{"id":1471,"date":"2011-09-28T09:51:06","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T13:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/cuee-demolishes-its-own-case.html"},"modified":"2011-09-28T09:51:06","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T13:51:06","slug":"cuee-demolishes-its-own-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/cuee-demolishes-its-own-case.html","title":{"rendered":"CUEE demolishes its own case"},"content":{"rendered":"CUEE still doesn’t have a plan for improving education.\n\n<\/a>\nWhen asked for any concrete examples of education improving\nbecause of school consolidation, not one person could come up\nwith one: not CUEE, not the Chamber, not their invited experts.\nTheir invited experts established that consolidation in Troup County\nnot only didn’t save money, it required a bond issue.\nAnd it took four or five years of the hardest work they’d ever done,\neven though they couldn’t give any evidence that it improved education.\nIt was like that on almost every point: the Chamber and CUEE either\ncouldn’t answer the simplest questions, or even more frequently\ndemolished their own case.\n

\nThe last question asked to give an example of any company that\nhad declined to come in because of multiple school systems.\nNot only could nobody give an example, but someone, I believe it was\nWalter Hobgood, stood up at the podium and said when he was working\nfor a large company he had never encountered a case where they looked\nat the number of school systems.\n

\nEarly on Chamber Chair Tom Gooding went on at great length about\n\n\nproblems of education.\n\n<\/a>\nYes, we know about all that.\nBut he and CUEE Chair Rusty Griffin and all the other local speakers\n(of whom I think the only actual educator was Mrs. Ruth Council)\nfailed to provide any plan to improve education.\nThey said CUEE’s education committee was still meeting and would\nat some undefined number of weeks in the future produce a plan.\nThey complained that the two school boards had not done their\nhomework for them,\n\n<\/a>\nbecause both the Valdosta Board of Education and the next day the\nLowndes County Board of Education\n\nalready voted to oppose consolidation.<\/a>\n

\nOne of the questions from the audience later was about what it would\ntake to get the Chamber to get out of education and back to bringing\nin business.\nTom Gooding said he didn’t accept the premise; he thought\neducation was essential to business.\nTrue enough, but he still didn’t present any plan to improve education.\n

\nCUEE’s invited speaker, Terry Jenkins,\n\n<\/a>\nwho was superintendent in Troup County during consolidation,\nadmitted that it was four or five years of really hard work\nto make it work at all.\nHe didn’t know how much more they spent on bussing because of it.\nHe didn’t know what Troup County’s AYP figures were now,\nand when asked proceeded to argue that AYP wasn’t valid for any school system.\nMaybe so, but he could not come up with any single example\nof how consolidation improved education in Troup County.\n

\nTerry Jenkins\ndidn’t mention that \neighteen years later they’re still arguing about it in Troup County.<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\nHe did say that votes only in the cities in Troup County were arranged\nto force the issue by preventing people in the county from voting.\nHe referred to people in the county who were mad because they didn’t\nget to vote as “haters”.\nHe referred to people who didn’t like losing their high school as\n“those people”.\n

\nI wonder if “those people” include Mayor Ferguson of West Point, Georgia,\nhome of the Kia plant,\n\n<\/a>\n\nwho complained to USA TODAY 25 March 2010,<\/a>\n

\n“We have a wonderful elementary school.” But there is no middle or high\nschool in the city limits. “The current formula for education funding\nis not working,”\n<\/blockquote>\nWest Point, Georgia, used to have a high school,\nmascot Red Devils, opened 1903, closed 1986.<\/a>\nThat’s right, consolidation took away West Point’s high school,\neducation is still a problem, and the mayor is complaining.\nIs he just a “hater”?\n

\nRemember, nobody in Lowndes County outside Valdosta gets to vote\non the local “unification” referendum in November.\nAre we just “those people”?\n

\nBut don’t feel neglected, people of Valdosta who oppose consolidation,\nyou, too, can be “those people”.\nCUEE and the Chamber enumerated some things they thought were misinformation,\nand among those was the potential sale of the Valdosta High School stadium.\n\n<\/a>\nThe counter-argument was that only the Lowndes County School board after\nunification could sell the stadium.\nBut that’s exactly what\n\nthe last speaker at the 29 August 2011 VBOE meeting said!<\/a>\nSo CUEE and the Chamber actually validated his argument.\nRest easy, Wildcat fans: if you oppose consolidation\nand point out potential adverse consequences, you, too, can be “those people”!\n

\nTerry Jenkins did mention that Troup County had to float a bond issue\nto pay for costs related to consolidation.\nAn audience question later wondered who would pay the $5 million\nit will cost to level up pensions for Valdosta faculty to match those\nof Lowndes.\nThe Chamber and CUEE said that would be the unified Lowndes County School\nBoard’s problem.\nThe crowd gave the real answer: “the taxpayers”.\n

\nSpeaking of the Kia plant, nobody on the podium did.\nEven though Troup County’s Kia plant used to be the only\n\n<\/a>\nexample CUEE could come up with for an industry that they could\nclaim moved in because of school unification.\nMaybe that’s because\n\nthere’s no connection:<\/a>\nTroup County didn’t mention schools at all in their announcement about the\nKia plant opening; there’s nothing about school unification in their\nstrategic plan; and their county history web page says nothing\nabout schools in relation to the Kia plant.\nSo instead of admitting they were wrong,\nCUEE and the Chamber just don’t mention Kia any more.\n

\nSpeaking of Chattanooga, oh, wait, they didn’t!\nEven though back in March at the\n\nCUEE Kick-Off<\/a>\nCUEE’s paid consultant\n\nSteve Sp<\/strike>Prigohzy from Chattanooga<\/a>\nspoke a lot about Chattanooga schools\n“unifying” with those of Hamilton County, Tennessee\nas CUEE’s main example of a “unified” school system.\nSp<\/strike>Prigohzy was conspicuously absent last night.\nMaybe because in March he said things like this:\n

\n“If you believe in the end that running one system is cheaper than\nrunning two school systems. If in the end you are going to cast a vote\nfor a single system because you think it would save money, I wouldn’t\ncast my vote. I do not think it will save money.”\n<\/blockquote>\nMaybe because,\n\nas David Mullis keeps pointing out,<\/a>\nHamilton Co. TN is a high priority school district,\n\n<\/a>\nand\n
\n“That means they had two years of bad results.”\n<\/blockquote>\nOnce again, when one of their talking points is disproved,\nCUEE and the Chamber don’t stand up and admit they’re wrong:\nthey just stop talking about it.\n

\nNow CUEE and the Chamber may try to get everyone to believe that\n\n<\/a>\nall the people there were for “unification”. Look closely: many of the\nshirts people were wearing said “NO CONSOLIDATION”.\nThe anti-consolidation group Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS) sells those shirts.\nI don’t know what the proportions of con vs. pro were, but I do know\nthere were far more people wearing no consolidation shirts than there\nwere wearing pro-unification shirts.\nAnd on several occasions when the speakers let out a good one,\nthe laughter from the no consolidation folks indicated they were\na quite large proportion of the audience.\n

\nSuch occasions included when moderator Lee Henderson read a question\nasking how much the Chamber or CUEE had spent on paid consultants.\nChamber Chair Gooding referred that one to CUEE.\nCUEE Chair Rusty Griffin enumerated the consultants\n(the only time Sp<\/strike>Prigohzy was mentioned).\nBut Griffin failed to\nsay anything about how much the consultants\nwere paid until the crowd reminded him.\nThen he claimed not to know.\nThe crowd laughed loudly.\nAt least the no consolidation folks did.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nCUEE’s only real argument?\n

\n“I believe!”\n<\/blockquote>\nIt wasn’t just the preacher who went on about that at great length,\nit was every pro-unification speaker.\nNo evidence, no examples, of education improved by consolidation.\nJust “I believe!”\n

\nSorry, CUEE and the Chamber:\nyou need more than that before you demolish our school systems.\n

\nAlso, CUEE: there were multiple video cameras there.\n\n<\/a>\nYou can see at least four in this picture, not counting\nthe ones not pictured Gretchen and I were holding for LAKE.\nI would bet at least one of them was paid for by CUEE or the Chamber.\nLet’s see it, CUEE!\nLet’s see video of the whole meeting put on the web by you,\nso everyone can see.\nIf you can afford all those consultants and all those signs,\nyou can afford that.\n

\nLAKE will be posting video of this event.\n

\nMeanwhile, according to the Chamber and CUEE’s own invited experts,\nconsolidation wouldn’t improve education, it would raise taxes,\nand it would be at the very least four or five years of the hardest\nwork anybody involved has ever done.\nWhy on earth would anyone want that?\n

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