Today's AJC: Awesome!

For once, the ISSUE section is filled with some great stuff instead of the usual blather.

First, Mike King looks at by department spending for state agencies and his ideas on reductions, as opposed to the across-the-board approach Perdue is considering at the moment.

Next is a fantastic article in EQUAL TIME by Brad Alexander on how the state and local government need to get their acts together as far as reducing expenditures when times get tough. He hits home on the key points that the private sector learned long ago: reducing the amount of employees by firing the inept and incompetent is easy in an "at will" state that is hardly unionized, defined benefit plans are terrible from an employer standpoint and don't hardly exist in the private sector (duh!), and the effects an ill-functioning government has on the private sector. Great job!

Last and certainly least is an article from Fayette County resident Kimberly Leonard who takes Kathy Cox and the state to task over the new math curriculum experiment that is absurd and sure won't lift GA out of the bottom of the pile and shortchanges students once more.

Yes, NUK, Ms. Learnard's article is a must-read

Submitted by RT Tugger on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 9:43am.

To get the online article, go to http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/08/27/newmathed.html.

Ms. Learnard expresses many of my own thoughts about our ineffective math curriculum. The accelerated math program is a near failure. I am convinced we are going to end up with students who finish high school with math skills far below what they could/should be. My own conversations with math teachers, principals, and the Fayette County math coordinator have left me even more frustrated because they all toe the line for the state DOE, even though they know the curriculum isn't working! The DOE needs to wake up to this failure of a curriculum and, as Ms. Learnard says, get back to the basics. In my opinion, every year we use this curriculum we are harming our students. Thank you, Ms. Learnard, for saying what all Georgia parents need to know.

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Math curriculum?

Submitted by Bonkers on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 11:21am.

I keep seeing the teachers, principals, Kathy Cox, and others blaming the "curriculum" for the kids failure in Math!

Who teaches Math? The State curriculum? I don't think so!

Why would the state tests quiz the students on basics when you say the curriculum you supposedly teach is not about teaching "basics" whatever that is.

Just how many students failed the Math tests anyway? How many passed?
How could some pass and others not if they weren't taught what to do?

Were the ones who goofed off in class, and at home, passed in spite of no knowledge of what was coming on the test? I think most were!

Teach math: x=y
c=y
: x=c

Teach to count by 2s. 3s. 4s. 5s. and by all means 10s.
Teach how to determine what is "logical."
Teach how to round off and do estimates in their head!

If they want some OTHER crap taught, do that also!

Don't blame the state for week students and administrators and some teachers!

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Bonker$

Submitted by hutch866 on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 3:45pm.

What is a week student?

I yam what I yam....Popeye

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hutch

Submitted by Bonkers on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 4:31pm.

Attends about once per week!

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