Archive for the ‘UGA’ Category

UPDATED a 11:45 a.m with news that Luella High in Henry also has twins in the top slots.

UPDATED at 2 p.m with news that triplets took the top three slots at Upson-Lee High School.

UPDATED at 3:34 p.m. with news that twins took the top honors at Franklin High School.

Bill Maddox of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education pointed me to these two news story, which he thought were worth noting. I agree. The valedictorians and salutatorians at Grovetown High School in Columbia County and at Clarke Central High in Athens are twins.

In addition, I am awaiting details from Henry County where twin brothers are the valedictorian and salutatorian at Luella High School. Sheldon C. Scoggins  is valedictorian; his brother Brennan M. Scoggins is salutatorian.

I just confirmed a twin valedictorian/salutatorian at Franklin High School. According to principal Wayne Randall, Scout Josey is valedictorian and her sister Kate is salutatorian. They are the twin daughters of Ricky …

Continue reading Triplets and four sets of twins take the very top honors at their Georgia high schools. »

The AJC reported this yesterday, but here is an official announcement from the Board of Regents, chancellor and governor:

Today’s announcement by University of Georgia President Michael Adams that he will step down on June 30, 2013, will mark the conclusion of 16 years leading one of the nation’s top public universities. In response to Adams’ announcement, Governor Nathan Deal, Board of Regents Chairman Benjamin Tarbutton III and University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby each made a statement.

Governor Nathan Deal said, “President Michael Adams has dedicated his most productive years to our University System’s flagship institution, the University of Georgia. He will leave behind a tremendous legacy, and his tenure will have long-lasting positive effects. Under his leadership, the University of Georgia has grown in size and in stature. These changes are manifested in the tremendous physical improvements to the school, particularly the development of East …

Continue reading It’s official: Michael Adams leaves UGA next year »

Big news today for UGA. The AJC is reporting that University of Georgia President Michael Adams will announce Thursday that he will step down effective next year.

Any suggestions on replacements?

There are some dynamic young college presidents out there. I would love to see Georgia choose someone from outside the usual pool, someone who would shake up the campus and the status quo.

According to the AJC:

Adams, who has led the state’s flagship college for 16 years, will be 65 by the time he retires. During his tenure at UGA, the university has become more selective and is consistently ranked as one of the top 20 public colleges in the country. Meanwhile enrollment has grown by almost 6,000 students to nearly 35,000.

Adams is expected to publicly discuss his pending retirement to the campus, according to a state official and a high-ranking University System of Georgia employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled …

Continue reading Any nominees for the new UGA president? »

Many parents worry about how they’re going to pay for their children’s education even when their kids plan to attend public colleges.

It doesn’t look like the struggle is going to get any easier. Reporting from today’s Georgia Board of Regents meeting, the AJC says Georgia college students would pay between $31 and $218 more per semester in tuition next fall under a proposal just approved. In addition, special fees that were due to sunset will continue.

The Regents issued a preemptive press release already today that the tuition hike represents “the smallest tuition increase in a decade – 2.5 percent.”

According to the statement from the Regents:

The action taken by the Board of Regents on tuition today is possible in part due to Gov. Nathan Deal recommending and the General Assembly agreeing to full funding of the formula for the University System of Georgia. By doing so, the regents were provided with a strong financial base upon which to set current tuition policy …

Continue reading Unless their summer job is selling a kidney, most students can’t earn enough to pay for college »

Communities that buy lottery tickets at a high rate get the least return from HOPE, according to a new study. (AJC file)

Today’s guest entry is by Taifa S. Butler, deputy director of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit providing research and analysis of the state budget and impact of policy decisions.

The institute released a report today on the HOPE Scholarship. The report — “HOPE for Whom: For Some it Doesn’t Pay to Play the Georgia Lottery” — outlines a few of HOPE’s shortcomings and builds a case for the necessity of HOPE reform. Read it here.

By Taifa S. Butler

Georgia’s commitment to graduate 250,000 more college students by 2020 is a worthy goal — and a necessary one if the state wants to remain competitive in an economy that increasingly requires knowledgeable, highly skilled workers.

Ensuring that Georgians can afford to attend universities and technical colleges is a critical component of this effort. Financial hardship is the No. …

Continue reading Less HOPE for those who contribute larger share of their income to the lottery »

Here is a great essay by Georgia classroom teacher Beth Pittard, who is also a grad student at the University of Georgia College of Education:

By Beth Pittard

While many people around the country complete brackets for basketball, teachers everywhere gear up for their own version of March Madness. To prepare for the Criterion Referenced Competency Test to be taken sometime between April 4- May 6, elementary school teachers will actually have to convince students to forget what they have learned about reading.

The high-stakes testing situation leads, literally, to madness.

Let me explain. Teachers are required to teach the Georgia Performance Standards with fidelity. We are expected to “prove” we are doing this by posting the standard in a “highly visible” place in our classrooms along with an essential question (EQ) for each lesson of each day and for each subject area (forget integrating the curriculum, but that’s another story).

Each standard has a code …

Continue reading Testing season revs up: March madness leads to April angst »

The state is investing less and less in college educations. (AJC/file photo)

The Sunday AJC contains several great education stories, some of which will not appear online as the stories are subscriber only. One of the Sunday stories that is online delves into the rising costs of public colleges and the concomitant rising student debt.

This is the line that I suspect will provoke the most debate: A decade ago, the state paid 75 percent of the cost of educating a student. Today it covers 54 percent, with students and their parents picking up most of the rest.

The retort that I expect is that students and parents should be responsible for all the costs, and that it shouldn’t fall to the state to pay the bills for students.

But state governments have long taken the position that underwriting college educations is a potent investment and a proven route to a stronger economy. A better educated workforce attracts jobs and leads to a higher tax base, lower health costs, less crime …

Continue reading As state cuts its college investment, campuses turn to students. Is there a breaking point? »

Are new teachers undermined before they even step into the classroom? (AP Images)

Anabel Fender is a graduate student in education at the University of Georgia. This is her first essay on the Get Schooled blog.

I think it is terrific and an ideal follow-up to the survey results I posted earlier today. Read them both and you will get a sense of what teachers are experiencing right now.

By Anabel Fender

I am an idealist. A dreamer.

An…Oh-My-Goodness-Scared-To-Death-Future Teacher.

And I am made out to be a failure before I even start.

I am battered and bruised from the war against teachers and I haven’t even started teaching yet.

Scripted curricula tell me that the “higher ups” have no faith in my words. My Words! An integral part of what makes me a teacher is not trusted, so I will be given a script telling me exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. In what other profession do we not trust the words of the professional? Before I start, they make me …

Continue reading Future teachers – failures before we even start »

On the issue of gender divides on college campuses due to more qualified females seeking admission, I asked the University of Georgia about its recent admissions by gender. (This is an outgrowth of our discussion about who has the edge in college admissions, men or women.)

UGA is about 60 percent female and 40 percent male. Last year, it admitted 66 percent of its female applicants and 59 percent of its male applicants.

Overall, UGA admitted 63 percent of its total applicants. (For a sense of how hard it is to get into the Ivies, some of those schools admitted less than 10 percent of their applicants.)

UGA admitted 11,171 students, but not all of them chose to enroll. In the end, 5,539 students enrolled  –  51 percent of the admitted males enrolled (2177) and 49 percent of the admitted females enrolled (3362). That means there are 1,185 more women in the class.

For summer/fall 2011, UGA had the following gender breakdown:

Gender       Applicants   …

Continue reading UGA admissions by gender: Women take the lead »

Here is a release from Gov. Deal’s office on the state’s new push to both enroll and graduate more students from college:

Gov. Nathan Deal, along with all 35 presidents of the University System of Georgia, 25 presidents of the Technical College System of Georgia and representatives from Georgia’s independent colleges and the business community, today launched the campus level completion portion of Complete College Georgia, which was first initiated in August 2011. The initiative calls for and identifies strategies for the state’s public and private colleges to add an additional 250,000 college graduates – whether a one-year certificate, an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree – by 2020, a number that is over and above current graduation levels.

“Any significant increase in the number of Georgians who complete college will require a historic new era of coordination between the state’s public and private colleges and the business community,” said Deal. …

Continue reading Gov. Deal: Get more Georgians into college. And get them to graduate. »