School funding in 2013: Probably no new money from Georgia Legislature but the possibility of flexibility
Lawmakers aren't promising schools more money in 2013, but there may be more flexibility.
Georgia schools probably can’t count on more cash from the Legislature this year, but they may gain more flexibility.
Flexibility is easier to offer schools than money in these economic doldrums, although superintendents often note that they can’t use it to pay teacher salaries or heating bills.
Georgia lawmakers regard “flexibility” as a lever to improve academics, passing a law four years ago that all 180 of the state’s school districts pick a flexibility plan by 2015 or declare that they are satisfied with the status quo.
In exchange for flexibility, the state will hold systems accountable for higher performances.
“What we are trying to do is drive behavior in order to improve academic performance,”said state Sen. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, who chairs the Senate Education and Youth Committee. “You have flexibility if you have results. If you don’t, we yank it. The point is to get people to be more results-oriented and, at the same time, let them be more creative to do the things to get the results.”
Systems in Georgia already can opt for greater flexibility by becoming a charter system or an Investing in Educational Excellence (Ie2) system.
In 2004, Gov. Sonny Perdue convened a Governor’s Education Finance Task Force to clarify how much it ought to cost to educate Georgia students to a standard of excellence. But after more than three years and 75 public meetings, the task force came up with Ie2, a contract under which districts negotiate for greater flexibility in spending if they pledge to meet a higher academic bar.
Ie2 has had limited appeal; only Gwinnett, Forsyth and Rabun are in the program. Districts have preferred charter status; there are 17 such districts. One lure may be the additional $100 per pupil the state awards charter districts. (There was an effort last year to end the $100 supplement to charter systems because of the perilous condition of funding, but it was repelled by the GOP leadership.)
But there may be new flexibility models on the horizon.
After 15 months of work, the State Education Finance Study Commission is urging the General Assembly to expand freedoms for districts that earn high marks under the Department of Education’s new grading system. (Beginning next year, the state will use a 100-point rating system to create a grade for every school in Georgia.)
“Public schools should be treated the same way we treat charter schools. We should tell them what to teach but not how to teach. We have been micromanaging schools for years,” said commission co-chair and state Rep. Brooks Coleman, R-Duluth. A former educator, Coleman also chairs the House Education Committee.
New flex plans are needed for systems that are not ready or inclined to “jump all the way across the canyon into charter systems or IE2,” said commission member and state Rep. Mike Dudgeon, R-Suwanee, at a meeting at the Gold Dome. (If you watch any of the videos of the State Education Finance Study Commission, you will be impressed with Dudgeon’s acuity. Click here to read the commission’s reports and link to the videos.)
So, Dudgeon’s subcommittee proposed a graduated three-step scale of flexibility based on a district’s scorecard.
“At level 3, this is where we turn you loose. You are on your own,” said Coleman.
High performing districts would be freed from state regulations dubbed the big four: class size, teacher pay, teacher certification and the 65 percent rule. The 65 percent rule mandates that schools spend 65 percent of their revenues in the classroom. It was adopted by the Legislature in 2006 despite national data that student performance doesn’t noticeably or consistently increase at 65 percent. And that has proven true in Georgia, where the law has produced nothing but paperwork. (“Why do you remind me of bills that I wish I never carried,” said Millar, co-chair of the Finance Commission, at one of the meetings.)
The commission tried and failed to get rid of the 65 percent rule in 2012. “I ran into the reality that this General Assembly was not in the mood to repeal the 65 percent unless it was replaced with something else,” said Dudgeon. “We know 65 percent doesn’t work but there are some outlying school districts that have excess spending in their central offices.”
To prod districts to cut that bloat, the commission is recommending that the Legislature redirect state dollars going to central administration operations to technology over the next three years, resulting in $25 million annually for technology by 2016.
To update the 28-year-old school funding formula, the commission is also recommending enhanced funding ratios for school nurses, counselors and psychologists and added dollars for media clerks.”The commission understands that school systems today have to provide functions that have changed from the formula 25 years ago, including the important role of nurses. School might be the only time a child sees a nurse,” Millar said.
Millar said the commission’s goal was simplification.”We are going to have winner and losers in a lot of things we do here. When it’s all said and done, we will have a balance.”
–from Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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83 comments Add your comment
Pride and Joy
January 4th, 2013
10:45 am
65% rule? It should be 85%.
A building, good teachers and good text books, the other 15% for a principal to ensure the teachers are doing what they ought to.
Anything else is just fraud and corruption.
Mikey D.
January 4th, 2013
11:42 am
So the state has no interest in restoring any of the billions that they’ve cut, but they still want to demand more from schools. And they are selling the “flexibility” model as an end-run around their own incompetence in governing. Great job, Senator Millar! (sarcasm noted) I suppose another year of shortened school years and teacher furloughs is on the way. Gee legislature, we really appreciate all of your great work!
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
January 4th, 2013
12:07 pm
I would have made this comment to the Riddle post below but I had a nice holiday and read Bob Fecho’s Is this English? book at the beach.
Performance means literally physical activity. It is not knowledge. It is not necessarily mental and it may well be mostly group projects. That’s the assessment. Engaging in the prescribed activity like watching a video or creating a poster. Higher is a misnomer. It is more accessible to a wider range of students. That’s how you get to all students can learn.
As the state legislature continues its push for more technology you might want to ask your Senator or representative if they agree with Joel Klein’s statement that the purpose of technology is to gain “new kinds of minds.” He said it here in Atlanta at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/ridiculing-the-1860s-mind-as-unsuitable-for-the-21st-century-cui-bono/ explains the comments made.
Between Career Pathways for All and the anything fits definition of soft skills in that statute the legislature adopted and this technology push that is about vocational use of a tool so that the human mind is weaker, the legislature seems to have fully adopted a Theory of Mind and Education that would have been at home in Moscow or Beijing or Havana about 1975.
Welcome to the Gulag of Georgia where we want New Kinds of Minds that are Merely Competent and we take 16 plus Kindergarten tax paid years to do it. Somebody has been giving the Georgia legislature of both parties terrible advice for many years.
It cannot “grow business” if no entrepreneur in their right mind will touch the state. Please wake up to how all this actually fits.
Not only is education in K-12 shortchanged, the planned uses make school a place where minds are weakened and personalities manipulated and it’s all quietly tucked into the real definition of student achievement in that NCLB waiver.
Pompano
January 4th, 2013
12:42 pm
School tax dollars should not be funding Nurses! If a child is sick – send them home and let their parent(s) decide if they need medical care.
Just another example of school systems expanding the reach of their empires.
Astropig
January 4th, 2013
12:45 pm
“Welcome to the Gulag of Georgia”
Georgia is not a gulag. Actually, it’s a pretty nice place to live. I swear, all of you people in education should be drama teachers. Just because your politics aren’t working very well right now you think that this place is a third world mud hole populated by idiots.
Any fool can see that lots of the money that taxpayers intend for the classroom gets gobbled up in the bureaucracy and never reaches the kids. Too many assistant principals,area superintendents and Rock Star supers that get paid more than they could make in private business.
I’m sick of you people running down the state that I love. We made it just fine before you got here and we’ll do fine if you leave (hint,hint).
dc
January 4th, 2013
12:52 pm
The incessant cries that “we are underfunding our schools” are really humorous…..or is it idiotic, not sure which. The govt spends plenty (if not way more) on education. Again….per student spending has doubled, after inflation, over the past 30 or so years.
Now….is that money spent wisely? Likely not, since all monopolies become bloated and inefficient, and our public schools are the poster child monopoly. If we spent more of the same money on our better teachers, and less of the staff and bad teachers, we’d likely see huge improvements to student performance.
Simmer Down
January 4th, 2013
1:29 pm
I hear it all the time – we can’t do this or we can’t do that because the school system won’t let us. Stop worrying so much about what they won’t let you do and do what it takes to have the children learn. Let it be unconventional, let it be exciting, let it be the best 7 hours of a kids day. If you have positive results they won’t come and drag you out of the classroom. Also – here is a hint – Money does not equate to excellence. Ok – now the next 25 posts will be from teachers telling me how they can’t do this or can’t do that because of the big bad boogieman.
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
January 4th, 2013
1:34 pm
Astropig-I was born here and remember when Lenox was open air with Uncle Remus characters in the middle and the Pink Pig went through the DT Rich’s Toy Dept.
And if the Georgia legislature approves a vocational emphasis that limits what students can learn at school and allows manipulation psychologically as they did with that Soft Skills language, Gulag fits.
I can’t leave. Maureen would miss me.
Pride and Joy
January 4th, 2013
1:57 pm
Astropig, we citizens have a ight to criticize our government. It’s a fundamental right guaranteed by our government.
Why are you so afraid of criticism? The state of GA does not belong to you. It belongs to all of us.
If criticism bothers you; however, why bother reading the comments? Just leave the blog.
Tired
January 4th, 2013
2:24 pm
Why is the legislature giving more autonomy to increasingly corrupt and ineffective school boards?
I think Dougherty, DeKalb, Clayton, and others have amply demonstrated that state regulations are hardly in their top 10 problems impacting student performance.
Tired
January 4th, 2013
2:26 pm
@Pompano, school nurses are absolutely vital. Children who need insulin shots or other medication must have a school nurse available to administer their medication. Also, any child or adult can be injured during the day – prompt treatment is often critical.
Mikey D.
January 4th, 2013
2:33 pm
@simmer down:
If you hear something all the time, maybe it’s true…
I would love to be able to simply shut my door and do what’s best for the kids. But unfortunately, we can’t do that anymore. School systems are dictating what’s taught, how it’s taught, what has to be displayed on walls, bulletin boards, etc. It’d be great to be able to simply say no, and do it my way instead (which has worked pretty well for 2+ decades) but I don’t really want to be written up for insubordination and put on a PDP, which will then lead to the loss of my job. So, if you can think of a way to empower teachers to stand up to administrative demands without being retaliated against (you know, since Georgia won’t allow unions to protect our interests), then we’re all ears. But the reality is that any teacher right now who bucks the system can pretty much start looking for a new career because they’re not going to last long in the public school system.
More Furloughs
January 4th, 2013
2:35 pm
Well I guess that just means more furlough days for most of us. The county I teach in shortened the student year by 5 days this year and added two extra furlough days for teachers. More of the same from the wonderful “Republican” controlled state Govt.
bootney farnsworth
January 4th, 2013
2:46 pm
flexibility – in short, do exactly as told, or we pull your funding.
nice not at all veiled threat there, Frannie.
and he wonders why we flat out don’t trust him.
HS Math Teacher
January 4th, 2013
2:46 pm
STOP MAKING ALL KIDS LEARN THE SAME DAMNED THING! THEY EITHER CAN’T, OR WON’T LEARN IT!
You want your SAT scores to go up??? Stop letting THEM take the test!
bootney farnsworth
January 4th, 2013
2:47 pm
nice picture, BTW.
represents the sun setting on anything remotely like genuine concern for education at the dome.
Astropig
January 4th, 2013
2:56 pm
” So, if you can think of a way to empower teachers to stand up to administrative demands without being retaliated against (you know, since Georgia won’t allow unions to protect our interests), then we’re all ears”
Okay. I’ll give it a shot.
It’s my understanding that to become an administrator,you must work your way up through the teaching ranks at some point,correct? I mean, you are not hired as an assitant vice principal or superintendent right out of school,if I understand the hierarchy.
Here’s a suggestion- Act like human beings and deal with teachers as you would have wanted to have been dealt with when the shoe was on the other foot. Be professional, kind and courteous at all times and listen respectfully to input,suggestions and ideas. Stop using rules as a replacement for solid judgement and remember that you’re all on the same side.
How hard could that be?
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
January 4th, 2013
3:23 pm
Astropig-I am seeing Assistant Principals now with only one or two years in the classrooms.
They fast track precisely because of the aggressiveness with which they promote things like Transformational Outcomes Based Education or a Whole Language approach to Literacy or constructivist math where teachers cannot offer sequential instruction.
It is not unusual to have able and experienced teachers being overseen by less able, far less experienced administrators who only got that doctorate or Masters based on agreeing to push everything John Dewey ever dreamed of.
I have explained that the Effective Teacher Evals exist to coerce teachers into pushing the OBE, Standards for Teaching and Learning, template. When I say Fulton is using Spence Rogers for their teacher training even though he cites Mao, a mass murderer, as an example of leadership, I only wish I was exaggerating.
Cobb uses Willard Daggett who William Spady cites as a fellow advocate of the Transformational OBE paradigm shift.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
3:38 pm
The “results” they seek is to get people to do more with less. Classic swiss cheese political double-speak, no different than “right to work.”
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
3:47 pm
It is a peculiar situation when lesser educated administrators are governing skilled content teachers and basically create a system of conflict, telling teachers “don’t do this (teach content)” and “you should be doing this instead” (something from their pre-fab chart). If you’re a real teacher, this kind of thing will turn your stomach. After a couple of years of it, being governed by (metaphorically) Donald Duck and Daisy Duck with their “rubric” for how to teach, you’ll run for your life and look for a different work environment.
Tired Too
January 4th, 2013
3:48 pm
Pompano,
I would invite you to spend a week with me in my school – I think it would be very eye opening, especially in regards to the “no need for a nurse” topic. Not every school disctrict is made up of upper, middle class parents who can just zip up to school at a moment’s notice. I spend a fair amount of time every single day on sick & injured students, & caring for students with chronic health issues, administering prescribed medications that have to be taken at school, and trying to find parents to come and pick up the same sick and/or injured students. We lost our school nurse due to budget cuts. Thinking that you can just “call a parent” to pick up a sick kid, or that they will “keep them at home” if they are sick is just not very realistic anymore. Most parents have very little (if any) time off work, and frequent absences/tardies also put their jobs in jeopardy. With the scarcity of jobs right now, people are not willing to risk losing the ones that they have. The era of having a stay at home parent is long gone. School nurses also have access to many resources that can help students and families that other school employees do not have. They are able to help in situations that I can not. I would certainly be in favor of having them in our schools again, even if just for a day or two a week.
HS Math Teacher
January 4th, 2013
3:51 pm
The folks near the top of each influential power pyramid that governs what happens in education in this state think they know everything that’s best (because all you little varmits at the bottom…don’t); however, they couldn’t pour pee out of a damned boot. The talking heads go around the state with this neat little powerpoint presentation, explaining their logic from the top of the pyramid. These overly educated idiots couldn’t catch a cold. A problem is right there in front of their faces, and collectively, they fumble the football.
The reason this state makes any gains on the SAT, NAEP, or CRCT (a joke), or the EOCT at any grade level is because the TEACHERS of this great state can mop up the floor after you leave, and still make some improvements. It isn’t because of your changes in the curriculum. If you believe otherwise, you’ve been drinking your own Kool-Aid for too long.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
3:53 pm
Mikey D. Your comment – repeat and “bump” (emphasize) http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2013/01/04/school-funding-in-2013-probably-no-new-money-from-georgia-legislature-but-the-possibility-of-flexibility/?cp=1#comment-249494
Owe. That really hurts. Well said. These are strange times. You really covered it. Being told what to teach, how to teach, and what to put on the walls. And any of these can be used, basically, to punish you. And the roving rangers doing the “punishing” tends to have fake $100k salaries and not be especially sophisticated about what they do, and seem like they have never before in their lives been in a professional environment that produces real wealth, outside of their “players circle” of fellow “managers.” It is a strange and perverse thing that is occurring.
F Y I.....Did You Know?
January 4th, 2013
4:04 pm
“Georgia schools probably can’t count on more cash from the Legislature this year”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Error Davis and the board of education at Atlanta Public Schools
has CUT the PAY of their LEAD CUSTODIANS they say for “financial reasons.”
Some salaries were cut as MUCH AS $8,000.
These are the LEAST PAID EMPLOYEES.
This is OUTRAGEOUS.
TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY……to add SALT to the wound
they RAISED THE salary of the Director of the Facilities Dept.
from $85,000 to $156,000.
SHAMEFUL.
BTW, They are STILL PAYING DR. HALL and the
other people that were FIRED after the CHEATING
SCANDAL.
Fulton county taxpayers SHOULD BE OUTRAGED.
bootney farnsworth
January 4th, 2013
4:08 pm
I’d rather see a faculty position cut at each school than lose the school nurse
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
4:09 pm
Astropig, Many of the public schools are Gulags for both students and professional workers. If you can’t “feel” that, then you just don’t know. I also see a pattern when they need outside talent so they bring in outside people, are nice to them for a couple of years, and then completely screw them over. I’ve seen this in both government K12 and local government college, where they deeply rooted local types do a power play and screw over the people they hired in from out of town. You say Georgia is a nice place. How would you like it if you moved here to work as a teacher, did a great job, got good work reviews, and then bam! everybody in your school building was told to “re-apply for their jobs.” What do you think of that? Sounds like a screwy hellhole to me, if I may speak frankly. “Bait and switch” is still going on here. If you’re so rooted here, you should know the term well. It is a present-tense concept, not something from the past. There’s something wrong in this state. There is a very deep vein of preachy dishonest use of government. And in school systems, at least in some places, their is a little game of use and discard of adults. This “game” may be one reason why there is so much re-arranging and re-conceptualising and re-defining, and re-purposing. It’s like they put people like loose marbles in a jar and then shake it up and down like a can of paint. I have not seen this type of management anywhere else. It’s sadistic and dishonest and there’s a lot of it here in Georgia, and if you think otherwise, than you are blowing smoke and have not walked the walk.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
4:13 pm
Except at a Gulag, they keep you there. In Georgia, many master teachers are finding there is strong pressure to be hostile to them and move them out the door and replace with cheaper-to-pay fresh graduate / new hire. The corrupted managers have more in common with inexperienced new hires than they do with master teachers who just cringe when the managers go into their routine.
Georgia
January 4th, 2013
4:22 pm
We could solve much of the problem if we teach our school board members how to park their SUVs.
Ole Guy
January 4th, 2013
4:23 pm
The Honorable Millar uses the word “creativity” as though the very act of creativity was even allowed, much less an option. As with their counterpart clowns in Washington, these folks can come up with a dozen or so ways of remaining lame duck while, at the very same time, appear to actually be doing something…much less give a damn.
Well done!
Simmer Down
January 4th, 2013
4:23 pm
See – I told you – we can’t do this and we can’t do that. Do you guys think teachers are the only ones in society that have a boss. I have a boss and he tells me what to do every day. Do I do what he says? Yes most of the time but if I have a way to do something different and gets better results and can prove those results I get more freedom. Welcome to the real world. I could however just do what I am told and produce subpar results but I can not. And I am talking about something as senseless as building widgets. You are dealing with children’s lives. Don’t get me wrong – I respect the heck out of teachers. I just remember the ones the most that were different and taught in ways that were “out of the box”. And guess what – I did better in their classes. Don’t give up – keep up the fight!!! One of those great teachers posts on this site regularly.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
4:39 pm
but simmer you miss the point and you do not know.
if I have a way to do something different and gets better results and can prove those results I get more freedom.
wrong! results do not earn freedom. results do not even earn a good work review! good results are even punished! the whole “reward for results” is a big fat lie! these things you are do not know and at least you can not say that you are uninformed.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
4:43 pm
I just remember the ones the most that were different and taught in ways that were “out of the box”. And guess what – I did better in their classes.
And guess what? That’s in the past.
Don’t give up – keep up the fight!!!
Hey, well, thanks!
One of those great teachers posts on this site regularly. No doubt, many such do.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
4:52 pm
hey Simmer Down, This is what is being used to evaluate every single K12 government schools teacher in the state of Georgia. http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/School-Improvement/Teacher-and-Leader-Effectiveness/Documents/TAPS%20Standards_Rubrics.pdf
Do you have something similar in your workplace for your 80 hour / week $40k/year (before taxes are taken out) job?
didn’t think so.
Astropig
January 4th, 2013
4:58 pm
Private Citizen-
Then why do you serve such a corrupt system. Even the guards in Solzhenitsyns narrative knew that what they were doing was wrong, immoral,unjust. They participated in the terror even though they knew that it could even,in time, consume even them. They were physically brave,but moral cowards because they did what they knew to be evil, all the while fearing that evil.
They had guns pointed at them by the NKVD and the KGB. What’s your excuse? Because if you insist on profaning the state and the school system by describing it as a gulag, I have every right to ask you what you specifically are willing to do about it.
No weasel words. No psychobabble. What are YOU doing to undermine the gulag?
catlady
January 4th, 2013
5:04 pm
In this context (legislature) “flexibility” means no more money, more children with more needs, more expectations, but we will let you put 45 kids in a class.
Mel
January 4th, 2013
5:12 pm
Some good comments on here today, but HS Math teacher hits a home run.
A question I have: if the state won’t come through with its end of the agreement (i.e. funding the “mandated” programs) then why shouldn’t the schools be able to choose where they make cuts to make ends meet? The contract has been broken. Instead, the state threatens to take away MORE funding.
I’m not sure why the schools just aren’t given x-dollars and then left to use it how they see fit. The residents will either like what they get or will leave. And if they can’t leave then they can vote to change it.
Just A Teacher
January 4th, 2013
5:42 pm
The legislature is behaving just like I knew they would. I don’t know why people don’t realize that teachers are a highly trained work force and deserve to be able pay their bills. All I wanted to hear from them was they were restoring some of the funding to our public schools, but I knew I wouldn’t. Ladies and gentlemen, let me make this perfectly clear: the people who are suffering from these cuts are the frontline educators in the classroom. If you think that boards of education will cut their own throats by slashing their support staff, you could not be more off base. It’s more of the same, teachers. Work harder for less money. Get better results with less time. You know that’s what we’ll hear from our principals.
NTLB
January 4th, 2013
6:13 pm
I agree with Pompano–school nurses are futile in schools. They can’t give students any medications if they are really sick, and a phone call to the parents to come and pick up their sick child is the ONLY REL remedy. If there is a real medical emergency, 911 is dialed and the ambulance picks up where the nurse is incapable of…. a real waste of tax payers’ monies….a school nurse is a cushy job.
rookie math teacher
January 4th, 2013
6:44 pm
Nice comments, i prefer to call it stalingrad. I stay because i like it
bootney farnsworth
January 4th, 2013
7:22 pm
@NTLB
ever been a school nurse?
wanttohaveinput
January 4th, 2013
7:25 pm
As many of you have stated, it is amazing that the state is so gracious to offer us so much flexibility with the threat of “yanking” that flexibility if we don’t perform to their liking. Yet they don’t want to fund the schools adequately to do a good job. This sets us up for failure either way. If we fail, then we are just not doing our jobs, if we succeed then we will be told “see….you CAN do more with less!”
Please reconsider this
January 4th, 2013
7:26 pm
“Public schools should be treated the same way we treat charter schools. We should tell them what to teach but not how to teach. We have been micromanaging schools for years,” said commission co-chair and state Rep. Brooks Coleman, R-Duluth. A former educator, Coleman also chairs the House Education Committee.
He says, “They (policymakers) should tell them (the teachers) what the teach…” Does this make sense to anyone? If a policymaker is going to tell me as a teacher what I should teach, I want to know 2 things: where are his credentials for assuming this responsibility, and if he and his legislative counterparts are the recognized sources of curriculum, why did I attend university-level content and methods courses to gain teaching skills?
Tell us the kinds of citizens our schools should develop; provide the financial resources to do this; trust us to monitor and assess with transparency, and then get out of our way.
P.S. to Rep. Coleman — Charter schools ARE public schools, something you, as a former educator and chair of the House Education Committee, should know.
bootney farnsworth
January 4th, 2013
7:26 pm
(sarcasm on)
oh hell, why bother with a clinic at all?
if a kid gets sick and the parents aren’t able to come running, just put them in a out of the way closet, unsupervised in cots with a bucket to puke/pee/poop into. if something happens to them,
its just a reduction in the surplus child population
bootney farnsworth
January 4th, 2013
7:28 pm
hey Fran
why not just shut down public education outright?
just state the aim and do it.
it would be hell of a lot more intellectually honest and have more integrity than what you’re doing now?
oh wait, answered my own question.
bootney farnsworth
January 4th, 2013
7:35 pm
why do we have school nurses? honestly?
it has nothing to do with student health and everything to do with insurance liability.
if a kid gets sick/injured, and there is no qualified medical person on site, lawsuit time.
if the idiots downtown wish to pass a law exempting/protecting schools for liability for not having
a nurse on staff, then fine, dump the nurses. but It want it in writing we’re all protected and the state assumes liability before it happens.
Beverly Fraud
January 4th, 2013
7:44 pm
Does anybody see the irony in the following statement?
“What we are trying to do is drive behavior in order to improve academic performance,”said state Sen. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, who chairs the Senate Education and Youth Committee.
Sen. Fran “rule of law, personal responsibility” Millar wants to “drive behavior to improve academic performance, but can he point to a single law he has sponsored that has the direct, tangible effect of giving teachers more authority to hold students accountable for the behaviors that would improve academic performance?
Can we ask Millar to come to this blog and offer some specific examples of what he has done, (or will educators reading this blog, a great number of which who seem to be in a state not unlike Stockholm Syndrome react in sheer, total, abject horror to Millar being held accountable, much like they did when Herb Garrett was held accountable on this blog?)
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
8:02 pm
Astropig, On the internet, one is either fully public or not. At the small risk of breaching the two, What are YOU doing to undermine the gulag? I stopped working for them. I am also not in accord (agreement) with the auto-reverence required for “Race to the Top.” I also felt a general pressure to cut / thin the workforce, so I hardly made any political statement. I feel for some worker-friends who are like pickles in the pickle jar, but the truth is we have little in common now. There is something very brainwashing-ey about working in the system and attending all of those meetings. I sometimes wonder if the people who give their allegiance over to the edu-cracy, I wonder if they fear the outside world. I have always been “one with the students/families” more than “one with the edu-cracy.” I think it is queer that teachers have one deal with healthcare (the state supplements the cost and the health coverage policies are very expensive), teacher has one deal with healthcare, while Fred Electrician and Nancy Plumber and Joe Auto Bay Mechanic have a whole different deal with health policies. The health insurance industry is using teachers to rob the state blind. Point is, teachers have one deal on healthcare, and the public has a different deal. I was / am not comfortable with the fraternal aspect of this exploit, just as I am not comfortable with school boards being sacred cows. Meanwhile, I am comfortable with delivering solid results but that literally seems to be the last concern on anyone’s shopping list. It’s all about role playing. Well, I thought “cos-play” (dressing up as a fictional character, typically from an anime. Most commonly done in groups at conventions.) was reserved for young adults, not required for professionals.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
8:13 pm
BF. Irony? Does this guy shed big crocodile tears like John Boehner while he’s being Salvador Dali with his artistic double-speak?
“Be Flexible” as doctrine from the state means “We don’t know what we’re doing, and you’re going to keep your mouth shut and go along with it and do what we say as we make it up along the way and then change and adjust it.”
Oh, the press took a photo of State Senator Millar when he issued his proclamation http://uploads1.wikipaintings.org/images/salvador-dali.jpg!Portrait.jpg
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
8:18 pm
Ethics rule #1: The purpose of education is not to “drive behavior.”
Can you believe he actually said it? Dude needs to study up on Stasi police-state communist East Germany.
Not PC and a HS teacher
January 4th, 2013
8:35 pm
No incumbents should be returned to the legislature.
The agenda serving louts presently in the legislature have gutted a school system that was beginning to be turned around.
The day-dreamer math curriculum has set back Georgia’s chance for a 21st century economy by at least a generation.
In five years, no one will claim this rubish as a good idea. Georgia will have re-structured the math curriculum to something approximately like the one abandoned but with some other faddish “improvements”.
The sillyness presently in place will look like the “New Math” debacle.
The funding that has been taken away will gradually have to be returned even with the emergence of a parallel “charter system”.
crankee-yankee
January 4th, 2013
8:39 pm
Mel
January 4th, 2013
5:12 pm
Good to see someone else sees what the legislature has done as a broken contract. This from the party that leans to the side of business interests. How they would howl if a business were to break a contract with them but breaking employment contracts with teachers and the education contract with the populace is OK.
crankee-yankee
January 4th, 2013
8:56 pm
HS Math Teacher
January 4th, 2013
3:51 pm
Amen bro.
I spend the majority of first quarter figuring out how to best circumvent the idiocy being foist upon us by the latest guru being followed by the state (see Common Core, etc). Then, once I have figured out how to deliver meaningful instruction to my kids while at the same time giving the dodo birds their pound of flesh, I declare a personal victory. Its a game. How to make it look the way the latest fad requires while at the same time, continuing to actually teach real content.
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
10:01 pm
has it occurred to anyone that there may be places in Georgia where they do not want good / solid instruction to the under-class? Alls I can tell you first person is that I delivered excellent results and received nothing but management hostility and harassment in return. I’m not saying this to ring my own bell – I’m doing fine, probably better than being stuck in a hot-box with a friggin’ time clock, but I have genuine heart for the students here. we should be concerned for them and how they are treated as fodder and objects.
ScienceTeacher671
January 4th, 2013
10:42 pm
The high SES districts will be high performing, and the rest of us will struggle, and hope for funding.
And how are you going to perform adequate remediation without adequate funding?
What else is new?
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
10:52 pm
public education ranking by state http://postimage.org/image/x0oc393w5/
Private Citizen
January 4th, 2013
11:01 pm
http://www.takepart.com/photos/high-school-graduation-rates/48-georgia-one-of-the-5-worst
The part the power-people are missing here is that increasing authority rituals is the problem, not the solution. The solution is increased services, i.e. “civilization.” Many places in Georgia things are run bone-thin and what public resources there are are co-opted into specialty schools for the few, using the public schooling to in effect make a few no-charge membership only private schools for the children of the power-players and a few other “regular kids” who are admitted on merit. Georgia is so governmentally corrupted through and through. It’s really embarrassing.
APOLOGIES4
January 4th, 2013
11:56 pm
I apologize to all those teachers and nurses that feel that they do not matter. You are professionals who adore your jobs. I know how difficult the salary decreases, the furlough days and the shortened school year has been with regards to your personal household budgets. I am a high school administrator and I honor each and every one of my teachers. I realize every day how difficult their task has become with unruly students and absentee parents. I also realize, as much work as I have that comes across my desk, parental issues, county matters, graduation rate issues, attendance issues and student concerns, that without the very passionate teachers in all classrooms, the school halts. I thank you all for what you do and you all deserve better, I wish you all a Very Happy New Year.
Beverly Fraud
January 5th, 2013
2:53 am
“We know 65 percent doesn’t work but there are some outlying school districts that have excess spending in their central offices.”
Somebody who supposedly knows something qualified a statement excess spending in central office with the words “outlying school districts”? Did they mean out and out lying?
Can they name a school district that doesn’t have administrative bloat?
jd
January 5th, 2013
7:09 am
If you are a charter school – the state will increase your $$$ — if you are a public school — sorry, we have no money… hmmm…
And the State Constitution says The provision of an adequate public education for the citizens shall be a primary obligation of the State of Georgia. Public education for the citizens prior to the college or postsecondary level shall be free and shall be provided for by taxation. — so much for equal protection
Bill Mackinnon
January 5th, 2013
8:28 am
@ Pride and Joy: Principals are in p;ace not to “. . . to ensure the teachers are doing what they ought to.” but to make sure the administration are providing the resources teachers need to promote learning in the students. PERIOD!
teacherwantingachange
January 5th, 2013
9:02 am
I can’t understand how anyone who has visited a public school or read the writings of so many of our high school students studying “college preparatory” work would conclude that more “flexibility” is what is needed for districts like Dekalb.
Have RTT money to spend? Use it to create a leadership academy and to fund advanced degrees for existing “leaders.”
Have mass number of students lacking math, social studies, and science proficiency?
Create larger classes but maintain and even increase administration positions.
Have lots of schools that don’t make AYP?
Give money to tutoring outfits to educate the students in the small, individualized instruction the system should be producing.
Need to look like you’re doing something?
Spend lots of money on consultants and audits so that there is stuff to publish on a website and tout as “change.”
What’s most egregious is the fact that teachers are the only ones reviewed and held accountable. Sure SACS and the state purport to review the performance of districts, but what really happens? Who is evaluating the too many central office administrators and their decisions that impact and even harm the quality of education offered?
KIM
January 5th, 2013
10:01 am
We now have evidence that district control over how curriculum is delivered does not improve the depth of knowledge. Shallow curriculum does not improve performance over time. It simply raises scores on a basic test. So, now if we intend to really prepare thinkers and doers, we must release the teachers of the district controls (instructional calendars, pedagogy) and let the teachers soar. They will do it. Working with a group of teachers on a strategy aimed at improving student performance has renewed my belief that there is too much district control., And I am convinced the district where I work takes that control out of fear that the students will not perform well on the CRCT if teachers are allowed to be creative. The time restraints each day hold innovation at bay and do not allow for instantaneous learning opportunties..opps that need more time to develop. When I taught I would love and be energized by those golden nuggets of opportunity.
Georgia
January 5th, 2013
10:24 am
There’s simply too much money at stake for any rogue teaching techniques. We must ensure that all will conform to the standard uniform protocol. All must conform. The exams must be passed. We must make certain that the flow of funds never ceases. The students will thank us. The parents will thank us. All of society will be grateful, and civilization will march forward in lock step with each flank protected from creative rebels in the blackboard jungle.
SEE
January 5th, 2013
10:53 am
Simmer said:
“if I have a way to do something different and gets better results and can prove those results I get more freedom.”
I know a teacher that was reprimanded by the principal because she taylored sight word lessons to each individual child in her class. The principal was concerned that she was not following the prescribed way of doing things, and other teachers were starting to follow her example. They were following because it worked, despite the extra time it took to create such lessons. So much for your theory. Welcome to the real world.
Pride and Joy
January 5th, 2013
10:59 am
Very well said “Who is evaluating the too many central office administrators and their decisions that impact and even harm the quality of education offered?”
We have more than enough money to teach every child well, it is simply wasted by bureaucrats who want to line their own pockets.
Smaller class sizes matter. Better, more educated teachers matter. Safe buildings matter. Everything else is just fraud and abuse.
Pride and Joy
January 5th, 2013
11:07 am
Sight words are the wrong thing to teach. The emphasis on sight words takes important time away from actually learning how to read.
We don’t learn to read by memorizing words. We learn by phonics and build on phonics with spelling rules and by learning the history of the words later on.
Daily my children were sent home lists of sight words to memorize. This is NOT the way to teach a kid to read.
It is a worthless endeavor.
Teach phonics first.
Teach the rules first, then handle the exceptions. Sight words are the exceptions.
I don’t want my child to memorize the word “one” when the teacher has not taught him/her to sound out easily decodable words like “bit, bat, but and bet.”
Beverly Fraud
January 5th, 2013
12:52 pm
From Invisible
“When I say Fulton is using Spence Rogers for their teacher training even though he cites Mao, a mass murderer, as an example of leadership, I only wish I was exaggerating.”
Invisible is not exaggerating. Do the “conservatives” in the General Assembly realize they are given “flexibility” to systems like Fulton to pay untold amounts of money to sing the praises of Mao?
Seriously, go google Spence Rogers and PEAK. (I had to because I had to check) Not only does Rogers quote Mao, doesn’t even qualify it. Can you imagine someone quoting Hitler on their website as an example of “effective leadership”? Now we envision Hitler as being unique in the sheer scope and magnitude of his horror, but who out there reading wouldn’t put Mao on the short list of 20th century despots in terms of horror caused?
Yet Spence Rogers quotes him, apparently unabashedly on his website and Georgia legislators, conservative legislators want to give Fulton “flexibility” to provide “effective leadership” from people who quote Mao?
If I’m in the Fulton County delegation, I’m thinking some clarification is needed.
Beverly Fraud
January 5th, 2013
1:00 pm
To clarify this statement (hit send too soon)
“Invisible is not exaggerating. Do the “conservatives” in the General Assembly realize they are given “flexibility” to systems like Fulton to pay untold amounts of money to sing the praises of Mao?”
Better said pay “untold amounts of money to people who are seemingly willing to quote Mao as an “effective leader” without reservation?”
At the very least, doesn’t a system have a moral obligation to question why a consultant they are going to pay picks (of all the people he could pick) Chairman Mao as an effective leader?
Solutions
January 5th, 2013
1:15 pm
What is all this “excellence” nonsense? I am only willing to pay for a minimal free public education for all, more than that should only be paid for by the parents themselves. I think 8 years is more than adequate to teach children to read, write, and do basic math (the four basic functions, add, subtract, multiply, and divide). High school should be optional and paid for fully by tuition and fees. Perhaps a little urgency in learning will improve the behavior and attention span of the students, not to mention their work ethic.
Beverly Fraud
January 5th, 2013
1:16 pm
From SEE
“I know a teacher that was reprimanded by the principal because she taylored sight word lessons to each individual child in her class”
@Simmer (to whom SEE responded) it’s not that SEE “knows a teacher”. It’s that, along with SEE, untold thousands (at least) know a teacher who was reprimanded, even when it was working.
Pride and Joy
January 5th, 2013
1:20 pm
Solutions, did you get a k-12 public school education?
It sounds like it. You can hardly tell the rest of the nation to suck it up and only go to eighth grade when you got yours…
Hypocritical aren’t you?
South Georgia Retired Educator
January 5th, 2013
1:32 pm
If flexibility is the best we can expect from our state leaders, they might as well call off the 2013 session and stay home. You can’t be flexible when there’s nothing with which to be flexible. Another sorry session awaits us.
Ed Johnson
January 5th, 2013
4:20 pm
At the same time as this “flexibility” stuff, here comes Rep. Edward Lindsey, again…
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/parent-trigger-charter-bill-could-renew-intense-po/nTnSt/
Bravo, @Private Citizen, on your “Ethics Rule #1: The purpose of education is not to ‘drive behavior’.”
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
January 5th, 2013
4:58 pm
Solutions- “Excellence” is actually another one of those defined Orwellian terms in education. The average parent, politician, or taxpayer assumes excellence means the normal dictionary meaning.
Not in the least. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/excellence-means-education-putting-what-we-feel-wish-for-and-think-in-harmony/
Is from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s definition that is the one being cited by Spence Rogers as the basis for his professional development work. Csik was head of the Psych Dept at U-Chicago but he is now at Harvard working with Howard “Multiple Intelligences” Gardner.
The work that Fulton, like Charlotte- Meck is paying for. According to a Texas TV station his time is $4000 a day.
Beverly-at least one Fulton school using Rogers is asking parents to donate to the foundation and have the foundation pay him. What a rude surprise for those charitable parents thinking they are supporting solid academics.
catlady
January 5th, 2013
9:36 pm
And then we have some reading series that expects teachers to snap a dog clicker and the students reply in unison. Always seemed Heil Hitlerish to me, and I refused to do it.
Private Citizen
January 5th, 2013
10:17 pm
It’s good to not be a teacher right now. Today I am learning about commutators (the core of electric motors) and what I need at the moment is a two prong puller, but I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get one from the auto parts store. This is better than weekend-shock syndrome and dreading worker harassment when the specialty managers comes through to put the Fear of Moloch into everybody with their provided ten point worker review plan, the one that says “the teacher continuously (insert verb)…” ten times on the chart for the exemplary column. Here, just for fun (not my kind of fun) I fetch it, the official review terms:
Performance Standard 1: The teacher continually demonstrates
Performance Standard 2: The teacher continually seeks and uses
Performance Standard 3: The teacher continually facilitates
Performance Standard 4: The teacher continually facilitates
Performance Standard 5: The teacher continually demonstrates
Performance Standard 6: The teacher continually demonstrates
Performance Standard 7: The teacher continually engages
Performance Standard 8: The teacher continually creates
Performance Standard 9: The teacher continually engages
Performance Standard 10: The teacher continually uses
Apology to any teachers reading this, don’t mean to ruin your weekend. Anyway, I’m a human being. I don’t “continually” do anything except use oxygen and think. I guess I failed this rubric before I started. The teacher continually cringes
Beverly Fraud
January 6th, 2013
2:52 am
Whatever happened to “the teacher teaches” I’m begging to think there is some real merit in what Invisible Serf say, and that perhaps the reason the teacher isn’t expected to teach is that then content would be taught.
Solutions
January 6th, 2013
9:09 am
Pride and Joy – you lefties just luv precedent, do you not? If one person got a free 12 public school education, then all children hence forth should also git said free public education. Wrong! For your information, I attended private (Catholic) school for 6 years, and public school for six years, neither in the State of Georgia. Just because we had free 1-12 education when I was a child does not justify the ongoing waste that is K-12 today! The failed plan to improve education in America has concentrated on adding more years of schooling to education, which now stands at 13 years, and soon to be 14 years, of free home owner funded schools. Try thinking outside the box, adding more years does not work, so lets try subtracting years, creating a little urgency in education, and give the homeowner a little relief on the obscene taxes armed and dangerous government forces them to pay each and every year! Trying to educate kids today is difficult when they have the attitude “this is too hard, I will wait until next year to learn it.”
Private Citizen
January 6th, 2013
1:14 pm
“follow directions” http://i.imgur.com/7gXyc.jpg
NTLB
January 6th, 2013
3:37 pm
@bootey, you have a very good point about the liability issue..no I have never been a school nurse, but I am a school teacher long enough to witness the inability of school nurses to provide effective “nursing” and to witness the plenty of “down time” they have during the school day. The nurse at my current school is frequently MIA from the clinic…. and the nurse at my previous school was out of the building frequently. But I do agree with you that the liability issue in regards to medical care needs to addressed and revamped.
Brian Schwartz
January 8th, 2013
5:53 pm
The new model of leadership. We take away your resources and give you flexibility in figuring out how to deal with it.
James
January 9th, 2013
8:03 pm
I can’t even remember the last time teachers received a raise in Georgia. Many of Georgia’s students only go 175 days instead of 180 because school districts don’t want to pay for 180. Sad, very sad.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections for January 10, 2012 – Georgia Politics, Campaigns and Elections – Georgia Pundit
January 10th, 2013
6:51 am
[...] MARTA, which is running low on reserves and has long asked in vain for operations funding, isn’t likely to get any from the state this year either, state leaders told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In lieu of more money, Georgia schools may get more flexibility in spending what they do receive. [...]