Archive for August, 2010

Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:

● There’s a disconnect between the education-funding “crisis” and reality. Government jobs in Georgia grew by 7,000 last year, most of them military and federal bureaucracies. And while city and county governments did shrink by 3,300, school systems added 100 teachers. The AJC’s Dan Chapman reports that government jobs now account for 17.4 percent of nonfarm employment in Georgia, up from 15.5 percent as recently as four years ago. It’s nearly impossible to get an honest reading on anything related to public education funding, the result of decades of exaggeration.

● You rarely see ObamaCare or the ground zero mosque described as “controversial,” but Georgia’s voter ID verification system routinely is. The most polarizing issues in the country aren’t labeled as controversial, while a common-sense effort like voter ID is. Go figure. Point of view, I suppose.

● Barack Obama has been a dud as a …

Continue reading Davis case ‘evidence’ was a spin »

Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:

● The extremist band seizing bank-owned homes around metro Atlanta, along with the scattering of radicals who join or aid al-Qaida, is a reminder that the nation harbors those who enjoy its freedom and liberty while hating us. Constantly preach to people that they are victims of the majority, of the rich, of Wall Street, of banks, or of greedy corporate executives forcing high-interest loans on subprime borrowers — and those chickens come home to roost.

● Cheers for Gov. Sonny Perdue. The investigation of CRCT cheating in Atlanta public schools is now where it belongs — at the state level. The problem before was that everybody in an oversight role, ranging from administrators to the school board to the local chamber of commerce, had a stake in containing the system’s bad press.

● Shhhh! Don’t ask where the vanished students went. As the AJC reports, in another in-depth analysis of a problem in the Atlanta …

Continue reading Looking for misplaced students »

Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:

● Most of the conversation in the gubernatorial campaigns was nearly irrelevant to the real needs of Georgia and to the task that awaits either Democrat Roy Barnes or Republican Nathan Deal. Where now? Here’s what voters should demand:

1. Run fast as you can from the candidate who promises new public education fixes. Changing course now would be a huge mistake; Georgia needs another decade of slow, steady upgrades. Goal is to have a strong curriculum and students who can pass tougher tests without cheating by teachers and administrators.
2. Congress is on a spending course that will bankrupt America — and already may have. The next governor has no higher priority than getting Georgia’s financial house in order. It’s silly and frivolous, for example, to talk about teacher furloughs as a serious problem when open-ended and newly created entitlements like indigent defense and a statewide trauma network, along with …

Continue reading Three issues for next governor »

Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:

● The state has a secondary role in public education — but a primary role in protecting the integrity of Georgia’s system of public education and in certifying quality of graduates, instruction and curriculum. State officials had no idea where the corruption was in an Atlanta system with 58 schools flagged for suspicious patterns of test-answer changes — and yet they deferred to the system to investigate. The findings are in. Only 12 schools had cancers; the rest were home-remedy or office-visit ailments, the school system appointed investigators say. So no further examination of asbestos or smoking is needed. Oh, yes, no bigwigs knew anything. And, henceforth, ease off on the pressure to raise performance standards. “Student achievement and measurable outcomes are critical,” said the panel’s chairman, “but that needs to be balanced by positive ethical behavior.” Which means: Find a test where students …

Continue reading Taxes No. 1 issue for next governor »