I live in the best county in America. No, really. The latest example of this is the refusal of school board to participate in a program to fleece taxpayers out of even more money in a federal program called "Race To The Top". Georgia did 'win' $400 million dollars in this, what do you call it, competition.
The basic concept behind it is your school system has to be such an abject failure that the only solution of course is to pour more money at the problem. Cobb County decided not to participate and the reasoning given when the subject came up way back when is sound.
"No. With federal dollars, you know there are long, strong strings attached and at what cost," Sweeney said. "You give up what makes this community so special; local control. ... We have the capacity and the intelligence to do what it takes to improve student achievement while reducing federal government interference. Besides, local control isn't the only expense. Federal programs are usually proven to be very inefficient. The costs for Race To The Top funds from a dollar, resource, administrative and time perspective are likely to outweigh the proposed program cost benefits."
Of course it doesn't hurt that the school system doesn't suck and therefore probably wouldn't have gotten any of the money anyway as evidenced by the largest city school system in the county.
In fact, Marietta City Schools was never eligible for the federal funds, intended to support new approaches to improve schools, because they do not meet the criteria of "low performing" set by federal education officials. To be eligible for RTTT money, a school system must have an overall graduation rate below 60 percent, and Marietta High School has a graduation rate of 83.7 percent.
It is just more proof of how poor performance gets rewarded all in the name of making it 'fair' or 'equal'. I have heard it said many times, and the view is correct, you will get more of the behavior you reward and less of the behavior you punish. At this time in America anybody who succeeds is to be punished and unless the trend is reversed then you are going to get exactly what you have rewarded.
The other reasons this is the best county in America? Our law enforcement is allowed to check the immigration status of anybody they detain for another law violation. Glock was just approved for a building permit to expand their handgun manufacturing facility and another business which sells guns was approved for an indoor shooting range. And the number one reason it is the best, our budget is not in the red. Yet.
No, most of that millions of taxpayer dollars will go to school districts, to line the pockets of the administrators, like Clayton and Dekalb county which are such total and complete failures that they constantly stay on the black list with the school accreditation committees. For more on Clayton county schools check here.
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