Category Archives: Education

I would certainly encourage you to speak your mind —VSU Pres. Levy

Henry Calhoun asked VSU Interim President Louis Levy where are the free areas on campus? Dr. Levy answered:
Right outside of Palms Quad there’s a free speech thing, but, as you can see, uh…. [gestures around]
[laughter]
You know, like I said. If someone’s violating the law here, and creating a dangerous situation by, uh, physically disrupting the students or faculty, that’s one thing, we deal with that….

But if it’s, even this gnat, we will allow this gnat to….

Continue reading →

Lunch & Learn: What is Lowndes County Extension —Lake Park Chamber of Commerce

I think you have to be a member of the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce to go to this, but that might be a reason to join.

Lake Park Chamber of Commerce wrote 21 Oct 2011, Lunch & Learn: What is Lowndes County Extension:

Where: Lake Park Civic Center
123 N Essa St.
Lake Park, GA 31636
When: Wed 9 Nov 2011
from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EST
Don’t miss out on this Lunch & Learn!

The Lowndes County Extension Service is a program dedicated to educating our future workforce and getting the local community involved.

-jsq

An Open Forum on Financial Issues Concerning Consolidation —LCBOE 1 November 2011

Last chance for an open forum about school consolidation issues.

Lowndes County Board of Education will hold a An Open Forum on Financial Issues Concerning Consolidation:

6PM, 1 November 2011
Lowndes High Cafeteria
1606 Norman Drive
Valdosta, GA
All about the previous LCBOE Forum of 4 October 2011.

-jsq

We tend to promote free speech —VSU President Levy

Henry Calhoun found VSU Interim President Dr. Louis Levy, who came over to the Occupy Valdosta meeting 27 October. Erin Hurley invited him to come to the mid-November Teach-In. He replied:
…as long as it’s legal and non-obstructive in terms of people getting in and out of buildings. We tend to promote free speech. And if we don’t, we’ll pay the price for it later.

…

We actually encourage free discussion and debate. Besides, I’m a sociologist. We can take what everyone knows and put them into four different kinds of perspectives and lenses just to do battle with each other.

He thanked Erin for the invitation.

VSU students, staff, and faculty who want their next president to hold positions like that on free speech might want to get involved with selection of the next VSU president.

Here’s the video:


We tend to promote free speech.
Information and Organization,
General Assembly, Occupy Valdosta (OV),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

USDA Under Sec. to speak in Tifton Tuesday at forestry conference

From longleaf restoration to biomass, lots of interesting talks and tours.

Georgia Forestry Association wrote about the 30 October – 2 November 2011 Southern Woodland Owners Conference & Solutions Fair, USDA Under Sec. to speak in Tifton Tuesday at forestry conference:

9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Opening Session
Welcome Remarks and Announcements –
Introduction of Conference Co-Chairs, Steve McWilliams, President, Georgia Forestry Assoc.
KEYNOTE: Honorable Harris Sherman, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC/Introduced by Honorable Gary Black, Commissioner, Georgia Department of Agriculture

-jsq

Same old “unification” disinformation from the Chamber and CUEE

This is what CUEE Referendum Supporters apparently support, and why I call on them to stand up and say whether they are for or against it: the same old disproved disinformation sent again yesterday by a CUEE board member from the Chamber’s own email address to Chamber members. If you support CUEE, you support this disinformation campaign instead of real research that shows consolidation would do nothing to improve education, it would raise everyone’s taxes, and it would not help attract industry. Instead, it would seriously damage public education.

This is not a time to be silent. Which side are you on? CUEE and the Chamber’s propaganda campaign? Or public education, and you will vote no?

CUEE Board Member “Jud Rackley, CPA” emailed yesterday from chamber@valdostachamber.com, subject “The Truth About School Taxes and Unification”, including:

I’ve heard several people say school unification will cause a significant tax increase. Yet, no one seems to know why this would happen. It appears this rumor is based on a document circulated by the Lowndes County Board of Education.
Dr. Troy Davis spelled out why taxes would increase, based on actual tax statements, plus information from the Lowndes County Tax Assessors’ office and the actual budgets of the Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems. See also former Valdosta School Superintendent Sam Allen’s partial list of massive layoffs, service cuts, and school closings caused by reduced income because of less federal and state funding, and increased costs due to bussing. And the formal statements against consolidation approved overwhelmingly by both school boards. In addition to these statements by people with actual experience in school administration, see also the extensive statement against consolidation by the Valdosta City Council, and even the VDT turned against this consolidation effort. If that’s not enough, David Mullis has compiled all the research into a convenient Grassroots Handbook Against School Consolidation.

Opposed to all this evidence, we have this undocumented letter Continue reading →

Planning meetings, Occupy Valdosta @ VSU 27 October 2011

Yesterday’s Occupy Valdosta organizational session went faster than expected, and resulted in adding some events to the upcoming list:

Here’s Erin Hurley talking about two of those events: Continue reading →

Which side are they on? The deleted CUEE Referendum Supporters

The people who were on that list of referendum supporters that CUEE deleted from its website:

Referendum Supporters

Mrs. Julia Ariall
John and Helen Bennett
Mr. James Bridges
The Honorable Tim [Golden? Carroll?]
Mr. Kevin Conrad
Mr. & Mrs. Joe Cordova
Mr. Ed Crane
Mr. Curtis Fowler
Mr. Jeff Hanson
Mr. Lee Henderson
Mr. Ryan Holmes
Mr. Jerry Jennett
Mr. Joe Johnson
Greg and Nancy Justice
Mr. Matthew Lawrence
Mr. Richard Lee
Mr. James McGahee
Mr. Dutton Miller
Mr. John Peeples
Mrs. Jennifer Powell
Mr. Donald (Butch) Williams
  • Were they put there without their permission?
  • Or did they change their minds?
Here’s the list. Let’s hear from them. Do they still support CUEE’s completely disproven bad case for a bad “unification” referendum exercise in disaster capitalism that would greatly damage the public schools, and that has already cost the community huge amounts of time and effort? Did they ever? But more importantly, do they now?

Time to stand up and be counted. There are two sides to this issue. There’s the truth, and there’s a lie.

Which side are you on?

They say they have to guard us to educate their child.
Their children live in luxury, our children almost wild.
Which side are you on, which side are you on?
— Florence Reese
And what about the Chamber board, which apparently is no longer unanimous?

How about Chamber members? Those signs out front of the Chamber: do they represent you?

Which side are you on?

-jsq

Imprisonment rates are higher in more unequal countries

Here’s yet another reason the 1% owning and controling everything is bad for everyone. Guess which country is the most unequal in income of big countries? That’s right, the one with by far the most prisoners: the U.S.A. Prisoners are shown on a log scale, so that’s not just a little bit higher, it’s about three times higher than Canada or UK.

Why is the USA so high? It’s not more crime, of the violent homicide and robbery variety. It’s harsher sentencing, especially for drug-related crimes. That’s one of many points Richard Wilkinson makes in this TED Talk from July 2011, in which he uses hard data to tie income inequality not only to imprisonment, also to child conflict, drug abuse, infant mortality, life expectancy, mental illness, obesity, high school dropouts, teenage births, and social mobility. The most socially mobile country? Denmark. The least? The USA.

I got his slides from The Equality Trust.

Oh yes: we don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia to make a few CCA executives and shareholders richer at the expense of the rest of us. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.

-jsq

The local “unification” attack on public schools is part of a nationwide assault

The “unification” attack on the public schools in Valdosta and Lowndes County, Georgia is part of a nationwide assault on public schools, which has nothing to do with improving public education, and everything to do with private profit and private schools: disaster capitalism right here at home. And it’s not government causing our local disaster: it’s local business interests. What should we do about that?

Jeff Bryant wrote for Campaign for America’s Future 13 October 2011, Starving America’s Public Schools: How Budget Cuts and Policy Mandates Are Hurting Our Nation’s Students

Critics of America’s public schools always seem to start from the premise that the pre-kindergarten-through-12th-grade public education system in this country is failing or in crisis.

This crisis mentality is in stark contrast to years of survey research showing that Americans generally give high marks to their local schools. Phi Delta Kappa International and Gallup surveys have found that the populace holds their neighborhood schools in high regard; in fact, this year’s survey found that “Americans, and parents in particular, evaluate their community schools more positively than in any year since” the survey started.

The first factor: New austerity budgets passed by state legislatures are starting to have a huge influence on direct services to children, youth, and families.
Well, we don’t have that problem in Valdosta City and Lowndes Schools. For example, graduation rates in Valdosta schools have been improving year over year, and both school systems are solvent.

So what happened instead? Why, they made up a crisis instead!

A local business group convinced enough registered voters to sign a petition to get a referendum on the November 8th ballot to decide whether to abolish the Valdosta City School System, which would force the Lowndes County School System to take it over, and also would result in massively raised taxes, which still wouldn’t be enough, so services would have to be cut. Voila! Forced budget crisis! Fortunately, the two school systems have seen through it, and Continue reading →