Why Does the South Stay Backwards?
As a practical native of the South I have watched every dreamer, individual who wants to make positive change for the citizens of the south be run out of town. While this is stereotypical of the south and small towns it is very disappointing to actually live here and see that its true.
Everyone knows that there is a need for technology in schools. Well this week in Cobb County, Georgia a superintendent was run out of town for trying to implement a laptop program for all upper grade students and teachers in the county. This is a move that usually gets accolades and written up in the paper and has turned into a way to crucify the superintendent of the schools.
Meanwhile in the county I live in Dekalb County we have a new superintendent who is busily dismantling all of the positive implementations put in by a previous superientendant. The previous superintendent was booted out for having a no tolerance for bad behavior problem. Anyone, if anyone reads this should read this very carefully. This is how he was booted out. A parent of a student claimed that the discipline meted out to her residual, bad behaviored pathological son was unfair and overly harsh so she decided to run as a school board member for the sole purpose of going after the super. She won on a whole level of issues that had nothing to do with schools and school issues, She won because she had a dysfunctional household and life and we”voted for her because we felt sorry for her end empathized with her issues. The issues were a sorry ex husband, as soon as she decided to run as a board member, her sorry ex-husband decided to run against her. She claimed he could not run as a board member because he was a resident of Atlanta and Dekalb County. He provided proof at a special meeting just to evaluate whether he was a resident of Dekalb County, his proof was that he had been married for a year to another woman without her knowledge. Needless to say she won he lost, and whoever else was running we knew nothing about.
In the meantime, the new superintendent has issued a statement somrthing to the effect that bad students are no the problem, bad teachers are. Now that’s interesting now blame the teachers for the bad behavior of the now board members son. Do you think it was a teachers fault that he has discipline problems. I don’t thinks so. The old superintendent had an interesting way of dealing with these problems. He would rotate a whole school of teachers out of the school to determine what was going on and ruthlessly clean house whether it was a teacher or bad students. Personally this method was not an attack on a teacher or a student it was a way to determine what the problem was. As for disciplein problems the little boy that lives across from me was throwing children down on the ground and beating them up before he entered public schools. H e was doing this when he was three and four, now can we honestly blame a teacher for that, furthermore can we honestly expect effective teaching to occur in such an environment.
Finally the new superintendent is prepared to launch an attack on magnet programs. The old superintendent had a particular knack for magnets. There is a magnet for high achievers which is great. There is a magnet for Science and technology. There is an arts magnet. These are wonderful things and provide an opportunity for children with like minds and like ambitions to interact with each other. In a world where Microsoft is traveling from village to village in China and giving IQ tests to every individual who is willing and hiring the smartest ones for jobs on the spot, I can’t imagine who would be against a magnet program.
The last thing I have to write regarding this issue, there is no longer a required uniform policy in Dekalb County for students. I do believe the parents know about it but continue t send their children to school in uniforms. I think this is because we who really care about our children, and want them to have good lives, want them to be in schools where discipline is enforced, learning opportunities abound and teachers can teach. I entered elementary school in Georgia after leaving the inner city of D.C. Every morning I had to drive through buildings that had been ravished by riots decades earlier. However let me assure you that when I got there their were not students walking out of classrooms doing tumbles in the empty rooms next door, as happened in my Georgia classrooms, there were not children threatening other children because they got good grades. I do not run into classmates years later who were still shell shocked from their experiences in D.C. though I do run into them in Georgia. As a matter of fact I saw one of my former elementary classmates who was cherished for his brightness at the inner city school on a National T.V. special he was a physician. Georgia crucifies dreamers. The last dreamer we have was Martin Luther King and even he said that his father told him don’t bring that stuff here, Atlanta is not the place for it. Martin also said, as an aside he would have never married a woman from Georgia. And finally in a biography the biographer implied it would have been Corretta or a white woman. Finally as Coretta Scott King is a victim of a stroke at this moment let me add that if there had not been a Corettta, their never would have been a Martin as we know him now. Georgia is not for dreamers and intends to stay at the very bottom in terms of education and everything forever.
Everyone knows that there is a need for technology in schools. Well this week in Cobb County, Georgia a superintendent was run out of town for trying to implement a laptop program for all upper grade students and teachers in the county. This is a move that usually gets accolades and written up in the paper and has turned into a way to crucify the superintendent of the schools.
Meanwhile in the county I live in Dekalb County we have a new superintendent who is busily dismantling all of the positive implementations put in by a previous superientendant. The previous superintendent was booted out for having a no tolerance for bad behavior problem. Anyone, if anyone reads this should read this very carefully. This is how he was booted out. A parent of a student claimed that the discipline meted out to her residual, bad behaviored pathological son was unfair and overly harsh so she decided to run as a school board member for the sole purpose of going after the super. She won on a whole level of issues that had nothing to do with schools and school issues, She won because she had a dysfunctional household and life and we”voted for her because we felt sorry for her end empathized with her issues. The issues were a sorry ex husband, as soon as she decided to run as a board member, her sorry ex-husband decided to run against her. She claimed he could not run as a board member because he was a resident of Atlanta and Dekalb County. He provided proof at a special meeting just to evaluate whether he was a resident of Dekalb County, his proof was that he had been married for a year to another woman without her knowledge. Needless to say she won he lost, and whoever else was running we knew nothing about.
In the meantime, the new superintendent has issued a statement somrthing to the effect that bad students are no the problem, bad teachers are. Now that’s interesting now blame the teachers for the bad behavior of the now board members son. Do you think it was a teachers fault that he has discipline problems. I don’t thinks so. The old superintendent had an interesting way of dealing with these problems. He would rotate a whole school of teachers out of the school to determine what was going on and ruthlessly clean house whether it was a teacher or bad students. Personally this method was not an attack on a teacher or a student it was a way to determine what the problem was. As for disciplein problems the little boy that lives across from me was throwing children down on the ground and beating them up before he entered public schools. H e was doing this when he was three and four, now can we honestly blame a teacher for that, furthermore can we honestly expect effective teaching to occur in such an environment.
Finally the new superintendent is prepared to launch an attack on magnet programs. The old superintendent had a particular knack for magnets. There is a magnet for high achievers which is great. There is a magnet for Science and technology. There is an arts magnet. These are wonderful things and provide an opportunity for children with like minds and like ambitions to interact with each other. In a world where Microsoft is traveling from village to village in China and giving IQ tests to every individual who is willing and hiring the smartest ones for jobs on the spot, I can’t imagine who would be against a magnet program.
The last thing I have to write regarding this issue, there is no longer a required uniform policy in Dekalb County for students. I do believe the parents know about it but continue t send their children to school in uniforms. I think this is because we who really care about our children, and want them to have good lives, want them to be in schools where discipline is enforced, learning opportunities abound and teachers can teach. I entered elementary school in Georgia after leaving the inner city of D.C. Every morning I had to drive through buildings that had been ravished by riots decades earlier. However let me assure you that when I got there their were not students walking out of classrooms doing tumbles in the empty rooms next door, as happened in my Georgia classrooms, there were not children threatening other children because they got good grades. I do not run into classmates years later who were still shell shocked from their experiences in D.C. though I do run into them in Georgia. As a matter of fact I saw one of my former elementary classmates who was cherished for his brightness at the inner city school on a National T.V. special he was a physician. Georgia crucifies dreamers. The last dreamer we have was Martin Luther King and even he said that his father told him don’t bring that stuff here, Atlanta is not the place for it. Martin also said, as an aside he would have never married a woman from Georgia. And finally in a biography the biographer implied it would have been Corretta or a white woman. Finally as Coretta Scott King is a victim of a stroke at this moment let me add that if there had not been a Corettta, their never would have been a Martin as we know him now. Georgia is not for dreamers and intends to stay at the very bottom in terms of education and everything forever.
posted by blackhippychick @ 2:00 PM
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