Dear Editor,
I was amazed when I attended the LaGrange Patriot’s forum for the Troup County school board candidates that each of the incumbent members of the school board felt they were doing a good job. Don’t tell me that you’re doing a good job when we have a 64.3 percent graduation rate in Troup County.
We would not accept a 36 percent failure rate in anything else. If your car brakes only worked 64 percent of the time, you would have them fixed. If 36 percent of the time your Big Mac was not cooked, you would find another McDonalds. If a pilot crashed 36 percent of the planes he flew … I guess that situation would pretty much take care of itself. In each of those situations we would take decisive measures to reduce our failure rate. Yet, when 36 percent of the students in Troup County are relegated to less appealing jobs and lower wages because they did not graduate, we are told, “I don’t like it but … ” or “we have made great improvements.” Tell that to one of the 36 percent. The school board needs fixing or we need to find another school board because we don’t want 36 percent of our children to crash.
The current board members felt they did not need to make it easier for the public to participate in the school board meetings. If they did that they would have to admit that someone might have answers they don’t seem to have.
One member said, “You get what you pay for.” With a budget of $98 million and ESPLOST of about $10 million to graduate six out of 10 students, are we getting what we are paying for?
Mike Waller
Mooty Bridge Road
We cannot afford for this group of bozos to get into any office. They are not interested in the betterment of our school system and have no clue how to achieve the excellence they say is lacking. They have no idea how to navigate the complicated regulations passed down from the state and federal governments. They have NO vision. They have personal agendas based on revenge and a need to grandstand. Is this what we need when our school system has had $55 million in austerity cuts in recent years and 62% of our students live in poverty? We graduated 450 students in 2004. We graduated 650 in 2011. Our CRCT scores have risen dramatically, our Top 10% of students rank among the highest in the country on SAT, and our achievement gap has decreased dramatically. If that's not a step in the right direction, I don't know what is.
Wallace Rhodes....now there is a great leader from the past! Better hire a bunch of lawyers to get prepared for this new bunch! As June Hogan stated this group is all about themselves! They have a bunch of axes to grind...especially since two were fired from our own school system.
We are crashing 36% of the time and the futures of many children are dying at the age of 18.
There are new pilots available in the community and I'm voting them into the cockpit!
TEAM ABCD
Adams
Barnes
Callaway
Daniel
It's time for a good change and get out of the mediocrity wagon.