CUEE can attribute the source of this ad to another committee all they want to. I know that I personally overheard Rusty Griffin telling Myrna Ballard about the ad last Thursday night at the CUEE Education Task Force meeting which I attended as a concerned citizen. Rusty was very excited about the ad & said he expected it to greatly enhance their campaign to unify the black community for consolidation. I told Sam Allen what I heard, but neither of us knew what would be in the ad until it aired Tuesday. Rusty said he had to get a final OK so I was hoping that person would be smarter, but evidently not. Another thing I noticed at the meeting where everyone but me was part of the task force only two people out of the fifteen were from the black community. How does that represent the diversity they preach?Continue readingI personally appreciate all the times over the past months
Tag Archives: CUEE
Why Employers Support School Unification —Greg Justice
Why Employers Support School UnificationAnd I thought business people liked hard work! Continue reading
By Greg Justice
Director of Manufacturing
Regal Marine Industries, Inc.Look it up, states that rank among the highest in terms of
quality of life and economic growth rank among the highest in terms of quality of education. Is this because these states have higher levels of education, or did they become attractive places to live because they have a focused approach to improving the quality of education? And does the same reasoning hold true for different nations?
It would seem we’re about to find out. In one generation, the U.S. has fallen from No. 1 to No. 9 in the number of people graduating with college degrees. We’re mediocre in education when compared to the other 34 industrialized nations. A 2009 study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math – all lagging behind other leading industrialized countries.
It is hard to relate these statistics to our local schools,
CUEE radio ad helps alienate Black Crow radio host
A new radio ad from the Community Unification for Educational Excellence, Inc (CUEE) has sparked a lot of controversy in the few days it hasYes, that’s what Chris Beckham told me when I talked to him today. I’ll be on his radio show on WVGA 105.9, tomorrow, about 4PM.been running in local media.
…
The ad, voiced by an actor who sounds like Morgan Freeman but is not, encourages Valdosta city residents to vote “Yes” on school consolidation November 8th. The commercial claims that Valdosta schools are “once again segregated” and ties the success of the vote to Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision.
Callers to the Chris Beckham Show, which airs from 3PM to 6PM each weekday on WVGA 105.9 FM, were overwhelming in their condemnation of the ad.
You can hear the radio ad in the Valdosta Today article.
The article contains this priceless quote by the real Morgan Freeman, Continue reading
MLK Jr. radio ad for CUEE?
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Morgan_Freeman_Cannes.jpg/220px-Morgan_Freeman_Cannes.jpg)
promoting Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream with cuee’s mission.Voiced by Morgan Freeman. So we know CUEE is pouring money into their local disaster capitalism.
This is not sitting well with opponents of consolidation. Here’s JC Cunningham’s reaction:
I personally am not surprised by any tactics that Cuee uses in order to win on Nov. 8th. In the last 5 minutes I have received 3 phone calls and 6 emails. Each one asked me what was I going to do about it? After the last call I began to get a little upset, because I did not ask that person the same question. What are you going to do about this?Continue readingCuee and the Chamber will try and get away with
School consolidation as disaster capitalism
What’s the Shock Doctrine?
It’s been around for a long time, but Naomi Klein researched it for
her book of the same name. It’s
“the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock”She was writing mostly about wars, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters. Locally here we haven’t had any of those. But we may be about to create a disaster, a shock, at the ballot box in November, if voters fall for the school “unification” snake oil.
What’s the next step after CUEE has accidentally revealed that Continue reading
The promises that are impossible —Barbara Stratton
CUEE has staked their efforts on catch phrases & false promises that look & sound good. All of their info is at best a half truth. The promises that are imposible to keep are lies. I was raised believing a promise broken is a truth untold, which is a lie.
Unfortunately this tactic will work for today’s lazy voters who won’t even take the time to go to a website where the true facts are posted much less do their own research. Surely don’t ask them to leave the comfort of their homes & entertainment & personal addictions to attend any public meetings on either side when they should be visiting both sides at least once. They are part of the convenient idiot masses that facilitate take overs by the clever greedy for money & power few.
Both school boards [VBOE, LCBOE] and their supporters have done a great job of researching to produce true evidence that dissolves all the CUEE false rhetoric & print.
We cannot assume that truth will prevail because it is much easier to believe the fast sell that requires no personal effort. CUEE is banking on this. Most of the school consolidations that have occurred had many that were shocked when they passed because they did not account for the money/power ruses of the facilitators working so well with the lazy voter public. Many will not even show up claiming they have no stake since they have no children in either system. They are too lazy to check the researched facts to see they will be paying higher taxes for a handicapped unified system.
-Barbara Stratton
Chattanooga deja vu —Karen Noll
After reading the Ed Weekly article, [slightly earlier version quoted here, referred to here. -jsq] I was struck by a very strong dejavu feeling. I checked the date twice and only to realize ( twice) that this consolidation went on more than 15 years ago.
The city schools were in bad shape financially and educationally in Chatnooga city. That is the major difference with our situation here. As much as some want you to believe that Valdosta city schools are not doing well, there are many that can point to the school improvement plan and it being recognized as one of the best in the state, or other notable achievements that differ front the view of VCS propagated by the folks on CUEE.
Other than that we are looking at the same issues; racial segregation, neighborhood schools, professional development monies in the different district, curriculum changes, busing to attain integration requirements, and the concerns about redistricting and moving kids to other schools.
Again this was 15 years ago, yet we are now faced with the same issues. At the time of the article consolidation had passed (19k to 21k). Teachers and parents Interviewed expressed concern about the poor kids of the city not getting a fair shake because the county (largely white) schools had little connection to the issues of the city kids. We would be faced with that just on a smaller scale.
The other strange likeness to this 15 year old consolidation is that Steve Prigozhy seems to have some very vague notions of school reform today that he did back then. These notions have been found to be less than successful in the ensuing 15 years.
Distancing himself from his failures does not make him a success at anything but manipulation of facts. The education of my children is not going to be reformed by a man that spins the truth and panders to the wealthy.
Thank you for sharing the Edweekly article.
-Karen Noll
Hauntingly familiar Tennessee Waltz —Barbara Stratton
The Tennessee Waltz article seems to be a slightly later and slightly revised version of the article I referenced in Steve Prigohzy, guru of Chattanooga-Hamilton Co. school consolidation, as quoted recently by Smart Memphis.Very well said JC.
On Thursday 9/29/11 CUEE called a special meeting of their Education Task Force at the City Hall Annex. Reading on and between the lines of the VDT article it appears the new, more agressive tactic is to call into question the conduct and accountability for goverance of education of the Valdosta City Board of Education. Under the leadership of Steve Prigohzy they seem to be heading toward usurping this goverance from the elected school boards to another entity they can control. This is hauntingly familiar if you read an article titled Tennessee Waltz from the Education Week Teacher.
http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/1995/10/01/02tenn.h07.html
(If you go to the Education Week Teacher website it will say the Tennesse Waltz article is only available to registered guests, but registration is free.)Leadership for the post consolidation planning was forcibly taken from the county superintendent and given to the Public Education Foundation of Chattanooga, TN, which was headed by CUEE’s own Steven H. Prigohzy. His specialty seems to be powering school consolidations and overseeing the resulting planning which does little to improve the academic or financial conditions of the public schools (actually these get worse). It does however provide the perfect climate for pulling grant monies to establish the magnet schools he also specializes in.
-Barbara Stratton
-jsq
We educators were ignored back then —John Wayne Baxter
Everyone please note the usual LAKE blog submissions policy. Also, if you like what LAKE is doing, please go to the LAKE facebook page and Like that page.Hey John, I appreciate your summary of the latest meeting on consolidation. I was on the Chamber sponsored consolidation committee back in 1993-94. The same folks pushing the effort then are pushing it now. Back then, nothing about improving education was ever mentioned; it was all about banking and real estate. Only two educators back then were on the committee, the two superintendents from the school systems, and we were never asked our opinions on anything. We were totally ignored.
Yes, we educators were ingored back then and there is no doubt in my mind that this group pushing for consolidation is ignoring opinions of educators now. I believe the “dollar bill” mentality of a handful of folks is the driving force behind this effort, and I don’t mean the tax payers. Of course, this is just my opinion; I could be wrong.
We have two excellent school systems now in one county. Here is the method that I propose for a merger: if and when one of our school systems gets to a point where it cannot provide quality education for it’s students, let that school system’s school board approach the other school board and begin discussions on consolidation or some other remedy. Why should some bank or real estate company be the driving force behind consolidation. Maybe kids should be put ahead of lining the pockets of a few business owners. And the most important thing to remember about this action is: once Valdosta gives up the charter for it’s school system, it’s over and done with; good or bad, it’s over; Valdosta can never get it back. Think about that!
-jsq
LCBOE did its homework about consolidation, 5 October 2011
![](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6172/6214096731_9643e75001_m.jpg)
Tuesday evening, going beyond
the research it had already published,
Dr. Troy Davis took CUEE’s own figures for how much more consolidation would
require to be spent per each Valdosta City school student,
and demonstrated that not only would that
require raising taxes for both
Valdosta and Lowndes County residents to near the state-capped maximum
of 21 mils, but even then there is no way enough tax revenue would be
generated to pay for all the things CUEE proposes to do after consolidation,
and probably not even enough taxes to continue employing all the teachers
currently employed by the two school systems.
Oh, plus consolidation would lose state and federal grant money by
increasing the composite school system size, so the local taxpayers
would have to make up that slack, too.
Jerome Tucker, on fire as a cheerleader, spelled out his life-long Continue reading