Endorsement: Let Chastain School Cox in Superintendent Race
Georgia has a Republican Legislature, Governor, and State School Superintendent. With everyone playing for the same team, things should get better, right? They haven’t. We spend less per pupil now on education than we did 4 years ago. More kids are dropping out than ever. They’ve repeatedly tried to cut arts funding in the schools. Teachers are leaving the profession like mad.
Clearly Kathy Cox is not the answer. This does not even begin to address the silly mistakes, nor her plans to run for Congress (most likely against David Scott).
That makes David Chastain the easy choice. He wants to change the Superintendent’s role so that the State School Board makes the hire. There would be strict professional qualifications and the appointment would run across gubernatorial terms. He also wants Charter schools to be easier to start and dissolve so that successful ideas work quickly and we can stop ones that don’t. Chastain also wants to seek some ways to make the Superintendent’s office more responsive to local needs rather than being the top down office he has perceived it to be from both Democrats and Republicans alike.
Chastain has thought carefully about his plan. He’s vetted it with education professionals. He wants to follow what more successful states have done.
We should support him. (And if you need one more reason? At least his plan does not start by quoting Whitney Houston.)
November 3rd, 2006 at 8:49 am
I was sort of hoping that as a libertarian, he’d support abolishing this absolutely unnecessary department that accomplishes nothing, serves no purpose, and wastes millions of Georgia taxpayer’s money every year.