One Little Victory

Yesterday was big news in Georgia regarding education and SAT scores. Sonny Perdue, our esteemed governor and self-proclaimed proponent of education (even if he did cut $1 billion from education funding and is taking credit for classroom initiatives begun long before he considered running for office) got up behind his podium trumpeting that Georgia was now 46th in the nation in SAT score results, up from dead last last year. Being a re-election year for Sonny, the trumpet was blown pretty loud. I say this objectively and as a student of history when I state that Georgia has a long tradition of religious zealotry and anti-intellectualism when it comes to education. On many occasions the state government if not outright tried to bring about the demise of its flagship state university, then it tried to set it on the course to destruction. So education, for all the rhetoric and grandstanding, has never been an overwhelming priority in the state for either the Democrats or Republicans. There have been political debts to be paid, shady backroom deals to be made, and that's been the priority.

But not this year. Georgia has moved up four places in the SAT standings! On the surface it looks like improvement, but the silver lining on this cloud cannot conceal the severe storm underneath. If you compare the SAT with last year's criteria, eliminating the new written portion of the exam, then Georgia ranks 49th. Overall the average scores in Georgia have dropped this year by three points, so it's not so much that we've moved up as Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Hawaii's scores dropped more than ours. In terms of the math portion of the exam, Georgia still ranks last in the nation; in writing 41st, in reading 45th. We're still in the bottom 10% of the nation in scores, and seeing who's behind us means that states that we could traditionally count on to act as a buffer between us and last place, Alabama and Mississippi, are ahead of us. Elect me as president; I'll immediately rescind the "No Child Left Behind Act." It's time to make the classroom someplace to teach, not train students to take exams.

Some may find 46th place as something to be proud of. I don't. But Sonny did.