By Dr. John Trotter

   What can improve education in the middle schools?  This is the question.  The answer: Some real D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E.  The middle school students are coddled and pampered, resulting in the bullies running the schools.  The administrators are afraid to discipline the bullies.  Hence, there is a reign of terror.  Example:  Look at the chaos in Crawford Lewis's DeKalb County School System.  When a teacher does try to discipline a student, so many times the teacher is sent to see State Senator Ronald Ramsey or Robin Goolsby in the Office of Internal Resolutions.  We have had many complaints from teachers how this Office immediately talks down to the teacher and takes a posture that the teacher is guilty.  The administrators are terrified about parents taking complaints to the school board.  Crawford Lewis and his entire adminstration need to go.  If the school board does not get rid of Crawford Lewis, then the voters need to vote out everyone of the  members of the DeKalb County Board of Education!  This is particularly true for Sara Coplin-Wood. 

   The whole theory behind the middle school concept which came in vogue in the 1980s was a desire to coddle the little babies in middle school.  It has never worked.  It never accomplished anything in Georgia (or elsewhere) except to bring chaos to the schools.  In fact, the General Assembly a few years ago took away the financial incentives for middle schools in Georgia.  The middle school concept was again another trendy educational fad which proved demonstratively to be a flop.

   At MACE, we simply believe that good discipline is the key to good education.  The private schools understand this and hardly venture away from the model of good discipline.  The public schools left this model years ago -- especially school systems like DeKalb County.  At MACE, our mantra is this:  "You cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions."  (c) MACE, July 2, 2009.