THOMASVILLE — In the race for the Republican nomination for state superintendent of schools, Richard Woods wants to retain his seat. John Barge wants it back.

Woods, from Tifton, is running for a third term as state schools chief. Barge, who recently retired from education, served as state schools superintendent from 2011-15, immediately preceded Woods.

“I think I can say I’e lived up to the promises I made,” Woods said at a Thomas County GOP forum recently. “I’ve lived up to the obligations. I am the best candidate to make sure we are providing possibilities for our kids and looking after our kids.”

Woods pointed to the state having its highest graduation rate and that the state is beating the national average in SAT and ACT scores.

Barge, though, countered that the state’s educational system has taken a step back under Woods’ tenure. 

Barge said  the Quality Counts study of Education Week ranked the state’s education system as seventh in 2013. That same study, in 2020, ranked it as 31st, he said.

Fourth grade reading and math progress tests are the lowest in 15 years, Barge charged, and eighth grade reading and math scores are the lowest in eight years.

“We are going backwards faster than we can catch a grip,” Barge said.

Woods asked if people remembered their favorite teacher.

“It’s not because they gave great tests. It’s because they had a relationship with you,” he said. “That is why we have to make sure our teachers have the time to teach. 

“When I first came into office, all we talked about were the tests. Right now, we’re talking about the kids. That’s where the proper role in education should be.”

Woods said the state has gotten away from the “one-size-fits-all” approach to education. It now has beefed up its career and vocational education programs, he said.

“A four-year college is the worst mindset that we had, saying that every child had to go,” he said. “making pathways so that can take place. They are getting industry credentials. We want to continue that move so we make sure we are expanding opportunities for our kids.”

The state also is pushing more STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — education and more STEAM —STEM and arts.

“Roughly half of our 2,300 schools are waiting to be STEM or STEAM certified,” Woods said. “We have expanded robotics in our schools. You want to see Friday night football put on inside of a building, go to a robotics competition.”

Woods added the state has expanded its U.S. history curriculum in elementary school grades.

“It used to be two years. Now it’s three years,” he said. “We have sent out tens of thousands of pocket Constitutions to our fourth graders. We want to make sure our kids have that grounding.”

Starting next year, students entering high school will have to take a personal finance course.

“Our young people need to know how to handle money and they know how to survive and thrive in a capitalistic society,” Woods said. “We have a lot of broken homes in Georgia and that has a direct impact on education. It comes to our schools each and every day. I firmly believe we are going to be saving families in Georgia. I am excited about that.”

Woods said he was the first statewide candidate to come out against critical race theory and divisive language in the schools, and supports parents’ rights in education. 

Barge said education helped shape his life. He recounted how he grew up poor in Cobb County with an alcoholic father and the family often slept on the floor of neighbors’ house.

“I am passion about education because I personally experienced its ability to level the playing field,” he said. “Education is the only resource we have to break generational cycles of poverty. it changed my life, it changed my daughter’s life. it changed my grandchildren’s life.”

Barge said the liberals’ agenda is in state schools at full force. As an example, he said, his grandson’s enrollment form for pre-kindergarten asked for three genders — male, female or other.

“My daughter said I am not sending my child to be indoctrinated into this kind of thinking,” he said. “This agenda must be stopped or we will lose a generation of children. The left knows how to sway and they know how to win this battle. If they take this generation of children they will be voters in 12-15 years and they will get any agenda passed because they have normalized this.”

Barge said he led the push back against a federal Department of Education letter requiring school systems to allow boys and girls to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identified.At the time, he was superintendent of McIntosh County Schools, a small system on the coast just north of Brunswick.

Barge said he sent a letter to every parent in the county that the directive was an opinion from the DoE’s Office of Civil Rights and didn’t bear the weight of law. He called it an overreach that put children in harm’s way, but there was no guidance from the state on how to deal with it.

“We need leadership that will stand and make these tough decisions,” he said.

Barge also said obscene material has made its way into school media centers because there is an exception for school libraries under the state obscenity clause. 

“The left is trying to normalize this behavior without parents’ knowledge, and it has to stop,” he said.

Woods said he has no desire to run for another office, pointing to Barge’s attempts to run for the U.S. House and for governor.

“It is important to have an individual in this office who is willing to stay the course,” he said, “not to jump out and run for another office.”