GAE endorses Barnes

ATLANTA - The 43,000-member Georgia Association of Educators (GAE) Friday released its list of endorsements for Georgia's statewide November general elections - and in the governor's race, the nod goes to Democrat Roy Barnes, whom teachers helped turn out of the office eight years ago.

The Democrats running in each of the other offices also received GAE's endorsement.

Newly-elected GAE President Calvine Rollins says her organization's recommendations were once again based on candidate interviews and profiles that indicated their willingness to work for the betterment of Georgia's public education system - and not on party affiliation.

"These are challenging times for our public schools and they will need strong and creative leadership particularly in the governor's and superintendent's offices," said Rollins. "Our process of candidate interviews and questionnaires helps our leadership come to the best possible recommendation, based on our priorities, on who will be a true friend to our public schools and the children who depend on them for their education."

Barnes, while still facing some backlash from his previous administration, now has the benefit of hindsight in what is truly needed to help our public schools and its students, according to Rollins.

"Barnes is the best choice to be able to come in and hit the ground running with respect to creating and implementing plans to address concerns such as class size, making high stakes testing more diagnostic rather than punitive, fully funding and staffing our public schools, making them safe for teaching and learning, opposing destructive ideas such as vouchers that would drain critically needed funding from our public schools, and including practitioners and utilizing their front line expertise in decisions that affect our public schools."

In the state schools superintendent's race, GAE is putting its weight behind Joe Martin.

"We feel that Martin truly is going to work for the 1.75 million children who go to Georgia's public schools," said Rollins. "He feels strongly that lower class sizes are critical to providing the best possible teaching and learning environment and that our state has both a moral and constitutional obligation to fully fund our public schools, which he has proven through his five year legal challenge to do so. He believes in providing whatever resources are needed to keep our schools and children safe. And we feel his support of the dedicated men and women who work on frontlines with our children is genuine."

The complete GAE statewide office endorsement list is as follows:

Governor - Roy Barnes
Lt. Governor - Carol Porter
State Superintendent of Schools - Joe Martin
Secretary of State - Georganna Sinkfield
Labor Commissioner - Darryl Hicks
Insurance Commissioner - Mary Squires
Attorney General - Ken Hodges