Is Louisiana the future of Georgia’s education system?

If you want to see where Georgia conservatives want to take education in this state, look five hundred miles west to Louisiana, where Gov. Bobby Jindal is implementing a voucher program intended to move hundreds of thousands of students out of public schools and into privately run schools at taxpayer expense.

Louisiana officials have made it clear that they do not intend to impose teacher standards on those schools. Students attending voucher schools will be immune to the high-stakes testing that is required in the state’s public schools. In addition, the state will not sit in judgment of what the schools teach or how they teach it.

John White, Louisiana’s school superintendent, has told the press that it should be up to parents, not the state, to gauge whether private schools are delivering a quality education. “To me, it’s a moral outrage that the government would say, ‘We know what’s best for your child,’” White said. “Who are we to tell parents we know better?”

That “who are we to judge?” question is critically important. When fully implemented, the Louisiana program has the potential to shift well over a billion dollars a year in taxpayer money out of the public system into the hands of private for-profit and non-profit schools. Surely that gives state officials not just the right but the obligation to ensure that the money is well-spent and delivers quality education. But that’s counter to the philosophy driving the school voucher movement.

The program was signed into law by Jindal in April and takes effect immediately. The result has been an educational gold rush. For example, Reuters reports that New Living Word, the school offering the most open slots to voucher students, “has a top-ranked basketball team but no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in barebones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.”

science:ace

Part of the first-grade "science" class offered by Accelerated Christian Education, a curriculum that the taxpayers of Louisiana will soon be supporting through their public tax dollars.

That’s not at all unusual. Almost all of the 125 private schools that have applied to accept voucher students in the 2012-13 school year are religious-based. Many teach creationism as science, some using curriculum provided through Accelerated Christian Education, an education ministry. Under its system, ACE boasts, “the school is not considered an arm of the church. It is the church in action.”

ACE’s first-grade curriculum, for example, teaches as science that God created the Earth in six days, that on Day One he divided the light from the darkness and on Day Six made man and other living creatures.

As another example of how intertwined church and state become, the Islamic School of Greater New Orleans initially indicated that it too would participate in the voucher program, but later withdrew after a political outcry. As state Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, explained, vouchers are supposed to finance “teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion,” but “we need to ensure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools…. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana.”

This is the type of program that voucher proponents in Georgia hope to emulate. Last week, for example, Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers acknowledged that if he had his way, such programs would have been implemented “yesterday,” specifically citing Louisiana as a model. But until full-blown implementation is possible, Rogers and others pursue half steps, such as the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this November giving the state the power to create charter schools over the protest of local districts.

It is also consistent with proposals from GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who advocates turning federal aid for schools into individual grants “so that eligible students can choose which school to attend and bring funding with them.” Interestingly, the Romney plan avoids the term “vouchers”, although that is clearly how such grants would function.

That’s in keeping with the stealthy, incremental process by which this goal is being pursued.

– Jay Bookman

560 comments Add your comment

TaxPayer

July 18th, 2012
8:11 am

We’ve become a nation of educated idiots thanks to the far-left polluting our public school system and universities. At this point shifting to a private school system might be our only salvation.

Spoken for yourself.

bob

July 18th, 2012
8:11 am

Jay, can you tell us when you first called out Beverly Hall ? Wasn’t it well after the cheating scandel came to light ? And I am glad your daughters received a good pub school education. My choice was private or an elementary school that passes itself off as a spanish immersion school because of the large amount of Latino students. The school was handed lemons and made lemonade but just giving in to illegals and saying we will now be a spanish immersion is not the answer. First, how does it help my child to wait for the non english speaking students to get a grasp. Second, how does it help non english speaking Latinos by teaching them in their native tongue when they should be learning english ? Many dems in LA voted with Jindal on this. If you are for standards Jay, why don’t you use your bully pulpit to impose those standards on APS. If a kid can’t read that kid should not graduate but many public schools do not have those standards.

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:12 am

madras schools

hmm. Are dress code issues really relevant to the topic at hand?

Recon 0311 2533

July 18th, 2012
8:13 am

“This, too, is Wingnutese for “teaching globally accepted principles of science.”

So says a citizen of the world instead of a citizen of the United States. e.g. of a mentality that’s contributed to the ineffectiveness of our education system.

Granny Godzilla - Union Thugette

July 18th, 2012
8:14 am

We’ve become a nation of educated idiots thanks to the far-left polluting our public school system and universities. At this point shifting to a private school system might be our only salvation.

Piffle

G Mare

July 18th, 2012
8:15 am

Cobb County homeowners 62 or older can apply for a school tax exemption. Nice!

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:16 am

By the way, just so it’s clear–I have a kid in the public school system. It’s a lot of work to ensure that the parent-educator lines of communication are kept open, and balancing between too much second-guessing, and too little daily involvement, on our part is never as clear-cut a choice as you’d like it to be.

And speaking of choices, yes, there ARE choices within the GA public educational system, if you are willing to schlep your kid to a school outside of your district yourself. That’s not always a practical option for working parents, but it’s a possibility, one that is rarely discussed and probably should be.

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:17 am

So says a citizen of the world instead of a citizen of the United States.

yeah, the two are soooo mutually exclusive.

TaxPayer

July 18th, 2012
8:17 am

“Uncle Jed! I got accepted to Phoenix University!” – Jethro Bodine

FrankLeeDarling

July 18th, 2012
8:18 am

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:18 am

Hey Del, since you’re flinging inflammatory stuff my way–answer me this, honestly.

Do you think “American Exceptionalism” means that Lord Jesus personally wanted our Founding Fathers to form the USA, and that’s what makes us a “Christian Nation?”

barking frog

July 18th, 2012
8:18 am

I am 65 years old and I
disagree with school tax
exemptions.

jconservative

July 18th, 2012
8:18 am

My grandson went through the 1st semester of the first grade in Georgia and he was barely reading at a first grade level. His family moved to North Carolina for the second semester of the first grade. He finished the year reading at a third grade level.

Public education in Georgia and North Carolina are miles apart.

Also, I recommend everyone re-read Jay’s 7:35 comment.

Thomas Heyward Jr.

July 18th, 2012
8:19 am

“You didn’t do it own your own……..somewhere along the way, you had a good teacher”
.
Says the President of the country with the largest incarcerated population in the World.

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:20 am

Madrassa

is Arabic “for any type of educational institution, whether secular or religious (of any religion)”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrasah

just so it’s clear.

Terrence

July 18th, 2012
8:21 am

Bookman supports choice to abort but not educate.

godless heathen

July 18th, 2012
8:22 am

And this will lead to:

1. A lot of unemployable people

Which will then lead to a much larger Peasant Class.

Oh no! More Democrats.

Granny Godzilla - Union Thugette

July 18th, 2012
8:22 am

You didn’t do it own your own……..somewhere along the way, you had a good teacher”

Says the President of the nation we all love…..right?

Cosby

July 18th, 2012
8:22 am

There is no real place for Government in the School system…but the REAL ROBLEM that no one will address is parents. Thanks to the Government, the family has been destroyed, replaced by the Government. Have more kids, get paid, send them to our babysitting service aka Government Schools and we, the government will raise them. Time to hold parents responsible. there is no single mom – it takes two to tango – so lets hold everyone accountable – have a kid – it is your responsibility to raise them and not the Government. Can’t afford a kid then do not have them….vouchers – yes but lets take care of the problem at the roots – parents – you have a kid, you have a responsibility and it is not to collect additional funds from those that actually work!

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:23 am

“You didn’t do it own your own……..somewhere along the way, you had a good teacher”

for all those crying “CONTEXT” in the Sununu thread from yesterday?

it’s funny how you don’t bother to quote this bit just a wee bit further down in that same speech of Obama’s:

“The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

“So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.”

Louisiana and its money

July 18th, 2012
8:24 am

The state’s largely private prison system profits from high incarceration rates and tough sentencing, and many with the power to curtail the system actually have a financial incentive to perpetuate it.

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:25 am

There is no real place for Government in the School system…

Cosby, so you’re going to dismantle an institution that works in every single civilized nation in the world, and in which 90% of all Americans participate in, from K-12.

I should read another word you post, ever again, why?

Butch Cassidy (I)

July 18th, 2012
8:25 am

Jm -”If you get government money, you should have to meet government standards”

AGREED! I don’t have a problem with any Governor taking a stance on the right of his/her state to refuse federal aid. If they want their states to fund themselves, I say more power to them. However, the fact is that when the next natural disaster strikes their state, these “principled” advocates of states rights will be the first to line up at the trough begging for the federal aid.

Fly-On-The-Wall

July 18th, 2012
8:26 am

The right won’t be happy until the education system in this country is back in the one room red school house where they teach nothing but religion.

Doesn’t anyone on that side understand that fragmentation of the educational system will hurt not help the students? Yes too big is just as bad but too small will fail as well. Plus, why is it those ‘private’ groups have absolutely no governmental oversight when they get tax dollars yet the public system can’t spend a penny without some representative going batsh*t crazy about it?

Mr Right

July 18th, 2012
8:26 am

The biggest factor in whether your child recieves a good education is the parents themselves. Having said that, I would NOT send my childern to a puplic school to be taught things that I don’t approve of. So If a voucher program gives parents a choice I am for it but it comes back to the parents, don’t just send your children off to ANY school and hope for the best ! Get involved and see to it that the are properly educated!

GT

July 18th, 2012
8:27 am

This part of the country just doesn’t get it. In football terms you are only as good as your weakest players. The United States is a team competing against the world. The south in particular drains the rest of the team with its weak play and on top of that refuses to be coached unless by other players with equally poor performance.

When Bear Bryant went into spring practice he had a vision of what he wanted for his team. What image do southern politicians and the citizens have for the south. What resources do they have to pull from to get these visions. If wanting to be the most uneducationed, most impoverished, crime filled, diseased, overweight killers on the planet you have arrived. We complain about being ranked among the world in the 20s on math and science scores with most of the industrial nations ahead of us. You stripe the south out of the country and let them stand on their own the south may be in the middle of the Division 1AAs in the world most countries ranking above them in scores and the part left called the US would quickly go up to the top 10 Division 1. Who knew when we wrote the constitution that one part of the country would constantly be trying to commit suicide?

Granny Godzilla - Union Thugette

July 18th, 2012
8:27 am

cosby

“Thanks to the Government, the family has been destroyed”

Nonsense

barking frog

July 18th, 2012
8:27 am

Sunday schools have failed
and need to expand and be
publically financed.

FrankLeeDarling

July 18th, 2012
8:27 am

Ok got it thanks Stands,I just find it interesting that Louisiana thinks it can open the door for one religion and not others

Mr Right

July 18th, 2012
8:28 am

The right won’t be happy until the education system in this country is back in the one room red school house where they teach nothing but religion.

In America that has never happened!

Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

July 18th, 2012
8:30 am

Louisiana’s program is the only way to truly create competition for our sclerotic public school system, which exists only to line the pockets of the unions, and thus the Democrats (example numero uno – DeKalb County). My children’s small Christian school, which met in a trailer, got every student into the Duke TIP program (my children did exceedingly well on the SAT as seventh graders). Parents will figure out, quickly enough, which are the good schools. And yes, they are much more concerned, and qualified, than the education bureaucracy, to figure out what is best for their children. God bless Bobby Jindal.

Thomas Heyward Jr.

July 18th, 2012
8:30 am

Granny Godzilla – Union Thugette

July 18th, 2012
8:22 am

You didn’t do it own your own……..somewhere along the way, you had a good teacher”

Says the President of the nation we all love…..right?
————————————————————————————————
Whether I love the nation is irrelevant.
I was forced at gun-point to be a part of it.
Kinda like what the progs advocate in “schooling” our children.

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:33 am

Oh, Jay? just wanted to know, I happened to scan the rather charming end of the last thread, where you posted:

I’m like that guy in the old commercial: “Gotta make the donuts.”

For the record, it was “TIME to make the donuts.”

(great ad, and that catchphrase is still sometimes uttered at Stately sfd Manor.)

Brosephus™

July 18th, 2012
8:33 am

Thanks to the Government, the family has been destroyed, replaced by the Government.

I’d keep that pile of bovine fecal matter away from any open flame. Methane is quite flammable…

UPGRAYEDD

July 18th, 2012
8:33 am

This sounds like something from the movie “Idiocracy”.

JamVet

July 18th, 2012
8:33 am

Cons of Dixie, just because your kids are lazy, overweight and distractable to a fault and have horrible role models regarding the value of an “real” education (Read some of the gibberish posted here daily for obvious evidence!) is NOT the fault of the teachers, the NEA or the hated “government”.

Or any other bogeyman you construct.

Turn off the Tard TV, including Fox News and educate yourselves first. And then demand that of your kids. Although for many of you, it is apparently way too late and you sure as hell don’t want to hear anything about that s word. Sacrifice.

The blame lies primarily with YOU and YOUR children.

Now pick up Swiss Family Robinson and put down that People magazine…

Granny Godzilla - Union Thugette

July 18th, 2012
8:34 am

Thomas Heyward

“Whether I love the nation is irrelevant.
I was forced at gun-point to be a part of it.”

Balderdash

Brosephus™

July 18th, 2012
8:34 am

Whether I love the nation is irrelevant.
I was forced at gun-point to be a part of it.

Sounds like you’re a grown man now. If you don’t wanna be a part of it, why hang around then?

TaxPayer

July 18th, 2012
8:35 am

Whether I love the nation is irrelevant.
I was forced at gun-point to be a part of it.
Kinda like what the progs advocate in “schooling” our children.

WTF!

Oscar

July 18th, 2012
8:35 am

Thomas Heyward Jr.

________

You are not forced at gun point. Leave any time you like.

Granny Godzilla - Union Thugette

July 18th, 2012
8:35 am

Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

July 18th, 2012
8:30 am
Louisiana’s program is the only way to truly create competition for our sclerotic public school system, which exists only to line the pockets of the unions

Vast Right wing piffle

TaxPayer

July 18th, 2012
8:37 am

I think Thomas is reliving his indoctrination into the klan.

Brosephus™

July 18th, 2012
8:37 am

GG

Sometimes I wonder why any of y’all respond to that crap. At some point, you have to realize that the mindless don’t want to use their mind.

[...] Read More [...]

Oscar

July 18th, 2012
8:39 am

TaxPayer
—————

If he was forced to be part of this nation by gunpoint it must have been an interestign scene in the delivery room at his birth.

Joseph

July 18th, 2012
8:39 am

There is no way I will support this idea until Romney shows me at least 40 years worth of tax returns…

Williebkind

July 18th, 2012
8:40 am

Jay and the liberals are confusing education and the ability to succeed. The trades schools are where the jobs are and they are paying more than the traditional indoctrinated liberal arts degrees. Why dont you show us a chart about that Jay?

I have a right to practice my religion anywhere I want that includes in the places of education, state parks, and fedeal buildings. A few athiest and other perverts have had their way in court and have taken away most of my constitutional rights by saying that is for home and church. Now we have voucher schools where Judea-Christain teachings are not outlawed. That has really peeved Jay and the atheist liberals(an oxymoron). You have the public schools and you can teach monkeys come first. I pay taxes too. I should get my taxes to work for me and mine. I hope Ga does go the way of La.

Oscar

July 18th, 2012
8:42 am

I don’t have anything against private schools. I just don’t think taxpayers should pay for them.
Private schools are fine as long as they are privately funded.

Thomas Heyward Jr.

July 18th, 2012
8:42 am

Just going by Bookman’s post at 7:11.
.
I know that “coerce” is a big word for the government educated, but it’s also a ‘fancy” word meaning “at gun-point”.
.
And as far as leaving…………I was here first and I’ll take my stand to keep our children’s education from aspiring to Washington DC standards…How is that working out?

iRun

July 18th, 2012
8:42 am

FrankLeeDarling
July 18th, 2012
8:06 am

This will open the door for Islamic madras schools

——-

I do love me some madras curry sauce…maybe funds SHOULD go to cooking schools…

(kidding)

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:42 am

I just find it interesting that Louisiana thinks it can open the door for one religion and not others

With this SCOTUS, absolutely any wingnutty, unconstitutional idea can be foisted on the public.

It’s a crapshoot, really, until Scalia or Thomas kick the bucket and are replaced with rational human beings.

godless heathen

July 18th, 2012
8:42 am

A few athiest and other perverts ……

Well there you go.

Granny Godzilla - Union Thugette

July 18th, 2012
8:44 am

Bro

Consider it a sport…..Piffle Hunting.

Like this pound of piffle:

“A few athiest and other perverts have had their way in court and have taken away most of my constitutional rights by saying that is for home and church. Now we have voucher schools where Judea-Christain teachings are not outlawed”

That…and I’m having kind of a slow morning…..

Facts

July 18th, 2012
8:44 am

I was here first and I’ll take my stand to keep our children’s education from aspiring to Washington DC standards…How is that working out?

_____

George W. Bush created the “No Child Left Behind” theory. How did that work out?

Williebkind

July 18th, 2012
8:44 am

“the value of an “real” education”
I would like a further description of a “real education”. I know one, a degree in education, a degree in criminal justice, a degree in music, and lastly a degree in that lost profession called journalism.

St Simons - he-ne-ha

July 18th, 2012
8:45 am

“..freedom to be as ignorant as they want.”

because truth & knowledge has the liberal bias, (its so obvious)

YOUR tax dollars will go to this –

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/louisiana-students-loch-ness-monster-disprove-evolution_n_1624643.html

yeahhh buddy

Brosephus™

July 18th, 2012
8:45 am

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coerce

Don’t see anything about gunpoint there. Then again, that Merriam-Webster company is a bastion of liberal government brainwashing.

:lol:

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:45 am

>> A few athiest and other perverts ……

> Well there you go.

yeah, it’s gonna get ugly in here before it’s over.

Goldie

July 18th, 2012
8:45 am

Welcome to Gooberville, Georgians — we’re surely heading toward Louisiana-style Gooberville!

:)

Williebkind

July 18th, 2012
8:45 am

“A few athiest and other perverts ……

Well there you go.”

There you have it!

O'Really

July 18th, 2012
8:45 am

I was raised in Virginia, but I have been in Georgia for half of my life. Believe me, there are acres of difference in the quality of public education and expectations of students when comparing these two states. Georgia does not come close to matching the standards. Now…which state is controlled by right wingers?

iRun

July 18th, 2012
8:45 am

jconservative – you’re kidding right? The difference between those two grades is when reading happens. At least in general. It’s not so much about the school systems.

I’m pretty sure curriculums across the nation are pretty similar.

iRun

July 18th, 2012
8:46 am

FrankLeeDarling
July 18th, 2012
8:06 am

This will open the door for Islamic madras schools

—————-

Mmmmm…I do love me some madras curry sauce. On second thought, let’s provide vouchers for cooking schools!

(kidding)

skipper

July 18th, 2012
8:46 am

Jay,
As an example, when schools become what the APS has become folks are willing to try anything. The most backward, incompetent set of folks running the biggest cluster in Georgia education. What we are doing AIN’T WORKING!!! Lokk at many APS high schools; kids could be watching Micky-Mouse and learning more!

UPGRAYEDD

July 18th, 2012
8:46 am

“You have the public schools and you can teach monkeys come first”.

And you have your churches to counterbalance that teaching and give your young-uns a more ‘balanced’ view of science and nature. That’s called freedom. What you espouse is child abuse.

JamVet

July 18th, 2012
8:48 am

…puplic (sic) school to be taught things that I don’t approve of.

Aye, and there’s the rub. (No, not the ever present and egregious misspellings.)

Universally accepted concepts such as natural selection/evolution. Environmentalism and the ethical stewardship of our natural resources. Decades and centuries of science, history and literature.

And NO forced prayers to Jesus or any other mythology.

These are the banes of the Republirubes.

Send them to some “Christian” school and let those folks take tens of thousands of their dollars instead. (As an added bonus, there probably won’t be any of Those People there.)

Heyward is obviously way too young and unlearned to remember it, but I do love that I get to shove this one right back into his face.

America, Love It or Leave It!

And only in the lunatic fringe would the sixth grade word of coerce be considered a fancy word.

This is the magnitude of the problem with these semi-literates.

Enjoy your blissfully ignorant day, cons.

I gotta go pay your way.

Toodles…

RB from Gwinnett

July 18th, 2012
8:48 am

This whole “last in education” bit is a sham to get more money from the people. Or problem isn’t so much with our students as it is with our dropouts. None of this fixes that problem.

iRun

July 18th, 2012
8:48 am

Why do people think calling them Government Schools is somehow revealing and pejorative? Because, by definition, Public = Government. Especially since in this country the Government is for and of the Public. So, duh.

What do you think you’re actually saying when you use that phrase?

GT

July 18th, 2012
8:49 am

There is no respect for education in the south. Even nominating Romney was done with the southern noses being held. Palin excited the south, a outdoor girl who made it up as she went along. Education is an intrusion to their fantasy world.

Family values really? Georgia and South Carolina had no problem electing multi married Newt in their Republican primaries. They called Newt an intellectual. Newt is a lightweight in the academic world but he stands tall in this forest of midgets. But who knew down here. If he called himself a football player now we got some mad voters calling him out, but a family man and intellectual “that is just fine” says the blind man. Newt won’t be the last snake salesman sponsored by this illegitimate part of the country, we have set ourselves up for failure over and over again.

Williebkind

July 18th, 2012
8:49 am

“Like this pound of piffle:”

If you eat that much no wonder its a slow morning.

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:50 am

you can teach monkeys come first

We were talking about regional cultural expectations.

In the Northeast, I’m sorry, but if you were to utter a phrase as profoundly ignorant as ^^ that, you’d be laughed at in about 90% of any given social circles I’d ever encountered.

Here in the Southeast, it’s only perhaps 50% or so.

If you’re so freaking stupid as to think that biological evolution equals “we came from monkeys”, if you’re so mentally incompetent that you can’t grasp the concept of a common, now long-gone ancestral species… well, I better not say what I think ought to be done about your reproductive rights.

FrankLeeDarling

July 18th, 2012
8:50 am

I do love some good curry!

Williebkind

July 18th, 2012
8:51 am

GT

July 18th, 2012
8:49 am
Now that is a ton of “piffile”.

Williebkind

July 18th, 2012
8:52 am

piffle that is

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
8:52 am

anyways, it’s time to pub my Gubmint Skoolz edjewmacation to producin’.

Later, gators.

(if Del ever answers my inquiry @ 8.18, I might be back for a drive-by.)

St Simons - he-ne-ha

July 18th, 2012
8:52 am

hey, I’ll jus take the oldest he-ne-ha and teach him how to make his
own bow n arrow and split a cornstalk at 100 paces (creek tradition).
I’ll teach him a great spirit made us all out of corn & blood, too, and he
don’t need all that book-learnin.
You think he’d still be in UGA vet school now?

Its perfectly ok for you to be as ignorant as you want, cons, but to
fop that onto your kids is just inexcusable. It ought to be a felony.

Oscar

July 18th, 2012
8:52 am

I remember when madras shirts were in fashion.

RIGHTISWRONG

July 18th, 2012
8:53 am

You dumb republicans just don’t get it.

Watch your back because not focusing on improving the public school system will only lead to more crime. Duh!

Vouchers are not the answer, mirroring great schools and closing bad ones is a formula that DOES WORK.

Pay the teachers better so that you get the best ones. Close the gap on pay with fair taxation.

Wow, that didn’t take long did it. Good morning, I will run 4 office next cycle when I am wealthy enough to overlook any clowns out there with a bag of money.

barking frog

July 18th, 2012
8:53 am

Is Louisiana the future of
Georgia’s education
system?
…..
Yes.

iRun

July 18th, 2012
8:53 am

Sorry for the similar posts – I thought the first got ate!

I wonder if it had madras curry sauce on it and if the blog enjoyed it.

OK, getting silly. Off to a conference call.

Brosephus™

July 18th, 2012
8:55 am

iRun

By the time my child enters kindergarten, I hope to have her reading on a 3rd grade level. I’ve been reading to her since she was 6 months old. The reason our educational system sucks has nothing to do with the system itself but is more because of the lack of preparation to enter the system. That’s why I laugh at these alarmists.

Where they claim the government has destroyed the system, it’s the system itself that’s creating it’s destruction. When it takes 2.5 salaries to raise a family now, there’s no longer a stay at home parent to assist with learning. Our own success has become our downfall.

Williebkind

July 18th, 2012
8:55 am

“If you’re so freaking stupid as to think that biological evolution equals “we came from monkeys”, if you’re so mentally incompetent that you can’t grasp the concept of a common, now long-gone ancestral species… well, I better not say what I think ought to be done about your reproductive rights”

Speak wise one. You profess to be wise thus became a fool. Not my saying but you can ask around who said it.

Granny Godzilla - Union Thugette

July 18th, 2012
8:56 am

Williebkind

July 18th, 2012
8:49 am
“Like this pound of piffle:”

If you eat that much no wonder its a slow morning.

.

Look he made a funny!

Good for you.

Humor humanizes.

Jefferson

July 18th, 2012
8:57 am

Oscar

July 18th, 2012
8:57 am

Democracy can only exist within a country where the voters are educated and there is a middle class. Hard to read articles like this and have much hope.
Obama has asked for more money for teachers. Romney is asking for the demise of public education. Looks like we have a clear choice.
I predict Obama for four more years – if this country is to survive as a democracy.

St Simons - he-ne-ha

July 18th, 2012
8:57 am

no cons, Swamp People is not something you aspire to

Joseph

July 18th, 2012
8:57 am

If Romney won’t tell me what kind of cologne he wears I’m not voting for him….

TaxPayer

July 18th, 2012
8:57 am

“Black lung is an affliction put upon those that sin against the company.” – Excerpt from text for Coal Mining for the Masses.

Facts

July 18th, 2012
8:58 am

Timeline of the Georgia Republican Legislature:

1. change the rules for the HOPE scholarship
2. cut deeply into the funds that are contributed to the local governments for education
3. create a provision on a ballot for vouchers for private schools

This is just so unbalanced. Who would have thought that elected officials could come up with IDEAS that benefit ALL CITIZENS??

St Simons - he-ne-ha

July 18th, 2012
8:59 am

Democracy can only exist within a country where the voters are educated

that’s the plan, oscar. You exposed them. congratulations

rodert rudis

July 18th, 2012
9:00 am

I hate Republicans.

curious

July 18th, 2012
9:00 am

Reverend Ike wants to open a school. Bishop Long will be in charge of youth activities (he learned from Jerry Sandusky).

stands for decibels (SfBA)

July 18th, 2012
9:00 am

Speak wise one.

Sorry, Willie, but the last time I told you what I honestly felt about something similarly ridiculous that you’d posted, Jay told me “one more like that and you’re out of here.”

I’m just playing by our host’s rules. I don’t want to get red-carded.

/drive-by

Oscar

July 18th, 2012
9:00 am

barking frog

July 18th, 2012
8:53 am

____________

No, i don’t think so. But then, I thought the Falcons would have won a Super Bowl by now. I may be expecting too much for Georgians.

iRun

July 18th, 2012
9:01 am

Bro – my kid is in the scary APS. When he was 8 he read “Watership Down”. He has his own Kindle (well, it’s my old one, after I got a Fire) and he’s almost 11.

He reads at a high level, as well. But that’s because reading is one of his chores, as well as writing about what he read.

But that kind of thing, as you mentioned, is above and beyond what a public school should do – it’s a parental thing. Even Jay says that.

But at least the poor kids without parental support, or with BAD parental support, can at least get a basic education and have a chance to get out from under the circumstances of his/her birth.

Something like this voucher program threatens that minimal provision.

(Not arguing with you. Also said I would stop posting. But can’t. Addicted.)

curious

July 18th, 2012
9:02 am

No child left behind is working! They’re all at the back, together.

Joseph

July 18th, 2012
9:02 am

If business’s don’t start sending me money I’m not voting for Romney… You didn’t build that yourself.. Whoops no prompter and you have a gaffe….

Peadawg

July 18th, 2012
9:03 am

If you want to go to a PRIVATE school, pay for it yourself. Don’t use my tax dollars.

Brosephus™

July 18th, 2012
9:06 am

iRun

I’ll leave you alone so you can quit posting.. :)

—————————–

Peadawg

Agreed!!!

TaxPayer

July 18th, 2012
9:06 am