Education: The true priority of our State
As we just celebrated another July 4th in our great country, I found myself thinking how much I love the United States of America. Anyone who truly knows me personally, understands the depth of my love, loyalty, and desire to see America remain a great county dedicated to the principals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
One of the main passions in my life is, of course, education. Thomas Jefferson once stated, “No democracy can last without an educated populace.” No doubt this is true, but why? Well, if we have a populace that cannot think through issues, stay involved in government, understand their rights and responsibilities as citizens, then we have fewer and fewer people from fewer and fewer groups actually participating and making the laws that every citizen will be governed by. For the reasons just mentioned, I feel so strongly that our educational system should refocus on skill development as well as areas such as American history, citizenship, economics, and government. Every student that leaves our schools should have skills that will take them to work, technical schools, or university with success.
How will this happen, though? First, there has to be a commitment from parents to push their children from the beginning, teaching them how important learning and being a quality citizen are to their personal success and communities. We once again need our schools connected to the communities and our communities connected to our schools. Each child then should be driven to reach his/her potential in whatever area that may be. I truly feel, as do others, that the American people are often shielded from the truth by constantly being bombarded with test scores. Test scores are only a small part of what should be analyzed in determining the understanding of our students with regard to learning, thinking, and knowledge enhancement.
Our current state school superintendent of Georgia, Kathy Cox, seems found of the phrase “It is a race to the top.” A race to the top of what, may I ask? Test score achievement? Who are we in the race with? It really bothers me to see language that is so surface driven as to hide the real issues.
It has been a pleasure lately to hear a few candidates that are running for this very important position using the term “excellence.” I look forward to debating just what excellence looks like and should be. This has been something that I have discussed on numerous occasions over the past few years. It is my hope and desire to have town hall meetings throughout out state over the next few months to discuss “excellence” as well as discuss the fear that has pervaded our educational system, standardized testing and how they are scored, and a one size fit all approach to education that simply does not get most of students truly ready for the rigors of college or life. It is time to let our teachers teach, our leaders lead, and our students able to have the opportunity to learn real skills for the real world and to bring back the joy of education.