Georgia students ponder future as schools court disaster
JONESBORO, GA. -- Kyanda Daniels, a junior, ran for miles with the Jonesboro High School track team the other day. When she was done, she stood above the stadium, gasping for air, and wondering what on Earth she was striving for.
"We're in school for nothing, basically," said Daniels, 17. "When I get out my homework, I think to myself, 'Man, why am I doing this?' What college is going to accept us? Who would give us a scholarship?"
Anxiety has engulfed students across Clayton County, a predominantly black area south of Atlanta, ever since they learned their school district could become the first in the nation since the 1960s to lose its accreditation.
Last month, the Southern Assn. of Colleges and Schools recommended that the district's accreditation be revoked Sept. 1 because of ethical violations by its board. The national accreditation commission will vote Saturday...
"We're in school for nothing, basically," said Daniels, 17. "When I get out my homework, I think to myself, 'Man, why am I doing this?' What college is going to accept us? Who would give us a scholarship?"
Anxiety has engulfed students across Clayton County, a predominantly black area south of Atlanta, ever since they learned their school district could become the first in the nation since the 1960s to lose its accreditation.
Last month, the Southern Assn. of Colleges and Schools recommended that the district's accreditation be revoked Sept. 1 because of ethical violations by its board. The national accreditation commission will vote Saturday...
...Clayton County Public Schools' nine-member school board is so "dysfunctional" that it has had difficulty recruiting a superintendent, teachers and bus drivers.
It accuses board members of nepotism, conflicts of interest, micromanagement, lax fiscal responsibility and failure to audit school attendance. One board member, who was ousted this month, is not a legal resident of the county. Another spent more than $500 in taxpayer money at a hotel less than half an hour from her home. Another pushed for a football coach to be fired after he refused to provide her with highlight tapes of her son.
The board, the report said, is inappropriately influenced by "detrimental" outside influences: Four board members are linked to a local for-profit teacher's union called the Metro Assn. of Classroom Educators, which regularly pickets Clayton schools calling for the resignation of principals.
The report cited the case of a board member, who heads the union, steering the board to cancel a successful program in mid-contract because the union did not endorse it. The cancellation, which cost taxpayers more than $1 million, deprived schools of a key academic curriculum.
The school district has the opportunity to "show cause" that it has improved before Sept. 1, but Mike Elgart, president and chief executive of the accreditation association, said that the school system did not seem to be able to repair itself...
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