Category Archives: Education

Lunch and Learn —Joe Pritchard @ LCC 26 July 2011

New program for the public to learn about Lowndes County government.

In his County Manager report, Joe Pritchard announced the first first lunch and learn, which will be a discussion of general government, noon ’til 1PM, 11 August 2011, second floor of administrative complex.

“The lunch and learn program will take various topics, and allow the public to meet for an hour, ask questions, interact on those particular topics.”
County Clerk Paige Dukes will be conducting this first meeting.

Commissioner Crawford Powell asked Continue reading →

School consolidation report: can cause irreversible damage

People ask me: why do the NAACP and the SCLC oppose school consolidation? Well, here’s some recent research that backs up their position, followed by their positions. My summary: because it caused great damage last time, and this time would be no different.

Craig Howley, Jerry Johnson, Jennifer Petrie wrote 1 February 2011, Consolidation of Schools and Districts: What the Research Says and What it Means:

…the review of research evidence detailed in this brief suggests that a century of consolidation has already produced most of the efficiencies obtainable. Research also suggests that impoverished regions in particular often benefit from smaller schools and districts, and they can suffer irreversible damage if consolidation occurs.
Isn’t such irreversible damage what Rev. Floyd Rose got Mrs. Ruth Council to admit?
Rev. Rose: “…we were told about the world, where we came from, how we got here.”

Mrs. Council: “I think we did receive a better education.”
They are referring to black schools before desegregation in the 1960s.

Rev. Floyd Rose is president of the local SCLC, and here is a statement by Leigh Touchton, president of the local NAACP: Continue reading →

Lawsuit against school charter surrender

In Tennessee, supporters of education decided to fight a bogus consolidation attempt.

Lawrence Buser and Sherri Drake Silence wrote for the Memphis Commercial Appeal 12 February 2011, Shelby County Schools files suit over Memphis charter surrender: Complaint says city shirking duty to kids; rapid takeover ‘impossible’

Shelby County school leaders have taken their fight against consolidation to the courts, filing a federal lawsuit Friday alleging that the city school board’s “irrational” charter surrender deprives Memphis students of their constitutional rights.

In the lawsuit, suburban district leaders also blast the city of Memphis and the Memphis City Council for supporting “the (MCS) board’s unplanned and un-thoughtful effort to abandon its obligations to the children of Memphis.”

Hm, I wonder if there would be legal grounds for this around here?

-jsq

The end game is …. —Karen Noll

Received yesterday on “the qualified voters voting thereon in each separate school system proposed to be consolidated”. -jsq
Questions abound: Why is it that Lowndes County residents will not be voting on the most important issue to face their school system since its inception in 1950?

If I lived in the county I’d be mad that CUEE and the Chamber of Commerce chose to leave my vote out of such a very important decision.

Quick fact: Consolidation alone will not save money & Consolidation alone will not improve academic success, according to the Vinson Institute report commissioned by CUEE and the Chamber.

Further Query: Why would CUEE and the Chamber of Commerce spend $50 grand to collect the signatures for the petition causing the City of Valdosta to spend thousands of tax dollars (2 staff dedicated to task & 4 temps hired) to verify the signatures on the petition?

Continue reading →

Traffic on Cat Creek Road at Nottinghill —Thomas E. Stalvey Jr. @ LCC 12 July 2011

Schoolchildren, safety, and farmland: three topics that often seem forgotten in discussions of development. Opposing the proposed rezoning for Notthinghill, neighbor Thomas E. Stalvey Jr. noted that traffic on Cat Creek Road is already a problem, and adding a subdivision would make it worse. He noted that it’s traffic routed down Cat Creek to Moody that accounts for a lot of it. He said school children stood out on the road and they were already in danger.
“If we put 49 more houses out there, it’s just going to up the risk.”

He explicitly linked road widening to development: Continue reading →

A real education dialog @ LCDP 2 May 2011

The only real public dialog about unification or education that I’ve heard of was at the May 2011 Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP) meeting, organized by LCDP Chair Gretchen Quarterman. You can see it either of two ways:
  1. Through the LCDP 2 May 2011 LAKE blog topic, which has all the relevant posts, newest first.
  2. Through the YouTube video playlist. Each video has a link to the relevant blog post.


    School unification dialog at Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP)
    Videos by John S. Quarterman, Jim Parker, Gretchen Quarterman, 2 May 2011.

At that LCDP meeting I pointed out that the CUEE education committee was not scheduled to report back until after the proposed referendum vote, and nobody had any rebuttal.

-jsq

“the qualified voters voting thereon in each separate school system proposed to be consolidated” —GA Constitution

Justia > US Law > Georgia Law > Georgia Constitution > Art. VIII EDUCATION

SECTION V.

LOCAL SCHOOL SYSTEMS

Paragraph I. School systems continued; consolidation of school systems authorized; new independent school systems prohibited. Authority is granted to county and area boards of education to establish and maintain public schools within their limits. Existing county and independent school systems shall be continued, except that the General Assembly may provide by law for the consolidation of two or more county school systems, independent school systems, portions thereof, or any combination thereof into a single county or area school system under the control and management of a county or area board of education, under such terms and conditions as the General Assembly may prescribe; but no such consolidation shall become effective until approved by a majority of the qualified voters voting thereon in each separate school system proposed to be consolidated. No independent school system shall hereafter be established.

dialogue on consolidation was a forbidden zone —Barbara Stratton

Received yesterday on Videos of CUEE’s idea of a “public dialog”. -jsq
In their minds every name signed as attending is part of their consensus, which is why I never sign in. It is also why they keep trying to say Sam Allen is for consolidation even though he chairs the group against consolidation.
I went to the June & July CUEE meetings just to see what they were doing & to dialogue about consolidation. At both meetings dialogue on consolidation was a forbidden zone. I keep telling you their game plan is textbook UN Agenda 21. Debate is not allowed. They manipulate everything to create what they misname “consensus” which means per their numbers & statistics everyone who does not speak out against their agenda is for their aganda including anyone who never shows up at all. In their minds every name signed as attending is part of their consensus, which is why I never sign in. It is also why they keep trying to say Sam Allen is for consolidation even though he chairs the group against consolidation. They made sure they got photos of him at the July meeting to further their consensus game.

If you live in the city or the county & you want to hear real dialogue about consolidation

Continue reading →

Videos of CUEE’s idea of a “public dialog”

Here are videos of CUEE’s idea of a “public dialog” as Alex Jones correctly put it in quotes.

The March 2011 CUEE Kick-Off meeting “dialog” conveniently omitted Rev. Floyd Rose’s question, which I believe was about what will unification do to improve education.

The “public dialog” at that meeting consisted of written questions being selected by CUEE. Even so, the answers sufficed to demolish all of CUEE’s main selling points, including CUEE’s own hired expert said

“If you believe in the end that running one system is cheaper than running two school systems. If in the end you are going to cast a vote for a single system because you think it would save money, I wouldn’t cast my vote. I do not think it will save money.”

The Kick-Off meeting was used to roll out the education committee, to paper over the little problem that CUEE has no plan to improve education. If anything was said of it reporting before the referendum, I must have missed it.

Here’s a playlist. Perhaps someone can point out where they said that. Continue reading →

a “public dialog” —Alex Jones

Received today on Three things to actually improve education. This CUEE supporter completely ignores all three things I recommended to improve education; I will respond in more detail in the next post. -jsq
I have actually attended several of the public meetings and listened to the discussions from the Education Planning Committee. I’m not sure if you realize this or not, but the committee consists of parents, concerned residents and educators from both school systems and VSU. The committee also has members who are supportive and opposed to school unification, and it includes both city and county residents. In fact, Sam Allen even attended and participated in the last meeting.

The objective of the Education Planning Committee is to

Continue reading →