Category Archives: Transparency

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 →

It is important to give our children wings and roots. —Barbara Stratton

Received today on CUEE radio ad helps alienate Black Crow radio host. -jsq

CUEE can attribute the source of this ad to another committee all they want to. I know that I personally overheard Rusty Griffin telling Myrna Ballard about the ad last Thursday night at the CUEE Education Task Force meeting which I attended as a concerned citizen. Rusty was very excited about the ad & said he expected it to greatly enhance their campaign to unify the black community for consolidation. I told Sam Allen what I heard, but neither of us knew what would be in the ad until it aired Tuesday. Rusty said he had to get a final OK so I was hoping that person would be smarter, but evidently not. Another thing I noticed at the meeting where everyone but me was part of the task force only two people out of the fifteen were from the black community. How does that represent the diversity they preach?
I personally appreciate all the times over the past months

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 →

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 →

Occupy Valdosta Flyers

Already more people have signed up to march Friday than showed up at the Chamber’s event last night. Here are some flyers. There’s an Occupy Valdosta organizational meeting tonight; more in the blog after that. The traditional media are starting to flock around, as well.

-jsq

Do we want a Gladiator School prison in Lowndes County?

Remember FBI investigating CCA “Gladiator School”, the CCA-run private prison in Idaho the FBI was investigating last year? Well, it hasn’t improved much. Cutting corners for private profit endangers prisoner safety and public safety. Is that what we want in Lowndes County, Georgia?

The same reporter, Rebecca Boone, wrote again for AP Sunday, almost a year later, CCA-run prison remains Idaho’s most violent lockup

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — In the last four years, Idaho’s largest privately run prison has faced federal lawsuits, widespread public scrutiny, increased state oversight, changes in upper management and even an ongoing FBI investigation.
Yet the Corrections Corp. of America-run Idaho Correctional Center remains the most violent lockup in Idaho.
Records obtained by The Associated Press show that while the assault rate improved somewhat in the four-year period examined, ICC inmates are still more than twice as likely to be assaulted as those at other Idaho prisons.
Between September 2007 and September 2008, both ICC and the state-run Idaho State Correctional Institution were medium-security prisons with roughly 1,500 inmates each. But during that 12-month span, ICC had 132 inmate-on-inmate assaults, compared to just 42 at ISCI. In 2008, ICC had more assaults than all other Idaho prisons combined.
By 2010, both prisons had grown with 2,080 inmates at ICC and 1,688 inmates at ISCI. Records collected by the AP showed that there were 118 inmate-on-inmate assaults at ICC compared to 38 at ISCI. And again last year, ICC had more assaults than all the other prisons combined.

What improvement there has been is because multiple inmates filed lawsuits.

Even so, Idaho renewed and even increased its contract with CCA. With one small improvement: Continue reading →

MLK Jr. radio ad for CUEE?

I haven’t heard it, but multiple people say they have: a radio ad on Black Crow media

promoting Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream with cuee’s mission.

Voiced by Morgan Freeman. So we know CUEE is pouring money into their local disaster capitalism.

This is not sitting well with opponents of consolidation. Here’s JC Cunningham’s reaction:

I personally am not surprised by any tactics that Cuee uses in order to win on Nov. 8th. In the last 5 minutes I have received 3 phone calls and 6 emails. Each one asked me what was I going to do about it? After the last call I began to get a little upset, because I did not ask that person the same question. What are you going to do about this?
Cuee and the Chamber will try and get away with