By PAT NEWMAN
pnewman@thecitizennews.com

Schools need the help of the community and businesses working together to grow better and stronger.

That was the message delivered by state school superintendent Linda Schrenko to an early Friday morning crowd gathered for the monthly Fayette County Chamber of Commerce breakfast at Whitewater Country Club.

“We all know we need reform; what kind of reform?” said Schrenko. Referring to Gov. Roy Barnes' reform bill and other programs outlining ways to make improvements, Schrenko said one has to ask how these plans will help to produce good citizens, a better quality of life, more literate and better prepared students.

She admitted that education doesn't start in elementary school. “It starts at home,” she told the audience of school board members, school staff and business people. “We get them when they are 5 years old. Our job is to teach them how to read, how to write, how to do math and how to use a computer.”

Schrenko said that fads in education, such as the whole language approach to teaching reading and writing introduced in the 1980s, left “drastic holes” in children's language skills. “We thought if we printed words on the wall that kids would learn to read by osmosis... they didn't.” To remedy the situation, Schrenko has pushed a program called Reading First for the past four years in an attempt to turn the tide.

In math, Schrenko pointed out that calculators have to be reinforced with the basics.

“We think everybody needs to learn the basics of adding and subtracting, and multiplication and division and percentage...” Writing programs in the schools now emphasize spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Schrenko pointed out that Georgia students have made gains in math, based on ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) scores and modest scores in reading. The drop seen in 1996 reading scores is a direct correlation to the years when those students were taught whole language, she said. “Undoing that harm is taking time,” she conceded.

Extra reading sessions and after school tutorials for middle grade students are attempts at remedying the situation. “Third grade is showing real movement in Georgia's achievement tests,” she said.

Schrenko encouraged business owners to “tell us what you need from students.”

She advocates apprenticeships with businesses, done on a local level.

Commenting on Barnes' proposed education reform bill, Schrenko said, “There are some good points to the bill, but it's not complete.” The recommendation made in the proposal to cut class size to 17 was commended by Schrenko, but she said the students have to be housed somewhere, and there's no money in state appropriations for building more classrooms. She said the response was to put two teachers and 34 students in a classroom, and divide the room with a vinyl partition.

Schrenko also was critical of the idea of having school councils in place in every school. She explained that the councils would usurp the power of the local elected school boards. Losing control of the $7 billion needed to run 180 state school systems also worried her.

The reform bill is currently in the state house of representatives and has not yet been voted upon.