State senate candidate Mitch Seabaugh recently announced today his agenda for education, taking a swipe at Governor Roy Barnes' own plans in the process.

“Governor Barnes' attempt at improving education only improved his bureaucratic control over the system,” Seabaugh said. “He successfully grabbed more power for himself, but sacrificed our children's future.”

Running for this seat four years ago, Seabaugh made education his top priority.

“Nothing has changed,” Seabaugh said. “I have children in public school and my daughter plans a career in the education field. No candidate for this seat is more vested in education's direction than I am.”

Seabaugh's plan lists four main areas for action — promoting safe schools; attracting and retaining quality teachers; focusing on academic skills, but providing a well-rounded education; and eliminating bureaucracy.

“No school will provide top-quality education that doesn't have a safe environment,” Seabaugh said.

To promote safe schools, Seabaugh will introduce legislation to implement a three strikes and you're out discipline policy. “Our teachers and administrators need more support in dealing with discipline problems. “

Seabaugh continued, “Our children should have an environment that is conductive to quality learning and we need to deal with discipline problems with a firm hand.”

Additionally, Seabaugh will propose to fund a resource officer at every school along with targeting funding for elimination of drugs at schools.

“To have quality education we must attract and retain good teachers,” Seabaugh said regarding his second area of attention.

“Barnes' bill is already driving away quality applicants by the hundreds and once implementation of his programs begins, I am afraid we will lose many of the good teachers we have now,” Seabaugh commented. He was addressing the hundreds of teacher applicants that had withdrawn their applications since the governor's bill had passed.

To help in attracting and retaining good teachers Seabaugh has signed on with State School Superintendent Linda Schrenko's number one priority for next year — a 10-percent increase in teacher's pay.

“Governor Barnes cut more than $189 million from the education budget,” Seabaugh said. “He cut money from the classroom and has added additional bureaucracy. After reviewing the numbers, I believe there is money there to support a teacher pay raise.”

Seabaugh says he will also work to restore funding for labs that was cut in Barnes' plan. “Governor Barnes cut funding for non-votechnical labs and has threatened middle school fine arts programs with lack of support,” Seabaugh said. “We need to restore the funding for those programs.”

Seabaugh continued, “If we don't support labs and fine arts programs, prospective businesses will not want to relocate here because they want their children to have a well rounded education.”

Providing incentives for quality teachers to teach at failing schools is another item in Seabaugh's plan. He charges Barnes' plan is punitive and that will keep teachers from wanting to teach at struggling schools.

“We need to provide an incentive for quality teachers to go in and help turn around failing schools, not punish them for not meeting marks established by persons unfamiliar with education,” Seabaugh said.

Also on Seabaugh's list is support for the “Reading First” program. “We have to ensure our children can read by the fourth grade,” Seabaugh said. “We need to target those children who need special attention and ensure they are not left behind.”

A very important part of Seabaugh's proposal is to return to academic based testing rather than Barnes' performance based testing.

“Barnes' program rewards those who are good at taking tests rather than mastering the material,” Seabaugh said. “We need to ensure that our children gain the knowledge necessary to succeed.”

Seabaugh continued, “The basic structure that I feel is more successful for education is for our local schools to have the flexibility to decide how they are going to attain educational goals. We need to let our teachers teach.”