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: Education
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,
Videos of Candidates Forum by VLCoC last night
![](http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/dLKKymrVJ4o/default.jpg)
![](http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/_mEx94uJdvQ/default.jpg)
Here are the videos so far:
Candidates Forum, Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 October 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
-jsq
Chamber opposes hidden taxes while proposing taxation without representation
![](http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/b9PrWlsznRw/default.jpg)
Gooding’s talk about the Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee spelled out the Chamber’s theory of local government, which is all about helping business, and apparently not about anything else. He didn’t say a word about government providing public benefits for the common good. Which is the tail and which is the dog?
Also, Gooding promised at least three times (1 2 3) that 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
Some U.K. folks having doubts about catching up with U.S. in prisons
Why the second thoughts? Continue readingIt was Dostoevsky who said: “The degree of civilisation in a society is revealed by entering its prisons.” But in contemporary Britain you don’t even need to do this, you can simply stand on a street corner and wait for the ghosts to come flitting past in order to appreciate its parlous condition.
We now have the highest prison population in Europe by a considerable measure, and following the recent riots there is no likelihood of it decreasing.
Of course, we aren’t quite at the levels enjoyed by our closest allies, those prime exponents of the civilising mission the United States, whose extensive gulag now houses, it is estimated, more African American men than were enslaved immediately prior to their Civil War – but we’re getting there.
Valdosta City Council voted to oppose school consolidation
![](http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/u0G9lr6prvM/default.jpg)
For:
![]() James Wright District 1 ![]() Hoke Hampton District 3 ![]() Alvin Payton District 4 Ben Norton At Large Didn’t Have to Vote: ![]() Sonny Vickers Mayor |
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Against:
![]() Robert Yost District 6 ![]() Tim Carroll District 5 Missing: ![]() Deidra White District 2 |
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That means Ben Norton changed his vote since since their last non-binding vote related to school consolidation. (Nonbinding because they didn’t have any authority to decide whether the referendum went on the ballot or not.) Council Deidra White of District 2 was absent throughout the meeting, which I find rather odd since she seemed quite aware when I spoke to her the previous day that this vote was going to occur. Back in August she voted against putting the referendum on the ballot. Yes, I know the motion was not exactly the same, so the votes are not exactly comparable. In any case, this time there was no tie and thus no need for the (new) mayor to break a tie.
Here’s the video:
Valdosta City Council voted to oppose school consolidationo
education, consolidation, resolution,
Regular Session, Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 October 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Here’s the statement transcribed as accurately as I could from the video: Continue reading
School Consolidation Statement tonight at Valdosta City Council
![](http://my.preservationnation.org/images/content/photos/large_62608.jpg)
6.a) Consideration of a Position Statement on School Consolidation.Some people are confused, because VCC has no formal authority over any school system. They didn’t have any formal authority to decide whether to put the school referendum on the ballot, either. According to the Lowndes County Board of Elections, once Continue reading
Consolidation has nothing to do with improving our children’s education —Etta Mims
I know that there are many “newcomers” to the area which supported consolidation until they connected the dots and realized this has nothing to do with improving our children’s education.
See also Valwood, CUEE, and the Chamber.
-jsq
Judge rules against Florida prison privatization
Judge rules prison privatization plan unconstitutional Dara Kam wrote for Post on Politics yesterday, Judge Rules Florida Prison Privatization Unconstitutional,
The order doesn’t say Florida can’t privatize prisons, rather that it can’t do it by hiding it in the budget process. But alleged budget savings are the only reason privatization backers are willing to admit to, so that’s no small matter.The privatization of 29 prisons in the southern portion of the state from Manatee County to Indian River County to the Florida Keys should have been mandated in a separate bill and not in proviso language in the budget, as lawmakers did in the must-pass budget approved in May and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, Fulford ruled.
“This Court concludes that if it is the will of the Legislature to itself initiate privatization of Florida prisons, as opposed to DOC, the Legislature must do so by general law, rather than ‘using the hidden recesses of the General Appropriations Act,’” Fulford wrote in her order issued Friday morning.
And if prison privatization is such a money-saver, why did the prison companies’ cronies in the statehouse try to do it like this: Continue reading