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Education
Social
Problems Georgia's
Economy Governance-
How We Are Governed
Educational Improvement for Socio-Economically Depressed K-8
Students
One of the most important solutions to improving the overall
performance of socio-economically depressed students is parental
involvement. Unfortunately, too many of these children are the
products of female single heads of households that do not possess
needed skills to assist their children. Additionally, many parents
have pre-school aged children or low paying job responsibilities and
are unable to dedicate required time. To eliminate the long list of
reasons to explain their inability to help their children or to
complete their own educations, I offer you
the "Community School".
Concept
- I envision transforming existing elementary and middle schools
in communities with "X" percentage of socio-economically depressed
populations (defined by the number of parents/children receiving
benefits from government assistance programs) into "community
schools".
- Community Schools will continue their existing missions.
However, their primary mission will be greatly expanded to address
the educational needs of parents who do not possess high school
diplomas or GEDs, and who are unemployed, or are presently
employed but choose to relinquish their employment for
participation in this program.
- Parents will be screened for security purposes.
- A community school will be a fully self-contained facility
offering every service needed by parents to remove every
conceivable "crutch" (excuse) inhibiting or restricting their
ability to participate.
- To that end, schools will offer childcare facilities. Parents
and pre-school-aged children will be able to ride buses to and
from school with their school-aged children.
- English classes will be taught to non-English speaking
parents.
- Adult Basic Education and GED programs will be offered and
parents will be required to test and attend appropriate level
classes a minimum of 2-3 hours per day.
- A curriculum will be created to teach parenting skills.
Classes will be taught by a team comprised of the school nurses
and a specialist from the system central office. Community Family
Organizations and church groups may be invited to participate, as
well.
- A series of "orientations" from various local government
agencies will be conducted throughout the year. Included will be
courts, jails, Family Services, etc.
- All participating parents will be hired as employees of the
school system and, when not in adult basic ed or parenting
classes, be required to perform employment responsibilities, or
observe their children in their classes.
- Employment opportunities will include para-pros, teacher's
aides, childcare facility workers, cafeteria workers,
bus/hallway/cafeteria/crossing monitors, facility or grounds
security, maintenance, administrative assistants, etc.
- Compensation from these employment opportunities will not
disqualify from or reduce a participant's level of government
assistance they were entitled to prior to enrollment.
- Each school will have a health clinic staffed with two nurse
practitioners who will be employed and supervised by the local
department of health but assigned to each school as their
permanent work place. Nurses will provide family services,
attending to needs of students, pre-school-aged children and
parents.
- The local health department will be tasked to establish a
volunteer organization of local health care providers to volunteer
their services in dental, eye, and specialist services. Health
care providers will be asked to volunteer one day per month for
the benefit of socio-economically depressed participants (children
and adults) in these schools.
- Additional security will be provided by local law enforcement.
- Community schools will be specifically targeted by community
stay-in-school programs and the GAPA.
- Local chambers of commerce will be encouraged to become
familiar with participants and provide job opportunities upon
completion of one school year, or achievement of GED, which ever
takes the longer to achieve.
- Objectives for Adults Are:
- o Overcome anxiety, intimidation and self-esteem issues
regarding attitudes of many uneducated, socio-economically
depressed adults toward teachers, educated people, schools, and
the education process in general through participation in the
education of their children and/or classroom experience with
children of similar ages to their own children.
- o Expose them to appropriate discipline and encouragement
techniques through observation and participation in parenting
classes.
- o Equip them with skills, desire and confidence enabling
them to proactively and productively assist in the education of
their children, now and in the future.
- o Make education important to them!
- Implementation. ASAP! Pilot programs are an
option, but not a preferred one to me.
- Costs. I do not know the dollar figure. There
will be additional costs over existing costs and those costs will
be significant. However, very substantial "education" dollars will
be available from existing revenues once the changes I will pursue
are realized in the HOPE Scholarship and Pre-K programs.
Additionally, there will be minor cost savings in government
assistance programs (Medicaid and PeachCare) through the Community
School's Health Clinic. Lastly, these new mechanisms will not
immediately result in any other reductions in costs of government
assistance programs. However, there should be an immediate
indication of trend reversal of the number and percentage of
people enrolling in and remaining on government assistance
programs. I have no mathematical model to forecast the process,
but I believe reductions in the size of need and even more
impressive reductions in the growth and costs of those needs will
be significant in 4-6 years.
Pre-K
Pre-K is a necessary tool in the fight against poverty. That much
has been known for years. But not all children need pre-K. Our pre-K
program has been a "shot gun" approach- to ensure the target
audience has been reached, it has been open to all. That is a
wasteful and extremely expensive strategy to solve a problem.
Sometimes the "shot gun" approach is the only way to target the
intended audience. Pre-K is not one of those instances.
I
advocate dramatic change in Georgia's pre-K program. I am 100%
supportive of pre-k for children from socio-economically depressed
environments. I am not supportive of continuing the "shot gun"
approach. Tailoring pre-k to target this audience will also serve as
a complementary mechanism to the "Adult Literacy", "Stay in School",
"Community Schools", and "Georgia Preparatory High School"
initiatives. The money freed up will enable expansion of our HOPE
Scholarship program, enable creation of the Georgia Preparatory High
School and fund many Community Schools.
Additionally, in
consideration of an anticipated shortage of teachers, there will be
teachers available to re-assign to kindergarten and other early
elementary classrooms within the same schools, or school
systems.
Alternative/Charter High Schools
The jury is still out on these. They certainly have their appeal.
But, they also have their problems. Cost is one of them. Logistics,
primarily transportation, is the biggest additional cost in
relationship to typical high schools. But, cost is a relative issue.
Cost versus benefit is the real issue. That's why the jury is still
out. We really don't have sufficient experience to decide the
"benefit" side of the equation. Nonetheless, I truly believe
somewhere in this area are answers to better preparation of our
children who do not pursue college degrees. We need to find those
answers and incorporate them in our game plan.
One idea that
I want to pursue is co-enrollment and dual diploma programs. We have
a full menu of vocational programs in DTAE and in a few of our
University System of Georgia local and regional schools. I envision
a program wherein high school juniors and seniors attend two year
vocational programs at these campuses. Upon completion, they
simultaneously receive a newly created high school diploma and a
post-secondary certificate from the vocational
program.
Benefits are many. This reduces the need for many
vocational programs in our high schools. It diminishes the need for
"Charter Schools". It reduces the high school drop-out rate. It
prepares kids that would have otherwise dropped-out of high school
with a marketable trade. It reduces the student population in our
high schools, which, in turn, diminishes the need to build
more.
Of course, there will be problems. They need to be
identified and discussed. The point is this. If it's a practical
solution to several problems and is cost effective, it may be a
viable option worth pursuing.
Post-Secondary Education
For employees of our institutions of higher education, DTAE and
the Board of Regents, this candidate offers good news. I believe our
University System and our Technical and Adult Education system in
Georgia are strong. I believe many of the problems within our
institutions of higher learning are a result of problems created in
Georgia's middle and high schools- all, that is, except a few.
Following are a few specific topics of interest within our
university system that will be part of my agenda:
- Revisit the capital expenditure plan based on student
population forecasts driven by Georgia's K-12 grade level
population and incorporating proposed changes in the HOPE
Scholarship Program.
- Leadership in Education advanced degree programs (See Governance
in Education)
- Transfer the function for high school drop-outs to the State
Superintendent. The Chancellor's "Education: Go Get It" program
would be discontinued.
- Undergraduate teacher programs. I am aware that the "quantity"
issue is being addressed. My concerns are regarding the "quality"
issue. I am concerned that teacher programs over-emphasize
mastering subject material in relationship to "teaching"
techniques. I expect that to be on the table for discussion. Our
need for fully qualified teachers exceeds the need for "numbers"
of teachers.
- Cost of books and fees. I am aware that both of these are
presently being studied and am confident that they will be
resolved in keeping with the spirit of "what is best for Georgia",
not in relationship to what other university systems' costs are.
The most significant problems we had have moved on. I am
confident that future focus of our post-secondary institutions will
return to issues of quality, as opposed to issues of
quantity. <
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