This comment from someone named Alex Jones came in today on Will school unification improve education? My response is appended. -jsq

Someone pointed me to your blog on the Biomass issue, and I came across your recent post on the school unification issue.

Just curious… have your ever examined the testing data for both school systems? A quick look at the last report card, and you will see why most people in this community believe our public education system is broken and does not adequately prepare our children to either attend college or enter the workforce.

Right now, we have two schools systems

(one county, mostly white and one city, mostly black) that are about average in a state that ranks among the lowest in the country on academic performance. Yes, both systems have their own successes, but the facts show we have two levels of academic performance in our public schools. This disparity (or achievement gap) is even greater when you compare the academic performance by social economic status or race.

Is this really acceptable? Is this what we want really want for all of our children? I understand what CUEE says in how a unified school system will not fix this issue by itself. They are right, it will take a community-wide effort to truly improve our public schools. With a unified school system, all stakeholders (regardless of where you live) will work together in an effort to implement the needed education reforms in our public schools. Today, this is not possible or even realistic with two, independent school systems.

I’m sure others will disagree with this post, but I wanted to offer an alternative view to your original post. I look forward to reading more posts about this important issue.

-Alex Jones

My response: Still waiting for CUEE (or Alex Jones) to say what CUEE’s plan for improving education is. So far all I’ve seen is CUEE wants unification and then magic will happen. I remember the last round of school consolidation, back in the 1960s. Magic didn’t happen then, either. -jsq

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