Category Archives: CUEE

I understand what CUEE says —Alex Jones

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

Continue reading →

Will school unification improve education? —CUEE

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’t stop there. Their FAQ continues: Continue reading →

When the biomass plant is cancelled —John S. Quarterman

What will happen to the spirit of activism when the biomass plant is cancelled?

I applaud the activism of the many and varied biomass opponents! Let me repeat my prediction: the biomass plant will never be built. That’s no reason to stop doing what you’re doing. You know opposition is having an effect when VLCIA repeatedly denies it.

You might be surprised how many other people think this plant will never be built. Ashley Paulk told me Continue reading →

What is the county’s view on consolidation? Q to CUEE 24 March 2011

What about county voters, and what about the combined budget?

Q: “What is the county’s view on consolidation?”

A: CUEE Chairman Leroy Butler answered:

“We did no poll of individuals in the county, so we don’t have any; anything we say would be speculation.”
Remember, only one of CUEE’s board is from the county outside the City of Valdosta, and nobody outside Valdosta gets to vote in the referendum. They don’t know what the county thinks, and they don’t care, because legally they don’t have to: if Valdosta votes to give up their school system, the Lowndes County school board has no choice but to pick up the pieces.

Here’s the video:


Kick-off meeting, Community Unification for Educational Excellence, Inc., CUEE.
They’re for consolidation of the Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
http://lake.typepad.com/on-the-lake-front/cuee/

There’s another question in this video: Continue reading →

Kia and education: a connection after all

It turns out there is a connection of the Troup County Kia plant to education, but it’s not to the K-12 schools. The Karen Kennedy GeorgiaTrend article, LaGrange/Troupe County: The Kia Effect, devotes one paragraph to K-12 schools and ten paragraphs to West Georgia Tech, the local technical college.

Here are the last three of those paragraphs:

The center “will educate a person to work in an advanced manufacturing plant,” Gilley says, just the kind of plants that are coming to Troup County over the next year or so. Using industry-standard equipment, students will be educated to meet the manufacturing community’s workforce needs.

In fact, the manufacturing community already is calling on the center. DaeLim, a supplier to Kia and Hyundai (the latter has a plant nearby in Alabama), expressed interest in students doing prototyping of plastic parts once the center, which opened June 1, is up and running.

“We’ve left a good platform on which to build. We have good faculty, good staff. I think we have good community relations,” Gilley says of his time at West Georgia. Then he looks to the future and what he’ll miss most about his job. “We offer programs that allow people to get better paying jobs. I’ll miss having the power to make decisions that change people’s lives.”

Hm, so the locals think the technical college has more to do with industry than the K-12 schools.

An article by Jeff Bishop in Times-Herald.com, Partnerships may develop between CEC, new hospitals, notes the connection between high schools and industry is through West Georgia Tech.

Hm, maybe Wiregrass Technical College could be important….

-jsq

After Kia: still school problems in Troup County; no mention of unification

Let’s keep looking for evidence of any connection of school unification in Troup County, Georgia, to the Kia plant, even though CUEE didn’t present any. It’s rather odd that none of the locals seem to have mentioned any such connection in the numerous articles published about the Kia plant.

Here’s an interview with Mayor Drew Ferguson IV of West Point, Georgia by Larry Copeland in USA TODAY, 25 March 2010, Kia breathes life into old Georgia textile mill town. Nope, no mention of schools, education, or unification. Nice picture of the mayor with a Kia, though.

Karen Kennedy published a lengthy article about the Kia plant in GeorgiaTrend in August 2008, LaGrange/Troupe County: The Kia Effect, in which the first mention of schools is for the period after the Kia plant opened:

The biggest need Mayor Ferg-uson sees in West Point right now is public education. “We have a wonderful elementary school.” But there is no middle or high school in the city limits. “The current formula for education funding is not working,” he says of the state’s approach, which bases money on students who are already in the system, not on students who will be coming through the system in the near future. “If you don’t have great education opportunities people will live far away and drive [to work]. Schools should be looked at as an economic driver.” They are a way to help recruit good strong families to an area, he adds.
That’s right, after the Kia plant, there are big problems with the schools, and there’s not even any mention of unification.

-jsq

Kia and school unification in Troup County, Georgia: any connection?

The only example in Georgia that CUEE claimed of good effects of school unification was Troup County, Georgia, where a few people are convinced that the Kia plant would not have come to town if the schools hadn’t unified. That’s one county out of 159. And it’s hearsay anecdotal evidence. So let’s look for any actual evidence.

The county’s own announcement of the Kia plant opening says nothing about schools, much less unification. Troup County’s web page about their Strategic Plan for Sustainable Development does mention education, but says nothing about school unification. Their county history page mentions the Kia plant but nothing about education being a factor, much less school unification.

Even if that anecdotal connection between school unification and the Kia plant had some evidence behind it, that’s not an example of improved education!

-jsq

Why school consolidation is useless: bright flight

What local county grew twice as fast as any of the others? If you guessed Lowndes, nope, no prize for you. The answer, according to the 2000 census, is Lanier County:

What school consolidation would get us is more of that. Not white flight, rather bright flight, to Lanier and other counties. Many of the leaders of the local African-American community already don’t live in Valdosta; they live in Lowndes County or even Berrien County. More of both black and white people will move out of a county with a consolidated school district, resulting in lower educational results not just for Valdosta but also for Lowndes schools. Is that what we want?

How about all the people who claim they know how to take our schools to “the next level” get on with doing that right now with the two existing school systems?

-jsq

The CUEE Board: not quite all city

Let’s meet the CUEE board and ask them a simple question.

The Chair, Leroy Butler, named them in this order: Rusty Griffin (Vice-Chair), George Bennett, Tom Kurrie, Walter Hobgood, Johnny Ball, Jack Edwards, Jud Rackley, Gene Godfrey, and “last but certainly not least” Ruth Council. (Not named but listed on CUEE’s website are David Durland, Terry Hunt, and Ronnie Mathis.)

As I told Rusty Griffin, I congratulate CUEE on holding public meetings about their plans.


Kick-off meeting, 24 March 2011,
Community Unification for Educational Excellence, Inc., CUEE,
They’re for consolidation of the Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Here’s the question:

How many of the current CUEE board are from the county outside of Valdosta?
Continue reading →

School consolidation: CUUE kick-off event tomorrow night

Do you think the Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems should be consolidated? I don’t, but CUEE does, and they’re having an “official kick-off” 6PM tomorrow, 24 March 2011, at the Gazebo Room, James H. Rainwater Conference Center, 1 Meeting Place, Valdosta.

Note at the top of the invitation:

It’s Your Decision. It’s Your Choice.
Well, not if you live in the county outside Valdosta, it’s not. CUEE is promoting a referendum for Valdosta voters in November 2011 for Valdosta to give up its school system: Continue reading →