County Commissioner Kenn Gardner and his opponent, Stan Norwalk, have some interesting things to say about school issues.
Gardner, who is being backed by groups critical of the school district's assignment policies, is highlighting his opposition to the year-round conversion plans. He was among the commissioners who voted to withhold funding to pay for the conversions.
"There aren't equal choices across the districts," Gardner said. "In some areas, you have very few year-round schools and in other areas you have almost all of the schools on year-round. If you're going to have a policy on year-round, you should be more even-handed."
Norwalk blames the conversions on the county not providing enough funding for school construction to keep up with growth.
Norwalk is talking about his support for the school district's diversity policy.
"Diversity is the key that has made the schools successful," Norwalk said. "Look at Mecklenburg, where they're trying to get teachers to come to the failing innercity schools. They're throwing money at the problem."
The Charlotte-Mccklenburg school system has had problems getting teachers to work in its high-poverty schools since it abandoned diversity as a priority.
Gardner declined to comment on the diversity policy, saying that's an issue for the school system and not commissioners.
Comments
Other WCC's
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 18:06 — Stop MYR (not verified)You know what the incumbent's views are they voted against withholding the money, they also wanted to give a bigger operating budget to the WCPSS. They are FOR diversity and MYR.
The new faces, Tilley and Peyton are AGAINST MYR and against Diversity. Vote for them if you have similar views.
Holley was recognized for his ability to differentiate instructi
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 17:40 — AngelaWhttp://www.wral.com/news/local/noteworthy/story/3851382/
ok, so where was the story here?
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 17:37 — AngelaWhow tragic, my heart goes out to her husband, family and the school where she was at.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/3853992/
If you had clicked here and
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 21:03 — KeungHui (author)If you had clicked here and here you would have seen the story on the N&O's site as well.
well shame on me then!
Fri, 10/31/2008 - 05:37 — AngelaWwell shame on me then!
does he still feel THIS way???
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 15:38 — AngelaWhttp://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A30856
And meanwhile, two of the three commissioners seeking re-election, Tony Gurley and Phil Jeffreys, are pushing year-round schools as a cost-saving alternative to the big-b.
Jeffreys, in fact, has already staked himself out as opposed to any bond issue, arguing that year-rounds can buy the county four more years of putting it off.
Gurley, the current chair, doesn't go that far. But he does call Jeffreys' position "Plan B" in case whatever bond issue does go on the ballot gets defeated (hint, hint). Without any bond issue, and no property-tax hike either, the county can fund $625 million in school construction over the next four years, Gurley notes.
So the school board seems on the verge of settling for a bond issue of $900 million or so, combined with a commitment to make every new elementary school year-round and to convert the existing ones as quickly as possible.
Says Norwalk: "It's crazy." For one thing, he asks, why rush into year-round schools without a serious study of what the unanticipated side effects would be? "I'm not against year-round schools," he adds. "We have them now. But I am against a massive move to all year-round schools without understanding what all the implications are. And I don't think the school board or [school] staff understands them."
lol
Sat, 11/01/2008 - 16:26 — Forget_not_the_...Thanks for bringing up a memory...
yeah quite a chuckle
Sat, 11/01/2008 - 17:02 — AngelaWyeah quite a chuckle huh?!
do ALL politicians think we are dim witted enough to forget this stuff? I now, let's ask Jeffreys....OH WAIT, he is gone, guess we can't.
hmmmm, neighborhood AND year-round AND smaller schools,
Sat, 11/01/2008 - 17:07 — AngelaWSaturday, October 21, 2006Interview with Phil Jeffreys
Below is the transcript of an interview with Phil Jeffreys, who is running for the District 2 seat on the Wake County board of commissioners. He faces Lindy Brown on the Nov. 7 ballot.
Hello, this is Ryan Teague Beckwith from The News & Observer. I’m here with District 2 Commissioner Phil Jeffreys, who is running for re-election this fall.
Thank you, Ryan.
Why are you running?
Well, I hadn’t finished a lot of things that I would like to do that I started on four years ago and I want to try to stay on the commissioners if I’m able to finish that.
What are some of those things?
Well, I want smaller schools.
When you say smaller schools, do you mean buildings or do you mean...
Smaller buildings with less footprint. i want us to do a better job than what we’re doing, environmental responsibility. But actually, the county, Wake County, we are doing a pretty good job on that, as far as you know water and everything goes, we’re doing a good job of that.
Do you think smaller schools would be more efficient or that there better for students? What is your reasoning?
I think that it’s probably better not only for students, but for the staff. We’re able to put them on a smaller footprint, it takes less land, so we can put them closer to where the people live, because you won’t have to be going out looking for anywhere from 30 to 50 to 60 to 70 acres.
We don’t have a lot of large plots that you can find in and are around, you know, close to subdivisions, anything like that. If we build smaller schools, we can.
And we may also even be able to ... a builder is more apt to offer you a discount or offer you a donation of some land if it’s a much smaller piece.
You’re also the only county commissioner who opposes the fall school bonds. Why is that?
I oppose it because I don’t think that the school system is properly utilizing the space we’ve got now. We need to go to K-12 year-round schools. We need community attendance areas, there would probably be 12 to 15 schools in each one of them. That in itself would keep the kids closer to home.
We need to do away with all the magnet schools. Mind you not the magnet school programs, but the schools itself, so that we won’t have to do all the cross-busing we’re doing, because that’s also the other expense in all this.
We’re not looking at any one big thing except building that you can cut out in the school budget. But they have so many small things that you could cut out.
So you would like very school in Wake County to be on a year-round in order to cut costs on new construction?
Actually that’s part of it. But actually it would get us caught up, we would be caught up with the number of seats we need just as soon as we started that.
And it would give us a year for planning, and after that we may have to have a bond. If we had to have a bond to continue on with what we’re doing, I would not have any problem supporting it.
But until we do actually fully utilize all the space we have in Wake County schools, I’m not going to support a bond.
OK. Thank you.
"Norwalk blames the
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 15:37 — SideburnsI've said it before and I'll say it again:
WCPSS could build a school on every street corner and we would still have MYR and yearly reassignments. Don't fall for the "more funding is the solution" plea.
Amen
Fri, 10/31/2008 - 08:31 — Anonymous (not verified)Amen sideburns.
Populations dropped at the MYR schools and WCPSS will never admit they made a grave mistake and wasted all those taxpayer dollars.
http://www.wakeupwakecounty.c
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 15:37 — AngelaWhttp://www.wakeupwakecounty.com/hot_topics/school_article_02.php
And what do we do? We argue about being inconvenienced about a school a few miles away from home. Or that it takes more than an hour for Johnny to do his homework. We endlessly debate whether we can afford the price of a cup of coffee per day to get all our students to the next level of educational excellence. We are more concerned about Johnny being taught in a trailer than we are about the shortage of qualified teachers or the number of students not graduating or going on to higher education.
Some of my acquaintances "know" that WCPSS "squanders enormous" amounts of money on an unduly large administrative staff, but the percentage spent on General Administration (1.3% of total operations) is well below the NC average, (1.8%), likely due to economies of scale.
And almost everyone "knows" the "huge" amounts spent on busing. While the 4.9% of operational expense is indeed large by NC standards it is only marginally above than the amount spent on average across the nation ($323 vs. $308 per student per year). Isn't it amazing how fifteen dollars per year more per student can raise the level of emotion?
That point reveals the limitations of any numerical approach to evaluating schools. The public makes its judgments regarding education based on emotions and other factors difficult to measure and impossible to satisfy across a wide range of opinions and backgrounds. And schools do far more than teach basic skills. But we all understand academic excellence and dollars and cents. And that's a good place to start the discussion about the rest of education.
http://www.wakeupwakecounty.com/hot_topics/school_article_06.php
Stuck on stupid......
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 12:00 — WuptdoI have asked Mr. Norwalk to provide evidence that the WCPSS "diversity" policy is actually working on this Blog and CP. And pointed out there was $250 waiting for him if provide the evidence (via WakeEd "Prove it" campaign from earlier this year). He did not. I have found in the past that Mr. Norwalk keep a very tight paradigm of beliefs and will NOT accept other ideas outside of that "great society" paradigm, i.e., stuck on stupid.
If elected, I believe Mr. Norwalk will be just as hateful to parents, children and taxpayers of Wake County as the "status quo" Seven and the BoE(eR). I do NOT trust him!
Mr. Hui -- curious, why the ultra-focus of Gardner/Norwalk? I would certainly like to know what the other two senile WCC's up for re-election and their opponents stand on similar issues.
It would certainly be a sad day for to see a bunch of "grumpy old folks" running Wake County. We all deserve better.
bingo
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 19:10 — joeciullaWup,
A very good question. Could it be that the N&O and NCAR both have something in common -- they decided that that seat was the most 'at risk of losing' or 'best opportunity to gain a seat.'
You guys have got to stop
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 21:07 — KeungHui (author)You guys have got to stop being so paranoid. It's the final week before the election and it's a very contested race.
I think YOU are fair Mr. Hui
Fri, 10/31/2008 - 07:16 — Voice_of_Reason_Too bad about the majority of print and television media. That's fact, not paranoia.
Wrong.
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 08:45 — RiversideRealistHe's invoking the "no comment" clause because, in the heat of an election, publicly saying he's "not supportive of the diversity policy" would have Democrats labeling him a racist faster than he could complete his own sentence.
Exactly
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 08:56 — shearertwThat's a no win question for Gardner and he has no other possible answer really.
In fact, the diversity policy IS an issue for the school system, not the CC. If the question had been asked differently, say "Are you in support of providing additional funding for transportation to the school system to ensure they can acheive their diversity goals?" then perhaps a comment would be required. I would hope he'd say "no, the school system should look for alternative means to acheive their diversity goals."
Setting school policy is for the BOE, funding is for the CC. That's the balance that should remain until we get at large BOE seats or break up the monster.
"Gardner declined to comment
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 08:42 — shank56"Gardner declined to comment on the diversity policy, saying that's an issue for the school system and not commissioners. "
Interesting position. This leads me to believe he is supportive of the diversity policy. Otherwise, he would be critical of the cost of bussing - he being the good steward of our tax dollars.
Successful ???
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 08:26 — Anonymous (not verified)"Diversity is the key that has made the schools successful," Norwalk said.
If success is defined as seeking the lowest common denominator. And sending the brightest area-wide to raise average scores in the lowest performing schools.
As "diversity" goes up, "success" goes down. Spend some time and track the performance of the previously high performing schools since 2000.
That's the truth of WCPSS's "diversity above all" INVERSE RELATIONSHIP, Mr Norwalk.
Norwalk thinks diversity is successful
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 10:42 — Anonymous (not verified)That's why i didn't vote for him.
I didn't vote for him
Thu, 10/30/2008 - 14:36 — Anonymous (not verified)I didn't vote for him either.
He's 80 something years old, what can he possibly understand about a family with kids on different tracks, the obnoxious 1,2, 3 3*, 4 grading system that mades for everyone to "meet in the middle"...
At least Kenn can comprehend what families in WCPSS are going through.