Tenisha Waldo of the P & C quoted Nancy Cook, CCSD board chairwoman as saying of Don Kennedy's departure for the Seattle schools, "'This is our third person [Goodloe-Johnson] has raided. It's just not professional, in my opinion. That's why we're so disappointed.'"Who's not professional? Maybe Nancy Cook, who hoped that a "lucrative counteroffer" would keep Kennedy in Charleston. CCSD was prepared to beef up the salary of a chief financial officer who does not have the qualifications to do the job in the first place? Kennedy sensibly took the Seattle offer, which as far as I can determine is NOT as chief financial officer.
Maybe someone can set me straight. Apart from soliciting what could be considered kickbacks from district contractors (a long-standing practice he did not end when hired in 2004), his obfuscation about the budget during CCSD school board meetings seemed to be Kennedy's most outstanding quality. He may very well be, as McGinley asserts in the CCSD press release, "a man of great honor and integrity," but what was it in his background that qualified him to oversee CCSD's millions in expenditures?
- Does he hold an MBA?
- Is he an accountant?
- Does he have any specialized financial training beyond undergraduate courses at Newberry College?
- Prior to joining CCSD, did he have any experience beyond being in the Air Force and working in the comptrollers' offices at two defense-industry organizations?
While McGinley reviews the "job description," let's hope she adds more sophisticated knowledge to the requirements in her "nationwide search."
In the P & C, using the district's press release as a "prepared statement," Waldo quotes McGinley in calling Kennedy"'a man of great honor and integrity.'" However, she must have tired of rewriting the release. Paraphrasing poorly and quoting word-for-word from CCSD's release she wrote, "Kennedy plans to leave in about eight weeks and will use that time to ensure that all operations will run smoothly after his departure."
The original actually went, "Kennedy will leave the District in approximately 8 weeks, using the time to ensure that all operations will run smoothly after his departure." Plagiarized sentence structure and wording.
Since Kennedy is quoted directly after that sentence, the reader assumes the information came from him; it didn't, unless he's memorized the press release formula.
The rule for plagiarized wording is three words in a row from the original source. You don't need to graduate with a degree in journalism to know that.
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33 comments:
I'd hate to be a student in your English class if I was in the habit of depending on short cuts. You'd catch every one and I'd be a dead duck.
Yes, get a qualified financial officer. Curiously, Seattle's school budget is available on-line and in a detailed form that Don Kennedy never provided here.
I am new to the area and I have kids in Charleston County Schools. I keep hearding negative things here. Is there any good in the school district or school board?
I'll say no, too. But since you're new to the area...do you want to run for a school board seat? I'm absolutely positive that you're more qualified than most of the people currently on it. You have my vote and I don't even know who you are.
What about the teachers in CCSD? My children have great teachers at their schools in West Ashley.
School board? I may need to learn more about the school district first. Still learning the ropes
Chances are if the schools your children attend have great teachers, the school principal is probably stable and in place for more than a few years. The biggest problems involving poor schools and/or poor teachers are in schools where a superintendent decided to change principals every year or two in order to accomodate less qualified friends or loyal subordinates.
Short cuts? Teachers don't teach our black children in low performing schools how to write in Charleston County. Period. They allow them to print reports from the internet. I know because I've seen it happen. Paraphrasing? What's that? Teachers are just excited if the students hand in anything at all. It's sick.
The "dumbing down" has to stop or nothing will ever change.
And some of the worst abusers of this dumbing down in low performing schools in Charleston County (code words for schools with a high percentage of minority students) include many black teachers and administrators. These kids are written off before they get to first grade. Sure, many of these kids don't have the parental support they need, but black educators and school officials from Hillery Douglas on down need to quit blaming the parents when the system has failed without even trying to reach these kids.
Bable,
I've told you before that if you don't get out of your ivory tower and stop criticizing people for doing jobs you know nothing about, such as working for a newspaper or the school district, I'm going to tell everyone who reads this junk who you are.
I'll give you until this afternoon to come clean, otherwise I'll do it for you.
Kids learn early what's expected of them. It's a tragedy to be there at the moment when they begin to realize that the whole system has such low expectations for children in these labeled schools. It can be as early as third grade, but it's seldom beyond seventh when the kids learn the system had given up on them...years before.
To the previous poor speller of my name and 10:58 commenter: Oh, please, please spill the beans! If you read the comments on this blog regularly, you'd know already along with everyone else. "Anonymous," we all know that YOU work for the P & C.
Don't you just love it when they resort to long arm threats. So that's how they attempt to keep the natives in line. Thanks, 10:58, for confirming that you're still watching.
And school officials want to know where feelings of anger and entitlement come from in these students when they become adults!? Oh, if they could only write, their stories would be an indictment. No, keep them dumb and ignorant of their potential so we can continue to blame their parents. Who else can be held responsible for their reaching the seventh grade unable to read, much less write?
Fair enough.
Your name is Clelia Casey. You're an English teacher at Bishop England High Scool (which means you don't even work for CCSD).
You live on Villa Maison in Mount Pleasant (I won't list your house or phone number just yet).
Oh, and your SS# is: 250-70...OK, I'll stop.
So you're threatening to publish my social security number? And, your information is out of date? Did I ever claim to work for the district? You are a sad case, anonymous! You want to make the discussion all about who I am instead of a forum for those who want to change the system to help ALL students. I'll bet YOU don't have a child in a failing school.
No, Clelia, you're the sad case. You crack me up.
Go get a job with CCSD (if you're good enough) and try fixing the problems from within.
It's easy to knock other people, but at least they're in there, trying.
What difference does it make who this blogger is? If you were doing your job and not supporting those creeps at CCSD there would be no need for this blog. I don't think you even really understand who you work for and what he is involved in. You support the status quo which is a really ugly thing in this town.
You can't palgiarize a press release. They're given for the purpose of publication, with quotes and information ready packaged.
In fact, many papers run them in full without bylines.
You're pretty nasty to accuse someone of a major offense without realizing what you're saying.
My goodness, 11:47 poster, you're correct that many papers run them without attempting to change them. It's still plagiarism if it's in the context of something claimed to be written by the reporter. And newspapers that simply run them without any changes--they can hardly call themselves professional. I know it's done all the time.
What's "palgiarize"? Looks like someone's got their panties all in a knot. The threats are but a small indication of the character of those who support the status quo within CCSD. (Would you want these people to influence your child?) But go ahead, Anonymous 11:47 AM, your anger may cause you to slip and reveal who YOU are.
Maybe you "outed" a blogger but what difference does it make? Don't you understand how CCSD is just an arm of the corrupt power structure in Charleston? Your work props up that system.
The "squealer" doesn't work for the PandC because they are either Greggie Meyers or Jon Butzon. They can't stand it when someone speaks the real truth not the truth that they hear in their head. I still don't see why they don't go back to Schoolmovement and leave this site. Quick frankly I would love to give Babbie a pulitzer for reporting the truth as it is not as Meyers or Botzon makes it up to be
To the anonymous who is new to the area:
A rumor from a high level within the administration is saying that Gregg Meyers, Toya Green, Joe Riley and Nancy McGinley are working on a deal to change the direction of developing a new facility for the Academic Magnet High School (AMHS) in North Charleston. Instead they are looking downtown in a deal that may cause Burke to soon be history, at least on its present campus. This is still a rumor, but it is beginning to fit the context of other actions that have been documented already. It deserves more explanation since it is a potential bombshell if it is even remotely true.
Here is some background on the rumors. The projected cost of a combined campus for both AMHS and the School of the Arts (SOA) in North Charleston is being seen as too great by some CCSD officials and county board members. Both schools (AMHS & SOA) see sharing gyms and other campus facilities as a problem. The proposal Gregg is now floating, but only unofficially, will establish a vocational program at Rivers in response to the long standing requests from the Burke community to restore what was once a very successful program at Burke. The thought is that if the vocational program is placed at Rivers, with Burke students given access, then that will mollify the Burke crowd.
In the mean time, with NAACP and the Ministerial Alliance support, rumors and negative perceptions of just who a "low achievers" program (further rumored to be a Murray Hill discipline school spillover) at Rivers is really designed to serve. Some non-CCSD officials have been given the go-ahead by the Mayor and CCSD to use fear-mongering tactics and race baiting that are designed to effectively kill the charter school proposal, or at least kill the plan for a charter school starting up at Rivers.
As part of an elaborate bait-and-switch McGinley has already said the Advanced Placement Academy at Burke "will serve to attract students from all across the county". By implying that the AP Academy students will be "imported" and not "brought up" within Dist. 20's existing elementary schools she may have deliberately lighted the fuse to this plan to disarm the Burke alumni and begin to dismantle the downtown community's connection to Burke HS in its current location.
Here's their goal as far as it is known. Get some non-traditional students into the Burke campus (via the AP Academy). Justify moving the dwindling number of "traditional" or otherwise non-AP qualified students at Burke to Rivers by 2009-2010 using the vocational program to grease the wheels of the moving van. Move the AMHS into the now depopulated Burke HS using the AP Academy as the wedge. Do this under the cover of a "state ordered school reconfiguration"...because by that time Burke will be entering its 5th or 6th year ranked on state reports as a consistantly failing school...and of course this will be a year after the College of Charleston has distanced themselves from the school under the grant they will have already fully expended. Mr. Benton, the current principal, will simply retire again and move back to NC where he has long been known for "trouble shooting" failing schools. He's won some and lost some, so not problem.
To the state this would fit the definition of "radically reconstituting" a consistantly failing school. What a prize that would appear to be for state record keepers when the new AMHS at Burke shows up with a new school report card that goes off the charts as it were really part of a "failing school turnaround". As for "Burke at Rivers", they can start the process all over again with stop-and-go programs and second hand attention. It won't turn up as a deeply failing school again on state reports for years or at least not until another group of politicians has to deal with it.
Locally such a school bait-and-switch wouldn't have to be seen as a wholesale relocation, at least not initially. It's all a matter of how it is packaged for public consumption. The move could be pulled off as a morphing of the programs as the entire phased in move of AMHS into and Burke out of the present campus is orchestrated from behind the scenes.
What Gregg Meyers isn't bargaining on is that the Burke alumni will not go quietly if they see what is happening before it gets too far along. McGinley couldn't care less since she's building her resume for elsewhere. She's only the "overseer" on this plantation. She wants to eventually have her own place where she is less constrained. She'll do her time here and they buy into her own plantation later.
None of these people appear to be considering what the downside of such a proposal might be. The public outcry of a dirty deal and a sellout will permanently stain anything that will be associated with such a transition if that is what is currently being negotiated behind closed doors. What can be damaged will include the permanent reputation of AMHS. It will be a more of a leper in the eyes of parents and the public than Buist Academy has become after its mismanagement has been exposed. Porter-Gaud may be able to offer some thoughts on how much money is needed to overcome public distrust and cynicism after it's discovered that school officials sacrificed others for their own agendas...but P-G is a private school with an endowment...AMHS has no such ability to remake itself once the deal is done...at least not until all the witnesses are dead.
I can't tell you how many Burke community supporters suspected this was the ultimate goal even as the plans for the new school building were being presented to them by Harvey Gantt in 1999. People openly said as much when as CCSD officials were trying to reassure them that it wasn't their intentions to build the new school and then push Burke out. The rational may be justifiable in financial terms, but in terms of moral deceit and ill will the results will be very costly indeed. McGinley, Meyers, Green and Riley are reportedly in deep discussions to pull off nothing short of giving the remaining African-Americans on the peninsula "equal" access, but in another location and as long as it's access via the service entrance. They also want to discredit their critics in District 20 by offering to buy them off with worthless promises such as added funding for Memminger and offers for a charter school to lease part of Rivers.
Gregg Meyer and others on this team may enjoy the game of power plays designed to beat down their critics in District 20. But what good will these abuses serve if they fail to accomplish something of value in the long run? The stain of ill gotten gains will ultimately spoil the fruits of all labor. The public would be wise to prevent such a deal that will involve AMHS, Burke and Rivers in this way before it destroys everything that comes in contact with it.
I know this is only a rumor, but it's starting to fit too neatly among the facts we already know.
Don Kennedy got out in the nick of time. He has been engaging in subtle influence-peddling for years. "Cousin Arthur" was on to him, just as the Post and Courier (finally) is on to the fact that our local elected offcicials have been diverting our tax money to well-connected "non-profits" such as Communities in Schools of the Charleston Area Inc., Heritage Community Services, and Lowcounty Crisis Pregnancy Center. Log on to http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/aug/31/needed_internal_questioning_councils_charitable_gi to see what I mean.
I understand that these last two "non-profits" are run by Kennedey's friend and neighbor. I understand also that Heritage Community Services operated at Burke and Brentwood in violation of state and federal law without permission of the CCSD.
Kennedy lives near Bagley? Bill Lewis lives near her, too! Someone need to audit the hell out of the stinking mess. Everyone's got their hands in the till. I suppose Kennedy was also in on Nancy Cook's organization changing its name so she would be able to go for CCSD's Derthic Fund money two years in a row...even to the point of raiding the principal. Any CFO who allows a trust fund principal to be awarded is incompetent. This is a mess that no one is willing to just say enough. These is not mere complaining...it's a desparate cry for help! We need leaders with integrity.
Part of the what's interesting about all this "key" personnel turnover is the origin of their hiring. Excessive turnover is directly attributable to poor management. And what would make anyone think Goodloe, McGinley or, heaven forbid, Cook, knows anything about running an efficient, effective operation, or staffing it with professionals?
CCSD is an operational joke. And you have only to look at the graduation rate to prove it. At least half of you tax dollars are wasted. And who do I see about that?
CCSD, the School Board and its monstrous annual budget is enough to scare any responsible public official to steer clear of the whole thing. Only Mayor Riley has dared to grab the tiger by the tail, but for what purpose? I think County Council is intimidated by the public school mismanagement mess. I know county officials like the treasurer are tired of seeing all the obfuscation involving its budget. More fiction than fact is coming out of 75 Calhoun. Now with Elliot Smalley the new Director of Administration it's doubtful there will be any move toward objectivity or balancing the public interest. Just more of the same in the Taj Mahal. The revolving door and those who are seen using it confirm there will be no change. It's status quo. No use waiting for anything that sounds like change from this crew.
Not that I would defend either one of the liars but Kennedy lives at Stono Ferry and Lewis lives in Mt. Pleasant
It's Lewis and ex-state school board member and sister of Chip Campsen Terrye Seckinger who have the relationships with Badgley, not Kennedy. Why worry so much about Kennedy and Goodloe-Johnson anyway? They are gone. Badgley and Lewis are still here. And, according to The State, the South Carolina Legislature just secretly awarded Badgley another $800,000 no-bid contract to tell children why not to use condoms when they have sex.
Does anyone ever wonder how Lewis who makes 125K can afford a million dollar plus house? Makes one go hmmmmmm!
From Public Records:
Charleston County Tax Records show that William H. Lewis, III and Roxann A. Lewis purchased a marsh front home and lot in Dunes West, at 2320 Darts Cove Way for $595,142. It was reassessed for tax purposes as of 12-31-03 (3 years and 2 months later) for only slightly more ($608,900).
Public records also show that Anne Badgley, the controversial sex education coordinator who founded the Heritage Community Services program that was under contract with CCSD, lives just two houses east of Bill Lewis. Just a coincidence, but why is it that most of CCSD’s top officials live in Mt. Pleasant along with a majority of those who have an inside track at Buist, AMHS and SOA? It was more surprising to discover that Anne Badgley was administering her program to unmarried naval enlisted personnel at the Charleston Naval Hospital facility when Bill Lewis was in charge. Another coincidence, I guess.
You'll are all tools. Why not leave them all alone and do something productive with your lives.
To 4:19 poster: "Tools"? Could you have meant "fools"? Well, anyway, maybe the BLOG is a "tool."
No, I'll accept the use of word as it appears. A "tool" is an old street term for someone who is being used by someone else. I'll take the bait 4:19. So whose tool do you think the posters here are? There's no evil conspiracy as far as I can see trying to bring down the system...only a grassroots effort for the system to get right with the people it's supposed to serve.
It would be fair to say that a "tool" could just as well be all those who are telling CCSD's critics to "do something positive" and "quit finding fault" with the system. Sort of like saying everything is good and criticism is bad. So whose tool are you, 4:19?
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