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Bell Says State Must Fix Education: Problems Start in Elementary School and Continue Throughout System

Posted on: Thursday, 19 January 2006, 09:00 CST

By Chuck Williams, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Ga.

Jan. 19--ATLANTA -- Georgia's education system is broke and must be fixed, former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell told state business and education leaders Wednesday.

"Education in Georgia is being left exclusively to the education establishment at all levels," Bell told the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an independent research and education organization that focuses on state policy issues.

"The problems in our education system as they presently exist are too great to be left only to the education establishment itself. There must be accountability within and outside the establishment," said the 87-year-old Americus native.

The Georgia education system, Bell pointed out, consists of three main parts:

-- The State Board of Education responsible for primary and secondary education.

-- The Board of Technical and Adult Education responsible for the state's two-year technical colleges.

-- The Board of Regents responsible for the state's 34 four-year colleges and universities.

The problems, as he sees it, can be found throughout the system. And they begin in elementary school.

"It would appear to be a reasonable expectation that a child be able to read by the third grade," Bell said. "It is safe to say that in many systems, as many as 25 percent of those finishing the third grade cannot read."

Those who can't read by the third grade should be classified as "educational emergencies," Bell said.

"To fail at reading is to consign the student to the permanent underclass," Bell said. "A great proportion of the underemployed and the prisoner population is made up of semi-literates -- the dropouts."

The problems in high school spill over into the colleges and universities, Bell said.

"There is something wrong with our high schools," he said. "One-third of the 2004 first-year classes in the university system, excluding the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Georgia State, were in remedial classes. Why should not these students have to take the remedial courses in high schools instead of college?"

He puts the blame on the high schools.

"By graduating these students before they were ready for college, the high schools have created the problem," Bell asserts.

Among the other problems Bell noted:

-- The education superstructure. "Too many top administrators," he said. "It is made up of generals and colonels. There is insufficient emphasis on captains -- principals -- and lieutenants -- teachers."

-- Overlap in educational offerings. "I compared the educational offering of one university with the offerings of a technical college in the same geographical area, and there was a great degree of course overlap, although the technical college did not offer course in yoga or ballroom dancing."

-- Redefine the Board of Regents. "The Board of Regents is an organization of another era," he said. "One chancellor and part-time regents cannot supervise 34 institutions." The regents could appoint a board of trustees to supervise the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State and The Medical College of Georgia.

The Georgia Constitution requires the state to provide "an adequate public education for the citizens." Adequate is the key word, Bell said.

"What we need to do in Georgia is define an adequate education as something above the average in our country," Bell said. "We do not want to just get by. Our aspirations and our state education policy should be to provide the best from the bottom to the top."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Ga.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

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