American Education Week
November 17-23

Great Public Schools for Every Child - America’s Promise
 by Deena Hoch, President

Each year, during the month of November, the Professional Association of Georgia Educators (PAGE) celebrates American Education Week, saluting public schools across the state. The national celebration is sponsored by the U. S. Department of Education and groups such as the National School Boards Association, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the American School Counselors Association and the National School Public Relations Association. While education has always been an important measure of success in our country, the heightened awareness of the need to fully educate every student makes it even more critical that we take time near the beginning of the school year to celebrate our public schools.

This year’s American Education Week theme is “Great Public Schools for Every Child – America’s Promise.” I cannot think of a better theme. With the federal No Child Left Behind legislation placing greater accountability and emphasis on how well the public schools are meeting the educational needs of each and every student, this theme captures perfectly what the 57,000 members of PAGE are working toward every day – reaching every student and helping that student to achieve all that they can. That is how we will make our public schools “great” for every child. The public schools are indeed “America’s Promise” in two ways. The more than 1.4 million students in our schools across the state represent the promise of our future. Looking at it another way, our public schools represent the promise our society makes to every child. “We will help you become all that you are capable of becoming.”

Making public schools “great” for every child is not an easy task, but it must be our goal. We know that many of today’s children come to school with serious challenges to overcome. Teachers and education leaders are coping with numerous other factors – economic, political and professional – which sometimes interfere with the work we know must be done to help children surmount the challenges they bring with them to school. Given the current fiscal situation, our efforts have been greatly hampered.

If we are to succeed, we will need the participation of the entire community, and that is part of the purpose of American Education Week. By highlighting the good things going on in our schools and by candidly noting the challenges we face, we hope to invite the public into the schools, whether or not they have children attending them. PAGE, through the work of our PAGE Foundation, has worked for many years to unite the business community, private citizens and our members in efforts to promote teaching excellence and student achievement. We know that the public schools which are “great” for all their students are also those schools which are most open to their communities and have developed a broad consensus on the importance of teaching and learning.

Despite the challenges, we believe it is a great time for our public schools. Test scores are beginning to show improvement, education has certainly been in the spotlight for several years and many of the needed programs are in place to help us get the appropriate resources to support the learning of each group of students. While education is never free of the effects of politics and the impact of the economy, we believe that educators across the state are committed to their students and want to see them succeed. Making public schools great for every child may be this year’s American Education Week theme, but for the dedicated teachers of Georgia it is a daily affirmation.

On behalf of PAGE members across the state, I urge all citizens to support our efforts this week and every week. Help us as we work toward the goal stated in this year’s theme. Let’s work together to make Georgia’s public schools great for every one of our more than 1.4 million students.

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PAGE is a nonunion, statewide professional association of more than 57,000 teachers, administrators and support personnel members with the purpose of promoting better education for the children of Georgia. Deena Hoch, a Bibb County educator, is PAGE President for 2003-2004.