{"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":"The real answer is in the first sentence after A: in this\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cueeinc.com\/support-files\/school_unification_frequently_asked_questions_april_2011.pdf\">\nFAQ by CUEE:<\/a>\n<blockquote>\nQ: HOW WILL UNIFICATION OF OUR SCHOOL SYSTEMS IMPROVE EDUCATION?\n<br>\nA: School unification, by itself, will not improve the quality of\neducation for our children.\n<\/blockquote>\nUnfortunately, CUEE didn&#8217;t stop there.\nTheir FAQ continues:\n\n<!--more-->\n<blockquote>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/98706376@N00\/5677981344\/\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5070\/5677981344_39ba95e5c7_m.jpg\"><\/a>\nUnifying our public schools means we can\nhave ONE focus on education in our community. CUEE seeks to unify the\nstrengths, aspirations, goals and resources of both school systems into\nONE system with ONE focus on providing a quality education to all children\nand close the achievement gap.\n<p>\nSchool unification will affect education reform in key areas including;\n<ul>\n<li>\nONE focus on resources that support the critical goal of having all our\nchildren be proficient in reading and math at grade level by the 3rd\ngrade. Children who are at grade level by the 3rd grade achieve 10-20%\nhigher graduation rates.\n<li>\nONE single school system. Our community should focus on graduating all\nstudents to ensure they are ready to enter college, technical school,\nthe military or the workplace.\n<li>\nEstablishing district-wide priorities and standards for all students and\nschools. Best practices will be applied across ONE school district instead\nof two. We could have one, highly focused professional development program\nfor our teachers and school leaders. Singularly focused professional\ndevelopment is the key to effective teaching. Great teachers and\ngreat principals make great schools, and that makes a difference in\nthe classroom.\n<li>\nONE positive focus to closing the achievement gap for all students. Our\nschools should have a culture of high expectations for all students,\nregardless of their gender, race\/ethnicity, ability, or socioeconomic\nstatus. A unified school system will have a focused mission on\ndeveloping programs and services to ensure all children are performing\nat high levels, achieving proficiency and receiving equal educational\nopportunities.\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\nSomehow shouting &#8220;ONE&#8221; is supposed to magically make these things happen.\nIf CUEE knows how to do these things, why doesn&#8217;t it get on with doing\nthem now in the existing school systems?\nOh, right: it doesn&#8217;t say how, because it doesn&#8217;t know.\n<p>\nHere&#8217;s one way I know CUEE doesn&#8217;t know.\nCUEE said so,\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kushpatel\/posts\/198028110218779\">\non its facebook page, 27 March 2011:<\/a>\n<blockquote>\nCUEE is facilitating an educational planning process that will consist of\nlocal educators, public officials, parents, business and civic leaders,\nand others. This planning committee will examine many of the issues raised\nin your FB post as well as other issues facing our public schools. Once\nthis planning process is completed, the plan will be presented to both\nSchool Boards and then to the public at a community forum.\n<\/blockquote>\nNote how that works.\nCUEE organizes its hand-picked committee that produces a plan\nand presents it to the community.\n<p>\nAnd according to what CUEE speakers\nsaid at their 24 March 2011 &#8220;Kick-off&#8221; session,\nthat presentation would be <em>after<\/em> the unification vote\n(if there is one).\n<p>\nContinuing CUEE&#8217;s facebook explanation:\n<blockquote>\nIf the Valdosta voters decide to unify with the Lowndes County school\nsystem, both School Boards will then come together and develop a school\nunification plan that will hopefully be implemented by mid-2013. CUEE\nhopes the School Boards will use this planning document as a resource\nas they plan for a county-wide school system. And if asked, CUEE will\noffer its assistance and financial support to their planning process.\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, CUEE, if a unification vote passes, you broke it,\nyou should help pay to fix it.\nAnd if your hand-selected committee really can come up with\na plan to improve education, why not do that first,\ntry it out in one of the school systems, and if that one improves,\nthen talk about unification?\nThat way there would be some evidence that you actually know\nhow to improve education.\nOf course, it would also be evidence that unification had nothing\nto do with it.\n<blockquote>\nAnd yes, we have and continue to talk with both school systems about\nthis issue. CUEE has also visited several communities in Georgia and\nother nearby states that have unified their school districts during\nthe last 10-15 years. During these visits, CUEE spoke with school\nand elected officials to better understand the challenges and issues\nthey faced when unifying their school systems. Much of what CUEE says\non school unification is based on what these communities experienced\n(good and bad) after they unified their school systems.\n<\/blockquote>\nSo, what did the Valdosta and Lowndes school systems say?\nWhy don&#8217;t you tell us?\n<p>\nAnd its curious how in talking to other school systems CUEE\nnever came back with any downsides whatever to school unification.\nThis makes me wonder how much they really tried to find out.\n<p>\nLet&#8217;s go back to that first sentence, which is the real answer:\n<blockquote>\nA: School unification, by itself, will not improve the quality of\neducation for our children.\n<\/blockquote>\nSo why are we considering doing it?\n<p>\nImagine what these self-styled leaders of the community could do\nif they put their minds to something that would actually\nimprove things around here!\n<p>\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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:","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":[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"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-xS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_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}]}}