{"id":1373,"date":"2011-10-20T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/update-the-grassroots-handbook-against-school-consolidation-david-mullis.html"},"modified":"2011-10-20T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T14:00:00","slug":"update-the-grassroots-handbook-against-school-consolidation-david-mullis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/update-the-grassroots-handbook-against-school-consolidation-david-mullis.html","title":{"rendered":"Update: The Grassroots Handbook Against School Consolidation —David Mullis"},"content":{"rendered":"Received today. -jsq\n
\nDear Media:\n

\nI am sure you are aware that the vote of whether or not to consolidate\n\n<\/a>\nthe Valdosta City Schools into the Lowndes County School System will be\nheld November 8, 2011. The City only is being asked to vote on whether\nto dissolve the Valdosta City School charter. The proponents of the\nreferendum had a choice between putting the referendum in front of the\ncounty and city or the city alone. The Lowndes County Board of\nEducation asked\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\nthe proponents to allow both the city and the county to\nvote if they chose to go forward. Instead, the proponents moved forward\nunder a 1926 law that allows the city to vote to revoke its charter.\nThe county is not allowed to vote. If this happens, the county\nresidents will be forced to carry the burden of consolidation without\nany say so in the matter.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe proponents appear to have chosen the 1926 law and a low turnout\nelection year to seek this referendum under the theory that a minority\nof voters in favor can become a majority in an off election year,\nespecially if the voters are un-informed, indifferent or mislead.\n

\nAccordingly, the proponents of consolidation have embarked on a very\n\n<\/a>\nexpensive campaign of false and misleading information and have invoked\nrace issues in radio and mail-out political advertisement implying that\nDr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Dream” would require a vote for\nconsolidation. In addition, they have provided absolutely zero evidence\nthat consolidation will increase academic performance, reduce the\nexpense of education or increase economic performance. In fact, the\nevidence shows just the opposite.\n

\nI have composed a Grassroots Handbook Against School Consolidation: The\n\n<\/a>\nTruth About School Consolidation in Valdosta\/Lowndes County that was\nissued October 12, 2011 to bring some coherency to the real issues, to\nexpose all of the false and misleading information put forth by the\nproponents of school consolidation, and to show that consolidation is\nnot in the best interest of the children or community at this time. It\nwill impede the progresses recently experienced by Valdosta City Schools\nand will produce a tremendous economic hardship on the community all in\na time of economic crisis.\n

\n\nAttached is my latest revision (101811)<\/a> of the Grassroots\nHandbook that\nupdates the response to the proponents accusation concerning graduation\nrates at Valdosta High School.\n\n<\/a>\nI have also updated and added additional\ninformation or responses. I am sending this out to as many media who\nmay be interested in setting the record straight on this consolidation\nissue in Valdosta, Georgia. You may post or distribute this Handbook\nwidely and freely. The purpose is to inform the electorate and help\nthem make a wise choice.\n

\nI will continue to update this Handbook as issues arise that need to be\nexamined. If you have any issues that are not addressed but you think\nshould be addressed and added to the handbook, please let me know. If\nyou have any other information or questions, please email me. Thanks.\n

\nDavid E. Mullis\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Received today. -jsq Dear Media: I am sure you are aware that the vote of whether or not to consolidate the Valdosta City Schools into the Lowndes County School System will be held November 8, 2011. The City only is being asked to vote on whether to dissolve the Valdosta City School charter. The proponents […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,40,1376,14,15,49,3305,2,1105,1867,21,22,1577,1106,332],"tags":[1487,1636,3404,8829,3619,8705,1484,8869,8701,7,8845,882,1486,2877,383,1635,6],"class_list":["post-1373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-cuee","category-economy","category-education","category-elections","category-fvcs","category-government","category-lcboe","category-mlk","category-planning","category-politics","category-radio-2","category-vboe","category-vlcoc","tag-ballot","tag-consolidation","tag-constitution","tag-cuee","tag-david-mullis","tag-education","tag-election","tag-fvcs","tag-georgia","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mlk","tag-radio","tag-referendum","tag-school","tag-taxes","tag-unification","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-m9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373","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=1373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}