Nancy Jester Republican Georgia State Superintendent Official Campaign Site

Mary Kay Bacallao
I'm a professor of mathematics education at Mercer University. I've been there 10 years. I'm also serving on the Fayetteville Board of Education. I just finished up my first year there.

Why am I running for State School Superintendent? Being a math education professor, I did a study of the math education standards. I started with the Georgia Performance Standards. I added the Common Core Standards to my study. I also included the national council of teach for mathematics standards in the study and the Massachusetts formal standards, as well as international standards. The results of my studies were clear. The Common Core state standards were 1 to 2 years behind where we were. And, are further behind international standards. I've printed out the study. Here it is. I met with Denise Fangler, who is chair of the education department at UGA. She was not able to refute a single point in my study. I am against the Common Core Standards. Our kids are capable of so much more. I have the data to prove it, and that's why I'm running for State School Superintendent.

Drew Bandelisa
Why am I running for State School Superintendent? After many discussions and careful consideration, I entered the race this week. I'm a public school graduate, have 3 school aged children who attend public charter schools. My wife is a teacher at elementary and college level. 

What makes me stand apart is I'm a business leader and education innovator. I have a unique view into how we can transform education in Georgia. That's because I head education and global learning for k-12 and higher ed for AT&T nationally. The product efforts there focus on improving educational outcomes for our children. So, I work with leading innovators helping build a unique ecosystem of innovative product solutions, being able to not accept the status quo, move things forward, using technology, using the latest teaching tools and skills. It's a bit frustrating being able to see what's out there, what's available, to be able bend the reality of what's available for my children, and being able to indirect impact and direct impact that I have being an outsider to that process.

I'm used to providing a flexible framework for districts. We put together a framework with a flexible framework that districts can be able to use to be able to leverage. But, it's all about local control, implementing what they need from that framework. That's really what the state should be doing is supporting the initiatives at the local level. Being able to provide a framework because 180+ districts, very few of them can do on their own at all. So, they need the help and support and collaboration, not control from the state. But, collaboration and help. So, I have experience doing that in a nuanced view of how to solve problems that I think will be very useful in this position.

Nancy Jester
I'm Nancy Jester and I'm running for State School Superintendent. I'm a former actuarial consultant. I served on the DeKalb County School Board where I uncovered over $54 million dollars in deceptive budgeting practices that wore away the accumulated cash reserves of the 3rd largest school district in the state. That had a very big financial footprint for education in Georgia. We're all invested there.

I'm running to improve the educational lives of our children and to provide a much better return on investment for the taxpayers of our state. We have to get serious about disclosure and what I call financial integrity. I'll give you two numbers. '0' and '20'. '0' - That's how many measures of financial integrity Georgia school systems are subject to disclose. '20' - That would be the number of financial integrity measurements that the state of Texas discloses for its over 1000 school systems. And, if those had been in place, you wouldn't have had a county of DeKalb. You wouldn't see increased student class sizes and a whole host of things. It's a very important driver of success. Money drives results.

We spend more per pupil than every state that borders us and every state that borders us has a higher graduation rate. That cannot be tolerated and I applaud you for one of your position papers that I received prior to coming here which was that you want to see a much better return on investment. And, you're right to note this. We have to have a reality check and I'm so glad to be aligned with the chamber in this effort. I also salute the other paper that you sent me about career and college readiness. That is something that we need to work on, but we need to be careful not to have platitudes, that we have real career education going on.

I'll close with one area where we are not aligned. I take the Milton Friedman stance. The Friedman Foundation does not support Common Core. It's centralization. Ask the Soviets how that worked out. There are many problems I have with that. That's not to say I'm happy with our standards today, because I'm not. I look forward to talking with you about that in more detail.

Again, the money will drive results and disclosure is badly needed in Georgia.

Fitz Johnson
I'm a conservative republican from Cobb County. As you might note in my background, I have over 21 years experience in the U.S. Army. I'm a retired military officer. After I received my law degree, I started a defense contracting firm with my dad and brother. We grew that company from 0 to over 1700 employees world wide. I am currently serving as CEO, we sold that company a few years ago.

I'm running for State School Superintendent because I sat out there where you're sitting now. I'm keenly aware of how we have to prepare and what we need to prepare our youngsters as they graduate from high school. I understand they need to be work ready. I understand they need to be work ready or ready to attend college to further their careers. And, it's vitally important for us to make sure that every student in the the state of Georgia has that opportunity. My education background and my experience, I can bring a new approach to the office of State School Superintendent.