Column 29 for February 27, 2000

Last week, talking about HB 1187, our governor's "Education Reform" program, I repeated a quote that the House passed the 152 page bill without changing a word, spending just four hours on the Floor for debate.

In the same article, I also repeated a quote from State Representative Tracy Stallings, indicating that he had worked on the bill, helping with, among other things, some improvements in the teacher "tenure" portion of the bill.

I then posed the question, possibly unfairly, "Who's telling the truth here?" Representative Stallings responded to my comments with a nice note, pointing out that he had indeed worked with his colleagues on several changes in HB 1187 before it reached the House floor. The original 125 page document grew to 152 pages after incorporating these changes.

It seems that both of the statements were true. While I appreciate the efforts that Representative Stallings has made on behalf of teachers in the past, I'm extremely disappointed with his "yes" vote on this bill. I continue to believe that some of the provisions of HB 1187 will keep Georgia on a par with other states that continuously rank low in education. We deserve a better bill.

An interesting comment, reported by the Associated Press, was made by Georgia State economic forecaster, Donald Ratajczak, in his winter quarter forecast last week reflecting on the governors program. He predicted that teacher stress levels would increase to the point that many would leave the profession, causing massive turnovers which would actually lower the quality of classroom instruction.

All of this discussion and speculation may have become a mute point by the time you read this if our State Senate acts as quickly as predicted. If we're still unhappy with the final version of this bill, as many educators fear, we don't have much choice but to do our best to comply with the new provisions...and then speak very loudly come next election time... Peace. tomiswho@mindspring.com