Kathy Cox: a class act in any grade

Kathy is a good and able woman who has taken on a thankless job of herculean proportions. Her efforts to increase the rigor of our kids' K-!2 curricula will increase the probability that their futures will be more sanguine than they otherwise would have been had educrats maintained their mediocratic stranglehold on the GDOE offices in The Twin Towers. We Georgians owe her a debt of gratitude.

Georgia actually does have a good politician among us. Great Job Kathy....keep up the good work.

georgians owe kathy a quick boot to the rear. anyone who would betray the public trust by violating a basic tenet of assessment - you cannot give a test to students who haven't been prepared on the material - isn't a person who needs be making policy decisions. her blithe attitude towards the 1,000's of students who failed new standardized tests last spring speaks volumes. and then she convinces the dupes that she is somehow a saint because she won a contest and gave the money away. for shame! vote her out!

I watched the show. I was not only impressed with her knowledge, but also her charisma and her sincerity. It is vividly apparent that she loves her job and the citizens of Georgia.

bone, from an outsiders perspective, while many students failed the test, many at the same school passed. The tests identified a major problem, why were some students prepared and some not? A starting place for improvement has been established, one that should have been established decades ago. Progress can be made from this identified point that could not have been made otherwise. Those of us that support Cox are glad someone has finally said "enough" and is taking steps toward turning Georgia education around.

Maybe she should become a professional game show contestent. She has certainly been a failure as a Georgia School Super.

bone, you are correct, preparing students for tests is the school's responsibility, however you have missed the second part of the equation, it is the parents responsibility too. i have two children in the system and my wife and i make sure they are prepared every day to learn and expect them to perform. we spend time with them every day, reinforcing the lessons they bring home. at the end of a 10 or 12 hour work day, it's not always our favorite thing to do, but we are realists and know that schools can only do so much, it is our responsibility to assist in our children's education. if more parents took that attitude, all our kids would be better off, both in school and in life.

Hats off to you, JimCox! Raising a child is the parents' responsibility. Teaching them in a classroom is a teacher's responsibility, but there is only so much one can teach in a 7 hour day without the attention and cooperation of the students. Ask any good teacher how many minutes per hour is spent on managing classroom behavior. Then subtract minutes for lunch, recess, the arts (which are wonderful but not measured by a test) and transitions from one place to another. If students are to be successful, they must have the support and assistance, if needed, from parents at home.

While there are many problems in the GA school system, just like in the case of Dr Bedin, these problems will not go away overnite. Some of us are so quick to criticise everyone in every column. Who will we ever support and help make our schools better. Maybe Kathy Cox is not the answer. I don't know. But will anyone ever have the support they need to get the job done?

So, the state's superintendent of schools was found to be "Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader", and we react as if she won the Nobel Prize in physics. What does this reveal about the expectations of our state? If we are going to measure her value by game show success, let's see if she can qualify for "Jeopardy" at least.

buck, she brought home a $1 million prize without going on Jeopardy. I'm impressed.

She is obviously smarter than buck.

Does anyone really believe she 'won' that money? All game shows are choreographed and taped in segments. She had prior knowledge I'd bet and probably the whole thing is a boon to the advertisers who contributed the money to charities and just needed a tax-break on the gift by funneling it legally through a state employee who couldn't accept gifts. No taxes paid on this gift. Just another repuke method of shifting money around without revealing the real shame which is a bribe to get something from the state for the corporations who contributed. A typical "good-ole-boy" transaction. WAKE UP PEOPLE! Media hypnosis is working on the dumbed-down generation for sure. Especially when they employ a popular satirist who makes his living laughing at his own red-neck culture.

Bone and Buck -- Bite my white butt ! Both of you would miss the beauty of a rainbow, because you would both be complaining that the color bands were not in the correct order. Give me a break. JimCox and Working mom -- you are right on the mark. My wife is a teacher in Columbia County, and I hear it every night. Teachers can teach, but students have to be willing to learn. And the attitude they come to school with, has to start in the home. Kathy Cox going on the show took guts -- she knew there would be Bozos like Bone and Buck, waiting with a stupid comment if she tripped up. But, she showed them all up. Yes, we do have a fine State School Superintendent that IS smarter than a fifth grader !!!!!

Yeah Zeno, did you hear the one about Bush ordering the 9-11 attack? I here he's real mean.

Sorry PT, is my tin-foil showing? Scuze me while I go back and tuck it under my cap. I can't help it if most of the country wants to be in denial. I know what I know and that's that. It's not my opinion that matters. It's what's real, not the presumed fantasy that is the LIE so many are falling for these last days. Watch and see, my dear. Watch and see.

How many of you knew that Queen Victoria was the longest reigning English monarch?

Hey , Ga Values!!!! Change your name. You are NOT anywhere near what Ga. values. What a work of art. I think of all the trash that rolls acrosss R & R, you are the bottom of the pit.

NANF.... When my daughter started school we placed her in a public school. my wife spent 3 days a week helping in our daughter's school. At that time I owned a media company, so we adopted a middle school. I had 2 professionals in that school every day & we made a lot of capital improvements to the school. At the same time I usually spent 2 days a month at the State & worked with my state rep to get earmarks to my middle school. When my daughter was ready for middle school we put her in private school. My daughter was lucky enough to have parents that could afford to send her to a private school. Most georgia students are condemed to a public school system that ranks between 45th & 49th in the nation. We are spending enough for all our childeren to get a good education but most is wasted on administration. For example there are National test to measure our student's achievement but Ms Cox chose to spend millions to develope a test that did not work. In the real world she would have been fired on the spot but in education she gets a pass. If you are happy with the state of public schools good for you.

tjohns22: I did, but I went to school in England :-)

rip, i teach in columbia county, too. the kids were NOT at fault this time around. sure, there are plenty of lazy kids in every school; but to have a superintendent knowingly assess students on material for which they had never received instruction is borderline criminal. i don't believe i'll be biting your white butt anytime soon, sir. PT, i do enjoy the few times we disagree: your outsiders perspective just doesn't jive with the facts in this case. anyone who votes for her a second time around is not smarter than a 5th grader.

Raves to the AC for writing up such a good an appropriate article. Even though it took them long enough, they evidently read our posts and heard our message!!!

Maybe some children are not doing well in language studies, because important people in their lives don't consider it important to use proper English. I even read one teacher write that if newscasters can't pronounce English properly, saying gel, instead of jail, liberry instead of library, it wasn't that important, if people understood the content of what they are saying. I'd hate to be taught by a teacher with standards that low. These are professional newscasters, they should set a good example for their audience, which sometimes includes children and teens. Congratulations to Kathy Cox, who is apparently also smarter than a lot of educators.

Baroness, I assume you are referring to a comment I made almost 9 months ago. I most certainly believe speaking English properly is important. What I had said was that the difference between "gel" and "jail" isn't that important when you are listening for information on the news. Now the "liberry" thing does bother me but I can still understand the content when someone uses it in a sentence. The idea is to be able to communicate the news to everyone. If you can understand the content, then they have done their job, even if it is imperfect. This is not to say that I agree with every dialect being spoken in the CSRA. There are people out there who cannot use the correct tense of the verb "be" or pronounce any word that begins with the blend "str". Educators can teach and model the proper pronunciations of the English language but they cannot change the way students pronounce words. My standards are not low. I'm sure they are just as high as you think yours are. The thing is to work toward teaching proper English and hope they choose to apply it, whether they are on TV, at home or even in the library.

Kathy Cox is clueless on the inner workings of her agency. Her employees spend unnecessary tax dollars on the latest and greatest Microsoft Office software and when they transmit documents to teachers and others in the poor county school systems the documents cannot be opened or used because the schools do not have the dollars to purchase the latest and greatest software every time there is an update. The state dept of education is STILL full of fiscal idiots.

If the shoe fits, wear it.

If it doesn't fit, don't. Very interesting....