Wednesday, November 13, 2002

As an educator who has had the honor and privilege of working alongside of Kathy Cox, I salute her election as state superintendent of education. Kathy Cox is someone who is deeply committed to reforming Georgia's educational system. Unlike Roy Barnes, however, Ms. Cox understands that real reform involves putting people first as opposed to putting people down.

Georgia has a historic opportunity to cast aside the failed reforms of the Barnes administration by asking the question: Accountable for what?

Unfortunately, our current and soon-to-be unemployed governor defined accountability as success measured on low-level benchmark tests that do not demand anything of our students other than the mere replication of knowledge and information. Life is not a multiple choice test and the failure of the Barnes reforms were clearly evident in Georgia's poor showing on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which demands students to think at a higher level.

Under our new educational leadership, teachers need to be empowered to set higher standards in their classrooms and measure those standards based on students' abilities to problem-solve, collaborate, reason logically, write analytically, speak persuasively, and research effectively. This is being truly accountable by infusing our children with the skills and dispositions that they will need to succeed in the world beyond the classroom.

I look forward to the dismantling of the Barnes reforms and local control that empowers teachers to hold their students truly accountable.

Tony Pattiz

Peachtree City