Hall County GOP Chairman Blog

Read the pitiful story here–> Georgia ranks near the bottom in SAT scores.  IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN OR EMPLOYEES THERE IS NO MORE IMPORTANT CONCERN FOR YOU THAN THIS.

OK, we are losing ground educationally, so now what are we going to do about it?  Our children are all we have.  If we abandon them, we abandon everything. 

The usual answer in education is that we need more resources. However, we are paying more per student for education than some of the 46 states that are better than we are. More money and more government is NEVER the answer to a problem. Personal responsibility, hard work, and ingenuity solves problems. The government did not invent the light bulb, Thomas Edison did. (And he did it to get rich. And he spent HIS own money to do it, not a government handout.)

I don’t buy the argument that Georgia has more people take the test and that makes our average go down. On average, it will work out the same (unless you believe that in Wyoming they lock up the dumb kids so they won’t take the test and drive the scores down for the 311 who took the test).  This “average” argument shows a math problem in and of itself. Average = Total Score / Number of Students Taking the Test. The “bell curve” of average probabilities says that students will score along a curve with a peak at the middle. Without getting into mean, mode, median, chi squared, and statistical significance, the average score should be at the peak of the curve. Statistics 101. A higher total number of kids taking test should make the average a BETTER indicator of overall educational performance not worse.  Come on!

The answer has to be one of four things: (1) The curriculum is not adequate (not even meaning to teach what is needed to score high on the SAT); (2) The teachers are not teaching properly (either not teaching the curriculum or don’t know how to teach); (3) The students are not learning the material (lots of reasons like attendance, parental responsibility, drugs, extracurricular activities, organic brain disorders, etc.); or (4) the SAT is inaccurate.

For years curricula has been make more politically correct and “dumbed down.” I’m not sure it is any better.  Kathy Cox says that the math curriculum needs to be adjusted.  What else needs work?  Does each parent have to get an SAT study guide and check to make sure that someone is teaching the basics?  Are our teachers or students dumber than all the students and teachers in 46 other states?  Are ALL our teachers unable to communicate with their students?  I can’t believe that. There has to be at least one state ranked above us (e.g. California or Ohio) with dumber people than us, right?  (After all they are voting for Hussein Obama right?)

The SAT is not skewed.  The political correct police have already been fly specking that test for years.  Next!

Bottom line is that unless someone can show that the average Georgia student has a low IQ and is unable to learn the material, then the answer has to be curriculum first.  If not the curriculum itself, the way it is implemented from the State level down. 

I was an instructor in the Air Force.  We often just taught the answers on the test to our students.  It was not hard to teach ABC (airway, breathing, circulation).  The material WAS the answer to a question.  Simple.    The SAT is not so simple.  You can’t just teach the test answers (e.g. “C”), you have to teach the theory and how to take tests.  Kids have to know what a triangle is, and how triangles are named in order to understand the mathematical relationship between the length of the sides  of certain triangles (the dreaded a squared + b squared = c squared for right triangles for example).  Then they have to be able to read and understand the question, pick the right answer, and bubble in the right circle to get credit.  If the student misses any one of those, they miss the question.

Hall County is BELOW the abysmal average for the state as a whole.  It is the responsibility of the school board to correct this.  No blame can be shifted to the State for the curriculum UNLESS the local local school board can show they told Kathy Cox of the curriculum issues. 

I’m afraid that education is seen by some administrators as an assembly line and as long as the line is running and product is coming off the line, they are doing a good job.  Not true.  Only quality products off the line count.  If the design (in this case curriculum) is flawed, then the product (e.g. student) will be flawed.

No whining or finger pointing or saying that scores are lagging what we did earlier.  These are children today who deserve to learn what they need to excel in the world.  With those crappy scores they won’t get into the college of their choice.  Without that college they will get the same old job the rest of us have working for the smart folks.  This is real important, and it is time everybody (including parents) start pulling on the oars together to fix it right dang now!

Don’t worry about other state programs that get money (no matter how silly they seem).  Don’t worry about budget shortfalls.  Test scores have gone down steadily while the education costs have risen steadily.  This is not a money problem.  Teaching is one person passing knowledge to another.  It only takes a willingness to teach and a willingness to learn.  We have smart dedicated teachers that are up to the task.  Fix the curriculum and stay out of their way, and their dedication, skill, and ingenuity will propel us up the ranks.

We had a good turnout at the 8-9-08 Conservative Forum where Rep. Doug Collins was the featured speaker. Doug is heading to Iraq as an Air Force Chaplin. Our prayers go out to him for taking The Lord to that country and coming back home safe. Doug gave a rousing talk about duty, honor, and County (my words not his). Doug also expressed the need for our party to constantly change to get better and move forward.

Sen. Hawkins, Rep. Mills, and Rep. Rogers all discussed legislative issues. Carl reported that Diversion Center will be converted to a “day reporting” facility not closed as previously reported. James talked aoubt the need for poof of citizenship to register to vote. Currently no birth certificate is required to register. No telling how many fraudulent voters we have recently registered in Georgia. You have to show you birth certificate to play soccer with other kids–I don’t think showing the certificate to vote is such a big deal (unless you are a fraud of course).  James also talked about the need to collect money from deadbeat homeowners who seem to have been able to keep $8M.

Calendar of Events:  Lee Hawkins Fundraiser 5:30 PM on August 21, 2008 at Milton Robson’s “Garage.”  James Mills Fundraiser on September 20, 2008 at the Ag Center.  Conservative Forum at 8:30 AM on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at Ryan’s on Browns Bridge Road.

I wanted to say a special thanks to J-Net Viera.  J-Net was our McCain cordinator until her sister took ill and she had to step aside.  Our prayers for healing go out to her sister and I ask you to put her on your personal prayer list as well.  At the forum she came up to me and told me that she was proud of me and that I was doing a great job as Chairman.  J-Net is a special person to the party who has always been here for the party and has always served when asked.  Her compliment touched me very deeply.  Thanks J-Net!

Elected Official Present Were: Senator Lee Hawkins, State Rep. James Mills, State Rep Carl Rogers, School Board Member Craig Herrington, State Court Judge Charlie Wynne, and Gainesville City Councilman George Wangemann. Also present was Helen Powell (County Commissioner Billy Powell’s wife and chief-of-staff).

Former Hall GOP Chairman Present: Gordon Sawyer, P. Martin Ellard, Kerry Cook, and Joe Cwik. These are the men who helped make the Republican Party dominant in Hall County.

Other Officials Present: Don Walsh (Hall County Coordinator for Saxby Chambliss Campaign); Chris Yardley (Hall County Coordinator for McCain Campaign); Associate Magistrate Court Judge David Burroughs; and Chief Assistant Solicitor General Jennifer Scalia.

Candidates Present: Judge Charlie Wynne and his opponent William I. “Sonny” Sykes.

Just when you think it was safe to go back into the water, another whiner shows up.  The “do nothing” crowd is large.  And RINOs charge when threatened.  Unlike in the wild, Hall County RINOs run in heards.

I keep reading about people “saying” and “asking” and “telling” me lots of things in public forum(s).  I read about things “said” and “done” at our own executive committee meetings.  The only problem is:  almost all these things were not actually said, asked, told, or done.  These reports are like a tabloid–all rumor and gossip.  Apparently the sayer, asker, teller, and doer was ashamed or afraid to say, ask, tell, or do anything to my face.  (The lone exception was former GOP Chairman P. Martin Ellard who was upset about the State Court Judge race.  I’ll give Martin his props for being man enough to come to me directly with his concerns.)

For all othe other gripers and carpers (who whine and mutter under their breath from a safe distance) I have the following quote for you:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt, “Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Oh and at the top is a picture of what a big set looks like.

…I can understand Jefferson’s concern about separation of church and state when you read what the Muslim Saudi’s just did.  Afraid men will use cats or dogs to pick up girls, they just banned the sale of all pets and walking pets outside.  WTH?  The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (the Muslim police there) will confiscate any pets in violation of this new prohibition.

Here religion not only gets involved in Government, but controls it.

This is NOT a function of good government.  What about the pet store owners?  What about the pet owners?  What do they do now?  They can’t walk their dogs?  What is going to happen to all the pets that are confiscated?  Guess!

Reasonable people know the difference between this craziness and Jefferson’s wall of separation.  You know.  I know.  Just Democrats have a hard time knowing.  (Muslim States know, but they don’t care.)  But Democrats use this kind of craziness to scare good citizens into being afraid of their neighbors and their churches.  You should be afraid.  Of the Democrats.  Especially the Dali Bama.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”  Amendment I, U.S. Constitution.

Where in that sentence do you see a separation of Church and State like the Democrats want?  Only Congress is prohibited from establishing a religion, not any other governmental entity.  Second only Congress is prohibited from interfering with the free exercise of YOUR religion.  (But since YOU have the right to freely exercise your religion at the Federal level, no other lower government entity can take that right away from you.  Lower governmental entities can GIVE you MORE rights but they can’t take any away.)

This is a “one way” separation.  The government can’t interfere with your religion at all.  That includes telling you that you can’t show your religion (e.g. exercise it) any way you want.  Here is how Jefferson put it (remember that he wrote the words of the First Amendment):

Document 58

Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptist Association

1 Jan. 1802  Writings 16:281

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

The Founders’ Constitution
Volume 5, Amendment I (Religion), Document 58
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions58.html
The University of Chicago Press

For those who skipped Logic in college, let me introduce you to a new concept.  You can’t invert a logical truth and necessarily have a logical truth.  If A, then B does not equal if B, then A.  For example,  you will agree that all men are mortal.  However the inverse is not true that all mortal beings are men.  Some mortal beings are women.  Everyone that has intentionally flown an airplane into American buildings is a man of Arab descent.  But is is an error to say that all men of Arab descent have flown (or want to fly) airplanes into American buildings.  That is a logical error.  Democrats, however, make this logical error whenever it suits them.  If it is true that the Goverment can’t mess with religion it is not necessarily true that religion can mess with Government.

The Democratic concept of separation of Church and State is just such a logical error.  Just because the State is to stay out of religion does not mean that religion should stay out of the government.  Just because 5 people in Washington have decided to agree to make a logical error in interpreting the Constitution does not make it right.  Read the words of the Consitution again slowly and carefully.

Democrats don’t like religion by and large because God imposes defined boundaries of behavior.  Democrats like to make up the rules as they go along.  God gets in the way.  But being anti-God is not very popular.  So Democrats have to say they are fighting for your Constitutional Rights when they prohibit you from praying in school or otherwise exercising your freedom of religion.  Follow that logic?  Me neither.

Thanks to Tack Cornelius (one of the smartest men I know) for providing the Jefferson quote above.

The Gainesville Diversion center is going to be summarily shut down to save some money.  Saving money is ALWAYS a good thing for government to do.  But do we save some money at the risk of our safety?  Not a good trade.  Like military, public safety is one area you don’t skimp on.

Diversion centers are the places that the probation department can send people to instead of prison when they are too high risk to just release on probation.  The inmates have to work to be there, and the length of stay is up to the behavior of the inmate, and if they misbehave they get sent to prison.  Diversion centers are a good (and cheaper) alternative to the prison system for non-violent felony offenders.

I can’t see how closing any of them would be cheaper AND saferat the same time.  Sure shutting down a facility would save money, but where do the inmates go?  I’m betting they will just be released on regular probation, not sent to another center or to prison.  Probation officers are already overworked and supervising probationers is like herding cats to start with.  So this sudden increase of inmates will just be released to YOUR neighborhood with much less supervision than they have now.

It would be cheaper to just shut down the whole Department of Corrections, but the prisoners need to be housed separately from the rest of society because they are DANGEROUS.  We can save money by shutting down the Sheriff’s Department and Police Departments too.  Hello?  Less is more, but not when it is less public safety.

Read The Times here–>Many lament loss of diversion center

From the story it seems like this is a hack job on North Georgia by the Atlanta crowd.