Tag Archives: Education

Press Conference 10AM 7 July 2011 —Friends of Valdosta City Schools

Press release received yesterday:
Friends of Valdosta City Schools, Inc.
P.O. Box 5514
Valdosta, Georgia 31602
allen306@bellsouth.net
(229) 244-8268
Sam Allen, Chairman
Valdosta City Schools Superintendent Emeritus
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
June 30, 2011

Press Release:

Friends of Valdosta City Schools, Inc. (FVCS) will be holding a Press Conference on the steps of Valdosta City Hall (216 E. Central Ave) at 10:00 AM on Thursday, July 7, 2011 to formally announce its opposition to the current effort by the “Community Unification for Educational Excellence” (CUEE) group to Consolidate the Valdosta City School System with Lowndes County School System. We are inviting all citizens of both Valdosta and Lowndes County who support the opposition of Unification/Consolidation of the school systems.

Sam Allen, Chairman
229-244-8268

They have a facebook page.

While I think FVCS is making one of CUEE’s mistakes in thinking this is all about Valdosta, FVCS’s event is something I can get behind. Maybe FVCS will even come out with what they are for.

-jsq

CUEE brags about 9,000 petition signatures

It’s interesting what paying people to collect petition signatures can accomplish. The CUEE press release of yesterday is on their web pages. Here’s an excerpt:
9,000 and Counting!
Petition Drive Hits Key Milestone In Effort to Give
Valdosta Residents Opportunity to Vote on Unification
Plan to Attend Saturday Event at McKey Park to Join the Movement, Sign Petition
(Valdosta, GA) The petition drive campaign giving Valdosta residents the chance to vote on school unificationreached a key milestone Friday when it topped its goal of 9,000 signatures.

The 9,000 signatures was the target set by the Community Unification for Educational Excellence (CUEE),which launched the petition drive May 12 after three years of planning. The minimum number of validsignatures needed to place the issue on the November ballot is 25 percent of registered voters in Valdosta, or7,375. The target figure of 9,000 represents a 22 percent increase over the minimum required and nearly 31 percent of all registered voters.

It’s too bad they haven’t dedicated all this organizing to something that might actually help education around here, such as prison reform or preventing bright flight by squelching sprawl.

-jsq

HB 87 getting press in Mexico

Famous not just in France, but also in Mexico! Georgia’s HB 87 gets press south of the border.
El Universal of Mexico City reported from Atlanta 27 June 2011, Juez bloquea partes de ley migratoria de Georgia
Un juez federal concedió este lunes la solicitud de impedir que partes de la ley de Georgia contra la inmigración ilegal entren en vigor hasta que se resuelva una demanda.

El juez Thomas Thrash bloqueó partes de la legislación que penaliza a la gente que transporte o albergue a indocumentados, y también detuvo las cláusulas que le autorizan a los agentes verificar el estatus migratorio de alguien que no pueda proporcionar una identificación adecuada.

Además, el magistrado sobreseyó partes de la demanda a solicitud del estado.

La mayoría de las cláusulas que forman la ley iban a entrar en vigor el 1 de julio.

Grupos activistas por las libertades civiles habían interpuesto una demanda en la que le pedían al juez que declarara inconstitucional la legislación e impidiera que entrara en vigor.

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In case you have not emulated Mayor Paul Bridges of Uvalde and learned Spanish, here’s google translate’s version in English:
A federal judge on Monday granted the request to prevent parts of the Georgia law against illegal immigration to take effect pending resolution of a lawsuit.

Judge Thomas Thrash blocked parts of the legislation that penalizes people who transport or shelter illegal immigrants, and also stopped the clauses that authorize agents to verify the immigration status of someone who can not provide proper identification.

In addition, the judge dismissed portions of the demand at the request of the state.

Most of the clauses that make up the law to go into effect on July 1.

Groups civil liberties activists had filed a lawsuit in which he asked the judge to declare unconstitutional legislation and prevent the entry into force.

eca

Pithy but factual.

We don’t need to feed the incarceration machine with a private prison in Lowndes County Georgia that will profit private prison executives and investors at the expense of Georgia taxpayers and Georgia farmers. Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education instead.

-jsq

Uvalde “mayor for everybody” works against HB 87

Sometimes somebody does the right thing not for fear or favor, just because it’s the right thing.

Catherine E. Shoichet wrote for CNN 28 June 2011 about Paul Bridges, mayor of Uvalde, Republican mayor in the South becomes unlikely advocate for immigrants:

Bridges is waging a deeply personal battle.

Enforcement of the Georgia law could put him in prison and tear apart the families of some of his closest friends.

He thinks Governor Nathan Deal got it wrong when he signed HB 87: Continue reading →

GA farm worker story goes international

Ray Glier wrote for Agence France Press 23 June 2011, US farms at risk as workers flee immigration law
ATLANTA, Georgia (AFP) – A controversial immigration law in the US state of Georgia has brought unintended results, forcing farmers to reluctantly turn to ex-convicts as Latin American manual workers flee.

Low-skilled, undocumented workers, who for years have formed the backbone of this southern state’s farming economy, have bolted in the lead-up to the law taking effect on July 1, fearing deportation if caught working here.

The measure’s mainly Republican supporters argue that the state needs to enforce immigration laws in the absence of effective federal action, saying schools, jails and hospitals are overburdened by illegal aliens.

But as the full cost of the immigration reform emerges in the form of an estimated millions of dollars worth of crops rotting in fields, it could alarm other states that have passed or are considering similar strict measures.

The story quotes the figure of 11,000 needed workers, and quotes some farmers about that the state’s scheme to send people on probation to work on farms: Continue reading →

Helping Your Child Succeed, by Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce

Chamber holds child success workshop, notes parental involvement is key.

Jane Osborn remarked yesterday:

Here is a story that was not in our local paper.
Amber Eady wrote for WALB 20 June 2011, Chamber workshop helps parents prepare their child for success:
The Helping Your Child Succeed lunch-n-learn workshop was held Friday, June 17.

The workshop was created to help reach parents in the workplace, and to teach parents about statistics in dropout rates, and the education system as a whole.

For more information contact Keyara Hamilton at 229-247-8100.

The WALB story appendes the full Chamber press release, which includes: Continue reading →

Coalition against private prisons in Shelby County, Tennessee

In at least one southern county, church groups are working together with other groups to prevent private prisons. Why not here, too?

The Mid-South Peace and Justice Center is organizing a broad coalition against private prisons in Shelby County, Tennessee:

No Private Prisons
The Shelby County Commission is in the process of trying to privatize our criminal justice system. Private prisons have a well-documented history of inefficient security, poorly trained and underpaid workers, high turnover rates, scant benefits and unprofessional and unsupervised treatment of inmates.

The Coalition Against Private Prisons has been created to fight this privatization plan. So far this coalition involves Grassroots Leadership, the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, the AFSCME local 1733, Shelby County Corrections Officers, Women’s Action Coalition, Mid-South Interfaith Network, educators, faith leaders, artists, and activists.

To address this we are working with our coalition partners and other community organizations to educate Memphians about the dangers of privatization, and to mobilize Memphians around the issue.

They’ve got a report, Progress or Profit? Positive Alternatives To Privatization and Incarceration in Shelby County, Tennessee. Continue reading →

PSC lining up to vote for solar

Previously PSC Chair Lauren McDonald said he wanted Georgia Power to “come up with options in the next 30 days for expanding the tiny amount of electricity generated from solar power”. Yesterday, PSC Commissioner Chuck Eaton said “Solar is great for diversity, independence, research, and business,” and added that until recently he had discounted solar, but now he had seen it. And it turns out that Friday PSC Commissioner Tim Echols wrote an op-ed saying
It wasn’t until I entered the training room of Mage Solar in Dublin and saw 40 subcontractors in their solar academy that I got it. The growing solar industry is not just about funky collectors on a roof or left-leaning environmentalists who hate fossil fuel. It is about skilled jobs in manufacturing and construction, about economic development in Georgia, about consumers saving money on their power bill so they can spend it somewhere else, and about empowering people to essentially create their own power plant. This could eventually be big.
That’s three out of five commissioners. I’d call that a majority shaping up to do something in the PSC Energy Committee meeting of 16 July 2011. I couldn’t say what, exactly, since there nothing on the energy committee’s agenda about this. But something solar seems to be in the works.

-jsq

Private prisons spend millions lobbying to lock people up —Justice Policy Institute

Andrea Nill Sanchez wrote 23 June 2011 in ThinkProgress, Private Prisons Spend Millions On Lobbying To Put More People In Jail:
Yesterday, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report chronicling the political strategies of private prison companies “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” The report’s authors note that while the total number of people in prison increased less than 16 percent, the number of people held in private federal and state facilities increased by 120 and 33 percent, correspondingly. Government spending on corrections has soared since 1997 by 72 percent, up to $74 billion in 2007. And the private prison industry has raked in tremendous profits. Last year the two largest private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group — made over $2.9 billion in revenue.

JPI claims the private industry hasn’t merely responded to the nation’s incarceration woes, it has actively sought to create the market conditions (ie. more prisoners) necessary to expand its business.

We already knew that, but JPI has quantified it: Continue reading →

Many rural farmers are taking notice of HB 87 —Patrick Davis

Patrick Davis points out from Macon that HB 87 is producing Lowndes County farm employment problems, and maybe local farmers should take that into account when they vote.

Patrick Davis wrote, Rural Republicans in Georgia can’t have it both ways on immigration reform

With the law passed and ready for implementation, many rural farmers—especially in Central and South Georgia—are taking notice to the exodus of migrant workers and immigrants which has left some farmers without workers to pick crops.

Many of these same farmers that are hurting economically and losing crops in these rural counties had voted Republican for years.

Valdosta’s Ellis Black who represents parts of Lowndes County as a state representative helped to pass Gov. Nathan Deal’s conservative and punitive agenda and consequently it has contributed to drive an increasing number of migrant workers out of the Peach State.

Black has continued to justify his HB-87 vote and attempt to support Gov. Deal’s ridiculous assertion in regard to the use of probationers as a solution.

That last link is to Parolees to replace migrants? Gov. Deal says put probationers in fields by David Rodock in the VDT 15 June 2011, which included: Continue reading →