All math students are

going to be hurt by the new math curriculum that Kathy Cox has introduced. Why did she push a program that has failed in many other states? Did she have a financial gain by implmenting this new program? Average and lower students are failing, and gifted students are failing in the advanced levels. The problem is not our teachers and students, it is the way the math is taught. My 6th grade daughter and 98% of the other students in her advanced math class did not meet the requirements to continue on this track, even though she has had nothing but A's all year, a high crct math and reading score. These students will now be placed back into the regular math track, even though they had gotten half way through the 7th grade curriculum. This action was taken, because with this math program, the students fail most miserably in the 8th grade. The DOE and Kathy Cox are covering up by dumbing down all the classes. My two older children whose crct scores were equal in math with my 6th grader were able to take AP math classes from 10th grade up. This new program makes it impossible for even gifted students to take a math AP class before their senior year. These students will suffeer when it comes to scholarships and admissions to even our local universities. The recent Newsweek that rated the top high schools, based part of that on the availability to AP classes the students can take. We can thank Kathy Cox for making sure our Georgia high schools won't make that list again. For an accurate description of what is happening go the talkgwinnett.net and read "Sonny Perdue must stop Kathy Cox." Although I know my two older children received great educations through their Fayette County high school, we are thinking of moving to a private school, a decision that the vice-principal of our middle school as admitted that she's heard from several other parents of children who were in the gifted math program.

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Kathy Cox: Resignation Time!
Submitted by JohnKONOP on Thu, 06/05/2008 - 7:42pm.

The truth is Kathy Cox was warned that Math 123 would fail here just like it failed in New York. Since that warning, the person in charge of the rollout resigned before it was fully implemented.

This one-size-fits-all education system (NCLB) teaches to the middle (neglecting the more advanced and less advanced students) and does not work.

We need a system that works with students’ natural abilities, not against them.

Vocational students should be on a separate track from college-bound students. A math-oriented, college-bound student should not be on the same track as a child that’s no math-oriented.

In the end, Kathy Cox took the job and made it worse after ignoring numerous warnings. If we do not hold Kathy Cox accountable for this failure than we should not complain about anything.

Kathy Cox should resign and each district should go Charter. That way they could opt out of this mess and create a system with the universities and vocational schools that matches students with instruction appropriate with their aptitudes starting in 6th grade.

The most dishonest part of this debate is that Kathy Cox watered down the gifted math program and forced non-math oriented students into a curriculum they were not ready for.

Our CONSTITUTION guarantees equal opportunity, not results. NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, which has a goal of equalizing scores, made this train wreck inevitable.

PP-Bill Shipp is on the war path today. He’s blaming Sonny for the education mess.

To make teachers feel better about themselves, Perdue abolished the “Office of Education Accountability,” and ironically, turned the agency into the “Governor’s Office of Student Achievement.”

Just to cap off his new Education-by-Hula-Hoop Plan, Perdue announced he was hiring graduation coaches all over Georgia to help students — uh, well — graduate. Dumb us! We thought that was the teachers’ job. Well, we were wrong. Coaches were needed. Georgia has one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country. Wait, let’s not sell ourselves short. Georgia actually has among the lowest graduation rates in the industrialized world.

Both Kathy Cox and Linda “Jail Bird” Shrenko make appearances in the article. Of course, so does Governor E. D. Rivers

http://controlcongress.com/uncategorized/kathy-cox-resignation-time

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Dept. of Ed and our tax dollars.
Submitted by justwondering on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 1:43pm.

I hope readers are able to open this link. It is the report how GA was inept and wasted millions of dollars on a reading program. http://principalsoffice.osu.edu/landscape.3.07.php

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Hey! Don't insult idiots!
Submitted by swmbo on Thu, 05/29/2008 - 11:08pm.

Kathy Cox was a disaster in the making from Day 1. Why anyone is surprised now is beyond me.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

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Cox: Forget it!
Submitted by sageadvice on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 6:20am.

It doesn't matter how Georgia's education system turns out, Cox will be rewarded for BEING THERE. That is the way it works!
It used to be democrats who pushed no good ideas, incompetents forward, now it is the "conservatives." Or Libertarians in the case of Barr.
I think we will have to hire someone from Iowa to straighten out our schools, who never even voted before--republican or democrat!
I would like to see ONE first grade class started somewhere here of mixed races, who were taught and tutored properly.
We have had enough of the go-along-get-along stuff!

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