Loading...Quick Results the Target for Task Force on Local School Boards
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I have never met anyone, in any part of our great state, who did not express a strong and genuine desire to improve our public schools. Statistically, most of us attended public schools and the vast majority of our children are enrolled in public schools today. Almost nothing I can think of is as important to our future as a state as making sure that every Georgia child, regardless of where they live or what socio-economic group they belong to, receives a quality education. We owe them that.
You may be thinking that you have heard this all before. You have. But, the unending spate of less than encouraging news we hear about our schools in Georgia might make even the most optimistic among us to question why we can’t seem to bridge the gap. The truth is a lot is being done. I give Gov. Perdue and State School Superintendent Kathy Cox an enormous amount of credit for what each has done to turn the ship around. But, it is a big ship.
We recently met with members of the State Board of Education to look at a new idea that I believe is very promising. As the leading voice of the Georgia business community, the Georgia Chamber is in a unique position to help shape new initiatives by enlisting citizens from across the state to offer their expertise and leadership as we seek solutions for these vexing problems.
One of the challenges we discussed was the inability of some local school boards to deal effectively with the problems they face. Research shows that about 20% of school boards in the state have been struggling for up to a decade to meet their goals and achieve the results they know is essential if they are going to be successful. The most common problems include ineffective management procedures, especially micromanagement; faulty decision-making; mismanagement of funds and failure to follow their own policies. This is not a recipe for success.
In the face of these findings, a task force was formed to target the specific area of strengthening local school boards. It will be known as the School Board Governance Task Force. You might be thinking that this is just another exercise in “studying a problem and writing a report sometime down the road.” But, the word we heard repeated over and over again at the meeting was urgency and a need to act fast. So, this task force did something unusual. It set a 90-day time limit to produce results. This group means business.
Three prominent Georgia Chamber members will co-chair the task force. They are: Phil Jacobs, retired president of AT&T (formerly BellSouth); Gary Price, managing partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers; and John Rice, vice chairman, GE, and president & CEO of GE infrastructure. Serving with them will be 28 representatives of business, education, government and the nonprofit community from all parts of the state. Because, as we all agreed, this is not a provincial problem.
Our primary partner in this ambitious endeavor will be the State Board of Education and, as its Chair, Wanda Barrs, said, “The business community was the natural choice for this important task force because it has a lot at stake when students fall behind. Good schools naturally lead to a good business climate.”
