Rev. Floyd Rose quizzed Mrs. Ruth Council whether black students
got a better education in black schools.
She said she has taught in all sorts of schools, black and white.
He clarified:
…we were told about the world, where we came from, how we got here.
Mrs. Ruth Council said CUEE needs “parents, administrators, business people,
everybody, city and county”.
Whether we unify or not, we need to improve our educational offerings
for our boys and girls.
…
Will you please come to the meeting on the seventh
and provide information that you think will benefit.
Speakers pro and con school unification assembled up front
to talk about procedures, and a listener took exception to that.
Dr. Lee Allen said the important thing was “the simple idea of what we want to do”
and then talked about the 1960s and what he didn’t want to hear about that.
He never did say what he wanted to do now.
We have complaints that some people couldn’t understand
what Dr. Mark George was saying in
the previous post of his remarks at Monday’s Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting,
so here’s another version from a different camera.
Feedback, please.
He said the Chamber of Commerce said schools were not its issue.
Dr. George pointed out that it was the Chamber and the
real estate industry that largely produced the current situation
by funelling people to the county schools.
He said the unification project started with a request from
the Industrial Authority, who said it didn’t look good when
potential industry saw there was a black school system and
a white school system.
(The timing of this is interesting, because it comes after
Brad Lofton was hired as VLCIA Executive Director,
and other people formerly associated with VLCIA say they
were never asked by any potential industry how many school
systems we have.)
Dr. George discussed many other interesting points, such as CUEE’s
terminology drift from consolidation to integration to unification.
Camera 2: Dr. Mark George about CUEE @ LCDP 2 May 2011 Part 1 of 2:
Debate between proponents of school system unification (CUEE) and opponents,
at Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP), Gretchen Quarterman chair,
Videos by George Rhynes, Jim Parker, John S. Quarterman, and Gretchen Quarterman
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 2 May 2011.
In this second video from camera 2,
Dr. George noted
that the Valdosta school system is internally segregated.
He said both he and Rev. Rose asked to have somebody put
on the CUEE council, and that that didn’t happen.
There’s more; you can watch it for yourself.
Here’s
Part 2 of 2:
Camera 2: Dr. Mark George about CUEE @ LCDP 2 May 2011 Part 2 of 2:
Debate between proponents of school system unification (CUEE) and opponents,
at Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP), Gretchen Quarterman chair,
Videos by George Rhynes, Jim Parker, John S. Quarterman, and Gretchen Quarterman
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 2 May 2011.
“Poorly fitted air conditioners cost New York City 130 to 180 million
dollars a year in extra energy consumption,” one of the strategists,
Capt. Wayne Porter of the Navy, said Tuesday. “They generate 370,525
extra tons of carbon dioxide.”
Suppose, he says, you fixed them. And then you got the 40 states
that waste the most electricity to match the 10 most efficient. The
likely benefits are no surprise — less foreign oil, cost savings,
job creation, decreased pollution.
Now follow that thread to
“A National Strategic Narrative,”
a paper
written by Captain Porter and Col. Mark Mykleby of the Marines, which
calls on the United States to see that it cannot continue to engage the
world primarily with military force, but must do so as a nation powered
by the strength of its educational system, social policies, international
development and diplomacy, and its commitment to sustainable practices
in energy and agriculture.
“We must recognize that security means more than defense,” they
write. After ending the 20th century as the world’s most powerful
country, “we failed to recognize that dominance, like fossil fuel,
is not a sustainable form of energy.”
Dr. Mark George pointed out that school consolidation didn’t solve
some problems last time:
In 2011 our schools were more segregated racially than they were in 1968.
He questioned why people should believe that consolidation, even if called
unification, would solve those same problems this time.
Continuing the
debate between proponents and opponents of unification of the
Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems, organized by
Gretchen Quarterman, chair of the
The Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP).
Here, speaking against, is Dr. Mark George.
I’m on the CUEE board because
I believe a unified school system can better serve children
of our community, and particularly children in the city of Valdosta.
Gretchen Quarterman, chair of the
The Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
organized a debate between proponents and opponents of unification of the
Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems.
Here, speaking for, is Dr. George Bennett, on the board of
Community Unification for Educational Excellence (CUEE).
I can describe some reasons our members oppose unification.
We believe VBOE has discriminated against black students with
alternative school referrals.
We believe VBOE has discriminated against black teachers in hiring,
firing, promotions and demotions. I can’t describe the details of personal
cases, but last year when the RIF directive came down, nearly 60% of
those fired were black, and black professionals only represent 20-25%
of the employees.
The VBOE system is over 70% black students, yet the black students
are not given equal opportunities to achieve. I can describe issues
we brought to the Department of Justice, as well as issues about the
Alternative school, and a very serious issue about how the Alternative
school was given a different school code, which we believe was a ploy to
artificially inflate the test scores at the students’ home schools. We
have evidence that we gave to the DOJ that students were sent to PLC
based on minor infractions.
Many of our members went through the consolidation in the sixties and
don’t want to see their children put into a situation where they will be
even more of a minority. Our children are in the majority at Valdosta
City Schools, but yet we still fight serious issues of discrimination
and inequality in education.
Many of us attended the CUEE education session at Serenity Church,
and did not hear anything that changed our minds.
Many of us distrust an “education” initiative brought forth from
the Chamber of Commerce. Our branch is a member of the Chamber, and we
support Chamber events and some policies, but we don’t support this
one. I can’t remember a time when “business” thought it knew what
was best for education except when school privatization was going on,
and the studies indicated that there was no benefit to that direction
insofar as student achievement.
Mr. Parris and Mr. Rowell, come to some of our branch meetings and we’ll
be glad to talk to you about it, so you can hear directly from us, I
am unable to completely explain the many different opinions that were
presented at the branch meeting when this came up for a vote. Also,
a former teacher named Dr. Marilyn McCluskey has written about many of
the issues we were involved in, and these descriptions can be found at
her blog TheNakedTruth4U.
-Leigh Touchton
Note it was
Alex Jones
who commented on this blog today; I’m pretty sure Alex Rowell has
a different opinion.
A comment by Jon Parris on a comment.
My response is appended below. -jsq
Well-said, Alex. I’m baffled that this website and the local NAACP are
against unification… the status-quo has created a haves/have-nots
situation that is untenable if we are going to consider ourselves a
progressive area. A unified system would bring uniformity to curriculum
and scheduling, eliminate redundant administrative positions, and allow
(force?) everyone in the county to have a stake in the educational
development of all the children in the county. What basically exists now
is institutional racism… predominately lower-income minority (& some
white) kids attending resource-depleted city schools due to a shrinking
tax base, and predominately white middle and upper income kids attending
the resource-enriched county schools with an affluent tax base.
Someone pointed me to your blog on the Biomass issue, and I came across
your recent post on the school unification issue.
Just curious… have your ever examined the testing data for both school
systems? A quick look at the last report card, and you will see why most
people in this community believe our public education system is broken
and does not adequately prepare our children to either attend college
or enter the workforce.