2015Education Issue
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JULY/AUGUST2015 JAMESAN INSIDE VIEW INTO GEORGIA’S NEWS, POLITICS & CULTURE 2015 EDUCATION ISSUE COLUMNS BY HUGH ACHESON // DEAN ALFORD // JOSH BELINFANTE // LAURA MARGARET BURBACH RANDY EVANS // JIM KINGSTON // MAC McGREW // GARY REESE // MATT TOWERY // LARRY WALKER Y E A R S OF 100championing & job ECONOMIC GROWTH creation, increasing the quality of life for all Georgians, supporting tax, regulatory and legal policies to help your business grow, RAISING EDUCATION STANDARDS because those kids are going to be running our companies, promoting a career-ready, GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE WORKFORCE, advocating for policies that enhance our BUSINESS CLIMATE from the mountains to the coast, building the ENSURING INFRASTRUCTURE, to health care, and transportation system we need, ACCESS partnering with ELECTED OFFICIALS, local and regional chambers and business leaders and WORKING TOGETHER. CELEBRATING A CENTURY OF LEADERSHIP With the support of thousands of members and investors statewide, the Georgia Chamber is proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past 100 years to create a better state of business. Join and lead today at gachamber.com. DEPARTMENTS Publisher’s Message 4 Floating Boats 6 FEATURES Thinking About Legacies JAMES by Matt Towery 15 P.O. BOX 724787 ATLANTA, GEORGIA 31139 James Ranks Georgia’s 404 • 233 • 3710 Colleges & Universities 22 PUBLISHED BY INTERNET NEWS AGENCY LLC Q&A with GOP House Majority Leader Jon Burns 33 CHAIRMAN MATTHEW TOWERY COLUMNS CEO & PUBLISHER PHIL KENT [email protected] CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER LOUIE HUNTER Governor Deal’s Upcoming Judicial Appointments by Randy Evans 8 ASSOCIATE EDITOR GARY REESE ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES PATTI PEACH [email protected] A Wake-Up Call for the American Dream: MARKETING REPRESENTATIVE MELANIE DOBBINS The Importance of Early Learning [email protected] by Laura Margaret Burbach 10 CIRCULATION PATRICK HICKEY [email protected] Judge J.L. Edmondson: A Wonderful Mentor CONTRIBUTING WRITERS by Josh Belinfante 12 HUGH ACHESON DEAN ALFORD JOSH BELINFANTE Could My A- Grade Become an A+? LAURA MARGARET BURBACH by Larry Walker 17 RANDY EVANS JIM KINGSTON MAC McGREW Summer Meals: GARY REESE Great for Kids, Great for Georgia MATT TOWERY LARRY WALKER by Hugh Acheson 19 VISIT INSIDERADVANTAGE.COM Building Georgia’s Knowledge-Based Economy SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DAILY INTERNET NEWS SERVICE by Dean Alford 21 $17.50/MONTH & RECEIVE JAMES FOR FREE CHECK OUT OUR SISTER PUBLICATION: Bond Portfolios & Income: SOUTHERNPOLITICALREPORT.COM Preparing for Higher Interest Rates by Mac McGrew 37 DESIGN & LAYOUT BURTCH HUNTER DESIGN Georgia Southern University’s Growing Economic Impact by Gary Reese 38 PUBLISHER’S MESSAGE Fighting the ‘Dumbing Down’ of America Several years ago Emory University English professor Mark course in private market/capitalist economics. Only FIVE Bauerlein authored a cogent but disturbing book titled The require a survey course in U.S. history. Dumbest Generation. I spied it in my library and decided to Our founding fathers hoped that an informed citizenry reread it. I’ll share some timely passages since this is our would translate into good citizens and voters, but clearly all too James education issue. Bauerlein begins: many public universities are failing in this core mission. The study of the nation’s top universities discovered many schools “… (W)hile teens and young adults have absorbed digital tools also fail to provide students with key skills they will need in the into their daily lives like no other age group, while they have 21st century, such as competence in a foreign language. grown up with more knowledge and information readily at hand, The good news, however, is that all is not lost. There are taken more classes, built their own web sites, enjoyed more bright spots found in the ACTA study and some are in Georgia. libraries, bookstores and museums in their towns and cities … ACTA’s “What Will They Learn” researchers reviewed the core in sum, while the world has provided them extraordinary curriculum of Georgia’s institutions of higher education in the chances to gain knowledge and improve their reading/writing following key categories: composition, literature, foreign lan- skills, not to mention offering financial incentives to do so, guage, economics, mathematics and science. Four Georgia young Americans today are no more learned or skillful than their educational institutions were graded with an “A”— the predecessors, no more knowledgeable, fluent, up-to-date, or University of Georgia, Clark Atlanta University, Kennesaw inquisitive, except in the materials of the youth culture.” State University and Morehouse College. ACTA especially sin- gled out UGA’s core curriculum as “magnificent,” saying: The professor then laments that “they read less on their “As a public ‘Ivy,’ it has a core curriculum that outshines own, both books and newspapers, and you would have to can- all of the actual Ivies. Students at UGA take a two-semester vass a lot of college English instructors and employers before sequence that integrates composition and literature; they also you found one who said that they can compose better para- study foreign languages, American history and the U.S. graphs. In fact, their technology skills fall well short of the com- Constitution, mathematics and the natural sciences.” mon claim, too, especially when they must apply themselves to Morehouse College notes that its educational core curricu- research and workplace tasks.” He believed young people lum “consists of 53 semester hours of required coursework in were drifting, “camped in the desert, passing stories, pictures humanities, mathematics, natural sciences and social sciences and texts back and forth, living off the thrill of peer attention.” plus a set of other educational experiences which, all together, It may have gotten worse since Bauerlein’s book are intended to produce learning outcomes in the following appeared. You’ve probably seen television reporters do ran- areas: critical thinking, analytical abilities and problem-solving; dom interviews with young people (college students!) who, citizenship; communication; ethical judgment and behavior; among other things, don’t know their representatives in knowledge of the natural world; leadership; philosophy and reli- Congress or can’t even answer which side won the Civil War. gion; and the interdependence of nations and cultures.” They have not embraced the cultural and civic inheritance Another bright spot is our encouragement of innovations that made our country great. by researchers. Three Georgia universities— Georgia Tech, It is a timely reminder that young people need great Emory and UGA— are among the top 100 universities in the teachers and mentors who represent something far better world for the number of U.S. utility patents granted in 2014. than their latest Facebook or Twitter posts. (Be sure to read These patents are issued for the invention of a new and use- attorney Josh Belinfante’s article on his mentor.) ful process or machine. Read Regent Dean Alford’s article But here’s the big question: Are students and taxpayers about this “knowledge economy” and how the Board of getting their money’s worth as tuition costs rise at our col- Regents is striving to keep our state and nation economically leges and universities? The Washington-based American competitive with the world. If we play our cards right, the Council of Trustees and Alumni has done its homework in dumbing down of our young students can be reversed. answering this question, and its findings are instructive. What is especially startling is that, of the nation’s 52 top- ranked public universities reviewed by ACTA researchers last year, not ONE requires an economics course, let alone a 4 JAMES Solutions for Business & Government (PWFSONFOU3FMBUJPOT 1SPDVSFNFOU Ta x Polic y $POTVMUJOH GEORGIA Bank of America Plaza | 600 Peachtree Street, NE | Suite 5200 Contacts Atlanta, GA 30308-2216 Pete Robinson, Chairman Tel: 404.879.6500 | Toll Free: 888.879.6578 | Fax: 404.962.6919 Rob Willis, Principal Atlanta r Raleigh r3JDINPOEr8BTIJOHUPO %$ XXXUSPVUNBOTBOEFSTTUSBUFHJFTDPN FLOATING• BOATS WHO’S RISING AND WHO’S SINKING IN GEORGIA BUSINESS AND POLITICS Atlanta along with Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton counties fiscal year ending June 30 will go to pre-kindergarten and are criticized for being “sanctuaries” for illegal immi- HOPE Scholarships for college students. By the way, grants, since local law enforcers don’t always cooperate since its inception, more than $8 billion in lottery pro- with the feds to detain criminal aliens. (Fulton may be ceeds have been appropriated and distributed to over 1.6 rethinking this policy.) Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, million HOPE Scholarship recipients and more than $5 wants to end the practice (as well as deny driver’s licens- billion has been appropriated to send more than 1.3 mil- es to illegals). The defenders of “sanctuaries,” who aren’t lion 4 year old kids to pre-k programs. The Lottery ship, putting public safety first, are…SINKING with its new games, is…RISING As rumors swirl about Atlanta receiving a Super Bowl Members of the Atlanta City Council’s Community in the Falcons’ new stadium in 2019 or 2020, similar talks Development Committee voiced criticisms over a pro- are being had regarding an upcoming college national posed $3.6 billion expansion of the Atlanta Streetcar. The championship game. Atlanta, Charlotte, New Orleans, push back comes as a result of the plan’s lack of empha- Miami, and Minneapolis,