Category Archives: Education

Quitman 10 and Americans right to vote —George Rhynes

Received Wednesday. -jsq
The citizens of (Quitman) Brooks County Georgia and South Georgia are extremely greatful for their support and outreach! They are indeed the real patriots of our beloved republic by standing up for voting rights.

The News Media seem to be taking a back seat to keeping citizens and voters informed along the lines of fairness in the State of Georgia and beyond.

As a retired military veteran, I was extremely happy for the Press Conference in support of the Quitman 10 as included in the links below. We must not forget about the citizens and voters in Brooks County, Willacoochee, Douglass-Coffee County Georgia (nooses) Tallahassee, Madison, Florida and other rural areas acorss the nation.

All Georgians and American citzens

Continue reading →

So much for CUEE and the Chamber being separate organizations

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce chose to pour more money into CUEE, purchasing CUEE’s only concrete work product.

According to the Minutes of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber Board of Directors meeting held Tuesday, January 17, 2012, 8 – 9:30 a.m. at Country Inn & Suites:

Consider Finance Committee recommendation regarding acquisition of Education Framework: Clinton Beeland made a motion that the Chamber Board provide $30,000 towards the repayment of debt incurred by the Committee for a Referendum on School System Unification with local business vendors. In return for this consideration, the Chamber is to receive the ownership rights to and the future use of the professional publication entitled “An Education Framework”. Carl Holley seconded. After a thorough discussion, motion carried unanimously.
I wonder what was said in that “thorough discussion”? Maybe which local vendors Chamber members’ dues are subsidizing by paying off CUEE’s debts? Maybe who owns those vendors, and what their relations might be to the CUEE or Chamber boards?

Anything more substantial than Chamber or CUEE people said in the meeting at VSU 20 October 2011 in which that “framework” was never actually presented to a group invited in the middle of the night?

“Future use”, eh? So outspending 10 to 1 yet losing the school consolidation election 4 to 1 didn’t give the Chamber pause, any more than the Chamber paid any attention to the copious evidence that consolidation is a bad idea that makes education worse.

Instead of pouring more money down the CUEE rathole, I think Jim Parker had a good idea for the Chamber:

How about as a first step the Chamber pledge an equivalent amount of money it and its members have spent on CUEE to the Boards of Education yearly, to be used as the teachers see fit?
I’m sure the two school boards could use $150,000 each for their teachers.

How about it, Chamber? Want to show some leadership?

-jsq

How to end the epidemic of incarceration

There are historical reasons for why we lock up so many people, some going back a century or more, and some starting in 1980 and 2001. Knowing what they are (and what they are not) lets us see what we can do to end the epidemic of incarceration that is damaging education and agriculture in Georgia.

Adam Gopnik wrote for the New Yorker dated 30 January 2012, The Caging of America: Why do we lock up so many people?

More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then.
In Georgia, 1 in 13 of all adults is in jail, prison, probation, or parole: highest in the country (1 in 31 nationwide). Georgia is only number 4 in adults in prison, but we’re continuing to lock more people up, so we may get to number 1 on that, too.
Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.

The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education.

And we can’t afford that, especially not when we’re cutting school budgets. That graph of education vs. incarceration spending is for California. Somebody should do a similar graph for Georgia.

The article does get into why we lock up so many people: Continue reading →

Prisons as old age homes

Planning? Prisons aren’t for planning!

David Crary wrote for AP today,

In corrections systems nationwide, officials are grappling with decisions about geriatric units, hospices and medical parole as elderly inmates – with their high rates of illness and infirmity – make up an ever increasing share of the prison population.

At a time of tight state budgets, it’s a trend posing difficult dilemmas for policymakers. They must address soaring medical costs for these older inmates and ponder whether some can be safely released before their sentences expire.

The latest available figures from 2010 show that 8 percent of the prison population — 124,400 inmates — was 55 or older, compared to 3 percent in 1995, according to a report being released Friday by Human Rights Watch. This oldest segment grew at six times the rate of the overall prison population between 1995 and 2010, the report says.

“Prisons were never designed to be geriatric facilities,” said Jamie Fellner, a Human Rights Watch special adviser who wrote the report. “Yet U.S. corrections officials now operate old age homes behind bars.”

No, they were designed to be profit centers for prison profiteers.

Look at this sob story: Continue reading →

Quitman 10 + 2 Press Conference

Received yesterday. -jsq
News never reported in the Quitman FREE PRESS or in SOUTH GEORGIA NEWS MEDIA:


Video of Quitman 10 + 2 Press Conference in Atlanta 23 January 2012 by voiceofthevoiceless1

From the YouTube description:

Senator Emanuel Jones is demanding “all charges are dropped”
Continue reading →

Just as prohibition of alcohol failed… the war on drugs has failed —Richard Branson

Richard Branson wrote for the Telegraph yesterday, It’s time to end the failed war on drugs
Just as prohibition of alcohol failed in the United States in the 1920s, the war on drugs has failed globally. Over the past 50 years, more than $1 trillion has been spent fighting this battle, and all we have to show for it is increased drug use, overflowing jails, billions of pounds and dollars of taxpayers’ money wasted, and thriving crime syndicates. It is time for a new approach.

Too many of our leaders worldwide are ignoring policy reforms that could rapidly reduce violence and organised crime, cut down on theft, improve public health and reduce the use of illicit drugs. They are failing to act because the reforms that are needed centre on decriminalising drug use and treating it as a health problem. They are scared to take a stand that might seem “soft”.

But exploring ways to decriminalise drugs is anything but soft. It would free up crime-fighting resources to go after violent organised crime, and get more people the help they need to get off drugs. It’s time to get tough on misguided policies and end the war on drugs.

Branson isn’t just a billionaire speaking his mind, he was also on the Global Commission on Drug Policy that studied the problem and recommended last summer that we end prohibition.

Branson does bring his business experience to bear: Continue reading →

ACLU podcast against private prisons —Alex Friedmann

CCA inadvertently rehabilitated former prisoner Alex Friedmann and gave him a new career, lobbying against prison privatization. He says:
In my view, the worst thing is that they have normalized the notion of incarcerating people for profit. Basically commodifying people, seeing them as nothing more than a revenue stream….

If you incarcerate more people and you put more people in your private prisons you make more money. Which provides perverse incentives against reforming our justice system. And increasing the number of people we’re putting in prison, whether they need to be there or not, just to generate corporate profit. I think that’s incredibly immoral and unethical, I think that’s the worst aspect of our private prison industry.

This comes from the ACLU’s Prison Voices, Episode 1: Private Prisons: Continue reading →

My job: create environment for jobs —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA @ LCDP 5 Dec 2011

In a refreshing changes from “jobs, jobs, jobs” as everything, Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), told the Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting, 5 December 2011, that it wasn’t her job to create jobs, jobs, jobs; it was her job to create an environment that let jobs be created. Towards that end, she announced several new jobs at VLCIA, including a PR and marketing position. VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland also spoke and helped answer questions from the audience, including about wages, workers, and green industries.

Perhaps not shown is her answer to my question about what does VLCIA do to promote new local industry. I believe she said VLCIA looks to the Chamber of Commerce for incubation, and helps once local businesses are established.

Here’s a playlist:


My job: create environment for jobs —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA @ LCDP 5 Dec 2011
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director of VLCIA,
Monthly Meeting, Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 December 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman.

-jsq

If Gov. Deal can investigate school elections, why not jail deaths? — George Rhynes

George Rhynes suggests that if Gov. Deal can investigate a school board election in Brooks County, he could also
issue another Executive Order and STOP the jail deaths in the Valdosta, Lowndes County Jail. (30 Jail deaths from 1994-2009) Today the general public is told that the public does not have a right to know under the law.
In this video George goes into many years of evidence regarding jail violations.

-jsq

Who gets to serve on the Brooks County School Board —VDT

The VDT caught up with the TV stations today on the Quitman 10 story, and provided updates and context they did not.

David Rodock wrote on the front page of the VDT today, Gov. suspends `Quitman Ten’ officials,

On Tuesday, Deal issued his order prior to the Brooks County Board of Education’s first meeting of 2012. Dr. Nancy Whitfield-Dennard, Elizabeth Diane Thomas and Linda Faye Troutman were notified of this suspension at approximately 4:30 p.m., according to sources.
That’s a bit more context than the TV stations provided.

The VDT also says who gets to serve instead:

Following the governor’s suspension this week, Brooks County school board member Brad Shealy, who is also an assistant Southern district attorney, was appointed to serve as president of the board with board member Larry Cunningham serving as vice president. Shealy served many years as the school board president prior to Whitfield-Dennard being named president last year.
That seems to be the same Brad Shealy who used to be chairman until the recent election.

The VDT adds this context: Continue reading →