{"id":1313,"date":"2011-11-04T09:42:30","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T13:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/schools-serving-children-in-poverty-well-karen-noll.html"},"modified":"2011-11-04T09:42:30","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T13:42:30","slug":"schools-serving-children-in-poverty-well-karen-noll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/schools-serving-children-in-poverty-well-karen-noll.html","title":{"rendered":"Schools serving children in poverty well —Karen Noll"},"content":{"rendered":"

Received yesterday. -jsq<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nFrom: Karen Noll
\n
\nTo: chamber@valdostachamber.com
\n
\nCc: [many other people]<\/p>\n

Dear Mr. Gooding and Chamber of Commerce,<\/p>\n

\nIn response to
\n
\nyour most recent correspondence<\/a>, I dare say many ask why the
\nChamber has such a single focus on an unproven plan with little or no
\nsupporting data. Yet again your answers to the many questions about the
\nreasons that the Chamber is acting in this manner are insufficient and
\ndemonstrate quite clearly that you are steadfastly working to undermine the
\nvery community you claim to support.<\/p>\n

\nMaybe it is my academic background, but I will use data to support my
\nassertions and hopefully rectify some of the misinformation that has been
\nso disruptive to this community, a discussion of a very important issue:
\nthe education of our children.<\/p>\n

\nAccording to
\n
\nthe Chamber’s own study,<\/a> education ranked\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n12th out of 16
\nfactors in importance to businesses coming to our community. The
\n
\nChamber’s
\nown survey<\/a> revealed that a low crime rate and the business friendliness of
\nthe local agencies were most important to businesses in 2009.<\/p>\n

\nOur community sadly hosts a large population of children living in poverty,
\nand education is the best avenue to future success. For this reason, I am
\nvery pleased to report that our economically disadvantaged students in
\nValdosta City Schools met or exceeded the expected CRCT scores for the
\ndistrict last year. This is no small feat and we have some very dedicated
\neducators to thank for this achievement.<\/p>\n

\nFurthermore, research shows that “larger district size has been shown to be
\nnegatively associated with the achievement of impoverished
\nstudents” (
\nHowley, C. 1996<\/a>). This means that the fantastic achievements of
\nour most disadvantaged students will be reversed in a larger district and
\nall of the hard work of VCS educators will be lost in order to create, as
\nyou claim, “one great public school system”.<\/p>\n

\nTwo years ago the city school district asked Chamber members to provide
\ninput on their Strategic Improvement Plan through an online survey. Only
\n5.2% of responses came from Chamber members. Valdosta City Schools
\nencouraged input from all stakeholders, yet these Chamber members in large
\npart did not respond. Now the Chamber claims to have THE solution for the
\nschools they had no time for when asked for feedback.<\/p>\n

\nResearch consistently shows that bigger does not mean better in education.
\nSo, ‘combining our resources’ does not bring more money, better
\neducational outcomes, or cost savings. According to the
\n
\nLowndes County
\nBoard of Education<\/a> consolidation would put a number of teachers out of
\nwork. That would mean fewer customers in local businesses and less tax
\nrevenue. In other words, school consolidation would negatively impact our
\nlocal economy and its businesses.<\/p>\n

\nThe Chamber is acting irresponsibly toward this community and the children
\nserved by the Valdosta City Schools. I am again appalled by the
\ncallousness of this organization, the petty name calling and repeated
\nmisinformation. It is crystal clear that CUEE and the Chamber are not
\ninterested in what is best for our children.<\/p>\n

\nAs a positive and strong community we will rise above the bad apple that
\nmisbehaves and move forward because it is the right thing to do, and we
\nwill continue to model appropriate behavior to our children. At the same
\ntime, we as a community must remember the lesson we have learned today:
\n‘greed can blind’. We are called to reach out to and to help those in
\nneed. We will continue to work together as a community and work toward the
\nbrightest future for our children.<\/p>\n

\nThank you, Mr. Gooding, for reminding us again of the path we are called to
\ntake.<\/p>\n

\nVote No for our children!!<\/p>\n

\nMy best wishes to you,
\n
\nKaren Noll\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Received yesterday. -jsq From: Karen Noll To: chamber@valdostachamber.com Cc: [many other people] Dear Mr. Gooding and Chamber of Commerce, In response to your most recent correspondence, I dare say many ask why the Chamber has such a single focus on an unproven plan with little or no supporting data. Yet again your answers to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,40,1376,14,15,49,3305,21,22,3,1106,332],"tags":[424,2153,8717,1636,8829,8704,8705,8869,8701,847,1691,7,3500,3501,839,2877,1520,1635,6,1040,8816,8765],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-cuee","category-economy","category-education","category-elections","category-fvcs","category-planning","category-politics","category-transparency","category-vboe","category-vlcoc","tag-business","tag-children","tag-community","tag-consolidation","tag-cuee","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-fvcs","tag-georgia","tag-jobs","tag-karen-noll","tag-lowndes-county","tag-magic","tag-platform","tag-poverty","tag-school","tag-tom-gooding","tag-unification","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-chamber-of-commerce","tag-vboe","tag-vlcoc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}