Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.
-- Coach Lou Holtz
Nominations are closed for our summer Gas Guess Game.
I'd like to thank the 100 or so forecasters who sent me a prediction of the day AAA records gas at $4 a gallon in the Augusta area.
I also again thank Marty Koger, the president of Koger-Walters Oil Co., for offering a $100 gas card as a prize for the winner.
As for the 10 of you who predicted Monday, June 30, will be the date ... you must know something the rest of us don't.
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GOOD TIME: I remain grateful to the Methodist Men at Grace United Methodist in North Augusta for inviting me to speak at their steak dinner earlier this week.
My 20-minute talk went way over, but then, as one guy said, "Keep going. If we go home, we'll have to watch Dancing With the Stars with our wives."
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TEST TIME: In what is looking like the biggest bureaucratic bungle since Hurricane Katrina, Georgia educators scrambled this week to figure out what to do with so many eighth-graders failing the new math test they need to pass to the next grade.
If this were the business world, we would expect the quick resignation of Superintendent Kathy Cox and everyone associated with such a disaster.
But it's not. So I propose a different suggestion.
Let state bureaucrats, school experts and the lawmakers who supported this debacle take the same math tests they stuck on the kids.
Only if they pass it will they get to return to work, where their new jobs will be boosting education. Not test-taking.
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JOKE TIME: Here's one from Billy Cooper , of North Augusta.
When a couple arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up a car, they were told the keys had been locked in it. They went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver's side door.
As they watched from the passenger side, the woman instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked.
"Hey," she announced to the technician, "it's open!"
To which he replied, "I know -- I already got that side."
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Let's put the blame squarely where it belongs - former Governor Roy Barns. As part of Barnes' Education Reform Act of 2000, the placement and promotion policy ties students' advancement to their performance on nationally standardized tests. Every parent with a child in the public education system needs to lobby their legislatures today, tomorrow and the next day, continuously, until they fix this debacle. It's become a sham in which teachers are not trying to teach to a specific test, and unwarranted pressure is put on teachers and students. If students aren't getting the information, it will be reflected in grades throughout the year. You don't need to rely on one test given on one day.