Declining Graduation Rates in Cherokee

Opinion

Letter to the Editor by William McNiffHere are the graduation rate numbers for Cherokee County from 2007 to 2012. 77%, 80%, 80%, 82%, 75%, 73%. They are going down. A lower percentage of students are graduating each year. The population of the county is growing and more and more students are failing. The picture is the same statewide. This does not make sense. This is a tragedy. And yet the adoring media keeps printing favorable stories about the school district winning another award or about the higher test scores the students in the county are achieving. What about the declining graduation rate? What about the under educated students?

Does the elimination of these under achieving students from the statistics somehow mathematically raise the test scores Dr. P is reporting in the press? How is it that he can report test scores and yet not report the graduation rate? Does the Board of Education and Dr. P misguidedly believe that the overachieving students would have done poorly without their guidance? What is the problem?

It could be finances are part of the problem. Well then let’s have a look at the budget details. Oh! We cannot! Dr. P and the BOE have a policy that we mere taxpayers aren’t entitled to see the details. I have been told that Not even the BOE gets to see the details. The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners was given an award for “Transparency in Government. “ Go to the website and see all the information posted therein. I guess transparency doesn’t apply to the Board of Education. No wonder the BOE fears charter schools and discourages home schooling.

I see Kelly Marlow as the voice of sanity in this institution. The public school system has been around for over a century and these folks still don’t have it right. Teachers unions can be blamed in some states but not in Georgia. So who is left to blame? Are the parents and students to blame? Or is it the local BOE or the state BOE that is the problem?

Heaven help our students if Common Core, one size fits all, is implemented in Cherokee county. I would urge the members of the Cherokee county BOE to opt-out of Common Core. According to the Georgia constitution our legislature, not the federal government, is in charge of education in this state.

When will the State release the graduation rate figures for 2013? Usually it takes them a year to release the figures. That means we have to wait 11 months. In this instance, maybe, just maybe, we see that some of the problem lies with the state BOE.

Let’s all write our call our legislators and ask to opt-out of Common Core. Then write the BOE and ask the same and to see the budget details. And while we are at it ask why the declining graduation rate and what they propose to do about it. Then write the state BOE and ask for the 2013 graduation rate. And maybe the press will get on our side and help us so our children and grand children can become better educated citizens.

Bill McNiff

Nelson, GA

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