{"id":2100,"date":"2011-05-01T19:58:47","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T23:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/will-school-unification-improve-education-cuee.html"},"modified":"2011-05-01T19:58:47","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T23:58:47","slug":"will-school-unification-improve-education-cuee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/will-school-unification-improve-education-cuee.html","title":{"rendered":"Will school unification improve education? &mdash;CUEE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The real answer is in the first sentence after A: in this<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cueeinc.com\/support-files\/school_unification_frequently_asked_questions_april_2011.pdf\"><br \/>\nFAQ by CUEE:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nQ: HOW WILL UNIFICATION OF OUR SCHOOL SYSTEMS IMPROVE EDUCATION?<br \/>\n<br \/>\nA: School unification, by itself, will not improve the quality of<br \/>\neducation for our children.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Unfortunately, CUEE didn&#8217;t stop there.<br \/>\nTheir FAQ continues:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/98706376@N00\/5677981344\/\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5070\/5677981344_39ba95e5c7_m.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\nUnifying our public schools means we can<br \/>\nhave ONE focus on education in our community. CUEE seeks to unify the<br \/>\nstrengths, aspirations, goals and resources of both school systems into<br \/>\nONE system with ONE focus on providing a quality education to all children<br \/>\nand close the achievement gap.<\/p>\n<p>\nSchool unification will affect education reform in key areas including;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\nONE focus on resources that support the critical goal of having all our<br \/>\nchildren be proficient in reading and math at grade level by the 3rd<br \/>\ngrade. Children who are at grade level by the 3rd grade achieve 10-20%<br \/>\nhigher graduation rates.<\/p>\n<li>\nONE single school system. Our community should focus on graduating all<br \/>\nstudents to ensure they are ready to enter college, technical school,<br \/>\nthe military or the workplace.<\/p>\n<li>\nEstablishing district-wide priorities and standards for all students and<br \/>\nschools. Best practices will be applied across ONE school district instead<br \/>\nof two. We could have one, highly focused professional development program<br \/>\nfor our teachers and school leaders. Singularly focused professional<br \/>\ndevelopment is the key to effective teaching. Great teachers and<br \/>\ngreat principals make great schools, and that makes a difference in<br \/>\nthe classroom.<\/p>\n<li>\nONE positive focus to closing the achievement gap for all students. Our<br \/>\nschools should have a culture of high expectations for all students,<br \/>\nregardless of their gender, race\/ethnicity, ability, or socioeconomic<br \/>\nstatus. A unified school system will have a focused mission on<br \/>\ndeveloping programs and services to ensure all children are performing<br \/>\nat high levels, achieving proficiency and receiving equal educational<br \/>\nopportunities.\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Somehow shouting &#8220;ONE&#8221; is supposed to magically make these things happen.<br \/>\nIf CUEE knows how to do these things, why doesn&#8217;t it get on with doing<br \/>\nthem now in the existing school systems?<br \/>\nOh, right: it doesn&#8217;t say how, because it doesn&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n<p>\nHere&#8217;s one way I know CUEE doesn&#8217;t know.<br \/>\nCUEE said so,<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kushpatel\/posts\/198028110218779\"><br \/>\non its facebook page, 27 March 2011:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nCUEE is facilitating an educational planning process that will consist of<br \/>\nlocal educators, public officials, parents, business and civic leaders,<br \/>\nand others. This planning committee will examine many of the issues raised<br \/>\nin your FB post as well as other issues facing our public schools. Once<br \/>\nthis planning process is completed, the plan will be presented to both<br \/>\nSchool Boards and then to the public at a community forum.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Note how that works.<br \/>\nCUEE organizes its hand-picked committee that produces a plan<br \/>\nand presents it to the community.<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd according to what CUEE speakers<br \/>\nsaid at their 24 March 2011 &#8220;Kick-off&#8221; session,<br \/>\nthat presentation would be <em>after<\/em> the unification vote<br \/>\n(if there is one).<\/p>\n<p>\nContinuing CUEE&#8217;s facebook explanation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nIf the Valdosta voters decide to unify with the Lowndes County school<br \/>\nsystem, both School Boards will then come together and develop a school<br \/>\nunification plan that will hopefully be implemented by mid-2013. CUEE<br \/>\nhopes the School Boards will use this planning document as a resource<br \/>\nas they plan for a county-wide school system. And if asked, CUEE will<br \/>\noffer its assistance and financial support to their planning process.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, CUEE, if a unification vote passes, you broke it,<br \/>\nyou should help pay to fix it.<br \/>\nAnd if your hand-selected committee really can come up with<br \/>\na plan to improve education, why not do that first,<br \/>\ntry it out in one of the school systems, and if that one improves,<br \/>\nthen talk about unification?<br \/>\nThat way there would be some evidence that you actually know<br \/>\nhow to improve education.<br \/>\nOf course, it would also be evidence that unification had nothing<br \/>\nto do with it.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nAnd yes, we have and continue to talk with both school systems about<br \/>\nthis issue. CUEE has also visited several communities in Georgia and<br \/>\nother nearby states that have unified their school districts during<br \/>\nthe last 10-15 years. During these visits, CUEE spoke with school<br \/>\nand elected officials to better understand the challenges and issues<br \/>\nthey faced when unifying their school systems. Much of what CUEE says<br \/>\non school unification is based on what these communities experienced<br \/>\n(good and bad) after they unified their school systems.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, what did the Valdosta and Lowndes school systems say?<br \/>\nWhy don&#8217;t you tell us?<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd its curious how in talking to other school systems CUEE<br \/>\nnever came back with any downsides whatever to school unification.<br \/>\nThis makes me wonder how much they really tried to find out.<\/p>\n<p>\nLet&#8217;s go back to that first sentence, which is the real answer:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nA: School unification, by itself, will not improve the quality of<br \/>\neducation for our children.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So why are we considering doing it?<\/p>\n<p>\nImagine what these self-styled leaders of the community could do<br \/>\nif they put their minds to something that would actually<br \/>\nimprove things around here!<\/p>\n<p>\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The real answer is in the first sentence after A: in this FAQ by CUEE: Q: HOW WILL UNIFICATION OF OUR SCHOOL SYSTEMS IMPROVE EDUCATION? A: School unification, by itself, will not improve the quality of education for our children. Unfortunately, CUEE didn&#8217;t stop there. Their FAQ continues:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,1376,3732,14,15,49,2,1105,1106],"tags":[4616,1636,8829,3540,548,4617,8702,12,7,3641,4618,3964,1635,6],"class_list":["post-2100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-cuee","category-cuee-24-march-2011","category-economy","category-education","category-elections","category-government","category-lcboe","category-vboe","tag-community-unification-for-educational-excellence","tag-consolidation","tag-cuee","tag-evidence","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-kick-off","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-magical-thinking","tag-school-systems","tag-town-hall","tag-unification","tag-valdosta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100","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=2100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}