Johnna Pinholster
STATENVILLE — A discussion on the current state of Georgia’s public education system was helmed by a member of the State Board of Education Tuesday night in Statenville.
Linda Zechmann, First Congressional District representative, held her annual public hearing on the state of Georgia’s education.
The Echols County School System hosted the event which brought in teachers, educators and board members from Cook, Lanier, Tift, Echols, Lowndes and Valdosta City School Systems. Buck Hilliard, executive director of the State Board of Education, was also in attendance.
Though Zechmann represents more than 20 counties in the First Congressional District, the attendance was less than the number of counties she represents.
Zechmann said as a member of the board she brings “uncommon, common sense.”
“If it doesn’t make sense to me, an average person, it's not going to make sense to you,” Zechmann said.
The purpose of the public hearings is for Zechmann to hear the concerns of the district and answer any questions they may have, she said.
Before opening up the meeting to the audience, Zechmann urged them to use the www.gadoe.org Web site to find information on Adequate Yearly Progress, Georgia Performance Standards, the board’s budget, what is new with the board and legislation concerning education.
The Web site has detailed information on GPS, and Zechmann said teachers can even direct parents to the Web site so they can better understand the curriculum and what their children are being taught.
Two teachers from Valdosta Middle School opened the public participation portion of the hearing. Kristy James and Karen Black said they were not there to represent their school but to voice the thoughts of a wide variety of teachers from different school systems about federal and state policies that affect the classroom.
Since the meeting was announced, Black said they had been discussing with their peers the ideas they would like to convey to the board. Both stated that these are not issues affecting just VCS but all schools in the state of Georgia.
The curriculum, a combination of federal and state policy has put higher pressure on both students and teachers to perform, Black said.
The amount and level of work required to be done in a classroom in a given day or class period has made a more personal level of understanding between teacher and student difficult, she said. Test anxiety for students is higher than ever before, Black said. James said the curriculum is requiring students with a 68 IQ pass a test that students with a 100 IQ find difficult.
“It's like asking a student to get out of a wheelchair and walk,” James said. The GPS no longer allows teachers to formally teach basic facts and computation, she said.
While it is great for students with disabilities and learning impairments to participate in a regular classroom, it is almost impossible to believe they will perform at the same standards, James said.
Providing special certificates or diplomas to those that cannot perform at college prep level would keep a lot of students from falling through the cracks, she said.
Those students that make great gains in a year, but still fail a CRCT test, should still have that progress count for something, James said.
Afterwards, Zechmann asked them to e-mail her a copy of their prepared statement and that she would get them in touch with someone at the State Department of Education.
“I don’t feel personally qualified to address those issues,” Zechmann said.
Zechmann said the difficulty with making a state policy concerning education is that “one size does not fit all.”
Dr. Steve Smith, Lowndes County Superintendent, said they were expressing the frustrations that everyone feels concerning No Child Left Behind.
Seventy-percent of the NCLB is great, 25 percent of it is unreasonable, he said.
All children will not be able to read on grade level by 2010, Smith said.
“Unless you eradicate intellectual disabilities,” he said. "Something that would be impossible." The key is developing practical, realistic goals, he said.
Dr. Larry Allen, Echols County Superintendent, stressed the importance of Coastal Plains RESA.
The network between schools that the organization provides has helped the small school system tremendously over the years, he said.
When the school was in need of desks, they were donated by LCS, when the school needed training on block scheduling they went to VCS, lockers for the gymnasium were acquired from Cook County, he said.
Zechmann said the issue of whether to continue RESA or combine it with another entity is something that comes up almost annually in the General Assembly.
She said she was squarely in Allen’s court on the benefits of RESA.
