
“And, most important, how do we reach that hardest to reach student and keep him from being a dropout statistic?” 1. Get him in elementary, before he’s lost. Speaking from experience, middle school is too late.
Mary Elizabeth
August 19th, 2012
1:47 pm
@mountain man, 11:40 am
“I read MaryElizabeth’s article where it all comes down to poverty.”
===========================================
Mountain man is wrong. I never wrote an “article” in which I claimed that the dropout rate “all comes down to poverty.”
Here is what I did write on August 18, 2012, at 10:54 am, on this blog:
“One primary source of educational problems has been poverty. The state must, again, more fervently address this issue, aside from its educational impact.”
Poverty, among other things, creates a situation in which impoverished students enter kindergarten, and/or first grade, well behind their peers, academically. To minimize the wide range of instructional variances in the early school years, addressing societal problems, such as poverty, would be of substantial help to teachers and to students. I, further, wrote the following words in that same post, the points in which I, also, believe will improve the high school graduation rate, substantially:
“However, traditional public education does need to change and improve, but it needs to do so, primarily, from within through fully understanding and implementing sound instructional principles such as (1) mastery learning, (2) continuous academic progress of each student according to his or her potential to master instructional concepts at point in time, (3) improving discipline, and (4) supporting of teachers in achieving those ends. Public charter schools might help to improve traditional public education, also, but they must work in collaboration with local school districts and traditional public schools, not in competition against them. . . .”
For more information on Mastery Learning, read this link:
https://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/about-education-essay-1-mastery-learning/
Mikey
August 19th, 2012
1:55 pm
Educational materials, cirriculum, and teachers are not the problem folks. It’s the morons who don’t know how to be parents. I have two educators in my house and they both can tell you stories about these “dropout” kids and their home life that would leave you disgusted. The problem is at home.
AJC investigation: Dropouts in Georgia far higher than reported. Can we fix it? | Renascence School International News Blog
August 19th, 2012
2:01 pm
[...] of 2011 left high school without a diploma, nearly double the 15,590 initially reported.”(more) Comments (0) Return to main news [...]
crankee-yankee
August 19th, 2012
2:05 pm
Here’s an interesting factoid put out by Harvard University about education levels needed for future jobs.
http://gacte.org/documents/Symonds%20Presentation.pdf
It was presented at the GACTE conference this summer, bottom line is 33% of future jobs will require a 4-year (BA) degree, 30% will require only a 2 year degree (tech school) and 36% only needing a HS diploma.
So I ask you this. Why are we pushing kids into 4 yr. college prep tracks to the detriment of alternative educational tracks? Do you think maybe that could be part of our dropout dilemma? The kids are pushed into classes they are not suited to and do not prepare them what they will need when they graduate, almost 70% of the kids who should be graduating will eventually be filling jobs for which they do not need a 4 year degree yet we tell them they need to prepare via a college prep track with little or no room for elective classes that will allow them to explore alternatives.
Does anyone else see a disconnect here?
Once Again
August 19th, 2012
2:05 pm
The government spends billions tracking every move every citizen makes from birth to death. As with all of their spying, it only serves THEIR interests. Just like before 9-11, tons of warnings, information, intelligence, etc. should have raised hundreds of red flags, but the bloated bureaucracy was unable to do anything with the information they had or share it in a manner that would have benefitted the average citizen.
The government has no incentive to accurately report on the failure of its educational system. Don’t ever expect it to be honest on this front. All that will come of this will be more calls for more money to more accurately document what we all should know by now – that government run education monopolies do not serve the general good.
SGaDawgette
August 19th, 2012
2:07 pm
@ Rep Lindsey: Typical. In your first entry you ask how to “untie this knot” but when given examples of how to do so by an “expert in the trenches” that don’t fit your political agenda, you change the questions and attempt to scold the messenger. Your blog comments themselves do nothing to engender trust from the educators present here. Why don’t you try actually looking into some of the many ideas put forward instead of trying to build a case for what you have already so obviously decided to do in the legislature?
living in an outdated ed system
August 19th, 2012
2:08 pm
@Bootney, Rep. Lindsey will likely NOT respond to your disrespectful and uneducated tone. Even if you disagree with a politician, it is VERY disrespectful to talk to a public servant that way! I am SO GLAD you do not teach my children – or anyone’s children for that matter!
sassyteacher
August 19th, 2012
2:13 pm
Representative Lindsey:
What can we do to improve education? Given that there is no accountability for parents, let us take them out of the equation for now.
1. Mandate that schools function with a principal, an assistant principal, a book keeper, custodians, cafeteria staff, a counselor, and a secretary. Drop all the data people, curriculum support teachers, and graduation coaches, and any other miscellaneous positions. Principals and assistant principals would have to make their own copies and complete their own secretarial tasks, just like teachers do. Also, mandate that they teach any professional learning classes. They are paid twice what most teachers make, so make them do more actual curriculum and learning tasks.
2. Cut 90% of central office staff in school districts. Leave HR, personnel, benefits. Fire instructional coordinators and every other fluff position. If you do not know what positions need to be cut, survey the classroom teachers. Most central office positions are a bunch of bull. Very few (less than 10%) central office staff actually improves classroom instruction.
3. With the money saved from above, put paraprofessionals in every classroom from K-5, at least 4 hours a day. Yes, it is costly, but they can provide needed small group instruction for half the price of a certified teacher.
4. Mandate phonics instruction in K-5 and optional phonics instruction in 6-8, if needed. Most parents are not reading to or providing a literature rich household for kids.
5. Stop with all of the curriculum madness. I am 42 years old and did not grow up under common core and learned at a very high level. Stop drowning children in curriculum that consists of 8 units, each lasting a month, that covers too much material. For example, in fourth grade, my students should only have 3 units that need to be covered: place value/number sense, multiplication/division, and fractions/decimals. We are broad on standards in Georgia, but short on depth. The kids never have enough time to master a topic. This is extremely important, as the students are getting academically lower and lower every year it seems.
6. Deal with the severe discipline issues in our public schools. It is not fair that kids who do not know/cannot act correctly, make the classroom miserable for kids who do know how to act and impossible for teachers to teach.
7. Mandate high school vocational/technical programs. Not every student wants to attend college and some are not ready.
8. Hire more school counselors for the massive high schools found in metro Atlanta. It is nonsense that high schools with close to 2000 or more students have two counselors. Is there any common sense in that? You do the math as to why students are slipping through the cracks.
9. School boards need rethinking. What we need to do, I do not know. I know they are a mess and typically, what is best for students is the last thing on most of the members’ minds.
Ron F.
August 19th, 2012
2:17 pm
What many need to realize is that addressing poverty isn’t about money. Clearly we’ve thrown money at the problem and gotten no real results. We need to help them with basic needs, but perhaps the most basic need is to help them understand how to move out of poverty. Welfare to work programs are, I believe, an important step. But if you study poverty, especially the working poor, you realize that just “a job” isn’t enough. When you live for years working and still barely surviving, your attitude towards money becomes very different. You don’t see achievement in education as a reasonable goal because it doesn’t answer the immediate need of how to feed your family and keep the power going. Teachers must also understand that children from poverty don’t know how to think long term about the future. Some learn that skill when there is a significant emotional connection with someone they learn to trust. They see how the middle class lives, but they don’t have those values. Teaching them to want to grow out of poverty isn’t about piling on more coursework, or standards, or making graduation requirements stricter. It’s about teaching them to value academic achievement as a step in the process of getting to a better life. Erin Gruell figured it out with that first group of kids she writes about in Freedom Writers. You can follow the standards and teach to the tests all day long and you won’t really change kids’ mindsets about education. The simple first step is to use what they know and connect new ideas to it. There’s not an educational standard for that out there, but there needs to be. For all the chatter we’ve given it, we’re not improving our graduation rate because we aren’t addressing the real societal issues with regards to attitudes about education and opportunity to work up and out of poverty. When the wages of the vast majority have remained fairly stagnant when adjusted for inflation for thirty years, it’s hard to convince kids they can do better. They don’t value education because they see so few from their economic level move up by gaining education. Change that, and you’ll gradually see the stats rise. Keep imposing legislative foolishness and putting the screws to teachers, and you’ll never see more than a small increase. Not even charter schools can ultimately do it better unless they are truly addressing the needs of the kids they serve. Not enough of us really understand the needs of kids in poverty and how differently we have to teach them, and even when we do, we get chastised and receive poor performance ratings for not following “THE SYSTEM”, even if it results in rising scores.
Alex J
August 19th, 2012
2:19 pm
Can someone explain what the AJC’s numbers mean? The state already reported a drop from 80.9 percent to 67.4 (right?), but the AJC is saying they found 30751 dropouts compared to 15590 reported? Does that mean the graduation rate is actually much lower than 67.4? Thanks for any insight you can give me.
Ron F.
August 19th, 2012
2:25 pm
Dawgette: all it takes is a little truth, and the elected officials ruuuuuun like scalded dawgs (forgive the lame pun, there please). They love to dispense rhetoric, ask questions and appear concerned, and then essentially do nothing with it. I challenge them often to come spend days in local schools, but you can bet the farm none do. Mine has never darkened our doors despite his repeated “concern” for education. It’s like they have a response book, and if you say something to them that doesn’t have a party-approved response, they just change the subject. That’s chapter two of the The Party Approved Talking Points Manual.
concerned about education
August 19th, 2012
2:30 pm
Representative Edward Lindsey
Teachers do NOT have any control over how money is spent in schools. I have no idea how much money my school has to spend on anything. I feel teachers should have a say about the budget within schools and school systems. I see a lot of beautiful furniture, signs, and technology in the central office and administration offices. I hear about principals and central office personnel going to expensive conferences. I see all of the programs teachers are made to incorporate without any training or reasons for the programs. Somehow there is money for these programs and the technology it takes run these programs but there isn’t money for books, paper, teacher computers or substitute teachers. Teachers have been furloughed at least six days for four years and had 2% of the county supplement eliminated. But the duties and class sizes have increased. Schools are germ ridden establishments yet teachers are expected to never be sick or out for sickness. Do you have any idea what it is like to teach five classes of 30 or more students when you have an extremely sore throat and cannot talk? I do. We aren’t allowed to hire a substitute so we come to school sick. As Ron F. stated, we spend money out of our own pockets for students and for classroom materials.
What existing programs are most helpful to you as a teacher? Having a school social worker and guidance counselor that has time to deal with student absenteeism, needs such as glasses, homelessness, and abuse are extremely important in my school district. But we only have two social workers for over 10,000 students and only one counselor per school. There aren’t enough hours in the day to meet the needs of our students and families.
Which ones are clearly a waste of time? Positive Behavior Rewards are a waste of time. Why are we rewarding behavior that should be expected? If you are good your reward is not being in trouble, having a clear understanding of the material taught in class, good grades, and an education. I’m tired of seeing money spent on rewarding students for just showing up for class.
Graduation coaches are a huge waste of money.
Para professionals that clearly do not have degrees in education are a waste. Why not hire a real teacher in place of the numerous para pros that do very little in schools. (Yes, there are some great para pros but most of them do very little to increase achievement in student learning).
We must endure community programs that simply do not work. For four or five years we have invited the community to visit our schools. This sounds great and the first year it worked well. But for the next three or four years we spent countless hours and money on the same program and only one or two people showed up. If they had asked teachers we would have said that this program should only occur every five years. I was told the community outreach programs are mandated by the State. Then let the State fund them! Stop mandating programs that the STATE is not going to fund!
What can be done to improve leadership in your school? Teachers should be allowed to have forum for their opinions without being scared to be fired for those opinions. Teachers should have a say in how money is spent within the school. Teachers should be allowed to research and implement programs that work for their students. Every school is different and has different needs. One size does not fit all even within a school system. Teachers know what does NOT work yet are forced to do things that are counterproductive every day. But because we do not have a voice in our own school or school system we just do what we are told and take the blame when a program or initiative fails. Principals generally do not collaborate with teachers and they should.
Is your central office lean and focused on your classroom or is it bloated and self absorbed? I have to applaud the school system for eliminating positions and having the remaining personnel take on multiple duties. However, their salaries are much higher than teachers with multiple degrees. The problem is some of the positions the central office personnel controls have little or no idea what the needs are of the area they control. They make decisions without even consulting the departments they control.
How much do you roll your eyes when you hear from the state? Constantly! Again, one size does not fit all! Every school and school system is different. The State Representatives should take more time to visit schools in their district and talk to teachers, without administration or central office personnel present. Find out what the needs are before making school systems implement programs that are not cost effective and place economic burdens on schools and school systems. Before implementing anything plan HOW it will be implemented successfully and as part of the implementation plan HOW teachers will be trained and PAY for the training.
And, most important, how do we reach that hardest to reach student and keep him from being a dropout statistic? Parents must be held accountable for their children graduating from high school. Parents must be held accountable for making sure their children attend school every day. Parents must be held responsible for making sure someone is at home with their children at night. Parents must be held accountable for feeding and clothing their children. If parents cannot take care of their children properly then there needs to be other alternatives for those children. Schools should not have to take responsibility for parental duties. When a teachers has 150 or more students in their charge they cannot teach all day and then go home with their students to make sure they are being taken care of properly. Most teachers have their own families to take care of.
When a child in my school is not completing assignments regularly and is failing the teacher talks with the counselor and sets up meetings with the parent(s)/guardian. Most of the time no one shows up for the meeting even though the meeting day and time was chosen by the parent(s)/guardian. More meetings are set up and still no one shows up. At the end of the year when the parent(s)/guardian is called to a meeting to inform them their child will not be going to the next grade or is being sent to an alternative program the parent screams outrage at not being informed about this previously. The counselor pulls out the documentation about the numerous attempts at meetings and the parent(s)/guardian then withdraws the student and says they will home school their child, even though they have a full time job and their child will be left alone all day. This happens numerous times throughout the school year when parents don’t like taking responsibility for the education of their child.
FYI…spending has increased for students because the price of everything needed to educate a child has increased. Technology costs! Materials costs! Electricity, water, gas, insurance, upkeep of schools, and all of the other essential needs of keeping a school open COSTS, and it costs more today than it did last year and all other previous years!
Bernie
August 19th, 2012
2:35 pm
One thing many of US will find in agreement , is The Governor’s proposal to move forward with this $430 million New State Funded Welfare Education Program will not help at ALL! This untested and unproven State wide Charter School Plan will only add to the issue of increasing this horrific rate as we move forward in years to come.
The Benefit will be for only as very small select few, while ignoring the most basic needs of most of Georgia’s student population……Funding.
Hello Mississippi !…….Our students will be joining you, in the Race to be First to the Bottom!
Long Time Teacher
August 19th, 2012
2:47 pm
. . . “The school board should hold the superintendent accountable, and the superintendent, in turn, should hold the schools, principals accountable.”
Will someone tell me when the parent is going to be held accountable. The parent enables the child to drop out by allowing them to sit at home and watch TV or worse….setting a generational pattern of teen pregnancy, illiteracy, or laziness.
Dr. Monica Henson
August 19th, 2012
2:58 pm
Rep. Lindsey, thank you for joining this important conversation. “Regular” public high school does not work for all students. The hours of operation, the seat time requirements, and forcing students into age-based cohorts all are part of the mentality that kids must be “herded” for the benefit of making them easier for adults to manage and for school districts to determine how many adults to hire based on the number of kids held hostage seven hours a day for 180 days a year. Areas such as the cafeteria, the hallways during class change, the restrooms, and the gymnasium all offer opportunities for activities and behaviors that add to teen-age drama and detract from a focused learning environment.
As part of our new state-chartered virtual public high school, Provost Academy Georgia, we are opening Magic Johnson Bridgescape centers in Atlanta, Macon, Augusta, and Savannah (with more cities to come) to offer a hybrid learning environment where high schoolers will have high-tech workstations and do their schoolwork in four-hour shifts. By eliminating the distractions and the drama, as well as offering mastery learning credit, we will help under-credited, overaged high school students to reach the goal of a standard diploma. Unlike the Performance Learning Centers, Bridgescape will not screen out the neediest students. PLCs require a minimum 8th-grade reading level and no prior history of disciplinary issues for a student even to be considered. Magic Johnson Bridgescape learning centers do NOT screen out students with low reading levels or prior disciplinary records.
We are staffing our Magic Johnson Bridgescape centers with the same outstanding Georgia-certified teachers who are teaching our home-based students in the cloud–their education experience ranges from 8 to 30 years. We have National Board Certified Teachers and a former two-time Teacher of the Year on our faculty. ALL of our kids will get these terrific teachers (not just the AP and honors students). That’s the single biggest school-based factor in student success: the quality of the teacher. By providing our high-need students with outstanding teachers, we predict a great success rate by the end of our first year for ALL of our kids, not just the high flyers.
It also takes imaginative administrators who are willing to listen to the teachers. On Friday, we had a terrific “out of the box” staff development experience. Our teachers had a webinar with our education service partner to take a look at the live link platform they provide for synchronous tutoring sessions. The teachers were not satisfied with it, so we told them to tell us what they DO want, based on their experience. They launched an ad hoc staff development session of their own, exploring several options, while we administrators, watched, listened, learned, and agreed to fund the technology request to support the choice they reached together. THAT’S how you do job-embedded staff development!
We start classes tomorrow and will run a 200-day school year. Students are not tied to quarters and semesters–as soon as they complete one credit in a subject area, they can start immediately on the next one, allowing for progress at their own pace. Please follow our progress on Facebook and Twitter. We plan to be a true game-changer in the way high school is done for those who don’t fit into the brick-and-mortar district box.
A Teacher, 2
August 19th, 2012
3:07 pm
Rep. Lindsey. thank you for coming in here and engaging in dialog with us. I, too, have heard the “per pupil spending is up” speech from at least four other legislators personally. However, there is the pesky problem that if you increase in one area and cut in 10+ areas, the net effect is a DECREASE! I wonder all the time if members of Georgia’s legislature passed 7th grade math with positive and negative numbers. As a math teacher, I can tell you that your numbers do NOT add up. If educational spending is up, where is the money?? We are not stupid! In fact, we just got rid of one of our legislators that ran on the “I voted for cuts to the state budget……I lowered the size of state government…” Ah, the pesky problem that cuts on the state level that require tax increases on the local level are NOT cuts!! When the state makes cuts, but the state keeps all regulation, and the locals have to pay for it, it is NOT a cut when the locals have to raise more money to pay for it. We are not stupid, sir. Like I said, we got rid of one of the guys who ran on that record in the primary, and the other one is sweating out the November election after seeing his buddy get beat. By the way, the state of Georgia is spending millions and millions and millions every year. Where is the money actually going?? Do you really want people to start investigating that?
So, what can you do to help? One, as others have said, I do not work for Atlanta, DeKalb, or Clayton systems. I frankly insist that you do not paint me with that brush. I work 10-12 hours a day at my job, and I get results. I invite you to come and walk the halls of my school. You will find instruction going on in every classroom all day long. You will see happy kids that frankly love coming to school. You have been told that everything about education in Georgia is bad. Have the courage to go see if that is really true or not.
Two, the legislature has no business legislating curriculum for the state. I have it on good authority that several members of the legislature told the DOE to “fix this math situation, or we will fix it for you.” Math 1, 2, 3, 4 came about largely from pressure from the ATL business community along with some in the legislature. I would be the first to say that parts of Math 1, 2, 3, 4 were not well founded and needed to change. It is UNACCEPTABLE for the legislature to mandate curriculum. As another poster has mentioned, there is waaaaaaaaaay too much curriculum in every subject on every grade level to master. Veteran teachers know that the main problem today is that there is not enough time to master the curriculum that is given to us.
Third, one size fits all does not work. College prep for everyone does not and will not work. Get over it, and lets have an appropriate educational experience for all students. Nothing breaks my heart more that seeing a sweet, hardworking, and wanting to please MIMH kid sitting in a Math 3 class trying to learn logarithms. That is a requirement of NCLB. MIMH kids get the same college prep curriculum everyone else does. Talk about torture!! This is what happens when Congress and the legislature try to pass laws for everything. Common sense seems to go away when the legislature is involved.
Fourth, let us enforce discipline. This means that some kids will have to go so that the vast majority can learn. Accept that fact, and get over it. Oh, and those that are expelled should not count as a drop out. They forfeited their “right” to education when they created havoc or performed the illegal act to be expelled.
Lastly, practice ethical behavior. Turn down lobbyist gifts and campaign contributions from those expecting payoff or undue influence in return. It is hard for us to accept what you say when we see such opportunity for corruption. I am not saying you or any other legislator is corrupt, but the opportunity is clearly there for any legislator.
CharterStarter, Too
August 19th, 2012
3:16 pm
Perhaps I am unclear on all of the related issues here (so please educate me) but…
1. How can you NOT know if someone isn’t at your school any longer? If a kid doesn’t show up to school for a few days..don’t you report them truant? We have laws related to this.
2. If districts in each district require enrollment paperwork from the sending school district, then how are kids getting “lost?”
3. The state’s new data system gives each student a unique ID….so how are kids getting lost?
The only “fall through the cracks” cases that would make sense to me without further information would be those not showing up to school and just moving out of state.
Please advise.
Representative Edward Lindsey
August 19th, 2012
3:16 pm
Let me first clarify the $$$ game that gets played around the issue of state supported local school funding. (You can actually see it played out in Bookman and Wingate’s columns today.) In general terms, there are two pots of state K-12 education money (which combined is just shy of half the total state budget) that go to local systems. The first is QBE, which is essentially a block grant. The second are various targeted programs which range from subsidizing certain targeted curriculum such as math or science, technology improvements, transportation, school nurses, graduation coaches, certain forms of teacher salaries, libraries, etc.) When Robert F. speaks of funding cuts, he is speaking of shortfalls in fully funding the QBE formula — which has never been fully funded in twenty five years but is a very valid point on his part. My earlier figures deal with the total package –both the block grant and targeted programs — since I generally do not believe you can focus on only half of a bucket of water. All total, even after taking into consideration the 2008-12 overall budget cuts I spoke of earlier, total per pupil K-!2 spending over the last ten years has increased by about 10%.
That said, as I stated earlier, I am not arguing we are spending all we need to be spending on education or that all the various targeted programs have proven to have the merit that was originally intended. I simply want to hear from you about how to improve on where we are spending the money we presently have available, what non budgetary actions we need to take, and how to tackle the original question raised in this post.
I appreciate the comments and suggestions raised — even those from Farnsworth who after saying he/she does not trust me went on and gave some important things to think about.
If anyone wishes to send suggestions in private, my legislative e mail address is edward.lindsey@house.ga.gov.
With that I will now recede back into what I enjoy doing most on this blog — listening.
Edward
crankee-yankee
August 19th, 2012
3:19 pm
Representative Edward Lindsey
August 19th, 2012
12:23 pm
I would like to see the data of which you speak concerning increased per student spending from 2003-2008.
I am having a hard time understanding how Gov Purdue’s “austerity cuts” during that time jibe with increased per student allotments.
I see many dollar amounts emblazoned across headlines from $5.5 Billion to $7.3 billion in overall cuts since 2003 to present. Now, the totals may differ, but they all represent cuts, large cuts.
Additionally, how do you defend the state’s overall decrease in state education funding from over 50% (or was it over 60%?) pre-Purdue to the present 38%?
Were the state providing the majority of the funding for education, I could understand (not agree with, but understand) the position of those in favor of the Charter School Amendment. But if you are a minority stakeholder, you have no business dictating policy to the counties. That is not my definition of “local control.”
I echo many on this blog in recommending the state focus on punishing the failing systems but let the working systems continue to work without having to suffer penalties because of the failures. After all, how quickly would I end up explaining myself to my principal were I to punish my entire class (of 41 students by the way) because of the misbehavior of a few?
Gail
August 19th, 2012
3:20 pm
I know the methodology needed to change but it doesn’t seem right to count students who are enrolled in school as dropouts just because they didn’t graduate in four years. Is that how they are counting them in the new method? A 4 year graduation rate is not the inverse of a dropout rate. Also, schools with high numbers of ESOL students may have more students who take more than four years to graduate.
Dr. K EdD
August 19th, 2012
3:22 pm
AND A MESSAGE TO ALL YOU CHARTER SCHOOL PEOPLE….MAN UP AND PAY TUITION LIKE ANYONE WHO SENDS THERE KIDS TO A NON-PUBLIC SCHOOL. I BELIEVE YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO OPT OUT OF PAYING TAXES FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL IF YOU SEND YOUR KIDS TO A PRIVATE ONE. BUT AS IT STANDS YOU HIDE BEHIND LEGAL MUMBO-JUMBO TO SEND YOUR KIDS TO SOME DRY, VAIN, RESTRICTED SCHOOL AND WE HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!
Ron F.
August 19th, 2012
3:27 pm
“The hours of operation, the seat time requirements, and forcing students into age-based cohorts all are part of the mentality that kids must be “herded” for the benefit of making them easier for adults to manage and for school districts to determine how many adults to hire based on the number of kids held hostage seven hours a day for 180 days a year”
Thanks Dr. Henson for making me feel like a prison guard. Just so you know, I have a master’s and state certification in reading k-12 and teach some of the very high school students you speak of who typically read well below 8th grade level. I work with them one-on-one and teach them without the use of high-tech workstations. I diagnose and remediate specific reading issues, from basic phonics instruction to more elaborate and critical reading skills, and regularly see my students move up multiple levels. I do that in a traditonal public school…or should I say prison?
cgregister
August 19th, 2012
3:28 pm
I worked as a registrar for over 20 years in one of the large metro school systems and the truth of the matter is, students move. If they are in elementary or middle school and have their health records, birth certificate,the new school does NOT request records from the old school and if the parent doesn’t tell you where they are going or the truth, the losing school is out of luck. If the child is in high school and they withdraw, the new school should request a certified transcript, but don’t always do that.
The solution would be a nation wide data base. How it would all be configured, I’m not sure. The one thing that I do know, is that we are a very mobile society and people fall through the cracks because of this.
After Hurricane Katrina, the GRITS immunization system was allowed to be used in the school house setting and I know for a fact that it has helped facilitate faster and more timely enrollments for some students, whose parents can sometimes be lazy.
oldtimer
August 19th, 2012
3:39 pm
I think GA is doing much better than they used to, but I wonder how much we can afford to spend for someone who does not want to be there. How much time needs to be spent to track the ones leaving? The schools resources are getting thinner and schools cannot just keeep spending. I do think if someone takes 5 or more years the rates need to be improved. Also if a former dropout gets a GED that ought to influence the schools record.
Tinkerella
August 19th, 2012
3:40 pm
Amen, A Teacher, 2 and to Ron F. and Dr. Monica. While I have given up on getting my 16 year old through public high school and he is now home schooled, I do have a 6 year old that will attempt to go through this fiasco. And since it was brought up here, his school system never asked why I was home schooling him. I think they were just glad he was leaving as his poor grades in math were making them look bad. He is the kind of kid that needs to be in a vocational school – not on a college track. He is very smart in science and anything mechanical. What a shame it is that there is no alternative for him at the public school level. He is now doing wonderful in his home school work as he does not have the distractions he had before while in public school.
If legislators really want us to take you serious, start by taking the state government out of the local school board’s decisions and stop cutting the money to the bone. We can no longer afford to force every child on the same path to college when a majority of them probably don’t belong there without remedial classes (and then quit going anyway). We can’t afford to change curriculums every other year to “see” if that will help.
Mr. Lindsey and Mr. Millar need to pay attention to these people like Ron F. and Dr. Monica and MaryElizabeth. They speak the truth.
Ron F.
August 19th, 2012
3:40 pm
Rep. Lindsey:
“When Robert F. speaks of funding cuts, he is speaking of shortfalls in fully funding the QBE formula — which has never been fully funded in twenty five years”
With all due respect, please explain the following as simple QBE cuts. There’s more than just cuts to QBE and you know it. Transportation monies, etc. have also been cut. If not, then how do you explain the allowance, from the state, for schools to renovate rather than replace, buses beyond the normal accepted life span? My kids were riding 14 year old buses in many cases last year. It doesn’t matter if you take it from one bucket and leave the other alone. Either way, your contribution to public education in this state is just shy of 40% now.
My system, with a reported budget running normally between 25 and 30 million per fiscal year has seen the following cuts:
FY10- 1.2 million
FY11- 2.3 million
FY12- 2.4 million
For years from 2003-2009, the cuts ranged from a low of $188k to as high as $704k for 2005 and $704k in 2006. That’s not just QBE cuts, is it? It’s a real stretch to think that we’d even consider allowing you to create more state level beauracracy, no matter how small or how efficiently it runs, when those numbers are out there and there’s no end in sight. If you want our votes, you better start talking about the funding plan for education in specific numbers, not just “reform” and “parent choice.” You won’t get much from us until you do.
crankee-yankee
August 19th, 2012
3:42 pm
To those pointing out the time spent by Eagle’s Landing HS “finding” former students at only 7 minutes per kid. Did you take into account how many people were working at it for those seven hours? From what I read, it was more than two. If it were 2 then it was 14 man-minutes per kid. Were 4 working on it? Then it would be 28 man-minutes per kid, and so on. We do not have all the data necessary to determine how long the average time it took for that school to find those 30+ kids in actual man-minutes (or man-hours). This is how data is misinterpreted & twisted to make a political point.
MomofTWO
August 19th, 2012
3:54 pm
Wow….folks single parenthood of an African American mother should not infer poverty. While data may suggest that a majority of AA mothers might fit into this category, I do not. I am appalled at such a generalization.
Another issue with this data – how is/was it defined? Helloooo! If kids did not pass the graduation test (which was eliminated with this graduating class), regardless of the number of credits they had, they earned an “I’ve attended school for 12 years certificate” not a diploma indicating that they’ve graduated. A certificate of attendance does not earn the designation of graduate.
Lastly, as a single, college educated (with degree), African-American parent, I have had to step back and take a look at what I feel is a sub par education in Georgia. I was educated here (both private & public) and cannot understand what is going on in Georgia schools today. Living in one of the top performing counties, I opted to remove my children from the traditional brick and mortar schools this year. Homeschooling became a clear choice and has been very successful for us.
We can’t just identify a county or two. Leaders at the GADOE are at fault for the whole sham and need to come under fire for their practices and policies that trickle to the local level!!
robert thomson
August 19th, 2012
4:09 pm
This problem will never get fixed as long as we continue to ignore schools and the extremely hard working educators that work every day to educate our youth. All the government thinks about is cut cut cut cut cut the budget. Class sizes are bigger than I have ever seen them in 12 yrs of teaching. It’s insane! And then the government is going to start to place the blame on teachers? Give me a break already! enough is enough!!!
bootney farnsworth
August 19th, 2012
4:09 pm
@ Rep Ed
frankly, you have no reason to trust me, either.
but trust can be earned
I’m willing to do my end. you?
Dr. Monica Henson
August 19th, 2012
4:13 pm
Ron F, for many, many high school kids who aren’t lucky enough to have a teacher like you, school IS like prison, until they are old enough to quit. I submit that for a substantial minority of high schoolers, the traditional public high school is a wonderful place. For a large chunk of “average” kids, it’s a boring place except for the socializing and perhaps one or two really inspiring teachers. The rest of the time, classes feel like jail for many of them, but they have families who insist that they be there and get through it. For a substantial minority, about one-third of high school students nationally, high school is NOT a place where they want or are even able on a consistent basis to be, for a variety of reasons. Many students are bullied mercilessly. Many of them are not challenged with inspired teaching. There is an awful lot of wasted time in a typical high school day. The least stable and capable students are usually subjected, year after year, in many if not most districts to the least capable teachers. When that is NOT the case, it is a happy and lucky anomaly.
The American public high school classroom is for many, many students, a boring, stultifying place that must be endured rather than enjoyed and embraced. That is a simple fact substantiated by the large percentage of kids who quit high school. The dropout profile, however is complex. It’s not just kids who are bored and whose parents don’t care enough to keep them in school who drop out. It’s also not just low achievers. Teen parents, teens who have to help their single parents put food on the table, kids who don’t/won’t/can’t play the “game” that is classroom management in many schools, kids who run away from home, the list goes on and on.
CharterStarter, Too
August 19th, 2012
4:16 pm
@ Bootney – You DO have a heart.
bootney farnsworth
August 19th, 2012
4:18 pm
@ charter
don’t tell anyone. especially my kids
Dr. Monica Henson
August 19th, 2012
4:21 pm
Oldtimer, GEDs are not allowed to be counted as a graduation because that incentivizes schools to pressure “undesirable” students to leave and get a GED instead of staying and graduating. This happened for decades in high schools; principals would call in the troublemakers and “encourage” them to withdraw and go for a GED. There is considerable research demonstrating that students who earn a GED have lower lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Also, GED students lose eligibility for the HOPE Scholarship and the HOPE Grant.
Dr. Monica Henson
August 19th, 2012
4:28 pm
Ron F., it’s not the teachers that I’m criticizing the most with my reference to herding kids into age-based cohorts–it’s the factory-model mentality of the American public school district. This is how school is done in America–we figure out how many kids there are in each age group, sort them into ZIP codes, and then we can determine how many teachers, paraprofessionals, cafeteria staff, custodians, maintenance workers, and other support staff to hire. In many cities and counties, the school system is the largest employer. Elected boards of education frequently (usually?) run the districts like employment agencies for adults, and student learning becomes incidental. This situation is by no means unique to Georgia.