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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 USPS No. 349-660 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 Subscription Rates (Includes tax): In Jenkins County $23.00 Elsewhere in Georgia $33.00 Outside of Georgia $39.00 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 Deadlines THURSDAY AT NOON: Wedding Announcements Engagement Announcements Anniversary Announcements Birth Announcements School News Columns Memoriams and Thank You’s General News Items FRIDAY AT NOON: Chatter Box Items, Letters to the Editor, Datebook and Church News Items OBITUARIES Accepted until press time MONDAY-11 AM: Classified & Legal Ads MONDAY-NOON: Retail Display Ads