There is a new Republican challenger to State School Superintendent Kathy Cox in her bid for the GOP nomination for reelection.
Dr. John Barge started out as an English teacher at Cass High School in Bartow County nearly 20 years ago. Since then, he has been an assistant principal, a Career, Technical, and Agricultural Education program director, a principal, the State Director for Career, Technical, and Agricultural Education at the State Board of Education, and now serves as the Director of Secondary Education in Bartow County. He is also an adjunct professor at Berry College.
According to his website, his main issues appear to be with the new math curriculum that Georgia started about 5 years ago and the change to single-track education that occurred a couple of years later.
As a former middle school and high school math teacher, I honestly like the new system. Whereas students used to think of concepts such as algebra and geometry as in separate universes, now they see just how much these areas of mathematics truly interact, and can now learn more easily how to select the appropriate tool to solve the problem best.
That said, I tend to agree with him on the single-track issue. To me, there should be a single track for the basics, but that should end around the middle school era. At that point, students should select which path they wish to take, with the college-like ability to “switch majors” at a later time, should they so choose.
One thing that Dr. Barge said in an interview with the Cartersville Daily Tribune sticks out as disingenuous, however. He said that “I can honestly say I’ve been in the shoes at every level and can understand and can advocate for folks at those levels”.
Yet as I described above, he started out as a HS english teacher and proceeded to make his career at the HS level. He has NO experience I can see at the middle school, elementary school, or preschool levels. He also has NO experience in other subjects – such as math, which he is so critical of. (As are most english teachers, in my experience.)
Even though Barge started out and currently works in Bartow County less than two miles from the house I spent my teens and early 20s in, I have never met the guy. That said, I’m sure I’ve got several friends and family members in the area that know him/ have interacted with him, and I do intend to talk to them about him to see what I can find out.
One final note to the Daily Tribune – Jeff Scott dropped out of the race last July. Y’all may want to do some research when you write. 
Stay tuned over the next day or so as I introduce you to two more State School Superintendent candidates who have also filed over the past few weeks.
Jeff,
Do you think it’s possible that Barge meant that he’s been a student, teacher, and administrator and is describing THAT as his “every level”?
Jeff,
I agree with what Tom said.
Also, the new math system is a complete failure. You can’t learn anything because they mix everything together. It’s as if they’ve taken every type of math, cut it up without regards to how the original curriculum fit together, threw it in a pot, mixed it around, and dumped the contents of that pot into three bowls: Math I, Math II, and Math III. It’s impossible to learn anything because once you finally get a faint grasp on the subject at hand you move on to a completely different subject.
You may be interested to hear that Lee County High School, the 2nd best public school in the state, has a 38% failure rate in the new Math system. Clearly, it’s raised the bar too far and made success and true learning impossible.
I was VERY impressed with Richard Woods. Not that I’m endorsing, but right now he’s the best candidate running for the office.
There is at least one other candidate (Richard Woods) that has actual professional experience at every K-12 level.
As a former “education professional”, if *I* hear someone say “every level” in relation to experience, I’m thinking someone that has at least some form of professional experience in ES, MS, AND HS levels. But maybe that’s just me.
The integrated math concept is GREAT – the problem is education culture and proper training. But those are things math teachers have been battling forever.
Jeff, I have to completely disagree with you about Math I,II, and III. Did you know that other states have previously tried this method and dumped it because it was completely ineffective? Did you also know that there are no textbooks for these programs, because no textbook company will make a book series just for Georgia?
Look, I am a trained educator myself, and it took me about 7 years after I graduated from college and did some studying on education methodology on my own to realize that just about everything I learned in college about education was liberal nonsense and is designed to dumb kids down. I challenge you to read Charlotte Iserbyt’s The Deliberate Dumbing Down of American Education and anything by John Taylor Gatto,and your eyes will be opened. With my own children, who I am glad to be homeschooling, we use as old of materials as we can. After using Ray’s Arithmetic (published in 1877) up through 6th grade, my oldest started Algebra in 7th and it was easier! She and I had to learn to extract square roots in the 6th grade. I was an honors student, and as I was figuring it out with her, I just couldn’t remember doing that. When she got to square roots in algebra this year, I realized why I didn’t remember…we never did that! They just gave us a chart and we estimated.
Do some studying on education, and you will see that this integration is more harmful, because you never learn any concept thoroughly, and are left without the depth of knowledge to do anything well. All of the “progress” in American education in the 20th century was modeled after the Prussians, and was more assembly line oriented.
It was hard for me to admit that everything I believed about education was wrong, and even to admit that some of my classroom practices when I taught were wrong, but now I can see how our country has gotten into the mess we are in.
As a single mother of four with no formal education to speak of, I have had to rely on the university of hard knocks to raise my daughters. Having come through the ranks of both private and public education in four different states, I have witnessed many aspects of teaching methods. I have a child currently enrolled in the “new math” approach and I have had huge concerns for her future since she has a desire to pursue advanced levels of education.
I have heard comments from my daughter and others that the teachers have not even received materials for what they are teaching and they are re-learning material. When I enrolled my daughter I did not sign on to an experiment and I do not remember ever signing an agreement to take her away from the typical program of study that will ensure her career in college.
I am relieved that Dr. Barge is looking beyond a self serving ideal and seems to have real life concerns for the future of Georgia’s children. He has my attention.