Wednesday's guest on the “Mornings unPHILtered” show was Richard Woods, who is a candidate for the job of State Superintendent of Education. He is running for the Republican nomination against incumbent Superintendent Kathy Cox and Roger Hines.
    Woods is currently the K-5 Curriculum Director at Irwin County Elementary School in Ocilla, Georgia. He began teaching at Irwin County in 1988 as a Social Studies teacher.
    Woods graduated with honors from Fitzgerald High School, and then got his Bachelors degrees from Kennesaw State University and his Masters degree from Valdosta State University. Woods and his wife, Lisha, live in Tifton.
    While Woods commutes to his job in Ocilla, Lisha teaches at Northside Primary School in Tifton, where she has worked for 28 years. Woods has staked out a very clear plan for education in Georgia if he is elected as head of Schools.
    Woods told host Phil Boyum he has developed many ideas for improving education in Georgia, which come from his years of personal teaching experiences. He believes very strongly in site-based educational leadership and he understands the need for developing more parental involvement in the schools.
    Woods believes that while in elementary school it is most important to focus on ensuring the students have an excellent command of the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. Woods believes that older students need to be offered education in basic financial principles, such as managing bank accounts and keeping track of how they spend their money.
    Whereas many high schoolers intend to continue with their educations at college, he finds that more and more students are choosing to enter the vocational and technical tracks instead, planning to get a job once they graduate. Woods would like to see more emphasis placed on expanding the Vocational and Technical track programs in high schools.
    Furthermore, Woods said he believes what local school systems need are lump sums of money that are not tied to specific programs but rather able to be used where each school system sees the greatest need. Currently, most state and federal monies are earmarked for a specific purpose, and may not be used to pay for other programs.
    This interference, Woods states, is one of the reasons he believes the Voucher Program won't really work. Private schools, unlike public schools, do not receive most of their money from the state and federal governments. Therefore they have much more freedom as to how they spend it.
    Finally, Woods promises to completely re-evaluate the focus on testing that currently takes up many weeks of class time. A priority for teachers, he said, is to make sure that they have the time to ensure their students are ready for either a college education of a job in the real world.
    For more information on the Woods campaign, go to his Web site at www.woodsforgeorgiaed.com.
   
    “Mornings unPHILtered” airs live Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on statesboroherald.com and also simulcast on WWNS-AM 1240 on the radio. You also can listen anytime at BoroLive.com on statesboroherald.com