Bad Links?
Other glitches?
Notify Webmaster

GPTV profiles Cox, Westmoreland on final show of 2004

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

The final show of the year for Georgia Public Broadcasting’s “Georgia Week in Review” had a decidedly Fayette County flavor when it aired Friday.

The guests were State School Superintendent Kathy Cox of Peachtree City, and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Sharpsburg, the Tyrone businessman elected in November to serve Georgia’s 8th Congressional District.

Cox, elected in the fall of 2002, is halfway through her first four-year term as state schools chief.

In that time, she’s dealt with overcoming low SAT scores, a state budget crisis and an overhaul of the state’s entire curriculum that has drawn criticism from both parents and teachers.

Before Cox outlined some of her initiatives for 2005, “Week in Review” reporter David Zelski told of one program with a business-like approach toward motivating high-risk students to stay in school.

The Performance Learning Center concept was founded in Georgia and funded largely by the Gates Foundation through Communities in Schools. It is now taking off across the country.

Westmoreland, meanwhile, was interviewed by “Week in Review” host Susan Hoffman about plans for hits first “freshman year” on Capitol Hill.

Westmoreland was a familiar face in Georgia politics for several years, and said he hopes to quickly have an impact in Washington as well.

Westmoreland was elected as a Republican to the Georgia State House in 1992, and in 2000 he became House Minority Leader.

In November, he defeated Democrat Silvia Delamar to claim the 8th District U.S. House, formerly held by Mac Collins. Collins resigned that seat to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by Democrat Zell Miller, eventually won by Republican Johnny Isakson.

Isakson, meanwhile, announced last week that he had appointed three persons to a “judicial screening panel” to help him and Sen. Saxby Chambliss make recommendations to the White House on federal judicial appointments in the state.

Robert Ingram of Marietta, Jimmy Franklin of Statesboro, and Ron Carlson of Athens will review candidates’ professional competence and qualifications, Isakson said.

Ingram and Franklin are both attorneys who have served or are serving as president of the State Bar of Georgia, while Carlson is a professor at the University of Georgia’s School of Law.