Sunday, August 10, 2008
Quick, Sports, "Hunt's Grunts"

Crossing the I’s, Dotting the T’s

If you haven’t noticed, the Beijing Olympics are under way.

By Hunt Archbold

If you haven’t noticed—and with NBC planning more than 3,600 total hours of coverage, you probably have—the Beijing Olympics are under way. The Peacock Network broadcast only 171 total hours of coverage from the 1996 Atlanta Games, so things have a changed a bit in a dozen years. One thing that hasn’t, however, is the continually updated medal count and the battle for supremacy between China and the United States. There was a time when this statistical comparison was an important part of our national self-esteem. But how important is it if our American athletes haul in the most gold, silver and bronze? Shouldn’t we be more concerned not with the count, but whether we as a nation know how to count? Not to mention add, subtract and divide?

With children from several metro school districts, including those in Atlanta and Fulton County, returning to the classroom this week, the 2008-09 school year is fully under way, as well. Many will be watching as officials from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools visit Clayton County to determine whether the district should lose its accreditation. As many as 300 students, including athletes and academic achievers, have fled to schools in nearby counties because of the possible accreditation loss.

A loss for words was what state School Superintendent Kathy Cox demonstrated last May when attempting to explain how 70 to 80 percent of Georgia’s sixth- and seventh-graders had failed the social studies portion of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, while about 40 percent of Georgia’s 124,000 eighth-graders failed the math. Amazingly, the majority of those students were promoted to the next grade, even though testing law requires students who do not pass to be held back. Cox certainly isn’t kidding when she says she supports “No Child Left Behind."

Speaking of which, news came late last month that about 31 percent of Georgia schools did not meet the testing requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, compared with 18 percent a year ago. Fewer than half of the state’s 389 high schools met the standard, including Atlanta’s Washington High, where parents and students alike protested last week—not because Washington is a low-performing school, but because head football coach Rodney Cofield was told he couldn’t coach the Bulldogs because he signed an assistant principal contract with the school in the spring. 

But then again, this is America, where our priorities have gotten out of whack in regard to athletics and academics. The recent sub-par test scores continue a long history of poor performance by Georgia students; it was only three years ago the state was tied for last in the nation in SAT scores. Which recent news story grabbed your attention more: Was it the Georgia football team being voted No. 1 in the preseason coaches’ poll, or that our state has a budget shortfall of as much as $1.6 billion?

Now, I’m not blaming Bulldog coach Mark Richt for making the big bucks (he’s one of more than 50 college coaches making seven figures this year), because that’s what the market is willing to pay. But while Richt and other football coaches rake it in, the academic institutions they work for are suffering.

In Athens, school officials are bracing for layoffs (an expected 100 faculty and staff positions this year and another 120 next year) that will mean larger classes and fewer course offerings. More than $400,000 could be slashed from the library budget, and there could be about $20 million in cuts to UGA’s nearly $400 million in state funding. And the NCAA’s latest data show that only approximately 5 percent of the 120 Division I-A schools that field a football team operate in the black without drawing from university general funds. Is this right?

The United States’ poverty rate is downright embarrassing when compared to that of other rich nations. It’s not surprising that many of Georgia’s failing schools are in impoverished communities. I can imagine how an impoverished child might find it tough to overcome the obstacles of life, and still be properly trained and motivated to do well in school.

Studies have shown that for Chinese children, doing well in school is considered a reflection on a student’s family and his entire community. Obviously, in America, this isn’t the case. As we celebrate the Olympics these next two weeks, understand that by the time the 2016 Games arrive, China will have twice the number of students graduating from college than the United States and Europe combined, and by 2050 will have an economy twice the size of the U.S.

I’m not saying that Joe B. Dawg fan from Monroe can’t send his hard-earned money to Athens so his beloved Dawgs can win another Sugar Bowl. I’m just saying that if we as a sports-crazed nation don’t wake up, take care of our kids and reprioritize our educational thinking, soon the only sugar bowl is going to be the empty one in the cabinet that long ago stopped holding Mom’s petty cash.

Happy times … and Reading Is Fundamental!  SP