Dunwoody residents want out of the public school system, but there's more to this story than what one might assume. Good parents in good neighborhoods want something better, right? But, if that were true, why are the legislators only now starting to listen to them? What has happened to spur this sudden call for change? The parents and even Dunwoody's former School Board Member Nancy Jester, have been calling for change for a long time.
But, according to Sen. Millar, everyone cares about money.
Here's his take on the bill to create a Dunwoody City School System. That must be the case in Dunwoody as they have been disappointed in losing some big opportunities for businesses to relocate to their area and the blame was the failing school system. But, isn't this what parents have been warning about for years? In fact, isn't it really the case that the parents who could afford it left the school system for private schools years ago?
Have they come back to try and regain something they have already decided to work around? OR, did the exit of the wealthy families from the county's system start the decade-long demise whereby open seats began to be filled through federal legislation that forced schools with high rates of failure to recommend their worst students to be bused to the school of their own choosing anywhere else in the system, where there was room for them? That's part of the loophole legislation called "No Child Left Behind." It worked more like, "No Child Left in One Place Very Long."
To prevent Dunwoody from becoming overwhelmed with difficult students, the charter and magnet programs helped to feed their high school, and Chamblee's high school, with the best and the brightest recruits from all across the county.
But, didn't that open up seats everywhere else for that pesky legislation to fill? Yes, so many Lakeside and Tucker students headed up to Dunwoody Schools while Stone Mountain and Clarkston started their bus routes earlier and earlier to ride over to schools in Central DeKalb. That opened up a few (or a lot) of seats at schools where no one was left to bus over so then the rounds of school closing began. Now South DeKalb is filled with beautiful schools with very few students and a lot of empty buildings for sale.
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When we were working together, we were making the
biggest impact on the school system. North and South
DeKalb residents need to listen to each other, not to the
same politicians who have created the idea of this great
divide only to keep themselves in office and their hands
in the cookie jar. Cities will bring harm to those who live
both inside and outside their borders. |
So, now that the system hit "rock bottom," and the school board was removed, now what? Well, one would think that the parents and community members would rally around the new, highly qualified appointed board, right? After all, these are the folks who were selected from a pool of applicants by the Governor to get things back on track. But, instead, the various political districts in the county began to unveil their plans to break away from the system entirely.
They are undermining the very outcome that they fought so hard to get. For one brief moment, all of DeKalb was working together. Parents in the north and south were coming together, talking and working out plans to ensure education for all students. They were learning that many of their complaints were actually very similar and that it was possible to work on solutions that did not involved "taking" or harming another area just to benefit their own.
The movement toward new cities in DeKalb County is about the school system, make no mistake about that. It will bring harm to those both inside and outside each of the city borders. Cities compete against each other; they do not encourage working together. But, they do something else that may not sound harmful on the surface, but it is. These start-up cities are gerry-mandered to include as many people of the same political party as possible. And, history shows that it isn't Republicans or Democrats who have the corner of the market when it comes to corruption. Rather, it is when there is a majority of one party in control so they can essentially do whatever they want without a viable second voice challenging them in any effective way.
So, it doesn't really matter who is in control. What matters is that the people continue to work together, putting perspective on their challenges and holding the leaders accountable. When the public school system works, it works for everyone. When it is being used as a pawn in a political game, it harms the children, the economy and all of us.
The SACS report that was issued on DeKalb, placing the system on probation, was clear. The divisions in the county are tearing it apart. Cities create deeper lines in the sand and just when we were making strides toward erasing them.
For more on this subject, see the
AJC's "Get Schooled" editorial piece here.
