The Lion's Roar

The LION's ROAR!

Dr. John Trotter, MACE's Chairman, is considered Georgia's premier teacher advocate. He was a teacher and an administrator in several Georgia school systems. As an administrator, he gave maximum support to classroom educators, believing this to be the only way to run an effective school. He has published a number of articles on education in general and teaching in particular, including one about peer pressure perceptions in The Journal of Negro Education as well as an extensive study entitled What Teachers Like and Dislike About Teaching. Dr. Trotter earned a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in History from Columbus State University; a Master of Arts in Social Science Education from The University of Georgia; and two doctoral degrees -- one from The University of Georgia in Educational Administration and the other from Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law.

MACE Is Not For Everyone!

   Yes. That’s right. MACE is just for the Classroom Educators. MACE specializes in representing, protecting, and empowering Classroom Educators. No other organization specializes in just Classroom Educators. Only MACE. If you have congestive heart failure, you don’t go to a generalist, do you? You don’t visit an Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat Specialist, do you? You always want to see a Heart Specialist if you have heart problems. If you are a Classroom Educator, why would you join a generalist organization like GAE or PAGE? If you are a Classroom Educator, you join a union which specializes in issues which face the Classroom Educator. This is what MACE specializes in – taking care of the Classroom Educator. No other organization does this. No, not even one.

   MACE knows what the issues are with Classroom Educators. MACE knows what the problems are in Public Education. The issues are not that teachers need more training and more supervision. The issues are not about putting teachers on Professional Development Plans (PDPs) or making them turn in exhaustive, detailed lesson plans. MACE knows that the real problems in Public Education are the following: (1) Defiant & Disruptive Students; (2) Irate & Irresponsible Parents; and (3) Angry & Abusive Administrators.© No other organization will dare to seriously address these issues. The administrators are even members of GAE and PAGE. MACE alone confronts these issues in a head-on fashion. You cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.© If the Governor, the General Assembly, policy-makers, business leaders, and parents want real reform (and not just window-dressing poppycock), then the Classroom Educators must be empowered to do their jobs. The student thugs must be removed from the regular school environment. Order is the first law of the Universe, and without order, a school will always be in chaos.© (Yes, MACE copyrights these phrases because MACE coined them and is the only organization which unapologetically uses them.)

   MACE does not hate administrators (in fact, I use to be one, my father is a retired principal, and my brother is retiring next month as a principal). MACE does not dislike school secretaries (my sister-in-law used to be one). MACE is not distrustful of bus drivers (a school system cannot properly function without them). MACE simply specializes in Classroom Educators. You would not go to a Podiatrist with a kidney ailment. MACE specializes in representing, protecting, and empowering Classroom Educators. No organization does this better than MACE. It is just that simple. MACE is not the biggest organization but it is more powerful than any other organization when it comes to representing, protecting, and empowering Classroom Educators. MACE will be entering its 14^th year this Fall. MACE is stronger than ever, “full of piss and vinegar.” When new teachers come to Georgia each year, many of them have never heard of MACE. Join the MACE Crusade, reach out to enroll them into MACE, and do your part in empowering Classroom Educators in Georgia!

   MACE is different, and this fact alone scares other organizations and administrators and causes them to dislike and to fear MACE. Are administrators really afraid of MACE? Yes. One school board attorney of a large school system once quipped: “MACE terrorizes the principals.” Good. That’s the way it should be if the principal is terrorizing the teachers. MACE does indeed devour administrators who abuse Classroom Educators. When you mention “MACE,” the administrators do indeed listen.

What are the issues affecting Classroom Educators? MACE knows these issues like the back of its hand. MACE specializes in treating these issues. Disciplinary Problems. Thugs in the classroom. Detailed, exhaustive, and useless lesson plans. Inane and wasteful paperwork. Unfair evaluations. Student apathy. Overcrowded classes. Little or no supplies. Administrative snoopervision. Lack of administrative support, consistency, etc., in student discipline. Lack of parental concern. Administrative abuse of Classroom Educators (the only real educators in the school system, working in the trenches and on the front line each day and actually interacting with students). Crazy and berating parents. Certification games. Non-instructional duties. Incompetent administrators. Inequitable treatment by administrators. Do you get the picture? GAE and PAGE cannot address these issues because they have too many conflicts of interest and not enough vim and vigor.

AJC Article about Dr. Trotter

Are Our Educrats Nuts or What?

Are our educrats nuts or what? Why do we put up with the crazy notion that all children are bound to be scholars? A recent study (conducted by Colin Powell and others) showed that in the urban areas of America only about 28% of the students who enter the ninth grade actually graduate. (Detroit led the drop-out rate with only 24.9% of those entering the ninth grade actually graduating.) Are our educrats (defined as those people, be they legislators of educational bureaucrats, who never see students each day) blind to this most obvious fact? Do they not see that so many of our students are totally disengaged from the schooling process? How long has it been since they have actually taught school (especially in the urban settings) on a daily basis? They are clueless. Are they not aware that students these days actually curse out our teachers carte blanche and say the most vile and vicious things to them (as well as physically attack them)? No one wants to state the obvious: Our students are not engaged in the learning process. Remember: Motivation to learn is a social phenomenon. If the students are not motivated, then they will not learn. A teacher can teach a student, but a teacher cannot “learn” a student. Note: I want to credit the quirky and brilliant Dr. Eugene Boyce of the University of Georgia for first putting this concept in writing. He was an educational expert who engaged in studies throughout the world. I always want to credit others for their research. Dr. Boyce was a member of my dissertation committee in 1983-84 (as well as other UGA scholars like Dr. Carvin Brown whom I served as a graduate assistant).

Educrats can blame teachers for the mess in public education but this does not make it so. Teachers today are the more educated, better trained, and more dedicated than all the teachers whom we have seen come down the path. But, teachers today face the most unimaginable of obstacles to overcome, viz., (1) Defiant & Disruptive Students; (2) Irate & Irresponsible Students; and (3) Angry & Abusive Administrators. These are the three main problems in public education. If we solve these problems, then nearly everything else falls in place. If you poll all teachers in America, at least 90% will privately concur with our analysis, albeit this conclusion is politically incorrect. It is politically correct to say that we need more money and resources put into public education. Our teachers need more training, so the reasoning concludes. Hardly anyone has the guts to state the obvious: The students are out of control. Discipline is no longer in the public schools (especially in the urban areas). We at MACE know that you cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions. This is our mantra at MACE. We passionately believe this. We also passionately believe that order is the first law of the Universe. Without order, a school is just floundering.

Finally, let me say a word about Vocational Education. The notion that schools should rid themselves of the very useful vocational courses is sick. Yes, it is sick. One of the reasons that our students are tuning out all education and can hardly wait until they turn 16 years of age (to be able to legally drop out of school) is because they do not see the educational process as being relevant to them. I remember visiting Mr. James Whitehead’s body shop (for automobiles) classes in the late 1980s. His classes were taught in the middle of one of Atlanta’s worst hoods at the old Archer High School. Mr. Whitehead’s students were so engaged and were so proud of their work. Mr. Whitehead’s students won many state competitions. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Whitehead was informed that his (and others’) vocational programs were going to be jettisoned in the Atlanta Public Schools. What happened to “Whitehead’s boys”? Now, so many of them just dropped out of school whereas before they were gainfully employed at Beaudry Ford and at other establishments. Why did this happen? You asked me, so I am going to tell you. The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (which got heavily involved in political races for school board around this time) apparently wanted to raise the test scores of the Atlanta students on the nationally-normed tests. You know why? When large corporations are trying to decide where to locate their headquarters, they look at the national tests scores for school systems located in places like Dallas, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Atlanta. If the test scores of the Atlanta students are below those of the students in Charlotte, then perhaps Charlotte becomes the location of the Fortune Five Hundred companies. Then, these large companies deposit their monies in Charlotte banks instead of an Atlanta banks. So, damn the students from the hood who were joyfully learning a trade at the old Archer High School! The standardized tests do not ask any questions about bondo! So, the students now languish until they reach the age of 16. They are totally disengaged in the schooling process. They resent being taught algebraic equations which they will never use in a million lifetimes (at least this is their thinking) and thus they disrupt the activities of the classroom just for fun. Our schools are out of control, and our educrats are willingly ignorant of this fact. Until discipline (and relevant vocational programs) is re-established in our public schools, all school reform is a joke with no hope of being successful.

May 13, 2008

Mark Elgart of SACS
= Cry Baby!

All the hoopla over the last few months is about one spoiled man who has had his precious and delicate ego bruised. This cry baby is a man named Mark Elgart, CEO of SACS, from Alpharetta, Georgia. The former Chair of the Clayton County Board of Education (unless she backs out of her overdue resignation which is supposed to become effective on Friday, April 11, 2008), Ericka Davis, always knew that her ace in the hole, so to speak, was her close friendship with Mark Elgart of the Southern Accreditation of Schools and Colleges (SACS). So, as Norreese Haynes and other Clayton County Board of Education members began to vocally question Davis and her sidekick Vice Chair Rod Johnson (who has given what seems now to be the most interminal of resignations – a resignation which has never been effectuated, one with a date unknown, like the one also proffered by Eddie White) about the now notorious and infamous Land Deal and other very questionable practices (like the classic bait-and-switch on the lawyer’s two contracts which constitutes fraud on the factum and fraudulent inducement), Ericka and Rod turned to their educational “Unibomber,” Mark Elgart. For some inexplicable reason, Georgia law had set up a situation in which one man, in his intemperate nature, could wield tremendous influence over any school system which deigns to question his unethical practices. This is precisely what happened.

In September of 1997, Ericka Davis, contrary to school board policy and to the so-called SACS Standard, of her sole volition, invited Mark Elgart to visit the Clayton County School Board meeting to engage in a presentation. Ms. Lois Baines-Hunter rightfully and accurately pointed out to Elgart and to her colleagues that Elgart had “no integrity” for, in essence, allowing himself to be used by Chairwoman Davis in such a manner. The Board of Education as a whole had not invited Elgart to participate in their meeting. This was an underhanded move on the part of Davis to presumably intimidate Haynes, Scott, Baines-Hunter, and Strong and to cause them to pipe down their questioning of her and Rod Johnson’s actions. The word on the street is that Davis and Johnson had met with Elgart, and shortly after the September meeting, Johnson fired off a ridiculous complaint to SACS against Haynes, Scott, and Baines-Hunter. The complaints were specious and scurrilous. For example, Johnson made all kinds of false allegations against Haynes. When the SACS Report was finally published on February 15, 2007, it was as, as Haynes announced in a press release that same day “a sham and a farce.” Not a single thing that Johnson put in his complaints against Haynes stuck. In fact, Mr. Haynes had filed a 12 page, single-paged response with 17 exhibits in which he totally obliterated Johnson’s laughable complaints, and Haynes actually turned the tables on Davis and Johnson in his response, pointing out at length and with detailed documentation their micromanaging of the schools and other ethical breaches. On December 25, 2007, Haynes filed a four page, single-spaced letter to Elgart and SACS which contained his two Official Complaints against Ericka Davis and Rod Johnson. Even thought Elgart could not nail Haynes with a single specious complaint which Johnson lobbed, he chose to totally ignore Haynes’s complaints against Davis and Johnson. (Elgart’s biggest complaint against Haynes is that he works with MACE.) His “inquisition team” did not ask a single question about Davis and Johnson in their interrogation sessions (even though Haynes had sent many exhibits to Elgart/SACS and even offered to show his “inquisition team” the documents when they traveled to Clayton for the so-called “interviews”). Their minds were already made up. (In fact, at the very end, SACS cancelled their interview me, Darth Vader himself.) The whole process, including the “Report” itself, was one-sided, biased, skewed, and “fatally flawed.” It was indeed “a sham and a farce.” It was shameful for SACS to send forth such a prejudiced report.

Now, Clayton County has become “Elgart’s Iraq.” He does not know what to do with it. Unlike other counties when he stirs up mass hysteria with his pronouncements of “I care for thy children” but the school board members are so corrupt and stupid that I cannot bless thy children until they leave, Clayton County people are, to quote Mr. Haynes, a little too jaded to accept his every word as “law and gospel.” Davis and Eldrin Bell (who cannot run the Clayton County Government but he apparently wants to take care of his darling Ericka Bell, so he meddles in the school board affairs) orchestrated a third-world coup and jack hammered Norreese Haynes off of the school board. Mr. Haynes has been off the Board for five weeks now and the school board is now teetering on disaster – not because it is incompetent but because Elgart, Brock (the Board’s own attorney who sold them down the river in total contravention of the rules and ethics for lawyers), and the Atlanta media (especially Cox Communications) continue to whip up hysteria to the point of mob action. If Haynes was the problem (he actually was the whistleblower), to the use Martin Lawrence’s phrase: “What the problem is?” Davis, Elgart, Johnson, Bell, et al., could not kill the Message, so they killed the Messenger (Haynes).

Elgart is apparently used to people falling all over themselves when he enters a room. He apparently has become accustomed to having his political posterior inordinately kissed. Well, they “ain’t gonna” happen in Clayton County. He is mad. He is probably still steaming that the Board fired his buddy Dan Colwell in 2003. He made stupid and inexplicable attacks against MACE in his report. His accusations are unfounded and ridiculous. I take this opportunity now to state to him, to Kathy Cox, to Sonny’s elfs (James Bostic and Brad Bryant) whom he appointed to “help” the Clayton County Board of Education, or any other weenie out there that I will be glad to meet them anytime, any place, and anywhere to debate the so-called problem of the Clayton County Board of Education. We can agree to a formal, open, and public debate (with a moderator) addressing written propositions which deal with the situation with the Clayton County Board of Education. What we have is a cry baby with a bruised ego who is exercising the “bully pulpit” of his private organization (SACS which, by the way, is not the only game in town, so to speak) and cares not one iota for the nearly 53,000 children in the Clayton County School System. He and ilk were even willing to engage in the most unconscionable smearing of a young man and compounded the smearing with unmitigated lies which had not even a scintilla of truth in them. Shame on you, Mark Elgart. Shame on you, Cry Baby!

April 9, 2008