Category Archives: Elections

The Grassroots Handbook Against School Consolidation

Received yesterday, The Grassroots Handbook Against School Consolidation: The Truth About Unification/Consolidation of the Valdosta/Lowndes School Systems By David E. Mullis, J.D., LL.M., October 12, 2011. It’s a 43 page exhaustive compendium of all the statements against consolidation by both school boards, the Valdosta City Council, etc., together with detailed debunking of every argument CUEE has made.

I think this passage on page 3 sums it up:

In other words, we can offer a great education, provide incentives for students to perform, make modifications to education to help students succeed, and provide technical help, but if the child is homeless, left home alone for long periods of time, living in a high crime area, living in a home with substance abuse, or just downright defiant, there is only so much the school can accomplish in helping these students succeed. Good parental, home and community environments are critical to the success of underprivileged children.

Therefore, CUEE and the Chamber of Commerce’s efforts are focused on the wrong methods of improving our school statistics. Unification will not accomplish any of their stated goals, but will create an enormous financial burden on the community and its families during this time of recession and high unemployment. The business community and volunteer organizations should instead focus on providing educational awareness and success clinics in low income areas. They should organize efforts to reduce poverty by bringing in industry with good wages and sponsoring basic community literacy and vocational training and tutoring. They should focus on programs to promote the value of education. They should organize drug awareness and rehabilitation programs in low income areas. They should focus their efforts in decreasing poverty. They should focus on encouraging community diversity. If they will do this, the educational problems will take care of themselves in good systems like Valdosta and Lowndes.

However, CUEE and the Chamber have insisted on pushing forward with their unification agenda despite the certain negative effect it will have on the community and the education of our children. They deny there will be any negative effect, but they have no personal accountability if they are wrong. They ignore all relevant studies and dismiss the results as being misleading. Then they state their own misleading and false assertions and claim them to be FACTS.

Indeed, what qualifies the Chamber of CUEE to talk about education? Judging by their track record, nothing does.

This Handbook is a great resource, and I applaud David Mullis for producing it.

-jsq

To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia —Occupy Valdosta

Posted today in Occupy Valdosta’s facebook page:
To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia

We, the local citizens occupying Valdosta, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; to nonviolently occupy public space; to create an open process to address the problems we face, and to generate solutions accessible to everyone.

Our issues are varied, yet related.

We seek

Continue reading →

What qualifies you to come talk about education? —Kent Bishop @ VLCoC 11 October 2011

The first question Kent Bishop asked at the Chamber’s Candidates Forum, where he got eight minutes to speak for school consolidation while each of the candidates for Valdosta Mayor only got five, still hung in my mind at the end:
What qualifies you to come talk about education?
Like so many CUEE speakers, he isn’t an educator and he hadn’t done his homework.
You know, what I hear is that, from the other side, is that our taxes would go up because of consolidation. The facts just don’t point to that. Generally what you’d see is some blending of the costs. And if we do that and average it out, we’re gonna find the two millage rates will come out somewhere in the middle. It makes total sense.
Well, maybe it makes total sense if you like just making stuff up. Or you can see, hear, and read the extensive research by the Lowndes County Board of Education that demonstrates if consolidation passes taxes will go up and public school services will go down.

The speaker went on about ongoing white flight, without ever mentioning that consolidation would cause bright flight to head out of the county to Lanier and elsewhere.

He did come right out and admit something I’ve been saying: Continue reading →

Neighborhoods matter more than schools?

Where you live makes more difference to your education than where you go to school, says a news study, backed up by an older study.

Maureen Downey blogged for AJC 5 October 2011, Forget school vouchers. The route to improving education may be housing vouchers.

School voucher proponents argue that kids need a way out of failing schools, but research increasingly suggests that it would be more effective to provide them a way out of failing neighborhoods.

Should we consider giving poor families in low-performing school zones housing vouchers that they could use to relocate in the zone of a school performing above the area median?

I’d say that’s a bad solution to the problem the study identifies, and we already know better solutions. But first, from the abstract of the the study Continue reading →

Walking Route of Occupy Valdosta

Both the VDT and the Spectator got the route backwards. Not their fault; although the route has been posted since last Saturday, it hasn’t been easy to find.

Here is the actual route of the Friday noon 14 October sidewalk amble through Valdosta, as confirmed last night at the organizational meeting:


View Larger Map

This is a peaceful nonviolent exercise in assembly for redress of grievances and celebration of community. Bring a sign or we’ll help you make one. Talking, chanting, singing, and music are encouraged. Stay on the sidewalk except in the parks; no littering; ask for help if you need water or assistance; feel free to discuss and agree or disagree, but please no name calling or the like.

Assemble: Gather 11AM-noon at Drexel Park

Start: Noon at Drexel Park Continue reading →

Why Employers Support School Unification —Greg Justice

Received today from the Chamber. -jsq
Why Employers Support School Unification
By Greg Justice
Director of Manufacturing
Regal Marine Industries, Inc.

Look it up, states that rank among the highest in terms of quality of life and economic growth rank among the highest in terms of quality of education. Is this because these states have higher levels of education, or did they become attractive places to live because they have a focused approach to improving the quality of education? And does the same reasoning hold true for different nations?

It would seem we’re about to find out. In one generation, the U.S. has fallen from No. 1 to No. 9 in the number of people graduating with college degrees. We’re mediocre in education when compared to the other 34 industrialized nations. A 2009 study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math – all lagging behind other leading industrialized countries.

It is hard to relate these statistics to our local schools,

And I thought business people liked hard work! Continue reading →

CUEE radio ad helps alienate Black Crow radio host

About that CUEE radio ad, Rob Harder wrote for Valdosta Today today, “Morgan Freeman” CUEE Ad Fires Up Debate
A new radio ad from the Community Unification for Educational Excellence, Inc (CUEE) has sparked a lot of controversy in the few days it has been running in local media.

…

The ad, voiced by an actor who sounds like Morgan Freeman but is not, encourages Valdosta city residents to vote “Yes” on school consolidation November 8th. The commercial claims that Valdosta schools are “once again segregated” and ties the success of the vote to Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision.

Callers to the Chris Beckham Show, which airs from 3PM to 6PM each weekday on WVGA 105.9 FM, were overwhelming in their condemnation of the ad.

Yes, that’s what Chris Beckham told me when I talked to him today. I’ll be on his radio show on WVGA 105.9, tomorrow, about 4PM.

You can hear the radio ad in the Valdosta Today article.

The article contains this priceless quote by the real Morgan Freeman, Continue reading →

Vote No for the Children helps Occupy Valdosta

Seen today on Vote No! for the children. -jsq
Opportunity to March: Occupy Valdosta will be assembling at the Chamber of Commerce this Friday. Please contact Bobbi Hancock bahancock@valdosta.edu or Erin Hurley ephurley@valdosta.edu if you have questions. All of us need to support one another, these college kids were crucial in the efforts to get rid of the Biomass incinerator. Please help get the word out and join up if you can. The Chamber needs to see that we are all united! We’ll post times and places as soon as they are confirmed.

Videos of Candidates Forum by VLCoC last night

Videos of the Candidates Forum put on last night by the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC) are starting to appear in this playlist. The three Valdosta Mayoral candidates are there already (in order of appearance): There’s one more candidate video to come.

Here are the videos so far:


Candidates Forum, Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 October 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Chamber opposes hidden taxes while proposing taxation without representation

Chairman Tom Gooding of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce said that the Chamber was opposed to government adding hidden taxes, and Roy Taylor can be heard going “Amen!”. Yet both of them back the Chamber and CUEE’s school “unification” referendum, which would raise taxes for everyone in Valdosta and Lowndes County plus making conditions more difficult for business. None of the school consolidation proponents seem to see the irony.

Gooding’s talk about the Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee spelled out the Chamber’s theory of local government, which is all about helping business, and apparently not about anything else. He didn’t say a word about government providing public benefits for the common good. Which is the tail and which is the dog?

Also, Gooding promised at least three times (1 2 3) that Continue reading →