Aug. 13, 2008 - Cox looks to Africa for help
Tim Darnell
August 13, 2008
State School Superintendent Kathy Cox is apparently so desperate for help that she’s looking to
Africa for guidance.
Unbelievable.
If you remember, Cox’s first task she undertook when she was first elected to the job – that
of removing the word “evolution” from school textbooks – subjected her to national ridicule. I
guess her plummeting reputation hasn’t made it to the shores of Africa yet, which is probably why
she likely received a warm reception. It can’t be very often that the head of a major American
educational agency seeks advice and counsel from such a faraway locale.
Still reeling from the results of low test scores by Georgia's tens of thousands of sixth-
and seventh-graders on this year's mandatory social studies test, Cox reportedly pleaded for input
from authorities on Africa attending the Teach Africa program at the Southern Center for
International Studies back in June.
Cox threw out the results of the social studies portion of the Criterion-Referenced
Competency Test once she learned that 70 to 80 percent of the sixth- and seventh-graders had failed
the exam. Hey, if you don’t like the results, just toss ‘em out. I’ll have to remember that one as
my five-year-old makes his way through our public educational system.
Don’t get me wrong. While I know next to nothing about Teach Africa, I’m sure it’s a valuable
and worthwhile endeavor. There can be nothing, absolutely nothing, bad about any educational
endeavor whose goal is to expand the most priceless of gifts our Creator has given us, the human
mind.
But as state school superintendent, Cox has repeatedly proven herself to be inept,
incompetent and burgeoning with misplaced priorities. The only reason she still has a job is
because her own party, as well as Georgia Democrats, have been utterly unable to field a more
qualified candidate.
That’s even more shameful than Cox’s performance on the job.