School Daze

originally published February 14, 2007

Sonny Perdue had just the answer for fixing Georgia’s schools back when he was running against incumbent Gov. Roy Barnes in 2002. Barnes’ implementation of an education reform act was all wrong, Perdue insisted, because it imposed a “one-size-fits-all” mandate on local school systems that failed to take into account local differences and local problems. That kind of centralized “top-down” approach was all wrong, Perdue said. “I believe schools should be run from the principal’s office, not the governor’s office,” was the memorable phrase that Perdue used to criticize the Barnes proposal.

Perdue’s push to decentralize public education obviously resonated with Georgia school officials and teachers, particularly those who were outraged at Barnes for eliminating fair dismissal protections - another name for tenure - in the Education Reform Act. Teachers voted against Barnes by the thousands and were a key factor in Perdue’s upset victory.

For his first couple of years as governor, Perdue was busy dealing with the negative impacts of an economic downturn and didn’t really make any major proposals for upgrading public schools. But in year four of his term, he came forth with two education proposals: a measure that required every school system, without exception, to spend 65 percent of its budget on what the law categorized as classroom expenses. Perdue also urged - after he had opposed the idea for three years - reducing the size of classes in public schools. Again, there were no exceptions and no wiggle-room for smaller school systems that have a more difficult time finding teachers for all the subjects required under the new state curriculum.

Perdue’s proposals both had something in common: they were top-down, rigidly centralized, “one-size-fits-all” requirements that were being imposed upon every school system by a distant administration in Atlanta. Which was precisely the opposite of what he had been proposing four years earlier.

Legislators like Rep. Ellis Black of Valdosta, who had served on his county school board and knew something about the problems local educators have to deal with, tried to point out that rural systems educating widely dispersed populations had to spend more money for things like school buses and needed a little flexibility on that 65 percent requirement.

No dice. Perdue needed an education issue for his reelection campaign and the “65 percent solution” was that issue. Never mind the fact that it saddled local school officials with an inflexible, unfunded mandate and violated Perdue’s earlier declaration that “schools should be run from the principal’s office, not the governor’s office.”

Perdue won his second term in office and we are now in a new session of the General Assembly. So what are the latest education proposals coming from the leadership? The magic word this year is “flexibility.” Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is backing legislation that would allow school boards to apply for official recognition as a “charter system,” just as individual schools now do. This charter status would allow every school in a system to be exempt from state rules and regulations so that they can experiment with new ways of educating students.

“We need to recognize that one size does not fit all,” said Sen. Dan Weber (R-Dunwoody), who is sponsoring Cagle’s bill. “Each school is different, each community is different, and each student has their own needs. They [teachers] need the freedom to innovate and we need to untie their hands.”

That sounds like something worth trying, but the only problem is it directly contradicts what Perdue and his Republican colleagues were telling us less than 12 months ago when they adopted the “65 percent solution.” Then, they insisted on a “one-size-fits-all” mandate with no exceptions. Now, they say that we have to exempt schools from all laws and regulations so that they’ll have the “freedom to innovate.”

In other words: we should let decisions about how to teach children be made at the local level. Unless the governor decides that we should dictate from the central office in Atlanta how schools are run. But only until we decide that flexibility is so important we should “untie their hands” and let them operate free of all regulations.

There may be someone, somewhere who can make sense of that. I freely confess that I don’t understand all these flip-flops - but maybe that’s because I’m a product of Georgia’s public schools.

Tom Crawford

tcrawford@capitolimpact.net