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A tale of 2 school superintendents: Hot-button words and missing money

By J. FRANK LYNCH

Stuff that happens inside the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in downtown Atlanta often makes the news.

I’m talking about big, ugly, scandalous stuff — the kind that makes Monica Kaufman put on her game face and the folks down the street at the AJC giggle with delight.

The Russell Building, which may be the biggest and ugliest building the government has ever raised in Georgia, serves as the federal courthouse for this region.

It rises 26 floors above the gulch of railroad yards south of Philips Arena and the Georgia Dome, surrounded on all sides by crumbling viaducts. Between it and the streets are vast expanses of concrete, unadorned except for strategically placed concrete planters (re: anti-terrorism devices).

You can’t help but feel sentimental about a time in our nation’s history when the guys in Washington could lay out plans to build a towering federal courthouse in the middle of a railyard and nobody stopped to think that might be a bad idea.

Even more offensive, when the Russell Building was erected in 1980, it replaced Atlanta’s Terminal Station, one of those grand and glorious train depots of an era gone by (and a building that made some sense in that location.)

When people are invited downtown to visit the Russell Building, it’s usually by subpoena or warrant.

Take, for example, Linda Schrenko, the former state school superintendent who was indicted two weeks ago on charges she and two associates redirected more than a half million in federal education funds for personal use.

On Nov. 15, Schrenko surrendered to authorities at the Russell Building and was led into a courtroom in handcuffs. The 18-count indictment is pretty serious. It says she used most of the money to fund her failed 2002 campaign for governor (she was beaten in the primary by Sonny Perdue) and spent nearly $10,000 for a facelift. Neither appears to have been a good investment.

An ailing Schrenko entered a not guilty plea and was allowed to go home to Augusta on a $40,000 signature bond. If convicted, she could serve time in prison.

The indictment represents a sad final chapter for Schrenko, who in 1994 became the first woman, and one of the first Republicans, ever elected to statewide office in Georgia.

But by the time Fayette County’s Kathy Cox was elected and took over in late 2002, Schrenko hadn’t been to work in months and the Department of Education was reportedly teetering on the brink of collapse.

When the Schrenko thing went down, I contacted Cox’s office and was told she would make no statement about the woman she replaced, except that her office is cooperating in the investigation. I think that’s appropriate.

I won’t speculate as to whether someone within the Cox administration first raised red flags about Schrenko and the missing $500,000. But I do know that cleaning up the mess Schrenko left behind has been one of Cox’s biggest challenges over the past two years.

The former McIntosh High history teacher has worked hard to make the office of state superintendent meaningful again. She has traveled from one corner of Georgia to another, listening to teachers and community leaders and winning praise from fellow educators. SAT scores actually rose a bit last year, and an exhaustive overhaul of the state’s entire curriculum is nearly complete.

And yet, in the same week Schrenko was facing indictment, another case being heard at the Russell Building reminded us of the one thing that most people, in Georgia and around the nation, refuse to forget about Cox.

Evolution.

In a case dubbed “Scopes Monkey Trial II,” a group of parents sued the Cobb County school system to remove disclaimers from science textbooks that stated evolution was just a theory about how we all got here.

The Cobb Board of Education placed the stickers there three years ago after another group of parents protested that it wasn’t fair to teach evolution over creation, because evolution was unproven as well.

One of the unfortunates of Cobb’s run-in with evolution is that it reminded folks that about a year ago, Cox suggested that the word be removed from state science books altogether. Nobody bothered to listen to her logic, but nearly everybody in the nation from Michael Moore on down had a field day with that one. Some Georgians said they felt betrayed for electing someone so obviously ignorant; others wanted to launch a recall.

Yet Cox’s suggestion, which from the start was always just that, a suggestion, still makes a lot of sense, especially for Cobb County.

The whole controversy could have been avoided if they just took the word “evolution” out like Cox suggested last year. Teachers in Cobb would still teach the theory, along with however many others there are, but at least that hot-button word wouldn’t have to stir up trouble between the folks who go to church on Sunday and those who sit home reading the New York Times and listening to NPR.

In about a year, Cox will have to decide whether or not to run for a second term in 2006. If she does, you know that the whole evolution thing will rear its ugly head again as a key issue in the race, no matter what else Cox manages to do over the course of her term.

It would be unfortunate if a minor slip of the tongue became the undoing of Cox, while a not-so-minor slip of the hand into the cookie jar was the eventual downfall of Schrenko.