“The Cartel” Filmmaker Posts New Video on APS Test Cheating Scandal
Mike Klein
Documentary filmmaker Bob Bowdon – whose celebrated movie “The Cartel” probed deep into failures at New Jersey inner city schools – released a new internet video today about the Atlanta Public Schools test cheating scandal. His report can be viewed on ChoiceMedia.TV which debuted just one week ago. The new site is aggregating education stories from all over.
Bowdon’s report begins with WSB-TV’s Monica Pearson: “Late this afternoon a statement on behalf of Superintendent Beverly Hall insisted she was not aware of widespread cheating.” An off-camera voice says, “Answers changed to right ones by teachers after students had turned in their tests.” NBC News anchor Brian Williams says, “There is disturbing news out of Atlanta, Georgia tonight about a major academic cheating scandal in the city’s public school system.”
Disturbing, yes, and possibly corrupt. Over the past two years Atlanta was thrust into headlines first by the Atlanta Journal – Constitution newspaper and later by other media for the worst reasons. Prosecutors in three Atlanta metro counties will decide whether to indict any of 178 persons named in a special prosecutors’ investigation. Former superintendent Hall is among those who might one day face criminal charges linked to the massive test cheating scandal.
Bowdon asked Georgia Public Policy Foundation President Kelly McCutchen whether increased emphasis on standardized testing created too much pressure on not just students, but also their instructors. “If you get rid of testing the other extreme is just as damaging,” McCutchen says. “We’re going to leave teachers in schools that continuously over time let students fall through the cracks. That is just as damaging as the cheating scandal. This is the real world. We are graded and bench marked every day in everything we do.”
Documentary Filmmaker Bob Bowdon
When we spoke Friday I asked Bowdon for his take on what happened in Atlanta schools. “My takeaway is that (teachers) for a generation were never held accountable so there were great ones, mediocre ones and bad ones. Excellence was not rewarded and failure was not dealt with,” Bowdon said. In recent years, student tests became a larger part of teacher evaluations.
Teachers “felt they were being unfairly evaluated because there was no evaluation baseline,” Bowdon said. “That’s why they felt a certain kind of righteous indignation about it and moral permissiveness such that cheating on these tests would be okay because, after all, these people don’t have any right to measure me.
“The mentality that drove that was a very small percentage of teachers,” Bowdon said. “It must always be explained that way and people must always be reminded of that but nevertheless, it was not a small number of teachers.”
One of the film’s poignant moments is a segment with Atlanta schools parent Molly Bardsley:
“I don’t know what was worse, the whole scandal or the way the scandal was covered up and denied,” Bardsley tells Bowdon. “There was denial after denial after denial. There were even accusations of racism that if you discounted these achievement gains somehow it was because you didn’t believe poor minority students could achieve.”
Bowdon is best known for last year’s New Jersey schools film “The Cartel” that explains how unions and other entrenched forces collaborated to bring down the quality of Camden, New Jersey public schools. “The Cartel” will be screened this fall at film festivals in Colorado Springs and Indianapolis. Thousands of DVDs have been sold and it continues to book theater dates.
ChoiceMedia.TV – his new project – was launched because Bowdon said education in general and reform in particular is under covered by most news media. “This is our attempt at its simplest level to address the failure of traditional news media to give attention to education.”
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
White House Drops a Water Balloon onto No Child Left Behind
Mike Klein
President Barack Obama has dropped a water balloon onto No Child Left Behind.
“In my State of the Union address this year I said Congress should reform No Child Left Behind law based on principles that have guided Race to the Top,” Obama said Friday morning at the White House. The President stamped his approval onto new education performance guidelines that the administration says were developed by governors and educators nationwide.
“I want to say, the goals behind No Child Left Behind were admirable,” Obama said during a carefully crafted appearance that allowed for no questions. “President (George W.) Bush deserves credit for that. Higher standards are the right goal. Accountability is the right goal. Closing the achievement gap is the right goal. We’ve got to stay focused on those goals.”
But he continued, “Experience has taught us that in its implementation No Child Left Behind had some serious flaws that are hurting our children instead of helping.” Obama said, “I have urged Congress for a while now; let’s get a bipartisan effort, let’s fix this. Congress hasn’t been able to do it. So, I will. Starting today we’ll be giving states more flexibility to meet high standards.”
The White House released a two-page single spaced description of new guidelines that were developed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan with input from school system leaders nationwide. One feature is common core standards that 44 states including Georgia will use next year.
(Watch the White House statement by President Obama)
Another feature would grant waivers from the NCLB mandate that 100% of students nationwide achieve reading/language arts and mathematics proficiency by 2014. Duncan has said 82% of schools nationally could fail to achieve NCLB goals next year, which means they would be labeled “failure schools” regardless of any other academic achievements.
Many educators who include Georgia state Schools Superintendent John Barge agree the 2014 goals are unattainable. This week Barge and Georgia U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson delivered the state’s NCLB waiver request to Duncan during a meeting in Washington D.C. Isakson and Barge also delivered the state’s proposal that would replace dreaded Annual Yearly Progress reports with a new model to measure performance over multiple years and also using other data.
No Child Left Behind could still be rewritten by Congress but the administration is placing its new bet on an enhanced Race to the Top style model. “Show us the most innovative plans to improve teacher quality and student achievement, we’ll show you the money,” President Obama said Friday. “We want to provide you more resources but there’s also got to be a commitment on your part to make the changes that are necessary so we can see actual results.”
The President was introduced by Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam who said, “As a Republican I might not always agree with this administration on some policy issues or maybe even the role of federal government, but when there are some things that we can work together on then we should. This is one of the issues that we can work together on.”
During opening remarks Obama noted that Duncan who lurked tall behind him is “probably the finest basketball player ever in the Capitol.” We will allow just a little wiggle room here for his long-time Chicago pal, although the President clearly overlooked former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley whose 1983 election to the National Basketball Association Hall of Fame capped a stunning career.
The lanky Bradley was NCAA Player of the Year at Princeton and a 1964 Olympian before he won two NBA championship rings during ten years with the New York Knicks. Bradley earned the NBA nickname “Dollar Bill” for his uncanny ability to hit big shots under pressure. The President can only hope Race to the Top is as successful as Bill Bradley playing basketball.
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
Georgia Executes Troy Davis … as Slain Police Officer’s Son Watches
Mike Klein
Troy Davis was executed Wednesday in Georgia. His death is certain to fuel more extreme outrage from those who believe Davis was wrongly executed, even as the lethal injection brought some relief to the family of a police officer whom Davis was convicted of killing.
Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark Allen MacPhail was shot three times on August 19, 1989 when he responded to a man’s call for help. The police officer was moonlighting as a security guard at a fast food restaurant. MacPhail was shot twice. He fell. He never pulled his gun. After falling, he was shot once more, point blank in the face as he lay helpless on the ground.
Davis, who was just 20 years old, surrendered four days later. He was convicted of murder in August, 1991 and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld his conviction and death sentence in February, 1993. Over nearly two decades the Davis case became a rallying point for anti-death penalty advocates and for people who genuinely believe the verdict was wrong.
His case was appealed to every level of federal court including the U.S. Supreme Court. It went back before the state Supreme Court 15 years after the Court first affirmed the death sentence. In the end, the best chance that Davis had was on Monday when his attorneys went to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to ask for clemency, meaning life in prison with or without parole.
Tuesday morning the board denied that petition. MacPhail’s family expressed satisfaction with the decision. But that did not stop Davis supporters. Hundreds rallied Tuesday evening at the State Capitol in Atlanta. One state senator even boldly suggested Department of Corrections employees should refuse to work on Wednesday to protest the possible Davis execution.
Troy Anthony Davis
On Wednesday morning, the final morning of Troy Davis’ life, his attorneys arrived at the state prison in Jackson prepared to administer a polygraph test to Davis who repeatedly denied he was the shooter who killed police officer MacPhail. The attorneys were turned away.
Celebrities used Twitter to campaign for clemency. Protestors marched outside the White House, even though President Barack Obama was in New York for meetings at the United Nations. A media circus took up death watch positions outside the Jackson state prison in central Georgia. Rev. Al Sharpton showed up to hold a prayer service and lead protestors.
Davis’ attorneys filed a petition in Butts County Superior Court that said ballistics evidence cited in the 1991 trial had been discredited. Using that argument, attorneys asked that the execution be stayed. That request was denied so his attorneys appealed to the state Supreme Court. That request was denied. The justices also denied Davis’ request for a new hearing.
Unable to find relief, and with less than an hour remaining until the execution, Davis’s attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. President Obama declined to get involved during the final hour. Seven o’clock came and went. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty minutes. Half an hour. Forty-five minutes. One hour. Two hours, then three hours. Word came after 10:00pm ET that the U.S. Supreme Court denied the motion for a stay of execution. Troy Davis’ fate was sealed.
Mark Allen MacPhail
More than any other execution case in Georgia history, the Davis – MacPhail case fueled sets of competing emotions: Anger from those who believe the verdict was wrong along with anger from those who oppose the death penalty for any reason and equal determination from the MacPhail family, the original prosecutor and others who contend the 1991 jury got it right.
Doubt existed because seven trial court witnesses later recanted their testimony. Two jurors signed statements requesting clemency for Davis and a third who testified at the pardons and parole hearing this week said she no longer believed in the verdict. There has been much discussion for many years about a third person who allegedly claimed he shot MacPhail.
With so much doubt about the identity of the killer and the trial itself, internationally prominent people too numerous to mention and at least one government urged clemency for Davis.
Former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu and many others from public life appealed for his clemency. Hundreds of thousands signed clemency petitions. The French government expressed regret about the parole board decision.
The majority of Davis’ final hours were spent waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court decision on this, his fourth scheduled date to die by execution. Three times, most recently in 2008, Davis had received a late stay. Earlier during his final day Davis spent several hours with family and friends. He declined a last meal.
Media members who witnessed the execution said that given his chance to make a final statement, Davis told members of the MacPhail family that he did not have a gun and he did not kill the police officer.
Troy Anthony Davis was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 11:08 p.m.
Mark Allen MacPhail’s son and his brother watched Davis die.
What Should You Expect to Pay for Your Dog’s Knee Transplant?
Mike Klein
What should you expect to pay for your dog’s knee replacement? Should what you pay for your dog to have his knees fixed bear any relationship to fixing your own knees? What determines the cost for knee replacements, whether the surgery is done here or overseas?
Writing this week on his national Health Care Policy blog, health care economist John Goodman asked, “Why is the price of a knee replacement for a dog — involving the same technology and the same medical skills that are needed for humans — less than 1/6th the price a typical health insurance company pays for human operations?”
Goodman also posed this question: “How is a Canadian able to come to the United States and get a knee replacement for less than half of what Americans are paying?”
And this question: “How are Canadians getting knee replacements in the U.S. able to pay only a few thousand dollars more than medical tourists pay in India, Singapore and Thailand – places where the price is supposed to be a fraction of what we typically pay in this country?”
There is very little national debate about dog health care costs but human health care is entirely another issue. It fundamentally and deeply personally scares nearly everyone who might one day be forced to assume his or her own extreme health care costs or those for others, their loved ones. And it is well documented that human health care costs are eating the economy, whether that economy be the private sector economy or the public sector economy.
John Goodman, President and Founder, National Center for Policy Analysis
Goodman – whose National Center for Policy Analysis created the health savings account idea – will participate in a medical malpractice reform panel and also deliver a keynote address at next week’s Georgia Public Policy Foundation legislative briefing. The Friday, September 30 conference is open to the public at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
Goodman’s address, “Free Our Health Care Now,” is expected to build on ideas the NCPA founder published soon after President Barack Obama issued a challenge to U.S. House Republicans: “If you have a better idea, show it to me.” Goodman responded with a 10-point proposal in a Wall Street Journal commentary that was republished on the NCPA site.
Goodman’s response to Obama’s challenge: Make insurance affordable through tax relief, make health insurance portable, meet the needs of the chronically ill, allow doctors and patients to control costs, don’t cut Medicare, protect early retirees, inform consumers, eliminate junk lawsuits, stop health care fraud, and make medical breakthroughs accessible to patients.
Today the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — sometimes referred to as Obama Care – remains under constant scrutiny from conservatives. Twenty-eight states that consider it unconstitutional went to federal court and their case will most likely be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court sometime next year.
Incidentally, if you are still wondering about the comparative costs for dog and human knee transplant surgery, Goodman noted in this week’s blog that while humans generally spend the first couple days recovering in the hospital or in a nearby hotel, dogs usually recover in cages. We are not aware of any new proposed policy for humans to also recover in cages.
Click here for more information and to register for the Friday, September 30 conference.
Other Conference Keynote Speakers:
Bernie Marcus
Bernie Marcus is co-founder of The Home Depot. Along with his wife Billi, Marcus funded development and construction of the Georgia Aquarium which is one of the world’s leading aquarium research facilities. The Marcus Institute in Atlanta provides comprehensive services to children and adolescents with developmental disabilities. The Marcus Foundation also funded a state-of-the-art bio-terrorism unit at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Marcus will discuss “How to Make Georgia a Leader in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.”
Michael Horn
Michael Horn is co-founder and executive director of education at the Innosight Institute in Mountain View, California, south of San Francisco. Clayton M. Christensen, Horn and Curtis W. Johnson are co-authors of “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.” Christensen, Horn and Jason Hwang co-founded the Innosight Institute four years ago to focus on health care and education policy research and writing. Horn will discuss “The Promise of Online Learning.”
Lee Hicks
Lee Hicks is founder and chief executive officer of Atlanta-based C PORT Solutions which specializes in high end communications and video conference products for several industries including health care. Clients include the Walt Disney Company, Proctor and Gamble, Toyota, Boeing, IBM, AT&T, Medtronic and Med Assets. This year the Atlanta-based consumer giant Newell Rubbermaid and C PORT announced their partnership in a new health care division. Hicks will discuss “Keeping Innovative Startup Companies and Jobs in Georgia.”
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
Gwinnett County Incubates its First Online Campus High School
Mike Klein
The last time we spoke this past summer Principal Christopher Ray was just weeks away from opening his first high school. The former elementary principal still needed pupils, teachers and curriculum. But launch it did this fall as Gwinnett Online Campus opened a blended learning high school that combines virtual courses with personal and group time with instructors.
“The first year has been about getting people to understand what we’re all about, what are the requirements,” Ray said this week. “I thought my previous job was hard. This job is mentally exhausting. You’re constantly thinking, ‘What can we do?’ The technology constantly evolves.” Ray has nearly two decades in the Gwinnett County Public Schools system, the last seven as an elementary principal.
Gwinnett is the state’s largest public system with 160,000 students. About one fourth are high school students. The county began to offer supplemental online learning more than a decade ago and last year 5,000 students enrolled in at least one course. This fall Gwinnett took its first steps into an online blended learning high school that is also an incubator for lower grades.
“One of the major pieces is orientation, connecting students with the technology, walking them through how the courses are taught, also working with them on study skills, study strategies,” Ray said. “What is your plan for this course? What is your study time? How will you schedule that? What support do you have at home? This has been a big learning experience for us.”
Gwinnett Online Campus is actually three programs. The blended learning high school is a charter authorized by the local county board of education. Gwinnett Online continues to operate its robust supplemental course network for students in traditional classroom and has served more than 30,000 total students since its inception. The third component is credit recovery — known as Guided Study — for high school students who need to retake a course they failed in traditional classrooms.
Christopher Ray, Principal, Gwinnett County Online Campus High Schol
Gwinnett Online Campus – the high school – opened in August with 160 students. About one-fourth have withdrawn. Some returned to traditional classrooms. Some were dropouts who tried online blended learning but found the experience too rigorous. “They had difficulty adjusting,” Ray said. One family with three online learners moved to Connecticut. “We’ve had other students who had babies,” Ray said. “That has impacted their schedules.”
The difference between traditional and virtual classrooms is not just a student experience. One faculty member told Ray, “I didn’t sign up for this,” and withdrew from the online campus program. In the brick-and-mortar classroom, students arrive and leave when the bell rings. Blended learning is point-and-click; within reason, teacher – student communication can happen almost anytime.
Social media is a big part of the idea. Gwinnett Online Campus high school has an impressive website. It also uses Twitter and Facebook for announcements and interesting tidbits. Students and instructors are connected through Google mail accounts. Learning tools include Blackboard – the online resource formerly known as Elluminate – and the online learning company Desire 2 Learn.
This year is an incubator for many reasons. “What are our procedures?” Ray said. “What are our systems? What are our expectations? When we find a student, what support do we give them? These kids are ours.”
High school expansion, launching an online middle school in fall 2012 and an online upper elementary school in fall 2013 are among the next generation goals. Ray said Gwinnett is considering middle school “online home rooms” to foster a common identity. “I know with the middle school students we are talking about bringing them in a half day a week,” Ray said.
The online calendar is built around four mini-semesters that operate generally within the same timeline as the August-to-May traditional school year, but learning can be accelerated. More than 180 courses are available. Foreign languages enrollment was greater than Gwinnett anticipated. New advanced math courses will be added later this year.
Ray said Gwinnett will evaluate the mix of full-time and adjunct faculty. He would like to identify African-American and Hispanic male teachers as good role models for boys. “Role models are very important to the kids,” Ray said. “If I had the opportunity to hire an African-American man who wanted to work with children, it’s such an asset.”
Addendum: Here are three more well regarded fully online or blended learning programs.
Georgia Virtual School, grades 9-12, all students statewide
Cobb Virtual Academy, grades 9-12, local school students
Forsyth County iAchieve Virtual Academy, grades 6-12, local school students
Michael Horn
Interested in learning more about online and blended learning?
Innovative educator Michael Horn will discuss “The Promise of Online Learning” on Friday, September 30, at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation’s second annual legislative policy briefing which is open to the public. The location is the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. Click here for additional event information. Horn is co-founder and executive director of education at the Innosight Institute. He is the author of “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.”
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
Georgia Appears Ready to Execute Young Police Officer’s Convicted Killer
Mike Klein
A Georgia man whose execution sentence sparked international debate is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Wednesday night, more than two decades after he allegedly gunned down a Savannah police officer, and four years after Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI intervened to ask that the convicted killer’s life be spared.
The Troy Davis – Mark Allen MacPhail case began on August 19, 1989. That is when off-duty police officer MacPhail was gunned down in the parking lot of a Savannah fast food restaurant where he was working security. MacPhail, married and the father of two young children, was shot at point blank range and never drew his revolver. Davis, then 20 years old, surrendered four days later. Davis was convicted of murder in August 1991 and sentenced to death.
Two decades have passed since MacPhail was shot dead. The parking lot incident began when a homeless man cried out that he was being beaten and MacPhail responded. Davis is now a 42-year-old man spending what might become his final hours at the state prison near Jackson in central Georgia. He is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 7:00pm Wednesday. Davis appears to have no further possible federal or state appeals.
Mark Allen MacPhail, Slain Savannah Police Officer (Press Release Photo)
The state parole board heard testimony all day Monday and announced its decision Tuesday morning: ”Monday September 19, 2011, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles met to consider a clemency request from attorneys representing condemned inmate Troy Anthony Davis. After considering the request, the Board has voted to deny clemency.” In Georgia, clemency is granted by the state board and the governor does not rule on clemency.
The five-member board had three options: Uphold the execution sentence or re-sentence Davis to life in prison with or without parole. The statement released Tuesday did not disclose how the board voted. This was the third hearing for Davis before the state board since 2007.
The Davis – MacPhail case has evolved into a two-decade long debate over facts, the witness testimony and doubts expressed by some jurors. Seven of nine witnesses recanted testimony. One juror who testified at Monday’s hearing requested clemency for Davis because she now has doubts about her vote. Two other jurors signed statements also asking for clemency.
It also became an international story. Former President Jimmy Carter, former state Supreme Court chief justice Norman Fletcher, former FBI Director William Sessions, the NAACP and Amnesty International, along with Nobel laureate Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI have all sought clemency for Davis, as did several hundred thousand people who signed petitions.
The Davis – MacPhail case has spent two decades in state and federal courts. Davis’ death sentence was unanimously affirmed by the state Supreme Court in 1993. Fifteen years later on a 4-3 vote the state’s highest court rejected Davis’s request for a new hearing.
Troy Davis (Georgia Department of Corrections Photo)
A federal court in Savannah denied Davis’ appeal in 2004 and two years later that ruling was upheld by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The U.S. Supreme Court granted an emergency stay of execution in September 2008 two hours before Davis’ scheduled death.
One month later the federal Supreme Court declined to take the case, but in 2009 it did order a new U.S. District Court hearing that would provide Davis with an opportunity to submit evidence to prove his innocence. A federal judge who heard testimony for two days in Savannah decided there was not credible new evidence to overturn the execution sentence.
Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail’s mother, his widow, son and daughter attended the Monday parole board hearing in Atlanta, as did the sister and other relatives of Troy Davis.
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park Field of Flags
Glad to share these photographs which I took on Sunday morning September 11 during the 9/11 Memorial Service.
There is one flag for each American who lost his or her life on September 11, 2001.
Click on individual photographs to view larger images.
Is Juvenile Justice the Missing Link in Georgia Corrections Reform?
Mike Klein
Golfers love being on the leader board. Corrections officials, not so much as there is nothing to celebrate about Georgia being the national leader with the highest percentage of its adults under corrections system supervision. The ratio is 1-in-13 and it is the worst in the country.
Not only does it cost lots of money – more than $1 billion per year in state dollars to run prisons – but lofty incarceration, probation and parole statistics send the wrong message nationally and internationally when Georgia tries to market itself as a leading edge economy and destination.
Over the next several months you will hear extensive discussion about adult corrections system reform. A commission created by the 2011 General Assembly was told to develop proposals to streamline Georgia corrections without an adverse impact on public safety. The report is due to Governor Nathan Deal in seven weeks, with legislation possible next year.
Not much of the process is being conducted in public – there have been just three public meetings – and the process does not include a juvenile justice system review. That is an unfortunate and perhaps costly oversight. Doesn’t it make sense that a high percentage of adults who commit felonies and fill our prisons began their criminal careers as troubled youths?
Fulton Superior Court Chief Judge Cynthia Wright
“It seems to me that if we were to concentrate a lot of our efforts more in the juvenile justice arena then we might have greater success later in terms of reducing the crime rate,” said Judge Cynthia Wright, chief judge of the Fulton County Superior Court. Wright appeared on a public safety panel hosted by Women in Leadership this week at The Commerce Club.
“I know that our (Fulton County) juvenile court judges have said that we don’t really have a lot of options where to send violent kids,” Wright said. “The amount of time that they can spend in any sort of detention facility has been reduced down to almost nothing. These kids go through the juvenile court and they are right back out on the street again.”
Crime is a repeat and often a family business. ”I keep seeing the same people I sent off before (and) generationally, see their family members,” said Superior Court Judge Michael Boggs who serves on the Waycross Judicial Circuit in southeast Georgia. Boggs is also a corrections reform commission member, and he appeared alongside Wright on the Commerce Club panel.
Georgia adult corrections system numbers are ugly: 56,000 at least in prison and 160,000 on parole or probation. Georgia has the ninth largest state population but overall, the fourth largest corrections system. Totals do not include adults locked up in county or municipal jails.
The state Department of Juvenile Justice serves 60,000 juveniles per year. Three-fourths are male. On any given day 2,000 youths are detained in secure facilities and 20,000 are assigned to less restrictive community based settings. State juvenile justice system funding is going backward; down from just under $322 million in Fiscal 2008 to about $286 million in Fiscal 2012.
Recidivism – the percentage rate at which a former inmate is back behind bars – is nearly identical in the state’s adult corrections and juvenile systems. This year The Pew Center for the States reported 34.8% of Georgia adults released starting in 2004 were back behind bars within three years. Comparable statewide juvenile data was 40% within twelve months during the fiscal year that ended in June 2010, the latest numbers available.
Why this happens and how to enact reform that does not impact public safety is why we have a commission. One impetus is clearly financial – adult corrections costs are the fastest growing line item after Medicaid state dollars. More important, Georgia cannot become the state that it aspires to be so long as crime and corrections dominate at least some of the media message.
The final thoughts here are from Waycross Superior Court Judge Boggs: “I sit around with some very conservative folks having a cup of coffee and they’ll say, lock ‘em up. But do you know that it will cost $80 million to build one 1,500-bed prison in this state? That’s not including the cost of the land and it will cost $25 million a year to operate that prison.
“We’re going to give the Legislature a lot to choose from and then they’re going to decide what is politically palatable and what they turn into legislation,” Boggs said. “It’s not one size fits all and it’s certainly not a magic pill. This is going to be a lengthy process. It will not be fixed by whatever bill comes out of the recommendation that comes out of this committee.”
(Mike Klein is Editor at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation)
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