Does Spelling Count? Not in the Media

It drives some of us crazy. Watch the captions on local TV. Look at the CCSD website.

No, I'm not talking about spelling errors by non-professionals. A student is not going to fail a literature test because he or she can't spell "villain" or "conscience." And while I try to hold myself to a high standard in posting on this blog, spelling errors in readers' comments bother me not at all.

It's just that, as I explain to students when they ask that question, if you are presenting yourself as a professional, spelling errors suggest that you are deficient in other ways as well. Would a sign company stay in business if even 10 percent of its signs were misspelled? My son, who was recently recruiting bloggers for on-line jobs, was inundated with emailed applications. The ones with misspellings in the application were the first to reach the circular file.

What set me off on this rant was the title of a story on Channel 4's website: Litter Is More Than an Eye Soar on Folly Beach.

At first I thought the headline on Channel 4's home page might have been a joke, but then I read the story. I'm still trying to imagine those eyes soaring on Folly Beach.

P & C Takes Sides in CCSD Dispute

Splashed all over the front of the P & C Friday morning was one of the most important stories to come out of CCSD this year! At least it must have been to receive the place of honor above the fold. So, was this startling information about the school district banner news about its achievements or even its failures?

Of course not. It was about a spat among CCSD school board members facilitated by employees of 75 Calhoun. [See Threats to McGinley's Job Alleged ].

Lost in the explosion about "he said--she said" was the reason for the anger. Found in the detritus was a stick to beat members of the school board (mainly Arthur Ravenel, Jr.) who don't take directives from Gregg Meyers et al. Seizing the chance to overreact in an election year, Douglas and his toadies made noises about changing the policies of the Board so that language might be a cause for public censure: "A board member who violates the code could face public discipline."

Spare us the sanctimonious simpers. No one excuses foul language, not even Arthur Ravenel, Jr., as it seems from his later TV interview today, and his explosion of temper was truly uncalled for, for the person who took the agreement with the Charter School for Math and Science to use the Rivers building off the Board's agenda was not present. In fact, no one has said who took it off, so we must read the tea leaves. Judging from remarks regarding the Superintendent, it must have been McGinley.

Needless to say, the P &C ignored the issue, hoping not to pick at the scab that has formed over the ongoing dispute between organizers of CSMS and the school board, which is seething quietly over its inability to stop CSMS's fulfillment. That continues to be the real story.

Oh, and one other observation. Courrege apparently parrots whatever Meyers et al say to her. How else to explain the statement that, "Cook and Toler frequently vote with Ravenel on controversial issues"? That statement was, of course, made to cast doubt on their neutrality in the dispute. Instead, it reveals the reporter's ignorance about the relationship between Cook and Ravenel.

May we get on to the topic at hand--when IS the CCSD board going to grapple with the CSMS agreement? When hell freezes over?

Douglas & CCSD: Segregation Is OK

CCSD Board Chairman Hillery Douglas and CCSD Superintendent Nancy McGinley made some very revealing comments last week when the State Department of Education released its findings on segregation in South Carolina's schools. Strangely enough, as far as I can tell, the entire story appeared only on TV outlets and not in the P & C.

Needless to say, the report showed that most of District 20's schools are segregated. Douglas's interesting comment about the findings was that he didn't have a problem with that. McGinley's comments included the thought that such segregation is caused by housing patterns and, therefore, nothing can be done about it.

First of all, Supt. McGinley, you're not in Philadelphia any more. Please take a good look at the Census figures for black and white residents on the penninsula; then tell us why the schools are segregated. It's not because of housing patterns. Check out the Census for Johns Island while you're at it. Just maybe this school segregation has been caused by CCSD policies over the last 40 years.

As for Mr. Douglas's attitude, I find it hard to know where to begin. Certainly his remarks reveal why CCSD has made no progress in desegregation under his watch. He doesn't care!

I'm not one of those idiots who believe that black students must sit in the same classroom with white ones in order to learn to read and write better. I do believe that black and white students need to be in the same classroom to LEARN ABOUT EACH OTHER. Hasn't such understanding always been one of the goals of public education?

Otherwise, students in white enclaves can continue to believe that all black students their age are druggies and dropouts, while students in black enclaves can continue to believe that all white students are spoiled and prejudiced slackers.

Oops, We Forgot! CCSD Address Verification Scandal

Address verification "fell between the tracks" during the transition from Goodloe-Johnson to McGinley, did it? Weren't we told one of the benefits of hiring McGinley was a seamless transition? Guess the seams leaked a little. An article on such printed in the P & C revealed that "District officials said they investigated the allegations [of false addresses used in the Buist lottery process] and didn't find any problems."

That means the district considered the following list of discrepancies for eight students in the 2006-07 kindergarten class provided to it by District 20 proponents in 2006:

1. Used 83 Hester Street to enter the school. The house has been for sale and is now under contract.
2. Used 22B Mary Street to enter the school, but parents claim 4% (primary residence for tax purposes) on Sullivan’s Island. Family never lived on Mary Street.
3. Used 40 Bee Street #205 to enter the school, but parents claim 4% for a home on Johns Island. They own and rent out the Bee Street condo.
4. Used 28A Addlestone Avenue to enter the school, but parents claim 4% on Folly Beach. The family never lived at this address.
5. Used 33 Calhoun St Unit 236 to enter the school, but parents claim 4% in Mt Pleasant. Parents own this condo but do not claim at as a primary residence.
6. Used 70A Church Street to enter the school, but lives with mother in Mt Pleasant. Father lives out of state.
7. Used condo at 32 Vendue Range #300 to enter the school, but parents claim 4% residency on James Island.
8. Lives in South Windermere according to records.

According to Courrege, "The address inconsistencies were never explained publicly." Or privately either, it seems.

These 8 (out of 40 members of the entering class) will be allowed to continue in the sham process instituted by CCSD and promulgated by Buist Principal Sallie Ballard. This list doesn't even include further class members who claim to be eligible on the failing schools list but whose addresses prove they are not!

Funny how when the seams leak, one verifiable item of major concern to residents of District 20 gets dropped, even though administrators in at least two other constituent districts have stated that additional verification would not be burdensome. These complaints, reported on the national TV news last year, were essentially brushed off by Goodloe-Johnson. Can we assume that McGinley will ignore new ones for the Class of 2007-08? Does anyone believe that all addresses used for THAT class will be kosher?

McGinley states the oh-so-very-complicated verification process will be phased in with magnet schools including Buist. She said it. Let's hold her to it.

The cloud of suspicion that hangs over Buist needs to be cleared up NOW; otherwise, McGinley's "street cred" will evaporate.

Jerry, We Hardly Knew Ye!

Tonight's Channel 5 News reported the departure of Jerry Adams as Communications Director for CCSD, confirming some prior speculation from commenters on this blog.

Well, maybe now Jerry can say what he really thinks. Or, maybe not, if he wants a job recommendation.

Jerry, we hope you will continue to play "Devil's Advocate" for us once in a while. It's been educational.

NAACP: Wearing Mental Blinders

Protesting that they "had no idea" that Monday was McGinley's first day on the job as superintendent, the NAACP and Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance rallied yesterday before the former Rivers Middle School to insist that CCSD not allow a charter high school on its premises. You have to wonder just whom they think they represent. How many of the participants in yesterday's rally actually live on the penninsula? NAACP President Dot Scott doesn't.

Many statements made to the media (and this was an event staged solely for the benefit of media coverage) are simply untrue. Channel 5's reporter even was told that the building should not be used, that "nothing needs to be done with it." Channel 5 was also told that the "School Board has proposed making it into a District 20 charter school." Would that it were so! The truth is that the NAACP was caught flat-footed by the groundswell of community support--both black and white--in evidence at last month's meeting on proposals for Rivers.

Dot Scott's remarks to Channel 5 (reported on its website) become increasingly disingenuous. First, she practically states that the school will become a private one and then suggests it will end up like Beaufort Academy. The latter is not, nor does it appear ever to have been, a charter school; it is a private school, pure and simple. She also suggests that, contrary to state law, the school will become one for the privileged and white. Why does she continue to ignore the obvious community support among black residents on the penninsula for the charter high school? Why is she ignoring state-mandated requirements for charter schools that will prevent such an outcome?

Scott's statement in today's P & C calls for those who are "really serious about diversity" to "choose [Burke High School]." Just exactly what does she have in mind here? Burke is a failing school because it has been run by CCSD; that continues to be the case. Maybe Scott should consider starting a movement to turn Burke into a charter school. Except, of course, state law would require it to be "diverse." She really doesn't want that.

James Island Charter High School uses a public school building. Scott would like readers of the P & C to believe that it's not fair for another charter high school to similarly use a public school building. Nonsense. In fact, since Rivers was originally the name of a high school, let's bring back the old name.

Rivers Charter High School. Now, doesn't that sound good?

Maria's Parting Thoughts

For a change most of my information comes not from the P & C but from an interview granted to Katie Crawford of WCSC-TV. You can log on to a video of the interview through Channel 5's website or through http://www.linkcharleston.com/.


For someone in Charleston for barely a year, Crawford does a decent job of asking the right questions; however, she can't pin Goodloe-Johnson to specific answers on some issues of interest to readers of this blog, partly because G-J wasn't going to answer and partly because Crawford doesn't know enough yet about the CCSD's history.


For example, Crawford asks G-J about whether constituent school boards should continue or be abolished. G-J never directly answers except to say that no measure at this time shows they are effective. Neither addresses why constituent boards were created in the first place and whether that reason still exists. I'm sure Crawford doesn't know.


Although seeming unaware of Principal Sallie Ballard's manipulation of the lottery, Crawford does try to press G-J regarding parents' using false addresses to attend Buist. G-J would not answer if anything will ever be done about these students, although she essentially admits that they do exist. Instead, she uses the old "everybody has always done it" as cover while positing that all schools should have the resources that Buist does.


Well, that'll happen soon. About the same time these students get expelled from Buist, I guess.


G-J also reveals her naivete by suggesting that Charleston is a very segregated city where old attitudes die hard. As opposed to Corpus Christi where she came from four years ago? Yeah, right. Old attitudes there [read "prejudice] are between Mexican-Americans and whites; the schools had been segregated previously--white separated from Mexican. Virtually all of the black students in the city (and there are very few) attend the same failing high school with mostly Mexican students in a poorer area of the city. Mexican-American students won't speak Spanish to each other at school because they think it shows they are lower class. Part of the reason G-J left Corpus undoubtedly is that she knew she wouldn't advance because she wasn't Mexican-American. If she had been white, she wouldn't have advanced because she wasn't Mexican-American.


Crawford does manage to get G-J to admit, after some fumbling around, that basically she wants ANYTHING except a new charter high school at the Rivers Middle School building. Her attitude comes as no surprise, except perhaps to Rev. Darby, at least judging from his last op-ed piece. She was very defensive of Burke, stating that at last it had the right leadership in Benton, but didn't she appoint the previous principals as well?


Finally, G-J's comments about the state's funding of school districts speak to her ignorance. In the P & C's op-ed farewell, she says, "Let's determine what it takes to fund public schools and then allow the state to figure out where the money will come from." Allow?

Can YOU picture individual school districts' telling the legislature how much money to give them and the legislature's saying, "Oh, yes? You need $20, $30, $50 million more? Why didn't you say so before?"


It doesn't work that way, Maria, and you know it. And the 13 districts (like CCSD) getting less from the state were previously spending MORE than the other districts (that are now getting the difference). They called it the "Robin Hood Law" in Texas. But you already knew that. It just wasn't politic to say.

The Answers Are Blowin' in the Wind

Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Think of me as someone who actually reads the newspaper every day. My source of local news, along with fleeting local TV newscasts, IS the Newsless Courier.

As someone who grew up in Charleston, graduated from the Charleston public schools, and returned after a long hiatus in other parts of the country, I want my "hometown" to be the best that it can be. Using a perspective of living in the Lowcountry years ago, information from family members who never left, and insight that only living and teaching in other cities can bring, I carefully read what the newspaper publishes on education, especially in regard to CCSD.

But, now I feel betrayed. Somehow I assumed that the paper was being straight with me. I discovered in my search for information that it actually had been sitting on relevant information. It was the Channel 4 website that clued me in.

It's in regard to these vacancies in the seventh and eighth grades at Buist. Channel 4 News apparently reported on February 1st that they existed and had existed since the start of the school year. Not surprisingly to me, I didn't catch that. But the Newsless Courier, this time deserving of its nickname, sat on the information until February 24th.

That's 23 days, otherwise known as three weeks, during which time I'm sure the 2000+ parents on Buist's waiting list (and my "guesstimate" of 100 who remained on the seventh-grade list) would have been VERY interested in that information.

What? Too much else was going on to report it? It didn't "fit"? It was no one's business?

This "oversight" had to have been an editorial decision.

WHY?

Habitual Liars' Business Fees: Buist Academy & Update

Joke of the Day (Kudos to the Charleston City Paper for this one):

"What do you call a $200 penalty for using a false address to get your kid into Buist, Charleston County’s elite downtown academic magnet?

An application fee (badum-bum). "

[For background on this irony perpetrated by CCSD, see my previous posts on Buist.]

UPDATE: Tonight on the national news, Buist Academy was profiled. The reporters clearly did not understand the difference between the District 20 constituent school board and CCSD, but we have come to expect these stupidities. too bad they didn't read my blog where I explained the whole, convoluted "selection" process. What really caught my attention was the sound bite with Sallie Ballard, the principal.

Man!!!!! Talk about change of tune. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. She was all for checking addresses and rooting out those who weren't playing fair, and she claimed to have done so in at least three cases.

Funny, that's not how she sounded last July, when the issue was on the front burner. Check out my post of July 10th, "A Magnet for Millionaires: Buist, Part 2," for her attitude then.

Apparently, national TV can change minds!

Buist Again & Update on Illegal Alien # 1

BUIST: The Newsless Courier continues to ignore the Buist kindergarteners fiasco, and indeed it is one.

Aside from not reporting what has happened at constituent board 20 meetings, it also has not reported that three of the students supposedly coming from districts with "low-performing" schools are NOT. That is, for the 10 slots reserved for students from low-performing schools, 30 percent are fakers.

Isn't this a great story?

• First, the list of those residing in the district is faked;
• Now the list of those from low-performing schools is faked.
• Next I suppose we will learn that the students on the county-wide list are not living in the county.
• Maybe the children on the list of siblings of present students includes students who are cousins and not siblings?

HELLO! The lists are a joke, and the Newsless Courier decides this is a non-event. Perhaps Mr. Big works for the paper?

And, how you ask, do I know these facts? Believe it or not, the local TV news is covering the story. Wonders will never cease!

ILLEGAL ALIEN #1: More "facts" come to light

1. The mysterious purple van supposedly driven by the victim (obviously he wasn't driving it THIS time) has been located parked at a "local migrant labor camp," presumably on Wadmalaw Island.
2. Mr. Ortiz has been identified as a "native" of Guatemala. Actually, today's article identified "the man" as a Guatemalan, not using the name Ortiz.
3. Sheriff's deputies are searching the van.

Ask yourself, where would you begin here? The van? Whose is it? Did it have plates? Fingerprints? What do you do? Start with the FBI & then send them to every Central & South American country? Interviews? I hope the deputies are fluent in Spanish. Oh, yes. I'm sure the illegal aliens will be happy to talk to them! Has there been an autopsy? What are the results?

We can hope that the Charleston County Sheriff's Office is doing more than going through the motions. No death is a throw-away.