The World Around You

This news won’t be surprising to my college professor friends, but central Alabama students are having a hard time passing the new social studies section of the graduation exam.

School officials in Autauga County still were compiling graduation exam data on Thursday, and Elmore County didn’t have the results available.

Across the board, with the exception of magnet schools, the rate of failure on the social studies illustrates growing pains for juniors and seniors in the Montgomery school district. For instance:

• Robert E. Lee High School had 178 to take that test, and 97 failed.

• George Washington Carver High had 120 to take the test, with 88 not passing.

• Jefferson Davis High School had only 38 of 138 students to ace the exam.

• Sidney Lanier High School had 41 out of 131 tested to make a good showing.

However, a teacher at Carver High School points out a disturbing issue about the exam.

Steve Roberts, a marketing teacher at George Washington Carver High School, said he’s concerned about the content of the social studies test.

“Be reminded that this test ends with World War II. Most of the kids go back to their great-grandparents to find someone that was alive during this time,” Roberts said. “This is an Alabama exam. So how is it that the Selma-to-Montgomery march, Wallace’s stand in the schoolhouse door, Vietnam and other more recent events are ignored?”

Why indeed.

Nancy Worley has not impressed me in her time as Secretary of State of Alabama. The latest issue is just bizarre,

Approximately 25 county voting registrars came to the state Capitol for a hearing Thursday to object to new rules that would empower Secretary of State Nancy Worley to fire them.
Objections mostly concerned two points. First, the registrars said Worley did not hire them, so she should not be able to fire them. Second, they said, the proposed work rules that set grounds for firing are insulting and vague.

“I think the feeling is that some of the rules she’s making are just ridiculous,” said Autauga County registrar Tom Parker. “I’m going to get myself in trouble with Ms. Worley, but I’m about ready to. Basically, it’s like being back in the first grade.”

Worley said part of the rules were copied from a personnel manual and she agreed some of the proposed rules should be changed.

“All I really want them to do is do their jobs and do them well,” Worley said.

So who hired them?

Gov. Bob Riley, Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks and State Auditor Beth Chapman also objected to the rules in a letter to Worley.

By law, those three elected officials appoint the three registrars for each county. They oppose giving another elected official the power to fire their appointees.

“I am opposed to the secretary of state or anyone else firing people that I hired,” Chapman said. “And that, in essence, is what this would be doing.”

These are appointed officials that she his trying to order around in a very meticulous way. Combined with previous incidents, Ms. Worley seems to be a power addict. She’s trying to make the Secretary of State’s office much grander in scale than it is. A good Secretary of State should be seen and not heard, much of her duties focus on ensuring that elections are run correctly and campaign finance reporting. Making the paper every other week is not a good thing.