{"id":1747,"date":"2011-07-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/three-things-to-actually-improve-education-john-s-quarterman.html"},"modified":"2011-07-18T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-18T14:00:00","slug":"three-things-to-actually-improve-education-john-s-quarterman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/three-things-to-actually-improve-education-john-s-quarterman.html","title":{"rendered":"Three things to actually improve education —John S. Quarterman"},"content":{"rendered":"People ask me why I oppose CUEE.\nIt’s because I’d rather actually improve education instead.\n

\nIt seems to me the burden of proof is on the people proposing\nto make massive changes in the local education system.\nAnd CUEE has not provided any evidence for their position.\nSam Allen of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS)\n\npithily sums up CUEE:<\/a>\n

\n“It’s not about the children. It’s about somebody’s ego.”\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<\/a>\nI don’t think the children should have to suffer for somebody’s ego.\n

\nCUEE’s unification push isn’t about education.\nIt’s about\n\na “unified platform” to attract industry.<\/a>\nThat alone is enough reason to oppose “unification”.\nIt’s not about education!\n

\nAs former Industrial Authority Chair Jerome Tucker has been\nheard to remark on numerous occassions, “nobody ever asked me how\nmany school systems we had!”\nThe only example in Georgia CUEE points to for this is the Kia\nplant that came to Troup County, Georgia.\nIt’s funny how \nnone of the locals seem to have mentioned any such connection in the numerous articles published about the Kia plant.<\/a>\nInstead, the mayor of the town with the Kia plant complains that his town\ndoesn’t have a high school.\nThat’s right: he’s complaining that the school system is too<\/em>\nconsolidated!\nThe only actual education between Kia and education in Troup County\nis\n\nwith West Georgia Tech, the local technical college.<\/a>\n

\nCUEE has finally cobbled together an education committee, but\n\nit won’t even report back before the proposed ballot referendum vote.<\/a>\nCUEE has no plan to improve education.\n

\nIf CUEE actually did want to help the disadvantaged in the Valdosta\nCity schools,\n\n\n\nas George Rhynes said:<\/a>\n

\nWhere was CUEE and the people working to bring the two school systems\ntogether when local citizens were fighting for change, and seeking\nanswers to the Hiring of Black Educators and the Federal Court Order\nbeing complied with that was filed decades ago? Where were they then?\n<\/blockquote>\nLocal NAACP president Leigh Touchton\n\nlists a number of other related points.<\/a>\n

\nWhere is CUEE on dismantling the\n\nSchool to Prison Pipeline?<\/a>\nWhere is CUEE on\nthe state of Georgia \nspending $18,000 a year to lock up inmates and only $3,800 a year\nto educate a child?<\/a>\nEverybody complains that parents don’t do enough to help their children\nin school.\nBut one of the main reasons they don’t is because they’re locked up:\n\n1 in 13 adults in Georgia are in jail, prison, probation, or parole.<\/a>\nDisproportionately the people locked up are black, in\n\nthe new Jim Crow:<\/a>\n

\n“In some black inner-city communities, four of five black youth\ncan expect to be caught up in the criminal justice system during their\nlifetimes.”\n<\/blockquote>\nYou may argue that that’s a state or national problem and hard to fix.\nThat’s not excuse not to try.\nAnd why isn’t CUEE opposing the Industrial Authority’s plan to site\na private prison in Lowndes County,\nwasting tax dollars that could be spent on education?\n

\nWhat’s the other big reason parents aren’t involved in education?\nBecause they’re working too hard trying to make ends meet.\nHow about we get some real industry here so parents don’t have\nto work two jobs to pay the bills, and their children don’t have to move\nsomewhere else to get a job?\nEvery resource the Chamber of Commerce spends promoting CUEE\nis a resource it could be using for its\n\nRenewable and Sustainable Energy Network.<\/a>\nResources that could be promoting jobs in the fastest growing\nindustry in the world,\n\nsolar power, in distribution, installation, architecting, and college research.<\/a>\n

\nCUEE’s own research and their own hired expert says\n\nunification wouldn’t improve education<\/a>.\n

\nWhat it would do would be to promote bright flight to Lanier County and elsewhere.<\/a>\nWhat it would do would be to waste a lot of time and effort that could\nbe used to do other things to actually improve education.\n

\nCUEE’s model is the Chattanooga school system.\nThe only thing I’ve heard the Chattanooga school system\ndid to improve education was to invest in early childhood education.\n\nRecent research shows that:<\/a>\n

\nThose who had participated in an early childhood program beginning at\nage 3 showed higher levels of educational attainment, socioeconomic\nstatus, job skills, and health insurance coverage as well as lower\nrates of substance abuse, felony arrest, and incarceration than those\nwho received the usual early childhood services.\n<\/blockquote>\nWe already know that.\nWe don’t need to waste huge amounts of time and effort on\na petition or a ballot referendum or tinkering with the number of\nschool employees to find that out.\n

\nLet’s get on with something real to improve education:\n

    \n
  1. \nLet’s invest in early childhood education,\n
  2. \nlet’s stop locking so many people up,\n
  3. \nand let’s promote real industry such as solar for jobs for parents.\n<\/ol>\nCome on, self-styled leaders of the community, and the Chamber, and the Industrial Authority, and on the school boards:\nwhere are you on these three points?\n

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