The Millen news. (Millen, Jenkins County, Ga.) 1903-current, September 23, 2009, Image 4
Page 4 — Wednesday, September 23, 2009, The Millen News
Opinions, yours and ours
The Chatter Box
By Deborah Bennett
The City of Millen’s TE-grant project on Cotton Avenue is
starting to show visible results on the west end of the street.
New sidewalks and greenery are in place, improving the ap
pearance of the area and giving us an idea of what the street
will look like when the project is completed.
It is going to be a great improvement, well worth the incon
venience experienced now.
Businesses on Cotton Avenue are open and front entries to
them have been provided, despite the construction taking
place. Also, many can be entered from the rear of the stores.
Hopefully, the project will be completed by the end of the
year, as planned.
Construction of the Savannah River Parkway through the
City of Millen also has Highway 25 “torn up"’ pretty bad, and
traffic is sometimes congested. It’s difficult right now to imag
ine what that highway through the city is going to look like
when this project is finally completed. Hopefully, two advan
tages will be that traffic will move smoother, and the area will
be improved in appearance.
Until then, we will just have to "grin and bear” the road
work.
Happy birthday this week to: Vickie Cook, Coley Clifton,
Heather Godbee, Ahmaya Gardner, Bruce T. Grier, Cade
Oglesby and Geraldine Alligood.
Celebrating wedding anniversaries this week are: Mr. and
Mrs. George Hall and Mr. and Mrs. Chris Adams.
Military Active Duty List: PV2 Brianna Joiner, U.S.Army
National Guard, Ft. Leonardwood, MO; PV2 Jeremy Johnson,
U.S. Army, 59 th Quartermaster Company, Ft. Carson, Colo
rado; Ronnie Perryman, Charlie Troop, 108 th Calvary Divi
sion, 4 th Platoon, Afghanistan; Lance Cpl.Adam Lanier, U.S.
Marines, 8 th & I Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C.; E-4 Sr.
Airman Roy Davis, U.S. Air Force, RAF Molesworth, United
Kingdom; Lance Cpl. Patrick Barnette, U.S. Marines,
Baharia, Iraq; Sgt. Adam Demshar, 44th Signal Battalion,
Baghdad, Iraq; Cpl. Lee Ogden, U.S. Marines, Camp
Pendleton, CA; E5 Petty Officer 2 nd Class Eric B. Kelsey,
U.S. Navy, NSA Naples, Italy; Senior Airman Charles F.
Woods, Moody Air Force Base, Valdosta, GA; Stuart Burrus,
U.S. Air Force, Osan AFB, Korea; SPC 4 Travis D. Motes,
1st Calvary Division, T. Hood, Texas; Capt. Donald Slade
Burke, 735th Air Mobility Squadron Detachment 1 Com
mander, Richmond Royal Australian AFB, Richmond, Aus
tralia; Staff Sgt. Gilbert C. Sheppard III, 48th Brigade, 118th
Field Artillery, Iraq; Petty Officer 3rd Class Jamie A. Yager,
U.S. Navy, Marine Corps Base Hawaii; Petty Chief Officer
Andy D. Crosby, U.S. Navy, Elroy Destroyer, Norfolk, Va.;
Stephanie Crosby, R.N., U.S. Navy, Lafayette Destroyer;
Jimmy Cooper, U.S. Army National Guard, 878th Engineer
ing Battalion-Augusta, Persian Gulf; 1st Lt. J.R. Taylor, 2nd
Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Iraq; SPC.
Daniel Stuart, 18thMEDCOM, 121 General Hospital, Seoul,
Korea; Jeffrey Sweat, U.S. Navy, USS Kauffman, MM3 59/
E-Division, A-Gang, Norfolk, Va.; Cpl. Larry Lamont Clark,
U.S. Marine Corp, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp
Lejeune, N.C. Bagdad, Iraq; Khan Young, U.S. Navy, U.S.S.
Kitty Hawk, Persian Gulf; Robert Milton Jr., E-3, U.S. Army,
Ft. Stewart, Hinesville, Ga., Mission Kuwait; Arnold R.
Mosley, 2nd Lt., U.S. Air Force, Randolph AFB, Texas; and
Debra A. Mosley, Tech. Sgt., U.S. Air Force, Randolph AFB,
Texas; and SPC Charles “C.J.” Amerson, U.S. Army, Camp
Adder, Iraq.
Letters policy
Letters to the editor of The Millen News are welcomed and
encouraged. These are pages of opinions, yours and ours.
The unsigned editorials generally appearing on the left side of
the editorial page represent the opinion of the newspaper and not
that of any one person on our staff. Personal columns represent
the opinions of the writers whose names appear on them and are
not to be considered the opinion of this newspaper, its manage
ment or owners. Letters to the editor voice the opinions of the
newspaper’s readers.
The Millen News reserves the right to edit any and all portions
of a letter. Unsigned letters will not be published. Letters must
include the signature, address and phone number of the writer to
allow our staff to authenticate its origin. Letters should be lim
ited to 400 words.
The deadline for letters is Friday at noon. You can email letters
to themillennews@yahoo.com.
Chartered 1903
The Millen News is published weekly by Chalker
Publishing Company, 601 E. 6th St., Waynesboro, Ga.
The Millen News
856 East Cotton Ave. • Millen, Ga. 30442
Phone: (478) 982-5460 • FAX: (478) 982-1785
Periodical postage paid at Millen, Georgia.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:
The Millen News
P.O. Box 909
Millen, GA 30442
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Walter Harrison
Editor 1946-1985
Frank M. Edenfield
Editor
1985-1998
Roy F. Chalker Jr Publisher
Bonnie K. Taylor General Manager
Deborah Bennett Editor
Lavonna Drawdy Advertising Composition
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Letter to the Editor
day, to observe and to do them:
and thou shalt not go aside from
any of the words which I com
mand thee this day, to the right
hand, or to the left, to go after
other gods to serve them.
In this passage, God wants us
to be the head, be blessed. We
should all be speaking positive
about our county and city. If all
of us take the positive attitude
about everything, where would
Jenkins County be today or to
morrow?
Jo Britt
Millen
Georgia Family Council
WHEN EDUCATORS CHEAT STUDENTS
Dear Editor:
The Jenkins County/Millen
Fair-on-the-Square is 30+ years
old, with the face lift of the
courthouse, the location will be
changed this year.
Ms. Art Johnson of the Millen
Better Hometown has worked
very hard to make this a smooth
year for the Fair-on-the-Square.
Yet, when the Jenkins County
Recreation Department was
asked for the support to have the
event at their location, Ms.
Johnson was turned down. What
is wrong with the picture, the
American Cancer Society,
Jenkins County Relay for Life
and the 4th of July fireworks
(sponsored by the Millen Bet
ter Hometown) are held at this
location?
Why is the board of the
Jenkins County Recreation De
partment acting this way? The
money the recreation depart
ment operates with is the
Jenkins County taxpayer’s
money. Why are they showing
a difference?
The Fair-on-the-Square
brings in revenue to a lot of
people in the county on this day,
not only the vendors at the
event, yet the other local busi
nesses in Millen.
Everyone talks about helping
Jenkins County, Millen, yet they
don’t want to go through with
their actions. Jenkins County as
a whole must come together and
work together for the betteiment
of our county.
In Deuteronomy 28: 13-15,
"And the Lord shall make thee
the head, and not the tail; and
thou shalt be above only, and
thou shalt not be beneath; if that
thou hearken unto the com
mandments of the Lord thy
God, which I command thee this
By Eric Cochling
Vice President of Public Policy, Georgia Family Council
The fact that there’s cheating in Georgia schools shouldn’t come as
a surprise. It’s a problem that has plagued education since Socrates
gave his first pop quiz. But when it is public school officials who are
doing the cheating, well, that’s something that should get our atten
tion.
Over the past year, an investigation by the Governor’s Office of
Student Achievement found that student’s answers on the fifth grade
CRCT math test were changed by staff at at least four Georgia public
elementary schools. Suspicions were raised when the summer retake
test results were significantly higher than the spring scores.
To determine what happened, investigators analyzed the number of
erasures on test sheets and how many of those changes corrected a
wrong answer. At four of the schools, the number of answers changed
from wrong to right was statistically impossible barring some form of
cheating.
At one school in Dekalb County, the findings were particularly shock
ing. Every single student who retook the math test passed - an amaz
ing feat considering that the failure rate in fourth grade at the same
school was 57 percent. Investigators found that there was an average
of 22 answers erased on each test (compared to an average of two in
the comparison sample) and that of those erasures, 15 corrected a
wrong answer (compared to one in the comparison sample).
So far, the principle and assistant principle at this school have had
then - teaching license suspended. They also face felony charges for-
falsifying a state document. Investigations into staff from other schools
are underway as well.
Part of what is striking about this scandal is the brazen way in which
it was conducted. It’s as though these educators were willing to make
such blatant changes to these tests because they were reasonably cer
tain they wouldn’t get caught.
What’s more, it’s not certain the investigation would have ever even
happened had th& Atlanta Journal-Constitution not reported about the
improbable gains on tests scores. Kudos to the AJC for its reporting on
this story.
Given that this investigation only involved review of one year of
testing, only examined a few schools and only reviewed one test at
one grade level, there is considerable concern that this type of cheat
ing is widespread. Although we spend over $14 billion on public edu
cation in Georgia annually, we have spent almost nothing on auditing
test results.
Consider this: 995,122 school children in grades 1-8 take the CRCT
each year, and in all, about 4.2 million CRCT subject tests are given in
grades 1-8 annually. Yet, there are only seven people that work in the
Governor’s Office of Student Achievement tasked with monitoring
all of these tests (and high school ones as well).
All of this makes one wonder how widespread cheating is state
wide and what is being done to make its prevention, detection and
prosecution as much a priority as the tests themselves. After all, with
out the assurance that cheating is rare, test results mean next to noth
ing.
And with so much riding on these test results, then- integrity is criti
cal. The fifth grade CRCT tests at the center of this scandal determine
whether a student moves on to sixth grade, and more importantly, are
the primary factor in determining whether a school meets Adequate
Yearly Progress (AYP) - the federal standard schools must reach. Not
surprisingly, all of the schools that were investigated met AYP be
cause of the scores on these altered CRCT tests.
What happened in these schools is appalling on so many levels.
When a student cheats, he is shortchanging himself. But when school
officials cheat like this, their actions have a much wider impact. They
have violated the public trust, abused their positions of authority, but
most importantly, they have sent a message to then- students that
achievement matters little and dishonesty is ok if the stakes are high
enough.
And as bad as this story is, we are confident that the vast majority
of Georgia educators labor diligently to help kids learn, and do so
with honesty and integrity.
The bigger tragedy, however, is what this misconduct does to kids.
Promoting students to the next grade level when they are not pre
pared means they will not get the remedial help they need to learn.
Instead, kids that were already struggling in school will struggle even
more. They will get frustrated, discouraged, and at some point maybe
even drop out of school. It’s a tragedy, and all because these educa
tors wanted to elevate their own status and make it appear their school
was doing better than it was.
But until there is a more comprehensive auditing system, there will
always be questions about significant gains. More effective monitor
ing will not only root out cheaters, but it will also validate the legiti
mate improvement in schools where educators are doing their job
well.
It’s time our state commits the resources needed to ensure student
achievement is measured well and that the results are reliable.
Georgia Family Council is a non-profit research and education
organization committed to fostering conditions in which individuals,
families and communities thrive. For more information, go to
www.georgiafamily.org, (770) 242-000F
stephen.daniels@georgiafamily.org.
The Millen News
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