Hayden Collins

Education is our future, and we can’t give up on our future: if we short on our children, we will pay for it for decades to come.  Education programs and resources throughout the state were negatively impacted by this year’s budget shortfalls.  Bartow County’s education budget was cut, our alternative school was closed, and teachers were laid off.  I believe we sold off some of our future when we did that. 

In addressing fiscal constraints, elected officials cut programs that can easily be re-established – such as education – instead of addressing obsolete and inefficient government structures.  While these political maneuvers are going back and forth, the educational needs of our children continue to increase.  Changes in business methods, communication and technology are moving at such a pace that our views of education must not merely keep up, they have to prepare for the future in order for our children not to fall behind the rest of the world.   Putting limitations on our instructors to over-test the students for a curriculum that is very narrow – and in some cases even teaching the test because outdated policies require it – does not achieve this goal.

Imagination and education go hand in hand. There’s nothing more rewarding for an instructor than to see a child grow an interest in the subject they’re teaching, and with such an interest, to ask questions that are not only outside the curriculum but show a desire to learn.  Let’s find the way to feed that desire, provide the resources, and take care of our future.

Instead of eliminating programs and personnel, education costs can be reduced by introducing innovative programs to respond to the specific needs of the community’s students. Consider the following: a new, flexible model for education – the Bridge School – that will support the needs of both public and home schools, reducing costs associated with cookie-cutter programs, and providing specialized resources to meet students’ needs and lower the dropout rates. 

By eliminating inefficiency and reducing costs, as well as utilizing innovation in education to replace redundancy with more effective programs, such measures can proactively lower education costs and allow the allocation of resources for reasonable class sizes, teacher retention, and the continuity of educational quality.

Our educational facilities, instructors, and administration must be responsive to meet the challenges of a declining economic pattern.  Tax revenues are not increasing, they are decreasing, and in next year’s legislative session, decisions are going to have to be made about our future.  Education is a treasure, a discovery. 

On my watch, there will be a fight, there will be a fight for our future.  And on my watch, you will be aware of this fight as it is publicized on my web site and in newsletters, so you are informed and you can provide input.  And when it comes time to call for a fight, you will be there fighting with me.  Do not to give up on our future, and lead the state to reexamine at the programs we can no longer afford, and maintain the programs we can not afford to lose.   Education needs a warrior.  Let me carry the fight.