Bertis Downs, a member of the board of directors of the Network for Public Education, lives in Georgia. He sent the following comment, which gives hope that the citizens of Georgia will support their local public schools and vote for a Governor who wants to improve them. An earlier post described Governor Nathan Deal’s desire to create a statewide district modeled on the failed RSD in New Orleans (failed because most of the charters are rated D or F by the state and the district as a whole is one of the lowest performing in the state).
Bertis writes:
Some narrative-shifting appears to be going on here in GA I am happy to report (but not resting on any laurels as we are up against the Big Money snake oil nonsense like everywhere else of course)
But some examples:
–from Savannah Morning News, this is good to see, a clear and direct report on the effects of budget cuts over time–
–from middle Georgia, Macon’s Telegraph had a recent editorial on education and poverty with a key paragraph:
“During this political season, there is no better question to ask the candidates, particularly those running for state school superintendent and governor, what they plan to do to support the state’s K-12 education system. Then, whoever is elected, will have to be held accountable if they don’t keep their word.”
–and in Athens news, check out this editorial on our school board and superintendent pushing back about the absurdities of the new testing heavy statewide teacher evaluation system– the Athens Banner-Herald supporting the position of our local educators is a good thing:
http://bit.ly/1q2NpFo
http://bit.ly/1tB14Hp
–finally, here is an interesting piece on the GO PUBLIC film recently screened in Athens:
Jason Carter has built his campaign on public education issues and slowly but surely the word is getting out that if we want to truly support public schools and teachers in Georgia, Jason Carter is the right candidate for governor. And with the incumbent faltering by the day, his talking points now featuring unabashed support for Jindal-style reform gimmicks like RSD, it’s no wonder the polls are tied and Jason has a serious chance of winning by attracting moderate Republican and independent education voters. Nobody, Republican, Democrat or Independent, nobody likes to see their local schools diminished and weakened, good teachers leaving teaching, and their children’s love of learning sapped away by the high-stakes overtesting being done these days in the name of “reform.” People are realizing the fact that under the current state leadership, that’s what Georgia will continue to get– if Deal gets another term.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
While I cannot abide what our present governor is doing in the education arena in Georgia, it is important to examine closely the proposals put forth by Jason Carter. I honestly don’t know at this moment whether his idea of creating a separate state budget for education is even legal under Georgia’s constitution. Memory serves to remind me that his grandfather, Jimmy Carter, was once our governor and “reorganized” state government, a move we have never completely recovered from, and under his administration as President of these United States created the first US Department of Education as a free-standing cabinet-level position. We all know where that has led. If either of these candidates would pledge to remove the performance standards from our state’s classrooms and return to the educational requirements actually stated in our state’s constitution–those of inputs not outcomes–I would be overjoyed to vote and support such a candidate.
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The articles from Athens Banner Herald about Lanoue and school board pushing back on ridiculous teacher evals here in GA make me so happy yet so envious. My kids are in FCS (Broad supt chosen by Broad board who vote for whatever he wants like stepford wives). They are implementing SLO’s with gusto, telling our teachers they cannot expect to be exemplary (because those folks are about as rare as Olympic athletes), and haven’t provided a step increase in years as they move towards their strategic compensation reform. Nightmare. We need more like Lanoue…educational leaders who understand teaching and learning.
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Cindi. You ask some pertinent questions and the campaign would be wise to consider them carefully. On Election Day there’s a choice between incumbent Deal and his challenger. Jason Carter would come at education policy as a parent of public school children and as a spouse of a public school teacher. He’d be much more connected to the classroom reality of the policies enacted by the state. He would not go for the “sounds good” false cures peddled by the test-driven corporate reform salesmen. It’s pretty clear who would be the stronger supporter and defender of Georgia’s public schools, students and teachers. The challenger, not the incumbent.
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see also: http://bit.ly/YLvA8F
Savannah Morning News: School administrators applaud Carter, ignore Deal
The differences between Jason Carter and Nathan Deal on education came into clear contrast Friday morning when the two spoke separately to a conference of 500 public-school administrators.
Deal, the Republican governor seeking a second term, received only polite applause when introduced and at his conclusion while Carter, his Democratic challenger, was repeatedly interrupted by clapping. Deal, who’s earned national recognition for public speaking, wasn’t interrupted once and failed to get a titter or even charitable grins for his quip about computer programming qualifying as a foreign language because it certainly seems foreign to him.
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I will vote for the challenger who has skin in the game (and his own children in the schools). Deal doesn’t really care about public schools so he will say and do whatever he thinks might behoove him politically. I agree with you, Cindi, about inputs rather than outcomes. Glad to hear, Bertis, that the crowd was warm to Carter and cool to Deal. We need to return to adequate levels of funding for education. And we need to push back so that funding doesn’t all land in the pockets of test and tech related industries. Teachers here are managing large numbers of kids in classes, drowning in more data than would ever be deemed useful, and have no raises to speak of. Morale is dismal. My children are pre and post tested into tedium. I am fighting. So I will vote for Carter and hooe he listens to the sane teachers, students and parents who all know we have fallen down the rabbit hole.
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