Member since: May 2009

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I was imported Best and Brightest out of graduate school, in 1983 to Georgia. The entire time I have lived in Georgia the schools have either been 49 or 48th in the Country, only better than Mississippi who is 50th. Year after year the Ga. politicians have done nothing to make the schools better. There continues to be alot of "White Flight out into the outerburbs. That is not the type of life or commuting for hours that I want for my family. If you choose to live close-in, you may find a handfull of decent public elementary schools, in pricey neighborhoods, Smith, Morris Brandon, Heards Ferry, Sope Creek. But they take $600K to $1M to buy a decent size family home to live-in. Public Middle Schools, you can forget about finding any. Then there are a few Decent Magnet Programs for High School in Cobb and Fulton County. But they each only accept arround 150 kids. Cobb's aren't necessarly in there best schools, they deliberitly put them in underacheiving schools to bring up the scores. Fulton's are in good areas and you get preference if you live in the zoned area, and they normally take tuition pay students. However this year Fulton's Riverwood IB program ended up with over 100 waitlisted, before even getting to the tuition pay students. If you really care about your children, the only choice you have outside a very few public schools are Private, Christian or Catholic Schools. The top Private Schools now run $20,000+ per year. The Catholic Schools are double what they are in most area's of the country. $7-14K for Elementary, $11-17K for High School. The competition is stiff and at many money and alumi connections count. The Politicians have been more interested in keeping taxes low and luring companies with lower cost workers. However, that plan has now gone bust big time with the recession. Atlanta has become unliveable except for all but the wealthy due to the poor schools. The politicians send there students to the private schools. Atlanta's DA's son goes to the largest Private school, I have seen him at games. The Good Olde Politicans in Georgia just follow the Republican Mantra. Georgia has one of the highest drop out rates in the country. The last State School Superintendent is in Prison.