Debate in Mecklenburg on the bonds

[GreenInNC]

On November 8th, the voters of Mecklenburg County will be casting their votes for not only Mayor, City Council and School Board but also for one of the largest bond packages in our County's history. The League of Women Voters will be sponsoring a debate on this bond package on Oct 13th at 7pm at the Government Center. The panelists will include representatives from the Citizens for Effective Government, The Vote Yes Committee, and the John Locke Foundation. There will be a moderated question and answer session followed by questions from the audience. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Gray Newman with the League of Women Voters at 704-609-3160

[wildeyed]

1. Do you have an opinion on the bond package?

I haven't looked at it yet. Just curious to see what other, better informed souls think of it.

[GreenInNC]

2. ask me after the debate

I just don't know if I support or not. I have seen some very good arguments on both sides. I have not made my decision yet.

[_Loki_]

3. No.

I'm pretty tired of the idea that money is the answer to the problems with CMS.

Now, if they want to use more money to enforce discipline in the classrooms, more power to them. You can not teach the unteachable, nor can you effectively teach anyone when said unteachables are allowed to remain in the classroom and run their everlasting mouths.

[wildeyed]

4. Which children, exactly, do you define as unteachable? n/t

[_Loki_]

5. Those who...

.....refuse to participate, listen, or shut the hell up long enough for everyone else to participate or listen.

If you doubt that such exist, I'd invite you to sit in at my wife's previous school (the one she's currently teaching at is not so bad).


(edit)

Also, those who continually are involved in fights (often easily classified as assaults), threatening of teachers / administrators, and the like.

[wildeyed]

6. Those children ar not unteachable, simply badly behaved.

Any student who is a physical threat to teachers or other students should be dealt with appropriately.

I don't believe that money would be the answer to these problems. What Wake county has done with stunning results is integrate their school system based on income levels. There are few if any high poverty schools in Wake. Something like 90% of their students test at or above grade level. Now admittedly, Wake has a lower level of poverty overall than Mecklenberg. But not that much lower. Here is an NYT article. Unfortunately, it has been archived and you have to pay to read it. But if you are interested..... http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0617FE3E540C768EDDA00894DD404482

Question is, does Mecklenberg have the political will to make those kind of changes? I kind of doubt it. It would require small sacrifices on the part of some of the more affluent student's families. Sacrifices they have been unwilling to make in the past.

"Unteachable" is an ugly label, especially coming from a teacher's SO. A large percentage of my family has chosen education as a profession. I have never, ever heard anyone use that word in conjunction with a student.

[_Loki_]

7. They're unteachable..

...as far as the teachers are concerned. If their parents had raised them right, and had taught them to be respectful to others (ie: their elders, to begin with), then I could fault the teachers a bit. As it is, they've been taught none of the above, and the teachers have hardly any effective disciplinary tools left to them.

Poverty hasn't got much to do with the type of behavior I'm describing, here, either. It is parental failure, period, and it transcends income levels.

I'll give you an example: A student, out of his seat and antagonizing another student during class time, is told to return to his seat and to be quiet. That's all, nothing extreme.

When the response is, "Momma said I don't have to listen to you", there is a problem, and it is NOT with the teacher. When this child is sent out of class, and promptly returned by the administration, there is another problem, and again, it lies not with the teacher.

This is a common example, involving less than physical disobedience, and I'll note that the sentiment expressed is repeated a couple or three times a month, in one class or anther that my wife has.


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Any student who is a physical threat to teachers or other students should be dealt with appropriately.
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Define "appropriately"?

I'll do it: A student who is an ongoing physical threat to teachers, administrators, other children, the janitor, the building, or the cars in the parking lot should be expelled.

Yeah, yeah, he/she has a right to an education. That right is a Civil Right, and is granted in the North Carolina State Constitution. What he/she does not have the right to do is *&^% things up for the rest of the people at the school. When that becomes the general behavior exhibited, he/she is no longer welcome.

[wildeyed]

8. I am not faulting the teachers at all.

Just pointing out that the label is ugly. Instead of calling the kids unteachable, maybe you can note that a large part of the problem lies with the lack of parental discipline. The kids are teachable. Their parents decline to teach them.

But that lack of parental discipline has apparently become more widespread. It is easy to point fingers at the parents, but doesn't do much to address the problem. So what do we, as a society, do to address the problem?

You are not getting any argument from me about separating dangerous students from the group. But I don't think vandalism is the same as a violent assault on another person.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. Avoid bonds, don't buy touchscreen machines, save 8 million

Mecklenburg County can save money soon by not repeating it's mistake of using direct record machines going forward.

Counties will be selecting new voting equipment soon, and Mecklenburg has a choice:

Buy optical scan and ballot marking devices, which will be completely paid for by state grant

or

Buy direct record machines (touchscreen or pushbutton) and spend at least 8 million above the amount of the state grant.

Further, because Mecklenburg uses DREs, it spends about a million more a year in operating costs than it would if it used optical scans.

These flashy little dashboards cost alot to operate, because you have to have so darn many, and they require climate controlled storage.

We have a real need for activists in Meck on this issue.

Mecklenburg could be the county to cause the paper ballot law to be
amended by 2008. By using machines that fail terribly.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

10. voting yes allows them to continue to waste your tax dollars

politicians take advantage of folks not knowing how much they really waste of your money.

millions of dollars are nothing to them.

They don't even bother to see if there is waste going on.

If you vote for a bond, they will squander it on the most ridiculous crap, and education won't be better.

That is just MHO.