State superintendent candidates tout more money for schools, less standardized testing

Eight candidates for state school superintendent tried to win votes in Clarke County Wednesday night — all six Democratic candidates and two of the nine Republicans running.
Only two candidates from each party can make a runoff election, which is likely in both races.
With so many candidates on the stage in the Athens-Clarke County Library auditorium, none had a chance to present more than a little of their platforms. But each tried to address key points, or got to answer a panelist’s pointed question.
Democrat Denise Freeman called for re-funding state public education after many years of de-funding.
“If we can spend $35,000 to house a prisoner, we should able to be able to spend whatever we need to ensure the future of education,” Freeman said.

Traffic kept some candidates from arriving on time, but the throng of six Democrats and two Republicans handling questions from a panel of students and leaders from the community.

The staggering of the opening statements did not help the overall gathering, but one has to give the pair of Republicans in Kira Willis and Richard Woods that showed up big thumbs up for coming to the last Democratic bastion in the State of Georgia. Denise Freeman made it from Lincoln County, Valarie Wilson from Decatur made the strongest favorable impression in the brief introduction phase. Alisha Thomas Morgan figures to be the front runner with one of the myriad of other Democratic candidates including Tarnisha Dent or Jarnita Forehand Mays or Rita Robinzine from Druid Hills as one of the other candidates making the seemingly inevitable run off.

I was saddened not to hear from more Republicans like Ashley Bell of Gainesville or Todd Rehm's candidate in Nancy Jester.

A disproportionate amount of HOPE scholarship dollars go to upper-income students, but that needs to change, said Democrat Tarnisha Dent.
“When they changed the HOPE requirement, that crushed over 100,000 children. These scholarships need to be based on need,” Dent said.
Several candidates criticized the state’s new teacher evaluation system, which relies heavily on test scores, including Democrat Valarie Wilson.
“Teachers don’t mind being evaluated, but it is not fair,” Wilson said.
Wilson, a former president of the Georgia School Boards Association, called for a halt to turning public dollars over to private schools.
“I’m very opposed to anything that moves public education away from public education,” Wilson said.
Jurita Mays called for more rigor at every grade level, beginning at the earliest grade levels.
“We have to decide right now, today, what we want to do about getting our children to the top,” Mays said.