more smoke from Bedden..."closure" is a yes or no answer from this guy and he won't commit.
The state is already talking about NEXT YEAR's budget deficit; the money is not there. More cuts in K-12 or higher property taxes to pay for the SAME education system we have now (which includes Bedden at $180,000). Bedden knows this; how can he justify holding out for more $ in such times?
His lack of response indicates where his priority lies, and that priority does not appear to be in the education of Richmond County kids

I almost forgot to ask. Does anyone out there know for a fact what Beddens total compensation package, (the one you as taxpayers pay for) is right now? I doubt it because you don't demand tp know what is going on with your hard earned money. All someone has to do is add the magic little P.C. like children, need, care, help, words and like lemmings you follow the same path year after year after year. Remember that according to the GA BOE Richmond county has been rated as NOT making AYP. And yet we want the same person in charge for another year?

This is smart, if Bedden is not named as the one the Texans want, then they don't need to offer anything more. But if he IS named, he will be leaving and they haven't set and extra high expected salaries for the nationwide job serch. This is really just a case of the RCBOE playing it safe.

diss, thank you i have been stressing that all along, you have an inept and moronic school board that doen't realize education should be job 1, now they are forced to offer more money to dr. bedden hoping to keep him, when the school board is laying off teachers, parapro, bus drivers and any other employees directly related to the education process. all the while trying to convince the taxpayers(whose footing the bill by the way) that process is being made in regards to academics, that graduation rates and test scores are improving. it's easy to improve test scores when the curriculum is "dumbed down" but in the end result all you have is a majority of the students receiving the diplomas would be able to read/understand the words that will be written on it anyway.

I am sorry but I don't think until we see a quality education then we need to continue offering the hugh salaries. I know you have to pay for quality but we have been paying for quality and by the scores haven't gotten our monies worth yet. If Beddin had a heart for teaching and the children of R.C. then he would stay and see the job done. He would do the right thing. He has no heart for the education of Richmond County students all he cares about is the pay. Yea we are facing tough times but you know people got a quality education before we had the funds we currently have. With or without the funds education is in the eye of the beholder. You have to want an education first and the parents have to want an education for their kids and do something about helping them get it instead of laying on their lazy butts and putting the entire responsibility on the school system. Until that happens it doesn't matter how much money you dump in the budget it won't change a stastic. My daughter just graduated from college and has begun her teaching career this year. I hope her love for the students never ceases. You have to as educators show these kids they are valuable and you have confidence in them to do great things. You have to be a hands on teacher and use imagination in teaching. All kids aren't taught equally from a standard that the county has purchased. Which Richmond County has done. They have taken the availability of imagination from the teachers by purchasing these teaching standards. Maybe we need to take a few steps back in time and put discipline and imagination back in the classrooms. Give the teachers outcomes and let them get to those outcomes their way, not the way of a book that has no idea of what these kids are like. Find ways to bring real life into the classrooms. Bring professionals (in all areas) into the classroom one day or so a week. We just had Pesident's Day. Why not have had people dress up in costume and go around to the different grades throughout the month and teach some of the history of the past presidents. Bring fun to learning.

Can you say blackmail?

Put him on the fast train west! He has some people fooled looks as if those are in the minority. Also some of them are ones people would think know better!

hey baseball, you better watch your ACCURATE, VERY ACCURATE and insightful criticisms concerning the priorities of the school board(who sets the school's agenda, direction, goals and agenda). it was a pleasure reading what you have written but there are those out their either parents or enablers who will attack you as being too critical when all you are doing is making an effort to bring light into what is and has been hidden by darkness for so long. you seem like a person who education is the most effective tool to improve society...unfotunately we are in the minority and will always be until the priorites of inept and moronic school board changes....

I agree with the above poster and baseballmom3. There's a lot of hogwash that Bedden has been pushing for the last couple of years called "Performance Based Classrooms." In all fairness, the state is pushing it. All of a sudden, the key to student learning is writing the state performance standards on the board, and have the kids memorize the standards. Also, it's apparently supercritical to move a marker on the board to indicate the section of the class period (opening, worktime, closing, whatever). It's from the latest book being hawked and bought into from an education "guru." It's almost as if education had not existed until this year, when we finally figured out how to do it from a recent book. This happens every five years or so, when somebody else writes the newest latest-and-greatest book on the keys to education. It's a bunch of baloney with no evidence that it will improve anything. Bedden doesn't care, though, as is shown by an apparently random email he sent to all RC faculty last year, quoting one single (and questionable) study that claimed that increased class sizes don't inhibit student learning. Ask a teacher or student if they find that to be true. He sent the results of the study that would make it easier for him to increase class sizes. He didn't send the MANY studies that show increased class sizes to be a detriment to learning. As has been mentioned, Bedden uses buzzwords that seem to snow people over. All any of these educrats, especially Bedden, seem to have to do is repeat "it's about the children," "there's no i in team," and other trite nonsense, and nobody calls them out on any nonsense they do. All the while, they care nothing about the children, other than as test scores that they claim responsibility for if they improve, and lay the blame on teachers if they don't. All the while, they concentrate on their real priorities, more money for themselves. I don't care if Bedden gets the job in Texas or not. We STILL need to dump him, and most of the people in the central office (which Bedden claims is understaffed, which is a flat-out lie).

Cleanup, how would school systems statewide pay for teachers without increasing class size? Teacher salaries are the single largest line item in the budget.

Which programs and which people should go first?

I could certainly give you the names, all of them, but I won't do so in a public forum. I could also give you extremely specific and numerous examples of the idiot moves that many of the people above have not been held accountable for. One example: a curriculum head sends out textbooks willy-nilly to every school without checking current textbook inventory. Teachers gave out the books, kids wrote their names on the inside cover, then the county says "oops," tells the schools to send the textbooks back to Central Office, who now can't get their money back (a LOT of money) because they've been written in. Was that person fired? No, actually I think the person received a pay raise. This is VERY typical of the goings-on in the RC school system. A good superintendent would address such issues, rather than sweeping them under the rug. There isn't much more room under that rug.