\n\n<\/a>\nAfter reading the \nEd Weekly article,<\/a> [slightly earlier version quoted here<\/a>, referred to\nhere.<\/a> -jsq]\nI was struck by a very strong\ndejavu feeling. I checked the date twice and only to realize ( twice)\nthat this consolidation went on more than 15 years ago.\n
\nThe city schools were in bad shape financially and educationally in\nChatnooga city. That is the major difference with our situation here.\nAs much as some want you to believe that Valdosta city schools are not\ndoing well, there are many that can point to the school improvement plan\nand it being recognized as one of the best in the state, or other notable\nachievements that differ front the view of VCS propagated by the folks\non CUEE.\n
\nOther than that we are looking at the same issues; racial segregation,\nneighborhood schools, professional development monies in the different\ndistrict, curriculum changes, busing to attain integration requirements,\nand the concerns about redistricting and moving kids to other schools.\n
\nAgain this was 15 years ago, yet we are now faced with the same issues.\nAt the time of the article consolidation had passed (19k to 21k).\nTeachers and parents Interviewed expressed concern about the poor kids\nof the city not getting a fair shake because the county (largely white)\nschools had little connection to the issues of the city kids. We would\nbe faced with that just on a smaller scale.\n
\nThe other strange likeness to this 15 year old consolidation is that\nSteve Prigozhy seems to have some very vague notions of school reform\ntoday that he did back then. These notions have been found to be less\nthan successful in the ensuing 15 years.\n
\nDistancing himself from his failures does not make him a success at\nanything but manipulation of facts. The education of my children is\nnot going to be reformed by a man that spins the truth and panders to\nthe wealthy.\n
\nThank you for sharing the Edweekly article.\n
\n-Karen Noll\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Received yesterday on How did we get here? apparently referring to Barbara Stratton’s comment since reposted as Hauntingly familiar Tennessee Waltz. -jsq After reading the Ed Weekly article, [slightly earlier version quoted here, referred to here. -jsq] I was struck by a very strong dejavu feeling. I checked the date twice and only to realize […]","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":[97,40,1376,14,15,49,3305,19],"tags":[598,1636,8829,8869,8701,368,7,3410,3668,8789,1635,6],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-cuee","category-economy","category-education","category-elections","category-fvcs","category-history","tag-chattanooga","tag-consolidation","tag-cuee","tag-fvcs","tag-georgia","tag-hamilton-county","tag-lowndes-county","tag-schools","tag-steve-prigohzy","tag-tennessee","tag-unification","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-mW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422","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=1422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}